This is "joeslist"! Your (hopefully) daily taste of the war from
somewhere
in the Gulf. You
get this because I only get to send 2 emails per day (when
it's working)
and I want all of you to be informed, and possibly entertained.
If you'd prefer
not to get this, or get it sent to a different address please
contact
john@announcetech.com and tell him this. I won't be offended (much).
I understand
what it's like to get WAY TOO MUCH email these days. I will assure
you that I won't
be pitching you for a mortgage or penis enlargement, however.
This space is
still available and nobody has noticed it yet. Stay Tuned!
If you think
that somebody would enjoy this or find it useful, please feel free
to forward it on
to them, but let the rest of us know who else is "out there".
Some questions
can't be answered due to security constraints. **
Messages for
inclusion to this list or private personal ones should be sent
to:
does-anybody-look-at- this -phony -address?@gunston-hall.navy*.mil
April
13, 2003
Some of this was lost (I'm not sure why or how).
_________________________________________________________________________________
Friday 13 April
2003 2212 (10:22 PM) After a short stint back in Iraq,
We're now
Floating around the NAG
Environmental
conditions:
Temps: Berthing = Very Nice
Ship Internal = 76f Ship outside = 78f hot water = OK
Unusual Smells = sewer smell
earlier, now gone
Stormwatch: Same Old Same Old. Ship
movement is barely noticable
Apparent Morale (as measured in the
Chiefs Mess) OK/Boredom increasing
Boredom index (0=Exciting
9=Excruciatingly dull) today = 8.849
Most Annoying Event = Not annoyed
yet today (amazing)
Movies Watched: Roadhouse, Boondock
Saints
Food Ratings: * = Sucky ** =
Better than MRE's *** = Average **** = Yummy
***** = Unlikely ("It's just a tiny wafer")
Lunch = Corn Dogs (***) Stuffed Fish
(****)
Dinner = Fried Shrimp (****)
Snail-Mail received = No new
deliveries (no Copter today)
____________________________________________________________________________________
Todays
newz:
It's going to be
slow for a bit, but I thnk that I'll be able to stay in touch.
We're starting
to talk about packing up. I hope that we'll be moving on soon.
It's good to get
back to real food again. While I was "on the beach", I stopped
eating as the
thought of it made me sick (or maybe I was really sick, which is
very possible).
But, trust me. I'm doing better now.
Please let me
know what's going on out there! Tony, let me know how your NEMO
went the other
day. (I called Tony and he was at "The block" in Orange to do a
"John & Ken"
remote to raise money for deployed troops who can't pay their (cingular)
bills. Very nice!
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Mail bag
contents since the last update:
Jimmy
sez:
This from a
Slashdot thread where the media were being trashed...
It happens all
the time. Journalistic practices have gone way downhill since
the web. Many
stories on the web are obviously not reviewed by an editor. Heck,
some aren't even
spell checked. We're talking about major news networks too,
like CNN, Fox,
etc. CNN is one of the worst. BBC appears to be one of the
better ones.
Re:BBC, the speed of news and editing (Score:5, Informative)
by ianscot (591483) Alter Relationship on Thursday April 17, @06:55
A few different times now, I've sent something to the BBC's Web editors
-- a little
comment, a suggestion, a minor complaint about phrasing. (Once
they'd put up an
article about the ten-year anniversary of Prozac, IIRC, and
their article
basically treated Prozac as if it was the only SSRI or
antidepressant
around. I pointed them to some stuff about health plans in the
US that had
Zoloft on the formulary but wouldn't add Prozac any more, and
suggested a less
adulatory tone.)
In all three cases, they've actually rewritten their stories to reflect
my bitching, at
least in some minor ways. Amazing, huh? They responded, and
actually rewrote
copy, within a few hours.
On the one hand, how responsive they really are -- very cool, better
than
traditional
papers by far and faster than, oh, a certain source of News for
Nerds I can
think of... ever try to get a headline changed?
But was there adequate editorial oversight, if one reader is capable of
influencing them
this much? These weren't even rush stories; they were more
like the sort of
thing where the "reporting" was largely transcribing chunks of
a press release.
They're rushing the stories up, even at the BBC.
Re:BBC, the speed of news and editing (Score:2)
by dusanv (256645) Alter Relationship on Thursday April 17, @09:48
Same here. I also complained about a BBC story and
the editor got
back to me and
fixed it. Same with CNET news.com (except that in this case I
was wrong and
the editor pointed that out to me - I thought the PowerBook was
the first DVD
burning laptop but it turns out it was a model from HP that beat
Apple by a
couple of weeks). Nice folk both of them. Unlike CNN.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John
Higdon says:
Thank you for
your donation to Joe's fone phund. I guess I'm going to
have to put up a
toteboard on the web.
We sailed past
this bill in good shape. It's the next one that has me
scared to death!
Thanks again.
--
JH
Joe thanks y'all:
Thank you so
much. The communication makes this suck so much less.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joe
Mauk asks:
Is it true that
one of the dolphins went AWOL?
Joe
replies:
Yes! Actually it
has happened twice. They didn't get quite enough time to acclimate to
the
local conditions
(yecch). Frankly, as smart as there are (and they REALLY are smart), it
is really a pain
in the ass to move them around and make them work. There are theories
that
all the press
that they got was for the purpose of "saving the program" (it is Ungodly
expensive!!!).
We actually did a mojority of the work faster with our device, but the
press thought
that the dolphins were cuter (they are).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Larry
Sez:
Germany's
Grundig, one of Europe's best-known consumer electronics makers, has
filed for
bankruptcy.
The move follows
the failure of rescue talks with two potential partners,
Taiwan's Sampo
and Turkish Beko.
Grundig, founded
in 1945 and a key participant in Germany's post-war revival,
had been
struggling for years.
In 1996, it was
spun off by parent company Philips, but failed to get its
finances in
order.
There is no news
yet on the fate of the company's plants - including two in
Germany, and one
each in Portugal and Austria - or its 3,500 staff.
more
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2945815.stm
Joe
sez:
That's sad, but
the company's products haven't been exciting for a while (at least to
me).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joe Mauk responds to an earlier Joe Soapbox
comment:
>
> It always
cracks me up how the education "establishment" is
> so
intimidated
> by rank
> amateurs
(parents) attempting to do a better job than "professional"
> teachers. I
> think that
some of it is the stigma that it has with some
> people that
think
> that it's
> only about
religion (never mind if they can read or not). I'm
> glad that
what
> you've
> been doing,
which has worked so well, can continue.
> Talk to
Y'all later. It's rack time.....
>
Whoaa! Take it
easy here. There are teachers in the audience.
Joe
responds:
No offense
meant. It's just that the NEA and union's position often bashes "home
schooling".
My niece (Hi
Amanda!) who's home schooled also has teachers who are great! I had the
pleasure
of visiting her
"school" (actually an education resource center) and giving a
presentation
on deployments
and discussed with them their "troop care package" project. At the
time, I
didn't have the
foggiest idea that one of the packages would find it's way to me. They
did
a great job!
Sent out a bunch of great (and useful) stuff and made a lot of guys
happy. Thanks
CHEP (and
Amanda!). I'll be writing them if I can get a good address and some
full names. I think
that you should
ALWAYS write a thank you letter when people go the extra mile and do
something
really nice like
that! There are a bunch of student drawn pictures on the wall (excuse
me,
BULKHEAD) from
Arrowhead school (I think Lake Arrowhead? I'm trying to find out).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joe
It was good to
get your cell phone call, sorry about missing you. Made a change
to my cell number
and guess my old
number the battery ran down so I wasn't able to take your call. I
am glad all
is going
well. My new Cell number is XXX-XXX-XXXX Look forward to
hearing and talking with you
later buddy take
care, and stay safe.
David
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greg
Ogonowski sends:
hey joe- just
got back from nab.
radio crowd is
getting smaller and smaller, as you might imagine.
we had a good
first day, and a good first half of the second day.
the rest was
slow.
Joe
adds:
You'd really
like BFBS. It's got live jocks, strange British "pop" music,
and lots of
jingles. Lots of good production and great news.
Greg
continues:
all the action
is on the multimedia side, still.
even with the
.com crash, the multimedia, video, and streaming is still
going.
that's a good sign, since i think it is a sign of the times.
we had much
interest in optimod-pc. it was good to finally say it was
shipping.
the hot product
that i found was something i've had on my things to do
list, but the
germans beat me to it again. the germans are good at audio
and associated
applications. a german kid showed an elaboate audio editor
running on
windows ce, pocket pc. he had to rewrite the kernel and mem mgt
to make it work,
not a surprise. a very cool product. we are going to try
to add an isdn
terminal adapter to connect to opticodecs. imagine live
remotes from a
pda!
Joe
responds:
There are a lot
of reports being filed on PC's these days. It was interesting
to see how that
all works.
Greg
goes on:
talked to my
contact at voa. he says they still use optimods on all their
installations.
chances are you're listening to them. if you get a chance,
and have the
disk space, try to grab some air checks to your laptop if you
have it with you.
Joe
replies:
I'll see what I
can do. The VOA FM station in Kuwait is on 96.9 and is mono, low power
and possibly
horizontal only. BFBS kicks their ass. VOA does use the KLOK/KWIZ news
sounder however.
Still sounds good to me. :)
talk to you soon.
-g.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Todd
says:
FYI: HFT
doesn't stand for High Frequency Technologies. We came in
after John
Richard saw the PFF 2000. He said, "High Fucking Tech."
That is funny
about Dr. Motwani. Was the boob job conversation better?
Joe
comments:
I thought that
the transition was interesting. It seemed like a natural segue to the
guys
having the
conversation. (Eye Doctor = Boob Doctor). I just thought that it was
cool that
they knew who
Dr. Motwani was! (Advertising works) They were debating whether they
should
wait to have the
Navy do the procedure or go to Dr. M. Cost was an issue. Maybe he has a
military
discount? :)
Todd
goes on:
Jimmy reminded
me that you can dispute your changes with the PUC in
California and
just mail them a check instead. I bet Cingular will not
want the bad
publicity and just drop all the charges. I wouldn't let
the scumbags get
away with what they did and reward them by paying
them.
Joe
responds:
Yeah, I will.
They're such weasles.
--
Todd Lesser
Voice: +1 619
XXX-XXXX Fax: +1 619 XXX-XXXX
E-Mail:
todd@exciting-penguin-light-fixtures.tv
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Todd
adds:
I see you aren't
offering penis enlargements. Do you think it would be
inapproriate to
SPAM Joe's list with a 900 number?
Joe Asks:
Are you offering
penis enlargements?
Todd
continues:
I am glad to
hear that everything went well and that you are safe.
I just got back
in town, from a funeral in New York for my roommate in
college - David
Bloom of NBC.
He died of a
blood clot outside of Bagdad and it was non-combat
related.
Joe
Replies:
Yes, I heard
about that. Very sad, I'm sorry. Quite a few were lost in the press
this time
around, though I
know that his case wasn't directly related to the war (except that his
confined work
space contributed). I'm doing OK (except for the past few days I've had
some
kind of
unpleasent intestinal thing with annoying symptoms). The environment
out on "the
beach" wasn't
very sanitary, with no refrigeration, hardly any water and lots of
flies and
rabid dogs
(sounds like Barstow). I'm back on the ship, where at least I can be
clean and
comfortable
while I'm dying of boredom.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Martha
Higdon (John's Sister) writes from her lavish Swiss hotel room (with
DSL!):
Joe!
Ahoy from
Geneva. It's hell being in such a gorgeous place while confined
to a hotel room
having nervous
breakdowns and heart attacks. You probably know that drill.
But at least
I can snap the
scenic photos of what other people's lives must be like. I'll be
here five
more days, but
they'll seem like a year, AND I still won't have seen Geneva. But
maybe I'll
have made enough
money to come back for fun. I will never, however, be able to
stay at this
hotel
unfunded.
Hope you're well
and can come home soon.
Martha
Joe
responds:
I'm sorry that
you won't be able to "check the place out". I had a similar experince
in Spain
recently :) .
For those who don't know Martha, She works on (mostly high profile)
legal cases
(criminal) as an
investigator/evidence/data consultant (Martha will correct me if that
is as
bad a descrition
of what she does as I think it may be). She has a wicked (if slightly
evil)
since of humor.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John
Said:
Got a quick
phone call last night. Joe's off the ship and going to
Kuwait. No
details, but he is off the ship for now, which will
explain any
missed issues of WarWatch.
Joe
corrects:
I was in Kuwait
for about 20 minutes while the helecopter loaded/unloaded, then I was
off to
Iraq, a little
further forward this time. We were at another factory/port town, this
one not
as f&*$ed up
as Umm Qasr, but still awful. There were a huge number of Brit's and
Aussies at
this place,
they'd set up a huge shower facility, had a "laundry squadron" (I don't
know that
there were
'laundry squadrons'! But leave it to the Brits to bring civilization
with them
even to
shitholes like this. PS: Robb I'm bringing back a UK 'daily field
ration'. They have
Pate in them!
The Brits also like to sunbathe, are often nude and have a lot of women
along
with them who do
the same and aren't bothered by any of this. Civilization! The Brits
invented it!
They also brought, telephones, sattelite TV, fresh fruit, air
conditioning and
tea. Nice.
-
Tony
Dinkel sends:
>Hey Larry:
>Does Tony
get this?
Yes, I joined
the net a few days
ago. I have enjoyed your musings very
much. I
have forwarded several
of them to people that know you and also
some people that
don't know
you. Everyone seems to enjoy your point of
view.
Sorry about your
issues with
chachingular, the human interface can be
morons.
Did you get your
Iridium yet? I
had one for a few days last week. Its
pretty sad but
if its all you got I
guess its ok. You can almost tell you
are talking to a
human. But we
all can't be lugging Inmarsat B terminals
around. It
makes 16kb adpcm
sound like a broadcast circuit!
Joe
Responds:
Can you say
"vocoder"? No, it isn't
here yet. I've had some experience with
it before last
year in the Indian
Ocean, and it was a bit flakey. It was,
however, a life
saver. We had no
other options out there and for the past few
days without
communications from my
guys, I wish that they had one too.
The reasons for
the lack of comms are
(in this order):
1. No desire to
communicate with the
Command Post ("I don't need no
micro-management
from those
boneheads. I can take care of myself!")
2. Frustration
with previous failed
attempts ("That shit never works!")
3. Shortage of
gear. We're just
starting to replace our sabers and other radios
and there isn't
any money because the
leadership thinks that it's more important
to outsource our
computer network to
EDS$$$ and cancelled the radio purchase
program.
4. Incompetence.
These are
"operators", bomb guys. They don't want to screw with
non EOD related
stuff.
Tony
Continues:
The link budget
also seems a little
short with the built on antenna. They
also gave me a
little magnetic patch
external ant. With it on top of the
car I could
actually hold a
call. Overpasses are another matter.
Joe
adds:
You're right,
and the little mag
antennas help some. There is no free lunch.
I have a hard
time getting our people
to understand things like antenna gain,
antenna
bandwidth and really basic
stuff like forward/reflected power and
whether
connectors are put on
properly (basic Mobile UHF summer lessons).
They had an
encrypted SATCOM circuit
going (mostly), and complained that it kept
failing. They
had no indication of
received signal strength, no indication of
forward or
reflected power and aimed
the crossed yagi antenna with only a compass.
They were
dumbfounded when I
suggested that they put the radios into "Clear text"
(unencrypted),
use FM and adjust the
antennas for the lowest received noise. When
we did this, the
antenna was aimed in
a direction that they said was impossible,
and they had no
more drop outs for
the entire deployment. Oh yeah, after we
re-oriented the
antenna, they
switched back to encrypted. :)
I'm writing a
"lessons learned" paper
that suggests that they carry throughline
wattmeters,
connector and adaper
kits, and test/rework all cables. Frequency
selection was
also poor, with out
main channel being in the 66 mhz region (for use
with hand
helds). These radios also
required $89 lithium batteries (pure unobtainium
at this time) at
the rate of 4 per
day per radio. The command only had two battery
eliminators ($5k
each for a 24 volt 4
amp supply). Amazing.
Tony
goes on:
Do you have any
JPEG's of you in
action? My son's class is putting up
pictures of
friends and family
members who are serving. You would be #3.
It doesn't have
to be exceptionally
good, black and white, small would be
great. Can
you send and receive
attachments? Too bad I didn't catch you
when you had
that aussie's sat term.
Joe
Sez:
I can't send or
receive attachments
because of the small bandwidth available
from the ship.
As soon as I get to a
place with halfway decent bandwidth or if the
iridium phone
shows up, I'll send out
some of the better ones. We have some amazing
JPG's too.
Tony
continues:
I am also
curious if you could
consent to an interview on the John and Ken
show.
Joe
sez:
Gee, that would
be interesting. I
can't think of a reason why not. I'd be interested
in what kind of
topic they'd want to
discuss so that I can be well prepared (and appear
to be less
stupid). I might also have
to check with a PAO.
Looking forward
to your homecomming.
td
Joe
Exclaims!
Me too! Sooner
is better!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim
Gottlieb
reports in:
On 2003-04-12 at
17:53, Talbot CEC
Joseph E (Spam-A-Rama@gunston-hall.navy.mil) wrote:
> with spray
paint "USMC Fox was
here" everywhere. And of course, Marines
> couldn't
just go through a door,
they had to blow it up.
I was just
thinking earlier today
that it's a good thing you joined the
Navy instead of
the Marines, and were
able to stay pretty safe there at
the coastal
resort. I'm glad to
hear you may be heading home. I was
about to send
some of your bills on
to John, but maybe I'll hold off a
week or so and
see if you show up.
Joe
responds:
"Coastal
resort?" Yeah, it was safer
then when the Marines were there, but still
not real nice.
Bills? They should all
be going to john. Please forward them.
Jimmy
continues:
> Watching
CNN/Fox News/CNBC et
all is truly mind numbing,
Fox is always
harping on about Al
Jazeera, but they're no better; just
on the other
side. The others
are a little better, but from what I've
read and heard,
networks like the BBC
do more reporting and less
cheerleading.
It's sad that
Fox is beating CNN in
the ratings. I guess our esteemed
masses prefer
the Jerry Springer
style of news reporting.
Joe
Sez:
They're both
miserable. CNN started
the BLANK "alert" and the obnoxious "ticker crawl"
at the screen
bottom. I refuse to
watch Headline News because it looks like an overly
busy website.
It's shrill,
distracting, and you can't tell when something is ACTUALLY
happening. I
much prefer BBC.
Jimmy
continues:
> Fox news
reported the finding of
a mobile "bio weapon lab", but when it was
> shown it
looked more like a
camper.
The networks are
so afraid of being
beat to a story that any and every
thing gets
reported because they
won't actually spend the time to do
any
fact-checking. Not to
mention that viewers can be hooked in for a
few more minutes
with "Coming
Up. We'll tell you about a biological
weapons lab
found in Iraq."
Joe
sez:
I hate "Teases".
In fact now, I just
tune out when they tease.
Jimmy
Quotes me:
> Todd: I
heard an unpleasant
story today: I heard that David Bloom died
> covering
the war. Have you heard
anything?
Todd is in New
York today for the
funeral. Very sad.
Joe:
Please send
along my condolences.
This war certainly touches a lot of us this time.
Jimmy
quotes John:
> On behalf
of Joe, let me thank
you for your contribution to Joe's
> finances! I
know he appreciates
that.
I told John he
should pay the PUC and
file a complaint. I wouldn't
give in so
easily, especially with
such a large bill.
Joe
sez:
Yeah, I'd like
to get the guy that I
spoke to (it should be on the record when it
was ordered,
right?) and see if he
knows any better now. The biggest problem is I
have nothing in
writing. I did
explain the ENTIRE situation, and where I would be
to him. There
was clearly no
misunderstanding on my part. I asked SPECIFICALLY (since
it seemed like a
good deal). Is the
service regulated by the PUC? I think that more
milage could be
gained with publicity.
Jimmy
comments on
my remarks about the Iraqi Information Minister:
> No, I've
heard of him (of
course)! He is one of our favorites! I
>
particularly liked his "They are
not in Baghdad" comment
Last night Jay
Leno had a Jeopardy
sketch where he was one of the
contestants.
Very funny.
Like the game hasn't even begun and he
declares that he
is the winner.
>
John talks
about his recent squanders:
> > My
shiny new Macintosh has
an out-of-the-box problem: the modem
> >
"speaker" doesn't work so I
can't hear call progress. I'm thinking
> > I'll
wait for some other
problem to show up before sending it in.
Nah, he'll just
buy another one and
hope it doesn't have that problem. :-)
Joe
replies:
You know John
too well.
Jimmy
goes on:
BTW, I'm now a
Switcher. Todd
and I got twin 12" Powerbooks. Very
nice
machine. We are also now
providing Internet service to the
fireplace store
via 802.11b. We
had to place the AP in my window in
order to get
decent signal in their
office on the opposite side of the
building.
I left it open to the
world to allow free access for
passers-by.
It's connected to
the same network as our Free ISP, so
security
shouldn't be a problem (he
hopes). Used Orinoco (AKA
Proxim)'s new
AP-600 base station and
a Linksys Ethernet bridge for the
PC at Wilshire
Fireplace.
Joe
replies:
Congrats!
They're nice machines and
the OS kicks ass. When I get back, lets put
up an antenna
pointed at the train
station. How's the ISP going?
Jimmy
sez:
In other news,
Lucie is leaving the
employ of High Frequency Technology
and starts a job
at UCSD on the
28th. She expects it to be much less
stressful.
They've given her
the project of setting up a Java
framework for a
web server and told
her she has two years to do it. No
wonder Brian
Cantor, when I asked him
why he's stayed at UCSD for 30
years, answered
"no deadlines".
Anyway, I'm glad
to hear that the
worst malady afflicting you is boredom.
I'll send you
some text news in
separate messages...
Joe
sez:
Many Thanks! The
text news is very
nice! I generally read Google News, Wired News and
Slashdot. I
really miss google!!!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------