Fried Man

How's your Japanese?

Every now and then the NYT surprises you. Listen to Arthur Piatt, 77, who served in the 81st Infantry in the Pacific:

"It's appalling to me the way people are acting today, as opposed to how they did during World War II," he said. "If the country was like that then, I don't know if we would have won. We'd probably be speaking Japanese or German now, if we were here at all."

Scooters in China

I always wanted to be a Mod. You know, those cool hipsters riding around Rome and Birmingham in their souped up scooters and sporting cool moptop haircuts.

Well, now is my big chance. I just bought a used 150cc scooter yesterday from an American student heading back to the states, so I got a cool price of USD 300 for a relatively new model with only 1700km on it.

Of course, my US Driver's license is expired, I have no Chinese drivers license, I have no idea what the rules of the road are, my registration has a name of someone other than me, and I cannot read Chinese or Chinese traffic signs. Oh, and Scooters are technically, as far as I know illegal in Beiing and Shanghai. Oh, and I am afraid of speed and Beijing traffic is best characterised by the term "Chinese firedrill" or in Armyspeak Charlie Foxtrot. What the heck though. I can look cool.

My scooter is called the "Star Trek 150." No hit appears at all about it on Google and I think they spelled Motor Scooter wrong on the name. They call it a Motua Scooter on the frame. It has a foot brake ! The hand brakes don't work actually.

I practiced riding up and down the same street. I've never been on a scooter before and no one was around to teach me so it was trial and error. I cam move forward ok but stopping with a footbreak felt really odd. I'm still a bit gunshy about heading out into real traffic but I think I should develop more courage as the days go by.

After owning the scooter for about 5 hours last night, I decided to take it for another spin by my house for practice. While waiting at a red light, some local peasant guy standing on the corner starts croaking at me. "why is dude croaking at me like a frog?" I looked around beyond the crowds and I saw 5 Beijing police had set up a checkpoint and stopping cars and scooter to check for ID and licenses. The peasant guy was warning me that the cops were right there and not to go forward. Holy Crap.

The cops had already confiscated one scooter and the driver was no where to be seen. I shut down the motor and walked it back to my apartment complex. What a close call.

I went back to the same peasant guy and thanked him for tipping me off and slipped him a 20 Yuan bill which he refused but tossed in his pocket anyway.

Just another day in China.

Please standby-

Work has been crazy over the last couple of days. But I've started working on 'What I saw at the dot-com Boom.' Methinks it's a different take than what y'all have seen elsewhere. Check back in a day or two? Please?

Thanks

This chick can write-

Girl. I mean woman. Ummm.... I mean womyn. Oh heck, you know-

Mike occasionally highlights interesting blogs so here's my contribution:

http://www.misanthropic-bitch.com/index.html

She's great. Whether you agree with her or not. I love the way she writes.

Bill

Computers Suck

My mom, wife and kids expect too much from computers. I make my living working with the damn things and I just accept that there are ALWAYS problems.

But this makes sense.

The first commercially successful computer system was the IBM 360 Series introduced in 1964. That means the commercial computer industry is, arguably, 40 years old. The original 360s crashed daily or after some number (but not too many) days. But over time they got better. This makes sense.

Think about what you already know. Along with some perspective... The first commercially succesful automobile was the 1908 Ford Model-T. Go google up a picture of a 1948 Ford Super Coupe and compare that with whatever you're driving now. My point is: Consider how far the auto industry came in 40 years. Your computer systems NOW are the equivalent of a 1948 Super Coupe.

Or worse if you consider the IBM PC arrived in 1984. Your home and work-desktop are the equivalent of whatever Ford was buiding in 1928.

For all the Apple fans out there please know that I myself bought (and still have) an original Apple II+ with 64K (!) RAM. But that's only a couple years earlier. And yeah don't talk to me that rate of change has increased; I agree but let's try and stick with the example.

My point is- Early model autos didn't have cooling systems, suspension systems, tires, metallurgy or much else that's commonly accepted today. Even IF our interstate highway system had existed in 1928 the autos of the time couldn't have been driven cross-country. Were the cars of 1948 an even toss on being able to go coast-to-coast? Don't know. But any reasonably maintained auto today shouldn't have much trouble.

So computers are going to get better. It's not just computers- The original jet engines had to be completely rebuilt after running less (way less my uncle tells me) than a hundred hours. Nowadays that's not economically viable.

I think the IT industry is going to change drastically. I haven't insisted my children prepare themselves to make a living working on systems because I think the computer field will ultimately go the way of auto mechanics. Yes there will always be a place for mechanics.

But how many of you can work on a fuel injection system?

And why would you want to?

Bill

How long in Iraq?

Gentlepersons-

Why is the Bush Administration talking about pulling troops out of Iraq if the Iraqi government requests same?

Did I miss something in history or did we proclaim the same thing some time during the four years it took to get a government up and running in Germany after WWII? Took six years to get a government going in Japan-

America didn't telegraph in either case ahead of home-rule we'd leave if requested.

Times have changed.

Bill

Superior Firepower

First off I want to thank Mike for giving me a public forum.

Second off I want to say my opinions are my own and no one elses- Not Mike and not whomever I work for. And finally, I want to say that this first piece is a section from a book (vanity press some time in the future?; well if not that at least an ASCII file which will (presumably) be readable 30 years from now).

Let's talk about Superior Firepower-

So there I was. Cleaning part of the front entrance to our house with a pressure washer.

New and beaucoup expensive the pressure washer was (Like Yoda you write!). Damn thing cost me five or six hundred dollars. I paid two hundred in cash, and the rest on a credit card so my wife wouldn’t know how much it REALLY cost. This thing has a 6.5 horsepower Honda engine and kicks out 2500 psi. Yep, I needed one this big and powerful to handle various wash-jobs around the house.

The biggest job is washing the house itself. Our house in SouthWest Washington has vinyl siding and given the wet winters here it needs to be washed once a year minimum. Literally. I blast off mildew, dirt, etc. Takes a day or two but it’s worth the effort. Back to the front entrance though-

I stopped washing the sidewalk for a moment to look back over what I’d washed. Quality check you know. At the time this happened I was washing the sidewalk and not the house. Got it?

A yellow-jacket popped up about three inches from my face. Took a half a step back and waved my hands to scare it off. I did this twice but the yellow-jacket came back. In my face.

Now my GUESS is that yellow-jackets are kinda’ the badasses of the insect world. Not many folks (or other insects?) want to mess with ‘em. The bee-thing popped up a third time and I’d had enough.

I pointed my sprayer pulled the trigger and 2500 pounds of waterpower per square inch scattered yellow-jacket atoms over the better half of South East Clark County, Washington.

Sometime during the beginning of the War On Terror which began in 2001 (I hope that’s not still going on when my boys read this but I’m assuming American politicians won’t be sufficiently ruthless so it probably WILL still be going on-), in the part that was fought in the mountains of Afghanistan, a group of American soldiers fought from the top of a hill peak against Al Queda fighters. The Good Guys held the Bad Guys off. A day or so later the Americans left the mountain top for a different position.

The Al Queda group promptly claimed the high ground. Reports indicate they were running around the mountain top joyously celebrating. Sorry, I don't have a permalink for you. Anyway the finger of ummm... Technology- Reached out in the form of a US Air Force AC-130 and flicked the Al Queda folks from this existence into the next. They literally never saw it coming.

The AC-130 is a four-engine turboprop plane which mounts not only a LARGE cannon but also a couple of optically gyro-stabilized gatling guns which kick out somewhere between three and six-thousand rounds per minute. We’re talking ‘Death From Above’ here.

Let me explain this again. All of the aforementioned is to say that the Al Queda fighters, just like the yellow-jacket, didn’t recognize what it really meant to be significantly outgunned. I mean outgunned by an order of magnitude or more. Neither contest was ever in doubt. Couldn’t possibly have been regardless of protaganist bravery and/or any other extraneous factors.

Clearly the lesson is that you should pick fights carefully. Think things through. Know your opponents capabilities thoroughly and that of course means you need to do your homework. At least as fully to the extent you’re capable.

Thank goodness for our enemies. They don't do their homework. And don't have a professional military.

The folks America faces now aren't methodical in how they go about Strategery. Personally, I've never had much good to say about capital-G Government but Government, along with all its' supporting infrastructure, is apparently what's required to wage war effectively.

Yep- I've read all about assymetrical warfare. But it seems to me that a Government which is responsive to its populace should be able to handle an assymetrical war. Because Governments have more resources, in aggregate, than idealogical factions.

In the US, we're in the process of deciding whether we have the will to wage that war. I know that we'll decide in the affirmative. The only question is whether we'll expend more lives on both sides. Fewer if we decide sooner and more if we decide, to fight, later-

Aww,.. man, I didn't mean to take Mike's Blog into a indealogical screed. Everything I've said here has been covered by others and better. Tell you what-

Next time I'll try and provide you with some industry insights pertinent to IT. Interested in what y'all look like from the vendors side?

Stay tuned.

Thanks

I've been a busy bee

I apologize for not posting either. Its been busy time at work for myself as well. However, that didn't stop me from trying to find some confluences in Hebei Province last week though.

What are Confluences? Confluences are points on Earth where Latitude and Longitude meet as integers with no minutes. For example, I visited 40 degrees North 115 East. You need a GPS unit to find the exact spot.

Unfortunately, China has little or few Topo maps and not many GPS maps as well. However, its a great way to see parts of a country that you would never travel to and you are never sure what you will find there or who you will meet.

Check out the site at www.confluence.org and visit one before they are all visited. I was lucky enough to find Shanghai's only confluence and the first confluence visited in Cambodia.