I survived Service Pack 3

Microsoft Update (trusty little piece of nagware) has been nagging me to download service pack 3 (for XP) for a couple of weeks now. I held off, not wanting to be the first one to debug it. After two weeks, with no bad news about SP3 on the net, I decided to go with it. My computer survived the upgrade, and in fact appears to run a bit faster.

Russia invades Georgia. And the US does what?

The Georgia invasion did make the two Sunday pundit shows, after discussions of banking reforms and the John Edwards scandal. Give the pundits that much. But no pundit really grasped what's going on here. The Russian army is invading a European country that is a US ally. If the US does nothing, (diplomacy is nothing) then the entire world learns that what the Russians want, the Russians get, and resistance is futile. If the US sends troops to defend Georgia, like we did for Kuwait, then we risk getting into a shooting war with the Russians. Both alternatives are horrible.
It's clearly up to the US. The Europeans are already scared of the Russians, except for the British they lack an effective military, and they are divided politically. They aren't going to tell the Russians to pull out or else. Maybe, with strong US leadership, a few of them would help us out a little, but that's about all. The disasters in ex-Yugoslavia (the Balkans) since Tito's death demonstrate what happens when it's up to the Europeans. Namely nothing.
For America, we are between a rock and a hard place. Nobody wants to get into a scrap with the Russians, at any time. For the fifty years of the Cold War we managed to avoid putting American troops within shooting distance of the Red Army, lest an outbreak of firing escalate into the Last Nuclear War. That's still a good policy. You don't crack open the door to Hell just to see if the fires still burn down there.
On the other hand, the Russians are taking South Ossetia today, and next step is all of Georgia. If we rushed a US division into the Georgian capitol (Tbilisi) tomorrow, the Russians might settle for promises of protection for the Russians living in South Ossetia, as opposed to conquering all of Georgia. Might.
The Russians want all of Georgia to gain control of the BTC pipeline, the only way to get central Asian oil out to the West. Look for crude oil to jump back up to $150 a barrel as soon as the BTC pipeline is closed to the West.
If we let the Russians conquer Georgia, it will give them the green light to take over all the over places that used to be part of the old Soviet Union, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania,Poland, Hungary,Czechoslovakia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and all the rest of the 'stans. The Russians mean to reverse the enormous loss of territory that occurred at the breakup of the old Soviet Union back in 1989. If we don't oppose them, it will happen. After re acquiring their empire, what next will they try? They would be in a position to restart the Cold War.
McCain has called for resistance. Obama favors "diplomacy". I don't like either alternative, but I'm inclined to reluctantly back up McCain.

China puts on one hellova show

Watched the opening of the Olympics on NBC last night. Enormous show, thousands of dancers and drummers and such, all dressed in gorgeous costumes, filling the field of the "Birds Nest" stadium. A smoothness and precision to the dancing that must have taken months of practice to get so smooth. Fireworks, heavy continuous bursts of fire, like the grand finale of a 4th of July over here, but going on and on. Loved it. It's clear the Chinese spared no effort and no expense to put on the show, and they impressed this couch potato.
It took a couple of hours for all the contestants to enter the field and stroll around it. The Americans, all 600 odd of them, were looking very preppy in blue blazers, white ducks, and white golf caps. Not as good as the Western shirts and cowboy hats of years ago. Plenty of athletes in fancy native costumes. Some stick-in-the-muds in dark business suits and ties. The South Koreans send a huge contingent, young, all dressed in white, smiling and laughing and singing. The North Koreans were older, fewer, dressed in dark business suits and none of them looked very happy to be there. The Iraqi's got a big hand when they appeared.
NBC camera men were bad. Constant zooming, panning and scanning, too quick jumping from camera to camera, and failure to get closeups of the hordes of beautiful young men and women, wearing fantatically good costumes. The voice over commentators spouted the usual drivel, and failed to name the performers, or tell us anything about them, probably 'cause they didn't know much. I hope the Chinese got to watch better coverage on Chinese TV.

What did China do to the NewsHour?

Dunno. But the Newshour with Jim Lehrer has been bashing the Chinese every night. Stories about Beijing smog, lack of greenness, suppression of dissidents, freedom for Tibet, earthquake crushed schools, hit the show every night this week. Not that a little China bashing is bad mind you, there are plenty of things not to like in China. But after the tender concern the liberal media used shower upon Soviet Russia, Castro's Cuba, the North Vietnamese, and other wretched regimes, you'd think they'd cut the Chinese a little slack.
I have a bit of sympathy for the Chinese. They are so proud of pulling their country up from third world toilet status into the big leagues, becoming an important world power. They are trying so hard to pull off the greatest publicity stunt/national celebration/Olympic games. And here we have the Americans raining on their parade, every night.

So did Dr. Ivins really send the anthrax letters?

The FBI thinks the late Dr. Ivins is the anthrax killer. They seem to base their suspicions on a genetic match between anthrax in the deadly letters and anthrax in a jar in Dr. Ivins laboratory. Ivins, was a civilian scientist working for the Army on anthrax and anthrax vaccines, so having a jar of anthrax in the lab is to be expected. But I thought anthrax was anthrax, just like the common cold is the common cold. Does each germ bear a unique genetic fingerprint that makes each one different? Or in actual fact, does every anthrax sample in the world match up genetically? Does anyone really know?
Given the FBI's terrible track record (the Richard Jewell case, the Waco case, the Wen Ho Lee case, the total failure to forestall 9/11) and the ambiguity of the genetic evidence, I remain skeptical.

On the need for a USAF requirements writing office

Long article in Aviation Week bemoaning various recent Air Force project disasters such as the tanker mess, a troubled recon satellite program, a follow on UAV program, and pontificating upon a fix. The author blames bad specification writing, in particular bad requirements specification writing as the cause, and calls for a special corps of requirement spec writers as the fix.
Do I believe that a bunch of well trained paper pushers can solve all the problems of military procurement? No. However better requirements would certainly help.
Back in ancient history, the F105 and F106 fighters from the Viet Nam era, maintainance of which was my duty in those days, we had a pair of hot fighters loaded with fancy gadgets that never worked or were never used. The F106 flew with the Tactical Situation Display inop, the retractable beacon lights fully extended, and the doppler mode of the radar inop. The F105 never put bomb one into it's fancy internal bomb bay, the doppler navigator and the UHF radio were so flaky the planes flew in groups of four, hoping that ONE doppler and ONE UHF would be working upon return.
These "issues" (down right failures actually) started at the requirements spec level. Nice to have, but troublesome and non essential requirements, burdened the aircraft with gear that took up space and weight but didn't work. The space and weight would have been better dedicated to carrying more fuel and armament. Had the requirements spec been trimmed of excess fat before going into production, considerable taxpayer expense would have been saved.
So the issue of proper requirements is a real one. If we speced it right, a lot of time, money and aggravation would be saved. When we spec it wrong, or fail to spec it at all, trouble insues.
The best requirements spec writers are experienced operators. Want a good requirements spec for an aircraft or a tank or even a jeep? Get the users together and let them write the spec. You might need a secretary from the bureaucracy to clean up the language, but the users know what's essential and what's a frill. Specially trained requirements spec writers won't.

Outrageous Patent granted to IBM

Slashdot reports that IBM was granted a US patent for cash register software that remembers "paper or plastic" for each customer, relieving the clerk of the onerous task of asking. This trivial and obvious idea is worthy of patent protection? Can you say "patent troll"? Can you say "welfare for patent lawyers"? Can you say "Patent examiner with the IQ of an Ipswich clam"?