When did the US become the wimpy kid on the playground?

The United States of America is still a superpower, right?  After reading this article how how we are complaining and filing protest letters that China is harassing our ships in international waters, I am a bit worried.

Two of the vessels closed to within 50 feet (15 meters) of the USNS Impeccable, waving Chinese flags and telling the U.S. ship to leave the area, according to a Defense Department statement. The Impeccable sprayed its fire hoses at one of the boats in order to protect itself.

Come on, really the best we could do was squirt them with a water hose – really!  I would hope that the United States Navy would command a bit more respect that this, and that we were more capable of defending ourselves.  Geesh!

The U.S. Embassy lodged a protest during the weekend with Chinese officials over the incident, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said today.

“We felt that our vessel was inappropriately harassed,” Wood told reporters in Washington.

We sound like the wimpy kid on the play ground…..sigh…

Chinese Vessels Harass U.S. Navy Ship, Pentagon Says

Indeed, Farewell George W. Bush

I missed President George W. Bush’s farewell address last night.  However, I just read a couple of articles about it this morning.

In farewell speech, Bush says he kept nation safe

13 minutes, is that all we get.  Bush was handed a nation in good shape, and is leaving us a nation in shambles, and all we get is 13 minutes.  As Jon Stewart mentioned in The Daily Show, is there an area of the nation that he has not messed up.  Internationally, our leadership in the world:  the only thing any one respects is our military power, which we have trouble now using due to the mis-management of two concurrent wars.  Domestically:  We have the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression.  Most of it cause by Bush Administration agencies not doing their job.  To add insult to injury, the Bush Treasury department refuses to account to $300 billion in bailout funds.  They actually say, they do not know where they went.  Is there ANY accountability in the Bush Administration for anything?  The best we get is 13 minutes of his time.

Good riddens George W. Bush.  Do not let the door hit you on the ass on the way out!

Powered by ScribeFire.

Safety Council Calls for Cell Phone Ban

So the National Safety Council wants to ban cell phone use in cars.  Not just the use of the hand-held device, but bluetooth, non-hand-held devices as well.

Safety Council Calls For Cell Phone Ban

So talking on a cell phone while driving is bad, because you are not concentrating on the road.   I do not think anyone disagrees with this.  The article says that talking on a hands-free device makes you four times more likely to crash.

“Everybody agrees with this study or report that cell phone use
completely should be banned because it’s more of a mental thing. You’re
not concentrating on driving.”

So it is about not concentrating on driving.  Hmmm, well what about talking to others in the car.  You know having a verbal conversation with others while driving.  If I am using a hands-free device to talk, such as a speaker phone built into the car or a bluetooth ear piece — how is that any different?  Are they going to ban anything that distracts the driver from concentrating on driving.  What about music?  What about eating and drinking in the car?  If we are going to ban one, we should ban them all.

I am typically against any paternalistic laws, but I can see the logic and restricting the use of hand-held cell phone use.  You only have one hand to drive.  However, banning the use of hand-free devices is going a bit too far.

Are Operating Systems Doomed?

Found this in my Infoworld feed this morning.  Are Operating Systems Doomed.

The new philosophy of application development is making the traditional OS irrelevant, but what are the implications for enterprise IT?

The author speaks about Google Chrome and Adobe Air as changing the landscape of application development, to be OS independent.  To be honest I do not see this as a big surprise.  My question is why has it taken this long?

I would love to use Chrome, but the good folks at Google have not decided to let Mac OS X users in on the party.  Something that continues to urk me as Google CEO Eric Schmit sits on the board at Apple.  Rant on the subject: No Chrome for Mac or Linux Users.  So until Google decided to put all that money and developer power into making all Google goodness available to Windows AND Mac and Linux users, I am seeing a hole in this progress.  Adobe Air is a different story entirely.  They support Windows, Linux and Mac.  And guess what, there are tons of apps being developed, and more importantly, used by a growing community.  So Google Developers, a word of advice; lets start seeing a systems requirements page like this for all Google applications and services (Adobe Air Systems Requirements).

Now for the comments on enterprise IT, and possibly security, in my humble opinion, they continue to drag their feet and find ways to keep their jobs.  Consumer technology is the ‘only’ place there is ‘any’ inovation in the IT world.  Even virtualization, which has been the hot technology in IT for  the last couple of years got it start with consumers in the late 90s.  Virtualization has run into the say foot dragging from IT Security and monolithic IT departments wanting to keep doing things the same way.  I mean we just have companies wrapping their mind around instant messaging, and only recently have they started to embrace wiki technology.  How many of you reading this that work in corporate IT, have a 100MB-250MB cap on your email via Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Notes.  While Google is providing the world ~7GB of mail storage with better uptime than most corporate IT departments, for free.  For $50/per user/per year, you can get the same for your company.  So why is corporate IT, buying and maintaining servers in datacenters and IT salaries for 1990s class services?

I read an article on a magazine last month that talked about the future where companies would stop providing computers and mobile phones in the same way as they stopped providing clothing expenses back in the 50s.  Basically it was saying that everyone will have a computer and a mobile phone and all they will need is a way to connect to their data.  To do this future the above are the baby steps.

Extra Second Added to 2008

So I am checking Google News this morning and see this in the Tech section.

Tick tock … tick: Extra second added to 2008

The world’s official timekeepers have added a “leap second” to the last day of the year on Wednesday, to help match clocks to the Earth’s slowing spin on its axis, which takes place at ever-changing rates affected by tides and other factors.

That slowing spin of the Earth’s axis is the part that was a bit alarming.  I really hope that this is normal.  You know unlike that ‘natural’ melting of the polar icecaps, the regular extreme weather and the much warmer than normal (or should I say typical 70F Christmas) in North Carolina.

So we get an extra second.  Hopefully this does not mean IT people have to rush out and patch all the servers to account for this. 

Fireball over Canada

Talk about timing.  Just a couple of weeks before the release of The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Fireball Sparks amazement in Canada

Check out the video.

Beware – Clean up your bird poop

Digg – Pigeon poop blamed for awning collapse

4-to 5 inches….really!

Awww, no pictures, damn.

Microsoft Ad – Shoe Circus

Please can someone explain this Microsoft commercial to me? I do not get it. The commercial hopefully is setting up something. Hello Microsoft….I am waiting to see something cool or funny, or at least that makes sense.

I have to agree with Kevin Rose on the latest episode of Diggnation – what old men came up with this ad? The audience you want to capture, at least on TV is the younger audience. Kevin suggested paying Jessica Biel to rub a Vista box against her breasts. How talk about making Vista cool and getting some viewership for the ad.

Shoe Circus – Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates