CONFIDENCE BUILDER: Air Force Network Admins Found Out About Drone Virus Through News Story.
Archive for 2011
October 11, 2011
IRA STOLL on the debate.
EDWARD JAY EPSTEIN: Moles. “Showtime has a new psycho-thriller series called ‘Homeland’ that concerns the search for a hidden mole in the CIA. So in the episodes to come dedicated investigators will ferret him or her out. What is interesting here is the schism between the fictional world and real world of counterespionage. In the former, the issue is discovering and getting rid of the mole. In the real world, the issue is the vulnerability of the organization itself. If the CIA can be penetrated for a sustained period of time by an enemy agent masquerading as a loyal officer, then there is a defect in its apparatus. To admit this, is to admit it is vulnerable to penetration.”
AT AMAZON, top deals in Electronics.
THE ANCHORESS: The next bubble to burst: Consumerism?
THE JOYS OF AVERAGE GUYS: But are they really “average?” A not very charitable assessment. Could you get away with reversed genders on this article?
FROM STEPHEN GREEN, debate Drunkblogging. “Charlie Rose isn’t any less absurd than any of the other moderators I’ve seen. Just more — if this is possible — self-important. And specific.”
THE INTERNET’S TRUE PURPOSE: Videos of cats wearing hats.
MARINE WOMEN battle in Roller Derby.
HOW SMARTPHONES are changing digital photography. “It will take time before cameraphones are good enough to seriously challenge enthusiast compact cameras in terms of baseline functionality, but more and more, images from smartphones are appearing in online publications and even the occasional newspaper story, that would traditionally have been the preserve of professionals carrying ‘serious’ cameras. It’s not just the spontaneity of cameraphones or their increasingly impressive image quality that makes them appealing to photographers. There are a huge range of photo-related apps available that can enhance the picture-taking process. . . . We’re not all professional photojournalists working in warzones of course, but wherever you are, you might sympathise with Winter’s argument that sometimes snapping pictures with a smartphone is much more practical than it would be with a DSLR. A common complaint amongst photographers all over the world, peaceful and war-torn alike is that police and security officials, as well as ordinary people regard them and their equipment at best with suspicion, and sometimes with open aggression. In this environment, the cameraphone comes into its own. Small, discrete and connected, it can send photos and video around the world in seconds, from places where pulling out a DSLR or compact camera might just create unwarranted attention.”
CONSPIRACY: Iranians charged in U.S. over plot to kill Saudi envoy.
But at the press conference, AG Holder dodges & ignores questions on Fast & Furious.
UPDATE: A Turning Point?
ANOTHER UPDATE: CBS News: “Gunwalking” Subpoena For Eric Holder Imminent.
HOMEMADE FIREARMS: When Gun Control Is No Match For Technology.
AT AMAZON, bestsellers in Science Fiction & Fantasy.
JOHN TIERNEY ON ENVY: Envy May Bear Fruit, but It Also Has an Aftertaste. Envy focuses the mind: “By paying more attention to these people, we might learn to emulate some of the strategies that yielded their advantages. Or we might notice something that we could use to embarrass and hinder them — again, not a terribly exalted cognitive experience, but potentially useful in winning struggles for status and resources.” But it’s also tiring.
WHY APPLE LAUNCHED THE IPHONE 4S INSTEAD OF THE IPHONE 5: “The thinking is that most iPhone 4 owners are still bound by the 2-year contracts they had to enter into when they bought the iPhone 4, so they’ll be less likely to now upgrade anyway . . . . The release of the forthcoming iPhone 5, meanwhile, which presumably will be a more radical upgrade from the iPhone 4, will likely be timed to appeal directly to the ~70 million iPhone 4 owners who will just then be starting to come off their two-year contracts. The iPhone 4 was released in the early summer of 2010. So the two-year window for these contracts will begin to roll off in the summer of 2012 (next June).”
BECAUSE GOD LOVES US, AND WANTS US TO BE HAPPY? Mystery: Why do women have prominent breasts, even when not lactating?
Okay, actually that was Ben Franklin’s explanation for beer.
UPDATE: Various readers say that Franklin was talking about wine, not beer, though you often see him quoted thusly on beer t-shirts. Clayton Cramer sends this link to Franklin saying this: “We hear of the conversion of water into wine at the marriage in Cana, as of a miracle. But this conversion is, through the goodness of God, made every day before our eyes. Behold the rain, which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, and which incorporates itself with the grapes to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy.”
A GUIDE TO flying with firearms.
SOME CHEERY MUSIC FOR THE #OCCUPY MOVEMENT: Life During Wartime? “Here are some of the lyrics to the song.”
CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Congressman’s son lobbied for failing solar panel company.
PEOPLE WHO ARE MORE EASILY EMBARRASSED tend to be more trustworthy.
NOBEL DEVELOPMENTS: The End Of Comfortable Keynesianism.
REVIEW: The Chevy Volt. “One standard item I’d like to see added to the Volt is a spare tire. Apparently, the Volt is so tightly-packed (its curb weight is 3,781lbs) that there’s simply no room for a spare.”
CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR JERRY BROWN sides with red-light camera companies. There’s a surprise.