Recommended Reading
Now, over 20 years after the fact, it is often forgotten that a concept called “nanotechnology” first swept into the minds of a large, science-aware public quite abruptly, in November 1986, when nearly a million readers encountered the cover story of a leading general-audience, science-oriented magazine of that time, OMNI. A month before this, the term and idea had been known to almost no one beyond early readers of Engines of Creation
FSJ – “My Secret Police File“- Frederick Quinn
Remembering the halcyon days of thuggish, East Bloc, state security goons and gumshoes.
Dr. Jarrett Brachman – Ansarnet Jihobbyists Stumble Over Each Other to Respond to Me, The English-Language Jihobby Clownshow, Ansarnet’s Jihobby Orcs are at it Again, Making Jihobbyists our New Secret Weapon in Combating Jihobbyism, The Pros and Cons with “Jihobbyism”, “On Practicing What We Preach,” By Ansarnet Posters, The Fresh Face of American Jihobbyism: Abdullah as-Sayf Jones
Yes, this is an abusively large number of links from one blog but I’m highly amused by Dr. Brachman’s successful effort at annoying the Salafi equivalent of Trekkies living in their parents basement community. I’d like to encourage the spread of Brachman’s term “Jihobbyism”to tarnish the macho self-image of Islamist wannabes and fighting keyboardists everywhere.
That’s it.
UPDATE! Recommended Viewing:
Talk given by Dr. Noah Raford on complexity and strategy for organisations at the London School of Economics . I used the title “Dr.” because Raford has an academic-style beard.
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J. Scott:
December 22nd, 2009 at 2:38 am
Bless your heart, Zen…if I didn’t already have a list 65 books deep (and growing), I could put an oar in the water here…if we get points, I read the Drexler piece (I visit his site daily and have developed a curiosity concerning photonic crystals and nano-optics (between Drexler and my interest in Feynman’s work). Alas, I have a business to keep afloat—and thankfully many of my interests are in line w/those of the business. Great post—I’ll cherry pick. Cheers!
zen:
December 22nd, 2009 at 3:18 am
Hi Scott,
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Gracias! I like Drexler as well but I need to get around to reading Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman one of these days. As you said, real life interferes
J. Scott:
December 22nd, 2009 at 3:28 am
Zen, Surely You’re Joking is a great book! As Lex says, I wish I had a 400 year life span, unlimited budget, and time to read…for there is much to learn. Your blog helps…
Chris:
December 22nd, 2009 at 11:24 pm
The Human Face of War sounds like a great book. Let’s just bounce on over to Amazon and…94 DOLLARS!
That’s like my old Physics textbooks. For what I paid for his book, I bet Jackson drives a Lamborghini.
T. Greer - The Scholar's Stage:
December 23rd, 2009 at 1:05 am
Pundita is so on target that it scares me. Just after reading her piece this dropped into my RSS feed:
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‘Good’ Taliban destroy Afghan Army base
Bill Roggio. Long War Journal. December 20 2009.
zen:
December 23rd, 2009 at 1:34 am
Hi Chris,
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The price is outrageous, though not the worst I have seen from this kind of press ( Frans Osinga’s hardback edition of Science, Strategy and War took that prize). I have been told by Wilf that they are negotiating for a reasonably priced softcover edition to be released in the US. Hopefully, that will come soon but in the meantime, a fair number of readers here have departmental budgets, corporate cards etc. to draw on.
Hi T. Greer,
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Miss Pundita packs a powerful punch.
Chris:
December 23rd, 2009 at 2:37 am
That’s a good point. Hopefully, the Gray Research Center will do the heavy lifting of purchasing this for me.
Joseph Fouche:
December 23rd, 2009 at 6:41 am
The Pundita piece is infuriating. Most of the time this country does an intelligence operation, it fails dismally. Now we have an account that the US engineered the rise of Diem through a successful black ops operation. Like Kermit Roosevelt’s little shindig in Tehran about the same time, it was probably penny wise but pound foolish, operationally asute but strategically inept. Now we have the Bush-Obama duo propping up yet another wayward client whose amputating the hand that’s feeding it with it’s sharp teeth. More short term calculations leading to long term complications.
onparkstreet:
December 23rd, 2009 at 4:41 pm
It is infuriating, but it’s been the policy since the country was founded, I think. For a variety of reason, money just flows one way. Even the sanctions were for such short periods, and some millions still flowed through. Zenpundit is right – it is the elephant in the room and the FP elites seem not to know what to do, other than use aid: military and pushing from the right, civilian and cajoling from the left.
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We have to rethink our aid regimes. They are unsustainable, and often, counterproductive.
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– Madhu
onparkstreet:
December 23rd, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Okay, to clarify: since, like, about 1947 or so we’ve been propping out this client. What gives? Location, location, location?
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Madhu