Life goes on.

I’ve been working on Nifty this weekend. Seemed like a good idea, because I’m updating a lot of stuff on the intranet at work, building on the 1.2 branch, and I need a couple of new features. So I made a 1.3 branch.

Some really nifty features so far:

• Pages aren’t limited to one level anymore. You can have a page at /index, one at /start/rss, and one at /intranet/projects/newsfeeds/rss. The system translates the call into an index.php?__path=nnn statement, and resolves the class names and commands automatically. Which means you should be able to build much more complex applications.
• Modules are no more. They’ve been replaced with components. You can now build entire forms and web-page components completely standalone, and insert them at will into your templates/pages. You can even make callbacks through HTML POSTs or Ajax directly into a component, dynamically updating and reloading parts of the web page.
• The exception system has been overhauled, giving more meaningful error codes.
• Responses are now automatically prepared for Ajax calls, decoding and encoding responses as necessary (no more $Response->reset()).
• The database/persistence layers can now handle relations between tables. You can now issue a $users = $Persistence->loadAll(‘Data_Users’); and immediately thereafter a $Persistence->loadRelated(‘Data_CompanyDepartments’, $users) and link users with corresponding department objects. The initial objects are dynamically updated with references to the new objects.
• Page session objects and page ViewState is being incorporated directly into PageBase, no longer requiring the use of Forms.
• Templates can now load through loadDefault() and runDefault(), automatically determining the template file names from the current call context.
• The Autoloader can make more checks for loadable classes and has a more fine-grained control.

It’s currently in development (possibly soon alpha), but that’s the news so far.

Chicago is a city I visited back in 1999. I found it to be a wonderful city, probably one of the cities I liked most throughout the U.S. In comparison with Gothenburg or Stockholm, Chicago finally feels like a really big city – the Chicago Metropolitan Area boasts of some 9.5 million inhabitants, which is more than the entire country of Sweden.

This is pretty amazing, considering that the city was founded in 1833. It’s growth comes primarily from being a major transportation hub through North America, with an extensive railway network and one of the world’s busiest airport (O’Hare International). It’s also been a part of the North American industrial boom of the 19th and 20th Century, being no small part of the US industry. Some jokingly say that Chicago was built by Swedes; this may be partly true since Chicago was a large stop-over for large parts of the migrating Scandinavian population, on its way out into the further Midwest.

Although rumor has it that the name “Chicago” comes from an Indian term for “no good”, a more etymologically correct version is that it derives from an Indian word “shikaakwa”, meaning “wild leek”, or the particular plats that grew along the Chicago river. A literal translation of the word may be “striped skunk”, probably a reference to the smell of these wild leeks. But among its many other nicknames are “The Windy City” and “The City of Big Shoulders”.

Its history has oftentimes been rather troublesome; after initial problems in accomodating the rapid city growth, it burned down almost completely in the 1871 Great Chicago fire, but was rapidly rebuilt; and it was the home of famous gangster Al Capone during a period of remarkably prevalent organized crime. Recent developments have, however, put Chicago on the forefront of environment-conscious American cities; it is actively demolishing vast public housing projects and working to reshape the city into a more environmentally friendly and more accessible city.

And one of Chicago’s sister cities is, surprisingly, Gothenburg. So, go Chicago!

My sister has just started blogging. It’s called The Blog of Heart Physiology.

She opens with the catchy question

“Have you ever found yourself lying awake 3 am in the morning wondering why the aorta doesn’t collapse during systole due to the Bernoulli effect? Or why we see ST segment depressions during exercise stress testing? And why in the name of heaven only in the lateral leads?” …

We’re probably more alike than I’d feel comfortable admitting… :)

I’ve just officially published two of my songs as PDF music.

For those of you who have pianos and feel up for playing something new, be sure to head over to my “My Music” page and take a look.

If you do try it out, please leave a comment or so about what you thought. I always like to get feedback on what I do, even if it’s critical. Reasonably critical, that is.

When attacking and destroying an enemy position, it is normal to employ a tactic called “fire and maneuver”. In the most basic terms, it means that A) one team lays down a base of fire against the enemy position, and that B) another team sneaks around and outflanks the enemy from the side and kills or captures him.

Fire and maneuver is important because it is a relatively simple, but extremely effective attack, if carried out well. It combines two elements: firepower, meaning that one team keeps firing mercilessly at the enemy, keeping his head down – as soon as he moves, he’ll exposed and you’ll kill him; and the other, maneuverability, meaning that another team keeps shifting position and can suddenly attack from an unexpected direction.

There are four main interesting effects of fire and maneuver.

• Surprise: One of the most crucial advantages you can get is the element of surprise. The enemy, who did not expect an attack at that time, from that direction, or in such numbers, will not be prepared; and it will take him time to judge the situation, get into position and defend himself. This gives you a crucial window of opportunity to act.
• Shock: When an attack is pressed, surprise may progress into shock, which is the inability to process information and make rational decisions from it. The enemy may be “stunned”; meaning he is unable to grasp the situation correctly and act accordingly. Responses carried out in shock may be wrong and may even aggravate the enemy’s situation. The faster you can be (i.e. maneuverability), the faster the situation will proceed, which may push the enemy even further; when he finally realizes the threat and counters it, the response it too late because you’ve already advanced, thus maintaining his state of shock.
• Suppression: The objective of maintaining a base of fire towards the enemy is a suppression of enemy activity. If he cannot move without being shot at, he may, simply out of fear of being harmed, remain passive. Suppression may be accomplished through direct firepower being brought against the enemy, or by threat – such as a well-concealed sniper who shoots at the enemy every time he looks out. Achieving suppression means that you can move in on the enemy position and act without him knowing it.
• Isolation: Correctly using fire and maneuver against the enemy will cause him to believe, eventually, that he is surrounded. The realization that he is cut off from his own forces and helpless, will in many cases cause him to surrender. Even large enemy forces may surrender if isolated and surrounded, which is of course far more effective than having to close with the enemy and eliminate him. The enemy does not have to be surrounded, but he must believe he is.

All of these effects are interesting because they are psychological. This is the purpose of fire and maneuver; at a sudden time and place bring such overwhelming firepower against him, while at the same time moving in with such speed, that the unprepared enemy (surprise) becomes unable to grasp the situation (shock), and unable to act (suppression) and ultimately isolated and surrounded.

The faster and more violent the attack is, the easier it will be to press this state on the enemy. This is one reason why armored vehicles in large contingents are so excellent; giving an operational maneuverability which will outperform the enemy.

This is part of the reason why, for instance, France collapsed in a few weeks in 1940. The German forces, suddenly breaking through the Ardenner forest, emerged in force with several armored corps and broke through the relatively weak defenses. Using their speed, they proceeded to cut straight through the Allied rear-echelon units (command and logistics) and cause havoc. The French and British were unprepared for this sudden, ferocious assault, shocked by its force and speed, suppressed by the overwhelming air attacks, and ultimately cut off and surrounded at Dunkirk.

(For more information, see Infantry Magazine: Fire and maneuver effects)

(Image originally from Wikipedia, published under the GNU Free Documentation License 1.2)

More about Suzie LeBlanc here.

Oh, and yeah, it’s Händel.