First of all, it is pronounced noo-klee-ar.  Not noo-koo-lur.   

Please.  If we accomplish nothing else in the next twelve hundred words, could we at least stop mispronouncing it?

Without fail, every August anniversary of the first atomic war (Hiroshima and Nagasaki), the commentariat trots out the usual Monday morning afterthoughts about the rightness or wrongness of President Truman’s 1945 decision to use nuclear weapons.    

Regardless of which side of the argument you take today, we also have to consider the circumstances under which the decision was made and the thinking of the moment.  With the victory in Europe secured, Americans wanted the war in the Pacific to end as well.  The nation was emotionally exhausted. 

The prospect of an invasion of Japan was daunting.  Some military planners estimated a half million casualties or more.  Soldiers who had fought their way across Europe were already being shipped to the Pacific theater.  Marines who had island-hopped all the way from Guadalcanal to Iwo Jima knew how ferocious the Japanese soldiers were, and many did not believe they would survive an assault on the home islands of Japan.  

From Truman’s perspective, the decision to use the bomb was dictated by circumstances.

For more about the impact of the atom bomb, and how it relates to technology, read on.

The “maximum” in MaximumPC means doesn’t just mean the fastest speed or the highest ratings—it means more than best.  It means pushing the envelope to be the best possible. 

As geeks and nerds, we are always striving for the best possible, because we’re never satisfied with where we are or what we have.  We want more.  That’s everything you need to know about the forward thrust of technology—the unsatisfied human desire to have more, better, and different.  In the long stumbling, bumbling, fumbling history of our weird little species, we have invented so many marvelous tools to expand the power of our muscles, but only one tool to expand the power of our brains—the computer.

As a species, for the first time in history, we have the opportunity to be more accurately informed and make wiser decisions than ever before.
—assuming we use our technology wisely. 

Too often, we forget that the most important component in any system is the user.  We forget that we are the authors of our own choices.  Even worse, we forget that we actually have a choice.