Jan 1st, 2006 by Jack Henderson
In the course of writing and researching, as I run across things I’d like to share I’ll post them here.
As time goes on, I plan to build a chapter-by-chapter set of resources that I hope will add another dimension to your reading. If you want to learn more about what’s behind the story as you read, you can dig into some of the same source material I used as I wrote it. All of that is/will be under the CoD/MI Notes category link, to the right.
And please post here as much as you like; it’s always interesting to hear from you.
Continue Reading »
Tags: Welcome
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Aug 8th, 2008 by Jack Henderson
Posted in News | No Comments »
Aug 4th, 2008 by Jack Henderson

In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousandfold in the future.”
I started to type the word “dissident” here to describe Solzhenitsyn, and it occurred to me how inadequate such a perfectly accurate term can sound. It’s the first word I thought of, I believe because it was so closely associated with Solzhenitsyn when I first heard of him many years ago. On reflection, though, dissident is exactly right. It’s not about what the word means to me now, but how much it meant at the time.
Continue Reading »
Posted in News | No Comments »
Jul 31st, 2008 by Digg_Post
Posted in News | No Comments »
Jul 21st, 2008 by Jack Henderson
Posted in News | No Comments »
Jul 20th, 2008 by Jack Henderson
I’m never sorry to have taken the time to read and absorb what Glenn Greenwald writes.
The current approval rating of the U.S. legislative branch is 14%, and my own explanation of that is simple: they’re the people’s representatives in these very challenging and worrisome times, and they’re not (at all) doing what we elected them to do. Greenwald’s premise here is that they behave this way because there are no meaningful consequences for ignoring our best interests and acting in their own. This is not a Republican or a Democratic issue; as you might have noticed, in terms of their actions the line between the parties has effectively disappeared in recent years.
It doesn’t take long to think of several examples of government entities breaking the law and then retroactively excusing themselves and their partners. The FISA “compromise” is only the most recent example. And with 1 in 100 Americans in jail or prison (read that again) and over 1,000,000 citizens on the DHS terrorist watch list, the way our public servants view accountability (theirs vs. ours) appears seriously out of kilter. The why of it all is what Greenwald explores in this article.
…the idea that the Rule of Law is only for common people, but not for our political leaders and Washington elite, is pervasive among the political and pundit class, in both parties. While common Americans should be imprisoned in record numbers when they break the law, the worst that should happen to the political elite when they commit crimes is that they should be voted out of office. That’s the dominant mentality governing how our political system works.”
read more
Posted in News | No Comments »
Jul 16th, 2008 by Digg_Post
Posted in News | No Comments »
Jul 16th, 2008 by Digg_Post
Posted in News | No Comments »
Jul 11th, 2008 by Jack Henderson
A fairly major plot-point in my first novel involves the widespread use of digitally-altered “news,” and it’s easy to forget how often this sort of thing actually happens in real life. I’m sure you’re familiar with this recent missile-test image by now, from Iran:

A number of international news agencies ran with the photo, before some savvy someone out there realized it was ’shopped to make 4 missiles out of 3, and published evidence to that effect. It didn’t take long, then, for all of those Internet smart-asses to ramp-up the image, all the way to 11:

Here are a few more examples of intentional image enhancement in the news, from the Chicago Tribune.
This use of altered or manufactured truth has gone on for centuries, of course. It’s just a lot easier now, and it’s spread much faster, which means we all have to watch that much more closely if we’re looking for the truth.
Posted in News, Research Archive | 1 Comment »
Jun 29th, 2008 by Digg_Post
Posted in News | No Comments »
Jun 23rd, 2008 by Jack Henderson
The first headline that caught my eye this morning was George Carlin, 71, Irreverent Standup Comedian at the New York Times. I thought it was a PR piece promoting a new tour or some other project, or maybe an induction into some hall of fame somewhere. Nope. Dead.
(The NYT headline has since been corrected.)
Carlin once said that inside every cynical person there’s a disappointed idealist. He sometimes sounded like a fatalist, especially in his later work, but I never thought he really believed there was no hope for the human race, even if none of us get out of here alive.
He started out in comedy as a rather mild, mainstream guy, and then risked all of that early success with the decision that his real voice was the one that needed to be heard. He changed comedy in the process, and then he stayed around long enough for a few generations to appreciate the subtle genius of his work.
Sorry you’re gone, GC, but so glad you were here.
Posted in News, Personal Stuff | No Comments »
Jun 8th, 2008 by Jack Henderson
Posted in News | No Comments »
Jun 2nd, 2008 by Jack Henderson
Posted in News | 6 Comments »
May 30th, 2008 by Jack Henderson
If we can do this, it seems, we can do just about anything.
People like to debate the value of the space program, and I’d be a lot more sympathetic to the arguments against it if wasn’t for one thing. Our record of Earthly innovation over the past few thousand years is nothing to sneeze at, but as often as not the advances down here have morphed into tools of destruction, or more commonly, into paths to further pollution and depletion of dwindling resources. The gadgetization of the human condition continues, and it sometimes feels like only a fraction of today’s R&D is devoted to changing the world for the better, as opposed to merely for the cooler. (Exceptions abound, of course.)
The space program has always seemed different to me. With the unlikely combination of sharp ambitious minds, small budgets, and lofty goals, this push outward into near-space has been an almost-pure testament to the value of science for its own sake. It’s the unrelenting search, beyond our daily boundaries, begun before it’s even knowable what might be found, that could yield the most amazing things.
To the layman, though, it’s a much simpler appeal. In some strange and basic way, when we look up and imagine these machines we’ve made touching down on other worlds, they send back a promise, or at least a pathway, along with their pictures. The future could be a wonderful place, if only we can make it there.
Click on that picture above, and you’ll see a photo of the Phoenix Lander on its parachute descent to the Martian surface. The photo was taken from another spacecraft, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, that happened to be in the neighborhood at the time. Absolutely outstanding, IMHO.
read more
Posted in News, Research Archive | No Comments »
May 6th, 2008 by Jack Henderson
It’s been a while since the last post.
The fact is I’ve been writing a lot more than I’ve been researching these days, and that’s a good thing. The second book is coming along nicely, but work there has meant that updates here have been a lot less frequent. So, let’s catch up for a minute with some things I would have posted here if I’d had the time:
1. Contrary to some speculation, I’m not dead.
2. Likewise, telecom immunity and the Protect America Act are also not dead. No, once again both “parties” have joined hands to revive rampant warrantless wiretapping of American citizens while removing accountability to the people.
3. Deborah Jean Palfrey, the so-called DC Madam, apparently hangs herself, despite her very recent assertions that she would never do anything of the sort. Early last year, one of Palfrey’s employees also apparently hanged herself on the eve of what would have likely been a high-profile, tell-all trial.
4. From $23.00 a barrel in 2001, crude oil prices passed $121.00 yesterday. $200.00 predicted.
Meanwhile, I’m working hard to finish my next novel before it all comes true.
-jh
Posted in News, Personal Stuff | No Comments »
Apr 13th, 2008 by Jack Henderson
I’ll get to the eye-Phone in just a minute, after a bit of context.
The series of books that I’m in the middle of writing all take place in the first 5 years of the 21st century. For you and me, that’s only a few years ago, but in future decades I hope these books will be seen more as historical fiction than as stories that could have happened at any time. None of this means anything to the person buying a first edition today, but my hope is that the accuracy of facts, personalities, and social/political forces will become even more interesting as years pass and our current time period becomes part of more distant history.
Continue Reading »
Posted in News, Research Archive | No Comments »
Apr 10th, 2008 by Jack Henderson
A few minutes after I’d read the announcement that IBM is now shipping a five-billion-instructions-per-second processor, I noticed another story about computing that I thought you might find interesting in contrast.
Charles Babbage died in 1871, having designed but never constructed the very first programmable computer. Incomplete pieces of his Difference Engine #2 had been on display for many years in the London Science Museum. In 1991, though, the museum actually constructed a complete model of the Difference Engine, based on Babbage’s detailed plans. And what do you know? It worked.
It’s hard to overestimate the mechanical and mathematical smarts that went into this design, using materials and concepts from the 19th century. Oh, sure, it’s a billion times slower than the calculator in your drawer, it’s operated by a hand-crank, weighs 4.5 tons, and it’s not as advanced as Babbage’s later Analytical Engine. But still, it’s one sweet machine.

Three years ago, Nathan Myhrvold asked the museum to build another full-sized model for his own personal edification, and now it’s been delivered. You can read more about this magnificent device here.
(Photo credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)
Posted in News | No Comments »
Feb 21st, 2008 by Digg_Post
Posted in News | No Comments »
Feb 17th, 2008 by Jack Henderson
Update: No crashes, not even a hiccup, after 3 weeks of continuous running following this fix.
This subject matter is a little out of character for this site, I know. I had so much trouble finding an answer to this problem that I wanted to post my solution here, in the hopes that it would help someone else.
I’d built a Linux box out of old parts and installed the latest release of Ubuntu (Gutsy), only to be met with constant, random crashes. Sometimes it would take a minute, other times an hour or two, but from the middle of nowhere everything would lock up in a kernel panic, with the scroll-lock and caps-lock lights flashing on the keyboard.
Continue Reading »
Posted in Personal Stuff | 1 Comment »
Feb 13th, 2008 by Jack Henderson
In yet another move that underscores the ongoing, bipartisan lack of anything resembling representative government in the U.S., the Senate caved to the lobbyists yesterday and approved of warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, past, present and future.
Angry about this, but unsure what to do? If you need the advice of a guy who writes thrillers, it’s really pretty simple.
Continue Reading »
Posted in News, Research Archive | No Comments »