Marines, chanting:

This is my rifle. There are many like it but this one is mine.

My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.

Without me, my rifle is useless. Without my rifle I am useless.

I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy, who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will.

Before God I swear this creed: my rifle and myself are defenders of my country, we are the masters of my enemy, we are the saviors of my life. So be it, until there is no enemy, but peace.

Amen.

Memorable Quotes from Full Metal Jacket (1987)

If you read two newspaper articles this year, read this one twice.

Contrary to my practice, in deference to the outstanding nature of this essay, I have decided not to quote excerpts, due to the risk that doing so may reduce the probability you will follow the link and read it in its entirety.

A Wretched New Picture Of America

The president appears to have assumed that if anyone were fired, it would be admitting that something went wrong. At this point, there is no one who doesn't know that many things have gone wrong. If the president insists on retaining all of his senior staff, Cabinet members and field commanders, no one is going to draw the conclusion that everything is under control; rather they will conclude that it is the president himself who is responsible for the failures, and they will act accordingly.

The Edge of the Razor

The real Pottery Barn has no such rule.

Powell's Meme

Our preliminary analysis of acoustic emanations from personal computers shows them to be a surprisingly rich source of information on CPU activity.

This fact should be obvious to anyone who's ever tried to make low SNR recordings with a $5 sound card.

Acoustic Cryptanalysis

Alan Kay rocks.

To those that are unfamiliar with the blue plane-pink plane concept, the concept may sound like an optics notion.

Fortunately, the idea is simultaneously more interesting, straightforward and yet complex.

The different planes are used as a visual model to describe the two major "planes", or ways of thinking, existent today.

Let us explore the meaning of the pink plane. It represents a more black and white way of portraying the universe. It declares that things are either right or wrong, they work or fail; it applauds discrete knowledge over reasoning and derivation of concepts. It is a plane of thought where math and science are memorized facts and equations.

The blue plane, on the other hand, can be described as perpendicular to the pink plane. The two planes might coincide on a line, where the same rules apply in the physical universe, and hence results can be the same, however the means is completely different. In this plane of thought, visualization of concepts and creativity can be used to accomplish what is accomplished in the pink plane by trite memorization.

It can be therefore shown that most advancement in any field has been accomplished by thought in the blue plane -- thought that in the pink plane would be deemed impossible or ridiculous.

You might agree, or disagree with the previous statements and arguments and ask, so what's the point of it all?

The questions I seek to answer are:

How can we learn to switch our universe into the blue plane? Can we learn to be "bi-planar" and support both schools of thought?

If the children are being instructed in the pink plane, can we teach them to think in the blue plane and live in a pink-plane society?

What is to become of those of us past schooling, who are aware of these planes? Are we to dredge on with pink shades over our blue eyes? What other choice do we have, become hermits and form our own seceded blue colony?

I have a few questions of my own: If Bush is pink, who is the blue candidate? Has there ever been a blue President? Can there ever be one?

Blue Plane, Pink Plane

Rudy Rucker published a new book in April.

In the year 3003, nothing in the world is the same, except maybe that adolescents are still embarrassed by their parents. Society and the biosphere alike have been transformed by biotechnology, and the natural world is almost gone.

Frek Huggins is a boy from a broken family, a misfit because he's a natural child, conceived without technological help or genetic modifications. His dad, Carb, is a malcontent who left behind Frek’s mom and the Earth itself several years ago.

Everything changes when Frek finds the Anvil, a small flying saucer, under his bed, and it tells him he is destined to save the world. The repressive forces of Gov, the mysterious absolute ruler of Earth, descend on Frek, take away the Anvil, and interrogate him forcefully enough to damage his memory. Frek flees with Wow, his talking dog, to seek out Carb and some answers. But the untrustworthy alien in the saucer has other plans, including claiming exclusive rights to market humanity to the galaxy at large, and making Frek a hero.

Frek and the Elixir is a profound, playful SF epic by the wild and ambitious Rudy Rucker.

... Like every great science fiction novel, "Frek and the Elixir" is really about the present -- about the power of corporations, about media and entertainment, about bioengineering, about quantum mechanics, about your wife or girlfriend, your next-door neighbor, and your boss, and about you, at age twelve, and now.

Frek and the Elixir

Cryptome offers up the much-talked-about Taguba Report for your review.

The official name of the report is: Article 15-6 Investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade.

The Taguba Report

Many experts believe the clock is already ticking, and that America is already fighting a ... Cyberwar!

This PBS Frontline program recently aired on television. You can watch the full program (52 minutes) online in streaming video (QuickTime, Windows Media, Real Player).

cyber war!

"A lot of our business is this nice confluence of our information technology and our international presence," Cofoni said.

This might be an interesting contract to follow, if it weren't for the fact that the CPA has only a month to live ...

Computer Systems Spur Growth for Contractors