MORAL: Many a plan has just one flaw: No one has the courage to try it.

To Bell The Cat

From the Report:

Achieving Net-Centricity

The Vision Thing: Harnessing the power of information connectivity defines net-centricity. By enabling critical relationships between organizations and people, the Department is able to accelerate the speed of business processes, operational decision-making and subsequent actions.

Achieving the full potential of net-centricity requires viewing information as an enterprise asset to be shared and as a weapon system to be protected.

The foundation for net-centric operations is the Global Information Grid (GIG), a globally interconnected, end-to-end set of trusted and protected information networks. The GIG optimizes the processes for collecting, processing, storing, disseminating, managing and sharing information within the Department and with other partners.

What To Do: To move closer toward this vision and build on progress to date, the Department will:

* Strengthen its data strategy -- including the development of common data lexicons, standards, organization, and categorization -- to improve information sharing and information assurance, and extend it across a multitude of domains, ranging from intelligence to personnel systems.

* Increase investment to implement the GIG, defend and protect information and networks and focus research and development on its protection.

* Develop an information-sharing strategy to guide operations with Federal, state, local and coalition partners.

* Shift from Military Service-focused efforts toward a more Department-wide enterprise net-centric approach, including expansion of the Distributed Common Ground System.

* Restructure the Transformational Satellite (TSAT) program to "spiral develop" its capabilities and re-phase launches accordingly, and add resources to increase space-based relay capacity.

* Develop an integrated approach to ensure alignment in the phasing and pacing of terminals and space vehicles.

* Develop a new bandwidth requirements model to determine optimal network size and capability to best support operational forces.

Quadrennial Defense Review 2006 - Report

This isn't nearly as expansive as OpenCourseWare, but the iTunes integration is a nice touch.

* Download faculty lectures, interviews, music and sports.
* Play audio on your iPod, Mac or PC, or burn a CD.
* Stay Connected anytime anywhere.
* Experience Stanford on iTunes today and continue learning with Stanford.

For now, at least, all of the content is free.

Stanford on iTunes

Do Your Part!

Women are severely underrepresented in the engineering profession. Research shows that girls and young women lose interest in subjects and the fields of study leading to engineering careers long before they enter college.

Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day

Proposals by President Bush in his 2006 State of the Union address to improve training of science teachers, increase federal funding for basic research, and enhance the climate for private investment in R&D are "necessary to preserve America’s high standard of living and its national and economic security," says a statement from the presidents of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine. The Bush administration’s proposals embrace many of the findings in the Academies’ report Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future.

It's interesting that no one mentioned this in the discussion about Bush's address, considering how Rising Above The Gathering Storm was received here upon its publication:

Ultimately, going down this road is simply going to further drive our downward spiral in this regard.

The Academies presidents disagree:

We applaud President Bush's announcement of the American Competitiveness Initiative in his State of the Union address. This initiative is an important step in what we hope will be a multiyear bipartisan commitment to enhance the nation's innovation system. The Academies' recent report points toward solutions and helped to inform President Bush's initiative.

Be sure to check out the figure that shows how the federal government invented the iPod.

However, the Academies do hedge a bit in their conclusion, apparently trying to stem the enthusiasm:

The challenges America faces do not lend themselves to overnight fixes or simple answers. Achieving these goals will require a long-term, bipartisan commitment from a broad range of people working together -- including scientists, engineers, health professionals, educators, politicians, and industry leaders. We stand ready to offer policymakers our help as the country tackles these complex issues.

Enjoy this hard-hitting AP coverage:

The president's motorcade drove down Innovation Drive to visit a 3M business and graphics laboratory where a sign read "3M Innovation." The president and first lady Laura Bush saw a 77-ton diamond turning machine that uses measurements used in nanotechnology, which is in dimensions 10 times smaller than the human hair.

Finally, a typically off-the-cuff Presidential quote:

"The role of our government is to create an environment in which the entrepreneur can flourish, in which minds can expand, in which technologies can reach new frontiers." – President George W. Bush, May 2001

Academies' Presidents Applaud 'American Competitiveness Initiative'

I do think I understand marketing and public relations, and I am astounded by the naivete of young people — black and white — who actually buy the canned rebelliousness not just of rap music but of most pop music.

It's all such an obvious con game. We hear so much about how kids today are cynical, skeptical, media-savvy and so forth. But if they're buying this hooey, they're idiots.

Want to be a real rebel? Read a book.

Kanye West is a Fake

Outrage over the appearance of the cartoons in Danish and Norwegian newspapers -- one of which depicted Muhammad as an apparent terrorist with a bomb in his turban -- has ignited demonstrations from Turkey to the Gaza Strip, prompted a boycott of Danish products throughout the Middle East, and spurred calls for a religious decree to attack Danish troops serving in Iraq.

Offending Cartoons Reprinted

"I think this year is the year that small movies get attention because they deal with complexities, they go to the gray area," said Ang Lee.

"They deal with issues, and they ask questions; they don't really give resolution," he added. "That's the mood this year."

Of "Munich", Spielberg said, "What people missed about my film is what this action does to the human condition, to the human soul, how it affects soldiers on the front lines, especially citizen soldiers. It's really a character study."

Small Films With Potent Themes Lead Oscar Nominations

92 percent of all cameras sold are now digital.

Camera companies no longer feel compelled to mimic the size, shape and features of film cameras.

The hot trend for 2006 is image stabilization.

Several "still" cameras in Canon's SD and A series can film at 60 frames per second.

Cameras you'll buy in 2007 and 2008 may include GPS receivers,

Pixel Counting Joins Film in Obsolete Bin

The bigger picture for investors is that game publishers in the US are still almost entirely in the same business they have been in for 20 years: selling new games at retail. As a result, the big publicly traded domestic publishers are not participating in any meaningful way in two of the hottest parts of the global video game industry: subscription-based online gaming and trade-ins of used games.

Those two sectors are very different; online gaming is growing quickly but remains risky, while the used game business is more mature but remains tremendously profitable. Yet each represents a major challenge to the publishers' traditional business model.

Over all, GameStop appears on track to generate about $3 billion in revenue this year. Of that, it looks like $800 million to $1 billion will come from the sale of used software, hardware and accessories. Just how profitable that segment is has only recently become clear to investors.

The quarter that ended in October was the most recent with GameStop results and was the first in which the company broke out results for its used segment. They were eye-popping. Used products made up almost 32 percent of the company's total retail sales and almost 44 percent of gross profit. Even more impressive, while GameStop's gross profit margin on new hardware sales in the quarter was less than 11 percent, and on new software less than 25 percent, the company generated a whopping 45 percent profit margin in its used segment.

A Bright Spot in the Dim Video Game Picture