Speaking of Global Positioning Systems…
I just read a weird article in the International Herald Tribune about global positioning systems. Russia, among others, intends to throw up its own GPS satellite network to compete with the US system.
MOSCOW: The days of their Cold War may have passed, but Russia and the United States are in the midst of another battle – this one a technological fight over the future of America’s Global Positioning System, or GPS.
Fight over the future? Say what? Russia is putting up more satellites. More satellites means more accuracy and better coverage (if handheld makers choose to add a chip to read Glonass signals). Multiple systems happily coexist.
But what is also behind the battle for control of navigation technology is a fear that the United States could use its monopoly – the system was developed and is controlled by the military, after all – to switch off signals in a time of crisis.
Well, I guess. Before 2000, the US military did alter the signal, making civilian receivers less accurate than military ones. But today — as the article observes — GPS navigation has become vital. It would have to be a gigantic crisis before we did something that impaired the navigation of our own ambulance crews and search-and-rescue operations at home. If we were in a crisis serious enough to fuck with the whole world’s GPS navigation, that’s probably a crisis serious enough for all sorts of scary shit to shake loose. I don’t see it happening short of Armageddon.
When that happens, countries that choose to rely only on GPS, he said, would be falling into “a geopolitical trap” of American dominance of an important Internet-age infrastructure. The United States could theoretically deny navigation signals in countries like Iran or North Korea not just in time of war, but as a high-tech form of economic sanction that could wreak havoc on power grids, banking and other industries, he said.
I know of no way satellite signals can be selectively denied within specific geographic boundaries. We could mess with the whole signal, as was done before 2000, or a whole hemisphere, I guess. But I don’t know how you’d blackout one country. It’s everybody or nobody, and blocking everybody would be huge. [Correction: McGoo says it can be done over selective regions. And he actually seems to know what he’s talking about, which is a little spooky.] But I love the description of our era as the “Internet-age” — yeah, say, where did that Internet thing come from again?
The Russian project, of course, carries wide implications for militaries around the world by providing a navigation system not controlled by the Pentagon, complementing Moscow’s recently more assertive foreign policy stance.
You mean the purpose of the system is to provide signal to countries at war with America. Swell. It’s a good thing the whole article is nonsense. [Except apparently it isn’t nonsense, so this is even sweller. Here’s why the Russians and Chinese have a hair across their collective ass.]
The United States formally opened GPS to civilian users in 1993 by promising to provide it continually and for free around the world.
You’re welcome. Oh, wait…that wasn’t a thank you? Okay, this is like that Internet thing, isn’t it? We build it and pay for it and give it to you for free, and you bitch and whine that you don’t control it. Trust Russia instead. Good plan. You know they’ll do the right thing in a ‘crisis.’
“The network must be impeccable, better than GPS, and cheaper if we want clients to choose Glonass,” Putin said last month at a government meeting on Glonass, according to Interfax.
Cheaper than free? How does that work? It’s worth mentioning here that the Europeans embarked on their own version, Galileo, but abandoned it when the financiers decided they wouldn’t get their money back. Yeah. They were going to charge for it.
Look, I’m flailing around for a way of describing how stupid this article is. GPS satellites don’t “compete” in any meaningful sense. We’d be out nothing if the makers of GPS receivers decided to switch entirely over to the Russian system instead — other than being held hostage to a similar “geopolitical trap,” this one under the control of a sociopathic thug. We don’t make anything off providing the positioning signal. Quite the opposite, in fact.
The people who do make money — the manufacturers of GPS receivers, most of whom are American — benefit from an increased number of satellites in the air, assuming the extra accuracy and coverage is worth incorporating the chips needed to read new signals. It’s certainly a net plus for consumers (remember those blank spots in my breadcrumb trail?) It should be easy enough to build receivers that will read signal from all the navigation satellites, if the owners allow it (the Chinese are working on a system, too). The only possible advantage to do-it-yourself global positioning tech is the military one, and it’s lame.
April 4, 2007 — 10:11 am
Comments: 15
Liberté – Egalité – Mustelidité
So, about Phrygian caps. Phrygia was an ancient kingdom in what is modern Turkey. It was conquered repeatedly by its neighbors, the ancients tell us, “for wearing those dumbass hats.” In Greek art, the Phrygian cap was used to indicate the wearer was some kind of foreigner, and Roman poets referred to Trojans as Phrygians. I claim extra credit for not making a cheap Trojan/hat joke.
Anyhoo, the Phrygian cap was like a red nightcap with the point pulled forward. The next time it turns up in history, it’s being worn by freemen of Rome — former slaves whose freedom was so thorough, it would be passed to their children. And that’s where the hat became associated with freedom and liberty.
Like this lady, the tart with the titties (hoo boy! Googleanch, here I come!). The spirit of France is called Marianne, and she’s usually drawn wearing a Phrygian cap (or Bonnet Phrygien, eef you pleez). Here she is, flashin’ ’em for the troops.
Woohoo, Marianne! And Ginger, too!
Phrygian caps were an essential symbol of the American Revolution, usually waved about on a stick, called a Liberty Pole. The Sons of Liberty in New York, before the Revolution, were professional Liberty Pole putter-uppers. They’d put ’em up, the Brits would tear ’em down. It was zany, madcap revolutionary fun. With occasional violence!
Hence, several early American coins pictured Liberty wearing the cap or waving it about on a stick. Unfortunately, our available pool of Revolutionary-era artists was not so hot, and the caps look hilariously like panties. Panties! On her head! Waved about on a stick! Allegorical Girls Gone Wild!
The cap still appears in the official seals of the US Army and the US Senate (which also features a bonus pair of crossed fasces). Plus the state flags of New York, New Jersey and West Virginia.
The panty craze swept Southward, with Phrygian caps appearing on the coins of Mexico and the flags or coats of arms of Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Colombia, Haiti, Argentina and Paraguay. ¡Caramba!
And then there’s the Smurfs. Really, I have no smurfing idea what that’s all about.
March 28, 2007 — 9:56 am
Comments: 12
Chinese cat cries its own name when frightened
If you’re guessing they named him “Meow” — well, no. They named him “A Gui.” From the video, it’s a little hard to tell when it’s the cat and when it’s the people, but somebody’s saying a lot of “A Gui.” And also “pooossy.”
The owner, surnamed Sun, named the two-year-old cat A Gui. To his amusement, the cat started crying its own name in a voice not unlike a human child’s one day two years ago when it was placed into a basin to have a bath. Since then, the cat cries like that whenever it is frightened, Sun said.
I’m guessing “A Gui” is Chinese for, “Dude! Water! Not cool!”
March 26, 2007 — 11:39 am
Comments: 4
Invasion of the Waschbären
Oooh, I did not know this. Germany has a raccoon problem. They deliberately imported the first breeding pair in 1930 for the fur, which was both prized and expensive, and being diabolical evil freaking genius animals, raccoonlets soon escaped into the wild. The Krauts call them “Waschbären” (wash bears), because they wash their food with their hands (and their clever opposable thumbs).
How big a problem? In Brandenburg, the area around Berlin, hunters killed 41 of them in 1990 and 5,712 in the most recent season. A total of 30,000 were killed in the country at large — that’s triple six years ago. But being the diabolical evil freaking genius animals that they are, the raccoons packed up and moved to the city, away from the hunters. Now there are far more urban raccoons than country ones.
We kept several as pets when I was a kid. It was legal then. Easily the smartest animal I’ve ever handled, including monkeys, most small children and all my relatives. Scary smart. There aren’t many latches those evil little fingers can’t pick.
The raccoon I got when I was 16 was raised largely on raisins and scrambled eggs and other delicious people food. When he was fully grown, I wanted to switch him over to dry dogfood, but he hated it. So I tried mixing raisins in with his dry food. He took one sniff, dumped the bowl on the floor, picked out the raisins and ate them, and swaggered off, leaving me with a mess to clean up.
Raccoons open latches, love people food, live anywhere, carry diseases, are incredibly destructive and — bonus — adorable.
Jerry? You are so screwed.
March 12, 2007 — 11:42 am
Comments: 13
Diplomat gone wild
Via Times of India, Israel’s ambassador to El Salvador, Tzuriel Refael, was found naked and drunk in the street recently.
Citing media reports, Israel Radio said that police found a man about two weeks ago in an inebriated state with hands tied, mouth gagged with a rubber ball, and carrying accessories that implied he had been involved in sexual activity.
“Diplomatic immunity” — the ultimate safe words.
Update: he got fired for it, anyhow. More, not suprisingly, from the JPost.
— 8:30 am
Comments: 3