Audio books (5) Aug 16, 2007
I drove down to Virginia last week, and I didn't really feel like listening to 7 hours of music, even if they were my CDs.  It occurred to me that I could listen to an audio book, the ideal solution for people who (a) don't read and (b) have lots of time to kill.  But audio books are expensive, sometimes two or three times as much as the actual book.  I'm not a fan of spending money, so I almost gave up.  But in a moment of shear brilliance, I realized that I could freely borrow audio books from the local library, which is funded by my tax dollars.  Cha-ching!  I found out there's a branch of the county library located about 5 miles from my house, so I went to check it out.  I signed up for a library card and signed out two audio books.  My drive to Virginia was excellent, and now my commute to and from work is better too (ever since they got rid of Free FM, there's no more worthwhile talk radio).  Now I'm a fan of audio books and libraries. #entertainment
Modern wars (2) Aug 16, 2007
I was watching a show on the History Channel last night, and it was all about the World War II and Cold War efforts in the U.S. to produce nuclear weapons.  That's how wars used to work:  You dump all kinds of money and people into an effort to produce the most advanced, most numerous, and most powerful technology that would cause the most damage to your enemies.  Whoever gets there first, essentially wins. 

Wars these days are quite different.  The U.S. is certainly the leader in terms of military might and defense spending, but somehow the nation hasn't actually won a war since World War II (I don't think conflicts like the Vietnam War count as wins, though this can probably be argued).  Modern wars largely consist of guerrilla efforts led by decentralized, rag-tag groups of unskilled, untrained, uneducated people.  Larger nations with larger weapons can surely drop large bombs from large distances, but this would cause too many innocent civilian deaths.  So fully-equipped, combat-trained soldiers are forced to leave their heavily-armored tanks and fighter jets and drive around cities in lightly-armored vehicles looking for bad guys.  The winner is the side who can last the longest.  And when nations with large defense budgets also have things like bills of rights, the battle becomes more about public opinion than an actual battlefield. #psychology