Inconvenienced Electrons

I don’t know if you saw it but the fine people at VideoLAN have released a new version of VLC (0.8.3c). New with bug fixes! (Change log here).

I made a cool backend change to this WordPress blog. Now permanent links to blog posts have a human readable path. This was a little tricky on my Tiger server because the obvious /etc/httpd/httpd.conf isn’t actually loaded on Apache start. I needed to edit /etc/httpd/sites/0000_any_80_.conf to enable override of the rewrite rules in the .htaccess file.

Anyway, the older permanent links should still work, but anyone subscribing to my RSS feed should probably flush the old entries and grab the new ones.

Next D&D meeting will be this Friday at 7pm CDT. Be prepared to level your characters, as we’re pretty close to leveling and I don’t want to have to wait on people choosing what they want to do. Let me know if there are any problems.

Please be on Skype a few minutes early to setup all the technical widgets.

Dennis R. Boxx the Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications for Lockheed Martin wrote the following letter to the editor in Asia Times Online.

A recent commentary by William Hartung appearing in Asia Times [Online], Why should Japan bail out Lockheed Martin? [May 31], is based on flawed assumptions about the nature of US foreign military sales as well as inaccuracies concerning Lockheed Martin programs. Contrary to what is implied by the commentary, the F-22 is a transformational combat aircraft designed and built for one customer only – the US Air Force. By US law, the F-22 cannot be marketed to any non-US customer, Japan included. The implication that Lockheed Martin is looking toward sales to foreign customers is baseless. Lockheed Martin recognizes that any decision regarding F-22 sales overseas must, and should, come from [the US] Congress. Further, Hartung was inaccurate regarding the cost of the F-22. The US Air Force states the fly-away cost of the aircraft at $136.6 million, not the figure quoted in the commentary. In fact, the multi-year contract proposal authorized by Congress provides a greater return on the significant investment already made to develop the F-22. The estimated saving is approximately $225 million over the three-year period of the multi-year contract. With extraordinary performance, the F-22 remains a healthy program with strong support in the air force and in Congress. No deal of the century, as Hartung incorrectly notes, is needed to sustain the F-22. The F-22 has demonstrated exceptional performance during exercises, including the first Red Flag Exercise in February, as 100% of planned sorties were successfully conducted. And last summer during the Northern Edge Exercise, F-22s flew 97% of planned missions. As for the programs mentioned in the commentary that are experiencing difficulty, Lockheed Martin is working with the customer to bring them on track. In the case of the Littoral Combat Ship, Lockheed Martin has been forthcoming with the US Navy about costs and provided regular, detailed cost updates to the service to ensure complete transparency. The US Navy’s own studies confirm that all first-in-class ships experience costs increases. We believe that the cost of the LCS-1 ship is consistent with, if not lower than, that of other recent first-in-class ships. Lockheed Martin is proud of the progress made on LCS. The entire acquisition process – from concept to first ship in the water – has taken a little over four years, which is 60% faster than conventional ship-building timelines. The portions of the Deepwater Program for which Lockheed Martin is responsible remain on track as the most extensive modernization of the US Coast Guard in the service’s history. Our responsibilities include aviation, command and control, logistics – virtually all elements of the program other than shipbuilding. The record shows that the assets we have deployed under Deepwater are making a positive contribution to coast-guard missions including search and rescue, drug interdiction and undocumented-immigrant interception. The coast guard’s decision to assume the lead role as systems integrator for all Deepwater assets is not news. Under our contract, the coast guard has always retained the authority to act as integrator and has done so on a number of occasions. Lockheed Martin, partnered with industry and government, is committed to meeting its October 2009 deadline for initial operating capability for the VH-17 Presidential Helicopter. While this is a very aggressive schedule, at least three years faster than programs of comparable complexity, recent reviews by the US Navy confirm the program is on track to meet the deployment date established by the White House. Hartung implies that Lockheed Martin needs a shot in the arm with a lucrative international sale. Nothing could be further from the truth. Lockheed Martin continues to record robust earnings in 2006 and the first quarter of 2007. Our business model anticipates changes in the marketplace and emerging opportunities to sustain value for our customers, shareholders and employees. In fact, when we reported our first quarter earnings in April, we increased our financial guidance for the year. The 140,000 men and women of Lockheed Martin are keenly aware of the significance and complexity of the work that our customers entrust to us. With 3,000 individual programs – the majority operating on time and on budget – Lockheed Martin enjoys the confidence of customers in 75 countries worldwide. In all cases, Lockheed Martin conducts its business to the highest operational and ethical standards.  (Letter to the editor from Dennis R. Boxx, Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications, Lockheed Martin, in Asia Times Online – 6/4)