There is an excellent Wired article about information technology during the Iraq war. It is amazing for me to think if, because the Cisco switches and Sun servers that they use are supposed to be sitting in climate-controlled clean rooms, but they are out in the middle of a desert where it is over 100 degrees F and there are constant sandstorms. These critical pieces of network infrastructure are running the war, and they are in little outposts scattered in the Iraqi deserts, and the people in charge of them are running patch cables like mad and constantly vacuuming to try to get the dust out and are rolling in “tactical air conditioners” to keep the darn things cool.

Why is everything off-the-shelf hardware? Because Microsoft Chat and Internet Explorer is better and more efficient then waiting for a year for the military procurement process to come up with something ruggedized for the battlefield.

There are other problems. “When we were deployed from the States,” says Lieutenant Marc Lewis – the commander of the convoy’s 27 heavy equipment trucks – “they told us that we would be given encrypted, military-issue radios when we got here. When we arrived, they told us we should have brought our own.”

Same goes for special, military-grade encrypted GPS units. The ones that will work when the military enables Selective Availability to drastically reduce the accuracy of normal GPS units. Well, SA wasn’t activated, and with good reason — it would have hurt the US military more then the enemy.

Lewis is improvising as best he can. Before leaving the States, he bought a handheld eTrex GPS device, which he uses to track each of his forays into Iraq. In essence, he’s created a map of Iraq’s charted and uncharted freeways and desert roads. He just has no way to share it with anybody. But he is able to navigate as well as any of the tank or missile commanders he transported. I notice that at least four other soldiers in the convoy have brought their own store-bought GPS handhelds. These devices keep the convoys on track in lieu of having proper systems. “If we run out of batteries,” Lewis says when showing me his map of Iraq, “this war is screwed.”

The signals intelligence people in the military did a phenominal job with what they had — but what they had was nowhere near enough. If we had been fighting a real foe, an organized and coordinated enemy with good weapons, the casualty count would have been much higher.

Before the war in Iraq there was widespread and unheeded criticism that launching such an action would set off a “powder keg” in the middle East and lead to all kinds of badness. I personally was suprised that such a powder keg seems slow in exploding. We have had a few bombings and attacks and everyone is all shocked and appaled at what was completely understood at the beginning of the war, but we haven’t had the kind of widespread casualties I and others had been expecting. What is interesting is that the countries that were angry at the US for starting the war that they knew would lead to more problems are, now that the problems have started, more angry at the actual perpetrators, the Arab terrorists, and not the US for tipping the first domino. This could mean that those countries that were less likely to want to help the US will now be more open to our involvement, which I would call an unexpected outcome. This is something to watch…

I personally don’t find the article enlightening, but (at the risk of being elitist) for the 95% who don’t seem to understand the Donald Rumsfeld school of foreign policy and why it might not necessarily make sense, Flak Magazine has a fun comparison between X-Men and the United States in terms of dealing with terrorist threats. If you were rooting for Professor Xavier and Wolverine and the like, then you might want to change your U.S. foreign policy angle. If you wanted Stryker and Magneto to win, then you’re just fine with your current beliefs, and I just hope you get what’s coming to you.

I’ll leave comments on the movie until everyone has seen it, but one quick thing, spoiler free.

I noticed during a hacking scene that Trinity was doing things that actually look legit. As in, she wasn’t using a MovieOS to fly through 3D screens and fight cartoons and insert viruses into the mainframe. She was just using a shell exploit. I was really impressed, but I missed the best part: she was using a real, honest-to-goodness known security exploit in the SSH protocol. And if the time period of the Matrix was still 2000 or 2001 (because not a lot of time had passed for the characters), that would mean that it probably hadn’t been patched yet. Awesome!

Buffy tributes are everywhere, and suprisingly, they are generally well thought out and interesting to read, not just the normal entertainment “news” prattle. Two to note: The MSN “top ten moments” list, clearly written by a true fan, and the interesting Salon article that sparked a lot of debate, and a ton of letters, including this one that struck me:

You’re right, “Buffy’s” characters have changed. Joss Whedon’s famous theme for the sixth season was “Oh, grow up!” By then, the Scoobies had literally and metaphorically overcome social isolation and needed to move into adulthood, which may be less romantic and more ambiguous, but no less terrifying. Appropriately, that season’s big bad villains were three boys who couldn’t face these challenges, who still dreamed of fighting high school battles for high school fantasies. Should the show have defended the left behind? That would’ve justified the chronically uncool, but would it have been right, for its characters or us? Don’t we ever get to grow up?

“Buffy’s” greatness never rested in its allegiance to those that don’t fit in; rather, it constantly delighted because it forced its characters to grow, and allowed them to fail. Even in its final seasons, the show presented choices we’d rather ignore. And between change and stasis, I’d choose change. Because we have no choice.

The last episode comes Tuesday. I’ve been so upset with the show and swamped with work that I am four episodes behind. I will say it now, but repeat it (with much further thought and analysis) later. Goodbye, Buffy. It has been quite a journey.

When Carol asked what I thought about the TWW season finale, my response was “whelmed.” People loved it, but I was whelmed. Not under, not over. I think it lived up to my expectations. Over the last couple seasons, ever since the incredibly overwhelming death of Mrs. Landingham and the Bartlet’s revolation to the public that he has MS, the series has been somewhat disappointing. There were always issues — characters come and disappear, plotlines come and then are ignored until someone just mentions them in passing. Some of this I don’t mind, some I do. The lack of any serious romance I minded. The fact that everyone was so devoted I minded, sometimes. Mostly I just felt like after September 11, TWW did not do a good job of dealing with its subject matter. They were trying to take world events and wrap them in the show, and it just annoyed me. I watched because Sorkin made the policymaking interesting. Much like I loved Sports Night despite disliking sports, I loved The West Wing because they took something that so many people would think is dull and made it deep, riveting, intelligent, interesting.

After the terrorists attacks, TWW put terrorism into everything. Constant threats, constant military action, tense situations. Thats fine, but it isn’t what the show was about. You don’t need to artificially inflate the drama, I liked it how it was, thank you. Now Sorkin and Tommy Schlamme are leaving the show, just as it was getting back to where it really should have been all along. The last few episodes have been good, powerful, even shocking. I loved the scenes with Toby in this episode, I loved the techno music and crosscutting in the last fifteen minutes of “Commencement.” The scene with Toby and Andi in the house was powerful. With Toby announcing the twins birth to the staffers more so. With Jed turning over power to the Speaker in 25 incredible. The cliffhanger was not, but alas, no one is perfect. I wasn’t overwhelmed by this last episode of the fourth season. I was whelmed. It was what I wanted, what I turned in for, what I expected. And now with Sorkin gone, I wonder if the show can stay this good.

By the end of the show, which gained momentum with unusual cross-cutting and an eerie score, Toby was emoting openly, Donna and Amy were having a real conversation, and Zoey, aka “Bookbag,” was kidnapped out from under the noses of her personal army. Is this really “The West Wing” — or some mind-bending hybrid of “Six Feet Under,” “24” and “Law & Order: Criminal Intent”?

Emotion came back to the show in the last few episodes. And suspense. And good story telling. And powerful, changing characters. Did Sorkin do it? Finally discover another part of himself? Or perhaps it was shades of the new management…but I doubt it. Its strange and confusing. One thing I do know: I am worried about next season. They’d better not screw this up, just when it is getting good again.

Mark Morford’s angry, bitter, obscenity-laden column over at SF Gate just about sums up my incredible anger about what our government is doing in our name. I have dealt with this anger through humor and derision and just trying to ignore it, because I don’t like being bitter and pessimistic and angry with America. Meanwhile, 90% of us don’t even know that we’re supposed to be angry. What a great country.

Go figure. Those lowly U.N. inspectors were right after all. Who knew? It was all a ruse. We’ve been sucker-punched and ideologically molested and patriotically sodomized and hey, what the hell, who cares anyway, we “liberated” an oppressed people most Americans secretly loathe and fear and don’t understand in the slightest, even though that was never the point, or the justification, or the goal. Go team.

But wait, is liberation of a brutalized and tormented people now the reason? The justification for our thuggery? That is so cool! So that means we’re going to blow the living crap out of Sri Lanka and Sudan and Tibet and North Korea and about 47 others, right? Right? Maybe Saudi Arabia, too, second only to the Talilban itself in its abuse of women? Cool! As if.

And a little ways further…

But of course you’re not the slightest bit shocked. You knew it all along. The WMD line was just a ploy that, tragically, much of the nation bought into like a sucker pyramid scheme after being pounded into submission with hammers of fear and Ashcroftian threats and bogus Orange Alerts and having their tweezers confiscated at the airport.

And of course the capacity to be outraged and appalled has been entirely drained out of you, out of this nation, replaced by raging ennui and sad resentment and the new fall season on NBC. This is what they’re counting on. Your short attention span. WMDs? That’s so, like, last February. Hey look, the swimsuit model won “Survivor”!

I wrote a lot about the looting of Iraqi historical artifacts from museums while US troops stayed away. Newsweek has a much scarier story, that I found via Josh Marshall’s blog, about US forces refusing to devote resources to secure nuclear facilities.

The well-known Al Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, about 12 miles south of Baghdad, had nearly two tons of partially enriched uranium, along with significant quantities of highly radioactive medical and industrial isotopes, when International Atomic Energy Agency officials made their last visit in January. By the time U.S. troops arrived in early April, armed guards were holding off looters — but the Americans only disarmed the guards, Al Tuwaitha department heads told NEWSWEEK. “We told them, ‘This site is out of control. You have to take care of it’,” says Munther Ibrahim, Al Tuwaitha’s head of plasma physics. “The soldiers said, ‘We are a small group. We cannot take control of this site’.” As soon as the Americans left, looters broke in. The staff fled; when they returned, the containment vaults’ seals had been broken, and radioactive material was everywhere.

This isn’t the only hazardous site that is being left unguarded, and the consequences could be very high.

The looted materials could not make a nuclear bomb, but IAEA officials worry that terrorists could build plenty of dirty bombs with some of the isotopes that may have gone missing. Last week NEWSWEEK visited a total of eight sites on U.N. weapons-inspection lists. Two were guarded by U.S. troops. Armed looters were swarming through two others. Another was evidently destroyed many years ago. American forces had not yet searched the remaining three.

Says the New York Times:

When North Carolina seniors receive their diplomas here on Sunday, only about 15 percent of them will have jobs awaiting them, half the percentage that did a few springs ago, according to a university estimate. Another 25 percent will enroll in graduate school, leaving about 6 in 10 seniors without a long-term plan come Monday morning.

Why? Well, I think we all know why.

Corporations, after cutting their hiring of new graduates by 36 percent between 2001 and 2002, are hiring about the same number of graduates as they did last year, according to a survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

“We definitely picked the wrong time to be graduating from college,” said Morgan Bushey, 21, who will make about $200 a week teaching English in France, after having been rejected by seven law schools. “We just have to hold on with our fingertips for a few years until we can do what we really want to do.”

Sigh. Meanwhile, college tuition goes ever higher. Brandeis next year is getting right near $40,000. Wow…

Bad

The U.S. Central Command said yesterday it was looking into reports that American soldiers in Baghdad had stripped four suspected Iraqi thieves, burned their clothes and forced them to walk along the streets naked.

Journalists for the Norwegian daily Dagbladet said they had photographed a group of young Iraqi captives being led along Baghdad streets at gunpoint on Thursday. They said one of the Iraqis had the words “Ali Baba Thief” scrawled with marker on his chest.

Good

A radical new proposal from the Green party in the southern city of Granada would see the introduction of a controversial new youth sex voucher, the so-called “bonosex”, to give amorous young couples aged 25 or under a 50% discount in the city’s hotels.

The vouchers would allow young people to initiate their sex lives in “dignified” surroundings, rather than in the cramped, uncomfortable and clandestine places they were normally forced to use, according to a party spokesman.

What an interesting day.

As people figure me out, I learn more about myself. I have been given two major insights this week, and each time a little light went off in my head. No long deep writeup on this one, just what they are:

1. Commitment. I feel obligated to go through with things I say i will do. Dave Stromes figured this one out, and caught me with it. I told him I was much too busy to do any theater next year, and it makes me sad because I really want to get back into that. He convinced me to have some fun and try out for Children of Eden, and then explained that I am trapped because if they like me and ask me to call backs, I’ll be obliged to go, and then if I get cast, I can’t turn it down. Whoops. 🙂 Hopefully, I’ll be bad enough that we won’t get that far!
2. Processes. Adam Herman and I were talking about something and he stopped to tell me that its interesting how I think in terms of processes. I was walking through something computer related, and I said yeah, this would happen, and then this, and then we could do this, and a third thing, and — oh, wait — the fourth thing wouldn’t work, so never mind that idea. It is completely true. I explain things not as isolated events but as sequences. When I don’t like something, it is often not because of the end result but because how it was obtained. I am a stickler for office policies, procedures, having clear rules, putting accurate information online.

I’ll give another example of point 2 and then get back to my audiobook (I’m on the plane from Boston to Dallas, probably should have mentioned that ;-)). How did I meet Josh Brandfon? Well, my answer would be along the lines of “Oh, that’s an interesting story. A few days after I moved in this (sophomore) year, I was walking around looking for wireless access points, and I found one called JoshLink. I followed the signal upstairs, and noticed that one of the people in that suite was listed as Josh Brandfon. I went to the directory and found him and saw his screen name listed. I logged on to AIM over his wireless connection and IMed him to say hi. I told him I was sitting on his stoop. He walked out and was shocked and confused.”

Okay, so the story isn’t that important. Just the fact that I had to go through that whole thing to tell it.

So now you know more about me. Cheers!

Our school is installing a new phone system over the summer. The new system uses something called Voice Over Internet Protocol to transmit voice as data over the computer network. To use VoIP, one must use a specially designed phone, which will be provided free to every student. A major issue that Adam, Adam, and I advocated for from the moment we found out about the new system was some method for people to have normal analog lines. In unnatural triples, or even just doubles, cordless phones are essential to roommates getting along. It is important to go outside to talk, or to bring your phone to a friend’s room, or whatever. The new VoIP phones are not cordless.

The compramise is that in exchange for using your cordless phone you have to give up all the cool features of VoIP, including conferencing, a screen that does cool things like gives caller ID and lets you look up numbers and see if you have voice mail, and other things.

Other people just want analog for other reasons. Fax machines, modems, whatever. I didn’t really understand these people. I think that the great benefits of VoIP far outweight the downsides, namely no cordless. I think cordless is something we should have, but it is simply not available. Analog is not a good alternative.

So I could instantly see why people would want cordless phones, but other uses I couldn’t really fathom. Does anyone really need a fax in their room in the age of email, scanners, eFax, and the like? What else could you possibly need analog for?

Then it hit me…TiVo needs an analog line. Whoops. Guess I’d better start advocating harder.

I’m a bad person, but I’ve gotten to the point that when people come to me with “confidential” business propositions, I have to laugh. Don’t get me wrong, I’m definetally looking for the next big thing, and great ideas intrigue me. But I’ve heard many great ideas, and plenty that are not so great. An online book swapping service…yeah, every single person in the world has had that idea in some form.

A quick status update on me. I’ve taken my two finals, so that is done with. I’ve turned in my LGLS final exam and reviews, so that is done with, but I might be doing another test for her class (yeah, strange story) to be turned in next week. Done with Socolow (analyzed Farscape, have to go read it and decide if it is good enough to post online). Done with civil liberties test, and there is actually a chance I might get an A in that class, although I wouldn’t really count on it. All that is left is my (late) Whitfield paper and my Hickey paper (eek! need to write that!). My parents always want to know my grades even though I have no idea, so here are my predictions:
Socolow: B
Kramer: B
Abramson: B
Whitfield: B
Hickey: A
Yeah, not very promising, is it? I wanted all As! Well, guess I should have woken up in the mornings then…

Salon writes about a new kind of advice column:

Tom, a 62-year-old semiretired contractor who answers letters from his home in Michigan, agrees that feeling involved is what makes the biggest difference. “You get older and you think, After everything I’ve done, is that all there is? Am I just going to get put on the back shelf? With the site, I can apply all of my knowledge and experience, pain and joy. I’ve laughed and cried and raised a family, what am I supposed to do, just carve some wooden ducks, or pick up knitting?”

Check out Elder Wisdom Circle.

I most certainly understand that we are at war. I also understand that the freedoms afforded to all of us in the Constitution were meant specifically for times like these. Our freedoms were carved out during times of strife by people who were facing brutal injustices, and were intended specifically so that this nation would behave differently in such times. If our freedoms crumble exactly when they are needed most, then they were really never freedoms at all.

Isn’t it fun what happens when you go out for dinner and a show? And I hear the USA PATRIOT Act is going to become permanent. Hooray! We are at war, after all.

Apple just released iTunes 4 along with their new online music service, the first one (besides eMusic, which I love) that really makes sense – 99 cents a song and DRM that isn’t totally evil. The problem is, it is Mac only.

iTunes is the best music program I’ve seen, and it fits my needs perfectly, and I used to use it on my Mac desktop to catalog all of my music and play it, and all was well. But iTunes, of course, doesn’t work on my relatively new Linux desktop, and ever since I’ve gotten this box, I’ve had to struggle to find my music and listen to it.

Now this new service makes me want a Mac desktop even more…

I really like Linux, but music is a deal-breaker. But buying a new Mac desktop so recently after buying a new computer? That doesn’t really work either.

Argh!

From Esther Dyson’s new Release 4.0. She was talking with David Weinberger.

DW: Explicitness is an act of violence. You think it’s archeological: You take something and dust it off, but in fact explicitness reduces things; it destroys…That’s why groups stay away from constitution writing.

ED: But they don’t stay away from constitution-writing. It’s more like moths to a flame. They can’t stop it. But they can’t handle the explicitness. It’s like pre-nuptial agreements.

I’ve been seeing lots and lots of problems with the constitution and bylaws of the Brandeis Student Union. People don’t really want to hear them though…”this is how we do it.”

Yesterday it was sunny, and today rains pours down.