Thoughts from the throne room 1

I have a book I keep in my bathroom, and I read it when I am in there for a considerable amount of time. It is Sun Tzu's The Art of War (with commentaries) published by Barnes & Noble. Every time I read it, I seem to come across some principle that we do not seem to follow, or overlook in the prosecution of the current war, based on what media reports and press briefings tell us. I will try to record these on the blog, just so I have someplace to put them.

I read one quote in the commentary part by Thomas Paine that got me thinking.

Commerce diminishes the spirit, both of patriotism and military defense. And history sufficiently informs us, that the bravest achievements were always accomplished in the non-age of a nation.... The more men have to lose, the less willing are they to venture. The rich are in general slaves to fear, and submit to courtly power with the trembling duplicity of a spaniel.

Most people that volunteer for military service are not drawn out of patriotism, but out of a desire to climb out of poverty or other bad situations. These are the people of our society that have the least to lose, and they are losing their lives to protect the ones that have the most. I don't think it's a coincidence that Republicans are quite wealthy.

Since the beginning of the Cold war, we have been steadily moving towards a more consumerist society, where we are becoming more and more materialistic. To be absolutly free means to be entirely self sufficient and devoid of material attachments, much like Emerson tried to be. How does this jibe with Ben Franklin's oft quoted phrase "Those that would trade liberty for security deserve neither." Is Franklin's position too absolute? Will the US succumb to the same excesses that led to the fall of Rome , a sort of cultural malaise or ambivalence toward the well being of the state. Will this erosion of our libery in the name of security make our currently spaniel-like populace stop taking things for granted?

vista

vista
Originally uploaded by cfpresley.

I found out while reading slashdotthat Microsoft was opening up their latest build of Vista, a post RC1 called 5728. I installed it on an unused partition to try it out, and while there is some nice Eye candy, it is a little buggy, and very bothersome with all the security prompts. It would ask me if I meant to run every single program I clicked on. It would not permit me to drag a file from my file server into my C drive, instead telling me to put it in my documents folder, then copy it once it's local. Just after playing with it for an hour, and not getting to in depth with it, I can say this. If XGL starts working better on Ubuntu, and Cedega becomes free, then I'd have no reason to upgrade to vista, except for perhaps to play Crysis.

A hyperlinks route from a casual surf at work, or how the sun has set on the British empire.

A while back, while reading boingboing I read about edit wars that go on in Wikipedia over the smallest of things, like the spelling of Aluminum/Aluminium. This reminded me of an edit war my friend Gabe tried to provoke about Corn because some Wikipedians seem to think that the British term, Maize is more authoritative on a staple that is native to the Americas. So after reading interesting topics on the wikipedia/paedia homepage, I read about the Goiânia accident where a radioactive "Caesium salt" was scavenged from an abandoned hospital. The only thing that threw me off about the article was that it was about something called caesium, which I mentally pronounce as caseium, I guess subconsciously like how I know the German Kaiser is a derivative of the Roman Caesar. Come to find out, that's how the British spell Cesium, even though googlestats prove that it is the more commonly used spelling.

Here is a funny cartoon from one of the sites I check every morning before I leave for work.


toothpastefordinner.com

A bad day for riding.

I rode home today from work, as I have been doing for the last several weeks, but with a drenching rainstorm. I thought ahead, and brought my Gore-Tex jacket with me, but without the matching pants, It just channeled the rain onto and between my legs. I also discovered how much I don't like to ride the bike through puddles. All the water that gets splashed up goes onto you shoes and legs. I had ridden in drizzles, but that all evaporated in the wind. I want to get some rain gear, or just some BDU Gore-Tex pants, but I don't have any luggage to put it in.