Behind the headlines

Understanding war has ongoing discussion of the strategy and logistics of what is going on in the Ukraine.

or you can follow twitter threads or the most recent update on youtube.

The problem: the fog of war.

I know nothing about what is going on in the Ukraine, except that we figure that China is getting the message that they need to attack before Trumpieboy is reelected.

One comment I made in the past was the danger of hacking the internet, and that if Taiwan is attacked, one major internet cable from Asia (including Singapore and India) could be cut and slow things down as it did a couple years ago.

Article from 2019 about this, includes this illustration.

the internet is also valuable in war time, which is why Russia attacked the internet in the Ukraine... but there is now an alternative. Elon Musk is letting the Ukraine use his satellite internet service. the problem: maybe not enough receivers.

Many years ago, we used satellite TV and later satellite internet services because I tended to live in remote areas of the USA. At the time, the federal gov't was discussing funding of putting in expensive internet cables to remote areas of various Indian Reservations while what was needed was satellite dishes.

It sort of reminds me of back in the early 1990s, when I had a (rare) cellphone because I needed it as a rural doctor, but it was only beginning to be used by the public.

I was on an airplane and talking to a lady returning to her husband in Thailand. His job was constructing cellphone towers in remote ares. When I questioned the expense, she pointed out that wiring was vulnerable and expensive, and that the towers bypassed this difficulty (although in mountainous areas, there remained dead spots).

One of the least covered stories in the world is the cellphone revolution.

30 years ago, a charity was collecting money to send cheap computers into rural Africa. But then came internet cafes, and then came cellphones, internet commerce, and the ability to talk to your family.

When we had a major typhoon a couple years ago, we were offline and had no electricity or water for two weeks, and a lot of the roads were slowly being cleard... we were okay: we could use our own generator and waterpump. But what the neighbors actually asked us was to charge their cellphones so they could get in touch with their relatives. Soon, shops and kiosks were set up with signs: Cellphone charge 25 pesos (fifty cents US). Priorities: You can use candles and bottled water, but hey you need to check on grandmom and check your facebook page.

and with the virus, even we are using E commerce to buy stuff that might not be in a shop here.

update: I just told kuya to fix an old diesel Jeep we have stored in our garage, just in case an EMP type weapon takes out computer chips in our newer cars.

During WWII, they used ethanol to fuel jeeps etc, but an alternative would be to run the jeeps etc on biodiesel.

and of course we still have one aging waterbuffalo so we could plow the fields if needed.