What McNamara Learned from Viet Nam

Grok Headline matches for What McNamara Learned from Viet Nam

McNamara and data distortion

McNamara and data distortion 04/09/2004 04:01 PM
I recently saw The Fog of War, as one of my annual quota of about four movies that I will get to see at a movie theatre. An amazing film. I went into the movie prepared to be sympathetic to McNamara, and was impressed both by his thoughtfulness and by his arrogance. By the end of it, I was loathing McNamara all over again for his duplicity, with some of the same intensity as I felt during the Vietnam War. Remembering his obsession with numbers and with data, it also struck me that if, like him, you advertise your reliance on data gathered (or created) by other people for making your decisions, you are inviting people who have a stake in your decision to game it and muck with the data. That's how we got the inflated body counts. Not necessarily the smartest move on the part of a decision maker, especially one who so obviously thinks so highly of his own intelligence....

POW/MIA's - Another Viet Nam War Fantasy

POW/MIA's - Another Viet Nam War Fantasy 03/15/2003 08:55 PM
MIA Facts Site

Prisoners of Hope: Exploiting the POW-MIA Myth in America.

Let's Sell The Bones : The Marketing of America's Missing In Action  (More Inside)

Viet Nam provides Internet channels to
Laos

Viet Nam provides Internet channels to
Laos 07/16/2004 01:16 AM
BVOM.com Jul 16 2004 5:42AM GMT

Nearly half of new Iraqi army has quit.
Similarities to Viet Nam disappearing
every day

Nearly half of new Iraqi army has quit.
Similarities to Viet Nam disappearing
every day 12/12/2003 06:52 AM

cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/12/11/sprj.irq.main/index.html
track this site | 5 links

Viet record ripples - The Washington
Times: Commentary - August 09, 2004

Viet record ripples - The Washington
Times: Commentary - August 09, 2004 08/10/2004 03:16 AM

Being learned

Being learned 01/07/2004 02:01 PM
Old River Bill really knows inland workboats. Besides exercising his novel system of punctuation, Bill makes model tugboats and is a part of an avid community of workboat modelers. You can find out everything you ever wanted to know about how real work is done on rivers on how the hell we move 100's of thousands of tons of crap around the country every day.

"Everything I Learned at MIT"

"Everything I Learned at MIT" 07/14/2004 03:22 PM

What We Learned from Google's IPO

What We Learned from Google's IPO 09/01/2004 09:54 AM
Search Engine Lowdown Sep 1 2004 2:26PM GMT

Have We Learned from the New Economy?

Have We Learned from the New Economy? 02/19/2004 12:41 PM

What We Learned In The New Economy

What We Learned In The New Economy 02/18/2004 08:10 PM
Add to that the much-anticipated IPO of Google (expected sometime this spring), our ever-growing dependence on the Internet, and the healthy sums of capital ...

Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned 04/26/2004 06:53 PM
To wrap up my week of upgrading my mother's iMac, I thought I'd mention a few things I'll keep in mind when I next set up a Macintosh for a less-than-computer-savvy user. By Christopher Breen, Macworld (via MyAppleMenu)

You Must Unlearn What You Have Learned

You Must Unlearn What You Have Learned 10/29/2003 10:14 AM
TheForce.Net has the first official online info about the newest Star Wars TCG expansion, The Empire Strikes Back. The expansion is due to hit the shelves in November, and will include some new game mechanics. Read all about it right here.

Today I learned

Today I learned 03/06/2004 02:02 AM
Today I learned that IKEA bags are really handy for carrying car tires. Today I learned that car tires are...

This weekend, I learned... (09:27 PM)

This weekend, I learned... (09:27 PM) 02/26/2003 03:39 PM
After spending a weekend snowboarding in the Poconos, I've learned a few things: Snowboarding in the rain roX0rs: nobody else is on the hill. Pennsylvania doesn't spend

Lessons to be Learned

Lessons to be Learned 09/10/2002 03:41 AM

How I Learned French in One Year

How I Learned French in One Year 12/30/2004 02:30 PM
Riding on the coat-tails of an earlier article about emigrating to other countries, I present to you a small summary of my experience rapidly learning French to pass a standardized test for Canadian immigration. Since I live in the middle of the US, far removed from anything resembling a Francophone environment, I had to resort to various online and offline resources to accomplish my goal, managing to learn enough to score as "advanced" in several categories in just 10 months. Even if you don't wish to emigrate, this article may be useful, as I go into full detail describing the techniques and methods I used. Or, at the very least, read and be amused.

How they learned to love the bomb

How they learned to love the bomb 03/29/2005 11:48 AM
Bush is talking tough about nukes in Iran and North Korea. But critics say by illegally testing and building nuclear weapons, the U.S. is fueling a new arms race.

A Hard Lesson Learned

A Hard Lesson Learned 03/14/2005 04:35 PM

Well the nightmare that all of us geeks feared the most, happened this morning. I walked into my office and found that it had been broken into. The computers were all taken and the printers, copier and some accessories were also stolen. I had backups of the important files, but a lot of small things are missing, settings, ftp accounts, and the most important thing of all, my privacy.

It will be a couple days before the insurance settles the claim and we can replace the hardware and software, but my worry is that I had passwords and account information available for any trained hacker to find. Sure I had the passwords and I did not save key rings in browsers, but the fact is, it can be found out. I learned a hard lesson. I will be encrypting my hard drive from this time forward. My data will be secure, I will have a call home program installed in case the thieves fire up the system and try to get online.

I would like to here from the geeks out there as to what measures I need to take to make sure that my information is as safe as I can keep it. Let's hear your feedback. I'll be back with more news as soon as I get my computers back at the office.

Lessons Learned From Blaster

Lessons Learned From Blaster 06/20/2004 11:59 PM

MT Upgrade: lessons learned

MT Upgrade: lessons learned 09/04/2004 03:45 PM
FTP'ing many small files is sloooooow, so it's important you copy the right set (MT 3.11), instead of re-copying the existing version (MT 2.6) - oops ;-) To FTP files to your server, don't ever use WS_FTP again. The damn thing steals focus on every completed file, which made it almost impossible to do anything else during a large... (225 words)

The IPO market has learned useful
lessons.

The IPO market has learned useful
lessons. 12/19/2003 07:33 PM
On the other hand, December has seen more IPOs than any month since November 2000, and surefire blockbusters like Google and Salesforce.com are slated for next ...

Everything I Need To Know About Web
Design I Learned Watching Oz

Everything I Need To Know About Web
Design I Learned Watching Oz 02/10/2004 02:35 AM
Making it as a web designer is like staying alive in the slammer. So before you sharpen your Photoshop skills or crack open that new book on crafting more effective customer experiences, you'd be well advised to catch a few reruns of HBO's Oz. ALA system designer Brian Alvey points out the parallels between a successful career in web design and the popular prison drama.

Investing Lessons Learned in College

Investing Lessons Learned in College 06/10/2004 02:30 PM
Here are four things you might have forgotten you'd learned.

Things that I learned about driving in
Japan

Things that I learned about driving in
Japan 08/20/2004 10:11 AM

Just as Japanese society is more intricate, if less varied, than U.S. society, the topography of settled Japan is more intricate than the U.S.  Where we would say "this area is too broken up by mountains and inlets so we'll build towns elsewhere" the Japanese don't have that option.  The result is an amazing number of bridges and tunnels.  I have driven through more tunnels in three weeks and 4000 km. here than in my previous 24 years of driving cars.  If you're a fan of civil engineer you'll giggle with childlike wonder every 20 miles or so as you come across a new suspension bridge, elevated road, or new tunnel.

Being illiterate is a serious impediment to navigation when you know where you want to go and robs you of the opportunity to decide whether or not a previously unknown roadside attraction is worth the stop.  Even with limited Japanese, however, asking directions is very effective.  One hundred percent of the time the person whom I stopped either knew where the place was or was able to figure it out after consulting a map.  Not once was I given bad directions.  Twenty five percent of the time the person asked would take a detour and lead me to the destination.  Twenty five percent of the time the person asked would produce a map or atlas, mark it up and give it to me (scored a complete 100-page detailed street atlas for the island of Hokkaido in this manner--sadly all in Kanji except for a few route numbers but subsequently very useful).

Gas costs 2X as much as in the U.S. but the rental car is nearly 2X as efficient as my minivan so the cost of a fill-up is about the same.  The price in Japan includes two attendants who pump the gas, clean the windows, walk into the street to stop traffic as you're leaving, and bow from the waist as you drive away.

Japan essentially has no highways.  This is one of the world's most densely populated countries with  approximately 335 people per square kilometer, about the same as Israel, and more than India's 320 per square km.  For an American, coming from a country with 31 people per square kilometer, it is hard to understand how these folks get by with a network of 2-lane roads and a couple of arterial 4-lane expressways.  Even when a local highway goes through a town that is mile after mile of fast food, supermarkets, Vegas-sized pachinko parlors, etc. it won't get widened beyond 1 lane in each direction.  This plus the heavy traffic results in ridiculously low average speeds, much lower than the 40, 50, and 60 kilometer per hour limits that prevail on most roads.

Such roads as the Japanese have are the apotheosis of that type of road.  It might be a shoulderless 2-lane road but it is the best damn shoulderless 2-lane road in the world.  Despite winter freezes you will never drive over a pothole.  Overhanging poles with arrows point to the edge of the travel lane so that the snowplows can be exact.  Solar panels in those poles charge up batteries all day so that they can flash with LEDs at night, reminding drivers of where the curves lead so that you don't have to watch the white lines in your headlights as carefully.  Every curve is signalled with strange white patterns painted on the pavement as you approach the curve.  If a curve is sharp there will be a sign telling you exactly how sharp, e.g., "R=100m".  If a brief section goes uphill you will be told exactly how steep, e.g., "grade=3.6%".

Given the excellence of the roads, the heavy traffic, and the low speeds one can't help wondering how the Japanese became the world's best engineers and builders of high-performance cars?  A 1935 Hudson Terraplane would be more than adequate for getting around Japan.  Even in Hokkaido there would be no way to stretch the legs of a Mazda RX-8 or Honda/Acura NSX.

Drivers here are highly skilled but not especially observant of the official rules.  The speed limit on the mostly empty toll expressways is 80 kph but plenty of folks go 120 or faster.  People try not to be the third car through a red light.  Parking is simple.  You stop the car wherever you feel like, turn on the hazard lights, and walk away.

And the last thing that I learned about driving in Japan... When the policeman waves you over to the side of the road and says "Speedo" he is not interested in seeing you change into your latest European-style swimwear.

8 Things I have Learned As An Internet
Marketer

8 Things I have Learned As An Internet
Marketer 05/04/2004 10:34 PM
WebDevInfo May 5 2004 2:15AM GMT

How Everything I Know About Web
Marketing I Learned from Your Local Gas
Station

How Everything I Know About Web
Marketing I Learned from Your Local Gas
Station 01/05/2005 06:47 PM

Julia Lerman: How I Learned to Love .Net

Julia Lerman: How I Learned to Love .Net 04/26/2004 11:51 AM
Our sister site DevSource is featuring another fun read. This time, it's an interview with ".Net Rockstar" Julia Lerman.

A browser lesson learned from Microsoft

A browser lesson learned from Microsoft 08/30/2004 08:39 AM
ZDNet Aug 30 2004 1:10PM GMT

Lessons Learned from Eye Tracking
Studies

Lessons Learned from Eye Tracking
Studies 03/19/2005 02:41 AM

Lessons learned from online journals

Lessons learned from online journals 10/29/2003 12:10 AM
There are lessons to be learned from the first round of online journals, hammered out over time in the private spheres of close friends and associates. Many from that time have moved on to other things, but their legacy remains at the core of blogging's foundations. Write for an audience of friends. When you have an audience of a million people, there's no way to anticipate what the best viewpoint to reach them all is; remember that your writing is an expression of your viewpoint, and express it as such. Express your viewpoint as if you were talking to a group of friends: clear, to the point, and perhaps a dash of humor. Aesthetics speak a thousand words. The appearance of a site frames the content contained within, setting the tone for the reader. If your color schemes makes it...

'04 Graduates Learned Lesson in
Practicality

'04 Graduates Learned Lesson in
Practicality 05/29/2004 03:08 PM
Experts say graduates' strategic, pragmatic approach to entering the work force speaks of a coming wave of adults bent on entering the mainstream and staying there.

What George Bush learned from the
Democrats

What George Bush learned from the
Democrats 02/01/2005 10:02 PM
The privatization of Social Security will be a centerpiece of George W. Bush's State of the Union address Wednesday night. But a funny thing happened on the way to the joint session of Congress. The White House has talked to some Democrats, and it has learned a thing or two about Social Security.

5 things I learned from spam today

5 things I learned from spam today 09/20/2004 06:56 PM
How to make my male organ 4 to 6 times bigger How to order any drug online without a prescription...

What Steve Wozniak Learned From Failure

What Steve Wozniak Learned From Failure 09/13/2004 06:34 PM
The Apple II was a hit. The Cloud Nine universal remote was not. Here's what Steve Wozniak learned about creativity, and what it means for his latest venture. By Evan I. Schwartz, HBS Working Knowledge (via MyAppleMenu)

Wired News goes behind the scenes of the
conventions - what we learned

Wired News goes behind the scenes of the
conventions - what we learned 09/01/2004 01:26 PM

Adam L. Penenberg at Wired News just published a great article covering the lessons learned by bloggers (and me personally) at the DNC, and the changes we made to the Election Watch 2004 site, including the reorganization of our analysis into the Liberal Politics Attention Index™ and the Conservativ e Politics Attention Index™.

What I Learned as a Writer from Doing
Usability and Interface Testing

What I Learned as a Writer from Doing
Usability and Interface Testing 06/05/2002 05:52 AM

Three Things I Learned About Screen
Reader Users

Three Things I Learned About Screen
Reader Users 08/06/2004 07:51 AM
As many of you know, I'm currently working on my HCI master's thesis which is investigating the convergence of accessibility...

Mid Year SEO Checkup - Lessons Learned
2002

Mid Year SEO Checkup - Lessons Learned
2002 06/26/2002 01:02 PM
This business has been so fluid the last couple of years, that you have to be a full time WebmasterWorld member just to keep up.

Office 2003 Lessons Learned -- Part V

Office 2003 Lessons Learned -- Part V 03/08/2004 11:17 PM

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What McNamara Learned from Viet Nam

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