Periodic Table of Terrorist Groups

Gun Trusts

"A growing number of shooting enthusiasts are creating legal trusts to acquire machine guns, silencers or other items whose sale is restricted by federal law — a mechanism that bypasses the need to obtain law enforcement approval or even undergo criminal background checks..."

NYT

Groupthink in the Administration

"Over the weekend, two writers coming from very different backgrounds expressed concerns about the tone and makeup of the Obama national security team..."

Worries spread about the narrowness of President Obama’s national security team

Rise of the machines

Whoa: Quadrotors Play Catch With Inverted Pendulum

Real World Sniper assassination

Crazy...

Sniper Executes a Police Chief of Nuevo Leon with a .50 Caliber Rifle

Coffee brewing guide

"The question is, what type of coffee rig is right for you? We’ve compiled the facts, the pros, and the cons here so you can get in the home brew game or upgrade your existing tools. The hardest part might be narrowing it down to just one final choice. That one’s on you, brew master."

Google Glass

The future is now?

Duffel Blog Win

If you are so self-important that you believe it is your job to personally ferret-out government conspiracies, you deserve to be humiliated in the national press--and this blog.

"A must-read for national-security nerds — and anyone who enjoys humor, really — [The Duffel Blog] provides pitch-perfect military parody online, such as this piece about Syria hosting Iraq War reenactors (bylined by “G-Had”) or this one about a Google Street View Prius getting blown up in Kandahar. The Duffel Blog, as dutiful readers know, is America’s oldest online source for fake military news, founded in 1797 in a moment of farsightedness. It often gives more real talk than most legit journalistic institutions, but there is no way you can confuse it with the real news.

Unless you are a senior member of the United States Senate.

On November 14, 2012, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wrote to Elizabeth King, the Pentagon’s congressional liaison, with a an unusually credulous query. “I am writing on behalf of a constituent who has contacted me regarding Guantanamo Bay prisoners receiving Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits,” McConnell wrote in a letter acquired by Danger Room. “I would appreciate your review and response to my constituent’s concerns.”"

Awesome.

3Doodler

"The very affordable pen could open new vistas for 3-D creation."

A 3-D Printing Pen Wows Kickstarter

National Purpose?

David S. F. Portree in Wired:

"Over the weekend I tweeted, somewhat provocatively, that the purpose of the British Empire was to enable Darwin to write and publish Origin of Species. Obviously this is a tongue-in-cheek statement, not meant to be taken entirely seriously. For one thing, it’s science-chauvinist, for it ignores all other kinds of accomplishments. Like many such statements, however, it has serious underpinnings. It addresses an important question, one that I believe all societies should ask of themselves on a regular basis. Boiled down, it can be stated as, “by what deed(s) will we be remembered?”"

The Purpose of the United States

Can you trust an Amazon review?

"Reviewers are gaming the system at Amazon and elsewhere for mischief, politics, and profit"

Smart Grid advancements

"Indisputably, technologies integrating digital communications and computing into power system infrastructure were materializing much more slowly than their proponents had predicted, and measurable benefits were hard to find. But if the darkest is just before dawn, as the saying goes, then perhaps now the smart grid may at last be coming over the horizon..."

New Dawn for Smart Grid?

Nissan Leaf Robot

“We are working on a low-cost ‘auto drive’ navigation system, that doesn’t depend on GPS, done with discreet sensors that are getting cheaper all the time. It’s easy to imagine that this kind of technology could be in a car you could buy,” Professor Paul Newman, the project’s co-leader, said in a statement..."

Oxford researchers modify Nissan Leaf for cheaper autonomous car

Comedy: Generals talking about adaptability

"Seriously, watching today's generals discuss how to improve leadership development is a little like watching dinosaurs discuss how to evolve"

Why doesn’t the Army just order its officers to be more creative and adaptive?

Supertall Buildings

Engineering advances have architects striving for the mile-high skyscraper. 

PopSci: The Rise Of The Supertalls

 

Drone attacks

In defense of Obama’s drone war

$1Billion Whale

"A former mayor of San Diego spent the last decade wagering more than a billion dollars at casinos across the country, eventually liquidating her savings, auctioning her belongings, selling off real estate, borrowing from friends and taking more than $2 million from a charity set up by her late husband, a fast-food tycoon..."

San Diego Ex-Mayor Confronts $1 Billion Gambling Problem

Clayton Christensen agrees with me

Harvard business professor and best-selling author Clayton Christensen agrees with me. Coincidence? I think not.

“You know, Harvard Business School doesn’t teach accounting anymore, because there’s a guy out of BYU whose online accounting course is so good. He is extraordinary, and our accounting faculty, on average, is average. Some [universities] will survive. Most will evolve hybrid models, in which universities license some courses from an online provider like Coursera but then provide more-specialized courses in person.”

Clay Christensen: First the media gets disrupted, then comes the education industry

War is keeping the Army from Armying

It saddens me to hear that the Army is clawing its way back to pre-2001 priorities. I was hoping that my observations were outliers and unrepresentative of the whole.

"The entire intent of being a professional soldier is going to war and destroying the enemy. What most of us in the military have trained for -- and done -- several times. Yes, there were a lot of growing pains over the last decade, especially learning what was most important to accomplish this task. We learned: Shooting, first aid, cultural lessons -- important! Haircuts, hands in pockets, pressing uniforms? Not that important..."

TBD:Where is the garrison Army going? I worry it is heading back to spit and polish, while ignoring hard lessons of the last decade

Econ Humor

"Susan, we need to talk. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. About us. I really like you, but ever since we met in that econ class in college I knew there was something missing from how I felt: quantitative reasoning. We can say we love each other all we want, but I just can’t trust it without the data. And after performing an in-depth cost-benefit analysis of our relationship, I just don’t think this is working out.
Please know that this decision was not rash. In fact, it was anything but—it was completely devoid of emotion. I just made a series of quantitative calculations, culled from available OECD data on comparable families and conservative estimates of future likelihoods. I then assigned weights to various “feelings” based on importance, as judged by the relevant scholarly literature. From this, it was easy to determine that given all of the options available, the winning decision on both cost-effectiveness and comparative-effectiveness grounds was to see other people."

 It’s Not You, It’s the Data

 

PopSci on Bad Bosses

"When employees experiences vicarious abuse it detracts from their relationship with the organization as a whole, because they see that the company as allowing such negative treatment to exist."

Second-hand Abuse

GigaOM on Connected Autos

The connected car of the future (infographic)

more on Military Retention

Tim Kane has emerged as the number one fan of military personnel management reform. Here is his latest commentary.

"In truth, military officers are only volunteers for one day: the day they sign up. Afterwards, they’re treated with the same kind of inflexible, coercive management that has defined militaries since history began. No electronic “job boards” list openings for the thousands of available jobs in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. No junior officers know where their next job assignment will be, or if it will fit with their interests, strengths and talents. And no commanders are trusted to directly hire the subordinates they feel their teams need..."

 How to lose great leaders? Ask the Army

Ping Pong Gun

Watch A Ping-Pong Ball Break The Sound Barrier, And Then A Ping-Pong Paddle

the Most Interesting Man in the World

Mystery Spy Theater 3000?

You can see the video of the American Enterprise Institute's event Watching 'Zero Dark Thirty' with the CIA here.
Or you can read a summary of the event here. Teaser:

"Former CIA director Michael Hayden led the panel. He was joined by Jose Rodriguez, who ran the agency’s National Clandestine Service, and John Rizzo, who served as the CIA’s chief legal officer. The stories they told, and the reasons they offered, shook up my assumptions about the interrogation program. They might shake up yours, too. Here’s what they said..."

I suggest both.