The media is now attempting to defeat us in Ramadi, as it did in Tet:
Captain Jeffery Pool, Public Affairs Officer for the 2nd Marine Division, disputed the claims in the harshest of terms, and rebuked the media for its mis characterization of events.
And please, no advice to get a Mac. It’s not helpful, and some of my clients require that I have a Windows machine.
I don’t seem to be able to update. When I look through my update history, in fact, I can see a large number of failed updates, going back a year or two. There are no instructions as to what to do about this at the Windows update site. Also, I’m getting a message that I have ActiveX disabled, so that the Windows Update site can’t “display” properly. How did I do this, and how do I undo it? Or should I? Is that causing my problems?
[Update a few minutes later]
I should note that in my IE Security Options, the only thing disabled for ActiveX is downloading unsigned objects. Surely that can’t be the problem on a Microsoft website? I should also add that the specific thing that it’s trying and failing to install (at least for now) is Microsoft Installer 3.1 (something that another web site told me that I had to uninstall in order to avoid a different error message).
[Update about 6 PM EST]
FWIW, I just downloaded and ran Microsoft’s beta version of their new anti-spyware software, and it found no problems…
[Saturday morning update]
Oops, spoke too soon. Overnight it did discover MyDoom and Netsky on the machine. I’ve removed them, but I still can’t do the update.
[Saturday afternoon update]
Well, I never really figured out why it won’t do updates, but I spent a couple hours doing manual updates for about a year’s worth of security upgrades, and all seemed to go well, except for one, called “.NET Framework 1.1” for which it wants to install a service pack. Unfortunately, it’s a catch-22ish sort of thing, because whenever I try to install the thing, it tells me that I have to have .NET Framework 1.1 installed. When I try to install that, it bombs out.
So I don’t know if this is a problem or not, but it’s the only thing that Microsoft wants to upgrade that can’t be now.
That’s what Jon Goff says that ATK should do with its “Safe, Simple, Soon” vehicle.
I agree. But we can bet it won’t happen, now that they have their own man running the exploration activities.
NASA has two new Centennial Challenges:
The space agency is challenging innovators to build an autonomous aerial vehicle to navigate a tricky flight path or robots capable of building complex structures with only limited guidance from their human handlers, NASA officials said.
I hope that a few of these start to pay off soon, to provide incentive to start spending a lot more money on them. Right now, by my count, they’re spending about a hundredth of a percent of the agency’s budget on them.
Leonard David also has a report on a recent space tourism roundtable in California. The giggle factor continues to dissipate.
This is a few weeks old, but I hadn’t seen it before: “I want a realistic wargame.”
Speaking of innocents, I want a War Sim where native townsfolk stand shoulder-to-shoulder on every inch of the map and not a single bomb can be dropped without blowing 200 of them into chunks. Forget about the abandoned building wallpaper in Red Alert 2. I want to have to choose between sending marines door-to-door to be killed in the streets or leveling the block from afar, Nuns and all, with 30 carriers. I want to have to choose between 40 dead troops or 400 dead children, and be damned to Hell by chubby pundits from the safety of their studios regardless of which way I go.
[Via Jim Oberg, who adds,”I would have added, however, an accounting corps who hounded me every few days to provide precise costs of each engagement, including ammo expended.”)
This is a few weeks old, but I hadn’t seen it before: “I want a realistic wargame.”
Speaking of innocents, I want a War Sim where native townsfolk stand shoulder-to-shoulder on every inch of the map and not a single bomb can be dropped without blowing 200 of them into chunks. Forget about the abandoned building wallpaper in Red Alert 2. I want to have to choose between sending marines door-to-door to be killed in the streets or leveling the block from afar, Nuns and all, with 30 carriers. I want to have to choose between 40 dead troops or 400 dead children, and be damned to Hell by chubby pundits from the safety of their studios regardless of which way I go.
[Via Jim Oberg, who adds,”I would have added, however, an accounting corps who hounded me every few days to provide precise costs of each engagement, including ammo expended.”)
This is a few weeks old, but I hadn’t seen it before: “I want a realistic wargame.”
Speaking of innocents, I want a War Sim where native townsfolk stand shoulder-to-shoulder on every inch of the map and not a single bomb can be dropped without blowing 200 of them into chunks. Forget about the abandoned building wallpaper in Red Alert 2. I want to have to choose between sending marines door-to-door to be killed in the streets or leveling the block from afar, Nuns and all, with 30 carriers. I want to have to choose between 40 dead troops or 400 dead children, and be damned to Hell by chubby pundits from the safety of their studios regardless of which way I go.
[Via Jim Oberg, who adds,”I would have added, however, an accounting corps who hounded me every few days to provide precise costs of each engagement, including ammo expended.”)
Was the paper involved in a murder coverup?
…is anything like their aviation program, we have nothing to worry about.
Take that, runway! Who’s your daddy now?
(“Ladies and gentlemen, please keep your seatbelts on until we’ve finished bouncing to the gate…”)
[From the Nav Log]
[Update at 2 PM EST[
A commenter says that it’s a fake. It’s still pretty funny, though.
By the way, perhaps Mark Whittington should apply for the job of running the Chinese Space Agency’s equivalent of the Public Affairs Office. Given the apparent umbrage he takes when anyone disses their space program, he should at least be getting paid for it.
[Update a little while later]
Mark is apparently as unfamiliar with the meaning of the word “ire” as he is with that of “affront.”
Hilarious.
Mark, the fact that you seem to have no sense of humor doesn’t mean that my comment wasn’t meant to be humorous. I have no “ire” toward the Chinese space program. In fact, that’s why you always seem to be so upset with me–because I don’t take it seriously enough to have “ire” toward it. I wish you’d make up your mind as to how I’m supposed to view it (or how you’re supposed to, for that matter). I also wish you’d quit fantasizing my views on things, and feebly attempting to propagate them to the world. I know that’s not going to happen, though.
Sounds like a huge improvement over the current leadership, to me. Here’s hoping.