Bloredom

Ok, ok, I have to admit. He’s kind of cool… ;)

A sad but still wonderful story about Randy Pausch, Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU).

As many US-universities cultivate the tradition of “last lectures”, where professors hold their last lecture before retirement, Randy Pausch’s last lecture is particularly authentic: He’s going to die from pancreatic cancer. The video of his lecture “Really achieving your childhood dreams” became a sensation on the Web.

“My wife Jai has been an incredible source of stability and courage through all this. We both agree that “you can’t control the cards you’re dealt, just how you play the hand.”
(found on his blog http://www.cs.cmu.edu where he constantly writes about his last year of his life)

Update: As expected Randy died on July 25:

“Randy died this morning of complications from pancreatic cancer. The CMU news story is here.”

Update 2:

Hey, how cool is that (and yes, I know it’s a bit morbid to say “cool” when someone just died. But if you read his blog you realize how he dealt with the situation himself). He got into the new StarTrek movie. ;)

This is, by far, the coolest thing (okay, #2 behind the palliative chemo working). JJ Abrams (Hollywood producer/director who did the TV series “Lost,” the movie “Mission Impossible III” and a bunch of other stuff) emailed me, out of the blue:

[...]

Jai & I hopped a plane to LA, where I got a custom-made Star Trek uniform and my own station on the bridge, where I had lots of buttons and controls. I even got a LINE!!!!

[...]

the “Star Trek” movie will be in theaters December 2008. Don’t blink or you’ll miss me, but at some point a guy walked across the bridge and says “Captain, we have visual!”

Update 3:

By now his book was published.

With all that nasty insurgency warfare dominating the news in the past years, air force isn’t exactly flavour of the week. So the US Air Force is battling a perceived drop in importance and looming budget cuts with an ambitious and pathetic ad blitz. Because there is one thing that scares air force officers more than communists and evil dictators with weapons of mass destruction: that one day they could lose parity with the other branches of the military. What do you mean, the army is fighting two wars at once while our pilots are sitting on their butts sipping martinis? It doesn’t mean those dirty grunts can get more money than us! After all, we can never really have enough cash to throw at procuring those queer Cold War dinosaurs that we just love!

With that in mind, it’s nice to know that air forces in other countries are still in the business of defending their country. And although the IAF hasn’t exactly got a lot of good press recently (see also this), here is some cheerful news:

For the first time ever, a female Muslim Arab soldier has joined an elite Israeli Air Force unit. Upon completing a medic training course with top honors, she became part of the Airborne Combat Search and Rescue Unit 669, a premier unit that extricates wounded soldiers from combat zones in sensitive and highly classified operations. (found here)

Did you know that Bloredom loves the IAF?

After some 24-hour-journey (including a cancelled flight due to a snow storm in Detroit) I’m back in the US. Just a few points to note (also theck the gallery and the picture descriptions):

• The civil servantes at the border control are as unfriendly as usual. Funny, they had this sign at every checkpoint, stating their pledges, including “We pledge to cordially greet and welcome you to the US” and “We pledge to treat you with courtesy, dignity, and respect.

  In fact, the woman who let me into the US did a pretty good job in showing me she couldn’t even care less, …, about people in general.
  Check out the following report, a pretty impressive example of what I mean.

• Funny, in the past two years (since I left Virginia), probably mainly due to the Dollar-weakness, the US really seemed to have become a low-labour country. I only paid 4,33 $ (2,73 € !!!) for a chicken value meal (equivalent to the 5,49 € “Sparmenü” in Germany) at McDonalds in Detroit. Strange world…

March 10 was Chuck Norris’ birthday. Happy birthday Chuck!

Bearded and muscled, Norris shot to fame fighting kung fu legend Bruce Lee in the 1972 film The Way of the Dragon, and later films show him devastating groups of men with one kick.

“Norris visited Iraq when violence was its worst and other celebrities were skittish. He’s one of the guys,” public affairs officer Specialist Mark Braden said in Baghdad.

“The Marines love him. He’s like a mythical legend,” Staff Sergeant Amy Forsythe in Falluja said. (here)

Chuck Norris also recently teamed up with another mythical legend, governor Mike Huckabee. Together they made what must rank among the most hilarious campaign videos in human history. Clearly Huckabee is a Christian fundamentalist, and quite scary as such, yet he is also oddly charming and authentic. Check it out:

And Chuck is not just an example to Americans. After all, it is Iraqis more than anyone who are in need of some heroic inspiration these days.

[An Iraqi] police trainer said Chuck Norris was a role model for the police in Falluja, which until 2007 was an stronghold and the scene of fierce battles with security forces.

“I’ve seen his videos, he’s a hero. He saves the city, he protects women and children and he fights crime wherever it is. We should all be like Chuck Norris,” Khaled Hussein said. (again, here)

Who wouldn’t like to be a little more like Chuck?

Also definitely check out http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/ :-)

How lucky we are that Veterans Day wouldn’t make the news in Europe. Why all the commotion, when veterans are merely names etched into stone in churches and on memorials? It took me some time to really grasp how fundamentally different things are in the US. This story on the National Public Radio website is a useful reminder:

Miranda was 3 years old when her mother was deployed. Gonzales says she remembers her younger daughter blaming herself for her deployment.

“I remember speaking to her once on the phone and her saying, ‘Whatever I did, I’m sorry. Just come home,’” Gonzales says. She reassured Miranda that she had done nothing wrong.

Then Gonzales remembers Miranda told her: “Maybe I can talk to your boss and he can just bring you back.”

“No, I can’t,” Gonzales replied.

Miranda said: “I promise, I’ll behave. I’ll be good.”

Gonzales says, “It was difficult to explain it to her being so far away.”

Sgt. Gonzales is still in the National Guard, by the way. Voluntarily.

Anlaesslich des 232. Jahrestages der Gruendung des Marine Corps schreibt Andrew Lubin im Blog des Small Wars Journal, dem Zentralorgan der amerikanischen Strategen, die sich mit Kriegen wie denen in Afghanistan und Irak beschäftigen:

There are some careers that come with their own lasting dignity: hard jobs, like steel worker, policeman – or Marine. Jobs where by the end of the day I-Beams have been produced, drug dealers arrested, or Iraqi cities are cleared of insurgents. Jobs where sweat – effort – blood is equally important to education.

It’s an unusual thing about these jobs; those who have them look at life in moral, instead of economic terms. These men tend to ignore income levels, job titles, and frequent flyer miles earned, and instead tend to rank other men in terms of who can provide for their families, or who has the courage to dash under fire out into the street to drag back a wounded buddy. You can spot them by the look in their eyes and the way that they carry themselves.

Somehow trading bonds, lobbying for a tax break, or being a lawyer just doesn’t have the same moral clarity of these jobs, which is why Marines can stand straighter and look you in the eye with far more confidence than someone from Wall Street or Washington DC.

I know I shouldn’t just post a YouTube video, but this video is just too unique.

[video removed]

“Coal grows in the ground or something.”
“Clean power is cheap power. – Wind power is crazy-looking.”

And hey, there was a guy in the comment section who summed it up quite well:

“I think this video is a great work. A good look at western civilization (in this video America) and how people don’t like to worry about the big problems because it’s too much thinking or they just want to make money.”

Is there anyone who sees the relationship between the two pictures below? Both contain a huge whole in the ground, letting something out that shouldn’t be let out. But one’s fake and one was taken yesterday night. ;)

Edit: I got a question from some nice person, located in the heart of Mainz, what all this fuzz is about. Well, one picture was taken from this gas-pipeline accident that happened in NYC yesterday evening during rush-hour, and the other one is a screenshot from my ‘War of the Worlds’ DVD. ;)

[War of the Worlds picture removed due to greedy lawyers]

“Dude, where’s my car?”

Hey, I just realized we haven’t had a post about the war in Iraq yet. (*yawn*) Luckily I found some great punch line on that topic on YouTube that might serve as an excellent introduction.

I must admit, during my time in the United States I’ve seen quite a lot of crazy stuff on TV, especially when it comes to TV commercials. But this Annheuser-Busch = Budweiser TV commercial is probably one of the strangest I’ve ever seen. And again it just makes me shake my head. Can anyone imagine a German TV commercial for “Bitburger”, showing some “Bundeswehr” war vets arriving at Halle-Neustadt??? Probably not…

But besides there was another strange thought that crossed my mind: Why do these civilians at the airport salute the soldiers, probably returning from their “mission” in the Middle East? Thank them for risking their lives? Thank them for losing a leg, an eye or something even worse? Not a single one wounded?

Continue reading here and here (sorry, only available in German).