“Overview of Methods for Building a Simulation: Neural Networks,” by Dan, A Computer Model of National Behavior, December 2004, ppg 29-30

Your assassins have hit their targets. Your rabble rousers have told stories — true and false — of the nightmarish jails of the government. Your agitators have made the population mad against their rulers.

Is your movement now strong enough to move to the next stage — controlling the countryside at night? Or setting up your own social services programs? Or planned ambushes of governmental troops?

These are the questions that every Fourth Generation Commander faces when his movement is successful in the 1st Stage of 4th Generation War (4GWS1) and ponders whether to advance to the 2nd Stage (4GWS2).

It is merely a question of continuing what you are doing or moving to the next step. At one level, a diagram of this would be:

Input-Decision-Output. Nothing could be simpler.

A neuron is a type of input-decision-output machine. It works by collecting energy input from cells called “dendrites.” If the energy is above a “threshhold,” it is sent out through cells called “axons.”

To steal a graphic from my thesis

or perhaps more clearly, in the context of 4th Generation Struggle

The 4G Movement begins Stage 1 activities, such as assassinations/node-takedowns, reporting horror stories, and agitating for change among the people. The 4G networks is a thinking machine, and when the Stage 1 energy grows great enough the neural nucleus’ threshhold is reached and Stage 2 begins.

A neural approach is very appropriate to 4th Generation Struggle. To quote from my work,

Neural networks have been shown to explain the behavior of insects, animals, and in some areas humans, so perhaps they might explain the behavior of national populations of humans. Because there are many neurons involved, the calculations will be necessarily parallel, opening the door to optimizations. Additionally, the proven ability for biological neural networks to learn concepts and plot strategies have obvious benefits for nations.

Not just for nations. 4G Networks also learn concepts and plot strategies.

A single-neuron view of a 4G net would be too simplistic, but a neural-net model may not be.

Just another way to think about the power of 4GNets.

“NW 5th Army Soldier of the Year,” by Dan Iverson, daniverson.com, 16 May 2005, http://daniverson.com/peoplesBlog/archives/2005/05/nw_5th_army_sol.html.

Congratulations to my friend Dan Iverson (“People’s Dan” to those that know and love him) on becoming the 5th Army Northwest Region Soldier of Year!

The competition is over and I am the 5th Army Northwest Region Soldier of Year! Woot! Now I get to study even more, again! (If someone can tell me how this a good thing, please… Once the competition started Sunday morning, the nerves started to go away and I settled into competition mode.

It isn’t easy to earn

5:00 am Sunday morning we started our physical fitness test. I maxed out the test, which was a huge surprise for me. I think the extra adrenaline helped quite a bit on the push-ups and sit-ups. For the run, there was a soldier from North Dakota that was going to run at my goal pace. I stuck behind him the entire 2 miles. It worked well for both of us; he paced me and I was on his butt the entire run so he never slowed down.

After breakfast, we were given written land navigation test. The test asked us to find points on map, identify terrain features, find grid coordinates of a object, etc. It was pretty straight forward so I felt good about it.

Next up was Common Task Testing (CTT). Every soldier in the Army is supposed to know all of the Level 1 tasks (as you are promoted, there are more levels of tasks you are supposed to know), so had three stations to test at. The first station was proper maintenance on an M16 rifle. The second station was First Aid for a Casualty in Shock. The last station was calling in a 9-Line Medivac. I was told that I did two of the tests correctly, so that makes me happy. I do not know yet which test I failed, but for a band geek I felt good. CTT took up the rest of the morning; after lunch we went out to the field.

The first event in the afternoon for me was Weapons Qualification. I was separated from the other Soldier of the Year competitors and did Weapons Qual with the NCO’s (mostly so our CSM’s could be with both South Dakota compeitors). The only thing that bothered me about it was I could not see how my competition was doing. For Weapons Qual, you shoot 20 rounds from a supported foxhole (you can lay your M16 on a sandbag to steady the barrel). Then you shoot 20 rounds from an unsupported position. In the past, I shoot very well from the supported position and miss almost everything in the unsupported position. I shot horribly from the supported position, so I was extremely worried that I was not going to qualify. (You have to shoot a minimum of 23 out of 40 targets to qualify). I do not know what I did different, but I only missed one target in the unsupported position. I event shot two target with one bullet! Sweet! Command Sergeant Major Neiderwerder was my coach during Weapons Qual and gave me some great tips while shooting (CSM Neiderwerder was my sponsor from South Dakota). I ended with a score 28 out of 40.

After Weapons Qual, we did the daytime land navigation test. We were given 5 points to locate within an hour and a half. I ended up with the longest course on the range; I had to hike over 3km. That may not sound like much to walk, but the course was high desert terrain and you have to navigate over and around all kinds of obstacles. Thankfully most of my points were within 50m of a road, so I really did not use my compass and just used my map to get me around. (Some people would argue that you are supposed to use your compass religiously and walk in a straight line from point to point, but if I can walk on a road to my next point, I will gladly walk the extra couple hundred meters!) After the daytime land nav test, we ate in the field and waited for nighttime.

About 10:30pm we started the night land nav test. We were given three points to find in an hour and a half using a compass and a map. This event did not go well for me. I officially found one point. I thought I had seen my second marker while on the course, but it was positioned in such a way that it looked like a tower in the distance. I psyched myself into thinking it was a tower when it really was my second point. Oh well, nothing I can do now. We finished with night land nav at 2:00am. I was scheduled to appear before the board at 8:30am and still had to finish my written essay.

I decided to sleep for two hours when I got back to my room. I got up around 4:30am and finished writing my essay. We were given an essay topic the first night we arrived. The topic for everyone was “Living the Army Values – What does it mean to you?”. It was a broad topic, but I threw together a 300 word response and called it good. The rest of the morning I reviewed for the board.

At 8:30am I went before the board. For the next 25 minutes, the four CSMs asked me all kinds of questions about the Army. I was able answer almost all of the boards questions. I was on a roll! CSM Birnbaum (State CSM for South Dakota) was the President of the board, so it was fun to do well with him in the room. After the board, we changed and cleaned our weapons. After that the competition was over. We spent the afternoon driving around Boise and taking naps.

Frikkin Awesome People’s Dan, Center

“Bright College Years,” by Jack Risko, Dinocrat, 18 May 2005, http://www.dinocrat.com/archives/2005/05/18/bright-college-years/.

Early 4GPS1 Agitation-Propaganda, courtesy of a private email. It is also an Isolation attack [PISRR], trying to morally separate academics from society at large. This complements the 4GP attack on the Judiciary. The universities and the courts are liberal strongholds, but unprotected and vulnerable ones.

The Dartmouth ratio is a nice touch.