Skip to main content
Topic: A blast from the past… :) (Read 4956 times)

A blast from the past… :)

Dr. Jerry Pournelle long ago published this (but he recently linked to it…):
Quote
The only significant thing I ever did on ARPA NET was to get GPS funded. Of course that is too strong a statement; actually it was a lot more complicated than that.

What happened was that Francis X. Kane, the silent co-author of Possony and Pournelle THE STRATEGY OF TECHNOLOGY, had invented Global Positioning System while Director of Plans at USAF Systems Command, and had managed to get USAF to request and get funding. Then in the 70's Congress zeroed GPS out of the budget. Kane called me in hopes I had some resources to get it revived. I broadcast a message about that on ARPANET, and Lowell Wood, Livermore physicist and one of Teller's inner circle, saw it, sent me email to get details, got in touch with Kane, and went to Washington where he lobbied among his Congressional contacts to get it restored. It was restored and I think it would not have been done without Wood, who would not have heard about it were it not for ARPANET. GPS turns out to be important, but then we all knew it would be; the trick was convincing Congress.

That done, I had books to write and work to do. Commercial net accounts were coming, Loudon was inventing what became CompuServe after several evolutions and transformations and acquisitions, and BYTE was inventing BIX; I still held a clearance through having been President of Pepperdine Research and I still did some policy briefings for Air Force Plans and Doctrines, and so had all the communications I needed. Stallman, one of my friends from the MIT ARPANET, was done with most of his work there (I was an early beta tester of emacs, and some of my naïve observations found their way into the final product), and I found I spent most of my time on ARPANET playing ZORK, an activity for which I had no time; it was a gift of time to find that account closed. I resented the way it was done, but not enough to speak to anyone in the Pentagon about it. I see that the story still reverberates after twenty years (it all happened in CP/M S-100 days, mostly at 300 baud; 1200 was a godsend). Peace.
(source)
We don't listen to old people any more; which is a problem: Many of them know so much more than youngsters and their college professors… :)
Pournelle has been an influence on me for 30 years or more. (I've always been aware of his non-Science Fiction interests! And he's not been shy about sharing them.)

Do any of you have heroes, mentors or just consistently sensible public figures that you fear losing?
进行 ...
"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
 (iBook G4 - Panther | Mac mini i5 - El Capitan)

Re: A blast from the past… :)

Reply #1
Do any of you have heroes, mentors or just consistently sensible public figures that you fear losing?
Why do you write "you" in italic?
A matter of attitude.

Re: A blast from the past… :)

Reply #2
So that the emphasis is evident, showing clearly that Pournelle is one of my heroes! Pournelle is 86 now and in the last few years has survived brain cancer and a debilitating stroke… Yet he continues to write! Including keeping up his web site. Amazing.
进行 ...
"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
 (iBook G4 - Panther | Mac mini i5 - El Capitan)

Trending on Youtube

Reply #3
Some older news of an H-bomb test as reported in North Korea national TV.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjt29MuBF0E[/video]

This creepy style of presentation was not part of Soviet news of Brezhnev era. The message (if you understand the languages) may look the same and based on this one might suspect a similar atmosphere in both countries, but the difference in the body languages clearly sets a different tone. Both SU and North Korea may be called totalitarian, but personality-cult totalitarianism (China under Mao, SU under Stalin, North Korea all long) is not the same thing as collegial totalitarianism (Brezhnev era SU, mainland China now).

Re: A blast from the past… :)

Reply #4
We see this here occasionally on tv news.
"Quit you like men:be strong"

Alex Jones is not bragging

Reply #5
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8tr4xDm2Lc[/video]

Re: A blast from the past… :)

Reply #6
Pournelle is 86 now
Alas, I had got his age wrong — giving him two more years than God did. RIP, Jerry.

RIH, Alex Jones… :) I don't wish you ill, yet; but I can't bring myself to wish you well…
进行 ...
"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
 (iBook G4 - Panther | Mac mini i5 - El Capitan)


Re: A blast from the past… :)

Reply #8
A blast from the past... that's a very good title for a thread. So many themes to discuss.

Unfortunately DnD is turning worst day after day. With such a title we finish discussing nothing from the past just summer time.
Wake up people.

It's not our fault, we live times of deception.
A matter of attitude.

Re: A blast from the past… :)

Reply #9
Oh I don't mind you digging at me Oakdale as I make allowances for you trying to cope with a nut job country........ :D
"Quit you like men:be strong"

Re: A blast from the past… :)

Reply #10
Nut job country? Really RJ!
I have to say, though, that some American politicians have their moments in the darkness.
Dan Quayle on the Holocaust:
''The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. I mean in this century's history. But we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century.''
 :o

Re: A blast from the past… :)

Reply #11
He didn't live in this century? :P

Re: A blast from the past… :)

Reply #12
RT complaining about CNN talking about Russian minarets https://www.rt.com/viral/388848-cnn-time-russian-minarets/

Now I found that the reference to minarets was not a casual blunder. It was borrowed from this old travel guide, where the page 26 says, "On the 14th September [1812] the advanced guard of the French army [under Napoleon] caught the first view of the golden minarets and the starry domes of Moscow."

The original post by krake is here https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?topic=2697.msg72614#msg72614

 

Re: A blast from the past… :)

Reply #13
To be fair, onion domes also sounds like a description for when you can't think of the real word. I guess this tells us something about the time pressure.

Re: A blast from the past… :)

Reply #14
Onion dome may sound like something in place of the real word, but it actually is the real word, even in Russian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_dome (But I guess it's possible to make it realler by translating it to Greek and use that.)

And minarets is also the real word, when you are cultured by Murray's travel books.

Re: A blast from the past… :)

Reply #15
Forgot to say dear Mr. Tennessee that nutjobland is very appropriate when you compare the factual situation with all the claims about being so principled different when  practice os something else.  Nearly as bad as a Glaswegian forced to live in snobby Edinburgh. My only times there are when I have to change trains to get somewhere up the East coast of Scotland. At least you are in a nie quiet retired corner and can be relaxed after a busy life!  :devil:
"Quit you like men:be strong"

Re: A blast from the past… :)

Reply #16
I've got caught up watching these early 20th century compilations recently.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqyiMrIgwcw[/video]

this is a rather long one but the channel has all kinds. the "life on the streets of _____" have been the most interesting to me.

Re: A blast from the past… :)

Reply #17
That's all pretty random, lol.

Re: A blast from the past… :)

Reply #18
In not too distant past, end of January this year, a Russian retired general warned Putin against starting a war against Ukraine, because:
- Due to international condemnation of the annexation of Crimea, and Russia's own failure to recognise the Donbass republics, a further attack against Ukraine would begin to threaten the legitimacy of Russia itself on the international arena
- The people of Russia and the people of Ukraine would become mortal enemies
- Both sides would suffer thousands or tens of thousands casualties of the young healthy demographic, hitting hard against the aging population of both countries
- On the battlefield, Russia would encounter not just Ukrainians, but also many Russians of Ukraine, plus volunteers and military technology from Nato countries, and Nato countries may be compelled to declare war against Russia
- Turkey's likely role would be to "liberate" (in scare quotes in the original) Crimea and Sevastopol and probably even invade Caucasus
- Russia would become an international pariah and be hit with the hardest sanctions and isolation the world has ever seen

Except for the role of Turkey who became an arms trader with both sides and intermediator of negotiations, an amazingly accurate forecast. Also, the statement kindly demands Putin to retire from politics. Source http://www.ooc.su/news/obrashhenie_obshherossijskogo_oficerskogo_sobranija_k_prezidentu_i_grazhdanam_rossijskoj_federacii/2022-01-31-79

Re: A blast from the past… :)

Reply #19
Accurate anyhow, not so sure how amazing it was. An invasion at any scale would drive the wedge deeper between Russia and Ukraine, and further shift public opinion in Ukraine. Of the three camps, Anti-Russian, Pro-Russian, and don't care, the third may have been the largest, and it has now withered, Pro-Russians have weakened even in previously occupied territories, and Anti-Russian sentiments are now presumably persistent, even after Putin. People who used to identify as Russian now identify as Russian-speaking Ukrainians.

As for Turkey, the Azerbaijani attack on Armenia,, just like the 2020 war, had to happen with the support of Erdogan.

That may have been that. Aliyev may have believed his star to be rising, with Turkey more influential, Russia preoccupied in Ukraine, and EU desperate for Azerbaijani gas. But the pointlessness of the Azerbaijani attack combined with curiously timed trouble in Central Asia, leads to the theory that Putin may have been in on it too.

https://www.reuters.com/world/france-accuses-russia-stoking-armenia-azerbaijan-conflict-2022-10-12/