Department of War/Department of Defense Trivia

If you've ever watched Band of Brothers, you'll hear the term "War Department" mentioned several times.

You might think this is referring to what was later named the Department of Defense, but you'd be wrong. The War Department did not become the Defense Department.  

Prior to 1947, the Secretaries of the Army and the Navy were cabinet-level positions that oversaw the Department of War and the Department of the Navy, respectively. The U.S. Army was the first military department created for war, so it made sense to name it the Department of War (called the War Office in the early years). This is similar to West Point which was formally established as the United States Military Academy (USMA) in 1802 and later followed by the United States Naval Academy (USNA) in 1845.

The National Security Act of 1947 restructured the military. First, the Department of War was renamed to the Department of the Army. Then, the newly established Department of the Air Force along with the Departments of the Army and Navy were merged into the National Military Establishment (NME), headed by the Secretary of Defense.

The National Military Establishment is an awkward name. So, two years later, in 1949, it was renamed to the Department of Defense. 

Of course, today, there's a dust-up over what to call it. Perhaps Congress should simply rename it the Department of the Military since the military certainly wages war and it engages in peacekeeping missions.

Ultimately, I think of the U.S. military as a logistics organization that occasionally dabbles in combat. 

Amateurs think tactics. Professionals think logistics.   

Clarifying the Measurement Problem

In quantum physics, there's the concept of the Measurement Problem. This basically states that measuring a quantum system which is in a state of superposition will collapse the wave function. Collapsing the wave function has the effect of altering the state of the observed system. This has given rise to people misinterpreting human observation as having a supernatural effect on a quantum system. In other words, there are no shortages of people who believe that human consciousness can affect outcomes. 

In reality, the measurement interaction takes place at some type of detector (photodetectors, particle detectors, qubit detectors, etc.). But, before the detection is interpreted (measured), the particles being measured have already interacted. In other words, the wave function has collapsed before anything is "seen" or measured. As a matter of fact, the wave function can collapse without anyone "seeing" or measuring the outcome. It's effectively the tree falling in a forest philosophical thought experiment.

To put a finer point on it, the wave function collapses before it is measured (seen) since there will always be a delay between an interaction and its interpretation. 

Saying Goodbye

On Friday afternoon, a longtime local friend of 25 years, Ron, told me that he would be ending his life on Sunday through "assisted suicide" (End of Life Option Act). I had known for months that this was his plan due to his terminal cancer, but we didn’t know when it would happen; it all depended on how quickly the disease progressed.

Last night, Ron’s widow told me that he passed away very peacefully yesterday morning. This is the first time that someone I've known personally has opted for assisted suicide.

RIP Ron.

CoxWiFi Hotspots Issue Solved!

For years, I’ve had trouble connecting my MacBook Pro to Cox’s complimentary public Wi-Fi hotspots (CoxWiFi). Today, I finally set out to solve the problem after noticing that my iPhone and iPad connected to CoxWiFi without issue, while my MacBook Pro connected but had no Internet access.

It turns out the problem was simply related to my DNS settings for that WiFi network. Cox's default DNS servers are 68.2.16.25 and 68.2.16.30. I had overwritten these setting with 1.1.1.1 and 8.8.8.8.

Why was logging into Cox a problem?

Because I needed to sign in through Cox’s captive portal. To do that, my MacBook Pro had to be redirected automatically to Cox’s login page using their own DNS servers. Until I authenticated, the hotspot intercepted my network traffic and restricted Internet access, redirecting web requests to the captive portal so I could complete the sign-in process. But since I was trying to use non-Cox DNS servers, this process failed.