Belated entry....

Got the new Comet GP-98 triband vertical antenna installed on the roof on Saturday. It's at the top of a 10 ft mast, and it looks great. Tested it out on Saturday evening.

Installed the Cobra Ultralite Junior on Sunday. It was a chore to get that antenna hung in the trees, then to get the RG8X coax run from the transceiver to the balun and antenna feedline. It all got done by a little after 1900 (which was good, because daylight was going fast), and it tested out fine. The wire isn't very noticeable against the foliage background.

Amateur Radio "ticket"

I took and passed the Technician (Element 2) exam today. On a lark, and at the encouragement of the examination crew from the Mount Vernon Amateur Radio Club, I took and passed the General (Element 3) exam. Now, all I need to do is complete the Morse Code exam within the next 365 days, and I'll be able to operate with General privileges.

After all of that excitement, Maureen and I went to Ham Radio Outlet in Woodbridge (the place I bought my Kenwood TH-D7a(G)) to buy a Kenwood TS-2000X (and a whole lot more stuff). I was able to bring the radio and a few other things home; several other parts must be shipped in from other locations. I'll be setting up the "ham shack" over the next few weeks. It will take a few days for the license to be posted at the FCC's web site anyway, so there's no big rush.

Boeing Statement on Darleen Druyun Sentencing

Oh, I'm sure Ms Druyun's statements were a total surprise. I'll bet the failed polygraph test was also a total surprise. I'm hoping that the U.S. Department of Justice continues to "have the will and a process to deal with it", as well as any efforts that The Boeing Company can exert.

Boeing Statement on Darleen Druyun Sentencing

This kind of shady under-the-table, deal-making is destructive to the national defense, and undermines whatever trust the public has in our defense procurement system. I'm looking forward to hearing the next few shoes drop in this case.

Club Fed?

On the heels of Martha Stewart taking a little contemplative time off, we have Darleen Druyun fixin' to spend time away from the "rat race". Looks like Ms Druyun might be spending a few months in South Carolina, while Ms Stewart is enjoying the climate in West Virginia.

The last remnants of Hurricane Ivan are blowing across the Washington, DC area this evening. We got a little rain this morning, and had wind gusts all day. We've opened the windows to get the benefit of the much lower temperatures and the breeze. The cats really appreciate the opened windows.

High School Reunion(s)

Lorraine and I flew to Portland, Oregon, this past weekend for my 30-year high school reunion. It's the first reunion I've attended, and I was pleasantly surprised at the experience. I got to see a lot of folks that I haven't seen in the 30 intervening years. I got a chance to talk to a lot of people whom I knew pretty well then, but whom I haven't kept up with. I'm going to try to get better about keeping in touch.

It was sad to see how many of my classmates have died, and the number of people I knew in those days who are in ill health. This puts a little more emphasis on the "keep in touch" promise.

Marion Barry redux

I can remember the day when the dream of the State of New Columbia died. Marion Barry was elected for his third (non-contiguous) term as Mayor of the District of Columbia, and statehood opponents breathed a [permanent] sigh of relief. We've seen all the "taxation without representation" license plates, but we sure haven't seen too much in the way of New Columbia license plates. Oh, well.

Cables

I received three cables from Blue Hills Innovations, and they worked just as one would expect. Very nice quality, and just what I ordered. Now all I need is an FCC Technician license, and I'll be on the air.

WQAV926

Well, it's official. I now have an FCC license, WQAV926. It's a GMRS license, so the next step is to pass the Technician examination so I can fire up my new Kenwood TH-D7A(G).

HP iPAQ 5555, Garmin GPSIII, Garmin GPSMAP 60C

I've been trying, off and on, to connect my Garmin GPSIII or Garmin GPSMAP 60C to my HP iPAQ 5555 PocketPC. I have the correct cable for the iPAQ (it's the sync cable, with an iPAQ connector on one end, and USB and serial (DB9) connectors on the other. The cable for the Garmin is the usual serial cable (it comes in at least two flavors: one with an automobile power connection, and one without).

Also needed is a DB9 - DB9 null modem, and a M-M gender changer.

Well, I could never make the thing work. Yesterday, I bought a new Kenwood TH-D7A(G) 144/440 MHz FM Dual Bander radio, which I'm going to use to experiment with packet radio and APRS (more on APRS to follow, time permitting). The radio purchase brought the whole Garmin - iPAQ problem up again. The Garmin gets connected to the radio, and the radio can be connected to the iPAQ. Since I couldn't connect the Garmin to the iPAQ, I suspected I also couldn't connect the radio to the iPAQ. Not good.

Well, I did a Google(tm) search on the news groups, and lo and behold, got a great hint. I have drivers installed for two kinds of keyboard: the folding type and the micro type (the type that slides on the bottom of the iPAQ and lets you type via a small keyboard). One of these keyboard drivers can be enabled at a time. Guess which COM port the keyboard driver snags? COM1. That's the port that the Garmin was busy sending its data to.

So, the trick was to go in to both keyboard drivers and ensure they were deactivated. Once that was done, the Garmin -to- iPAQ connection worked just fine. Turning the iPAQ off, then on again, yields a system hang which must be reset via a soft reset. It looks like if I reenable the micro keyboard before turning the iPAQ off, that problem is avoided.

Definition of Land-grant university - wordIQ Dictionary and Encyclopedia

As a graduate of two of these fine institutions, I've always been interested in Land Grant Colleges(Universities). Here's a bit of relevant information:

Definition of Land-grant university - wordIQ Dictionary and Encyclopedia

Super freak

1980's musical icon Rick James has passed on. Rick's music, and the music of those he influenced, was in heavy rotation during the time I was a student at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. Monterey was close to Fort Ord, so the music on FM radio was slanted more toward the young urban crowd than it otherwise would have.

RIP Rick.

Lorraine and I have been having fun hunting for geocaches on the weekend. I wasn't sure if she'd like it, but she's turned out to be a big fan. It's a good excuse to get away from reading and writing for a few hours. We're wilsonjw at geocaching.com.

The Connexions Project - Sharing Knowledge and Building Communities

I don't have time to go through this now, but want to soon. It looks like a great service -- one of the real promises of the WWW....

The Connexions Project - Sharing Knowledge and Building Communities

Smart Mobs: Xeni Tech: Phonecams on the Front Lines

Technology marches on.... Smart Mobs: Xeni Tech: Phonecams on the Front Lines

I bought a new Garmin GPSMAP 60C on the way home from taking Emily and Joe back to Florida. Very nice, with some surprising features. I bought it at Bass Pro Shops just north of Atlanta; they offer a 15% military discount, which sealed the deal. Lorraine and I are going to try geocaching to see if we like it.

[Not] on the road...again.

I'm home, after a long drive back from Florida to return Emily and Joe. I took a slightly different route back, traveling through Dothan, Alabama and Columbus, Georgia. I took I-77 from I-85 to I-81, and stopped in Christiansburg, Virginia for a little auto repair work before returning home very early this morning.

There's nothing like a long road trip to provide plenty of thoughts for short essays. Driving the old U.S. routes and stops in many small towns provide lots of fodder. I plan to get around to writing these essays, but need to interleave that work with more important things (like dissertation writing!). Here's a partial list of topics:

Bandannas as fashion statements?

Regional influences of headwear in eating establishments (closely related to the bandanna topic, above)

On variations in road debris density (inspired by a AAA study report)

Freeway and highway signage density, quality, accuracy, and topics (inspired, in part, by Missouri's HS HCS SB 870, "Prohibits locating sexually-oriented billboards within one mile of a state highway", signed into law on 17 June 2004).

In-room phones, free cable television, and now "Free High Speed Internet" coming soon to a motel or hotel near you

Money management (inspired by the number of "title loan", "check to cash", and related businesses that dot the landscape)

Anyway, more to follow....

Druyun cooperating with government after guilty plea - 2004-04-20 - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle)

I was wondering why this blog was getting so many Google(tm) and Yahoo(tm) search hits on the phrase "Darleen Druyan". Seems that I was one of the only people who (mis)spelled her last name that way. Here's a recent piece that gets the spelling right: Druyun cooperating with government after guilty plea - 2004-04-20 - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle)

Claudio Basile's publication page

With Citeseer undergoing a transformation, it's become much harder to find resources on the WWW. . After some searching, I found a copy of "A Survey of Dependability Issues in Mobile Wireless Networks", a nice paper by Claudio Basile, Marc-Olivier Killijian, and David Powell.

Toohey's Extra Dry Beer viral ad

From the good folks at Kontraband.com comes this little viral ad...very nice job.... Toohey's Extra Dry Beer

Better living through physics.

Oh, brother. A "physician-reviewed" "formula" for computing the height of high-heels. I admit to being somewhat of a reductionist, so perhaps I should rejoice that the height of high heels can now be reduced to a single equation. And brought to me by physicists at the Institute of Physics in London, no less: How High Can High Heels Go? - Trustworthy, Physician-Reviewed Information from WebMD

Vernal Equinox -- courtesy of the U.S. Naval Observatory

The Sky This Week: "The Sun appears to arrive at the Vernal Equinox at 1:49 am EST on the morning of the 20th. This is the earliest time that this event has occurred since the year 1896. It will continue to occur a little earlier every four years until the year 2100, which will skip the leap year cycle in the Gregorian Calendar. The Equinox is defined as the moment when the apparent center of the Sun's disc crosses the Celestial Equator into the northern hemisphere of the sky, and astronomically it marks the beginning of spring. This date is a key date in many religions and cultures, as it fixes a number of important dates in various ceremonial calendars. For most of us, it's the time when the days seem to get longer at their fastest rate, and we finally shake the chill of winter. "

Citeseer

Citeseer is, hands-down, one of the best services on the World Wide Web. I've noticed that the shift from citeseer.nj.nec.com to citeseer.ist.psu.edu hasn't been going well. The server is down today, and from other traffic on the Web, it's been down in the recent past. I'm sure the servers are kept busy from all the hits from researchers. I sure hope Penn State restores a service that many of us in the research community find invaluable....

Finished another paper this evening, and got it submitted. This was the 2004 Spring SISO paper, which I'll deliver in April. Another step closer I hope, to finishing....

I ran across this site today; the humor isn't for everyone.

VH1's Best Week Ever has a blog.

Dictator or TV sitcom character?

GForge CDE : Collaborative Development Environment

Another reference to tools.... GForge CDE : Collaborative Development Environment

RT: Request Tracker

This is a work-related link. I'm interested in open source bug tracking tools.... Best Practical Solutions, LLC:

Another weekend at last. One paper (the one for SISO) is due in about two weeks. There are another two papers due right after that.

Made good progress on the application layer protocol portion of the dissertation this week. All of that material is also useful for the dissertation.

Progress, progress, progress.

Save the pinata

Gotta love the folks at Turnpike Films: Save the pinata

DELAY TOLERANT NETWORKING RESEARCH GROUP

Very interesting...closely related to the work I'm doing in MANET research: DELAY TOLERANT NETWORKING RESEARCH GROUP

Robert Bruen's review of "Exploiting Software. How to Break Code" by Greg Hoglund and Gary McGraw, Addison-Wesley 2004, IEEE Cipher, E58 Jan 15, 2004"

On the "to read" list: Robert Bruen's review of "Exploiting Software. How to Break Code" by Greg Hoglund and Gary McGraw, Addison-Wesley 2004, IEEE Cipher, E58 Jan 15, 2004"

ACM Queue - Game Development: Harder Than You Think - What makes you think that creating alternative worlds is all fun and games?

Interesting article on game development by Jonathan Blow: ACM Queue - Game Development: Harder Than You Think - What makes you think that creating alternative worlds is all fun and games?

Who Invented Monopoly?

I ran across this compilation of the history of the popular board game Monopoly(r). I played this game as a child, and always found it to be fun: Who Invented Monopoly?

This just in from the Navy League

The Navy League's March 2004 Sea-Power Magazine contains the headline, "Single Integrated Air Picture Holds The Key to Navy's Net Centric Plans". Nice article -- a good summary of a complex subject with a lot of moving parts. "A little-known engineering office", though? Perhaps it's better to be little-known sometimes....

Aircraft Certification Products and Services - Aircraft Certification Software - Draft Documents

Interesting, and relevant reading....
Aircraft Certification Products and Services - Aircraft Certification Software - Draft Documents: "Handbook for Object Oriented Technology in Aviation (OOTiA)"

Friendster Alternatives

I'm fascinated by the number of these social networks that are popping up. Microsoft(r) has one one way, as well. Friendster Alternatives

How to Keep Your Job -- a PowerPoint presentation on avoiding the pitfalls of IT outsourcing offshore

There's been a mini-wave of panic recently about the movement of IT jobs offshore, a phenomenon that has been picking up steam for years: PowerPoint Presentation

Slashdot trolling phenomena - Wikipedia

Long ago, USENET trolls began to infest other communication mechanisms; Slashdot is an example of a contemporary troll magnet: Slashdot trolling phenomena - Wikipedia

essays :: weblogs: a history and perspective

Interesting essay on the web log phenonmenon by Rebecca Blood: essays :: weblogs: a history and perspective

Yankee or Dixie quiz

I grew up in the far West and the far North. This is still a fun quiz to take: Yankee or Dixie quiz

The Fractal Blogosphere

Richard MacManus has written an interesting piece on the Fractal Blogosphere. Since I fancy myself to be something akin to a "kitty blogger" (a somewhat pejorative term used to describe folks who keeps blogs so they can share mundane details such as the activities of their cat(s)), I'm at the bottom of the Fractal Blogosphere totem pole: Read/Write Web

DoD Architecture Framework

For some reason, I just can't seem to find the recently-mandated DoD Architecture Framework available on the ASD NII or DoD CIO website. Very puzzling. The good folks at the Applied Information Technology Center (AITC) have posted the gouge on their website, along with a decidedly low-res version of the U.S. Department of Defense seal.

I've harbored the notion that the delay in getting the DoD Architecture Framework out the door is because it fosters and encourages a so-called "platform-centric" view of the world. I'm going to scan the released version to see if it propels us in the direction of the "Power to the Edge" vision.

On "The First Tactical Mile"

This is a very rambling, very early draft of a paper on the subject of the "first tactical mile". All too often we focus on the fixed infrastructure, with the belief that we'll get to the "edge" of the network "later". That's the wrong approach. Comments, as always, highly desirable....

The TELCO industry makes frequent mention of "the last mile". By the term "the last mile", they refer to the local loop that connects the residential or business customer to the TELCO's Central Office. Signals are sent on that local loop by an analog waveform in a frequency range selected to provide reasonable quality for audio (voice) data.

The rising demand to send digital data over these analog circuits caused significant research and development in modulator/demodulator technology to improve throughput by encoding and error detection [and correction?] techniques. Development of digital subscriber line (DSL) and asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) technology further increased the throughput available over the local loop, while remaining within the limits prescribed by Shannon's Law.

While the some companies invested in improved service over the local loop, others invested research and development dollars in exploiting the other non-energy transmission wires already running to homes and businesses: coaxial cable. Cable television had long been envisioned as a platform from which many services could be launched. Video on demand was one of the first services identified, because content was already available, and consumers were familiar enough with the concept that a lengthy market penetration and consumer education campaign was not needed. Proprietary computer networks, such as Compuserve, Prodigy, and America Online were also viewed as candidate content providers. The proprietary networks ran, of course, headlong into the free market, open standards world of the Internet when commercial restrictions were lifted.
Let us pause for a moment, and reflect upon the producer/consumer relationship and the asymmetry inherent in that relationship. This reflection will allow us to explore the vocabulary we use and to decide if that vocabulary is appropriate for the capability we want in the future.
We use terms like "the last mile" in the telephone business because in the eye of the service provider, the telephone company, the view is from the network out. This view holds in the telephone business in spite of the fact that all of the content in the telephone network is provided by customers at the edges of the network. From a content provider and resource consumer viewpoint, a better term would be "the first mile".

Telephone conversations are bursty -- discontinuous periods of speech, interspersed with periods of silence. Telephone conversations are also relatively short and infrequent. Traffic models did a reasonably good job of predicting network load except under infrequent incidents such as holidays and disasters. Adding data traffic to the telephone system introduced traffic with greatly different characteristics. Calls were much longer, more frequent, and less bursty.

The client-server model of the World Wide Web maintains the producer-consumer relationship found in television. The consumer either passively selects programming, in the case of broadcast television or so-called Internet radio, or sends a small request to a server to select specific content. The communication is asymmetric: small uplink requests followed by large downlink responses. The peer-to-peer interaction model has a different traffic pattern. Unless valuable content is non-homogeneously distributed, communication will be more symmetric, as peers alternate between acting as clients and servers in distributing content within the network.

Gamers have peer relationship -- asymmetry causes them problems. Music and movie file sharers do, as well. People that want to serve web pages from their homes run into dynamic IP address and NAT problems, as well as asymmetry challenges.

We prefer to think of tactical users not as being at the end of the "last tactical mile" or as being "disadvantaged users", but as being uniquely equipped users standing at the beginning of "the first tactical mile".

[the network is not armed. Users have the best local data, as a rule, and local data is usually the most relevant. Must beware of chauvenism on both sides of the argument. Very difficult to make the argument that the only part of the network that is armed is "disadvantaged".]

One could fairly claim that a change in terminology from "last" to "first" is intended to give the impression of progress through generation of new jargon, or a cute attention-getting novelty, but such claims would miss the mark. Precision in language -- selecting vocabularies suitable for the task at hand, and relentless enforcement of the use of these vocabularies is essential in an enterprise whose outcome is as serious as defense. the same individuals who would be horrified if their physician referred to "thingys" or "whatchamacallits" when discussing critical components or biological functions, think nothing of abusing technical vocabularies. Words such as "software", "hardware", and "platform" are among the most abused. This slang leads to confusion and misunderstanding.

I've been using PocketBlog (or, more correctly, I've been *trying* to use PocketBlog), but the bugs are really getting in the way. This is my first post using AvantBLOG.

2/14/04 -- There's still snow on the ground here at the Wildernest Inn. The view of the surrounding hills is beautiful ordinarily, but it's particularly nice when there's snow on the ground. the bears have hibernated, so we won't see any on this trip. We'll continue to see a lot of deer and other mammals, though.

This is a great place to come to read and write -- very quiet and peaceful.

2/13/04 -- Lorraine and I are visiting the Wildernest Inn again. What a quiet and restful place...and, it's not an intense hassle to get here from town.

2/13/04 -- Managed to get both of the papers that were due this week submitted on time. One can benefit from a bit more editing, so that task is in my future. There's at least one more paper on the horizon: the CCRP paper. I'd like to get one or two more in the hopper in March and April.

Anti-Valentines

Perfect for the Hallmark(tm) moment that is fast approaching (again): meish dot org :: be my anti-valentine

2004 Advanced Simulation Technologies Conference

Whew. Finished and submitted the 2004 ASTC paper this afternoon, and got back to work on the dissertation. It was very useful to have written the paper -- it always helps to shape the dissertation work. There's nothing quite like having to synopsize a complex subject in six pages.

Free James Traficant

Former Ohio Congressman James Traficant has been spending his days in Pennsylvania for a while...and will likely be spending his days in Pennsylvania for a while yet to come. One of the more colorful politicians to grace the halls of Congress in recent years. Free James Traficant

Isn't Marge Schott from Ohio? Congressman (and Presidential candidate) Dennis Kucinich? Jerry Springer? What's with Ohio, anyway?

Wildernest Inn Bed and Breakfast Located in Beautiful West Virginia

This is a link to the Bed and Breakfast that Lorraine and I spent New Year's Eve at this year. It's a great place, off the beaten path, with terrific hosts and wonderful hiking. Wildernest Inn Bed and Breakfast Located in Beautiful West Virginia

eBaum's World Media Download -

I hate when that happens! A group of happy-go-lucky lads work to get a car out of a snowdrift. Warning: do not try this at home: eBaum's World Media Download -

Why your Movable Type blog must die || kuro5hin.org

It seems that trolls are alive and well in the "blogosphere": Why your Movable Type blog must die || kuro5hin.org

BBC - Science Human Body - Psychology Tests

Interesting links to psychology tests, courtesy of The Beeb: BBC - Science Human Body - Psychology Tests

I still don't understand why "net-centric operations and warfare" and "net-centricity" are necessarily "web-enabled". The WWW metaphor works for many processes, including some tactical warfighting processes. To make the sweeping generalization that all tactical warfighting processes fit within a WWW model is extending that metaphor too far. STSC CrossTalk - Horizontal Fusion: Enabling Net-Centric Operations and Warfare - Jan�2004

beSpacific: E-Voting System Scrapped by Pentagon; looks like I'll need to read this report in the next week or so....

I, too, have downloaded and used Spam Abuse...not sure if it works...will try it for a while and see what happens....the random life�blog archive

I know...I'm working hard on "real" work...just taking a few minutes off to relax. Found this nice site that shows fellow bloggers in the Washington, DC metro area: D.C. Metro Blog Map

Another day of dutiful dissertation writing.

A nice optical illusion....A Small Victory: i'm a creep

In doing a little research for "Modeling and Simulation Implications of the "Power to the Edge" Vision", a paper I'm writing for the 2004 Advanced Simulation Technologies Conference, I came across the DoD CIO testimony to a House subcommittee from 3 April 2003. Some very nice quotes contained within....

The Michigan man who named his newborn son John Blake Cusack 2.0 put a new spin on the old tagline, "Quality is Job 1.1". Read all about it here, on CNN.

Cute. Not safe for work. I like these animated shorts -- the folks who make them spend a lot of time, and it usually shows up in the quality of the work.

Here's another travel guide site...I like these sites because you get a much more unvarnished view of a place by reading the opinions of ordinary travelers. World66, the travel guide you write: My World66

It's a bright, sunny day around Casa de Wilson -- not a cloud in the sky, but plenty of snow still on the ground. Lorraine is off to the Tidewater area this evening -- I'll be here with the cats grinding away on "Modeling and Simulation Implications of the "Power to the Edge" Vision, a paper for the upcoming 2004 Advanced Simulation Technologies Conference. The paper describes part of my dissertation research.

It's snowing here at Casa de Wilson. We haven't had as much snow as I expected (at least we haven't had it yet). After such a wet spring and summer, I thought we were in for a tough fall and winter. Well, I guess the broken hot water pipe in the upstairs bathroom two Sundays ago was exciting, but not in a snowy kiind of way.

The forecast/guess is that we'll get six or eight inches of snow tonight, followed by ice tomorrow and perhaps Tuesday. The ice is the most treacherous, particularly when it's as cold as it is. Road salt is essentially useless at this temperature.

I ran across the Available C++ Libraries Frequently Asked Questions list this afternoon. Worth additional investigation, I suspect. Available C++ Libraries FAQ

I'm on a PowerPoint roll this afternoon.... PowerPoint Remix (Aaron Swartz: The Weblog)

More PowerPoint hammering, this time at the hand of Edward Tufte.... Wired 11.09: PowerPoint Is Evil

Slavish reliance on Microsoft(r) PowerPoint is one of my areas of interest. The Risks Digest Volume 23: Issue 10

I was searching for a definitive discussion of the equipment-related failure in Sheffield during the Falklands/Malvinas war. Offensive Air Operations Of The Falklands War

Interesting paper on "sea-basing", a topic that is reemerging in the press and the thoughts of senior leadership. The Time For Sea-Basing

Lorraine and I drove the Dempster Highway in 1999; it was quite a trip, and well worth taking again. The 25th anniversary of the completion of the highway will be celebrated next year. This short story discusses the history of the Dempster, and provides details of next summer's celebration: Northern Happenings - Yukon Wild @ Heart

Lake Superior State University released its Banished Words List for 2004....Banished Words List :: Welcome

I was slaving away on The Dissertation, searching for a little information regarding the prevalence of Internet traffic going over microwave radio relay links, when I came across NationMaster.com. Very interesting site, filled with useful statistics. Detailed Country Profile: United States

Lorraine and I spent New Year's Eve at the Wildernest Inn in West Virginia. It's a very restful place, not too far from home. The area supports hiking, bicycling, and river running. We'd hoped for snow this year, but wound up with unseasonably warm weather. It's odd to be hiking in shirtsleeves on the last day of the year this far north.

John Jay Chapman's commencement address to the graduating class of Hobart College in 1900 comes to us by way of David P. Reed, Internet luminary. John Jay Chapman address

Lorraine and I finally got the floors refinished in the bedrooms and the upstairs office. We spent last weekend clearing those three rooms out -- what a chore! -- and spent most of Christmas Day moving stuff back upstairs. It will probably take weeks to get everything resorted and carried back up to the upstairs office. Whew!

Too funny. adrants.com carries Big Wassabi's salute to Paris "Paris the Heiress" Hilton. Well done, Big. Adrants: Advertising and Media News With Commentary, Gossip and Opinion.

From the "What was she thinking?" file....

Boeing shows Darleen Druyun the door: what was she thinking? I guess she may have missed the procurement scandals of the 1980's, and must have missed the MANDATORY annual ethics training.

I'm a fan of Alan Simpson, former U. S. Senator from the great state of Wyoming. Al's been particularly critical of AARP. I heard about Third Millenium by reading an interview Al gave, which mentioned this group as an alternative approach to that taken by AARP.

I'm also a sucker for good "news" sites. The Onion is one of the very best. RealStupidNews and Fark are also good.

I'm a sucker for well-written food critiques. Today's critique comes to us from the folks at Flak Magazine.

One of the topics that I'll need to write a bit about in the next week or so, is the use of "open source" in combat, weapon, and military command and control systems. I did a quick Google(tm) search on "military use of open source", and what should pop up, but a reference to The Initiative for Software Choice. There must be an art to naming organizations -- make sure the average reading can't figure out exactly what you're for, and what you're against. Who wouldn't be against "Software Choice"? Wouldn't it be positively un-[fill in your nationality here] to be against "Software Choice"? Welcome to Software Choice

Found this site while looking around for something else (UML and C++ documentation tools): Boost C++ Libraries

I was searching around the Web, this evening, looking for information on my old friend Dr John A Gauss, formerly the CIO over at VA and before that, a Rear Admiral in the U. S. Navy. I ran across this interesting site: Open Government Information Awareness

Here's another interesting RAND Corporation report related to interoperability: Interoperability: A Continuing Challenge in Coalition Air Operations

While doing a little interoperability-related research this afternoon, I ran across this report. I haven't read it yet, but I suspect there are some useful tidbits contained within. The subject of the Global Information Grid is always worth a quick read. Who Runs What in the Global Information Grid: Ways to Share Local and Global Responsibility

It's a stretch to say I'm adept at engineering statistics. I always keep one or two statistics books at hand. Here's a helpful link to the Engineering Statistics Handbook, located at our very own National Institute of Standards and Technology: NIST/SEMATECH e-Handbook of Statistical Methods

In the reference section of today's missives, I offer two entries. The first is Dictionaraoke.org -- a site that I believe I heard about (about which I heard?) on NPR: National Public Radio. Dictionaraoke.org - The Singing Dictionary

The second entry is one that I came upon this evening, whilst looking up the definition of the word "canard". I was searching for a word that would be appropriate to describe the myth that floats around in DoD that goes something like "application-centric approaches lead to O(n**2) effort". The word "canard" isn't really appropriate, so I'll keep searching. Anyway, the site is UrbanDictionary.com.

Happy research.

This RAND Corporation study is somewhat dated, but a good source of background material.

Interoperability: A Continuing Challenge in Coalition Air Operations

How telling it is that the key words 'tactical', 'data', 'link', 'interoperability', and 'problems' would generate about 12,900 results in a Google(tm) search. The full employment act of the 1990's (which, unfortunately, has not been repealed as we march headlong into the new century). Sigh.

Google Search: tactical data link interoperability problems

I've run across several references to the "C2 Integrated Exchange Data Model" -- I'd like to do a more thorough examination of this data model and assess its completeness in the context of my work and research. Because it is a data model, and not an object model, I'd be inclined to believe it is incomplete. More work, and a lot more studying of the proposal, is needed.

Google Search: c2 integrated exchange data model

I ran across a reference to this site this afternoon. While they've shut down due to budget cuts, there's some interesting work here.

"The Institutional Governance of Interoperability in the Computer and Telecommunication Industries"

Universität Bremen has started up a new site relating to mobile ad hoc networking. They also have a site relating to mobile IP.

I ran across a link to Wil Wheaton's web site this evening. Wil played the engaging Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: Next Generation (ST:TNG). Good to see that Wil is getting along well.

I'm fascinated by the notion of the "commons" and how humans interact with that notion. Garrett Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons nicely summarizes the argument.

This is an interesting paper on failure semantics.