Alex's Adventures on the Infobahn - war

A few paragraphs

2010-07-26T10:33:00+01:00

There are a number of potential topics for blog posts swirling in my brain which I'm not going to have time to write. I shall therefor attempt to address each on in paragraph form (Twitter style is a little too brief for me).

We were at Maelstrom this weekend. We splashed out for a van so we could take our proper IC tent to the event which we also slept in. Although our normal sleeping tent is quite spacious the IC tent is a lot more so and benefits from not broiling you in your sleeping bag when the sun rises.

I tried Google's Navigation mode on my software pimped up Hero. I can see why the shares in TomTom and Garmin shares fell so sharply on it's announcement. I particularly liked the street view picture that's presented at the end of the journey for extra confirmation. I predict the era of the dedicated GPS road navigation unit is coming to an end - to be replaced by multi-functional smart phone type data pads.

I awoke this morning to the latest Wikileaks data dump as reported by the Guardian. I can understand why the armed forces are upset about this but it's really an OpSec fail on their part that someone can extract that much data from their systems. Going after Wikileaks will ultimately be a futile exercise. Also baring a live twitter feed of current manoeuvres I'm not sure there should be an expectation of secrecy for historical military data. Transparency is coming to government which I think is a good thing, why not the military? At the same time we need to take some steps to educate the public on the limits of data. If people consider an entry in a database as equating to actual truth on the ground they are going to find themselves disappointed.

We watched the latest Grand Moff/Gatiss collaboration on TV last night. Although the final third had us shouting at the TV for the slowness of the protagonists to put two and two together overall we liked it. The text overlays were fun and the writing has done a good job of bringing the characters forward into the 21st century. We shall be watching the rest of the series.

Are the Armed Forces being let down by government?

2009-11-11T15:05:00+00:00

Well the gruby counter accusations continue over a letter sent by Gordon Brown to offer condolences to a bereaved mother. For all the heat and noise it's generating for the papers, no doubt not helping the poor mother come to terms with her grief, it's become a proxy for a wider debate. Frankly I'm appalled we need such a proxy argument when the real issue we should be discussing is the mission itself and how to support it.

I've held off commenting for some time as it's a fairly hot button topic and one that raises my hackles. I have tremendous respect for the Armed Forces partly informed by my extended family's history of service. They are placed in harms way at the behest of politicians to project political will by force of arms. While we should hold our forces to the highest standards for their conduct on the battlefield the responsibility for their deployment lies with their political masters. Soldiers don't start wars, they only fight in them.

It's perfectly acceptable for a government to reduce spending on our military budget and re-prioritise funds to other areas. That is an entirely political decision. What I find objectionable however this government taking the political decision to deploy force and then failing to support the armed forces. Wars are expensive things to fight and while members of the service put their lives on the line the government has a responsibility to supply them adequately. The government then compounds the problems by equivocating and changing their political objectives for fear of domestic unpopularity. This is not the political environment that the soldier on the ground want to be in. For all of the disagreements I have with the current administration this is the thing that makes me angriest.

In the meantime service men and women continue to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Depressing day

2003-03-20T05:00:00+00:00

Well up tonight waiting for war to start :-( Regardless of anyones opinions either pro or against I did find it insightful watching the actual debate in Commons live, as it happened, on an Internet streaming feed. The power the Internet has given us to communicate with each other means we no longer have an excuse not to inform ourselves and reach out to the rest of the world. On a brighter note I see that the Simpsons have made their own contribution to international diplomacy.