Musings

General-purpose musings

There are 780 posts filed in Musings (this is page 29 of 78).

Microsoft helps Russian police quell dissent

The New York Times reports that Russia has been raiding offices of dissenters and using the pretext of searching for pirated Microsoft software. The Redmond-based company apparently fully supports these raids against environmental groups and others.

Compare Microsoft’s actions in Russia to Google’s in China. Though from a Chinese business perspective Google really screwed the pooch with its public embarrassment of the Chinese government, Google at least tried to do the right thing. Microsoft appears blind to the moral repercussions of its cooperation with an increasingly authoritarian Russian government.

More and more I am glad I use free software like Linux.

Hurd not hurting

What is it with the board of HP? They hire Carly Fiorina who nearly single-handedly runs this legendary company into the ground before being shown the door. Now they run off former CEO Mark Hurd on the basis of allegations of improper expense reports.

I don’t know all the facts in the case, but I can say it would be highly unusual if, as the CEO of a major company, Hurd actually filed his own expense reports. No, it would be stupid if he did. No company in its right mind would let its CEO waste his time on stupid shit like that.
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Routines

Like many people, I spend much of my life on autopilot. Every day is a routine; get up, walk the dog, shower, eat, head to work. At work, grab coffee, catch up on emails, get to work, eat lunch, work again, go home. Repeat every day. If anything upset that carefully-crafted apple cart it would throw my whole day off balance. I’d have to engage my thinking brain, damn it. And thinking can be hard. It’s much easier to coast through life.
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Skylab and beyond

Skylab

The recent balloon launch and it’s subsequent pictures of near space has gotten my thoughts lifted skyward. I was pondering the 4-pound weight limit of the balloon and contrasting it to the heavy lifting that was once done in this country by rockets like the Saturn V. That led me to some online videos of Skylab.

Skylab was America’s first space station, launched in 1973 on a modified Saturn V rocket. The station itself was made from spent Saturn V rocket stages and was so roomy that it makes the current International Space Station look like a toy. Sadly, Skylab fell from orbit in July 1979.
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Does a new Chinese missile doom aircraft carriers?

Dogfeng photo by Max Smith

A new weapon in the Chinese military arsenal is said to be causing a stir in the U.S. Navy: the Dongfeng 21D anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM). Some experts are calling it a “game changer” because the missile is the first ballistic missile with the capability to take out a moving aircraft carrier. Because it’s ballistic it can travel at incredible speeds: this missile reportedly clocks in close to an astounding Mach 10!

Says the U.S. Naval Institute blog:
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Slipping through the cracks

Reggie Gemeille, then and now

I scanned the news stories at lunch the other day when I found one about a beating death of Pier Munoz-Chinos. Police arrested a kid named Wedjunald “Reggie” Gemeille who is 18 years old. He looks pretty “hard” in his booking photo, doesn’t he?

Occasionally I like to see what I can find out about suspects, so I did a quick Internet search on Reggie. As he has a pretty uncommon name it turns out it wasn’t difficult to track him down. Soon I found his MySpace page and his Facebook page, including photos and his self-provided bio.

The photos on these pages show a very different Reggie Gemeille than the one depicted in his booking photo. Here I see a kid trying to figure out who he is. In some, he’s dressing up and posing for the camera. In others, he’s clowning around with his younger cousins. He doesn’t look like a bad kid at all. He looks like any other kid with big dreams.
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Making sense of a dog and scents

Speaking of brain activity and addictions, my morning walks with my dog never cease to fascinate me. My Labrador, Rocket, goes berserk when he catches a whiff of something on the ground along the way. These smells are like crack to my dog. He is totally focused on inhaling these smells, and if you know Labradors you know that focusing is typically not their strong suit!

I would love to know what goes on in his doggy brain while he’s lost in this scent-induced rapture. What are those scents telling him? What parts of his brain are active? How do dogs really use these scents, and is there much more to this than simply marking territory?

All I can find online about doggy brain activity is an episode of NOVA that looks good, an interesting post about how dog’s dream, and a hilarious YouTube video of Bizkit, the sleepwalking dog, running into a wall. I would hope there would be more research on this. Anyone have anything else?

Consuming and delivering

I cringe every time I hear someone say “consumer” when one could say “citizen” or “customer” instead. It irks me when the FCC issues a press release about how something they did was good for “consumers.” I hate being treated like I’m simply one side of a business transaction, especially when a government agency thinks I am. How about “the public?” I’d even settle for “the taxpayers,” though I am quite considerably more than simply someone who forks over my money to the government, too.

My online buddy Doc Searls takes on the label of consumer, and also touches on “content” and “delivering information” themes, too. Reading it, I realized that information never really gets delivered, it gets shared. When you share something, both of you are better for it or are changed by it. That’s quite different from delivering information, which is more of a one-way transaction.

When you meet your neighbor for an impromptu chat, you may mention something you heard or learned. Your neighbor will likely comment on it, and instantly your neighbor’s thoughts will change the information you provided into something slightly (or radically) different.

information isn’t delivered, in the sense that it made the journey from A to B completely intact. Information is always affected by those who perceive it. It can only be shared, not delivered.

Dealing in blood and oil

A Pan Am Boeing 747

There has been speculation in the British press that last year’s release of the convicted bomber of Pan Am Flight 103 (the “Lockerbie Bombing”), Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, was done so to allow BP to sign an oil contract worth billions with Libya. The UK prime minister, David Cameron, got grilled today at the White House by the press (or should I say the British press. What passes for the American press was too busy mindlessly covering the two leaders’ favorite beer. I wish I was joking.)

According to the Times of London:
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Fairview Road and high-speed rail

There has been lots of discussion about how the Southeast High Speed Rail project will affect downtown Raleigh. One proposed route would close a grade crossing at Fairview Road. Some have suggested that the neighbors near Fairview Road might prefer that Fairview Road stay open.

I don’t live in right next to the tracks but I do live close enough to cross at Fairview every now and then. About half the time the crossing is blocked: the trains at the nearby Norfolk Southern yard frequently stretch across the road as their freight is assembled. It’s gotten to the point that I simply assume the road will be blocked and that I’ll have to wait. As far as I’m concerned, closing an already-congested crossing wouldn’t be that big of an impact.

Then there’s the noise. All day and night, the trains sound their horns as they move back and forth across the road. I live a mile away from this crossing and even from here they sound loud. I don’t know how the folks at Roanoke Park deal with it. Living right next to the tracks, the trains must be deafening. Closing the crossing would mean the trains would no longer sound their horns. That sounds like a plus to me.

Will the high-speed trains bring change? Sure they will. But they’ll bring more good changes than bad ones.