Tag: change

Categories
Education Reading Vietnam War

Pentagon Papers Part IV-C6c

I feel that the opening pages of Volume III: 1965–1967 US Ground Strategy and Force Deployments is a telling example of why we lost Vietnam.  One cannot help notice that we were way off the mark regarding the enemy in this volume.

Pentagon PapersWe relied upon technology to fight when behind the scenes we knew the political structure of the South Vietnamese government would never succeed, their desertion rate was rising and constant turnover of leaders weakened their moral. Yet we continued to support the South because of the risk (at the time) attributed to the domino effect regarding communism in Asia and the Cold War relationship with the Soviet Union:

The friendly picture gives rise to optimism for increased successes in 1968. In 1967, our logistics base and force structure permitted us to assume a fully offensive posture…A greatly improved intelligence system frequently enabled us to concentrate our superior military assets in preempting enemy military initiatives leading us to decisive accomplishments in conventional engagements. Materiel and tactical innovations have been further developed and employed: Long range reconnaissance patrols, aerial reconnaissance sensors, new observation aircraft, air-mobile operations and the Mobile Riverine Force (MRF), to name a few.

The MRF has been significantly successful in depriving the enemy of freedom and initiative in the population and resources rich Delta areas. The helicopter has established itself as perhaps the single most important tool in our arsenal — and we will welcome more.

While the helicopter may have won the day in the Ia Drang Valley at LZ X-Ray bad command decisions to not to use helicopters led to an ambush for those remaining troops walking from LZ X-Ray to LZ Albany, about 4 kilometers to the north-northeast. I’m no longer convinced about the accuracy of the report are concerning Tet:

The enemy’s TET offensive, which began with the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Saigon on 31 January 1968, although it had been predicted, took the U.S. command and the U.S. public by surprise, and its strength, length, and intensity prolonged this shock.

Predicted? The Pentagon Paper’s acknowledge the Tet offensive had been predicted.

Really?

Its safe to assume IV-C6c will reveal more problems with Clark Clifford as the newly installed Secretary of Defense.

Categories
Design Education Globalization Innovation Milwaukee Reading Tablet Technology

Will printed books remain relevant in the future?

Milwaukee radio station 620am WTMJ broadcast a segment regarding ebooks last week.  I finally got around to blogging about it today.  The segment was titled: Will printed books remain relevant in the future?  Book/library aficionado/blogger Paul Everett Nelson joins WAN at 4:34pm.

While the discussion was simple and well targeted to their audience there is certainly more to this story.  I understand the limited time allocated to radio segments — its Milwaukee’s WTMJ – not NPR.

My own experience and love of reading drew me to think deeper about the discussion of the publishing industry and their new demand to charge libraries unbeliveable fees.Some believe the publishing industry has been decimated in the internet age like the music industry.  Not sure that I completely agree with this statement.  A well run publishing business should be able to make significantly more profit from selling ebooks.  But in order to be successful the publishing industry must cannibalize itself.

One of the points of discussion is a rather draconian sales policy ebook publishers have demanded. They are changing their Terms  by actually charging libraries to repurchase (at full price no less) any ebook checked out more than 25 times. Yes you read that correctly – publishers plan to force every library that checks out an ebook 25 times to re-purchase the ebook at full price.

When exactly did those same publishers force those same libraries to purchase additional hardback copies of their books at full price after they were checked out 25 times?  Never, since the idea is just asinine.

Imaging a cable company requiring you to purchase a new cable package after watching 25 TV shows. Yep – now you know how stupid — or simply greed — is driving this decision.

Ever see a stack of 500 books on a shipping pallet?   Consider all the costs for print, assembly and shipping.  Add costs to distribute those books to bookstores and big box resellers….that is an expensive and time consuming process.  Oh yea…want it fast? — then pay extra for overnight shipping. Remember those books are only available during business hours.

Continue reading “Will printed books remain relevant in the future?”
Categories
Education Reading Vietnam War

Pentagon Papers update

This is taking a bit longer than originally planned.  I’m almost at the half way point of the Pentagon Papers’ 7,000+ pages.  My somewhat stale blog is always due to life getting in the way …. but I became stalled around page 1,009 (volume 4: B-3) which addressed the Gulf of Tonkin shortly after the assassination of Presidents Ngo Dihn Diem and John Kennedy.

Pentagon PapersAs I approach page 3,500 and reading about actions 40 years ago, I cannot convey how sad this is for America.  The loss of life in a war against communism (today we can realize) was doomed from the beginning. Consistently ignored by Washington and every President from FDR to Nixon lied through their teeth to protect US interests during the Cold War.

Interesting to look at the title “US – Vietnam relations 1945 – 1967” clearly the early volumes indicate before the end of World War II the US sent money and arms to the Viet Minh — yes the Viet Minh.

In 1960 the Viet Minh changed their name to the National Liberation Front (NLF) aka Viet Cong.   So FDR and the US gave money and arms to Ho Chí Minh for one year…however we reversed course, backed the South Vietnamese and welcomed the quagmire that cost 53,000 American lives.  I hope to be done in January 2012.

Categories
Design Education Globalization Innovation Reading Technology

Looking forward to reading

After reading Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die and Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything I have been following the Heath brothers and Don Tapscott’s work online and in the blogosphere.  Both have followup books to their initial bestsellers. Its going to be great reading.

reading

Categories
Cyberinfrastructure Design Education Globalization Innovation Internet2 Network Technology

Internet2: Arthron – A Tool for Video Streaming Remote Management in Artistic Performances Experiences

Arthron was concept for experiences in the domain of Art and Technology. Arthron facilities include its simple user interface and the manipulation of different media sources. Users can remotely add, remove and configure the presentation format as well as schedule the media streaming during an artistic performance.
i2banner
Arthron is composed by six components described as follow. The Articulator is responsible for the remote management. This component concentrates a great part of the Arthron functionalities, such as stream scheduling (manual or automatic), network monitoring and measurement, remote configuration of other modules, access control, web page automatic generation for online publication, video effects, and communication tools. The Encoder is responsible for capturing and encoding (when necessary) of media source, which can be external (DV or HDV camera, DVD) or internal (a local file). The Decoder’s main functionality is to decode and display the media stream in a specific device (monitor, projector, etc). The Reflector is responsible for the replication and redistribution of media streaming over the network.

The VideoServer component is able to transcoding media streaming that will be published online. This component is also responsible for working with flv, ogg and h264 formats. The MapManager controls and displays the interactive map of Arthron components. MapManager offers to users an overview of the geographical distributed locations of Arthron components.