"How Do You Solve a Problem Like Facebook?"

"How do you solve a problem like Facebook?" Interesting question. Intriguing. Funny, I was talking with my wife about these very issues, & more, just within the past 24 hours. Finally got around to glancing at email just now, this article was the first thing I saw: https://bit.ly/2ZBGSke. Obviously it's a controversial article, topic, issue, etc., and I literally know, have worked with, have former colleagues and friends and hundreds of connections at Facebook so I want to tread a little lightly, but I'll just say I've not really been thrilled with where they've been going over the past decade for many reasons. Facebook has great power and can use it how it wishes. A decade ago, people were happily playing Oregon Trails, Angry Birds, talking with friends and relatives about all sorts of stuff (music, reading, travel) you literally never seen anymore because the money is where the hot stuff is and that's in ticking people off, engaging in flame wars, encouraging the degradation of once rational humans, etc. Not everyone, but it's been shown that's more than potential - that's been fact & much more (don't have to point just to Haugen. Cambridge Analytics remains a great place to look at the goings-on.) I got off Facebook years ago and was happier than I'd felt in years, because all I ever seemed to do was encounter people who felt their purpose in life was to rip me hard for just about anything. When I publicly intellectually destroyed these bozos every single time, usually within minutes, they resorted to childish name calling and religious threats of eternal damnation. Didn't need it, walked away. Nicholas Carr is one of several to write some interesting books lately that go further than the surface things I've mentioned. One is The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. In fact it was a nonfiction Pulitzer nominee. (Another more recent book of his is The Glass Cage: How Our Computers Are Changing Us.) Don't have to buy into it, but makes for an interesting read. Facebook has done a lot of good. It's also done a lot of bad. Sometimes I view it as a metaphorical Seymour from Little Shop of Horrors.

(Movie's a lot of fun. Seymour isn't.)

(Source: The Mary Sue) I really don't mean to Facebook bash. Like I said, I know hundreds of good, decent people there and most people I know are still users. But I think it's good to read pieces you may not always agree with though, just to get other perspectives. So I urge you to think about reading this because it brings up some food for thought. (And don't misunderstand me. Power, potential, do good, power corrupts, rein in -- one of those rare things found in the US that can't be looked at in a traditional American Calvinist black/white construct. I'm not damning Facebook. Just urging thought, analysis and reflection, at a minimum.) (I mentioned there are a number of books and resources out there these days. You can look many up yourselves, so I'm not going to post a list, but another potentially interesting book is Cathy O'Neil's Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy.)

Book Review -- Street Without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina

 

Street Without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina by Bernard B. Fall
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Excellent. Superb! Everything I had heard about it. If you're a student of, or even just interested in, the French debacle in trying to recolonize Indochina, as well as subsequently the failure of the US, particularly in my opinion, by apparently never conducting any Lessons Learned sessions and thus repeating the very same damn fool mistakes that cost the French everything and allowed the Viet Minh to win before teaching the US a lesson in UW. BTW, most people don't realize this, but third world, underfunded, no-weapons-to-speak-of (initially) "North Vietnam," under the various names given to and used by those led by Ho and Giap, is the only such country I can recall at the moment, and certainly in more modern times, to defeat THREE (3) major, massive, far more advanced global powers (or at least drive the 3 from Vietnam) AND did so in a 30 year time frame. Doubt me? 1) Japan, World War 2. 2) France. 3) United States. I'm sorry, but even as an American and thus a citizen who grew up during the draft, taught to hate and despise the "evil" (North) Vietnamese, over the years with much reading, study and research, I've learned much about the history of the region, dynamics, propaganda, geopolitical implications, proxies, and especially have remained interested in the entire E/SE Asian question of A) Marxism or B) Nationalism (first and foremost), because it's still a matter of great debate, although I formed a pretty firm opinion some decades ago and stand by it. That issue, of course, applies to many other states in the region, from China to Cambodia and more.

Regardless, the author of this book gives an amazing detailed account of the horrors experienced by the French (and their opponents) during a specific period of that conflict, and while the author never would have known or expected it would serve as a history text of sorts and a book that should have been required reading at West Point pre-1960ish, that's the least of what he accomplished in writing this. Of course, even though the US didn't learn from the French debacle -- which was funded by the US -- and got its ass whipped to great mass global humiliation, let alone at the cost of tens of thousands of US lives, tragically, as well as literally millions of Vietnamese lives, apparently some people at the Pentagon finally DID decide doing a few Lessons Learned sessions might be of some value, thus resulting in some UW doctrine, later to split into IW/AW doctrine, the irony being that the DoD is shutting down its AW unit literally as I write this and likely when we need it the most. Bozos! "We'll farm those responsibilities out to other units." Yeah. Worked real well in Nam, didn't it? And Iraq and Afghanistan too. Definitely still need doctrine and committed, structured units dedicated to IW but I fail to understand AT ALL how the same doesn't apply to AW. And since official US military focus is shifting to the Baltics (to justify the massive defense budget, and to guarantee only seriously pissing Putin off more, which will have the opposite of the stated effect and goals in sending SOF units into each of those states and countries). I have so many friends, colleagues and connections at every level and in every type of unit within the US Department of Defense (as well as hundreds of defense contractors), that I kind of feel guilty for what I've written and what I could write, but at the risk of offending some people I value, I've just got to say this is total bullshit, beyond stupid geopolitically and militarily, and in a manner of speaking, I would contend it's another case of the DoD NOT having read Fall's book and others like it, and thus likely to make or repeat predictable, avoidable and potentially devastating mistakes.

I'm sure you didn't expect to get more out of a review of a book from the 1950s, but it still applies directly to current political/military goals, strategies, tactics, doctrine, particularly that of the US. Which I think is tragic. The book? I can't recommend it enough. Very recommended.

View all my reviews

Is Taiwan China's Cuba?

I recently came across an article in the Wall Street Journal titled "U.S. Troops Have Been Deployed in Taiwan  for at Least a Year." This was an article someone I know posted on a different site and I made a comment in response. But I've thought more and more about it since, especially considering all of the geopolitical, military, maritime, etc., goings on in the South China Sea, as well as the East China Sea among others, combined with increased aggression by the PLAA and PLAN, particularly toward Japan and most obviously Taiwan. Many experts feel that conflict of an unknown type is very likely to occur this year over Taiwan and all of the events of the past months have been leading toward that, supporting that theory. 

However, I wanted to throw a few words out there on this, particularly one thought that may be quite relevant with the news the WSJ uncovered and published last week. 

So, the anti-PLA “porcupine” strategy rears its head once again. In no way do I wish to diminish the importance of the revelation of the possibility/probability U.S. troops have been on Taiwan for at least a year as all involved parties seem to be racing faster and faster toward a seemingly inevitable confrontation of potentially indescribable proportions. I think few have viewed that eventual likelihood as a “limited engagement.” I’ve closely been following events in the region since Nixon/Kissinger’s “reopening” of China, have studied & researched regional history dating back thousands of years, have spent decades studying China from 1900 - present & the future. I’ve been engaging with experts, writing, speaking, debating on related topics this entire century. It’s been impossible to ignore the years of analyzing the unsaid mixed with the spoken now somehow transition to more apparently overt beating war drums this year with more openly stated and less cryptic comments. On the parts of multiple entities. I haven’t hidden my feelings on the regional/global dangers China presents to the world, and certainly not merely the U.S. China has already used its maritime aggression and military to encroach in sovereign waters and airspace of most of its neighbors, literally attacking the Vietnamese and Philippines, angling in that direction in Indonesia, harassing Japan to such a degree that this has never been seen before, ignoring international law AND their major loss in an international court when they tried to assert they controlled the entire SCS so the USN has been conducting daily FONOP operations throughout the SCS, now joined by the UK and soon Australia. Because regardless of what China asserts, they're literally wrong and as an ambitious, growing hegemony, they've been overstepping their boundaries with too many states, resulting in the pushback being seen this year, including the reformation of the Quad, the wooing of India to western democracies' sides, as well as that of their S/SE Asian neighbors so that ideally they will be in a position, of their own choosing, to ensure the Indian Ocean remains free of conflict. Australia and Indonesia have renewed a defense agreement while the US and Vietnam have signed one and the US is watching out for the Philippines. South Korea just launched its first aircraft carrier, a likely needed disincentive to China's program of having five carriers by 2025, at least two to three of which are nuclear carriers. If memory serves me, the third one is nearly complete and ready to set sail. Finally regarding Taiwan, Japan stated as assertively as possible that they'll view a Chinese attack on Taiwan as an attack on them and they're committed to Taiwan's defense. They were joined by the U.S. in publicly committing itself to Taiwan's defense against an invading China. 

Now, all of that said, I’ve not been eager to jump into any major brawl with the CCP, as unavoidable as that may seem. Regardless, I wanted to mention a comment I saw floating around somewhere in relation to this WSJ article.  A thought to keep in mind is that perhaps Taiwan may be China’s Cuba. No big deal? The U.S. was willing to go nuclear to keep Soviet missiles and troops off of and away from Cuba, OUR Taiwan (in terms of proximity). And we don’t think China will stop at Nothing to ensure U.S. troops and weapons aren’t stationed just some miles from their shoreline? I’ve been thrilled to see the U.S. encouraging Western and Eastern states to form defensive coalitions in the area to discourage increasing Chinese aggression. I'm not sure I’m as thrilled to potentially be goading the biggest darn military in the world, especially with its having just dumped its famous “No First Strike” policy and building nukes like crazy, into a fit that might make them crazy enough to take radical actions that few want. So many variables. Not enough time to go into a fraction of them. But SOF in Taiwan? I doubt this is a surprise to China, but now that it's public, I wouldn't be surprised to see them pitch a calculated fit 100 times bigger than what we're used to. The question I have is aside from their verbal protests, what tangible response is to be expected?

An Intro -- My First Blog Post Here

Hello World. This is my attempt at a new blog. I'm pretty old and a good friend tried to hook me on an ancient blog platform called LiveJournal long before many people online today had even been born. Didn't take. The next one did, however, and I've been blogging ever since. It was a blogging site called Xanga and at one time it was very popular and successful and I think I recall it was one of the 20 most visited sites a month, way back when. I started in late 2003, had no clue what I was doing but eventually got the hang of it. 

So why this one? Xanga basically bit the dust about a decade ago. Most former Xangans are still traumatized by that because there was a REAL sense of community -- not this fake crap you hear about on social media sites like FB, Inst, whatever is big right now, because they really no longer exist to facilitate that if they ever did. I despise them and what they've done to the people of this planet. There are a number of books out there discussing how FB and sites like it have actually permanently caused brain damage to whatever degree in people! While that sounds a bit extreme and isn't universally accepted, I try to initially at least be open to new topics, so it's an interesting theory to consider.

Anyway, here's the deal. I was on Xanga until it imploded over a decade ago. I then moved to WordPress in 2012, where I've been ever since. I also started a blog here, but it was solely book reviews and was largely redundant from what I wrote on Goodreads so after a few years, I ditched it. Now, however, I think most all of the blog platforms suck (not that there are any -- they're all about shops, making money and I read review after review criticizing people who just wanted to blog! Damn smartasses.) and I want something different, even if it's not as glitzy or fancy as some others.  I've spent months researching different blog platforms and there are basically none, like I said. Which blows my mind. Ah, a short backup. What really got me amped up about leaving WordPress was they created an entirely new proprietary editor that one must use to create their blogs, and instead of typing in WYSIWYG or straight code, this new editor uses something called "blocks" which make no fucking sense to me at all. I'm actually in a hurry, so I don't have time to tell you my qualifications and experience, but let's say I'm as old as hell so I've hit that stage where this crap is both made for the kiddies and confuses the hell out of me and now it takes three times as long for me to write a post there as it used to and I've got to get out! But where? There is nowhere! So I've spent some months thinking about the Luddites we uber geeks made fun of back in the '80s and '90s -- people who not only were going to miss the Information Superhighway we were building for everyone, but didn't give a shit. Like Amish techies. Unthinkable. (I used to tell people I was Old School. Now I'm just Old. The photo of this shirt will be proof enough. LOL!) 

Just think! Microsoft's Windows OS most of us use, which Bill & his buddy nearly certainly ripped off from -- many think Steve Jobs, but it was more likely Xerox PARC near Stanford -- which is advertised as so advanced & which DOES look, feel & operate light years better than not only Windows 3.1, but good ole DOS. Made by Bill. For IBM, if memory serves me. For those who don't know, here's the kicker: Apple's OS was getting iffy & their increasing ties with Motorola for their microprocessors seemed to ... not go so well. And their market share was shrinking, their stock price was plummeting & vultures waited to pick their metaphorical bones. But fortunately, Apple had fired Steve Jobs just a few years before, & in his revenge he started another computer company called NeXt and had a new OS built that was UNIX-based, an infinitely superior in virtually every way, OS to any consumer OS on the market, including Apple's and Microsoft's DOS. The Apple board recognized a good thing when they saw it, made Jobs an offer he couldn't refuse -- contingent on his bringing his killer OS with him -- and they started producing Macs with that NeXt operating system, again merely another UNIX flavor so if you want to break out the command line and play around with vi in a bash shell, why not? And Microsoft? They panicked when they saw a GUI OS in an alpha version of Windows. That became their number one project at the time. But how? Well, typically of how Microsoft tended to operated back then. Rather than invest in R&D (No Time!) to come up with their own killer OS, they essentially built their new GUI Windows OS on the back of DOS -- which is why computer gamers could still play their DOS games on their new Windows machines. Over time, that knowledge became a near-secret & now it's rarely mentioned. But I find it incredibly ironic that for decades, PC users have used PCs almost exclusively (save for Linux distros more & more often) with a version of the MS Windows operating system, all shiny & new. And sitting on top of an unknown (by the consumers) ancient archaic OS about the same age as the BASIC programming language, which is sort of like buying a Ferrari only to later find it had a Buick engine in it. Well, there's so much more geeking out I could do, but I'm late now, so back to where I was & on to finish...

Well, I talk to some of the old set sometimes and many of us not only feel a bit disillusioned with what has happened to our pathetically idealistic game changer that would allow everyone equal access to education, etc., but indeed, some of us have regrets on occasion. I've even turned so much that I not only occasionally think of the Luddites wistfully, but have been taking very slow steps in that direction, shutting down accounts, sites, getting rid of some computers, mobile phones, routers, etc. We moved nearly two years ago and in our old place we had two dedicated IP gigabit lines running into our house and I was running 10 computers in three offices in our house(!), and at least four of those computers were custom designed and custom built for godawful prices. Yet we had to downsize, my health has gone to hell, and I no longer have the time, space, energy or impetus to repeat what I've done my whole life, so I've been running two iMacs -- one custom designed two and a half years ago -- and a killer

Falcon Northwest MACH V 

that has repeatedly tested out as basically the fastest, most powerful computer beneath a supercomputer (or uber-loaded workstation) there is, on several standard benchmarking tests. And I have an awesome 48" ASUS monitor with the best picture I've ever seen, two high quality printers for this setup alone, and guess what I'm going to (try to) do? I'm nearly finished hacking a fairly new Microsoft Surface Go 2 so that it can accommodate over 20 times the max storage capacity it's supposed to and while there's little I can do now about the chip inside or the RAM -- maybe a bit down the road -- once I get this thing working smoothly, I'm going to replace the massive system worth more than many cars with this little MS Surface Go 2, a pretty nice 27" monitor, change out the audiophile system I had here with something more basic and give her a go! Obviously I know I won't be able to multitask like I always have, but I think I've come close to giving myself heart attacks over the past year and a half by overdoing it on the computers. Hopefully this will help.

Well, I didn't plan on writing what I just wrote, so I don't know what to think. No one knows about, hence reads, new blogs, so I doubt this will even get a hit, but ya gotta start and now I have. It's been a long time since I've been on this platform and while there is something to be admired in Google's minimalism, the near-total lack of directions, documentation, options, etc., will be totally opposite of what I'm used to with WordPress, so I'd welcome advice or suggestions as to how to improve the look and feel of this barren site. Thanks and have a good one! -- DeadAgain