The Next America

The Ceasefire

I'm an idealist. I believe in foreign aid, global free trade, et al. I even believe in idealism in war, in operations such as Somalia and Haiti, which at least had good intentions.

There is something very different between a strong country undertaking an idealistic military action and withdrawing under casualties and Israel's recent performance.

When the stakes are survival, you cannot mess around. Yet you cannot start wars without a clear and achievable result. Israel may have created a failed state next door which will leave Hezbollah as a dominant political power. The Lebanese Army will be easily coopted to serve the true military master of Lebanon. In fact, I would not be surprised to see Lebanese unit leaders swear allegiance to Hezbollah in a stunning PR move after Israel withdraws. While the government of Lebanon was weak, it was democratically elected. So instead of Hezbollah being kicked out in a year or two (as the Syrians just were), they now will likely end up in control of Lebanon.

Arab support for the US occupation of Iraq has been dealt a death blow. It has been conclusively demonstrated that the US acts in its own interests in the Middle East, not by a sense of what is right. It is hard to justify killing 50 innocents over 2 soldiers in any absolute measure of right and wrong. Even though turning South Lebanon into a parking lot was completely justified by the same calculus. Israel would have been much better off to accept a few more casualties and a few less targets struck as part of allowing an orderly civilian evacuation of South Lebanon.

America thought the war in Iraq was about attack -- they have struggled since it was actually about reconstruction.

Israel thought the war in Lebanon was about destroying Hezbollah and punishing Lebanon -- it was actually about demonstrating precision strike and targeting. When a third world country attacks civilian convoys and the UN it appears backward, stupid, or ignorant. When a first world country does the same, it appears callous and self-centered.

Hezbollah has gained thousands of recruits and will be twice as strong in twelve months time, in most scenarios I can envision. When planning war, you must consider all likely results, not those that align with your hopes and dreams. The second and third order political effects on Israel and the United States will be subtle but far-reaching in the next five years.

Mercury Outboard Parts

The best part of buying a boat is fixing it.

Not really, but you save a lot of money that way.

If anyone has any hints about removing the fuel pickup (also called the fuel withdrawer) from a plastic built-in tank, please share. Can loosen the nut, but can't figure out a solution -- more force will break the tank. Leaving the nut tight and twisting the pickup (which should force the pickup upward) doesn't seem to make any progress. I suspect my screen is clogged (fuel suction problems after continued use, rest of system replaced, aux tank works)

Outboard manufacturers (Mercury in my case) aren't really that friendly to home mechanics. Or dealers for that matter. When I ordered a part, the dealer was forced to buy two. So I have an extra fuel fitting for an early 90s large outboard, if anyone is looking (22-816856T3). It was a bear to replace. The key is to chill the fitting (with the gasket) in ice water before pressing into the cowl. $13 + shipping if you want it.

A Bristol 4th

For the first time since moving to Bristol, RI (most partriotic town in America -- duck!), I stayed in town for the 4th of July.

The fireworks the evening of the 3rd were very good. I have never seen that many people crowded in downtown. Or more cops. Very safe environment, nice event. It is amazing what you can do for 25-35K in fireworks these days.

The "neighborhood" fireworks are also very impressive. Much better than the ones I had as a kid. Its pretty cool to be in between two groups competing to shoot off $20-30 groups of fireworks every couple of minutes.

The parade was great. Didn't get a great view, but had a nice area under the trees along the bike path. I'd rather have shade and a cool breeze than a great view. The kids went up to the curb. Interesting to see all the major RI politicians in one (pretty darn hot) place. Of course, with tens of thousands of people and statewide TV coverage, not a bad idea.

LastMinuteGolf

One site I've been pretty impressed with lately is lastminutegolf.com. I originally visited because of their free handicap retention and calculation feature. Free, convenient, and they're reasonably certain to retain my data (its tough for free services to retain data, yet its too small a feature to pay for).

Of late, I've started looking seriously at tee times. The biggest problem is that there isn't much coverage in Rhode Island, though they do have some nice courses about 50 minutes away. For those courses -- its working -- I think of them much more due to their presence on lastminutegolf, including some courses I'd never heard of. This week I booked some "placeholders" waiting for my favorite local course to open tee times on Wednesday. Since its online I went in and cancelled the placeholders. But if my local course had let me down they would have got business. One course, New England CC, got a tee time this Saturday directly, since the site won't let me book at their discounted rate after 1 PM.

It is a better experience booking online. For my Saturday tee time, I had a voice tree and two people to speak to. And I still don't know if there wasn't a different time I might like better (I took 1:30 which was what I was given -- closer to 1:00 would have been ideal). Times are clear, pricing is clear, on the site.

Cardo Scala 500 Headset

I hated this headset.

I loved the previous model (the Allways Bluetooth headset). So I was planning to love the headset since it was smaller, lighter, and the same basic design.

But performance was absymal. The first problem was the Blackberry 7250 phone (see last post). That's finally resolved with the firmware update. But the headset went from awful to occasionally awful. The problem (after a nice commute troubleshooting with my wife) is feedback. The speaker in the allways fit pretty deep inside your ear. The speaker on the Scala 500 is just inside the outer ear. Which means feedback. The microphone on a high-end headset is incredibly sensitive. A radio at very low levels creates a disaster, so feedback is a very real risk. Reviews on Amazon showed multiple people had success with an eargel that was a freebie promotional in some packages. The Scala 500 is packaged about 10 different ways with different accessories (e.g. I got a car charger). Unknown to me, the eargel is now free for everyone -- just go to the website and fill out a form. I'm still waiting a week later for mine. In the meantime, I found an even better solution. My old Jabra corded earset came with eargels (small, medium, and large for each ear). While a tight fit, these can be placed with  a couple minutes work on the Scala 500 speaker, for increased ear depth. And the tight fit means they'll stay. Lower volume levels required and no feedback (the gels do hurt a bit, though).

I don't trust it yet -- but the Scala 500 looks like it will soon earn the title of my favorite headset. And my corded one I had returned to in frustration can go back to reserve status.

Blackberry 7250

If you have a Verizon Wireless Blackberry 7250, you need to run...not walk...to the Verizon Wireless website to download the new 4.1 firmware. It completely resolves the difficulties with bluetooth headsets and these Blackberries. My first headset (an Allways) worked great, until it broke. The second (Scala 500) and third (Plantronics 640) had been disasters. After a week of messing with each, I had given up and gone back to a wired headset.

Then on Monday I was looking at some 7250 forums and discovered complaints about almost every single headset imaginable with the 7250. Meaning the problem was the 7250. Whose new firmware had come out last Friday. It actually took 3+ hours for the upgrade (1:45 for the upgrade, another 1:30+ for enterprise activation). But it was well worth it and can be mostly ignored during that timeframe.

I am now back in love with my 7250.

Navy Reserve Recruiting

Well..after 3 months of not posting all my readers should have left by now :)

I went to Reserves this weekend. I've been bouncing around since last September. It should have been straightforward -- I was looking for something different, found it, and started doing it. Unfortunately I didn't find out for several months that I didn't have a "hard" billet. Which means an actual spot on the "bus". Instead, I was one of the guys riding on the roof. Which caused my paperwork not to go through, me not to get paid, etc. In the end, the paperwork was adjusted but a new problem arose.

It used to be that you could ride on top of the bus for several months to a year until a seat opened up. Not this time. There is an undisclosed effort to fill billets in port security and coastal surveillance by any means possible. Which by the way come with a guaranteed recall to Iraq. Anyone on top of the bus gets orders to one of these units. Even if they have no skills in the field. Just looking for warm bodies. You can refuse by transferring to the IRR (sit at home with uniforms in your closet -- don't get paid). But then the reserve center will recommend that you not be allowed to become an active reservist again in the future. That recommendation takes an admiral in DC to overturn someday in the future.

I went to the reserve HQ (REDCOM NE) for all of New England looking for a billet. Nothing. Not a single billet in all of New England for a LT or LCDR. They gave me a few leads, but they weren't real (paperwork problems rather than actual open spots). Except Iraq billets. The reserves were designed to mobilize en masse in case of World War III. Not to spend one out of every three years on a predictable basis in a war zone.

I found out this weekend that my old unit (Naval Submarine School) is being closed down September 30. So 40 other people (10 officers) are now looking for jobs.

This type of thing is likely happening all over. And from a short-term standpoint it makes sense. But they are driving out a generation of officers who can never return. Meanwhile, there are apparently plenty of jobs in DC after years of shortage. There is a way (called cross-assigned out) to put New England people in those jobs and have them drill with similar units in New England. But the reserves refuse to use it.

Gold Medal in Spam

I do feel a bit suckered by this story. A technology entrepreneur and ski racer? How interesting. NBC shouldn't have neglected to mention he's a world-class spammer and spyware pusher. We deserved to know we were watching the scum of the internet.

The Olympics

Olympics have been great. HD coverage is fantastic (when my box was broken, the snowboard uniforms didn't make sense -- now I can see that they are red and blue pinstripes on a white suit -- thought Burton might be Yankees fans). Multichannel coverage is great. I think the integration into other NBC dailies like Today and Jay Leno have been highly entertaining.

But they're losing the prime time audience. My wife hit it on the head last night -- "I never see any finals". They're all pushed to 10:15+, well past her bedtime. Figure skating (which I fast forward over) is carved up over a four hour period. I hit pause on the DVR and start it 90 minutes in. Or watch it a day late. For non-DVR junkies who just want to watch the Olympics for an hour, its a pretty bad experience. The notes on the screen "Figure skating in 18 minutes" are nice -- but this style is driving away the mainstream audience. Men's figure skating ended at 11:30 last night and was capped by an interview with a snowboard cross rider. I loved the sport, fast forwarded over the interview, and wondered who's watching local news beginning at midnight.

NBC is getting abysmal ratings on one of the best entertainment packages ever. And they deserve them.

My DVR Broke

My Motorola 6412 DVR (Pioneer software) broke on Friday. It actually started dying on Wednesday, but much plugging/unplugging and rebooting got it to work once more. Friday morning it was dead (permanently downloading new firmware and occasionally rebooting itself). A frustrating call to Cox on Saturday. The rep swore that if I just waited it would fix itself. I got five days to wait for a technician to bring out a box and swap it out (5 minute job). A regular cable box can be swapped at a retail counter -- a DVR cannot.

1) $10/month sure beats Tivo/satellite when things like this happen

2) I'm glad I had my backup Tivo (normally use to tape SD programs)

3) What I missed most were the programs lost. Many could be recovered from Bittorrent. A few (including some top 20 shows) cannot.

4) The technician who came out was the same person who did my original install 3 years ago. An amazingly knowledgable guy who went beyond the book to do a very professional install. He prides himself on never installing a purely HD box. 90%+ he upsells to the extra HD DVR box in his truck. For $5/month an incredibly easy sell. I forgot to ask if he ever installs CableCards.

5) Modern entertainment systems are becoming increasingly hard for big companies to handle. "Can I plug it directly into the TV?" "No" "Why not?" "You won't get any sound -- my TV has no speakers".