Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 232

Managers

Noam Scheiber blames the decline in manufacturing on . . . business schools. A lot of people talk about reviving the domestic manufacturing sector, which has shed almost one-third of its manpower over the last eight years. But some of the people I spoke to asked a slightly different question: Even if you could reclaim a chunk of those blue-collar jobs, would you have the managers you need to

The Pentagon Does a Good Thing

I occasionally use this space to talk about the military or the government, usually to point out their errors.Seems only fair that I congratulate the Pentagon when it does something right.The Pentagon used a multimillion-dollar grant to fast track the burgeoning art of face transplants, in hopes of helping the 200 or so veterans who came back with injuries too severe to benefit from conventional

Drones

The Army Times reports that Iraqi insurgent militias supported by Iran seemed to have early warning of U.S. actions, apparently because of their ability to hack U.S. drones."We noticed a trend when going after these guys; that sometimes they seemed to have better early warning" of U.S. actions, said the officer briefed on the raid. "We went and did a raid on one of their safe houses and found all

Relics

Some years ago Kathy and I were in Munich, and we found ourselves in the giant walk-in safe that holds the Wittelsbach family's personal collection of holy relics, almost all of which were neatly labeled. (The Wittelsbachs, you may remember, included [in chronological order:] Mad King Ludwig I, Mad Max, and Mad King Ludwig II. So you can believe that the eccentric family that built

Meepery in the First Degree

The word "meep" has been banned in a high school in Salem, which I'm sure I don't have to remind you was the home of the famous witch trials.Bob Thompson, a pop culture professor at Syracuse University, said he first heard students meep about a year ago during a class screening of a television show. "Something happened and one of them said 'Meep,'" he said. "And then they all started doing it."

ICE Castles

I haven't commented on the Peter Watts thing, partly because I've never met Peter Watts and don't know whether or not he's capable of trying to strangle a border agent after being pepper-sprayed in the face. (I know I am. If someone pepper-sprayed me for no reason, I'd do my absolute best to crush his trachea no matter how many of his friends were piling on.)Anyway, feel free to catch up with

What Were They Thinking?

So it seems that our Predator drones, on which we depend for so much intelligence and air-to-ground support in Afghanistan, have been using unencrypted communications. Which have been intercepted by Serbs, Iraqi insurgents, and probably the Taliban and al-Qaeda. (Because, y'know, a Western-educated multimillionaire like Osama just couldn't possibly understand how a satellite dish works.)The fact

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs

Fake Steve Jobs speaks with AT&T's Randall Stephenson:Randall, baby. we've got a hit on our hands . . . And when I say that "we" have a hit on our hands, I'm really giving you way too much credit, because let's be honest, the success of iPhone has nothing to do with you. In fact, iPhone is a smash hit in spite of your network, not because of it. That's how good we are here at Apple — we're so

Ceci N'est Pas Une Update

Coming in February from Editions l'Atlante! (Translated by our own Jean-Daniel Brèque)

Oops! Dropped the Palantir!

It's the 6 Lord of the Rings Characters Who Totally Dropped the Ball. Gandalf's leadership in The Fellowship of the Ring exemplifies the perils of on-the-job training. Let's test your knowledge of the trilogy with the following questions:1. How many horses did Gandalf insist the Fellowship bring?2. What would Gandalf have done if Frodo didn't just happen to figure out the password Gandalf had