Independence Day Observations -- From a Great American

As I was deliberating upon my holiday choice of words, I came across the following video from President Ronald Reagan, delivered and recorded on January 11, 1989 during his last month in office.

I found that the President's words exactly reflect sentiments of mine dating back many years, so I will not cheapen Reagan's oratory by writing more here. Suffice it to say that the President cautions us that if we stop teaching love of country to our children, we will lose our collective memory about what makes America great.

Without further ado, President Ronald Reagan.



Credit: freedomslighthouse.com

For a stirring rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner, watch Sandi Patty. The video dates back at least ten years but the content, of course, is timeless.



And if any readers are lacking in patriotic music today, here's that well-known modern American patriot, Lee Greenwood, singing his hit ballad about our country>

Always a Market for Good Ideas -- DARPA

Publicity is beginning to emerge about DARPA's latest cool program, a "robotic hummingbird" they call an Ornithopter. In actuality, it is a nano-UAV whose largest dimension is about 4 inches with flight characteristics more like a bird than an aircraft. This is significant because, frankly, birds are vastly more flexible in flight than fixed wing, or even rotary wing aircraft.

The nano-UAV will be able to provide reconnaissance and surveillance in urban environments -- listening and recording, or even depositing spy devices and then leaving them in place.

Yea, the bird looks pretty hokey but what's important is that it is quiet and can just alight in a tree and stay put. No one would notice it then.

GROAN -- Reactive, not Proactive

In an earlier post about North Korea's saber-rattling, I mentioned that it was time for the US to show this bully -- admittedly a pipsqueak bully, but a bully nonetheless -- what real strength we had. I suggested locating the Navy's Standard Missile offshore in international waters, technically not in violation of international law but close enough to blow the North Korean missiles out of the sky during their launch phase. So, Kim Jong Il and his generals could watch their precious missiles disintegrate in front of their eyes and learn, like the Libyans did 20 years ago, that they can "mouth off" all they want but once they get militarily aggressive, America is unafraid to take action.

Today, the US Army announced that we are using missile defense in the event that the North Koreans launch toward Hawaii, on July 4th, as they did a few years ago. But we are using the Ballistic Missile Defense system, which intercepts missiles thousands of miles after they've been launched. It is effectively a defensive weapon.

The difference to the world -- using BMD instead of the Standard Missile -- will be clear. BMD will protect the homeland. But it is not aggressive and certainly cannot be interpreted as an offensive weapon.

This point will not be missed by the North Koreans. Using the Standard Missile is equivalent to shooting out their windows and destroying their guns in the rack. Using BMD is equivalent to putting plywood on your own windows so the bad guy's bullets can't hurt you, while cowering behind the furniture.

The North Koreans only respect strength. They get away with their belligerency because they know the Western World is afraid to use its military might. So the question is, as we approach July 4th, what message will we send them?

Incredibly Cool Technology -- Beyond Artificial Intelligence

A recent press release by DARPA discusses a new program called, "Machine Reading Program." Despite this boring and non-descriptive title, the program's goal is to surpass what technologists call Artificial Intelligence (AI). The ideal output of the Machine Reading Program isn't just a smart computer, but one which can read War and Peace or even the Encyclopedia Britannica, and then answer intelligent questions about content. Meaning, once the book is read (in seconds), you can ask the computer to "write a Cliff's Notes summary" or "compare and contrast the primary characters' morality" and the machine would spit out the answer as well as any college professor.

The full capability is still in the future. That's why DARPA is funding companies $30 million to develop the MRP. But progress continues. It's about the language algorithms, the speech topology, and providing the computer with a capabilty to learn each time it "reads" more.

This is not a new need. Scientists identified it as a priority in the 1960s when IBM computers filled an entire room and cost millions of dollars.

Imagine the value from an intelligence perspective. Suppose you could read millions of web pages in Arabic and then answer intelligently questions which might lead to finding that one dangerous needle in the haystack.

Software firms with new ideas for making this initiative successful will have many potential funding sources, and good ideas will get well-deserved attention from the various intelligence agencies who so desperately need a solution.