I Am The Most Guilty (Administrative Notes 06/21/2013)

Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa.

I am guilty, I am the most guilty.  It has been hard, very hard, to face reality of another summer here and another SIGGRAPH approaching.   Although I am starting to work and having a little money is an amazing change in my situation, even so the real problems, the 800 lb chickens, are all still coming home to roost, and I am powerless to stop them.

There are about 10 blog posts in progress, each of which needs a solid dose of energy, focus and courage to finish.

The topics include:  when design and story combine with visual effects (an example from television), why the current changes in computer animation are not at all a surprise or even really a change, comments by real people as drawn from the internet about the bankruptcy of computer graphics in film, why and how SIGGRAPH lures children to their doom, why the recently announced Keynote speakers for SIGGRAPH is unbelievably cruel and uncaring, what it is exactly that I think SIGGRAPH should be doing that they are not, whether or not I have had some impact on a recent policy change at SIGGRAPH, the current dismal state of film in cinema.  Not to mention some of the history of computer puppeteering or at least my small part in it, as well as a discussion of the origins of the .obj file format, and other trivia.

I am not entirely sure who is reading this blog, but apparently people are so, thank you, whoever you may be.

The Failure of Moral Progress: The Tragedy of Javascript

From hope to despair, then to hope, then to despair again, is that the fate of all civilizations? To give in to sloth and decay, their monuments to reason covered with the slime of intellectual and moral weakness? To sink again and again into corruption, incompetence, venality and death ? Is hope for progress mere pablum for the weak minded to keep them enthusiastically at their tasks until it is too late and their fate is sealed?

Something has been revealed to me recently that would make me think so.

A computer language is many things but one of them is a (usually formal) specification of a grammar and a syntax that is useful to the bipeds in expressing their ways of doing things, what are sometimes called algorithms, named for the jazz trio of Johnny von Neumann, Alan Turing and Alonzo Church whose band, The Algorithms, dominated avant garde jazz in the 1930s up into the 1950s and whose influence is still heard today. Although writing computer algorithms is a very personal and idiosyncratic form of expression, the notation that the individual artists (and groups of artists) use to express themselves will subtly affect the elegance of the algorithm and can by its nature guide and channel what can be expressed. They may all be Turing equivalent at some theoretical level but they "feel" very different.

There is no one such formal language, there are many, and there will be many in the future. Like music and music notation, they will evolve and some will be appreciated by an elite, and some will be used by the masses. Some, like SNOBOL are esteemed but not in current usage. Others like C++ (pronounced "C Double Cross") are as common as flies on shit and just as attractive.

As in all things there is the matter of taste and the issues of elite style vs common style. The avant garde must by its very definition be avant, changing and moving forward.

Even so, we can look on in horror or at least puzzlement when something that is fundamentally flawed, something that we know is just not going to be good, becomes established and then through the vicissitudes of the uncaring fates explodes onto a hundred million computer screens to become encrusted into just as many computer programs and taught to our children and then to their children in perpetuity.

I have just looked more closely at HTML 5 which is already everywhere and soon will be truly everywhere. One day there will be an HTML 6 no doubt but until then it is HTML 5 that will be used to mark up what our civilization has to say about itself. HTML 5 is a synonym for Javascript, as Javascript is integrated into the very essence of HTML 5. There can not be one without the other. Where you find HTML 5 you will find Javascript.

The more I learn Javascript the more I realize that Satan and the Illuminati, another band from the 1930s, must be chortling with glee at the little joke they have played on our world. For Javascript is a pastiche which pulls a little from column A and column B and column C and Java and Scheme and C and blows smoke in our face. It is a tale told by a billionaire, Mark Andresson, who was in a hurry at the time and would we have done any better if we were in his shoes?     I would hope that we would, but it is very hard to know until we are tested, and we probably never will have that opportunity.   It is what it is, however.

Javascript is not the best we, the computer community, can do in a perfect world.  But it is not a perfect world, and at least Javascript is not the worst that there is out there.    At this point, it is just a fact of life.

___________________________________

HTML 5 Working Group
http://www.w3.org/html/wg/

HTML 5 on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5

NSA, Surveillance, Secrets 5: Motivations, Congressional Approvals and Legal Remedies

[Revised 6/22/2013]

As we learn more about what is going on here, I have to feel that that there are some surprises, but nothing too exciting.  The UK and the USA is using massive metadata collections to do social network analysis and find people.   Many people are surprised by this, I am not.   I am surprised however by some of the vagueness in the approval process.     Whether what Snowden actually released will turn out to be a clear and present danger is unknown at this time.  

Here are some references to articles about how the NSA uses the metadata, a brief discussion of how congress and the judiciary approvals in the process and my own personal opinion that the foreign policy and intelligence uses of this kind of data are so important that we will never get them to stop.  The best we can do, I think, is to control what other uses the data is put to.   This is a somewhat cynical opinion on my part.

I am disappointed to read that the NSA can turn over material that they inadvertently quote end quote stumble upon to the domestic agencies.   I can not see why that would be a good idea; it would not be used directly in court as that surveillance was done without an explicit warrant, (if I understand the law correctly and I probably don't), but I suppose that information in that surveillance could be useful for other parts of an investigation which could be used in court.   The point is that since such surveillance is done under a blanket "warrantless" procedure on metadata, it seems like a very bad idea to use that information for any domestic criminal matter.  It seems to me like you are just asking to get people mad at you over their constitutional rights.

0. So far the best article I have read on the issues here is this one:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/06/17/evil_in_a_haystack_nsa_metadata?page=0,0

1. The NSA could not care less about your pornography.

You should have concluded from the previous discussion of where the NSA came from that the NSA has bigger fish to fry. They dont read your email and then hand it over to the FBI. Now, on the other hand, the FBI may very well read your email so you should start encrypting it. I don't trust the FBI as far as I can throw them.

2. Approvals

Congressional approval of this cluster of conflicting intelligence agency actions is a work in progress and a subject of debate and acrimony.    The various agencies are under the control (nominally at least) of the executive branch.  The executive branch is supposed to inform Congress of any operation in progress in a timely fashion.   But what is timely and what happens if you have 24 hours to stop someone from doing something bad?   So there are a variety of compromises in place and I will inaccurately try to characterize them here:   (a) Not all of congress needs to be informed, just the select committees on intelligence of the house and the senate.    Between them, that is still quite a few people, about 40, and it is very difficult to keep secrets when 40 people know something.  Nevertheless, that is the basic procedure.  (b) A fallback from that is to brief what is known as the "Gang of Eight".  The Gang of Eight consists of the House and Senate Majority & Minority Leaders, and the ranking bi-partisan members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, for a total of 8 people, a much more manageable number.    (c) For many activities, particularly where surveillance is involved, a special court has been set up involving especially cleared justices to review whether a proposed surveillance can go ahead.   For this purpose, basically a special court/judge has to be on call 7/24.    There is considerable debate about whether this is a real process or whether these courts generally rubber stamp the requests.   This last item is under a body of law that has changed over the last 30 years known as FISA or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act  of 1978.

What you want to do if you want to understand this is to read about FISA and how it is has changed and what the controversies are.

But in the case of the current matter, when Pres. Obama says that "Congress and the Judiciary were informed" he is probably referring to the briefing of either the Gang of 8 or the full intelligence committees (I am not sure which) and the special court set up by FISA.

I promise you that this is all complicated and you will spend time understanding how it is supposed to work, and then how it is alleged that it does work, or, depending on who you talk to, does not work.

https://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fisa/
http://www.cfr.org/intelligence/crs-reauthorization-fisa-amendments-act/p30877

3. Future Direction

You will never be able to get the intelligence community to give up looking for the next Zimmerman Telegram.   But it might be possible to make the fruits of surveillance less useful to the state apparatus. The simplest way is to make information gained by surveillance inadmissable as evidence in criminal or civil court.  Furthermore, it would be useful to make the release of surveillance material for purposes other than national security a criminal act.   If they are just sneaking around for national security purposes, then there is no need for them to be able to use the data for anything else, like violations of the criminal code.   Furthermore it should be possible to sue for damages for the non-national security uses of their research.  These changes in law, which may or may not be possible, would certainly reduce the harm that came from surveillance, a surveillance which I should say is probably inevitable.

The jury is out about whether these recent events are net positive or net negative. 99% that has been revealed is the least bit of a surprise to me. (Note, ok there were some surprises when I read more details about FISA and how that works.)  Maybe it will activate people to outlaw even this kind of surveillance, and that might be good.

We will see.

NSA, Surveillance, Secrets 4: Four Case Studies

[Revised 6/20/2013]

The National Security Agency (formerly known as Never Say Anything or No Such Agency) came into being from a variety of other preexisting organizations doing similar work in the Department of Defense. They were combined and given new resources because of at least four events (and possibly more) that made it abundantly clear to the Truman administration that this was important work. Three of these happened before the NSA was created, and the fourth was in progress when the NSA was founded.

The four events/activities are (in chronological order) Zimmerman, Enigma, Midway and Venona. These four events all changed history and all of them involved intercepting and reading internal communications from one part of a foreign government to another part of that same government by way of electronic media, in this case cable/telegraph and radio.

1. Zimmerman

During World War 1, while the USA was still neutral, a variety of events occurred such that all translatlantic cables between Europe and the Americas ended up going through a single cable. Without telling anyone, the British listened in on that cable and made copies of everything. The German Foreign Secretary sent an encrypted message to his ambassador in Mexico City with the following instructions. Germany was about to begin unrestricted submarine warfare against the British in the Atlantic. They, the Germans, were concerned that this might cause the USA to enter the war on the side of Great Britain. Were that to happen, the Ambassador was instructed to open negotiations with Mexico to see if they would open a front against America, which Germany would support financially and materially. The British decrypted the telegram and found a way to give a copy to the Americans such that it would not compromise how the British got ahold of it, and also answer any questions about whether the telegram was authentic. In other words, prove that the British had not forged it as part of a scheme to get American into the war on their side. The Americans made the telegram public and it was a significant factor in the USA coming into World War 1 on the side of Britain and France.

In other words, the British were spying on all communications sent by cable (e.g. telegram) between Europe and N. America and decrypted and cherry picked one of those communications to change the course of the war.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram

2. Enigma

In World War 2, short messages between various parts of the German command were sent encrypted using a very famous device called Enigma. Longer messages were sent another way. The British (and later the Americans) attempted to intercept as many Enigma encoded messages as they could. These messages were sent by radio. The British, with Polish help, were able to break Enigma and read a certain number of these messages on a daily basis within a few hours of their changing the code (which the Germans did daily). This information, a closely guarded secret, allowed the allies to read internal German communications for a large part of the war. Enigma was unbelievably useful.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine

3. Midway

This is one of the many great stories of World War Two and it is amazing the number of people who do not know it. After Pearl Harbor, the Japanese navy planned an operation to complete the destruction of the American fleet. The United States had a variety of radio intercept stations where they tried to intercept messages from various parts of the Japanese Fleet to/from Tokyo. There were several different codes in use at different levels of security. Station Hypo in Hawaii was able to decrypt enough information to know about the Japanese plan to attack Port Moresby which led to the Battle of Coral Sea. The Doolittle Raid of Tokyo took place which caused the final approval of the Japanese attack on Midway. Station Hypo was able to decrypt enough of the plan, the order of battle, etc, to cause Nimitz to plan an ambush, possibly the single greatest ambush in naval history. Most historians of that war believe that this was the turning point of the war in the Pacific.

See http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/PTO/Magic/COMINT-Midway.html

4. Venona

Trying to condense Venona down to a single paragraph is nearly impossible. During World War Two, the Russians had many offices in our country to help coordinate the various activities that we were doing together, such as Lend Lease. These offices sent thousands of messages to / from Moscow as part of their trade activities in encrypted form. We collected 10% or so of those messages and did nothing with them. They began trying to decode/decypher these messsages during the war, but most progress was made after the war was over.   A stack of these encrypted messages was given to a three person group to see what they could get from them. They weren't looking for anything in particular, and they did not particularly think that the Russians were doing anything bad. It was more of an exercise, I think, than anything else. The details of this are fascinating but besides the point, it turns out that the Russians had a mistake in one of their five encryption systems and that we could read parts of a few hundred of these messages. And what we discovered is that the Russians had been conducting massive espionage against the United States the entire time, and that they not only knew about the Manhattan project, but had completely penetrated it from nearly the beginning and that the FBI and other counterintelligence groups had been completely unaware.

The best discussion / introduction to Venona that I have found is the following preface on the CIA website.   It is odd that it is on the CIA website but that is a nuance to be discussed only if you believe other parts of my post.

See  https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/venona-soviet-espionage-and-the-american-response-1939-1957/preface.htm

Why this matters.

History has proven that intercepting the enemy's internal communications as sent over cable or radio and reading it can change the course of a war. At the same time, it proves that protecting your communications from the other side doing the same thing to you is critical.

What does this have to do with reading your email? The answer is, they are not reading your email. They are looking for communications signals between members of foreign governments and non-government organizations (e.g. terrorist groups) and technology has changed such that they have to collect a great big bag of shit and then sift through it.

They could not care less about your pornography, your cheating on your taxes, or your infidelity.

Part 5:
http://globalwahrman.blogspot.com/2013/06/nsa-surveillance-secrets-5-approvals.html

NSA, Surveillance, Secrets 3: General Background

Here is some necessary background to understand the context of the NSA brouhaha currently ongoing.

Everything here is based on public sources and everything here is, I think, somewhat necessary to understand what people are talking about. To the best of my knowledge, nothing I am saying is or should be the least bit controversial.

1. The following issues have always been subject to debate and controversy in this country, since the very beginning (1789 and before):

What can be held secret from the people of the United States and under what circumstances? How can the citizens of the country know what their government is doing? When can the government of the United States of America violate the laws of other countries? What controls need to be in place so that American's rights are not violated?

2. The answers to these questions are changing constantly as are the procedures put in place to manage them and to see that there are no abuses. But the system changes, the system is complex, there certainly are abuses, and so forth. Furthermore, while there may be a working concensus in Washington, that does not mean that the American people would necessarily approve of the result if it were in some way brought to a direct vote. But, like everything else in America, there is rarely a direct vote on issues. You vote for representatives, and they vote on issues.

3. We may not know the details and the specific programs but a lot of this is discussed in public and what is generally going on is available to you if you wish to know about it. This is because people are always arguing over who gets what resources, who is in charge of whom, and so forth. But they do not take ads out in the newspaper, there is a certain skill involved in knowing what is happening, and you have to pay attention.   I list various sources here.   (1) 

4. You also have to realize that different parts of the US Government are very different from each other. They are not a "communal" group mind, they do not necessarily cooperate, and they do compete. For example, the FBI, the CIA and the NSA are not interchangable. They are very different, and most of the time, historically speaking, they do not talk or cooperate with each other. There are some notable exceptions to this, when they did work together, but they are notable exceptions and we will mention a few later.

5. One of the essential contradictions of the activities we call "intelligence" is that it often involves breaking someone's law, if not exactly ours. And the question is what is the legal procedure when we do this? When we spy on the military secrets of Russia, we are clearly violating their law. When can we legally violate their law?

6. For all the attention given to the CIA and the NSA, the agency that seems to have violated the rights of American citizens the most egregiously seems to have been the FBI and perhaps the IRS. I am referring in particular to J. Edgar Hoover activities and the various activities associated with COINTELPRO.

7. If you want to understand the NSA and their culture, there are four events/projects that you need to be aware of. They are: Enigma, Midway, Zimmerman, and Venona.   There are certainly many other projects, but these four are public and these four have been acknowledged as being foundations of the NSA and its mission.

Part 4:
http://globalwahrman.blogspot.com/2013/06/nsa-surveillance-secrets-4-four-case.html


___________________________________________

1. Here is an example of what I mean by being able to know what is going on in general, without knowing the specifics.  There is ample evidence that our various submarines are regularly used for covert missions of various types, including listening to and measuring signals from up close to various nations, inserting and extracting people from foreign nations, and other highly secret intelligence collection methods including tapping underwater cables and tracking Russian submarines.   I do not know what they are up to today, but I know that the Navy has increased the latest submarine, the Virginia Class, ability to do these things.   Therefore when some underwater project of this type is discussed and announced breathlessly by the sensationalist press in the future, I will not be the least surprised unless it is truly audacious and original.   Otherwise, I will say, what else is new?

NSA, Surveillance, Secrets 2. Open Sources

A tremendous amount of information is in the public domain about the NSA and other intelligence agencies. It is true that you will not be told the details of specific programs, but you can get the general direction of most of what is going on, and rarely be completely surprised when the truth comes out. There are several reasons why this is true, e.g. that the information is public, but the major ones are: policy debate inside the government, competition for scarce resources, and various interested outside organizations that maintain archives of information and analysis in order to influence policy.

Here is a short list of my favorite sources in the areas of intelligence and national defense policy. There are many others.

1. George Washington University's National Security Archive http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/

2. The Federation of American Sciences (www.fas.org)

This pro-arms control group maintains an excellent collection of background material on matters related to defense and intelligence, in conjunction with www.globalsecurity.org.

3. The CIA Online Library  https://www.cia.gov/library/index.html

4. The NSA Web Site  www.nsa.gov

5. The Washington Post and the NY Times

Pretty much everything involving defense and intelligence is discussed in the Washington Post and the NY Times. The Post is better for details of Washington push and shove, both are good for broad strategy and policy issues. Any given article in the Washington Post is likely to have 100s if not 1000s of comments by crazed, angry partisans of one side of an issue or another.

www.washingtonpost.com

www.nytimes.com

6. Congressional Research Service

The CRS is a branch of Congress that prepares reports on various topics for the House and Senate.  I use the Open CRS archive and the FAS archive for the most part which can be found at:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/
http://www.opencrs.com

For example, here is a report on "Covert Action: Legislative Background and Possible Policy Questions".

https://opencrs.com/document/RL33715/2013-04-10/

Part 3:
http://globalwahrman.blogspot.com/2013/06/nsa-surveillance-secrets-3-general.html

NSA, Surveillance, Secrets 1: Why Should We Trust the Government?

My theory is that the brouhaha about the NSA and surveillance is only partially about the NSA and surveillance.    It is about two other things as well: (a) Americans do not know anything about how their government works and (b) Americans do not trust their government.  I think that the former is regrettable and that latter is a fair judgment, the government has proven to not be trustworthy on many occasions.

There have been many occasions in the last 40 years when the US Government explained events or actions in ways that have not held up to scrutiny.     Exactly why certain things happened may or may not point to conspiracy to defraud the American people, I very much doubt that it is any one conspiracy given the wide range of actors and policies.   These are not subtle matters at the fringe of American life, these are matters of central importance.   It may be that there are explanations for each of them, but I have looked, and for the most part, they are not obvious.   Some like the Gulf of Tonkin may indeed have a degree of screw up to them instead of malicious intent.   But the fact is that most people in America do not believe the Warren Commission, whatever the truth may be.  Whatever happened with COINTELPRO, gross violations of American law by the FBI and their paid informers were never brought to justice.   Leonard Peltier is still in jail and he will die in jail for a crime we all know he did not commit.   The supreme court pissed on the constitution in public when they put G. W. Bush in power in 2000.    There were no WMD's in Iraq.    Each of these are different events with different causes and different factions and the only generalization that I am drawing from them is this: the American people have been given ample reasons to be skeptical about what their government tells them about any given matter.   Any given explanation should probably not be taken at face value if the issue is of importance to you, and further study is warranted.  That is certainly the case with the recent NSA brouhaha which I personally think is not even close to what most people think it is.

Nevertheless, I think that people are right to look closer and try to understand it and not take the government at their word.

Think of these recent disclosures as part of a giant civics lesson: you now have an opportunity to learn how your government works.   I don't think you are going to like it.

How do I know this stuff, you may ask.  Years of dedicated study, wasted years that will do me no good and only alienate me from my fellow biped who does not know this stuff and does not want to know.    A tremendous amount of this information is public even when the details of specific operations aren't.

So I am going to outline a basic introduction on how and why certain types of Intelligence matters are handled in this country, specifically NSA.   Using public sources, of course, what else?  But at the end of the day, if you do not trust the government, and if you do not believe that I know anything about this, then it won't make any difference.

I also realize that I am held in complete contempt by my friends who do not believe that I could possibly know anything about this stuff.   This has been made extremely clear to me in the last few days.   Be that way, see if I care.

Part 2:
http://globalwahrman.blogspot.com/2013/06/nsa-surveillance-and-civics-sources.html

All Will Be Well in the Garden (Summer 2013)

In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.  

My status report on the 1.5 year experimental container garden is as follows:

-- gardening is expensive, you will not save money, except for maybe an herb garden

-- plants are weird

-- plants have enemies, lots of enemies. your only hope is to proactively spray with copper spray and neem oil unless you go non-organic.

-- all substances must be bought in quantity and mixed yourself or you will spend even more money. specifically, I mean potting mix, copper spray and neem oil.

-- potting mix is not dirt

-- throw away diseased plants and potting mix. do not reuse potting mix after one year.

-- replenish with time release fertilizer and immediate release cool aid

-- tomatoes are a pain in the ass, get all sorts of diseases, are very picky about their watering and fertilizer.

-- there is good information on the internet and there is crazy information on the internet. You will have to find out which is which.

-- buy disease resistant plants/seeds or you will be sorry

-- inspect every day

-- harvest the peas and beans relentlessly or the damn things will stop producing.

-- buy vining and indeterminate, stay away from determinate and bush.

-- concrete mixing bins from home depot / lowes make good garden containers

-- use wire to trellis

-- plant serially, use nature's simultaneity to your advantage. when harvesting basil from a productive plant, start the next plant so you will have something in three months.

-- using the simultaneity and economies of scale are the keys to successful gardening

-- if you want to improve your quality of life and save money, just do an herb garden, and leave it at that.

The quote above is from Being There.

Other notes, 6/18/2013

-- relentlessly remove diseased leaves or parts, and throw into trash
-- be aware that some of this is spreadable, so take some care not to spread disease by
contact, wash hands, etc
-- plants must be placed separate from each other to provide good ventilation, this helps stop the spread of disease
-- you must have full 360 access to plants to remove disease parts, inspect them etc
-- I use a green translucent ribbon to tie up plants to metal supports
-- I make use of hanging plants a lot to achieve separation and to keep plants off the ground where different pests like to live (e.g. slugs, etc)
-- yield will be greatly increased if you have something like a simple greenhouse or cold frame
-- if you are working from seed you are expected to cruelly thin plants, e.g. choose a winner and clip off the losers in any one area so that plants are not crowding each other.

The Suspension of Disbelief, James Bond and Skyfall

In an economy destroyed by globalization, the formerly prosperous citizens must look to entertainment of various forms to distract themselves from the poverty and despair of their lives. That is one of the reasons why such entertainment has an importance far beyond its nominal place in society. Thus the failure of a film to properly entertain must be seen as not merely a disappointment but a form of betrayal.

All fiction requires some "willing suspension of disbelief" in the audience to be effective. This by itself is not a problem. That the spaceships in Star Wars made whooshing noises as they went by never caused me the least concern. The audience wants to work with the filmmaker and be entertained. We want to believe that the mysterious "man in black" can climb the Cliffs of Insanity and win a duel with the fabulous swordsman Inigo Montoya, all in the name of true love. But when the authors of a piece go too far and stretch our credibility, then the suspension of disbelief may be revoked by the audience and the film may fail to serve its designated role in our formerly great society. That is a terrible fate for any work of fiction, and is to be avoided.

Everyone in the world knows that James Bond is fiction, not reality. The author, Ian Fleming, and his imitators, was writing entertainment fiction, occassionally informed by the author's experience in Naval Intelligence during the war, but not too often. Unlike LeCarre's George Smiley, Bond is intentionally the slightly disreputable scion of a noble family who drinks too much, sleeps around too much, and works as an elite operative of the double-nought section of British Foreign Intelligence. Although the original novels vary in their believability, only occassionally do they throw reality completely out the window, and when they do, they make up for it with colorful villains and so forth.  No, I never believed that Honor Blackman was really going to be able to take Fort Knox, but I was willing to go with it.  

There are no hard and fast rules here. The line between belief and disbelief in fiction is a fuzzy one, but when one steps over it, then the road to hell is slippery and the fall is complete.

Expectations may lead to an even greater fall from grace, and that was the case with me and Skyfall. I had heard generally very good things about this film, and I expected a lot. I had heard that the new villain was very interesting, and he is/was. The performance by the Komodo dragon was exceptional as well. Even Q was generally amusing. But one is asked to suspend a lot of disbelief here, an awful lot, and I just couldn't do it.

The Komodo dragon may be simulated but at least is not completely unrealistic.  I think they toned down the blood in this scene. 

1. Nobody survives that fall

The fact of the matter is, when you are shot with a high powered rifle and fall off a moving train 200 or so feet into a rocky stream, you are extremely unlikely to live. Every bone in your body will be broken, you will have internal bleeding, you will probably be unconscious and you will drown, assuming you are still alive. You will not be able to pull yourself out of the water, nor will you be able to make it to a nearby town. Even if there was a rescue team at the bottom ready to apply critical aid and care and rush you to a hospital, you are unlikely to make it. 

2. There is no reason for Q and Bond to meet in a museum

They are in London. They should meet in a safe house or other secure facility. If for no other reason than they will have to adjust the biometric sensor on the revolver. Its not as if they have to do the handoff in Moscow or something. Also, most museum galleries these days have guards and/or surveillance. Why bother ? 

3. There is no reason to send Bond out alone if he is not in good shape.

If he doesn't pass the tests, he will know it. If they want to send him out anyway, then generally you team these people up, rather than send them out as a loner (which you never do anyway but which is part of the conceit of a double-nought agent). There is no reason to lie to him about his condition. But most of all, there is no reason for M to violate rules to send him out. If something goes wrong, she is vulnerable to criticism. MI6 is not a little terrorist group reliant on a single person. If they need to borrow someone from the SAS then they will. 

4. Helicopters are very noisy.

All of a sudden we are subjected to an immense number of plot holes. First, I don't know where MI6 got 3 helicopters worth of special forces in a hurry, unless they planned this, but lets go with that, because worse is coming. Helicopters are noisy, and they are on an island. I live near two Marine Corps bases here in Rincon del Diablo, and they are very noisy.  Oh are you saying that they did not have a lookout posted? And even if they did not notice those incredibly noisy helicopters flying over the water in daytime towards them, his many guards are armed with machine guns and I would not be surprised if they did not have an RPG or two in their facility. I certainly would. You can do a lot of damage with some machine guns and a few RPGs on those big helicopters just hovering there.

Or maybe you think he, the bad guy, wanted to be captured so he could confront M with her crimes. Sure, that would make sense, except it doesn't. Once you put yourself in your enemy's power, anything could happen. Someone could put a revolver to your head and shoot. Its a terrible idea. There are lots of other ways of confronting M, if that is what you want to do. 

5. M turned Silva over to the enemy.

This is just crazy. No matter how fucked up someone might be, he's your guy and he knows all kinds of stuff about your organization that you don't want the other people to know. He was your station chief in Hong Kong for Christ's sake. They turn him and he could make your life hell. No, you recall him and put him in a dark hole for the rest of his life.

6. Silva is so fucking brilliant that he thinks its a good idea to get into a gun fight in Parliament?

I mean what the fuck? Manipulate a jetliner to fall on them sure, but a gun fight? 

7. What is this about the train crash ?

Huh ?

8. Attack Scotland with a crew ?

Why bother. Go home. Enjoy life. M will come after you and then you will be in your place and they can find whatever you want them to find. You don't really care about M anyway, you have all that money to manage, and that takes time in this volatile market.

9. Password in the Encrypted Text

But worst of all, in this day when cybercrime is so important, the idea of finding the password in the clear in the bad guys encrypted data is just laughable.  That is too stupid, I am sorry.

I just don't buy it. I love secret tunnels and old mansions but I just dont buy it. And why is it called Skyfall? Is the sky fallling? Did I miss something?  I must have missed something.

I loved the villain, I love the homosexual seduction scene, but it was not enough.

Not nearly enough, Mr. Bond.

I hope you will do better next time. If you need a script consultant, do not hesitate to call.

­

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For more about Ian Fleming and his fabulously wealthy family see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Fleming

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fleming_%26_Co.

Ubuntu Linux Now Controlled / Owned by the People's Republic of China

For those of you who care, Ubuntu Linux is now for all practical purposes owned by the People's Republic of China. I doubt very much if you care, but since we are in a war with the PRC (an undeclared one), the PRC will be putting a variety of trap doors and other compromises into the system. Now the fact is that it is very unlikely that anyone who reads my blog is going to be doing anything serious for national security, which will no longer be able to use Ubuntu, so it doesn't really matter.

Of course if you do proprietary technical work, you should think twice about using Ubuntu Linux because pretty much any Chinese hacker can get access to it.   Of course that might be true using any OS given all the energy the Chinese put into stealing intellectual property.

Just thought you should know.

Here is an article that goes over the public elements of the deal.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/22/china_makes_linux_os_with_canonical_help/