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Peter Hitchens, brother of Christopher, has an interesting post on his blog about how modern Western technology only functions in optimal conditions, whereas older, less sophisticated stuff–as made in Eastern Europe–works in all sorts of conditions:

“That’s why, if a conventional Third World War had ever been held, the USSR would probably have won. NATO planes would have been grounded by drizzle. Soviet MiGs would have flown in all weathers in huge numbers. NATO tanks, with their superb fire control, would have suffered ceaseless computer glitches. Soviet tanks, crude and simple, would have lumbered on regardless and kept shooting.”

Weaponry aside, it is an interesting issue that I suspect comes up in the design philosophy of all sorts of things.

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While (still!) reading about the WikiLeaks affair, I was listening to some music. The song “Disorder in the House” by Warren Zevon and Jorge Calderon came up in the shuffle. It contains these lines:

“It’s the Home of the Brave and the Land of the Free;

Where the less you know, the better off you’ll be.”

Anyway, I was thinking of doing a post on my opinion of WikiLeaks, (as opposed to just tweaking the Republicans and Tea Party like I’ve been doing) but it’s kind of hard, largely because I’m not sure what my opinion is yet. It’s a complex issue.

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How ironic would it be if, as suggested by prominent Conservative writer Charles Krauthammer, Julian Assange were prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917; an act originally endorsed by the Conservatives’ hated foe; the alleged “Liberal Fascist” Woodrow Wilson?

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The Republicans/Tea Partiers are really beginning to show their true beliefs on this WikiLeaks thing. You know, you’d think they would be worried about “too much government power”; but no, they’re calling for imprisonment (or more severe punishment) for Julian Assange.

In contrast to this, Ron Paul said: “In a free society we’re supposed to know the truth. In a society where truth becomes treason, then we’re in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it.” (It’s good to have an actual libertarian around so people know what one is like, as opposed to the Tea Party crowd.)

Don’t get me wrong; I think these leaks pose a damned serious National security threat, and we ought to put a stop to it. But I also think that “WikiLeaks-must-be-destroyed, violently-if-need-be” is an odd stance to take for people who keep saying that “the government that governs best governs least”.

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“Equipped with the right brains and education but wholly out of the habit of using them.” That was how H.P. Lovecraft described Robert W. Chambers in a letter to a friend.

I often think of this quote when reading Thomas L. Friedman’s columns. He has interesting ideas, but he also has extremely stupid ideas. On top of that, I’ve always found his writing style quite poor, though many people disagree with me on that.

Anyway though, I liked Friedman’s latest column, which imagines what it would be like if China’s cables were leaked via Wikileaks. This little thought experiment is rather interesting, even if he does play it mostly for humor:

 “Americans are now fighting over how “exceptional” they are. Once again, we are not making this up. On the front page of The Washington Post on Monday there was an article noting that Republicans Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee are denouncing Obama for denying “American exceptionalism.” The Americans have replaced working to be exceptional with talking about how exceptional they still are. They don’t seem to understand that you can’t declare yourself “exceptional,” only others can bestow that adjective upon you.” 

Forgive me a bit of blogger vanity, but I’m glad somebody else pointed this out.

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I’m having various technology related problems that have been making it hard to blog tonight. Some humorist–Scott Adams, I think–once talked about the awful sensation that all the technology in your life has turned against you. That’s what has happened to me.

 Anyway, my web-browser keeps crashing for no apparent reason; and then crashing again when it tries to display the error report message. And I need my web browser in order to fix my DVD player so I can play DVDs to figure out if my DVD burner is still broken.

I just hope the Amish can’t see me now.

*And no, my name isn’t Dave. Although, it is probably what a computer would call me, given how well everything else works.

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I liked the sound of the phrase “Twitter = Newspeak” that I used here, so I Googled it. Most of the results were nothing, but the odd thing was, one of the few results that actually matched my intent in using the phrase was from a user on a forum dedicated to the Buffalo Bills, the football team that is mentioned in the post were I used that phrase.

To make it even weirder, the aforementioned Bills happen to be my favorite football team, and yet I have never even gone to that site. This all seems like a rather remarkable coincidence to me.

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You know how athletes frequently thank God after good performances? Well, here’s the first instance I’ve ever heard of where an athlete seemingly got mad at God after a bad performance:

“Buffalo Bills wide receiver Stevie Johnson dropped a game-winning touchdown in the end zone Sunday in overtime against the Pittsburgh Steelers… After the game, Johnson’s twitter account filed this faithy [sic] tweet:

‘I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND THIS HOW YOU DO ME!!!!! YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS??? HOW???!!! ILL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!!! THX THO…'”

I always wondered when this would happen. Frankly, I’m surprised it took so long. Although, while most people assume the tweet is supposed to be directed at God, I am not so sure that that’s what the guy meant. It’s vague enough it could mean something else.

(Then again, almost everything on Twitter seems to me to be incomprehensible. I hate Twitter. Twitter = Newspeak, as far as I’m concerned. But that’s another post.)

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I once read a list of tips on how to get lots of traffic on your blog. I can’t find it to link to it, but one of the tips I remember was “blog on the weekends.” The reason for this, they said, was because fewer people actually are blogging on the weekends, and so anything posted then is more likely to get noticed.

At the time, I didn’t believe it. If anything, I assumed there would be more blogging on weekends. But I’ve discovered that (1) they were right, and (2) that there is seemingly some mystical force in the universe that makes it harder to blog on weekends. At least for me there is.

What I want to know is why. Is it just because people are burnt out from the workweek and their “day job”? Are there so many professional bloggers who take the weekends off that it makes the general “energy level” of the blogosphere go down?  Or because there is generally less attention paid to the news (esp. political news) on weekends?

Maybe it’s just that, at some level, people don’t want to blog during their free-time; but I don’t think this is the case. I really enjoy blogging and yet, for whatever reason, I’ve found it’s considerably harder to do on weekends than on weekdays. (Or rather, weeknights.)

Note that this is different than the “blogger’s block” I sometimes mention. It’s more like it’s just easier to get distracted from the task of blogging on weekends. Which is curious, since blogging is my hobby, and weekends are generally when one spends time on their hobby.

I wonder if any of my fellow bloggers have experienced this as well.