(CNN) Gen. McMaster’s blistering account of the Trump White House. Quoting,

…McMaster recounts in his new book, “At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House,” in some ways, his most challenging tour as a soldier was his last one: serving as the national security adviser to a notoriously mercurial president.

I read McMaster’s last book, Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World. Well written, it shared similarity to the relevance of yesterday’s weather, rapidly overtaken by events.  Mathematically, the international system is chaotic, which means that long-term evolution of the system cannot be predicted from  initial conditions. This time, he has written the right book. Even those with an international focus recognize that domestic affairs are usually, ultimately, more critical to the survival of our nation than foreign.

I look forward to reading At War with Ourselves. There is honor in faithful service to the Constitution of the United States, even in uncomfortable  circumstances.

Through the greatest of coincidences, H.R. McMaster and I  met twice, in each case unaware of the other’s trajectory. I wonder if he remembers Rocky’s pizzeria, a defunct greasy spoon joint? I hope we meet again.

A word error in a book review? CNN misquotes:

…that the indictment of a group of Russian intelligence officers for their interference in the 2016 US presidential election was “inconvertible” evidence of Russian meddling in that election.

The word in red should be incontrovertible, not inconvertible. Both are real words, with different meanings.

 

 

(CNN) SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule to return Boeing Starliner crew to Earth; A Song for Boeing  Quoting,

A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule will bring home two NASA astronauts who have remained on board the International Space Station for about 80 days because of issues plaguing the Boeing Starliner spacecraft — marking a stunning turn of events for the beleaguered aerospace giant.

This is not stunning to the engineering profession. As soon as I had knowledge of  the publicly disclosed details of the fuel valve problem, I knew Starliner would not fly the crew return mission. It should not be stunning to journalists. It highlights the weak information flow between engineers and journalists, mediated by a cultural bias of silence among those who know and insufficient curiosity among those who want to know.

What remains stunning is that Starliner was launched with a crew.

See (CNN) Boeing, NASA may have found ‘root cause’ of Starliner spacecraft’s issues, but astronauts are still in limbo, Quoting,

“Of course, I’m very confident we have a good vehicle to bring the crew back with,” Nappi said. My bullshit detector went off….

See seven more Boeing articles. Quoting from (CNN) Prosecutors urge Justice Department to file criminal charges against Boeing over 737 Max; Prosecute Boeing!,

NASA should take a hard look at the troubled Starliner.  Advances in core technologies make it technically easy compared to the Apollo program a half a century prior. Persistent technical problems in this space capsule design, which has strong legacy roots, are indicative of design and specification problems, which are indicative of people problems — an unwelcome spinoff of bad safety culture.

A song for Boeing, courtesy of Nat King Cole:

***Straighten Up and Fly Right***

See Politics Part 6: The Missing Meta in November 8. Quoting,

Political science is, academically, a broad, inclusive subject. The media have reduced it to the tactical form, which notably lacks self-awareness. We need a term that, encompassing the tactical, engages the greater framework implied by “meta.”

Pundits of normative political science focus on polls, electoral mechanics, identity politics,  inclusiveness, “issues”, inducements like “a chicken in every pot”, with promises both practical and impractical, all leavened with a pinch of  fear.

They’ll miss something obvious to those not blinded by the intellectual framework, perhaps requiring a reminder that the electorate are not so blinded. Take a trip back to 1970:

***John Lennon***

change one word, and you’ve got it:

Make Love Not Hate

Will love last 74 days? The pundits will  search for the secret heart of America, but know this: Sometimes it lasts a lifetime.

(CNN) New video shows Ukraine striking deep inside Russia

Edit: As of 4 p.m. EST, the infographic discussed below appears to have been removed from the video, along with the part of General Mark Hertling’s impeccable commentary that was synced with the graphic. Sadly, the “moosestake” described below continues to besmirch all Moosedom.

The video contains an infographic at  1:54. Quoting,

“HIMARS Artillery Rocket System …120mm M256A1 smoothbore and 105 M668A1   rifled”

These are cannons,  not rockets. They cannot be integrated with the HIMARS system. The M256A1 is the gun of the M1 Abrams main battle tank.   The M68A1 is a much older gun, still in use on the Stryker light armored vehicle chassis as  the M1128 mobile gun system.

Should a writer on this video have basic knowledge of the difference between a cannon and a rocket? You decide.

This continues a pattern at CNN of:

• Excellence in politics.

• A decent, if often uninspired, approach towards things human.

• A high frequency of errors relating to  the physical world, such as the rotation of the earth’s core, the height a balloon can reach, or the specifications of infernal machines. See CNN, Shame! Raise Your Standards! “Russia unveils ‘Satan 2 Missile”.

Even the weight of an Alaskan moose is not immune to the blizzard of errors: Moose kills Alaska man attempting to take photos of her newborn calves . Read the article, and the included link to Alaska Department of Fish and Game; the elementary school error will be apparent.

Maybe  I should let the last one slide. It was an honest moosestake.

***Bullwinkle Gets Mad***

(CNN) At least 61 dead after passenger plane crashes in Brazil.

The  ATR 72 twin engine turboprop had an airspeed of about 40 knots when  it was observed in a flat spin. There is a  strong historical cause for propeller driven aircraft with both reciprocating and turboprop engines.

The most likely single failure point is  the variable pitch/feathering mechanism of the left side propeller, which may have been consequent to gearbox failure. In normal operation, the angle of the propeller blades relative to the air stream is varied to run the engines at maximum efficiency.

If this adjustment is disrupted, the propeller can become a source of high drag, a windmill powered by the forward kinetic energy of the airplane. In order to fly on one engine, the blades of  the failed propeller are feathered, oriented parallel to the air stream. Failure of the propeller to feather potentiates a crash.

The result of uneven drag is adverse yaw, in this case to the left, caused by a still functioning right side engine/propeller. The pilots may have attempted to regain control by reducing power to the right engine. This would account for the low airspeed, which would not have been the choice of any pilot.

Since the advent of multi-engine variable pitch propeller aircraft, failure of a propeller to feather has been the cause of hundreds, if not thousands, of crashes.

Jet aircraft are immune to this particular problem.

 

(CNN) Warner Bros. Discovery signals rapid deterioration of television business, sending stock plummeting. Quoting,

“It’s fair to say that even two years ago, market valuations and prevailing conditions for legacy media companies were quite different than they are today,” Zaslav said. “And this impairment acknowledges this.”

The classic example of economic obsolescence is the buggy whip, used with horse-and-carriage, which vanished, except for the novelty market, with the coming of the automobile. More recently, in  20 years of tepid effort, Eastman Kodak failed to adapt to the digital age; even though they were an early innovator in digital technology. See Att: David Zaslav; Future of CNN.

Kodak’s failure came not from inability to develop digital technology, but from a legacy of thought that was unable to grasp the future. The challenge to media  is analogous. Quoting,

To be fair, WBD is not the only once-high flying legacy media behemoth struggling to find its footing in a shifting landscape upended by the Netflix revolution…

The above contains the seed of a great error. There was a revolution in delivery media, from cable/physical to  web, which is just about complete. The revolution of the moment is social. The media companies are so behind the curve, they are fighting the last war. Quoting,

Zaslav did talk up other parts of the WBD business, describing the company’s Max streaming platform as “doing very, very well” with “tremendous upside.”

In  microcosm, ignoring the social revolution, Max is doing well. In macrocosm, it’s an Outer Banks house on the beach that has just raised its stilts another six feet, or backed up another block from the ocean. It doesn’t look good long term.

The method of media delivery, and the social modality, are separate issues, connected only by the need for immediacy. Speed is a relative parameter, which in earlier times was supplied by the Pony Express. The social revolution flattens social hierarchies. Fast or slow, speed without adapting to the new hierarchies will result in dissipation of the great media companies. Quoting,

Paramount Global, a one-time titan, has stumbled and found enormous difficulty reorienting its business around streaming. The Shari Redstone-led company, which struck a merger deal last month with David Ellison’s Skydance, has lost 27% of its value this year.

The attempt of the media companies to reinvent themselves from the inside is hampered by the same legacy of thought that caused Kodak to become a shrunken raisin. This stems from the belief that no one from outside their business can understand their business. The self imposed isolation is no less striking than Japan before Commodore Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay in 1853. The companies rely on highly skilled financial optimization and resource allocation in place of real innovation.

These strategies, as skilled as they may be,  cannot meet the current challenge, of preserving wealth or creating new. Japan was a highly optimized society, isolated from the fruits of the industrial revolution. It took Perry’s forcible entry to spur Japan’s ascent to modernity. The capitalism equivalents are the hostile takeover, or bankruptcy. Given the prominence of the media companies, Pareto’s theory of circulation of the elites is also relevant.

The rapid evolution of our society is the product of a mix of technology, structured social media, and the unpredictable spontaneity of the human mind. Time  itself has compressed; twenty years become one, in which traditional media infrastructure are devalued to irrelevance.

To navigate this fractured landscape, you need a social theorist. I am one; see Social Virtual Reality, a Paradigm for Social Change, a look into the far future that no longer seems so distant. In June 2023, I wrote about  the CNN dilemma in Att: David Zaslav; Future of CNN. Quoting,

If there is a long-term future for CNN, it is to be found in new approaches to:

• • • Immediacy, allowing some bypass of format considerations that were relevant in the broadcast era.
    • Enrichment of Information flow.
    • New approaches to controversy.
    • Connection with viewers, which can be mediated by AI.

I would like to play a part in fashioning a viable future for an organization with a strong moral compass.

Since that time, additional actionable concepts have manifested.

Mr. Zaslav, I am at your service.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This  covers most of it: Soleimani Killing Makes no Difference; Politics Muddys; Remember Pearl Harbor.

If an individual embodies an ideology, a system, or a non-transferable web of control, then assassination, death, or removal from power can potentially change the course of history.  Examples:

• Hitler is preeminent in  cult of personality,  the then-extant oath of personal loyalty to the “fuhrer”, nontransferably embodied in a unique individual.
• Stalin, who ranks close behind, survived by devouring his subordinates; many think he was assassinated by Beria.
• Hirohito, embodiment of the divine, whose position in postwar Japan was preserved by MacArthur to facilitate governance.
• Countless cult leaders, scaling in size from Charles Manson to David Koresh to Jim Jones to Father Charles Coughlin.
• Osama bin Laden is a special case. His liquidation was effective, for particular reasons you may ponder.

Cases that made little or no difference:

• Qasem Soleimani.
• F.D.R., whose death occurred late in the war, long  after isolationism restrained U.S. commitment.
• J.F.K., disputed by those who argue he would have withdrawn  U.S. forces from Vietnam.
• Martin Luther King, whose martyrdom could not halt the tide of civil rights.
• Abraham Lincoln; who many polls identify as the most widely admired person in the world.

Various megachurch preachers straddle the line.  Some terrorist leaders are irreplaceable, while others are not. An attempt to distill a simple rule can be frustrating. Cults of personality are simple. Other cases are more complex. In some societies or groupings, it is possible for the image of a public figure to be broadly delegated, along with principles and causes. In other societies, the mission or cause is  is inextricably embodied in the living individual. Or the image could be a role, interchangeably filled by many aspiring actors. See Baghdadi Dead; the Role Looking for an Actor.

Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas are not characterized by cults of personality or acting jobs. Broad delegation is fostered, which implies that assassinations cannot cause  functional change.

It pays to know the difference, if you can figure it out.

 

 

 

 

(CNN) Who was behind the sabotage of France’s railway network? Here’s what we know.

Absent  concrete clues, there is a persuasive argument for Russian responsibility:

• Known Russian intent to disrupt the Olympics. See (PBS) French authorities detain Russian man accused of plotting to ‘destabilize’ Olympics.
• Deniability serves Russian goals, failing to provide the adversary with a logical platform for escalation or retaliation.
• The modus serves the  known Russian tactic of inducement of societal malaise.
• Synchronization over great distance.
• Freedom to execute at a time of maximum impact. Less sophisticated  entities lack undetectable loitering capability.
• Little or no forensic evidence.
• Conformity with other notable successes in industrial sabotage.

Russia’s covert operations in Western Europe have two distinct tracks:

• Low budget, amateurish, espionage.
• High budget, professional industrial sabotage.

The rail attacks exemplify Russian covert expertise.

(CNN) Boeing, NASA may have found ‘root cause’ of Starliner spacecraft’s issues, but astronauts are still in limbo. Quoting,

“There is a lot of good reasons to complete this mission and bring Butch and Suni home on Starliner,” Stich said after noting that NASA does have contingency options if Starliner is not approved to bring the astronauts home.

“We need to get through the process,” he added. “We have another critical Starliner mission management team to review all the thruster data that we just talked about.”

“Of course, I’m very confident we have a good vehicle to bring the crew back with,” Nappi said.

My bullshit detector went off.  The movie Airplane 2 is a comedic take on the first flight of a flawed lunar passenger shuttle. See:

Airplane 2: The Sequel (5/10) Movie CLIP – Don’t Panic (1982) HD

 

The line between comedy and tragedy is razor thin.

(CNN) Global tech outage disrupts airlines, banks, hospitals, 911 services.

Frank Sprague,  an early developer and manufacturer of electrical equipment has been credited with the dead man’s switch, a safety device for electric trolley cars, rail locomotives , elevators, and buses. The operator is required to keep his foot on a pedal or hand on a grip.  If the operator is incapacitated or dies, his foot or grip relaxes, which causes the vehicle to automatically stop. Analogous hardware would have prevented global meltdown.

Crowdstrike undoubtedly has a software analog of the above, detecting loss of functionality.  If the analog runs on the same machine it protects, it cannot report all kinds of failure. Sometimes the murder victim manages to leave a note;  usually not. So this massive update kept running without informing Crowdstrike it was killing machines.

There used to be a simple way of checking whether a remote machine was still alive. The ping network utility causes a dialog with a remote machine a little like the  dialog  of harmoniums in Kurt Vonnegut’s The Sirens of Titan:

Query; “Here I am, Here I am, Here I am.”

Response: “Yes you are, Yes you are, Yes you are.”

Now days, with computers protectively hidden behind routers with complex routing rules, it is not advisable to expose to pinging from outside connections. Given the large size of most Crowdstrike clients, it is entirely feasible for an organization to have a dedicated hardware box that reports to Crowdstrike if their automatically pushed update is causing mass death.

The absence of dedicated dead-man hardware  is technological hubris.