Power Mac

In 1993's So I Married an Axe Murderer Mike Myers' character's father (also played by Myers) has this memorable quote:

Weird names aren't doing you any favors

If you have one of those names that people are always struggling to pronounce, we have some bad news for you. 

Link to the post at Freakonomics.

Guide to Beef

An Interactive Visual Guide to the Common Cuts of Beef

The End of Gridlock?

Ford has finally taken the bold step of agreeing with me. At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Bill Ford Jr described "a growing viewpoint among many auto executives and urbanists"-- intelligent vehicles are the answer to a future with many more cars. There are many exciting projects in the works at Ford and other car companies:  

Gear: Topo Designs

Video: New Danny MacAskill

The Progression

New Hot Sauce

Gindo’s Spice of Life

Advice: Jared Diamond

He's not the most interesting man in the world but he has a beard and he's done a lot of stuff: Jared Diamond on  life.

Another Reading List

TBD: "Army reading list: Good but a bit of  a hole where Iraq and Afghanistan used to be"

How to: Self-Driving Car (Video)

Google's robot car master and AI guru is not waiting for society to get on the autonomous vehicle bandwagon. His next open-source class will teach you how to code an autonomous vehicle. Can Freemium do for cars what it did for Pandora?

Sebastian Thrun Will Teach You How to Build Your Own Self-Driving Car, For Free

Video: Rope Swing

When you're done watching, go to their YouTube page and check out the Slingshot Slip 'n Slide.

We own the night

Small Wars Journal paper: "The Role of Night Direct Action Missions in the Afghan Counterinsurgency Campaign, 2008-2011"

NYT: Iran raid not easy

Iran Raid Seen as a Huge Task for Israeli Jets

Book: All the Money in the World

"How The Happiest People In The World Spend Their Money"

TBD: Afghanistan will be better off

"Why I am more optimistic about Afghanistan than I am about Iraq"

Cut the blue wire

"How I Dismantled the World's Deadliest Weapon"

Handmade kitchen knives

Inotada Knives (as seen on No Reservations: Tokyo)

Browser-generated passwords?

Google is working on a Chrome browser that picks your passwords for you.

Amazing letters from Presidents

MentalFloss has a list of 10 Letters from Presidents. Somehow Lincoln's letter to Mrs Bixby didn't make the list. Maybe the controversy is too strong or the story is too mainstream?

-Bonus trivia: who is the guy in the middle? Hint: "Mr White"

Inside JSOC II

Another post from one of the authors of The Command:

10 Things You Didn't Know About the President's Secret Army

Army Officer

From Yon

Video: more about Robot Cars

news.drive.com.au

This short video from NPR shows how close we are to commuting via autonomous vehicles.

"Sebastian Thrun, who helped build Google's driverless car, narrates a demonstration of the technology."

TBD: Afghanistan Post-US

Will Afghanistan collapse after U.S. troops leave? Maybe, but not why you think

TBD: Google is Watching You

From TBD

Gear: Mission Workshop

Orion from Mission Workshop

Thanks Ben

8 Personal Finance Lessons from Benjamin Franklin

What Economists Do

From Greg Mankiw's Blog

Moving toward a cable-less world

Link

Free Book on the Afghan War

Link to TBD

TBD: Contractors at war

brianbrownewalker.com

An interesting post about military contractors from TBD. I had no idea that "more private contractors died working for the U.S. government in Afghanistan last year than did American soldiers." 

Freakonomics: ball hogs and meeting hogs

espn.com

This post from Freakonomics.com made me think of every Army meeting I've ever sat in.

"If I want you to think I am competent, I need to talk."

If there was a way to block all comments that don't contribute directly to a meeting's intent we would all be much better off. Maybe the stand-up meeting is a start.

Book: inside JSOC

wikipedia.org

Wired's Danger Room has a post from the author of a new ebook about JSOC: The Command

more Rube Goldberg videos

wikipedia.org

more videos of Rube Goldberg machines

Personal digital security for travelers

randomwire.com

Your personal, business, and national data is always at risk but when you travel internationally (China) the threat is immediate. Discover Magazine has a good post on the subject with links (NYTimes)

Videos: Amazing human feats

11 Daredevil Stunts That Pushed Human Limits

Alpha Bike

Inhabitat.com

According to Inhabitat:

A group of five students from the University of Pennsylvania have quite possibly created the world’s most technologically advanced bicycle.

the Rise of the Machines is nigh

Forget Zombies, the rise of the machines is upon us. Find John Connor and head for the Rockies!

Like the T1000, robots are mimicking living things

Like the Skynet drones, UAVs can swarm  

Germany has conducted the first flight of a manned electric multi-copter 

The other links make this orb UAV from Japan seem relatively boring 

Video: Top operator put in his place

WashingtonPost.com

In this video, LTG (retired) James Vaught scolds Admiral McRaven. It is funny but I like McRaven's quick response.

Conventional Wisdom: more lanes are better

economicdisconnect.blogspot.com

On my way to work this morning I heard Mayor Villaraigosa of LA make the following statement on NPR's Morning Edition the Marketplace Morning Report:

"That HOV lane that we will build will relieve the most congested freeway in the United States."

He of course, was talking about the major expansion project on the 405 freeway and the resulting Carmageddon. But I was struck by how such a bold statement could go unquestioned. I didn't think it was accurate so I dug into the interwebs until I found this:

The Real Snowpocalypse

You thought the snow storms of 2010 were bad but the real Snowmageddon actual occurred in Iran in 1972. Imagine 26 feet (yes feet) of snow fall in 5 days. 4,000 people died and 200 villages disappeared.
Maybe this is why Iranian leaders are so cranky.

Netherlands Defence Chief Remarks

This video is worth the 18 minutes. Very well put together argument. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHX5lAslnTc

Video: Rube Goldberg machines

CoolMaterial.com

You will recognize some of these videos.

Autonomous Vehicles

MakeFive.com

You have probably heard about the Google driverless cars or the Audi that raced up Pikes Peak without a driver. 
Autonomous vehicle technology is one of my current obsessions. I have been following it for a while and strongly feel that it is the future. AVs will solve our congestion and public travel problems better than anything else. We are not going to erase individualism and freedom from American culture. And since this is not China, we can't re-purpose the millions of acres of private land that it would take to build a modern national mass transit system. AVs can turn the existing national highway infrastructure into an efficient people moving system that fits the American lifestyle.

GEN Marshall on Iraq

IAUIraq.org

I probably should not be surprised by this but still it is fascinating. Gen Marshall sent a note to President Roosevelt (June 1942) describing the strategic importance of Iraq's Basrah region. The fascinating part comes in when you look at present day. Many people said that Basrah was key terrain in OIF. Iranian influence has always been significant in the region, it was neglected by the US for most of the war, and it was an insurgent safe-haven.

Studying: Context is Everything

According to  Robert Bjork, the director of the UCLA Learning and Forgetting Lab, "Everything you know about learning is wrong"

1. skills need to be learned in context of related skills--not separately

2. learning should be done in varied physical locations (also to add context)

3. study breaks help retention

4. take notes AFTER class instead of during (helps recall)

Laser Guided Bullet

TheEngineer.co.uk

This bullet doesn't spin, has fins, and can change direction in flight. Cool.

More Espionage from China

ChinaLawAndPolicy.com

As I have said, espionage--especially the cyber version--is a unappreciated and growing threat to the US. It might have even compromised the F-35 program.

Books vs E-Books

I've never heard it put this way, but I think it perfectly describes the distinction.

The Atlantic: "Books may be better objects, but E-books are better tools"

Google Skunk Works

Google's X Lab has a new venture: "Solve for X"

Video: new OK Go

New OK Go music video (as seen in the Chevy Super Bowl commercial)

Video: InstaFire

If you need a fire, you need InstaFire.

Mountain Life

Renowned mountain guide Ruedi Beglinger, whose life is the subject of the new documentary A Life Ascending, talks about his off-the-grid lifestyle and the 2003 avalanche that nearly took his life.

In Search of Excellence

I'm pretty sure we read, or at least talked about, Waterman and Peters' book in one of my ECON classes. Apparently it is now "The Most Influential Business Book of the Last 30 Years." It has also made it on to many military reading lists.

On Writing: Descriptive Writing

From The American Scholar:

Flunking Description

Ten Year Old Chemist

PopSci.com

10-Year-Old Accidentally Creates New Molecule in Science Class

Standing is the New Sitting

fitness-programs-for-life.com

Working, Typing, Thinking, and now Meeting; these are all things that you should be doing standing up. Standing is the rave. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence standing up. What is old is new again.

Afghanistan: The Current Fight

LATimes.com

 This article from Foreign Policy does a good job boiling it down.

The problem with this is that if the U.S. Brigade Commander succeeds, he also fails. 

Because in this counterinsurgency, the only way you ever really move towards a "win" is if you enable the Afghans in their efforts to foster security, governance, development and the rule of law in a way that makes their efforts sustainable - meaning that after we leave, the Afghans can secure their gains and hopefully make even more progress.

But to do that, you have to back away and put the ANSF and the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) in the lead. You have to let them feel the weight of the responsibility of success or failure.  You cannot do it for them.

Education Reform: Stanford update

In this interview, Daphne Koller, from Stanford's artificial intelligence lab, talks about the online courses' success.