Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 233

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

Aigues-Mortes

So here we have two views of the intact medieval walls of Aigues-Mortes, in southern France near the coast. Aigues-Mortes, which means "dead water" in the old local dialect, is built in the marshland of the Camargues, a perfectly flat stretch of wetlands that forms the Rhone delta. Aigues-Mortes isn't on the sea, but is only a canal and a large lagoon away. The Camargues is famous for its wild

Solar For the Home

Lowe's now sells solar panels that you can install yourself. Lowe's has begun stocking solar panels at its California stores and plans to roll them out across the country next year.This shows how far the highest of the high-tech alternative energy technologies has come. Solar power is now accessible to anyone with a ladder, a power drill, and the gumption to climb up on a roof and install the

Is it Live, or is it HD?

Here is Charlie, our younger cat, watching the nature documentary Winged Migration, which features a lot of eye-croggling footage of birds on the wing. Our cats normally ignore the TV, but Charlie found the film irresistible. He sat in front of the set and watched it for at least twenty minutes. Of course during his excursions outside he sees a lot of birds, including sandhill cranes, snow geese,

Idea Cool and Insane

Friend of the blog Michael Ruppen pointed me at this article, modestly titled "Blueprint for a Quantum Propulsion Machine." In recent years, a new way of thinking about the quantum vacuum has emerged which has vastly more potential. And today, one physicist describes how it could be used to create propulsion . . . The new approach focuses on the momentum associated with these electromagnetic

Who's Tricking the Watchmen?

Got all confused about the stolen emails from the British climatologists? Suddenly wondering whether the entire scientific establishment is involved in a conspiracy to conceal the truth in order to brainwash us into becoming their Marxist bitches?Here's science journalist potholder54--- who actually knows what the scientific terms mean and who actually knows how to do research--- to answer some

More Scenery

For the last few days I was involved in graduating a new crop of karate black belts. I always get the warm fuzzies watching them pound each other (and themselves) into hamburger, the more so because, as a judge, I didn't lose any skin myself. I still feel as if I'm on vacation, for all that I'm involved in a rewrite of Deep State. I guess I'm chiefly on a vacation from the Internet. So here's