“War hasn’t been profitable for decades”

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I recently read Halting State by Charles Stross. It’s science fiction (for lack of a better description) set in 2012 (in Scotland and/or cyberspace). You can read the description on Amazon. A couple of paragraphs have been haunting me for a few days. Not sure they’ll make much sense out of context, but I include them here for future reference:

“This is the twenty-first century, and we’re in the developed world. You’re probably thinking wars are something that happen in third-world shit-holes a long way away. And to a degree, you’d be right. Modern warfare is capital-intensive, and it hasn’t really been profitable for decades; it was already a marginal proposition back in 1939 when Hitler embarked on his pan-European asset-stripping spree — his government would have been bankrupt by March 1940 if he hadn’t invaded Poland and france — and it’s even worse today. When the Americans tried it in Iraq, they spent nine times the value of the country’s entire oil reserves conquering a patch of desert full of  — sorry, I’m rambling. Pet hobby-horse. But anyway: Back in the eighteenth century, von Clauswitz was right about war being the continuation of diplomacy by other means. But today, in the twenty-first, the picture’s changed. It’s all about enforcing economic hegemony, which is maintained by broadcasting your vision of how the global trade system should be structured. And what we’re facing is a real headache — a three-way struggle to be the next economic hegemon.”

Who is we? That’s the question you’re asking yourself…

” ‘We,’ for these purposes, is the intellectual property regime we live in — call it the European System. The other hegemonic candidates are the People’s Republic of China, and India. American isn’t in play — they’ve only got about three hundred and fifty million people, and once we finish setting up the convergence criteria for Russian accession to the Group of Thirty, the EU will be over seven hundred. China and India are even bigger. More to the point, the USA went post-industrial first. Their infrastructure is out-of-date and replacing it, now oil is no longer cheap, is costing them tens of trillions of euros to modernize. Plus, they’ve got all those rusty aircraft carriers to keep afloat. It’s exactly the same problem Britain faced in the 1930s, the one that ultimately bankrupted the empire. But today, our infrastructure –Europe’s– is in better shape, and the eastern states are even newer. They went post-industrial relatively recently, so their network infrastructure is almost as new as the shiny new stuff in Shanghai and New Delhi. So there’s this constant jockeying for position between three hyperpowers while the USA takes time out.”

Shoestring video production

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My colleague David produced a 2 minute video for one of our clients recently. His post provides the background. I like the piece because a) it illustrates how easy and inexpensive it is to produce video and b) it effectively tells the story (public health program, in this instance).

David shot the video with a small, consumer-grade still camera (with video setting) and edited with iMovie 08. I should note this was David’s first try and he did it while watching a World Series game.

Any company that has “communication” in their name, better have some people capable of producing a video like this. I have a hunch we’ll wind up doing a lot of these for current and future clients.

Man kills wife with ceramic candy dish

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“A (Wisconsin) man accused of murdering his wife told a jury today that he shoved a ceramic candy dish down her throat so she would shut up — but he didn’t mean to kill her. Patrick Zurkowski of Spencer also says his wife, June, attacked him with a paring knife.

The 40-year-old Zurkowski is charged with first-degree intentional homicide in the March 2006 death of his wife.

An autopsy determined June Zurkowski had been beaten and suffocated after pieces of an Easter bunny-shaped plate were lodged in her throat. Prosecutors say Zurkowski killed his wife of 3 and a half years after an argument over money.

Zurkowski testified for about two hours this afternoon and was the only defense witness called as the trial winds down.” [WCCN Radio]

Marshall Wilson: Happy iPhoner

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Iphone150I’ve known Marhall Wilson since he and Barb started working together at the same law firm (Marshall has recently moved on). If I had to guess, I’d say he’d be better at fixing a broken generator than partitioning a hard drive. I don’t think he’s goofy for gadgets like many of my acquaintances.

So when I heard he’d purchased and iPhone, I was curious about his experience to-date:

I carried a Treo for several years. The Treo was my introduction into
“smart phones.”  I was instantly hooked on the mobile email and internet
access. Following the recent death of my Treo 650, I purchased a Blackberry Curve.  I was unsatisfied with the screen size and quality. I missed the touch screen feature, and I never became comfortable with the “roller ball” navigation.

I was hesitant about the iPhone because (a) I do not need or use an iPod, and (b) I had read that the iPhone wasn’t well suited for “business” use.  The screen quality plus the way the different applications worked together was the big seller for me.

I purchased my iPhone on the 20th (I’m writing this on Thursday the 25th) so it is still new to me. I am thrilled with it.  Our computer tech guy set it up so that the device will reach out and retrieve my emails every 15 minutes.  This is more than satisfactory for me.  The screen is just stunning.  The following are some of the pros and cons
in my opinion and in my limited experience:

  • Pro:  did I mention that the screen quality is stunning?  Viewing videos, photos, and websites is a pleasure.
  • Pro:  I love the built-in Google maps with the satellite photos.  The
    clarity of the screen, with the easy zooming in and scrolling around
    make the map feature fun as well as useful.
  • Con: no GPS.
  • Pro: safari, the web browser, is great.  Being able to open 2 or 3 or
    ?? Web pages at a time is great.  It is happy to show you the whole
    page (too small to read) and then zoom in to whatever field you wish.
  • Pro: the way it will switch from vertical to horizontal mode while viewing photos or the internet is great.
  • Con:  If you take a photo vertically, you can get whiplash trying to
    rotate the device to look at it sideways because it will automatically
    adjust itself to the new orientation.  Perhaps there is a way to lock
    out the rotation, but I haven’t found it yet.
  • Con: the internet reception in my house is worse than with the Treo or
    Blackberry, although phone reception in the same location seems fine.
  • Pro: Out in the real world, internet pages load plenty fast enough for me.
  • Con: the virtual keyboard is as bad as you’ve read about, although I’m
    learning.  I wouldn’t want to “have” to be typing lengthy emails all
    day.
  • Con: no zoom or video on the camera, although I never used the Treo’s video camera all that much.

Overall, I love it, and I haven’t even utilized the music piece of it. The phone, internet, email and text messaging features are as good as or better than the Treo or Blackberry. Having YouTube, Google Maps, and a simple weather site resident on the device is great fun. Having only 1 button is plenty. I should also mention that the screen is really impressive.

Newspaper’s Internet radio station streaming fire coverage

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“The San Diego Union-Tribune’s site SignOn San Diego offers a streaming Internet radio station, SignOn Radio. Today they’ve been supplying steady coverage of the fires, including phoned-in live reports from area residents and people following the story from other regions. News staff are manning the radio, taking calls. It seems like they’re doing a pretty good job of applying journalistic judgment to both official information and call-ins.” [E-Media Tidbits]

I’m listening to the SignOn Radio stream on iTunes. W is stumbling through a press conference. I think he actually said, “I’m from the federal government and we’re here to help you.”

They just broke for AP headlines. I keep looking at the MacBook to remind myself I’m listening to “radio” from a newspaper. Spooky. I remember boasting that only “radio” could really cover this kind of story.