First Bread, Then Circuses

This seems worse than the Americans who can't identify the names or pictures of our leaders when questioned on the street by Jay Leno, but perhaps it is a symptom of the same trends.

Quarter of Brits think Churchill was myth: poll - Yahoo! News:
"Britons are losing their grip on reality, according to a poll out Monday which showed that nearly a quarter think Winston Churchill was a myth while the majority reckon Sherlock Holmes was real.

The survey found that 47 percent thought the 12th century English king Richard the Lionheart was a myth.

And 23 percent thought World War II prime minister Churchill was made up. The same percentage thought Crimean War nurse Florence Nightingale did not actually exist.

Three percent thought Charles Dickens, one of Britain's most famous writers, is a work of fiction himself.

Indian political leader Mahatma Gandhi and Battle of Waterloo victor the Duke of Wellington also appeared in the top 10 of people thought to be myths.

Meanwhile, 58 percent thought Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective Holmes actually existed; 33 percent thought the same of W. E. Johns' fictional pilot and adventurer Biggles."

Coming Improvements in Real-Time Traffic data

With both Microsoft & IBM interested in providing content solutions, and dozens of firms competing to present this information to you, traffic information is about to get more timely and more useful.

East Coast's I-95 Gets Real-Time Traffic Reports - TechnoRide:
"The East Coast by summer will have real-time traffic reports, available free, using a sophisticated network of in-vehicle transponders that should in theory - remember, we're talking evolving technology here - be far more accurate than traffic choppers and embedded roadway sensors. It's a joint venture between Inrix Corp., a Microsoft spinoff, and the I-95 Corridor Coalition. Inrix already sells the data that's sent to embedded and portable navigation devices, typically via the Clear Channel radio network. Now it's being provided to the government for redistribution online, via road signs (those useful things that say 'Slow - Congestion Ahead'), and 511 phone services.
. . .
The I-95 Corridor Coalition covers the traffic agencies of 16 states and the initial coverage will be on 2,500 miles of major roads including Interstate 95. Inrix will rely heavily on probe data, meaning two-way transponders in vehicles that also have GPS location sensors. Inrix will also roll up other reports from embedded roadway sensors, traffic cameras, and traditional police / highway department reports, though Inrix believes sensors are costly to install and maintain (especially in frost and pothole regions), so they're going away. Others (not Inrix currently) like cellphone location-sensing for traffic flow information."

Another approach is to turn a lot of cars into nodes in a very large mesh-network. Each car can negotiate with nearby cars for space on the road ("hey I need to get over - make a hole"), and the aggregate of their shared information is the current state of traffic, which can be used to project short-term trends. Consumer products don't care what data collection methods are used because they report information being sold by by the aggregators. For a long time, data will probably come from a variety of sources.

Consumers with privacy concerns can still benefit from the data collected, even if they're not willing to provide data (no transponder, cell turned off, etc.).

Garmin Nuvifone due 3rd Qtr 2008

Well this makes my Christmas shopping easy :-) - A Garmin phone with their Nuvi GPS built in

Garmin unveils Nuvifone | Crave : The gadget blog:
"Garmin makes GPS devices. Garmin makes navigation software and accessories for cell phones and smartphones. Garmin makes cell phones...wait, what? Yep, you read right. Today, the GPS manufacturer took the wraps off its first smartphone at a press event in New York: the Garmin Nuvifhone. It's a GSM/HSDPA mobile that runs on Garmin's own operating system and focuses on, no surprise, navigation. The device will come preloaded with maps of North America (or Eastern or Western Europe for all our international readers) and points of interest. In addition, it offers turn-by-turn voice directions, Google Local Search integration, and Garmin's 'Where I am?' safety feature, which displays your coordinates, closest address and intersection, and nearby emergency services.

The Garmin Nuvifone also features a 3.5-inch touch screen, a Web browser, and e-mail capabilities. It's multimedia-friendly with MP3/ACC/MPEG4 support and a built-in camera/camcorder."

Polarization - how to market politcal lies

This article explains a bit about why the hate America crowd and sufferers of Bush Derangement Syndrome are able to spread their nonsensical messages.

American Thinker: Time for Republicans to Get a Grip:

"The left has effectively polarized President Bush, even to the extent that his own Party believes much of the propaganda. Peggy Noonan wrote just last week that 'George W. Bush has destroyed the Republican Party.'

Polarization, the tactic espoused by Saul Alinksy, guru to both Obama and Rodham Clinton, is paying big dividends for Soros and his vast left wing coterie of financiers. George Bush, whose college grades at Yale were better than Al Gore's at Harvard, is stupid; the Iraq War is a dismal failure to be ended, despite the victory being won by our troops; the economy, still growing, albeit at a slower pace than before, is in a recession. People in mass numbers believe these lies.

For one thing, the propaganda blitzkrieg has most likely persuaded many ardent conservative politicians to spare themselves and their families the same treatment, thereby keeping them out of the race altogether.

For another, this polarization has resulted in moving the electoral middle slightly left. This, in turn, allows the Democrats to run two of the most far-left, socialist candidates in history and make it seem as though they are America-loving moderates.

. . .

Moving the middle to the left is forcing the Republicans to run centrist candidates, all of whom have veered off Reagan's path on one or more big issues. That's the big-picture reality, and no amount of protest to the contrary is going to change the picture by this time next week.

But does any of this spell death for the Republican Party?

Only if we let it."

Use on-line tools like Wikipedia with care, not paranoia

Wikipedia & Google are 2 of my favorite on-line tools. I always do a sanity check on the results (just as I do with calculators), but I don't expect bad results. Google may have imperial ambitions, but they won't get there by delivering a poor product.

per John C. Dvorak -
Why Wikipedia Just Gets Better - Columns by PC Magazine:
"A lot of critics think the whole wiki idea is stupid. I am not one of them. As I said, I admit to some skepticism at first, but my own use of Wikipedia for background research has changed that. Recently, I was on a podcast with a reporter who taught a journalism school class. He put forth two odd edicts: 'Never use Wikipedia,' and 'Never use Google as a spell-checker.' I do both. I cannot understand why you would not use Google as a spell-checker, since the misspelled word usually shows up in the hit list with variations you can then check on Webster's. And Wikipedia can bring a writer up to speed on any topic more quickly than any other research method.

What the reporter might have been suggesting is the risk of using Wikipedia as a source from which to quote or excerpt detailed information. Wikipedia does contain many niggling errors, and you need to confirm all details with other sources—not, one would hope, with a site that uses Wikipedia for its database.

Wikipedia keeps getting higher and higher scores for accuracy. The English version, for example, is often compared with commercial encyclopedias—and is often more accurate."

Surprise! - Romney Wins Maine

There has been so much in the media about the "Super Tuesday" events tomorrow, that I didn't even hear about Maine's caucus. Romney has won other events (like Wyoming) that didn't appear on the media radar, but add to his delegate count.
Conservatives (Both Republican & Libertarian) in AZ who are familiar with McCain's record aren't his biggest fans - Romney might do very well in AZ, but being a "winner take all state", coming in second doesn't count, which probably explains the lack of advertising for Romney here.

Romney Wins Maine Caucuses -- GOPUSA:
"Mitt Romney coasted to a win in presidential preference voting by Maine Republicans on Saturday, claiming his third victory in a caucus state and fourth overall.

The former Massachusetts governor had 52 percent of the vote with 68 percent of the towns holding caucuses reporting. John McCain trailed with 21 percent, Ron Paul was third with 19 percent, and Mike Huckabee had 6 percent. Undecided votes accounted for 2 percent.

The nonbinding votes, the first step toward electing 18 Maine delegates to the Republican National Convention, took place in public schools, Grange halls, fire stations and town halls across the state.

The Associated Press uses presidential preferences expressed in those caucuses to project the number of national convention delegates each candidate will have when they are chosen at Maine's state convention, calculating that Romney will wind up with all 18 delegates when all is said and done.

Campaigning in Minnesota, Romney noted that his victory in Maine came despite McCain's endorsement by the state's two U.S. senators."

Army, Marines Work on Humvee Successor

Army, Marines Work on Humvee Successor:
"The Army and the Marines are pursuing funding and agreements that would start a new program in 2007 to replace the High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle with a more survivable vehicle, officials from both services said last week.
Throughout the war in Iraq, the Army has rushed to shield thin-skinned humvees with more armor while trying to improve existing protection and producing more up-armored vehicles. Eventually, the service sought an upgraded version of the humvee that added more meat to the chassis and the suspension to withstand the weight of add-on armor kits.
For future conflicts, the Army and Marines are looking to replace the vehicle that ousted the military Jeep in 1985. The services have discussed the possibility for quite some time, but they haven’t always been on the same page."

Prototype for military Hummer replacement from Oshkosh Truck and Northrop Grumman: http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9848355-1.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Crave
. . . the Defense Department's decision to buy 6,800 mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPs) as "interim" replacements to armored Humvees may mean that troops won't see the new JLTV until 2012, according to National Defense.

The Joint Light Tactical Vehicle is a U.S. Army, USSOCOM, and U.S. Marine Corps program to replace the current HMMWV with a family of more survivable vehicles and greater payload. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Light_Tactical_Vehicle

The USMC specs for this vehicle are listed here: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/jltv.htm

Many of the prototypes are listed at: http://www.defense-update.com/products/j/jltv.htm

home page for the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV)- http://contracting.tacom.army.mil/majorsys/jltv/jltv.htm

At least 18 other manufacturers are contributing elements or developing prototypes to compete for the next-generation of lightweight vehicles that will replace the Humvee, including General Tactical Vehicles, Hadas, Intermap Technologies, Lockheed Martin, Magna Powertrain, Mistral, ODF Optronics, Precision Remotes, Remote Reality, Reynolds Fasteners, Robertson Aviation, Rockwell Collins, Tai, Tesla Industries, and VSE, according to Defense News.

The companies agreed that if they are selected for the JLTV program, Northrop Grumman's Mission Systems sector will be the primary contractor and systems integrator, while Oshkosh Truck's Defense Group will be responsible for designing, engineering, and manufacturing the vehicle