on quagmires

A Former
Special Forces Soldier Responds to Bush’s Invitation for Iraqis to
Attack US Troops

:

“Somewhere in Balad, or Fallujah, or Baghdad, there is
a soldier telling a new replacement, “We are losing this
war.””

Troop
morale in Iraq hits ‘rock bottom’

:

“”Make no mistake, the level of morale for most
soldiers that I’ve seen has hit rock bottom,” said another soldier,
an officer from the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division in
Iraq.”

Anger Rises for Families of Troops in Iraq

:

“The signs of discomfort seem to be growing beyond the military bases. According to a Gallup poll published on Tuesday, the percentage of the public who think the war is going badly has risen to 42 percent, from 13 percent in May. Likewise, the number of respondents who think the war is going well has dropped, from 86 percent in May to 70 percent a month ago to 56 percent.”

asterisk, vocal, sip, ser and jabber. oh my.

it’s amazing, when you really stop and think
about it, that it’s possible – with the help of a little elbow
grease – to get a full-featured pbx running on commodity hardware

thanks to

asterisk

:

“To provide a brief introduction to Asterisk’s
capabilities, I will show an example that creates a very simple PBX
with two extensions and voicemail on each. There will be no
external connectivity to this PBX; we will simply be able to call
from one line to the other. This would allow, as an example, two
users to be in separate parts of the country but they could ring
each other’s desk phones. If the called party was unavailable,
voicemail could be left.”

i’ve heard of people using
asterisk

as a “feature server” for existing voip installs powered by
vocal

or
iptel’s SIP Express Router

[ which also features
jabber

integration. ]

ray on "extreme mobility"

it’s always educational and fun to someone like ray talk about trends in mobility and their potential impacts:

“If technology, molded into any of a variety of forms, can ultimately give us continuous awareness of the geo-location, activity, interruptability, and even potentially “state of mind” of those with whom we wish to “be close to”, what will it do to the nature of the nuclear family unit? The local community? The collaborative work team?”

{ intertwingled since 2000 }