What I Learnt Today

The New York Times today has a detailed account of how the USA managed to track down and kill Osama Bin Laden.

In a case of ‘Life Imitating Art’, the NYT description sounds exactly like a plotline from the West Wing (well, two episodes combined, really. Rosi could tell us which ones), and the vision we have seen of the raid looks frighteningly similar to a video game (though the real footage doesn’t have as good graphics as the Playstation 3 version).

The NYT reports that the CIA has been following exhaustive leads in the search for Bin Laden for years, of course. Through a number of sources, a man was identified who was thought to be a courier for Bin Laden. Emails and telephone conversations between his family and Pakistan were tapped.

“Last July, Pakistani agents working for the C.I.A. spotted him driving his vehicle near Peshawar. When, after weeks of surveillance, he drove to the sprawling compound in Abbottabad, American intelligence operatives felt they were onto something big, perhaps even Bin Laden himself. It was hardly the spartan cave in the mountains that many had envisioned as his hiding place. Rather, it was a three-story house ringed by 12-foot-high concrete walls, topped with barbed wire and protected by two security fences. He was, said Mr. Brennan, the White House official, “hiding in plain sight.”

(Photos of the compound don’t portray it as the million dollar mansion that we would envisage from early reports. It looks more like the only sort of place at the Gold Coast that would allow a group of boarding school boys to stay during schoolies week.)

The compound had no internet access or telephone lines, and was so concerned about security that all the trash was burned rather than sent away.

The CIA, under director Leon Panetta, became convinced that Bin Laden was in the compound. In Washington, after considerable discussion, it was decided that a helicopter attack would be the best approach. Navy SEALS were trained in a special facility which was built to be similar to Bin Laden’s compound. 

President Bartlett Obama gave the go ahead, and the top brass assembled in the situation room – with ‘turkey pita wraps, cold shrimp, potato chips, soda.’ (?)

79 commandos in 4 helicopters crossed from Afghanistan into Pakistan just after midnight.

The code name for Bin Laden was “Geronimo.” The president and his advisers watched Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director, on a video screen, narrating from his agency’s headquarters across the Potomac River what was happening in faraway Pakistan.

“They’ve reached the target,” he said.

Minutes passed.

“We have a visual on Geronimo,” he said.

A few minutes later: “Geronimo EKIA.”

Enemy Killed In Action. There was silence in the Situation Room.

Finally, the president spoke up.

“We got him.”

The raid took 40 minutes. One of the helicopters would not start when the team went to leave and was scuttled. Bin Lasen’s body, and documents and hard drives were taken from the scene – the women in the compound and nine children were left behind.

As we now know, the first reports of the raid came from a Pakinstani IT consultant via Twitter. Ironically, @reallyvirtual (aka Sohaib Athar) had moved to Attabad for the peace and quiet. His twitter profile says that he is “An IT consultant taking a break from the rat-race by hiding in the mountains with his laptops.” Athar is a master of understatement.

“A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope its not the start of something nasty :-S”

These are his tweets from the night (read them from the bottom up).

The full archive of his initial tweets, and the rumours and false reports that followed, can be followed at http://twitter.com/#!/ReallyVirtual

If Sony wasn’t up to its neck in problems, I’m sure Will would have already been able to download ‘Call of Duty – Operation Geronimo’

 

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Scientists and researchers are often criticized for not letting people know about their work in an understandable way.

You may be surprised to know that academics are not evaluated by the impact that their work has on public debate, nor by the extent that they influence good public policy. They do not score ‘points’ for giving people a greater understanding of the world, nor for helping people make better decisions about their lives and health. They do not even get judged by their excellence in passing on their knowledge to university students.

In fact, academics are evaluated by the extent that their work and ideas can be commercialised, and by the number of ‘papers’ that they can get published in academic journals. These published papers are not judged on their content, but by the grading of the journal (A,B,C or D) in which they appear.

If that seems somewhat strange to you, it does to me also.

Anyway, the new web based newspaper ‘The Conversation‘ is an ambitious attempt to start the conversation between academia and the rest of us.

“The Conversation is an independent source of information, analysis and commentary from the university and research sector – written by acknowledged experts and delivered directly to the public. As professional journalists, we aim to make this wealth of knowledge and expertise accessible to all.”

Authors for the Conversation are sourced from the so-called  Australian Group of Eight universities (Adelaide, ANU, Melbourne, Monash, NSW, Queensland, Sydney, Western Australia) plus University of Technology Sydney, CSIRO, and the Australian Science Media Centre. The credentials of the authors are impeccable.

Articles range across the faculties : business and the economy. the environment and energy, health and medicine, politics and society, science and technology. 

We use the Conversation as a regular source for Emaildig and I recommend you add it to ‘your daily office’.

http://theconversation.edu.au/

 

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Over Easter, with everyone home, we had more more computers in the house than people – not to mention a gaggle of iPhone, and iPads, and internet connected game consoles. It didn’t quite get to the point we only communicated by email and emoticons, but, in the words of the great philosopher Justin Bieber, ‘never say never’.

So today, by unanimous vote (!), was ‘no tech Sunday’. All screens off (till 8pm). The ‘Big Screen’ was allowed – the kids went to the aforementioned Justin Bieber ‘3D Bio-pic concert’ movie.

Susan Maushart, columnist for the Australian, conducted what she called ‘the experiment’ with her family for 6 months. She describes the experience in her book ‘The Winter of Our Disconnect – How three totally wired teenagers (and a mother who slept with her iPhone) pulled the plug on their technology and lived to tell the tale.’

It appears they all turned into cello-playing book-reading braniacs. You can hear Richard Fidler quiz her about ‘the experiement’ in the Conversation Hour.

So we all survived ‘no tech Sunday’, and the lawns are mown, and the car clean. Will we do it again next Sunday? Baby, never say never  🙂

 

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Macworld today has a do it yourself guide to making ‘high perceived value’ Mother’s Day cards using iPhoto11.

You can print them yourself, or have Apple do it for you.

You need to supply your own cold tea and soggy toast.

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My mates Ged and Mul insist that we start every trip with a Fact Finder.

Given a couple of hours to kill this week, Oliver and I went to the The Oaks at Neutral Bay to maintain this tradition.

The Oaks Hotel has been a landmark on Military Rd since 1885, although the eponymous Oak Tree that now dominates the enormous beer garden was not planted until 1935. Kathleen Furlong, the daughter of the publican, received it as a free bonus from Anthony Horden’s Dept Store for spending more than 10 pounds in one purchase. As Paul Kelly says, ‘From little things………’.

Apparently it is good luck to be hit by a falling acorn.

Upstairs we discovered a hidden gem. What would have previously been the accommodation floor has been renovated in 1930s style, with twelve restored rooms that each contain a pool table. It is all serviced by a magnificent art deco bar.

A perfect place for a quiet factfinder or two.

 

 

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