Michael Totten is a free lance journalist who has spent much time in Iraq, out in the field with the troops. His dispatches on the Internet were/are the best reporting to come out of Iraq. He takes good photographs too. Any how Michael is in Tbilisi the other day getting a briefing from an American doing media relations work for the Georgian government. Sitting in on the meeting is Tom Goltz, old Caucausian hand, author of "Georgian Diary" and "Azerbaijan Diary", fluent in Russian, Georgian and various other dialects. Both men, Totten and Goltz, are highly creditable, experienced men of good judgment, and they are on the scene, not commenting from a cozy TV studio in New York.
They say the Ossetian "militia" , untrained and closer to bandits than a military, started the war by attacking and shelling existing Georgian positions. When the Georgians moved up re enforcements, the Russians called it an attack and rolled in the tanks.
There is a lot of different stories about who started it flying around. I'll believe Totten and Goltz 'cause I have read their stuff in the past and found it good, neither of them is a taker of sides, and they are present on the scene.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
Back to college
Youngest son starts his sophomore year at Brooklyn Polytechnic. All his stuff fit inside the Caddy, didn't have to borrow a pickup truck like last time. It's 700 miles, round trip from here. Did it all in one day. Had son drive the way down, I drove all the way back. Caddy is still running well, A/C is powerful, 26 mpg, with a load.
New York roads are even worse than New Hampshire's. Giant axle breaking pothholes, continuous construction areas, miserable signage. Good thing it was Sunday, no rush hour traffic.
NYPD has plenty of budget. Cops on foot patrol everywhere. To protect the precinct station next to Polytech from drive by shootings, they have the street blocked off at both ends with police cruisers, with cops sitting behind the wheel. On Sunday.
New York roads are even worse than New Hampshire's. Giant axle breaking pothholes, continuous construction areas, miserable signage. Good thing it was Sunday, no rush hour traffic.
NYPD has plenty of budget. Cops on foot patrol everywhere. To protect the precinct station next to Polytech from drive by shootings, they have the street blocked off at both ends with police cruisers, with cops sitting behind the wheel. On Sunday.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Drilling vs "comprehensive energy bill"
The Republicans want to pass a law allowing off shore drilling. Nancy Pelosi calls for a "comprehensive energy bill". I think Nancy wants a "We let you do a little drilling but we get some big subsidies for worthy causes" bill. A compromise where some democratic programs that lack the votes to pass, get pushed thru in return for allowing America to increase the supply of fuel and bring the price down. Doesn't sound very public spirited or non partisan to this blogger.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
The Arctic Ocean is NOT melting out. See photos
At least not this year. The Register has satellite photos from this month and this month last year posted. This is interesting 'cause the scariest global warming evidence I ever saw was a pair of similar photo's showing a north pole meltdown in progress. The Register photo's contradict those older pix.
Patent trolls are everywhere
In the vast big buck world of HO model railroading, a patent troll has surfaced. The troll, Real Rail Effects, sent letters to makers of Digital Command Control (DCC) equipment demanding royalties based upon a US patent. The troll used to be in the DCC business but hasn't advertised any product for sale since 1997. Under threat, the other DCC makers rallied behind the banner of the National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) and challenged the troll's patent.
The NMRA pointed out that the system in question had been described in the open literature (Model Railroader magazine, a slick paper hobby magazine with wide national and international circulation) in 1992, two years before the patent was issued.
It's hard to understand the troll's thought process. The model railroad business is small, and the hobbyists are mostly retirement age. There isn't enough money in the business overall to make the trolling pay off. It's not like the Blackberry business which had to pay a troll off with $600 million last year.
It's also hard to understand how the Patent Office granted the patent in the first place. The prior art was plain to see, and the subject matter, an electronic encoding system, was obvious to anyone (like myself) skilled in the art. This patent was the equivalent of patenting the QWERTY keyboard layout.
The US patent system no longer advances the useful arts, it's placing obstacles in the path of advancement. Patents no longer protect inventors, instead the patent system allows parasites to steal money from those who have actually advanced the state of the art.
The model railroad business is tiny and unimportant, the real industries like Blackberry are under constant attack. We would advance the state of the art by abolishing the US patent system. While we are at it, we could repeal the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and restrict copyright to 17 years.
The NMRA pointed out that the system in question had been described in the open literature (Model Railroader magazine, a slick paper hobby magazine with wide national and international circulation) in 1992, two years before the patent was issued.
It's hard to understand the troll's thought process. The model railroad business is small, and the hobbyists are mostly retirement age. There isn't enough money in the business overall to make the trolling pay off. It's not like the Blackberry business which had to pay a troll off with $600 million last year.
It's also hard to understand how the Patent Office granted the patent in the first place. The prior art was plain to see, and the subject matter, an electronic encoding system, was obvious to anyone (like myself) skilled in the art. This patent was the equivalent of patenting the QWERTY keyboard layout.
The US patent system no longer advances the useful arts, it's placing obstacles in the path of advancement. Patents no longer protect inventors, instead the patent system allows parasites to steal money from those who have actually advanced the state of the art.
The model railroad business is tiny and unimportant, the real industries like Blackberry are under constant attack. We would advance the state of the art by abolishing the US patent system. While we are at it, we could repeal the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and restrict copyright to 17 years.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Aviation Week praises Georgian air defenses
The Russians admit to loosing three jet fighters and a Backfire bomber to Georgian SAM's. The Georgians are claiming fourteen kills. Look at the zero losses suffered by the Israeli air force bombing the Syrian nuclear reactor last fall, and the Georgians look like dead shots. Or, the Russian electronic countermeasures (ECM) isn't as good as Israeli made.
Tanker tinkering
They are about to release the latest Request for Proposal (RFP in Pentagon-speak) for the USAF tanker. This is the bungled Boeing/Airbus competition that they are doing over again. According to Aviation Week, the new RFP will favor the larger Airbus offering. There will be a scoring system giving extra points for more range, cargo capacity, fuel offload capacity and more passenger seats. Translation, for out of touch Boeing suits in need of hearing aids, the Air Force wants a bigger aircraft. If Boeing wants the job, it needs to rebid a tanker based on the bigger Boeing 777 , rather than the smaller, older, going out of production, 767. Or even the brand new, not yet in production, all plastic 787 Dreamliner.
Of course, the Air Force should have decided how big a tanker they want to buy in the first place and put that in the original RFP. That might have prevented the disaster of the previous bid, where the losing Boeing protested and GAO subsequently upheld Boeing.
Aviation week opined that switching from the 767 to the 777 would be too hard for Boeing to do in the time allotted. I don't believe that. The bid paperwork (all 50,000 pages of it) is on a computer. Someone tells the computer to go thru and change 767 to 777. The actual engineering is simple, omit the seats, add some tanks. Bolt a boom on the tail. Keep everything else the same as the civilian version so you can use the same parts, flight simulator, flight trainings and so on.
If Boeing thinks this is too much trouble, Airbus gets the job. That's not the end of the world. Airbus uses American made engines, and engines are half the price of the finished aircraft.
Of course, the Air Force should have decided how big a tanker they want to buy in the first place and put that in the original RFP. That might have prevented the disaster of the previous bid, where the losing Boeing protested and GAO subsequently upheld Boeing.
Aviation week opined that switching from the 767 to the 777 would be too hard for Boeing to do in the time allotted. I don't believe that. The bid paperwork (all 50,000 pages of it) is on a computer. Someone tells the computer to go thru and change 767 to 777. The actual engineering is simple, omit the seats, add some tanks. Bolt a boom on the tail. Keep everything else the same as the civilian version so you can use the same parts, flight simulator, flight trainings and so on.
If Boeing thinks this is too much trouble, Airbus gets the job. That's not the end of the world. Airbus uses American made engines, and engines are half the price of the finished aircraft.
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