Showing posts with label war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label war. Show all posts

Thursday, June 28, 2007

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.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Wednesday Zeitgeist

Well, it's offical. I've had enough and I'm looking for a job. I think it was the patronisation by the CEO this morning that finally tipped me over, not to mention the lack of direction, mismanagement and promise of reward that has been 12 months in the making and still not happened. So if anyone needs a Senior Dev, with stacks of experience with Java and PHP and an obsession with Ruby on Rails and the user experience, drop me a line.

Zeitgeist is small this week, I am afraid. Been working on some stuffs. A computer game. Computational History. A lame twitter joke thing. Usual schemes.

Fixed Earth: these guys think the Bible is correct and that science is some sort of zionist conspiracy. I don't even understand much of it. They appear to think that evidence that stars move in the night sky is proof that stars move around the Earth, as opposed to evidence that the Earth itself revolves.

Hubble image of Death Throes of a Star:
The Hubble telescope is obviously an integral part of the Zionist Conspiracy.

While we're on Science:
Yep. Tesla coil car theft prevention. Now that's fucking science.

Science and Faith as flow charts:


The "Real" Iraq. Jeebus. Very violent, about the sanitisationa nd control of the media.

Ah, Nine Inch Nails has a new album coming and an incredible ad campaign / game ... apparently it started when someone decoded a secret message on a T-Shirt planted at a NIN concert:
Another Version of the Truth.

Random facts about sex.

Lonely Robot:


And finally, a Duck (for Elaine):

A mutant duck.

Good eating on a mutant duck though ...

Mmmmmmmmmmm .... duck.

Friday, February 16, 2007

Maps of War

I found this last night: Maps of War. The site presents several animated maps and timelines of history ... most of them are not actually directly about war, funnily enough.

Imperial History of the Middle East - everyone's had a crack. Bunch of empires I only know vague things about it, and some of that from playing computer games.

History of Religion - clash of civilisation anyone?

American Leadership & War - this one is rather dubious, I think, but I am not necessarily up on my American History. It seems disingenous to blame the Dems for deaths in World War II. Then again, I am a dirty lefty. Well, sort-of.

Anyway, educational. Filed under computational history.