What we can learn from a nuclear reactor

Saturday, February 19th, 2011

Complex, tightly-coupled systems — like nuclear power plants and our modern financial system — are subject to normal accidents:

It might seem obvious that the way to make a complex system safer is to install some safety measures. Engineers have long known that life is not so simple. In 1638, Galileo described an early example of unintended consequences in engineering. Masons would store stone columns horizontally, lifted off the soil by two piles of stone. The columns often cracked in the middle under their own weight. The “solution” – a third pile of stone in the centre – didn’t help. The two end supports would often settle a little, and the column, balanced like a see-saw on the central pile, would then snap as the ends sagged.

Galileo had found a simple example of a profound point: a new safety measure or reinforcement often introduces unexpected ways for things to go wrong. This was true at Three Mile Island. It was also true during the horrific accident on the Piper Alpha oil and gas platform in 1988, which was aggravated by a safety device designed to prevent vast seawater pumps from starting automatically and killing the rig’s divers. The death toll was 167.

In 1966, at the Fermi nuclear reactor near Detroit, a partial meltdown put the lives of 65,000 people at risk. Several weeks after the plant was shut down, the reactor vessel had cooled enough to identify the culprit: a zirconium filter the size of a crushed beer can, which had been dislodged by a surge of coolant in the reactor core and then blocked the circulation of the coolant. The filter had been installed at the last moment for safety reasons, at the express request of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The problem in all of these cases is that the safety system introduced what an engineer would call a new “failure mode” – in other words, a new way for things to go wrong. And that was precisely the problem in the financial crisis.
[...]
The 1979 crisis at Three Mile Island remains the closest the American nuclear industry has come to a major disaster. It would have been far less grave had the operators understood what was happening. Coolant pumps were useless because a maintenance error had trapped them behind closed valves. Another valve jammed in the open position, allowing pressurised radioactive water at more than 1,000° C to shoot into the sump below the reactor, eventually exposing the reactor core itself and risking a complete and catastrophic meltdown.

The operators were baffled by the confusing instrumentation in the control room. One vital warning light was obscured by a paper repair tag hanging from a nearby switch. The control panel seemed to show the jammed-open valve had closed as normal – in fact, it merely indicated that the valve had been “told” to close, not that it had responded. Later, the supervisor asked an engineer to check a temperature reading that would have revealed the truth about the jammed valve, but the engineer looked at the wrong gauge and mistakenly announced that all was well.

All these errors were understandable given the context. More than 100 alarms were filling the control room with an unholy noise. The control panels were baffling: they displayed almost 750 lights, each with letter codes, some near the relevant flip switch and some far. Red lights indicated open valves or active equipment; green indicated closed valves or inactive equipment. But since some of the lights were typically green and others were normally red, it was impossible even for highly trained operators to scan the winking mass of lights and immediately spot trouble.

I asked Philippe Jamet, the head of nuclear installation safety at the International Atomic Energy Agency, what Three Mile Island taught us. “When you look at the way the accident happened, the people who were operating the plant, they were absolutely, completely lost,” he replied.

Jamet says that since Three Mile Island, much attention has been lavished on the problem of telling the operators what they need to know in a format they can understand. The aim is to ensure that never again will operators have to try to control a misfiring reactor core against the sound of a hundred alarms and in the face of a thousand tiny winking indicator lights.

(Hat tip to David Foster.)

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Sending Smart Mortars Into The Hills

Friday, February 18th, 2011

The US Army is sending smart mortars tnto the hills of Afghanistan — GPS-guided 120-mm mortar shells:

The winner [of the contract] was one of the American systems, the RCGM (Roll-Controlled Guided Mortar). This one works by using a special fuze that includes a GPS unit and little wings that move to put the 120mm mortar shell closer to the target. Thus all you need do to convert existing 120mm mortar shells to RCGM is the RCGM fuzes (which handle the usual fuze functions, as in setting off the explosives in the shell, in addition to the guidance functions.) The RCGM equipped shells cost about $7,000 each. The army wants them delivered this year, the sooner the better.
[...]
Four years ago, the U.S. sent XM395 laser guided 120mm mortar rounds to Iraq and Afghanistan for testing. The XM395 Precision Guided Mortar Munition had been in development for 13 years, and was almost cancelled at least once because of the delays. The 17.3 kg (38 pound) XM395 round has a range of 7.5 kilometers, and will land within a meter (three feet) of where the laser is pointed. The problem with laser guidance is that the enemy often hides somewhere the laser cannot reach (behind rocks or a building). GPS guided shells get around this problem.

Unguided mortar shells cannot put the first round as close as guided ones, and requires firing several rounds, and adjusting aim, before you get one on the target. Normally, an unguided 120mm shell will land anywhere within a 136 meter circle (on the first shot). The shells that did not come close enough often hurt nearby civilians, or even friendly troops. The GPS guided shell gets it right the first time. A guided mortar round is very useful in urban warfare, where a miss will often kill civilians. The 120mm mortar round has about 2.2 kg (five pounds) of explosives, compared to 6.6 kg (15) pounds in a 155mm shell. The smaller explosive charges limits collateral damage to civilians. While the laser guided round will land within a one meter circle, the GPS guided one lands within a ten meter (31 foot) circle. The GPS round is deemed the most useful, especially since the troops are satisfied with that degree of accuracy in GPS guided 155mm artillery shells, 227mm rockets and JDAM bombs.

Posted in Technology, War, Weapons | No Comments »

Walmart Employees Fired For Stopping Armed Robber

Friday, February 18th, 2011

Four Walmart employees have been fired for stopping an armed robber:

It was the afternoon of Jan. 13 when employees at the store saw Trent Allen Longton unwrap a Netbook computer in the electronics section and stuff it under his clothes.

Asset protection coordinator Poulsen met him at the door and ushered him back to the loss prevention room to confront him. Not long after, Ray and Richins — both asset protection associates — filtered in, followed by Stewart, an assistant manager, to witness.

Moments after he pulled out the small laptop, the workers say Longton also pulled out a handgun and charged toward the closed office door. Ray, Richins and Stewart were in the way. He grabbed Stewart as his way to get out.

“He looked right at me and said, ‘The gun is cocked. C’mon guys, just let me go. I don’t want to do this,’” Shawn Ray recalled.
[...]
Instantly, Shawn Ray and Justin Richins kicked into gear, spinning the gunman around. Lori Poulsen ripped the gun away and secured it. They all held onto the man until police arrived minutes later.

The four Layton Walmart employees felt it was mission accomplished. Police officers told them they had done everything right.

But a week later, all four were fired from their jobs. Walmart said their actions had violated company policy and put their fellow workers and shoppers at risk.
[...]
AP09 is Walmart’s policy on dealing with shoplifters. A copy obtained by KSL shows employees are allowed to use “reasonable force” to limit movements of struggling suspects. If a weapon comes out, however, associates must “disengage” and “withdraw,” the policy states.

The workers say they don’t know where they would have withdrawn to, with the door behind them closed in a small room and the man charging at them. They contend they had no other real option.
[...]
The four workers were full-time employees. Stewart had been with the company for more than 12 years. Poulsen, who was employed for more than seven years, had made Walmart a career. Ray said his dismissal kept him from purchasing a home.

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Desperation, not Calculation

Thursday, February 17th, 2011

The problem of radical Islam is the problem of Western weakness, Richard Fernandez says:

Why would anyone believe, even for a moment, that any Western state could “pre-emptively” nuke the Muslim world when it cannot muster the will to secure its borders, balance its budget, get Pakistan to release a diplomat or get Argentina to release a C-17?s cargo load of equipment? That would be like thinking that man who can’t run 50 yards can run the 100 meter dash in 9.5 seconds.

The path to nukes is far more probably going to take the path of use in desperation. And in fact a country which secured its borders, drilled for its own oil, got Pakistan to release diplomats, and did the normal things would be the only kind of country which might use nukes pre-emptively because it conceive of such a strategy. Yet ironically it would be the kind of country that wouldn’t have to attack pre-emptively. The idea of country going straight from supine behavior to nuking pre-emptively is a fantasy built on the awareness of weakness. Solve the weakness and then your enemies will consider you capable of pre-emption. But guess what: solve the weakness and you won’t have to pre-empt. They will back away.

This is all elementary game theory; and tried, true and hoary deterrence theory. Be strong and you won’t need to use nukes. Be weak and you’ll use them for sure.
[...]
As long as Israel’s strategic position is strong, it will not unleash the nukes. But only in its dying gasp will that be certain. So what do the geniuses at State do? Bring Israel to the point of strategic death.

For the same reasons, the weaker Obama makes America the more its enemies are emboldened. Yet this does not bring pre-emption closer. That becomes more and more unthinkable until the last push, when desperation takes hold. Then the probabilities go from near zero to near 1.

The Pakistanis and even the rapists in Tahrir Square are testing, testing. And they are finding no resistance. Therefore they will push and sooner or later, they will push too far. Why not since no stop signal will be received from the Smartest Man in the World.

Then when things go too far, desperation, not calculation, will unleash the Apocalypse. It’s happened before. In 1939. It’s not impossible, just conveniently forgotten. The Western elite are like the Bourbons, who remember everything and have learned nothing.

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The Lords of Rikers

Thursday, February 17th, 2011

The Lords of Rikers aren’t the guards but the prisoners who run the system for the guards:

At Rikers, violence is a kind of currency, and whether people are afraid of you is inseparable from your status. The officers nominally run things, but they know that if the inmates aren’t afraid of them, they may have problems. And while violent criminals are always dangerous, the type of officer guarding them has changed in recent years. Veterans now complain that seasoned old-timers like themselves have retired and that, because of budget cuts, their replacements no longer get the proper training they need. What’s more, the city now requires Correction officers to have at least two years of college, a rule some say has weeded out many streetwise recruits. Now nearly half of all officers are women, who are sometimes outmatched physically.

Veterans also complain about the widespread use of video cameras throughout Rikers. The cameras are supposed to keep unruly officers from getting out of line, but they also prevent some officers from disciplining inmates. The cameras do not have audio tracks, and when disputes arise, it’s impossible for investigators to determine who said what. “The inmates play to the cameras,” the RNDC captain says. Officers fear suspensions, which has created an atmosphere in which officers might be inclined to have inmates keep order.

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It was their fault for getting eliminated

Thursday, February 17th, 2011

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Amy Ernst speaks with three “demobilized” teenage soldiers:

Jeremy is clearly the leader of the trio, and he makes me uncomfortable as soon as he starts speaking.  He’s a skinny fifteen year old with patches of facial fuzz and spots of acne.  He started fighting with the Mai-Mai when he was 12.

— Why did you join the group?  Were you forced? I ask Jeremy.

The three boys are sitting on a small wooden bench, all facing me.  I’d rather speak to them individually, but they say they only want to talk if they can stay together.

— I was influenced by my friends, Jeremy responds.  They said it was cool and that I should do it.

— What did you think once you got there?

— I didn’t like it, because I was abused by my Superiors every day.

— Did you engage in fighting while you were with the Mai-Mai?

He chuckles a little.  He doesn’t seem upset or uncomfortable talking about his past.  The boy next to him, Gregoire, is also 15 years old.  He’s wearing a baby blue jacket and he has the bone structure and eyes of a model.  His eyes are soft and pretty.  He doesn’t seem uncomfortable either, but Damien, a 17 year old sitting on the end of the bench won’t look at me.  He’s hunched over, leaning away from Jeremy and Gregoire, looking at the floor.

— Killing wasn’t the problem, continues Jeremy.  That was the job.  I used stones, the machete and knives [to kill.]  If someone hurt me or bothered me in the village, we killed them directly.  That wasn’t the problem.  In full on war I’ve killed women, children, elderly, all categories.  If an old person is a sorcerer, we must kill them.

I was expecting a sense of morality to have motivated demobilization, not this.

— Why did you leave then?

— They were beating me.  It wasn’t because I didn’t like killing, it was because of the superiors.  I wasn’t a superior.

— Were you afraid of being killed?

— No, the tattoos protect against that.

— What tattoos?

He pulls up a tattered sleeve and shows me a small scar on his left hand  It looks like a tiny bundle of sticks etched into his skin.

— With the tattoo, you are safe from bullets.

— Do you believe that?

— Yes, he says with no hesitation.

— Have you ever known someone who was killed who had this tattoo?

— Only if they did something wrong.  There is Mai-Mai law, and if you break this law the tattoo will no longer work.  If you rape someone, it doesn’t work anymore

— So you never raped anyone while you were a Mai-Mai?

— No, then the tattoo wouldn’t work.

He says this forcefully, and for some reason I believe his “no.”

— If you have the tattoo and you don’t break a law, you can get hit by a bullet or a bomb and you won’t be hurt, he continues.

I want to point out the flaws of this belief but there’s no point.  And if the potency of the tattoo actually does prevent Mai-Mai from raping it would be foolish of me to even hint at otherwise.

— If you were given a promotion, so you were a superior, would you go back? I ask, not wanting to hear the answer.

— Yes.  If I was a superior I’d go back, when I’m an adult I think I will go back.  But if I was a regular soldier I’d never go back.

— Does this effect you in a bad way?  Do you have any problems with remembering what you’ve done and what you’ve seen?

— I see people I’ve killed in my dreams.

He looks down at the floor as he says this and for the first time he seems a little uncomfortable.  Gregoire explains his situation to me next.  He started when he was 10, it was voluntary.

— I was curious.

He says he’s killed many people with a gun, other Mai-Mai and villagers.  If someone is a sorcerer or a rapist they must be killed.

— Do you have problems now with remembering what you did with the Mai-Mai?

— I think about them, the people I killed.  But to kill someone is good.  It was their fault for getting eliminated.

Welcome to Africa.

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5 Things You Should Never Say While Negotiating

Thursday, February 17th, 2011

Mike Hofman of Inc lists 5 things you should never say while negotiating:

  1. The word “between.”
  2. “I think we’re close.”
  3. “Why don’t you throw out a number?”
  4. “I’m the final decision-maker.”
  5. “F— you.”

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The Last Ring-Bearer

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

Russian paleontologist Kirell Yeskov decided to interpret Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings as a heroic retelling of what “really” happened in the war between the Men of the West and their enemies, and, using what we know about how heroic tales map to reality, wrote his own novelization of events, The Last Ring-Bearer, from the perspective of the forces of Mordor.  Yisroel Markov has translated it into English.

The story starts in the Hutel-Hara sands:

It was at such a midnight hour that two men moved like gray shadows along the gravelly inner edge of a sickle-shaped gap between two low dunes, and the distance between them was exactly that prescribed by the Field Manual for such occasions. However, contrary to the rules, the one bearing the largest load was not the rear `main force’ private, but rather the `forward recon’ one, but there were good reasons for that. The one in the rear limped noticeably and was nearly out of strength; his face — narrow and beak-nosed, clearly showing a generous serving of Umbar blood — was covered with a sheen of sticky sweat. The one in the lead was a typical Orocuen by his looks, short and wide-faced — in other words, the very `Orc’ that mothers of Westernesse use to scare unruly children; this one advanced in a fast zigzagging pattern, his every movement noiseless, precise and spare, like those of a predator that has scented prey. He had given his cloak of bactrian wool, which always keeps the same temperature — whether in the heat of midday or the pre-dawn chill — to his partner, leaving himself with a captured Elvish cloak, priceless in a forest but utterly useless here in the desert.

Does an Empire-perspective take on Star Wars exist?

(Hat tip to Laura Miller of Salon, who has written quite a bit about Lewis’s Narnia.)

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An Urban Teacher’s Education

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

From 2008 to 2010, Frank Beard taught at a Kansas City middle school as a Teach For America corps member, where he concluded that our schools are failing their students — but not in the way that the “experts” would have you believe:

When people ask me what I believe was the number one barrier to student achievement at my school, I always offer the same answer: the failure of the school and district to address chronically disruptive students. It was a problem created by negligent leaders who willingly allowed a free-for-all environment that was conducive to chaos instead of learning.
[...]
Everything was great for the first three weeks, but then a few students began testing the limits of what was acceptable behavior. It’s one thing when a student throws a paper ball at his friend, or when someone utters a rude comment. It’s quite another thing when a student tells you that she’ll “crack” your “bitch ass” or demands that you “get the fuck out of [her] face”. Unfortunately, as the students soon discovered, our principal offered no support whatsoever. Nearly ever discipline referral sent to the office was returned with a polite reminder to please contact the students’ parents. Clear and consistent consequences simply did not exist — even though they were mandated by the district’s code of conduct.

Once that realization spread, the school effectively went from quality to chaos overnight. The following is but a sample of what an average day looked and sounded like:

  • Students standing in the hall and kicking classroom doors for five to ten minutes at a time
  • Students fighting
  • Teachers pelted with paper, pencils, erasers, and rocks whenever they turned their heads
  • Assignments torn up and thrown on the floor the moment they’re passed out
  • Teachers cursed at, threatened, and sometimes even assaulted
  • Classroom supplies vandalized or thrown about the room
  • Groups of students running the halls and showing up to one or two classes at most
  • Constant yelling and shouting from the hallways
  • Gang writing written on the walls with permanent markers
  • Students talking and yelling so loud in the classroom that nobody could hear the teacher

By “students”, I’m of course referring to the 15-25% that were chronically disruptive.

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Soldiers Do it Better Than Bond

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

Soldiers do it better than Bond — if not quite as glamorously:

While not very well-known, military intelligence agencies are often remarkably effective at their jobs, often in contrast to their civilian counterparts, who sometimes find their roles usurped by the actual military when they fail to do their jobs effectively. Mossad, Shin Bet, and the CIA in particular have long suffered from repeated blows to their professional reputations. The CIA spent most of the Cold War propping up dictatorships like the Shah of Iran, or participating in covert actions that did little to secure the defense of the US. Along with this is the Agency’s laundry list of scandals and criticisms like the Iran-Contra Affair, allegations of torture and waterboarding, and lack of skill at infiltrating terrorist groups. Many of these criticisms are legitimate, since many career Agency officers eventually write their memoirs complaining about the bureaucracy and lack of effectiveness that have plagued the Agency for decades.

In Israel, Mossad, once a model intelligence service, is now sometimes viewed as renegade and out of control. Shin Bet, despite its excellent spy networks in Palestinian communities, has long been accused of using torture and ill-treatment of detainees, allegations that caught the attention of the Israeli justice system in the past. The most effective intelligence collection agencies in the country are now AMAN and the IDF’s Intelligence Corps.

On the other hand, military intelligence agencies in these three countries tend to be extremely effective and,  even when they’re not, they repeatedly show the ability to adapt and improve. In the U.S., the Army’s Intelligence Support Activity is a kind of jack-of-all-trades, being tasked to recruit informants in terrorist networks, gather signals intelligence on enemy and hostile countries and organizations, conduct undercover operations, and gather intelligence prior to major combat actions. If this seems like stealing some of the CIA’s responsibilities, that’s exactly what it is, and it isn’t the first time in American history it has happened. During the Vietnam War, the CIA’s South Vietnam station was the largest CIA outfit in any country at the time. Despite the money and manpower involved, the CIA, in a fact admitted by at least one case officer turned author, simply failed at counterinsurgency and military intelligence. Because of this, the Army Special Forces (Green Berets) took on the responsibility of gathering Human Intelligence (HUMINT) by setting up Project GAMMA (Detachment B-57) in June 1967 to conduct covert intelligence collection. Under the Green Berets, GAMMA became so successful that by 1968, the small detachment of six Green Berets and hundreds of Vietnamese working in 13 intelligence nets (spy rings) were providing over 60 percent of effective intelligence concerning North Vietnamese activities in Cambodia.

Posted in War | 1 Comment »

It’s Easier to Sell Something when You List the Faults

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

It’s easier to sell something when you list the faults, Judd Weiss explains:

I did this all the time when I sold commercial buildings, like an apartment complex. “The pipes are crap in these units, they need to be replaced. Over here there’s some f—ing pigs in this unit, their carpet smells like cat piss, and I think they literally have someone sleeping in the walk in closet. But f— all that, the building cashflows very well as it is, rents are way under market so you’re looking at much better future cashflow income as tenants turn over. And most important, that big retail development around the corner is nice and will attract better quality tenants to the area and even better retail, which will attract even better quality tenants, and so on and so forth. Unfortunately, because this building was so poorly managed by the previous owner, there’s a lot of work to do and you’ll have to deal with the scum of society living here for the time being. But that’s why it’s such a good deal in this area, and besides, your management company will deal with the riff raff while you turn the property around and reap the rewards in an improving location.”

Guys, that’s how you get someone to move $3 million out of his bank account and leave a big f—ing smile on his face about it. There’s a lot going on here (boldness, clarity, leadership) but notice how important honesty is to the equation. Sane people just don’t make moves with that kind of money until they feel like they’ve got a good evaluation of the situation. Pretending that there are no problems with the property won’t make your client feel more comfortable. Your honesty is so appreciated because it is so scarce.

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Space stasis

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

Neal Stephenson asserts that the existence of rockets big enough to hurl significant payloads into orbit was contingent on the following radically improbable series of events:

  1. World’s most technically advanced nation under absolute control of superweapon-obsessed madman
  2. Astonishing advent of atomic bombs at exactly the same time
  3. A second great power dominated by secretive, superweapon-obsessed dictator
  4. Nuclear/strategic calculus militating in favor of ICBMs as delivery system
  5. Geographic situation of adversaries necessitating that ICBMs must have near-orbital capability
  6. Manned space exploration as propaganda competition, unmoored from realistic cost/benefit discipline

Stirling Newberry finds Stephenson wrong on almost every point:

1 is wrong, the rocket was already developing rapidly, in the USSR as well as the US. The real motivation for Germany’s immediate push wasn’t madness, it was the Versailles restrictions on artillery, and the very realistic understanding that bombing costs pilots. Neither of these have to do with Hitler’s madness. In addition von Braun’s prototypes were not developed under Nazi sponsorship, and when he joined the Nazi’s to further rocketry, it was 1934, well before total control had occurred in Nazi Germany. The V-2 was already there, on the drawing board, for whoever wanted it. Much of the work had already been done by Goddard and Oberth, and had been incorporated by von Braun. Finally, Hitler was not impressed with the weapon for most of the war, and grasped on it as a way of improving German morale and a total lack of expendable pilots. It was a hail mary weapon, ready two years before it was used, but only deployed late. So much for the “Manhattan Project” mad man theory of the V-2. Unless you mean that the madman was Werner von Braun.

2 is also wrong, as can be shown, the key technologies for atomic advancement are the same that made engineering of rockets practical.

3 would there have been a nuclear arms race absent Stalin? We see nuclear weapons races today between Pakistan and India, neither of which are run by Stalin. Israel developed atomic weapons, and Israel was a democracy during the entire time pursuing them. Why did the US pursue atomic weapons? Because of the leverage they offered: the US was facing not one, but two, enemies who were presumed not to be willing to surrender without a shattering invasion.

4 is also wrong: missiles offered two other legs of survivability, naval and missile launches, in addition to aircraft. Missiles have the advantage of being supersonic, and therefore difficult to stop by military means, or for civilians to get out of the way of. In addition, hardened targets can often only be destroyed by a small number of means. Atomic weapons fill this bill. In fact, over time, atomic weapons have grown smaller, not larger.

5 is wrong: the first and only large scale use of rockets is by Germany on the UK, and the distances there are short. The reality of the ballistic missile, is that even relatively short flights, reach sub-orbital space, and are a breath away from orbit.

6 is harder to say whether it was “wrong,” but a quick inventory of the results of spaceflight, including the internet you are using to read this, shows that of the investments of the 1950′s and 1960′s, it was one of the most productive. The hidden “wrong” is what “ordinary cost benefit” is. Stephanson, trapped in a “next quarter” horizon universe, does not see that entities with longer horizons, and with easier recapture, can make different calculations than, say magazines and book publishers.

(Hat tip to Nyrath.)

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Obsolete Weapons

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

When Pakistani terrorists attacked Mumbai a few years back, they used fully automatic Kalashnikov assault rifles — excellent weapons for terrorizing crowds of unarmed, unsuspecting civilians going about their daily business.

The Indian police, by contrast, were typically armed — if they were armed — with bolt-action Lee-Enfield rifles — invariably described as old-fashioned, even obsolete, World War I or II technology.

What that ignores is that the older rifle is vastly superior at long range — in the hands of a trained shooter, unlike the Indian police — where the AK simply misses rapidly.

Any old Afghan could explain the difference between the two kinds of weapons:

Back before the Russians showed up, in the 1980s, the best an Afghan could hope to have was a World War II, or World War I, era bolt action rifle. These weapons were eclipsed in the 1980s by full automatic AK-47s and the RPG rocket launcher. The young guys took to the AK, and the thrill of emptying a 30 round magazine on full automatic. Not bad for a brief firefight, and suddenly hardly anyone, except a few old timers, wanted to use the old bolt action rifle.

What was not noticed much outside of Afghanistan, was that this shift in weaponry brought to an end a long Afghan tradition of precision, long range shooting. Before the 1980s, this skill was treasured for both hunting and warfare. When doing neither, Afghan men played games centered on marksmanship. One, for example, involved a group of men chipping in and buying a goat. The animal was then tethered to a rock, often on a hill, and then the half dozen or so men moved several hundred meters away and drew lots to see who would fire in what order. The first man to drop the goat, won it. Since Afghanistan was the poorest nation in Asia, ammo was expensive, and older men taught the young boys all the proper moves needed to get that first shot off accurately.

During the 1980s, Saudi Arabia spent billions of dollars to arm Afghans with all the AK-47s and ammo they could use, and they used lots of it. But rarely for target practice. Compared to bolt-action rifles like the British Lee-Enfield, the AK-47 was much less accurate when fired one shot at a time. The old timers, or a few young traditionalists, kept their Lee-Enfields, and made themselves useful picking off Russian soldiers at long distances, on those rare occasions where that was needed.

The Lee-Enfield is one of the oldest, and still widely used, rifles on the planet. Over 17 million were manufactured between 1895 and the 1980s. While there are more AK-47s out there (over 20 million in private hands), these are looked down on by those who use their rifles for hunting, or killing with a minimum expenditure of ammunition. The 4 kg (8.8 pound) Lee-Enfield is a bolt-action rifle (with a ten round magazine) noted for its accuracy and sturdiness. The inaccurate AK-47 has a hard time hitting anything (with a single shot) more than a hundred meters away, while the Lee-Enfield can drop an animal, or a man, at over 400 meters.

That’s why the Taliban can’t shoot straight, despite their grandfathers’ legendary accuracy.

Posted in War, Weapons | No Comments »

How Great Entrepreneurs Think

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

Leigh Buchanan explains how great entrepreneurs think, based on the research by Saras Sarasvathy, a professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business:

Sarasvathy concluded that master entrepreneurs rely on what she calls effectual reasoning. Brilliant improvisers, the entrepreneurs don’t start out with concrete goals. Instead, they constantly assess how to use their personal strengths and whatever resources they have at hand to develop goals on the fly, while creatively reacting to contingencies.

By contrast, corporate executives — those in the study group were also enormously successful in their chosen field — use causal reasoning. They set a goal and diligently seek the best ways to achieve it.

Early indications suggest the rookie company founders are spread all across the effectual-to-causal scale. But those who grew up around family businesses will more likely swing effectual, while those with M.B.A.’s display a causal bent. Not surprisingly, angels and seasoned VCs think much more like expert entrepreneurs than do novice investors.

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Hoping Against Hope in Detroit

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

Jim Goad mercilessly mocks Detroit’s $10 million “I’m a Believer” ad campaign with a series of unpleasant facts he doesn’t merely believe:

Crime
Last year, a CNN survey selected Detroit as one of the world’s most dangerous cities. Since 1950, Detroit’s homicide and robbery rates increased by about 600 percent. The average teenage male in Detroit is likelier to wind up in prison than to graduate high school. Over the past few decades, Detroit has perennially snatched the crown as the nation’s murder capital, arson mecca, or its overall most dangerous metropolis. It rarely seems to fall out of the top three in any of these categories. Its homicide rate is typically five to six times the national average. A recent investigation revealed the city systematically under-reports violent crime—and STILL shows up at or near the top of every list. The city is also said to have the nation’s highest rate of police suicides. Things are so bad that in 2010, Mayor Dave “The Believer” Bing’s GMC Yukon was stolen. A few days later, Detroit thieves stripped a visiting Reverend Jesse Jackson’s SUV of its wheels.

Housing
Detroit used to be known as “The City of Homeowners,” but now a third of its housing units are said to be vacant. Even the dead are leaving Detroit in record numbers. In 2009, the city’s average residential unit sold for $12,439, down from nearly $100,000 in 2003. Thousands of buildings were destroyed in Detroit’s cataclysmic 1967 riots, thousands more have been burned down during the annual pre-Halloween “Devil’s Night” arson fest, and the rest were either neglected or abandoned. Huge swaths of the town represent a post-nuclear nightmare that has spawned a photographic subgenre known as “ruin porn.” An estimated one-quarter of the city’s entire land mass is now abandoned and reverting back to nature, overgrown with rats and weeds but probably too toxin-drenched from industrial sludge to ever sustain farming. Detroiters refer to such literal urban jungles as “feral” areas.

Employment
Several decades ago the city was said to have boasted the nation’s highest median household income; these days, it’s close to dead last. Detroit has the highest unemployment rate of any major American metropolitan area. Official city unemployment is around 29 percent; unofficially, it’s said to be 50 to 60 percent. Much of the blame is placed on the auto industry’s decline. Then again, there are no steel mills left in Pittsburgh and not so many meatpacking plants remain in Chicago, yet neither city’s economy is nearly so lifeless as Detroit’s.

Education
US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has called Detroit’s school system “a national disgrace.” Fewer than a third of Detroit’s students graduate high school. In 2009, Detroit students produced the lowest scores in the history of the National Assessment of Educational Progress test, even though more is spent per-capita on Detroit students than the national average. A staggering 77 percent of Detroit’s eighth-graders scored “below basic” in math. It is estimated that a mere one percent of males who graduate from Detroit high schools are educationally equipped to handle college.

Until last summer, Detroit’s School Board President was Otis Mathis, whose difficulties with basic language caused him to be placed in special-education classes in fourth grade. Depending on whom you believe, he graduated from high school with a GPA ranging somewhere between .98 to 1.98 (Mathis claims the latter number). A special program through the G.I. Bill allowed Mathis to attend Detroit’s Wayne State University even though he was deemed “academically unqualified.” When emails surfaced in 2010 revealing Mathis to be sub-literate at best, he replied that he’s “capable of reading a lot of information and regurgitation.” A colleague of Mathis insisted he was still the right pick because his job “is to represent the community” and his “lack of writing skills is [sic] prevalent in the community.” Mathis resigned in June 2010 after a coworker filed a letter complaining that he’d touched himself inappropriately during several one-on-one meetings with her.

Government
Detroit officials oversee a population that has dwindled to less than half of its peak during the city’s boom years. The pivotal 1967 riots led to what is perhaps the most significant case of white flight in American history. City government shifted from having a widespread reputation of white bigotry and police brutality to being a hotbed of black-nationalist ideology infused with ghastly levels of corruption and police indifference.

The city’s first black mayor, Coleman Young, assumed power in 1973 and clutched onto it for 20 years. Inner-city blacks tended to love him, while the suburban ring of whites surrounding Detroit viewed him as an arrogant race-baiter determined to make the city all-black. Young, who referred to himself as Detroit’s “Motherfucker in Charge,” saw employment plummet and crime rates soar during his reign.

In 2001, Detroit elected “hip-hop mayor” Kwame Kilpatrick, only to watch him self-destruct in ways which make Coleman Young appear dignified. Kilpatrick apparently spent most of his time as mayor sending text messages to a female coworker that included such bons mots as “I’m HEADED HOME NIGGA….NEXT TIME, JUST TELL ME TO SIT DOWN, SHUT UP, and DO YOUR THING! I’m fucked up now!…I’m GOING TO BE ALL OVER THE BIKINI WAX SECTION OF YOUR BODY. LOL.” Kilpatrick, who now sits in prison, still faces numerous felony corruption charges. There’s also the unsolved matter of the stripper who allegedly performed at his mansion, was reputedly assaulted by his wife, and wound up murdered with a pistol of the same caliber used by the Detroit Police Department.

After Dave Bing recently became mayor, he proposed cutting all services to roughly a fifth of the city’s territory, essentially surrendering it to the homeless, the lawless, and all the public defecators stranded in between.

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