Al Gore and the Invention of the Internet
07 December 2021 • by Bob • Computers, Politics, Technology
There is an age-old story circling within political spheres that former Vice President Al Gore once claimed to have "invented the Internet." And in contrast to that story, there is a
In deference to Tech Insider's claims, there is a vast difference between being "misquoted" and "misspeaking." Al Gore has NOT been "famously misquoted" with regard to his comments to CNN in that video, in which he clearly says, "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." That is a direct quote, not a misquote. Of course, history tells us that Gore was misspeaking when he said that, which could be attributed to hubris, deceit, or ignorance.
Putting things in perspective, Al Gore uttered his
Nevertheless, Tech Insider's and other people's insistence that Al Gore has been "misquoted" are ludicrous. Regardless of his reasons for doing so, it is a matter of undisputed fact that Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet. And it is also a matter of undisputed fact that Al Gore did not invent the Internet.
If you'd like a brief introduction as to what really happened when the Internet was created, the following three-minute video should tell you everything you need to know.
By the way, if you've read some of my old blogs, you'll see that I wrote the Request for Comments (RFC) document number 7151, which defines a method of
The Chronic Epidemic of Fake Service Dogs
28 November 2021 • by Bob • Opinion, Dogs
My brother recently posted the following article: Important Rant About Why Fake Service Dogs Are So Problematic, which contained the following anecdote:
You're sitting at a café with your friend when suddenly a woman walks in with a toy poodle in her purse. The manager at the counter informs her "I'm sorry, but we do not allow dogs." She replies with a heavy sigh and a "She's a service dog. She can come with me." Not knowing much about service dog law, and worrying about getting sued for asking further questions, he sits this woman down at a booth. There, she promptly unzips her purse and places the dog on the booth seat next to her. When the woman's dog comes out, the little dog begs and she feeds her bits off her plate. This dog is not public access trained, and proceeds to bark at those who walk by. This dog is a nuisance and causes many in the restaurant to complain. The manager cannot do anything but inform the unhappy customers that this is a service dog, so he can't ask her to leave. In the end, it's the customers who end up leaving.
Now I walk in with my highly trained service dog pressed against my leg in a perfect heel position, and I'm quickly bombarded by the manager telling me "No dogs! No dogs! We ALL know what happened last time." Confused, I tell him "This is my medical alert and medical response service dog. Her right to accompany me is protected under federal law." With a sigh, he seats me at a table far away from others where my dog promptly tucks under my feet, out of sight. When my food arrives my dog is still tucked tightly under the table because she knows she's not supposed to eat when she's on duty. She stays there ignoring those who walk past for the remainder of my meal. When we leave, a woman by the door exclaims "Woah, I didn't know there was a dog here!"
See the difference?
There's more to the story at the link I shared, but here's the gist of the article: the problem of "fake service animals" has become a chronic epidemic in our country. Far too many people are pretending their dogs are "service animals" when they're not, and they are causing a plethora of problems for actual service dogs.
Look, I get it; dogs are great. I grew up with dogs. I love my dogs. Other people love their dogs. Heck, we all love our dogs. However, some places are acceptable for dogs, and some places are not acceptable. Not every public setting is appropriate for them.
That being said, as evidenced by the anecdote I shared, the way that some people have been abusing "service animals" is eroding public trust, and that's dangerous to society. I have heard people complain that they "need" to have their dog with them, which they don't. Their argument is typically that their dog is really their "emotional support animal." But you know what? EVERY dog is an "emotional support animal." That's pretty much the definition of any pet.
I had a coworker at work who was blind, and he had a real service animal. There is a world of difference between his dog and the dogs that I see running around stores and behaving badly while wearing a "service animal" vest that their immature owner purchased at a local pet store.
Let me explain what a dog has to go through to become a service animal: my Goldendoodle is a certified service dog, who has been trained to visit patients in hospitals. To become certified, she went through two years of training where she learned how to behave in dozens of disparate public situations, followed by several batteries of testing in front of a panel of judges, where something as minor as a single growl would have disqualified her permanently. There are no second chances during the testing; a real service animal must behave perfectly in public from the outset. That is why when someone brings their house pet out in public and lies to everyone by claiming that their dog is a "service animal," and their pet cannot behave in a way that is commendable, they permanently hurt public opinion of service animals.
To put it bluntly for those who are too immature to understand the basics of public behavior: if you do not have an actual medical need for a service animal, and yet you are too emotionally unstable to go to the store for a few minutes without leaving Fido or Fifi at home - then you need therapy. In the meantime, however, you need to leave your dog at home!
What I'm Thankful For This Thanksgiving
25 November 2021 • by Bob • Military, Ponderings, Thanksgiving
Unless you've been deployed to a forgotten, backwoods, nowhere of a hell hole and one of these packages is your Thanksgiving meal, you may not realize how truly thankful you should be for the things that you have.
On this Thanksgiving, I am thankful for all my comrades in arms (and their families) who are deployed far from home and their loved ones, and keeping the peace so that others might be able to spend time with their families.
Aerial View of Shipwreck Beach on Lanai
09 November 2021 • by Bob • Photography
I recently brought a drone with me to the island of Lanai, and I used some of the footage to create the following aerial 360-degree image of YOGN 42 off the shore of Shipwreck Beach. The black discoloration at the top of the image was caused by the drone's propellers, which were fighting hard to keep the drone in position amidst winds that were far too strong for it. As a result, I didn't get more than a few minutes of video before I decided to call it quits, otherwise I would have risked losing the drone.
If you click the image, you'll see the
The drone has GPS for keeping the drone out of areas where I shouldn't be flying, and to return home if the drone loses signal. To guide the drone, I had it linked to my phone, so I was watching the video on my phone's screen while holding the remote. In that sense, it was almost like playing a video game using a controller.
Unfortunately, I have no video from above the wreck. I was close enough to overfly the ship, but a warning popped up on my phone's screen telling me that it was far too windy (which it was) and I should land immediately. Then a second warning popped up saying that the extreme winds meant that GPS might not be reliable, so the drone might not be able to return home if I lost signal. Having seen both of those warnings in rapid succession, I turned the drone around and headed it back to where I was on the beach, lest I lose the drone and have it join the dozens of other wrecks along Shipwreck Beach.
My Halloween Zombie Story
01 November 2021 • by Bob • Humor
Here's a story from my distant past for your Halloween amusement...
Back in our High School days, my good friend James and I loved horror movies - the scarier or the gorier the better. On weekends, we loved to host horror movie marathons at James' house in the Tucson foothills, where it was nice and dark after hours, and his parents were cool enough to let the two of us invite over a bunch of friends to participate in our fright fests.
On one such occasion, several people were on their way as dusk was beginning to fall, and one of the people we were expecting was Carrie, who was a friend of ours from Drama class. Since zombies had been the theme of choice on multiple occasions, we hatched an evil plan to play a prank in that genre on Carrie. James and I had a few gallons of stage blood lying around, as one does, and I suggested that we rip up the front of one of James' shirts so it looked like it was torn open by a zombie, then cover his chest with cold cut meats that matched his skin color as best as possible, then drown everything in stage blood while James was lying in the middle of the street. We quickly set everything up in front of his house, then we waited for Carrie's car to turn down his street.
After a few minutes a car was headed our way, and I sat in the street next to James as I began to slowly rip pieces of flesh off James' chest and eat them, with copious amounts of stage blood dripping down my face. The car came to a halt next to our macabre spectacle, and when the occupants rolled down the window, I was surprised to discover that it wasn't Carrie - it was the parents who lived next door to James. They looked at me with a genuine amount of fear and asked, "Is he okay?," to which I replied with the first thing that popped into my head, "He's delicious."
James' neighbors quickly drove away, and by some miracle they didn't call the cops on us. Carrie arrived a few minutes later, and we repeated the whole scene for her benefit, with the expected results. I believe her words - or at least her thoughts - were along the lines of: "The two of you are not right in the head." (It's quite possible that she still holds that opinion of us.)
PS - I should mention that James' neighbors never asked him to babysit again.
The Unfortunate Demise of the Basic Training Shark Attack
27 October 2021 • by Bob • Military, Rants
Earlier today, one of my fellow veterans shared the following video from Business Insider about the United States Army Infantry School's decision to no longer conduct the unofficial ritual known as the Shark Attack during basic training. By way of definition, the Shark Attack has traditionally been the first experience that new recruits have in Basic Training, when Drill Sergeants descend on raw recruits and scream at them until they begin to understand who's in charge.
Despite CSM Fortenberry's comments in that video, the Shark Attack totally has it's place in today's Army, and the idiots who don't think so are... well, IDIOTS. The purpose of the Shark Attack is to mentally separate recruits from civilian life, and nothing does that better than having a Drill Sergeant screaming in your face. The Shark Attack also instills a sense of fear at the outset of training, which is absolutely necessary for some new recruits to create a foundation for discipline where they'll listen to their Drill Sergeant's orders for the rest of their training. If you take away the Shark Attack, you take away one of the best tools for teaching recruits that their lives - as they knew them - are over. (For the next few weeks, anyway.)
Personally, I hate, hate, HATE the "kindler, gentler Army" approach that today's military leaders are trying to create. Combat is neither "kind" nor "gentle," and taking away the rough edges from military training creates soldiers who are ill-equipped to deal with the mental pressures that soldiers will experience after they leave training. It doesn't matter if new recruits are volunteers or draftees - soldiers need to be tough enough to endure the rigors of combat life, and the Army is doing their soldiers a great injustice if they fail to prepare recruits for their new lives.
Quite frankly, this entire discussion is just one of many ways where the people who are "in charge" of the Army simply do not "get it" with regard to how the actual day-to-day business of the military is conducted.
I'm so glad I got out before this toxic cancer of stupidity infected the Army.
Reckless Behavior in Enemy Territory
27 October 2021 • by Bob • Military, Humor, History
Okay, It's Time to Come Clean. One evening, after the Fall of the Wall but long before German Reunification, I hopped in the car and drove into East Germany to spend some
I studied several of our official military maps beforehand, and I had planned out my route in detail. It was only a
I was dressed in civilian clothes that would pass for a native German, and as I approached my destination, I blended into a crowd of East German college students who were milling about. I was 25 years old at the time, so my youthful appearance and choice of attire matched the rest of the group.
A short time later, two Bad Guys in officer uniforms happened by. I left the group of students, and I approached the two Bad Guys. I greeted them with a thoroughly awful Bad Guy accent - which was by intention. I explained in a mixture of German and Bad Guy dialect that I had studied their language in school (which was true), and that I hoped to study more (which was also true). As I continued to speak their language badly, I was gambling on the notion that all I had to do to sell the illusion that I was an East German college student was to make sure that my grasp of the German language exceeded theirs.
My ruse paid off - the two Bad Guys dropped their guard, and they were more than willing to help out a poor college student who was butchering their language. Shortly after that, I was asking them questions about their uniforms, what they thought of Germany, where they were stationed, and... some other things. It's been years, so I don't really remember everything that I asked them. (Although, even if I did remember what I asked them, I'd still say that I didn't remember, so I'll leave it to you to decide whether I'm telling the truth.)
After several minutes, I decided that I needed to make my exit. I thanked the pair of Bad Guys for their time, then I joined another group of college students that were walking in the opposite direction of my car. After I had walked a sufficient distance, I broke from the group of students and headed down a narrow street, and then I began a long process of cutting through yards and hopping fences as I made my way back to where I had stashed my car. When I arrived, I made a quick inspection and decided that it hadn't been touched, then I climbed behind the wheel and headed out of town. I didn't head west, though - I headed north for a
I had lots of details bouncing around in my head, but I was careful not to write anything down until after I had crossed the border back into West Germany.
I will admit, this short jaunt into enemy territory was... fun. And it produced a modicum of interesting information, but nothing that was earth-shattering. However, years later, I can put this entire experience in perspective: no one knew where I was. This wasn't anything that I was tasked to do. I wasn't working for anyone else. I was a member of the US Army, in civilian clothes, in a civilian vehicle, on foreign soil. If I'd been caught - or killed - there's a very good chance that no one in the West ever would have known what happened to me.
In other words, I was an idiot.
POSTSCRIPT:
My spouse would like me to remind everyone that even though 30 years have passed, she’s still angry about this.
I'm a Russian Language n00b
26 October 2021 • by Bob • Military, Linguistics
After graduating the Defense Language Institute (DLIFLC), then three years working a live mission, and then graduating the Foreign Language Training Center Europe (FLTCE), I was asked to provide real-time translations from English into Russian for church services for political refugees in West Germany who had defected from the East.
I thought that I was pretty darn good with the live mission vocabulary, but my self-confidence in the language completely evaporated when I realized that I knew absolutely zero of
Yup - I quickly realized that when it came to church vocabulary, I was a totally worthless n00b.
The Day I was a Sports Legend
22 October 2021 • by Bob • Humor, Microsoft
Back in my early days as a Technical Support Engineer at Microsoft, my boss had a dartboard outside her office, and several of our fellow team members would play darts on their breaks. I suck at darts, so I never joined them.
One day I happened to be walking by, and one of the guys asked, "Why don't you ever play with us?" I replied, "You wanna see why?," then I grabbed one of the darts and threw it with barely a look in the direction of the dartboard.
I fully expected to miss the board by several feet, and thereby demonstrate to everyone my complete lack of skills. However, by some miracle the dart landed dead center in the bull's-eye. Rather than show everyone my expression of dumbfounded surprise, I quickly collected myself, then I turned to the people gathered around and asked with a feigned air of superiority, "Do you REALLY want a piece of me?"
Then I walked off, leaving my stunned coworkers in awe while I basked in the glow of a victory that I could never have achieved if I had tried, and like any great athlete - I left the sport at the top of my game.
Facebook Vanishes for a Few Hours
04 October 2021 • by Bob • Random Thoughts
The Wall Street Journal publishes an exposé on Facebook's flawed business practices, then Facebook spends several hours offline.
The Facebook Files - A Wall Street Journal Investigation
Hmm... coincidence?