January is ending and it's time for spring training. Starting in February, it will be at least 100 miles worth of running every month until the end of May. May this be an injury free training.

AP reported on the poor track record of US government IT project ” Experts blame poor planning, rapid industry advances and the massive scope of some complex projects whose price tags can run into billions of dollars at U.S. agencies with tens of thousands of employees.

"There are very few success stories," said Paul Brubaker, former deputy chief information officer at the Pentagon (news - web sites). "Failures are very common, and they've been common for a long time." “

Here's the reality. Creating software is hard, especially if you want it to be useful. There's no way around it. This difficulty is compounded by the lack of foresight by the people involved in these large scale projects. It's a shame to see tax payer money wasted on such debacles.

I know how it feels to finally be able to vote in a fairly free election. It happened to me back in June 1999, the first fair election in Indonesian history after maybe 40 years.

Yeah, we had election every 5 years under the Suharto regime, but the results are pretty much pre-determined. It's all voting in action, not in meaning.

Anyway, Iraq still have a long rough road to go through. Election is not the free cure all to all their problems, but it's a damn great start.

“After a slow start, voters turned out in very large numbers in Baghdad today, packing polling places and creating a party atmosphere in the streets as Iraqis here and nationwide turned out to cast ballots in the country's first free elections in 50 years. “ (NYTimes)

My quest to obtain a 1983 Honda 850 VT for fell flat yesterday. That bike I saw in a dusty garage is no more than a glorious piece of junk with a machine that cannot go more than 5 minutes without jamming

Ah well, I'll wait patiently for candidate to buy for this summer.

This 250cc machine from Honda catched my fancy the other day. 250cc is definately my sweet spoot, enough power and acceleration combined with easy of maintenance.  A 500 or 850 consumes too much gasoline for my liking. Although I will need to test drive this one first to see how it feels.

I had a legacy 165cc Honda moto back in high school and that rusty baby can glouriously run 90 km/h without  problem. He..he.. it was the loudest motorcycle in the neighbourhood.

And I rode this baby for a short while in Australia.

Anyway we will see what the future brings.

”sure i pray (or at least wish well) for anyone who takes the courage to vote tomorrow or to make the vote happen. it is an achievement for the world (and the Iraqi peoples) to have come so far ... the path was rough, the approach was wrong, things could have gone better and should look different, but at least the direction is right.

now, i hope we will all learn from our mistakes. we ALL made some.” (comment in alfunspun)

The issue is solved. Go to http://www.nomadlife.org.

I've been in conversation with two of my colleagues in Alexandria, Egypt and Rabat, Morocco for almost two hours now talking about market and talents. What a smart bunch and they make very interesting conversation.

I'm giddy like a 7 year old boy in a candy store. 

If you get overwhelmed with todo lists, deadlines, etc, do one thing. Just focus on what you can do now. now and not the next minute or hour or day. Just now. Do it. Get it out the way. and  do next.

What you can't do, doesn't matter.

From Liberia

“I have an attached photo for you. Man, I am living and just enjoying the reward of peace. I had to wait for 14 years for this time to come; now that it's here I will....”

From Australia, from my ole Reformasi Komrades

“Remember the big demo we did back in Brisbane almost 7 years ago?”

no longer has meaning to me. It's just a day to go dancing at Lalos at 11 pm.

http://www.sxc.hu/

Save Social Security.

” It seems to me that if we are to reduce abortions to an absolute minimum (and who, exactly, opposes that objective?), then Clinton's formula is the most practical. Her key sentences: "We can all recognize that abortion in many ways represents a sad, even tragic choice to many, many women. ... The fact is that the best way to reduce the number of abortions is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies in the first place." (TNR)

“Not this time. Abortion is "a sad, even tragic choice to many, many women," said Clinton. Then she went further: "There is no reason why government cannot do more to educate and inform and provide assistance so that the choice guaranteed under our constitution either does not ever have to be exercised or only in very rare circumstances."”(Slate)

Safe, legal, really rare.

”Most of the discussion surrounding Sharansky's book has focused on what he calls "the town square test" for free societies. Here's how Sharansky defines the test, which Condoleezza Rice endorsed during her Senate confirmation hearings: "Can a person walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm?" Sharansky uses this test to devise the central policy recommendation in The Case for Democracy: He wants to "turn a government's preservation of the right to dissent—the town square test—into the standard of international legitimacy," and he recommends sanctions and pariah status for the nations that fail it. “(Slate)

It can't get any simpler than that.

Whatever ailed me yesterday has now gone away. The return of the prodigal sun to Chicago helps.

”Did I tell you you're wonderful?
I miss you yes I do
Did I tell you that I was wrong?
I was wrong
Cos you're wonderful yeah
” (Adam Ant)

Today is one of those days where your body refuse to function and your mental fatigue reach its peak. Oh well, I'll rock on tomorrow.

Sarah just got her work permit to work in England approved. And with any permit, it comes expiration date.

And this is what sets nomads apart the rest of everybody. We can't take the place that we currently live in for granted. Our current adopted home has expiration date so might as well enjoy every waking moment we do have right now. In one definate day in the future, all of this comfort will go and we'll start again in someplace new or long forgotten.

Live like you are being deported :)

“For decades, policies pursued by the U.S. and other industrialized nations towards the developing world have has been based on a dirty little secret among policy experts: democracy and development don't mix. Turning this long-held view on its head, The Democracy Advantage makes a bold case that they do.

In this timely, penetrating analysis, the authors of this path breaking book dismantle the conventional wisdom that democratic reforms are destabilizing and that the U.S. must first promote development - often relying on authoritarian regimes - in order to create a middle class that will support democracy.

Reviewing 40 years of hard, empirical data, from China and India to Chile and Iraq, the authors show that poor democracies beat poor autocracies in every economic measure. In addition, the authors offer dramatic evidence that democracies are less likely to fight each other and that terrorists more often find safe haven in authoritarian countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.

“(Amazon)

I'm going to get this book from the library. Freedom and Democracy baby, they are so hot right now.

Good morning Week 4 of 2005 and Safire's last op-ed column.

Glasses free since 24 December 2004 :)

I got a package yesterday with a t-shirt in it. It smelled a familiar scent, a certain perfume, when I opened it and I found a note “so you won't forget me”. Made my day :)

is uniquely pain in the ass.

Everybody that I've met always dream of starting on their own and pursuing their own ideals, at some point leaving their  corporate ladder-climbing-rat-racing job. Some manage to get momentum, luck and guts to do it.

Well I manage to do just that two years ago and still in the game. So far I haven't managed to make the mistakes that kill me yet. And yeah, I'm still climbing that steep learning curve, making something great out of nothing. We are growing and expanding and doing something real unique with the way we are set up and deliver our stuff.

So I guess I'm living the stuff that many still fantasize about. But man, I tell ya, living your dream is hard, relenting and punishing work. This is a marathon without the water breaks.

Payroll, sales, expansion, accounting, R&D, development, billing, customer care, strategic planning, technical support, administrator, leader, HR, visionary, CTO, CEO, clerks, Chief Architect, janitor, CFO, trainer, Chief Motivator, innovator, marketing, international planning, mentor. Been there, done that, watched the porn. Whatever function possibly existed in a company I have done (and so does Adam) at some point of time. Now you know why we don't have a title in our business card.

Anyway, just a little rant with little meaning.

1 miles and about 10 feet of visibility. I thought I lost my toes there for a while. I wasn't alone in the stretch of snowy beach, with frozen patch on Lake Michigan.  Two couples taking pictures with just their eyes visible.

“Holy shit, you still run”, acclaimed the door guy in my apartment building.

So what's the verdict? It's out of this world. Well recommended.

I think I'm going to take the opportunity to run a couple of miles in the middle of this mild snow storm today.

Adam (adam at silverkey.us), my partner in crime, reaches the 27 milestone today.

”During his Inaugural speech, setting the tone for his second term, President Bush shocked even the most seasoned observers by changing US policy. "So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world," he announced.

He didn't say a policy or one policy: no, now supporting democracy is the policy, a radical change from decades, even centuries, of American accommodation of tyranny. “ (Opinion Editorials)

Here's the key word “stability” vs “freedom”.

Now it's freedom. Let's see if this reflects on the real world diplomacy.

(gapingvoid)

I'm a wolf. A lamb in a wolf clothing.

Chicago is choking under the unending assault of snow flakes, painting the night with eerie glow. 1 foot at least, they say. I'm safely tucked in my isolation, watching this whole orchestration of coldness from a 16 floor elevation.

This weekend is going to be another 20 hours of work time. Yikes.

Martin from Belfast will be joining SilverKey later on this month. With that addition, the nationalities within SilverKey family increase 9 nations (India, America, Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt, Morocco, German, UK, Colombia)

”So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world. “ (GWB - 2nd term)

If you don't call this an idealistic vision, you don't understand the meaning of the word. One hell of a speech may I add.

 Read on ESPN on Chicago Bulls 7 streak wins.

”The former top leader became an unusual icon of dissent when he publicly argued against the use of force to crush democracy protesters in Beijing in May 1989. He lost an internal power struggle and was stripped of his titles shortly before the army killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of demonstrators around the capital on June 4 of that year.” (NYTimes)

His life will be remembered at that single moment show of great courage and conviction.

http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=SMCRT&q=nude%20black%20big%20butt%20woman 

I'm number 2 for “nude black big butt woman” search terms on MSN Search. How could that happen?

”Don't hold your breath waiting for a thank-you card. If the fact that American soldiers have risked their lives to save the Muslims of Bosnia, the Muslims of Kuwait, the Muslims of Somalia, the Muslims of Afghanistan and the Muslims of Iraq has earned the U.S. only the false accusation of being "anti-Muslim," trust me, U.S. troops passing out bottled water and Pop-Tarts in Indonesia are not going to erase that lie. It is not an exaggeration to say that, if you throw in the Oslo peace process, U.S. foreign policy for the last 15 years has been dominated by an effort to save Muslims - not from tsunamis, but from tyrannies, mostly their own theocratic or autocratic regimes. “ (Friedman)

“Mr. Bush told The Washington Post in an interview published Sunday that he expected Ms. Rice to embark on a campaign that "explains our motives and explains our intentions," and added, "There's no question we've got to continue to do a better job of explaining what America is all about” (Hope on Rice)

Tonight something wonderful happen. Finally the thing that I want to figure out finally fit and make sense. Finally, finally, FINALLY. Ah joy. I'm so inspired.

And for my best buddies at For All I Care, you guys ROCK tonight !!!

We have one addition to SilverKey from Germany started working from our office in India last week, Stefan. He's a very bright guy that's currently working one of the most exciting and fundamental software project I've worked with, unifying personal task management with projects in distributed teams environment.

Finally the R&D that Mouna did in coming with a new conceptual model of task and project management will be implemented and become a reality. I can't wait. 

One cool thing about this project is that it is being done by people from 5 nationalities, in 3 different time zone, it a truly distributed manner.

The community in nomadlife starts to gel real nicely and I'm continued to be amused, amazed and enlightened by the stuff the nomads post on the blogs.

It's January and its' 62 degrees outside. IN CHICAGO !!!!

. Good health, mind and body.

. Stamina to work creatively 70-80 hours a week.

. Compassion.

Everything else is for next year.

”10:33am - Things are getting good. “Why doesn’t apple offer a stripped-down Mac that is more affordable?” The Mac mini. About the width of a CD. Slot load combo drive (DVD/CD-R). DVI & VGA out. Ethernet. USB 2.0. Firewire. Runs quietly.
10:35am - Holding it in palm of hand. Looks about a third of the size of the cube. Like you took a slice of the Cube. BYODKM: Bring Your Own Display, Keyboard, and Mouse. It’s about 6” x 6” x 2.5”. Comes with Panther, iLife ‘05. $499 with 1.25GHz G4 processor. 40GB hard drive.
10:36am - Faster version is $599. Available January 22nd. Crowd is going wild.”  (Engadget)

”endgame: the Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror” is one crappy book. What a waste of my 20 minutes skimming time (book is free, borrowed from library)

The book is written by Lt. General Thomas McInerney (USAF - Ret) and Maj. General Paul vallely (Army - Ret).

Sorry generals, better stick to your FoxNews commentator job.

Here' the main problem with the book.

1. The book is 208 pages in length. 35 pages of those are introduction written by Oliver North, a bunch of political rants that have no place in a book with such a serious title. Man, if I want to read rants, I can read blogs.  

2. This book is direct translation of television punditry into written text. “Our nightmare - made more nightmarish because it is so plausible”. blah.

3. Blue print. What blue print? There is none here. What we have in the whole 208 - 34 (introduction) - 16 (pictures)  = 150 pages of Op-Eds.

4. There is no new ideas that hasn't been espoused or written by many people, military or non - military during the past three years. Been there, read that, ranted about it.

5. Dubious “facts” and “claims“

   “In our research for this book, we discovered that a group of countries, led by Israel and U.S., has been working since 1981 on a mega secret project to develop and deploy a weapon system than can neutralize nuclear weapons. The highly advanced, space-deployable, BHB weapon systems, code-name XXXBHB-BACAR-1318-I390MSCH, has extraordinary potential and is a key part of the West's deterrence strategy. For the past twenty-five years, the project and the sicentists involved in it were kep secret in strict secrecy and their existence denied. The scientists rejected Noble Physics prize and Nobel Peace prize nominations and have been repeteadly and deliberately the subject of intense military disinformation through the media in order to diver attention from tehir higly secretive work. In 1981, when CIA director William J.Casey signed onto the SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) - a missile defense shield against incoming nuclear warheads - he gave the green light for the technology's development for deterance purposes and peaceful use only. Although we have only limited information, it appears that Iran's rapidly developing nuclear capabilities could be neutralized and rendered obsolete, as could the capabilities of other rouge countries” (page 74)

Avoid at all costs.

“Smokers and restaurant owners in Italy were fuming in a rather different way on Monday after a tough new law that bans smoking in public places - one of the strictest in Europe - went into effect.” (IHT)

non-fumare in tutto posto pubblico? incredibile. questo e la evento miracoloso.

I received an email from a stranger that have actually read my postings around the Internet questioning my sanity (”do you have dual personality disorder?”) after he found out that I wrote in nomadlife (and founded it with Digs) and also posting/commenting at Redneck Texan.

Yes, those two sites are about 180 degrees to each other. One is very international. extremely multi cultural, young, mostly liberal. You cannot say those attributes apply to the other site.

And boy, I am pretty liberal (and got a pretty good track record on that).

I encountered RT at the command post early last year and his views blew everybody away because it was probably the most extreme right out of the bunch of right wingers attending that site. Yet I think I was the first one that encouraged him to keep posting after he hesistated and warned about his views.

We very rarely agree on anything but the dialogs (or mostly can be characterized as  smackdown) continues throughout the year even after command post starts crapping on its own bed and he started his own Redneck Haven at his current site (which now are a haven for a bunch of ragtags misfits and rebels and red-stater). It's quite an unusual dialogs to say the least.

I think the dialogs keep continues because we maintain a healthy level of respect on each other. And I do consider him a friend.

Another important factor I can think of  would be both of our absolute commitment to the concept of “freedom” and “liberty” and realizing the dirty and nasty works sometime required to defend those two concepts. And yes, Islamic fundamentalism is a real threat.

And I give that the dialogs have managed to modify some of my views, allowing me to examine certain blindsides highlighted by opposing opinions.

There you go. That's a little explanation on what's going on and off course I won't apologize for it because there's nothing to apologize for (i'm quite proud of the fact actually).

Anyway the smackdowns will continue because the real world is messy.

Life is hectic as usual, especially in January where we plotted our war map for the next 12 maps. I've already accepted being busy is just part my nature although I miss the opportunity of being able to go out and smell the frozen rosses.

I went to see “Hotel Rwanda” last night. It was a very powerful and moving movie about the genocide there and a scatching indictment on the failure of the West (yes, including that liberal “enlightened” Clinton presidency) to intervene. (The UN fucked up big time. Big time.)

I wonder if Henry can get a bootlegged copy of the movie on the street on Monrovia. I wonder how he'd think about the movie. Did it look familiar when rain of bullets ricochet off the street of his home and mercy hurriedly fled the country two years ago? Did he have to frantically search for his family and make sure they were safe? How does it feel to be trapped in two warring crazed children armies high on the estacy of killing and destruction?

”As pretty much all the sensible articles on Social Security have made clear, to the extent that we have a problem, it is not a Social Security problem, but an accumulated national debt problem.

The United States has a bit over $7 trillion in accumulated national debt....

After 1980 we started borrowing money big-time to finance our deficits -- in large part because of tax cuts on high-income earners. However you want to slice it, we started spending substantially more than we were taking in in tax revenue.

But about $3 trillion of those dollars we needed to fund the 1980s and 1990s deficits we managed to borrow closer to home. We borrowed it from the Social Security (and a few other government) trust fund(s). “ (TalkingPointsMemo)

Remember that Social Security is still running at surplus right now.