PowerPointSamurai

My Reading Queue:

Books in my queue to read, and status if I'm already into them.

1. Ethics-Frankena-100%
2. War Law-100%
3. Moneyball-100%
4. Young Men and Fire-85%
5. Primer on Theory Construction
6. Selected Writings of Mao Ze-Dong-100%
7. Roots of Strategy: The Five Greatest Classics of All Time--Phillips ~35%
8. Methods of Operations Research--Kimball & Morse ~5%
9. The Makers of Modern Strategy: Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age--37%
10. Rising Above the Gathering Storm, National Science Foundation--printed and reviewed
11. Age of Propaganda: The Use and Abuse of Everyday Persuasion ~37%
12. Visual Display of Quantitative Information--Tufte
13. $mart Power--Kemp

On My Reading List

Winning the Oil End Game is a very good book, but Lovins and his teams have some really mistaken and fallacious thinking about nuclear energy, and some of his math is kind of fast and loose--it's going to take me a long time to confirm everything I read, because I don't really buy some of his conclusions.

On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War is a fantastic book that really helps you understand not just the Vietnam War, but counter-insurgency in Clausewitz's terms.

The World is Flat is an extremely good book which sheds a lot of light on globalization and the need for this country to get its act together quickly. It also demonstrates that globalization and greater wealth creation around the world can improve the standard of living and liberty for everyone, not just us.

My Favorite Podcasts

I listen to > 14 hours of podcasts a week. These are some of the ones I regularly subscribe to.

As of 2247 Central Time 11FEB07 I've listened to 1510 podcasts at 25.2 days playing time.

I subscribe via iTunes, and it is very easy to find these there. I will post the url's later if anyone is interested and do not not use iTunes. These are in no particular order, but I would really recommend the "amateur" podcasts, such as TPN: Atomic" or Military History, or theWatt. Some of the "big media" podcasts may be more polished, but the "amateurs" have the advantage of starting from scratch. NPR: Science Friday'', for example, has an annoying tendency to stretch out or cut short discussions and interviews to fit their radio timeslot. The others go as needed.

Science

New Scientist podcast of New Scientist magazine

Science Talk podcast of Scientific American magazine

The Naked Scientists--the same people who do the Nature podcast--more for a general audience, including kids (despite the implication of the title)

Nature podcast, Nature magazine

Planetary Radio, podcast of the Planetary Society

Absolute Science, Mignon Fogarty

Science Update podcast by AAAS, the Science Society

CBC Radio--Quirks and Quarks (segmented version)

MAKE Magazine

NPR: Science Friday, podcast of the weekly radio show

Science Fiction

Battlestar Galactica Enhanced Podcast, director comments for the new Battlestar Galactica series

Galactica Actual--fan podcast on new Battlestar Galactica

Energy

theWatt podcast--on energy and efficiency

TPN: Atomic aka the Atomic Show--Rod Adams and Shane Brown, predominantly discussions on nuclear energy

This Week in Nuclear--John Wheeler

Inside Renewable Energy podcast, Steven Lacey, sponsored by Sharp Solar

History and Current Events

Military History podcast, by George Hageman, sponsored by Armchair General magazine

Instapundit.com v2

Freedom Journal Iraq video podcast--news from Multi-National Forces in Iraq

British History 101

The History Network

Platos Republic [sic] (an excellent reading of Plato's Republic)

12 Byzantine Rulers

Periodicals

Scientific American

Macworld--I have been a subscriber to Mac User since about 1994, and hence to Macworld after they bought it

Joint Forces Quarterly

Parameters

Military Review

Armor Magazine

Articles and Essays

Petroleum, Oil, and Energy

War Without Oil: A Catalyst For True Transformation, by Michael J. Hornitschek, Lt Col, USAF Air War College

Addicted to Oil: Strategic Implications of American Oil Policy by CDR Thomas D. Kraemer, Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College

Breaking the Tether of Fuel, by Naval Research Advisory Committee, Future Fuels Study Panel at Military Review

Energy and Force Transformation, Scott C. Buchanan, at Joint Forces Quarterly

Is a Hybrid Worth It?, by Brandon Hansen at OmniNerd

Climate Change

''Global Climate Change: National Security Implications, by Dr. Douglas V. Johnson, II. at the US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute

National Security and the Threat of Climate Change,

Counter-Insurgency and the Roots of the Al Qaeda

Al Qaeda As Insurgency, by USMC Lt. Col. Michael F. Morris, at Joint Forces Quarterly

The British Army and Counterinsurgency: The Salience of Military Culture, Lt. Col. Robert M. Cassidy, U.S. Army at Military Review

The Origins of al Qaeda's Ideology: Implications for U.S. Strategy, by Christopher Henzel at Parameters

Al Qaeda's Strategic Evolution, by Will Waddell at OmniNerd

Qutbism: An Ideology of Islamic-Fascism, by Dale C. Eikmeier at Parameters

Origins of US Political Philosophy

Leviathan--Thomas Hobbes

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding--John Locke

Of Civil Government--John Locke

Favorite TV Shows

(in rough chronological order)

G-Force (aka Battle of the Planets, aka Gatchaman)

Starblazers (aka Space Battleship Yamato)

Magnum PI

Doctor Who (especially Doctor #5)

Robotech (aka Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada'')--it all begins when an alien battlefortress crashes on Earth in 1999 in the midst of a global civil war. We realize that it won't be long before they come back to retrieve it and set aside our differences to learn the technology, repair the ship, and defend ourselves.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Tour of Duty--about a US Army platoon in Vietnam

Babylon 5--Earth loses a devastating war with an advanced civilization, who paradoxically surrenders on the eve of victory. We set up a diplomatic outpost where different alien species can meet to work out their differences, and lots of intrigue results.

Firefly--Brilliant Western/Chinese Sci Fi hybrid, where humans leave Earth after it's used up to find other places to live. Unlike Star Trek, we haven't solved all of our societal problems. The inner planets are wealthy and cosmopolitan, the outer rim planets are poor and rustic. It's not just because the alliance is corrupt or greedy either, the rustic ones value their independance. Enter the very independant crew of the Firefly, who just try to get by and try to stay below the Alliance RADAR.

Star Trek: Enterprise

Jericho--terrorists set off nuclear weapons in major US cities and Jericho, Kansas is isolated from the rest of the world in the aftermath

Battlestar Galactica --the new BSG. This series bears little resemblance to the 1970's predecessor. Humans created the Cylons and they turned on us. Our own defense systems devastated human civilization and the ~45k survivors carry out an exodus and seek refuge on the legendary, long lost 13th Colony of Man, Earth. Some of the survivors begin to despair and think Earth is a myth. Questions are raised about the attack and about collaborators among them as sabotage and civil-military strife threatens to divide or destroy the last remaining humans. Meanwhile, the Cyclons ruthlessly pursue them are determined to extinguish the human race to ensure we never return for revenge.

BOINC Projects

BOINC is the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing. It's an open source project for volunteer desktop grid computing. In essence, it turns the idle processor cycles of millions of internet-connected volunteer computers into a supercomputer to run various projects. I run the following:

1. SETI@home--analyzes radio telescope data using signal processing algorithms in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)
2. Einstein@home--searches for spinning neutron stars (aka pulsars) using data from the LIGO and GEO gravitational wave detectors
3. Rosetta@home--simulates the folding of protiens, RNA, etc. to determine their possible 3D shapes to ultimately find cures for major human diseases, such as Malaria, cancer, Alzheimers, HIV, etc.

Other projects I would like to run, but cannot, include Malariacontrol.net to help find cures for Malaria and to optimize Malaria control measures. It only runs on Windows. LHC@home helps run simulations for the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, which will require MASSIVE computational capabilities to deal with the data.

My Computers

~1987-Apple ][gs: codenamed "Merlin". Used Apple DOS and GSOS, and began programming in BASIC, Pascal

1989-Vax VMS mainframe and UNIX mainframes by dialing in via Apple ][gs terminal emulation software or "dumb terminals" at the lab. I used UNIX and VMS and began programming in FORTRAN. Also introduced to Mac OS 6 and 7, DOS, and Windows 3.1

1994-Epson 486 laptop, ActionNote 4SLC/33: codenamed "Excalibur". Ran Windows 3.1

1995-IBM ThinkPad 701CS: codenamed "Vader". The partitioned hard drives were named "Anduril", "Excalibur", "Durandal" and "Aegis". Ran OS/2, Windows 3.1, Windows95 and WindowsNT. Learned a little C, C++, and Java.

1998-Apple PowerMac G3, 233: codenamed "Beowulf". Additional hard drive had partitions named "Obiwan", "CPT Miller" (from Saving Private Ryan), and "Qui Gon Jinn". Ran Mac OS 8 and 9, and OS X. Also introduced to Linux, Windows 2000 around this time. Began working with SQL stuff and MS Access databases (easy for others to maintain after I leave).

2003-Apple PowerMac G5: codenamed "Gandalf"--additional hard drive "Aragorn"--Mac OS X. Also used Windows XP, UNIX, etc.

2006-Apple MacBookPro, "Hooke" (I also strongly debated naming it Leibniz/Newton because it has a dual processor). I've resurrected the partitioned hard drive named Obiwan/CPT Miller/Qui Gon Jinn as an external USB hard drive. Runs OS X 10.4, and also Windows98 via Parallels (I could run any Intel based OS, and am considering making an OS/2 and Linux partition, but can't justify it with a solid reason)

I've also messed around with Commodore64s and Amigas at friends' houses.