I read about war. It’s always been an interest; now it also counts as professional development.
I recommend Losing the War by Lee Sandlin to anyone who shares an interest in armed conflict.
I disagree with one aspect of his work: he believes that Japan would have surrendered within weeks even without the use of atomic [...]
Most of what I have to say is simple repetition of others. Still, this much at least is original: while the new restrictions remain in effect, I will not fly commercial air in the US.
I will not succumb to an atmosphere of paranoia in which I am required to keep my hands visible, my lap [...]
It’s about time for me to build a new computer. I last did so last time I wintered in Asia, and it’s been a few years since then. The rig that blew games out of the water back then only plays them hesitantly now. Luckily, constructing a new computer is a lot easier now than [...]
Civilian Commercial:
Seoul Incheon: not actually very remarkable. It’s a big modern airport very much like many other big modern airports. It’s not ideally designed: it requires walking maybe 1500 meters from one end to the other, for military arrivals at least. Still, its linear design means it is at least simple. Also, free internet and [...]
My first contact with the program triggered all my phishing alerts: an unexpected email purporting to be from a trusted source asked for personal information. I’d have rejected it out of hand, but I do expect to fly as a passenger on commercial air soon and I’d rather not be turned back at the gate [...]
I recently encountered an childhood friend. We started talking politics, and it turns out that our thoughts politically have developed in very different directions. In keeping with the grand tradition of proxy war, we each agreed to choose a book for the other to read and comment on. He told me to read Liberty and [...]
I’m halfway through Anna Karenina now. Like most people who ever had a high school English course, I tend to be wary of big famous novels by big famous authors, but I’m actually finding it surprisingly accessible. It certainly helps that I’ve got a modern translation, but I suspect that even with an older one [...]
Incheon International Airport has nothing to distinguish it from any other major airport I have ever been to. For the first 100 yards out of the airplane, I didn’t even see a single character of Hangul–everything, including the advertisements, was purely in English.
The bus ride from the airport to the inprocessing station took us past [...]
Let’s not even mention the modern notion of a copyright pirate for a moment. That’s a distraction, a reduction of the word. A pirate is a desperate person who attacks ships either to capture their inherent worth or to ransom them and their crews. It’s cropping up again, off Somalia. This most recent batch has [...]
“A RESOLUTION affirming States’ rights based on Jeffersonian principles“
Key points:
whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force
all acts of Congress which assume to create, define, or punish crimes, other than those so enumerated in the Constitution are altogether void
to take from the States all the powers [...]