World Trade Crash and a bit about computers

We live in very strange times. My daughter's friend's dad may have lost his best friend on the 108th floor of the 2 World Trade Center... but he doesn't know his friend's status yet. I think that most people around the world would feel for the loss of life of the folks in the building. I grew up in New York and attended schools there before moving to New Jersey. I was a history major before getting in to this computer industry. I've worked with folks from all over the globe in multinational companies. I don't think I'm unusual in my view that this type of action deserves decisive punishment when the people responsible are found. If you allow it to drive the civil population into a state of fear and panic and if we begin to curtail freedom of speach and assembly they will be winning. The only way to avoid events like this is to increase security at airports -- which often is lax in this country... I've heard of real security at airlines like El Al which does a serious baggage and weapons check. I'd hate to see this anti-foreigner attitude take hold for real. Historically it usually occurs for a short period of time before people realize we're a nation built mainly of foreigners who came here to avoid pogroms and repression on economic, religious and ethnic grounds. I really don't think I'm a great fan of either President Bush or former President Clinton, but I really feel that the military and intelligence community have not done enough to get ready for the new non-traditional methods of conflict and we're headed for more of this. I've worked out of Fort Monmouth for DEC and other organizations and I know the bureacracy there has kept the military from using the commercially available technologies effectively. The US military is way too wedded to the old mil-spec way of doing things. Wired had a good article showing that they're beginning to hire consultants to adjust their method of doing business. They used to draw up specs for things they needed which caused their costs to be hire than off-the-shelf technology would have been. Building custom limited production devices is expensive. Luckily they cancelled their MCF Military Computer Family project which was building a Vax work-alike computer in the mid-80's when the MicrovaxII became available off the shelf. They're beginning to adapt. I hope it will allow us to avoid losing our freedoms to have the security all folks want and deserve. Bill -- d|i|g|i|t|a|l had it THEN. Don't you wish you could still buy it now! bpechter@shell.monmouth.com|pechter@pechter.dyndns.org