On-line Opinion Magazine featuring annoyed rumblings from the leading edge of the Baby Boom firmly tied to a reality-based world.
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30 comments
Did I mistakenly arrive at the Red Green Show? (Sorry; I never managed to watch all the way through even one episode…)
That’s a Chinese pattern and they are always in red, as are most things for the New Year’s celebration. The name of a year is made up of independent elements. The animal of the zodiac is a 12-year cycle, the other elements are different cycles.
If I had any graphic abilities it might be different, but I go with the clip art given away at Chinese sites.
Red Green must be on television, right? Never heard of him or his show, sorry.
“Red Green must be on television, right?”
It’s the kind of show that leads Saturday Night Live to parody PBS… it’s humor, if you happen to have that kind of sense of humor. FBOW, I don’t. As noted, I’ve never watched even one full episode… two jokes in, I’m ready to bolt. Give me Red Dwarf any day. (Kryten’s screen name and avatar come from Red Dwarf.)
When I was in Boy Scouts (not my most successful adventure, but that’s another story), I was in… I kid you not… the Green Dragon Patrol. Someone did a search and determined that we were the only Green Dragon Patrol in the whole of Boy Scouts USA. I guess that was a good thing…
Yep! 😀 You are the first one to get it Steve (well, half of it. You should also get the other half of my nic.) 😉 Been my nic for over a decade. 🙂
I have all the RD’s on DVD, and the extra’s such as the “Munchkin Song” (or the “He’s Arnold Rimmer” medley, or “The Smeghead Song”). LOL Sadly, the recent series of RD (since season 8) Have been a let down. The fame (and money) went to their heads I think. Oh well…
Having seen “Red Dwarf” and read “The Hitcher’s Guide”, Kryten42 wasn’t very difficult to decode. I don’t watch TV, but I have a BlueRay DVD in this box, and Netflix takes care of the rest.
I have discovered that Chinese red dye makers have convinced people that demons are afraid of the color red, so the Chinese go overboard with it. So do Slavs, which is why the Soviet Union and China used red flags – it was part of their culture before Karl Marx was born. Red Square has been called Red Square since it was laid from red brick by John IV in the 16th century. Actually the adjectival form of ‘red’ and ‘beautiful’ were the same in the Russian of the period, and still the same when applied to periods of time.
“Green Dragon” sounds good to me. I believe that both “Puff” and “Pete” were green dragons, so they must be associated.
I think there’s a lot of us who “got” the meaning of Kryten42 who never commented on it because it seemed so obvious that it didn’t need commentary. The only question is whether Kyrten was related to Deep Thought :).
Probably changed his name from “Shallow Thought” for ‘professional reasons’ 😉
Well… I was the only one (or one of the few anyway) in the various Mil/Int org’s I was part of that thought any deeper than ‘Shallow’! I was the ‘Trouble Maker'(tm). I asked questions about the *why’s*. We were only supposed to question to clarify mission orders apparently. Asking ‘Why?’ made their heads ache. However… I was more than *tolerated* since I had a high success record. ‘Deep Thought’ had it’s advantages, for their purposes. I realized after a short while that I was very carefully tasked. There were a few missions I saw where my ‘skill set’ was very suitable, but I was kept away from. 😉
I guess that explains why I didn’t stay long. Yeah… “Shallow Thought” indeed. 😉
And yeah Badtux, it wasn’t intended to be a puzzle or very tricky. 😀 I figured that many would get it. 🙂 Just that Steve was the first to comment on it. 😀
The officers we got to talk to had no better idea than you did why anything happened, but didn’t want to admit it. They passed the order along and wanted the people who had to carry it out to just do it. Questions make them very nervous. The US intel officer corps was certainly not over-endowed with candidates for Mensa, and were some of the least curious people on the planet – they didn’t know, and didn’t want to find out. That’s how you end up with a Michael Hayden as a Director of NSA.
Yeah. Same most everywhere. The continual public embarrassment called ASIO proves that beyond doubt here.
Here’s a couple laughs I got today (though the first is from a few weeks ago actually. Still catching up after my sanity break.):
U.S. Government Caught Pirating Military Software
It seems that the severe treatment of true *Whistleblowers* in US Military Org’s hasn’t stopped them. This from a Soldier based at Camp As Sayliyah, Qatar:
U.S. Army Base Runs Unlicensed Windows 7 Computers
Yeah… Should change the Nation’s name from “United States of America” to “Hypocrit’s-R-US”. 😛 😉 😀
Well, well!! It seems that not only did the US Army pirate the Apptricity S/W, they hired a company to hack it so they could use it without paying a license fee!
There’s no way in hell I’d settle for a lousy $50mill! I’d be looking at a massive settlement and/or criminal legal proceedings for hacking the S/W! I don’t understand why they agreed to such a small settlement.
M$ has enterprise licenses with government agencies, but in Qatar the equipment may belong to a contractor, so it is probably bogus. Pirated software is one of the joys of working with contractors.
The other situation involves a small software company that exists to sell to the military, so they don’t want to push too hard, and $50 million is a lot in a lump sum. They need to use it to expand their product line to other industries.
The government needs its own IT resources in house to write things like this. It would have been a hell of a lot cheaper than what it is costing now, and they would actually own it. Another demonstration of how stupid running a government like a business actually is.
According to the US mind set – It’s OK if the government does it, but private citizens who complain about it will be sent to prison.
I got the 42, but had to look up kryten.
but pick any minor minor minor subcharacter in any murder mystery written in the last 100 years and google would have to ask me.
Hi hipparchia. 🙂 I thought you got your name from Hipparchia of Maroneia, the Cynic philosopher. (I looked it up years ago). 😉 😀
Yeah Bryan, I do understand that. But this is soooo wrong in a major way! If we did it, not only would we have to pay the full amount owing, but also a hefty fine and probably all legal costs! And may even do jail time. Your gov is saying: “We can break the law whenever we like, and if we get caught, we’ll pay you a pittance and you can STFU!
And don’t worry… I saw a lot of the *double standard* crap when I worked for our Gov. (Aus & UK. Mush of what we were involved in was “Commonwealth” sanctioned. And is why we will never be a Republic! FAR too useful to the Commonwealth! Same for Canada and NZ just BTW. You’d be amazed at how much dirty crap the UK divests to it’s Commonwealth States. At least, they used to. When the UK had a more intelligent and ruthless Gov. Now, like the USA, they don’t give a crap if they get caught.) Another reason why I got out. It’s one thing to believe your Gov is run by crooks with no morals or ethics, it’s another thing to see it often, and know you can’t do a thing or you’ll end up in some black hole for the rest of your life real fast (assuming you don’t just have an *accident*, which given some of the things I saw and did, I know happened.) So, if I suddenly dispensary of the face of the Earth… You can guess what happened. And I no longer give a rats! I made damned sure to cover my ass many years ago, just as I was trained to do. Funny how things like that can be that old “double edged sword”! 😈
Screw them all! *SHRUG*
Stupid spell checker!
“Mush” –> “Much”
“dispensary” –> “disappear”… duh!
Ha! It did it again, but I was watching this time! 😛 Hmmph!
Just for the record, working for the “Commonwealth” (the Queen) means that we operated at a security level above the PM. True “Plausible deniability”. Just another reason why being part of the Commonwealth is useful, and won’t change.
Of course it’s wrong. It’s the government breaking the law. The same government that declares that people owe media companies thousands of dollars if their kids download music or video. The same government that hacks web sites and throws teenagers in prison for hacking web sites. No one is supposed to be above the law, not even the government.
I’m going to front page a post on this when Real Life calms down a bit. At the moment following the Quest is about the only thing I have time for on the ‘Net.
Actually, you get fscked that way any time you’re a small business reliant upon a handful of giant entities for your income. When I was working for an oil field contractor, we had continual problems getting oil companies to pay the money they owed us. We’re talking about multi-trillion-dollar extremely profitable companies, but they’d extend out 2, 3, sometimes 6 months on a 30 day net job, and if you got too pushy with them and actually tried enforcing the penalties written into the contracts, they’d quit contracting with you and you were fscked.
The little guy gets fscked, period. That’s how it works here in the U S of A. Sigh.
When you deal with them you have to factor into the cost of the money to carry you over until they pay. Yeah, the big guys couldn’t care less about cash flow in the little guys. They act like they are doing you favor by using your expertise and resources.
The wealthy are the same way – they never pick up a check, even if they suggest a lunch meeting. They have money because they don’t believe they need to spend any, that’s for the ‘little people’.
Works that way most everywhere now guy’s. Way of the World. Yeah.
Another one of those weird things happened to me yesterday.
There was this private security forum that I visited now and then the past year or so. So, I finally decided to stop lurking and get involved because there were a couple threads I wanted to comment on. So, I post a bit about myself (it’s required), and comment on a few threads. Next thing I know, one of the Admins makes me a trial Moderator! I actually complained because it’s a big responsibility (it’s a big board with over 100k members from all over the World) and I just wanted to chill and have a bit of fun! We all use nicknames there, so nobody knows who people really are (unless they tell them). Anyway, he PM’s me and gives me access to a private chat room they have. We chat for awhile and begin to feel weird again. he started to seem familiar, and as we compare notes, we finally realize we knew each other way back! He’s 4 years older than I am, and was in the US SF as a sniper. We’d worked together on a few missions way back when! LOL He said that when he read my short bio (which had nada about my Mil/Int days), he said he felt something was familiar, and they were desperate for some new Mod’s, so figured he’d take a chance. So much for a bit of fun! Now I’m back in the coal mines! LOL Anyway, I had to accept. Last time I was Mod on a board was before my accident in 2007. Seems one of the other Admins was a member of a board I was Super Mod on. Hope I didn’t ban him or anything! 😉 Could be embarrassing! LOL
Damn! It really is a small World! And old sin’s do come back to haunt! AND… No good deed goes unpunished! Ah well… 😉 😀
I’ve run into people down here who were the other end of a comm link when I was in, and even ran into one of the ‘legends’ in my field at a college info meeting for prospective students in New York.
It must be karma, or life really is a Tolstoy novel filled with unbelievable coincidence.
Actually, the people who are interested in the field would naturally gather at points of mutual interest on the ‘Net. So, welcome to your new ‘job’.
Yeah, that’s true. 🙂 There’s a kind of gravitic pull between people that are either like minded, or were in the same job etc. 🙂
I was thinking about this guy last night. I remembered that after a couple missions, we got naturally curious about each other. We knew each was in some SF unit, though our cammo’s of course were fairly nondescript and devoid of insignia etc. (except for a dark patches for designation and rank. US used black, we used a a dark olive). He asked if I was SAS (because that’s about the only SF unit we have that get’s any press). I said no, and that we have several other SF units, like the US does. I asked him if he was a Marine Scout-Sniper, and he kinda went stiff a bit, then relaxed and said no. But I knew it was either a lie or half-truth. He said he was Ranger. I was suspicious, he was too skilled to be a Ranger (not that I have issues with them at all, but they tend to be more generalist, albeit very good). Anyway, I left it there and decided to do some digging back at base. I found out that no Marine unit was *officially* part of the UN mission, but that (like us) a SF unit could be temporarily assigned to another Army regiment (or battalion), especially when they don’t want things to come back to haunt the SF unit, which normally has enough problems to deal with! 😉 LOL
He came clean yesterday that he was a Marine S-S. And asked how I knew. I said that part of my training was to sus people out by things such as skills, the way the move, talk, and many other tells. And he was too good to be just a Ranger. 😀 He said he never did figure out what my team was. I said not to worry, we are good at ensuring our top SF unit’s stay secret, and we are happy for the SAS to get all the bull’s eyes! LOL I told him I still couldn’t officially tell him because of my NDA that I signed in ’87.
So I decided to have a look, and discovered that not only is my once super secret *tell anyone and die* organization is no longer secret… they even have damned website! Geez (and for the record, unless they have changed *SIGNIFICANTLY* in 30 years, the website tells about 20% of the truth, maybe less! I read the “about us” and nearly puked! *SIGH*
Anyway, I decided “Screw it!” Since they are now effectively Public Domain, I told him I was with ASIS. I won’t post a link for obvious reasons. But it’s quite easy to find! It was definitely created by an advertising company!
About the only honest part was:
“The Australian Government expects us to be adaptable and to respond effectively to the growing number and diverse nature of threats facing Australia and its citizens.”
If people knew exactly how we *responded effectively*, and what length’s we went to to gather Intel, they might be appalled, or not believe it. *shrug*
Everyone lies, and everyone has secrets. *shrug*
Oh! And get the irony of the name! Australian *Secret* Intelligence Service! With a bloody public website! Seriously?! They should at least have had the intelligence (sic!) to change the name to “Australian Intelligence Service” (AIS), or just AS! Not at all sure about the “Intelligence” part any more!
And they make it all sound like it’s just a bunch of people listening in on things, eavesdropping on comm’s (like the NSA, which they do of course), and conveniently leave out that they also have a couple of unit’s with highly trained *information gatherers* who know how to use just about every weapon etc. known to man, and highly skilled martial artists, bomb or arson makers (from anything including household items), and so on!
Sooooo glad I am out!!
Government naming conventions are strange – the National Security Agency is strictly intel, while the Central Intelligence Agency has to be reminded that it’s part of their brief. I admit that the only agency with ‘Secret’ in its name is part of the Treasury Department and deals with counterfeiting and Presidential protection. The Secret Service did some intel work in the American Civil War, but nothing much since.
Ranger school is part of all Army special forces training, so a Ranger tab isn’t an end point for some people, like the Special Forces [Green Berets]. You have to volunteer and then be selected for Ranger and above in the training programs.
No one really wants to know what their government gets up to, and a competent government can keep a secret. Using contractors guarantees that there will be leaks, and anyone who doesn’t understand that isn’t smart enough to be trusted with secrets. Putting up a web site is just mind boggling. Why spend the money on it? This sounds like a staff decision that got out of hand and was carried to absurd lengths.
There was nothing secret about the existence of the National Security Agency, but when it was a real military operation, no one talked about it. It wasn’t that you were told not to, it was just easier not to talk about it at all to anyone, than to worry that something you said could cause problems.
If the current crew had been around during the Cold War we would have nuclear winter instead of global warming.
If the current crew had been around during the Cold War we would have nuclear winter instead of global warming.
True. But don’t lose hope m8. It can still very much happen with the current morons.
Here you have to be *vetted* via one of the Commando Regiments before applying, or being invited to try out for, one of the SF units. There are two primary types of SF Unit’s. Recon (SAS (actually SASR) and the Force Surveillance Unit), and Counter-terrorism (TAG (Tactical Assault Group), SOER (Special Operations Engineer Regiment) and, back in my day, ASIS. Though ASIS was also used as a recon Unit, and Intel gathering.) Depending on the mission, an ASIS team was either 2-man team or a 6-man unit, often with a Commando unit or SASR or TAG unit as Recon, area security or backup. I suspect you can probably guess the difference between the 2- and 6-man uits. 😉
In all honesty… I’m really pissed off at the whole thing here! As I know you are there. I wish we had something better in common.
Well, it wasn’t all bad. We got to be young and stupid. The music was great, the booze was great, the ladies were great, and we didn’t manage to kill ourselves while volunteering to do things that no sane individual would do. We lived on the absolute edge. People have to pay a hell of a lot of money to that today, and we got paid to do it. 😉
Knowing what we know is hard. Life would be a lot less complicated if we were as ignorant as most people, or just didn’t care, but then we wouldn’t be who we are.
I suppose I can’t really argue with any of that! 😀
Women did go crazy over a hard guy in uniform! 😆
The only downside I guess was that before I signed up… Bar fights were a lot more fun! LOL After… they tended to be over in less than a second. With me (or a mate) standing over some fool saying something like “Sad isn’t it? Some people really can’t hold their drink! Tsk, tsk.” And everyone wondering why the loudmouth suddenly collapsed like that, but often glad that he was silent. Then quickly forgotten. 😈
I suppose Bryan, the main difference between what you did and what I did, was that much of the time, I saw the results of my actions immediately and personally. I’m not at all belittling what you did, or the danger you faced. Or even suggesting that you didn’t consider the effects of what you did. Having come to know you as I have, I’m sure you did.
I know I did a lot to help innocent people survive and live. But I had to take many lives also. Early on, it was pretty black & white. Eventually, I came to realize it wasn’t at all that simple. And later, the more experienced I became, and the better I got at gathering Intel, and separating truth from lie’s, it got harder to tell just who the *good guy’s* and the *bad guy’s* really were. In the end, I came to the realization that it all depended on the viewpoint.
Cambodia was a hell hole, but it was also the only place I was sent where I knew who the *bad guy’s* were! Where I could see and decide for myself. And they were not all Khmer Rouge! Though, they were the ones trying to murder millions of mostly innocent people, so I had to do my best (and my team mates also) to stop them. And for the most part, we succeeded. And nobody knows (except the villagers we saved). Which I guess… is all the really matters in the end.
And I suppose, that part of my job was something like your LEO days. I’m sure there were many times where things were anything but simple or black/white. 🙂
Yes, I sometimes wish I was ignorant, for a moment. However, I’m not really big on self-pity (and the above has nothing at all to do with self-pity). Especially after I see or hear one of those ignorant fools and I thank every deity ever known (and those unknown) to Man, and the Universe in general (just to cover all bases) that I am not at all like them! 😈
I don’t know if it’s a good thing or not that I am no longer with ASIS, and that they apparently are no longer the organization I once knew. Or DIO for that matter.
Still, perhaps some of the more troublesome fools might find themselves to be somewhat accident prone all of a sudden. Karma, indeed. 🙂
Well… there’s a thing! I suddenly find myself smiling for the first time in awhile. I must have had a pleasant thought or something! 😆
Yes, you are correct. It wasn’t all bad at all! I was much better at solving annoying problems for one thing. 😀 😉
Every time you wrote down target coordinates you knew hell would come to that location, so you had to be damn certain you got it right. Napalm and high explosives are not the most accurate of weapons, so there was an almost total certainty that some of those who died would be innocent bystanders.
We had no weapons on our aircraft, and we lost crews. I managed to keep up a pretty average of take-offs and landings, but the landings were not always smooth, or at our chosen destination. It was nothing like what the pounders went though, out in the boonies for weeks, and when they got back they burned their uniforms, because washing them would have been pointless.
You got instant feed back and I had hope and frustration. I know that I would have volunteered in a heartbeat to take out some the groups we tracked, and it had nothing to do with the geopolitical situation – they were simply evil.
The Soviets were generally a lot more fun. Yes, they might decide to shoot us down, but not like the Chinese, North Koreans, or Libyans as a matter of policy, but usually by accident. Some of the hairiest times were failures of equipment in their air defense grid, so they didn’t really know where we were or where we’d been. Ah, good times…
Yeah. I do understand. 🙂 When I wasn’t putting cross-hairs on someone, we were gathering intel & coordinates for a *surgical strike*, that would almost certainly be nothing like a scalpel, more like a bloody big mallet! And we couldn’t warn any nearby villages to go somewhere else for a while, obviously. So, I understand the “hope & frustration” all too well.
It was much easier really when I worked as a 2-man team. We were fairly autonomous. We were given a specific job, and we did whatever had to be done to achieve the mission goal, within mission parameters, which sometimes could be fairly broad.
At DIO, I liked dealing with the Russians the most! 😀 They were more fun, and good with bribes (that never worked, but it was the game), and some of them could actually be trusted. To a point. 😉 There was a mutual respect with the ones I got to know well. I never trusted the Chinese (and still don’t. And have good reason not to). Most of the Arabs States had me counting fingers after having to shake hands (especially SA and UAE)! I told my boss on more than one occasion I wouldn’t trust them to buy me a loaf of bread without feeding some to a rat to see if it died! And don’t even get me started on most African or Sth American States!
Most of the *real* business with the Soviet’s were done in a small Russian family owned Restaurant in Glebe (a Sydney Suburb). 🙂 The added bonus was the well chilled Vodka (and not the garbage they serve visitors in the Consulate or sell in shops), and the excellent food! After a good meal, I’d usually be invited to the cellar to inspect the latest vintages or to help them fill out their wine list (I was quite a good Sommelier as part of an earlier cover). 😉 We knew there was a good chance of someone listening in upstairs… but no chance in hell in the Cellar! A lot of business was done there. 🙂
The Japanese were probably the best at *gifts*! But, I could never really trust their motives. I always had mixed feelings with them. *shrug* It all came in handy when I returned to Industrial Design. 🙂 I knew the game well, and it impressed the hell out of Exec’s from Toshiba, NEC and the like. 😀 I still have a couple of the wonderful gifts. 😀
*sigh* I spent most of my time helping people escape the collapsing Soviet Union, who would almost certainly have been executed. One was a guy who originally was a Geologist. Then he became something of an explosives expert for the KGB, and other things. He never wanted to do it, but back in the days of the USSR, you had little choice. Anyway, I helped him out, got him a job with a certain *mineral exploitation* company. Within 6 years, he became General Manager! 😀 He offered me an excellent job, but it would have been too dangerous for him and his family. Some people are not the *forgive and forget* kind and can hold a grudge a long time! 🙂
Now *they* were the good times! The rest, not so much.
I’m certainly glad your luck held out m8. As did mine. How, I have absolutely no idea! 😉 LOL
I think we should leave it there before we start singing rude songs and get banned by the pub 😉
Hey! That only happened once. After I turned 18 and started going to pub’s with my m8’s! Ahhhh… Now, THEY were the truly *good ol’ days*! Yeah.
Hmmm. And I was just getting warmed up too! 😉 😆
Don’t worry. I don’t push my luck too far. If ASIO were in any way even remotely competent… I wouldn’t have said a thing. 🙂
Anyway, bed for me now. I have a day at the hospital for several tests, starting with fasting pathology (& other fluid tests) at 10 AM. So, no more food for 12 hours. That’s a lot of fun for a diabetic!
Expect me when you see me. 😉 😀
And… Thanks my friends. 🙂 It helps. We did some good. And that’s more than many can say. And it’s enough. I *AM* a “has-been”, but that’s so much better than being a “Never was”!
😉