Zeitgeist

Wednesday.

I lack focus, I'm afraid. Working on the TopSecretProject ... a bit bored of it, still waiting for various components to come together. I just want this sucker launched. End of July for a beta is the goal.

In the meantime I am playing with the Facebook API ... it's rather cool.

Other than being code geek, not a lot going on.


This is incredible: Thomas Barnett: The Pentagon's new map for war and peace A new doctrine for waging war and, crucially waging peace and a system for managing politically bankrupt states. The failure in Iraq is because although the US can wage war, it cannot transition a state. The question is: What happens between war and peace?

International security strategist Thomas P.M. Barnett outlines a post-Cold War solution for the foundering US military: Break it in two. He suggests the military re-form into two groups: a Leviathan force, a small group of young and fierce soldiers capable of swift and immediate victories; and an internationally supported network of System Administrators, an older, wiser, more diverse organization that actually has the diplomacy and power it takes to build and maintain peace.

“Hasty pudding, also Indian pudding, is a porridge-like dish of cooked grain.”

- Hasty pudding (Indian pudding) - Wikipedia

Hasty Pudding is a band waiting to happen.

And if you are making a Hasty Pudding or some Porridge, you may need a Spurtle

“An M2M system would enable machines to make intelligent choices, execute self-guided adjustments, and communicate with one another, all without human intervention, in a way that they presently cannot. As envisioned, an M2M intelligence system will work with a broad spectrum of machines, from wireless tools and sensors to robots, spacecraft, and computer grid systems. The goal is nothing short of machine self-dependency.” - Partnership to Develop Machine-to-Machine Intelligence System

“15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense Opponents of evolution want to make a place for creationism by tearing down real science, but their arguments don't hold up” - 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense: Scientific American

“Flying saucer -- the term -- was coined 60 years ago, when salesman and pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine objects flying in a "V" formation over Mount Rainier, Washington. Arnold told a reporter on June 24, 1947 that the UFOs flew erratically, fluttering and tipping their wings, like "a saucer if you skip it across water" -- and a worldwide subculture was born.” - Out of This World: 60 Years of Flying Saucers

“Life-sized Gigantor memorial to be erected” - Life-sized Gigantor memorial to be erected

“Archaeologists have revived the debate over whether a spectacular Bronze Age disc from Germany is one of the earliest known calendars.” - BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Calendar question over star disc

Drawing with HTML (via leclercalexis2).

What the hell!?

“Has a remote Amazonian tribe upended our understanding of language?” - A Reporter at Large: The Interpreter: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

New Theory on Old Debate: Comet Killed the Mammoth - washingtonpost.com

“(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.” George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946

“Scholars have come to learn that there was more to the culture of Kush than was previously suspected. From deciphered Egyptian documents and modern archaeological research, it is now known that for five centuries in the second millennium B.C., the kingdom of Kush flourished with the political and military prowess to maintain some control over a wide territory in Africa.” - Archaeology - Kingdom of Kush - Egyptian Civilization - New York Times

The River by Bruce Springsteen.

That's some good Blues Harp ... and the Harp Tab if you want it.