Homeland Stupidity is great and reminding us that the security and intelligence community in the United States is insecure and of questionable intelligence.

The military intelligence unit responsible for spying on Americans had to evacuate its Fort Meade, Md., offices Friday after a six-alarm fire broke out.

A fire broke out shortly after 3 p.m. on the roof of Nathan Hale Hall, at 4554 Llewellyn Ave., just on the other side of the golf course from the National Security Agency headquarters. Construction was underway on the part of the roof that caught fire, according to Lt. Col. James Peterson, director of emergency services at Fort Meade.

A fire is unfortunate, and yes, it occurred in a building with sensitive “intelligence” material. However, isn’t this quote from later in the post a bit odd?

Jennifer Downing, a spokesman for the post, would only confirm a fire was burning at 4554 Llewellyn Ave., deep inside the west county Army base. She directed calls to a spokesman with the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, who did not return calls.

Fort Meade’s fire chief also did not return calls for comment. And later, a public affairs officer told The Capital to file a Freedom of Information Act request. — Annapolis Capital

Ummm….

“Dude, I can see flames coming from your offices.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny that my hair and clothes are on fire. Excuse me, I must participate in the screaming in pain and running madly away from the fire exercise.”

Tags: API, community, EAD, HTTP, IE, IM, information, IP, it, LAN, Om, run, the other, United States

Canadian soldier killed, others wounded in ‘friendly fire’

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — U.S. warplanes mistakenly strafed Canadian troops fighting Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan, killing one soldier and seriously wounding five on Monday in an operation that NATO claims has also left 200 insurgents dead.

This is not the first “friendly-fire” incident involving US pilots and Canadian Ground troops.

On April 18, 2002, four Canadian soldiers were killed in what became known as the Afghanistan friendly fire incident: Sgt. Marc Léger, Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer, Pte. Richard Green and Pte. Nathan Smith. Eight other soldiers were wounded during a night-time live-fire training exercise near Kandahar and Tarnak Farms. The four were killed when an American F-16 fighter pilot, unaware of the exercise, noticed the ground fire and responded by dropping a bomb without determining who the combatants were. These were the first Canadian soldiers to be killed in combat since the Korean War. The pilot, U.S. Air Force Maj. Harry Schmidt, disobeyed an air controller’s order to “standby” while information was verified. Schmidt was initially charged by the U.S. Air Force with 4 counts of involuntary manslaughter and 8 counts of assault. The charges were dropped in June 2003 and in July 2004 he was found guilty of dereliction of duty. [here]

UPDATE: Seems that the Canadian soldier killed on Monday was a track star at Nebraska.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Mark Graham, a former Nebraska track star, died Monday in Afghanistan while serving with the Canadian military. He was 33. [here]

Technorati Tags: Friendly+fire, US+pilots, Afghanistan, Canadian+soldiers

Tags: app, Asia, Canada, control, EAD, HTML, HTTP, IE, IM, information, IP, it, KOREA, LAN, live, Om, One, pr, run, sports, Technorati, update

I wonder if the AOL/Movie Studio deal will lead to a whole bunch of new genre pics…you know AOL has some pretty compelling information to share with the producers…

Technorati Tags: AOL, Movie+studios, Fox, Sony, Universal, Warner+Bros, Privacy

Tags: EAD, HTTP, IE, information, it, Om, pr, Technorati

The last 4 weeks have been extremely traumatic for me. It has culminated in an extended period of renewal, reflection and rejuvenation, where I have looked back over the last 15 years of my life and asked, “What next?”.

An interesting note on the word rejuvenation: it means to reclaim your childlike state (ok, I’m playing fast and loose with the definition).

Why now? Why 15 years?

In the Fall of 1991, I bought my first computer. Until then, I had avoided using them like the plague. I had managed to get through my undergraduate years with a pen, paper, and an electronic typewriter with rudimentary spell-checking. I felt that I had achieved something; I felt bonded to the works I created.

I was also an avid and active journal-keeper. In the months after my father died, the writing in my journal was what let me empty my naive mind, letting me vent the chaos that rushed through my head on a constant basis.

Then I went to grad school. And I realized then that I would need to step up in order to generate the massive amount of paper that is required in a graduate history program.

It turns out that I found the technology more enticing than the program. To this day, my failure to complete my Masters degree haunts me. Someday, I will return to that, and complete it. Knot the loose ends of my life together.

Ok, this really is going somewhere; thanks for hanging on this far.

After 15 years of intense immersion in technology, the Web, networking, and all that comes along with that, I have realized that something has been missing from my work, my writing, my life. I have missed the rushing sound of pen on a clean sheet of blank paper. No lines to slow you down; nothing besides the edges of the page to define what you put in the book.

Technology has lost its lustre. The rushing stream of this new laptop, that new technology, another over-inflated boom have left me feeling empty, asking “So what?”. In a hundred years, we can be so far down the path to post-humanism that computers as we know them are a vague and distant antique amusement.

Or we could be living in caves, scratching by a subsistence existence.

In either case, the only thing that will remain, that will linger, that will connect us to the past will be the written word. Not the electronic bits and bytes we are now so addicted to, but the ink on paper, graphite on wood pulp.

The smooth, quiet, seductive transition of ideas from mind to physical reality.

I have been trimming back my blog-reading. Gone are the political blogs. I fear that the gadget blogs are next.

What you have left are those people who celebrate life outside the electronic realm. Those who step back, and look back on the knowledge that preceded us. Who pick up a book that was published before they were born.

A book that left the mind of the author and flowed gracefully from the pen, to the paper, to another mind.

15 years is a long time to try and live without paper. Those 15 years have seen the niceties of a bygone age evaporate, get swallowed by an endless sea, a raging torrent of information.

The cursive hand; the thoughtful response; the flowing of ideas from person to person.

To calm the storm of my mind, I have returned to my first love: ideas of the mind, of the soul. Ideas that were worthy of the preparation of the parchment, the sharpening of the quill, the grinding of the pigment to create the ink.

We have walked away from those ideas, grasping at the brass ring in front of us, to the disdain of the treasure chest we leave behind.

To focus on the ideas, that is to live again.

To heal my mind, I must write my mind. Not type it; not IM it or e-mail it or blog it.

That familiar scratch of pen on paper. The rush that comes from committing something to paper; something that you can share with others.

Something that you can set adrift, watch as it floats, the glow from its candle on the gentle rippled flow of all the ideas that have come before.

I am setting my ideas free again.

Picture: girlzone41

Technorati Tags: ideas, quill, ink, pigment, death, life, resurrection, rebirth, technology, paper, pen, rejuvenation, myths, legends, chaos, healing, mind

Tags: ASP, blog, book, EAD, HTTP, IE, IM, information, IP, it, LAN, leave, live, networking, Om, One, pr, Technorati, Torrent, trim, web

I now have a true live example of how text matching can provide information on issues where a successful page is returned.

In this example, the TEST AGENT returned a Text Match Failed error, while 3 of the agents running the current production code said the page was a success.

How do I know that the TEST AGENT is right? Take a look at the byte count. For the successful pages, the byte count is in the 3,600-3,900 byte range; the page that had the Text Match failure only returned 1076 bytes. And three other measurements around that time reported the same approximate size, but reported successful page downloads.

If this Agent code shows continued success and robust behaviour, then I will push it into production on August 14.

Technorati Tags: GrabPERF, Agent+upgrade, Web+performance, text+match, content+match

Tags: ads, app, ARIN, content, current, GrabPERF, HTTP, IE, IM, information, Issues, it, live, measurement, Om, Pages, performance, pr, run, Technorati, web, Web+performance

I am still swamped at work, but I have a glimmer of space available to me, so I thought that I would drop by and let everyone know what’s happening.

We are well on our way to being ready for the trip to BC and Alberta that starts Monday (June 26). We have a dining room full of luggage, and have a lot of information concerning travelling with Miss Wiggles. It’s been nearly 3 years since I was “home” to Victoria, so it will be fun to scout out and see what’s changed since the last visit.

As a sidenote, if anyone in the Victoria, BC area wants to do a meetup while I am in town, I would be happy to attend — need some lovely beer from Swan’s or Spinnaker’s.

GrabPERF continues to chug along almost completely unmanaged. One tiny improvement I made to scatter plot is the only code change in months. If things settle down at work (not likely until we get an extra body in here to support me), I will be updating some of the measurement code and back-end systems. Until I have time to go through a formal review process, the system is in maintenance mode.

While I am on vacation, I will likely been able to write some more; lot’s of thoughts on IIS 5.0, Net Neutrality, Firefly, and other things that are deeply buried right now.

Technorati Tags: Victoria, BC, Alberta, Canada, Vancouver Island, GrabPERF

Tags: app, Canada, EAD, GrabPERF, HTTP, IE, IM, improvement, information, IP, it, LAN, maintenance, measurement, Om, One, pr, review, Technorati

Yes, I know. For the fourth time in a week, this is a post with a link to my resume.

But last night, while I was writing an e-mail to someone about the long-term future of GrabPERF, I wrote something that I had to read twice when it came out.

GrabPERF is my resume.

How can a simple Web application be a resume?

In my case, it highlights all of the things that I am interested in:

• Web performance
• Statistical analysis
• Clear presentation of data and information
• Web development skills
• Database administration skills
• System administration skills
• Distributed systems

GrabPERF showcases everything that I have taught myself over the last seven years. And I am proud of it.

So, what do you use for your resume?

Technorati Tags: GrabPERF, resume

Tags: analysis, app, application, data, database, EAD, GrabPERF, GrabPERF.org, HTML, HTTP, IE, IM, information, it, Om, One, performance, pr, Technorati, web, web app, web application, Web Performance

It should come as no surprise that I am a fan of “graphic novels”, known as “comic books” when I was coming of age. One of my favourites is the Dark Knight | Dark Knight Returns series.

In the Dark Knight Returns, the US is run by a cabal with a holographic presidential avatar as their figurehead. In this world, the “Freedom FROM Information Act … makes anything worth knowing secret”.

That quote has stuck with me for most of the last week. The American population is supposed to hang its head and march quietly in line with everyone else, never looking to the side because they might accidentally see their freedoms dying in the ditches.

The United States is Rome, and the babarians (no, not the elephant king, barbarians you fool!) are on the far banks of the Rubicon, with their feet in the water.

Technorati Tags: USA, Bush, Rubicon, autocracy

Tags: bank, book, EAD, HTTP, IE, information, IP, it, Om, One, pr, president, presidential, run, Technorati, United States

Wow!

1. Engage. Participate. Be fully present. No auto-pilot.
2. Meetings and multiple appointments are a fact of work-life; the least we can do is be on time so they can start on time and our peers are not kept waiting.
3. Respect the attention of your peers. Come prepared means come prepared.
4. Always have a pen and paper for note-taking. First, you respect others who are giving you information by acknowledging it, and secondly you’re expected to capture it, and follow-up; forgetting is not an option.
5. Whatever your role is, you’re expected to be the expert in that role. Own it, and don’t be shy about it. Stake your claim proudly. (This was part of the no bench-warmers philosophy.)
6. When you say you’ll follow-up on something, do. If it’s not going to happen, say so. People trip when you sweep stuff under the rug.
7. Own up to your mistakes and be okay with them. Making mistakes is perfectly fine for we all make them. However huffing and puffing about them with excuses and justifications is not fine. Get over it (we already did) and just correct it.
8. Communicate. We have found that relying on mind-reading doesn’t work that well for us.
9. Trust and be trust-worthy. Much easier when Rules 1 - 8 are honored and we all keep it real.

ng this out now to be posted prominently.

Tags: app, attention, EAD, HTML, HTTP, IE, IM, information, IP, it, Om, pr

CCUCEO has a great take on the arrival of the Imagination Age.[here]

The Minimum Wage Class is the result. In some cases, people fall into this group as a place to start when they arrive.

In other places, like here in Massachusetts, it is almost carried like a badge of honour to just scrape by.

And then there are those that have moved beyond Industrial, beyond Information.

I just wish the people who paid the bills joined us out here.

Tags: HTML, HTTP, IE, IM, information, it, Massachusetts, Om