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Daynotes
Journal
Week of 30
October 2000
Friday, 05 July 2002 08:06
A (mostly) daily
journal of the trials, tribulations, and random observations of Robert
Bruce Thompson, a writer of computer books. |
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Monday,
30 October 2000
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Thanks to everyone who's already bought a copy
of our latest book, PC Hardware in a Nutshell. If you haven't
ordered a copy yet, why not click
the link and do so now? Thanks.
I pretty much took the weekend off, although I did do some stuff around
the house and wrote a bit. Saturday afternoon, I happened to notice that
AMC was running a horror movie marathon. So I watched The Deadly Mantis,
The Black Scorpion, Tarantula, Them!, and Creature
from the Black Lagoon.
I generally don't much like movies, preferring to spend what leisure
time I have available reading a book, but I do have a soft spot for those
1950's black-and-white mutant giant insect movies. I've forgotten what one
uses to kill deadly mantises, but it's nice to know that for the rest if
we're ever attacked by such creatures, they can be dispatched with an
electric generator, napalm, a Thompson submachine gun, or rotenone,
respectively--all stuff we keep around the house. Except for the napalm,
of course, and that's easy enough to make with gasoline and soap powder.
The psychology behind those movies is interesting. Fear of nuclear
weapons and their aftereffects, the helplessness of humanity against
things that they've unintentionally unleashed, the inability of the
military to cope with radical new dangers, and so on. Of course, there's a
secondary agenda in all of them, too. They all have a romantic sub-theme.
Obviously, most of these movies were intended to play at drive-in
theatres, where the romantic sub-theme set the stage and the monster gave
the girl a good excuse to jump into the guy's lap.
The science in these movies is generally laughable to
non-existent--even ignoring the fact that mobile creatures of that size
cannot exist in a gravitational force of 1 G--but some of them aren't bad
nonetheless. From Tarantula, I learned that the population of earth
by 2000 would be 3.6 billion. A bit of an underestimate, but then that
didn't take into account the agricultural revolution that commenced around
1970. Without that, the population of earth probably would have been only
3.6 billion. And Them! was actually a pretty good movie in absolute
terms. Superior writing, acting, and plot. One of the best
rampaging-giant-mutant-insect movies ever made, I think.
Microsoft says that Windows 2000 has an AGP bug when running on VIA
chipsets. Details
here.
A couple of interesting computer-related articles in the morning
paper. There was an article on the front page discussing how
"computer forensics" technology, which was formerly used only by
law enforcement personnel, is now commonly used by corporations to snoop
for personal information about employees, including details of your
finances and health. The answer seems to be that you shouldn't use your
computer at work for anything personal, but then that should have been
obvious. The other article talks about PayPal, which is no longer free.
They now charge 25 cents per transaction and a couple percent of the
amount being transferred. That's probably reasonable, given credit card
transaction costs, but it does eliminate PayPal as a viable mechanism for
micro-transactions. Pity.
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Tuesday,
31 October 2000
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We took an unexpected break yesterday to make a shopping trip. When
Barbara left for the gym, she moved a load of clothes she'd just washed to
the dryer, and put another load in the washer. When Barbara arrived home
from the gym, she removed the load from the dryer only to find that it was
still wet. Our clothes dryer is about 20 years old, and has been having a
few other problems anyway. So I figured we might as well head for the
library, check out Consumer Reports frequency of Repair ratings, and go
buy a new dryer.
As it turned out, CR liked Sears Kenmore dryers, which had a good
Frequency-of-Repair record as well. So we headed for Sears at the mall.
When we got there, we found out that Sears also carried other brands,
including Whirlpool, which is what our old one is. That one has done
yeoman service, and had a good FOR record in CR, so we decided to go with
the Whirlpool. They had four models, ranging from $300 to $400. We spent a
good 30 seconds deciding, and went for the $400 one. They're delivering it
Wednesday.
Barbara had two loads of wet laundry--the one that was in the dryer and
the one that was in the washer. We were visiting our friends Sue and Robin
for dinner last night, so I called yesterday at lunch time and left a
message on their machine asking if they'd mind if we did our laundry at
their house while we were there. It's not easy to keep up my string of
bizarrities each time we visit Sue and Robin, but something like this
usually comes up.
The last time we went over, we got to discuss the bizarreness of what
happened that day. We'd called our plumber and left a message asking him
to come to our place to fix something that was leaking. He never showed up
at our house. Instead, he showed up at Sue and Robin's house (and they
hadn't called for a plumber). As far as we know, the plumber didn't even
know that we knew each other, and it's still a puzzle how that happened.
Understand, this is a metro area of about 1,000,000 population, with many
plumbers, and our home is a good 15 minute drive from Sue and Robin's
home. So how did the plumber we asked to come to our house end up instead
at their house?
And, speaking of bizarre, the power cord for dryers is now apparently
an optional item. We had our choice. Order the dryer with the $20 optional
power cord, or remove the power cord from the old dryer ourselves and
connect it to the new one. The installers can't do that for liability
reasons. We'd just replaced the power cord on the old dryer a year or so
ago, so I told the salesman that we'd connect our own power cord.
While we were at Sears, we picked up a couple other items, including a
couple of filters for the new air cleaner that Barbara just bought for my
mother and a sink snake to clear the drain in the master bath. As Barbara
was paying for those, I was standing there admiring the display of boxed
gift items in the tool department. They had a big screwdriver set for $20,
as well as a four-piece pliers set, also for $20. Now, my attitude is that
one can never have enough screwdrivers or pliers, so I find it very hard
to pass such displays without buying something.
The result, of course, is that we have something like five or ten times
as many screwdrivers and pliers as the average household. I managed to
restrain myself this time. Well, actually Barbara managed to restrain me.
But those sure were nice screwdrivers and pliers. I considered pointing
out to Barbara that if I'd had those screwdrivers and pliers I could have
replaced her receptacle years ago, but I figured I'd better not push my
luck.
So today I get to remove the power cord from the old dryer (using my
old screwdrivers and pliers, alas) and get the old dryer ready to be
hauled off.
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Wednesday,
1 November 2000
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The Register reports
that, with an absolutely shocking lack of decency, one British retailer
was selling Mad Cow toys. Install the batteries, turn them on, and they
moo and shake uncontrollably. I am not making this up. What's next? AIDS
dolls that waste away as you watch them? A Fun with Cancer board game?
Depending on whose figures one believes, anything from tens of thousands
to millions of Brits may be infected with BSE, a disease which resembles
AIDS in its extended latency (10 to 20 years) and its horrific effects
once symptoms begin to manifest. That anyone could consider manufacturing
a toy that mocks such a catastrophe is beyond belief. That a respected
retailer like Sainsburys would even consider putting it on their shelves
leaves me speechless. At least they have now withdrawn the toy. But that's
clearly not enough. Everyone who had any part in the decision to stock
that toy should be fired and their names made public. Or perhaps they
should be forced to dine on known-infected beef.
Yesterday, I removed the power cord from the old dryer (using an
old screwdriver). When we disconnected the vent hose, there was
considerable build-up of lint at the dryer end, so we decided we'd better
clean that out. We first tried leaving the external vent end connected and
using the shop vac to get the stuff out. That didn't work too well, so we
eventually disconnected the vent end as well and started beating and
shaking the hose to loosen the accumulated lint. Just about the time we
got it clean--most of the lint had migrated from the hose to us--Barbara
noticed a small crack in the hose. Oh-oh. Time for a new vent hose.
Barbara had to run some errands anyway, so she picked up a 20 footer at
Lowe's. The new dryer is to be delivered today sometime, but we have no
idea when.
-----Original Message-----
From: Nick Hanstock [mailto:j.n.hanstock@blueyonder.co.uk]
Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2000 9:37 AM
To: thompson@ttgnet.com
Subject: October 1999
I stated reading your website this year and have been reading
consecutively from the beginning also. A few points:
I am in awe of your committment to this site and deeply grateful for
it.
Im interested that Y2K issues intrude so little as of Nov 1 1999
My interest is piqued by your deep reservations about the viability of
AMD and the Athlon at that stage. I'd be fascinated to see an update of
your take on this. Always assuming its not hiding in as yet the unread
bits!
Thanks for the kind words.
As far as Y2K, my attitude was that we should prepare for
possible localized problems, but I didn't expect the widespread severe
problems that some predicted. We actually did very little in the way of
special preparations. We already had a generator--ice storms around here
periodically kill the power for periods ranging from hours to days--gas
logs in one of our fireplaces, candles and hurricane lamps, and so on. We
laid in some extra canned goods and several hundred litres of water in old
3-litre Coke bottles. Other than that, we did nothing special. It didn't
cost us anything extra to make such minor preparations, and so the
cost/benefit ratio of doing so was high. But when I woke up on 1 January
to find that the world hadn't changed much, I can't say I was particularly
surprised. I'd expected a lot more minor problems than actually occurred,
but I was less surprised by what actually happened than I would have been
had there been rioting in the streets.
As far as the Athlon/Duron, I now consider it to be a worthy
competitor to the Intel processors. My objections to the original K7-core
Athlons were two-fold. First, the Athlon versus Pentium III issue brought
to mind Soviet-bloc tanks versus American tanks. Like the Soviet tanks,
the Athlon was inexpensive, powerful, and crude. They consumed two or
three times as much power as an equivalent Intel processor and otherwise
lacked elegance. The second issue was the chipsets. The original AMD
Irongate chipset was originally intended to be a technology demonstrator
rather than a production chipset. VIA was very late with its Athlon
chipsets, and a lot of motherboards were built around the Irongate. I
didn't think that buying an Irongate motherboard made any sense when there
were alternatives like the Intel 440BX available. Also, I've never been a
big fan of VIA chipsets. Relative to Intel chipsets, they've typically
been slow, buggy, and had a lot of driver compatibility issues. When the
KX133 finally did arrive, I wasn't particularly impressed with it. So,
based on the crudity of both processor and chipsets, I recommended
sticking with Intel chipsets and processors.
Since that time, AMD has made a lot of progress, first with the
K75 core, and later with the Thunderbird core upon which the current
Athlon and Duron processors are based. AMD processors are still
power-hungry compared to Intel models with similar performance, but I
regard the Thunderbird-core AMD processors as fully competitive with
current Intel products. The VIA KT133 (formerly KZ133) chipset is probably
the best chipset that VIA has ever produced. In my opinion, it's still a
half-step behind the best Intel chipsets, but despite that it remains a
viable chipset around which to build a stable, reliable platform.
And there actually was a third issue, that being the ability of
AMD to execute, which had historically been a problem for them. When I
wrote those words, there was considerable doubt that AMD would in fact be
able to supply the Athlon in volume. As it turns out, they've done just
about everything just about perfectly, while Intel has stumbled repeatedly
during the same period with their inability to deliver Coppermine Pentium
III processors in volume, the i440BX shortages, the i820 fiasco, their
support of Rambus memory, and so on. Intel's very size has been its
salvation during this period. If AMD had as many fabs as Intel does, AMD
might very well be selling more processors than Intel today. AMD is
selling every processor they can make, but they just don't have the fabs
to make all that many, at least compared to Intel.
If AMD is to take on Intel on even terms, however, a lot of work
remains to be done. They need to ship the 770/760MP chipset because having
an SMP Athlon solution is important. They need to make much deeper inroads
in the corporate market, which remains an Intel stronghold. They need to
encourage VIA to get the KM133 chipset out the door, because in the
absence of an integrated chipset the Duron is getting destroyed by the
Celeron at the low-end--not on processor cost or performance, but on
overall system cost. They need to do something about the MHz race, because
most people buy on the MHz rating of a processor rather than the actual
performance it provides. A 1.0 GHz Athlon may blow the doors off a 1.5 GHz
Pentium 4, but that won't matter because the Pentium 4 has a clock speed
that's 50% faster, and people buy on clock speed.
So I disagree strongly with people who say that Intel is doomed.
Sure, Intel is trying to compete with the Coppermine, which has already
reached its limits while the Athlon has lots of room left to scale up.
Sure, Intel's love affair with Rambus is hurting them badly. But the fact
remains that Intel still produces the best chipsets available, such as the
i815E Solano II, and Intel can make a ton of processors. AMD is doing
everything right right now, but that by itself is not enough to overcome
Intel's advantages. If AMD continues to execute perfectly, they may one
day be Avis to Intel's Hertz. But the simple fact is that Intel can afford
to make mistakes. They can afford to make a lot of big mistakes and still
retain their lead. AMD can't afford even little mistakes at this point. So
it'll be interesting to watch what happens over the next year or two.
-----Original Message-----
From: Chuck Waggoner [waggoner at gis dot net]
Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2000 3:14 PM
To: Robert Bruce Thompson (E-mail)
Subject: Kenmore
Unless things have changed recently, you would have gotten a Whirlpool
even if you bought the Kenmore.
I'm acquainted with the fellow who was the head of RCA Whirlpool when
that deal was struck, many decades ago. He told me it was an unusual
deal--like Hershey not advertising for so very long--in that it was
done--and still ran, to the best of his knowledge when I last spoke with
him,--not through a paper contract, but on a handshake.
The other interesting aspect--to me at least,--is that he said
Whirlpool produced far more of the Sears branded product than their own.
We bought the largest capacity washer and dryer Kenmore made 23 years
ago, and they are still running like champs! only one service call for
each in the intervening years.
I think I did know in the back of my mind that Whirlpool made
Kenmore washers and dryers, but thanks for confirming it. Barbara bought
her original Whirlpool washer and dryer back before we were married, so
that's been probably 20 years. I hope this new Whirlpool lasts that long.
-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Timm [mailto:gcjtimm@earthlink.net]
Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2000 7:27 PM
To: webmaster@ttgnet.com
Subject: Is the Daypage gang a vector for techno disease?
Robert,
Strange weirdness. Our dryer died Sunday...a Whirlpool...
My wife dragged me out and we bought a set of Maytags also about $400
each. We went to Sears, but my wife didn't like the feature set on the
Whirlpools and Kenmores, she's allergic to lint filters on top, likes it
in front by the door.
It was a serious "YES DEAR" situation. I sat home Monday
waiting for the installers.
Fairview Park Maytag lived up to it's good reputation. Came "in
the afternoon" 12:32, finished at 13:22 and even wiped the floor
under the appliances before installing the new ones. (Our cord was $10,
flat rate. They even managed to dislodge the old hose I had given up on
and used when we moved in 5 years ago.)
Now she's got a check and wants a CD-RW...it's the Plextor from Page
222 of PCHIAN..
Jeff Timm
Who thinks things are seriously weird...
Who also wonders why these things go blewey just before the Holidays..
Yep, but as Sigmund Freud said, "sometimes a coincidence is
just a coincidence," or something like that. I'd never have thought
about the location of the lint trap, but Barbara commented on it. The
Whirlpool we got has the lint trap inside the machine at the bottom front.
You won't regret buying the Plextor 12/10/32A. It's the best CD-RW drive
I've ever seen.
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Strock [mailto:MikeS@webforia.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2000 11:50 PM
To: 'thompson@ttgnet.com'
Subject: Web Stats - What do you use?
I thought I would ask you, since you run stats on both your site and
Pournelle's. We are currently using WebTrends, but I find it
unsatisfactory, from a usability standpoint. What are you using to run
stats on your site, if I may ask? We run IIS on a few servers.
Thanks. I enjoy the page, got to it originally when Mr. Pournelle was
in Paris.
Mike Strock
IS Manager
mikes@webforia.com
Everyone is born with genius, but most people only keep it a few
minutes.
-Edgard Varese, composer (1885-1965)
Thanks for the kind words. I use Analog to analyze the web logs.
It works fine and provides the information we need, although the graphics
are limited to simple bar charts. If you turn on DNS resolution with
Analog it takes forever to run reports. But DNS resolution has to be on if
you want meaningful reports that include hostnames and domain names rather
than just IP addresses. Some time ago, one of my readers suggested a
product called QDNS from AnalogX. I run that product first to do DNS
resolution in batch mode. It runs 100 DNS threads, and so takes only a few
minutes to resolve all the entries. Here is the batch file I run to
produce the weekly, monthly, and yearly reports for Pournelle:
qdns /G year.cfg /t 100
qdns /D dnsfile.txt /t 100
analog -G +gyear.cfg
ren report.html year.html
analog -G +gmonth.cfg
ren report.html month.html
analog -G +gweek.cfg
ren report.html week.html
xcopy dnsfile.txt g:\data\webstats\pournelle
Incidentally, case is significant on at least some of the
switches. I'm pretty sure that Analog and AnalogX support all of the log
file formats supported by IIS, but I've never tried them. Our web host
runs Apache and provides log files in the extended common log file format.
Analog and AnalogX are worth a try anyway. Both are free for the download.
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Thursday,
2 November 2000
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The Sears guys showed up yesterday morning with the new dryer. They
unboxed it while it was still on the back of the truck and then lifted it
down. As the one guy was busy attaching a new power cord to it, I pointed
out that we hadn't paid for the new power cord. He said he was giving us
one anyway, so now we have a spare power cord.
Then I noticed that the front of the dryer said Kenmore rather than
Whirlpool, so I told the guy I thought he'd brought us the wrong dryer. I
ran in the house to get the paperwork and, sure enough, we'd bought the
Kenmore. Oh, well. As someone said yesterday, Whirlpool makes Kenmores
anyway, and Kenmores were well-rated in Consumer Reports. So they rolled
it down the driveway and started installing it.
Barbara had bought a new vent hose, one of the ribbed, expandable
plastic ones. But the installers had brought along their own ribbed,
expandable metal vent hose. That was fortunate, because there was a label
on top of the dryer warning not to use plastic hose. So I guess the next
time Barbara goes to Lowe's she'll return the hose we bought for a refund.
They turned on the dryer to test it, and it worked fine. We haven't
done a load of laundry yet to give it a real test, but that won't be long
in coming. I was going to suggest that they install the new dryer in the
hall bathroom and connect it to Barbara's new receptacle, but I figured
I'd better not push my luck. (And yes, I know that dryers run on 220V
rather than 110V, but I could have slipped that past Barbara). Barbara was
upset with me anyway, because she thought I'd lost the business card for
the company that comes and hauls the old one away. I ended up calling
Sears, getting the phone number for that company, and calling them to
arrange pickup. That took all of two minutes to do. And we did finally
find the business card in the drum of the new dryer.
So the dryer episode is over and done with.
Linux Today recently ran an article entitled Jerry
Pournelle finally admits he's a Microsoft shill, and I wanted to
comment briefly on that article. Clearly, the headline itself and many of
the comments are libelous. Pournelle has admitted no such thing. How could
he? It isn't true. But one theme runs through many of the posts, and that
is that Pournelle gets free stuff from vendors. According to many of the
people who posted comments, that must mean that Pournelle is in some way
beholden to the folks who supply that stuff.
I can understand how these people can believe this, but the fact is
that it simply isn't true. I've written about this issue at length before,
but to restate it briefly, a bribe is only a bribe if what is being
offered has value to the person receiving it. I know that this sounds
strange, but the stuff that Pournelle and I get from manufacturers has no
real value to us. The only two people at Chaos Manor are Jerry and his
wife. Jerry has something over 30 computers right now, and parts to build
probably a dozen more. The only two users here are Barbara and me, and we
are literally covered up in computers. We're running out of places to plug
them in and horizontal surfaces to hold them. If someone really needs or
wants a new computer, a new computer might be a pretty good bribe. But if
one already has 30 computers, the 31st computer isn't a bribe at all. It's
a burden.
When Jerry or I want to look at some new piece of hardware, we send
email to the company or pick up the phone and call them. They generally
FedEx us whatever we ask for. So, if Jerry can call up Intel and have them
ship him a motherboard and Pentium III or call up Seagate and get them to
send him a new hard drive, does that mean that Jerry is unfairly biased in
favor of Intel or Seagate? No, because Jerry can just as easily pick up
the phone and have AMD ship him a motherboard and Athlon or call up Maxtor
and have them ship him a new hard drive. Same thing for me. It's a wash.
The best analogy I can come up with is the standard policy at candy
stores. New employees are always told that they're free to eat as much of
the stock as they want. The first day, it's a matter of "Wow! All the
free candy I can eat." So they pig out. But all it takes is once
before they realize that munching on the inventory is not such a great
fringe benefit after all. It's the same for Jerry and me. In effect, we
work in that candy store. So, as it turns out, offering us yet another
free bag of candy isn't much of a bribe after all.
-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Chase [mailto:alan_chase@hotmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2000 1:09 PM
To: webmaster@ttgnet.com
Subject: Dryer Vents
Bob,
Just wanted to make sure you had gotten the appropriate type of venting
for your new dryer.
There are basically four types available, only two of which are
preferable as far as avoiding spontaneous combustion fires from trapped
lint build-up. The four types are ribbed flexible plastic hose, ribbed
flexible metal hose, non-ribbed flexible metal hose and non-flexible metal
ducts. The first two types (with the ribs) are prone to trap lint and
should be avoided. The other two types do not have ribs and are
preferable.
Thanks. As it turned out, the Sears installers connected the
dryer with vent hose that they'd brought themselves. It's the ribbed,
expandable metal kind, which I'm sure is not as good as the kind with no
ribs, but will serve. We plan to move elsewhere before too very long, so
what they installed should work fine. At least it's metal, so a fire isn't
an issue.
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Boyle [mailto:mboyle@toltbbs.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2000 1:13 PM
To: webmaster@ttgnet.com
Subject: screwdrivers
Robert
You should have had a male child. From about the age of 12 until
departure you would need a new screwdriver every time you needed one.
Mike Boyle
mboyle@buckeye-express.com
Hmm. Good point, although I was a virtuous child who never stole
my father's screwdrivers. Well, I did covet a nesting brass-handled
screwdriver set that had belonged to my grandfather, and my dad did
eventually give that to me. Either that, or I stole it. I can't remember
which.
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Garvey [mailto:mgarvey@pcmac.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2000 2:44 PM
To: thompson@ttgnet.com
Subject: Dryer maintenance
Robert,
A blocked exhaust vent is the first suspect when a dryer leaves a load
of laundry wet. You might have found your old dryer still works after the
vent was cleaned but now that you've gone down your chosen path (new
dryer, transplanted power-cord, new exhaust vent) it's best to see it
through. Of course if you've already confirmed that the heating element
has failed, then the choice is academic.
Lint is the most common obstruction, but I find I have to be vigilant
about birds' nests at the point where the vent exits the house. The dryer
being on the second floor, means this chore is usually done at the same
time as gutter cleaning. First chance I get, I plan to install one of
those vent caps with a better door mechanism that claims to limit bird
incursion here -- we shall see.
Yeah, but with a blocked vent, you normally end up with warm, wet
clothes. We had cold, wet clothes, so it's almost certain the element
failed, although I didn't verify that. The main bearing that supports the
tub on the old dryer had been failing for years, and I'd never gotten
around to replacing it, so we didn't think it was worthwhile spending much
time, effort or money on the old dryer. At 20 years old, something else
(like the mechanical timing rotor) was likely to fail soon anyway.
Frankly, I'd much rather spend the $400 and have done with it. Now we have
a dryer that presumably won't do anything aggravating or time-consuming
for years to come, and that's worth the $400 to me.
-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Walsh [mailto:billwalsh@erols.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2000 12:40 AM
To: Robert Bruce Thompson
Subject: Dryer vent miscellany
NO NEED TO REPLY, JUST FYI ................
Of all the wordly things I could comment on, I'm compelled to write
about the dryer vent experience I went through earlier this year. (I fear
I may be too late sending this; your Nov.1 notes indicate dryer delivery
and installation has probably already occured.)
For a long time our 13-year-old "Magic Chef" dryer was not
drying clothes well, even when running extra drying cycles. Playing with
the mechanical position of the dryer thermostat didn't help, and vacuuming
the vent line didn't seem to help either. Somewhere, I got the idea that
vent exhaust was critical for drying, and reluctantly tried to get at and
check the last foot of vent line that went to the outside.
To my surprise, I found a bit of matted lint that outside moisture had
turned into a vent plug. After removal of this obstruction, normal dryer
operation was completely restored! ( I hope blocked venting wasn't the
real cause for your original dryer's poor performance, but I figured you
may need to know this if the new dryer seems to
"under-perform.")
Also, I received PCHIAN on Monday. Boy, I wish I knew some of this
stuff earlier when I was building machines; there's a lot of nuggets in
that book. Good job!!
Thanks. Tweren't the vent this time, alas.
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Friday,
3 November 2000
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I got an email yesterday that signifies the end of an era. It was from
Novell, and told me that I'd let my Certified Netware Engineer (CNE)
certifications lapse. I can re-activate them by taking a NetWare 5 upgrade
exam, but I won't bother to do that. I got my CNE years ago, and then
continued with the series to become only the third Enterprise CNE (ECNE)
in North Carolina, and then the first Master CNE (MCNE) in North Carolina.
So it's been a long road, but I've reached the end of it.
At one point, I had several NetWare servers (3.x and 4.x) running here,
but I shut down the last NetWare server that was still running here more
than a year ago, and have no plans to ever run NetWare again. NetWare no
longer matters. It's become a niche product. And before anyone bothers to
send me email howling in outrage, I know that thousands of enterprises
still depend on NetWare, and I know that NetWare is much superior to
either Windows NT/2000 or Linux as a file/print sharing environment.
But that doesn't change the fact that NetWare is no longer a factor.
When I first began working with NetWare, it had something like 95% of all
installed seats and a similar percentage of new seats sold. After NT4
shipped, the number of new NetWare seats sold started to plummet. It's now
at the point where the vast majority of new NetWare seats are sold into
existing NetWare shops, which are a rapidly declining fraction of the
whole. As a server OS, NetWare is now in third place in new seats, behind
Windows NT/2000 and Linux. If you break out NT/2000, NetWare is probably
in fourth place, which is saying something considering how poorly Windows
2000 Server is selling.
It's a pity, really. NetWare is still better by far as a file/print
sharing platform than anything else available. And yet Novell's market
share is plummeting, all because of some very poor decisions, both
marketing and technical, that Novell has made over the years. I think the
biggest mistake, which I pointed out at the time, was how badly they
handled UnixWare. Had Novell successfully packaged and promoted
NetWare/UnixWare as a one-two punch--NetWare for file and print services
and UnixWare as an application server platform--NT would have been very
unlikely to make the inroads it did. Instead, Novell let UnixWare slip
away, and with it any chance for them to maintain their dominance in
PC-based networking.
Right now, Novell still has NDS, which is their jewel in the crown.
What they should be doing is pushing hard to make NDS the standard
directory service. NDS is superior to Microsoft's Active Directory in just
about every respect, and could form the core of a resurgent Novell. They
need to push NDS into Linux-space, and push it hard. NDS
eDirectory for Linux is a start, but doesn't go far enough. Very few
people except those already in NetWare shops even know about it. Novell
needs to distribute a free 25- or 50-user version of NDS for Linux to get
their foot in the door. Their goal should be to have every little test-bed
Linux box out there running a copy of NDS for Linux. A directory service
is something that people will pay good money for. Not, perhaps at the
25-user level, but it's a different story at the level of network
complexity found in the networks of medium and large corporations, which
have always been Novell's core market.
Once NDS for Linux becomes ubiquitous, Novell could price NDS/Linux at
something approaching what Microsoft charges for Windows 2000 Server. With
Linux free, the cost of the OS solution would be about the same regardless
of whether people chose NDS/Linux or Windows 2000 Server. Not that that
really matters, because the cost of the server OS is a trivial part of the
cost of building and maintaining a serious network. And the choice between
NDS/Linux and Windows 2000 is going to be pretty clear for anyone who
understands what a directory service is really supposed to be.
But it probably won't happen. Novell is worse at marketing than any
other software company I can think of. For example, I just went over to
their main web site and clicked on the link that offers a feature-by-feature
comparison of NDS versus AD. Guess what? That link returns a 404
error. Why am I not surprised?
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Micko [mailto:rmicko@clipperinc.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2000 10:14 AM
To: webmaster@ttgnet.com
Subject: Washer/Dryer NSA Conspiracy
Mr. Thompson:
Last week you discussed the National Security Agency with some detail.
Later in that week you mention that you've lived in Pittsburgh, Cleveland,
and Washingtion D.C. Next you mention your dryer, a whirlpool,
mysteriously failing to dry. Jeff Timm, of Fairview Park, a suburb of
Cleveland, mentions that his dryer, a whirlpool, died on Sunday. Last week
the washer in my home mysteriously stopped cleaning clothes. My washer was
a kenmore. I work in Cleveland; I live in a suburb of Cleveland.
You may think the NSA employs tens of thousands of people and spend
billions of dollars to essentially no effect, but I believe I've uncovered
a Sears/Whirlpool/NSA conspircacy. Obviously the NSA is sending you, and
anyone related to you a message. I'll follow up with you when I have more
details, but somehow they're combining global positioning, a
whirlpool/kenmore/sears database, and large primes to target anyone who
questions too much.
We bought a new Sears front-loading high efficiency no-agitator washer.
Consumer Reports seemed to like it, and claimed over the life of the unit,
the tco is less than a conventional top-load agitator unit. I don't know,
but my wife is happy, my clothes are clean, and my two year old likes
watching the clothes wash. I also purchased the 5 year extended warranty,
figuring I'm covered if the NSA continues to target me because of you.
I enjoy your website and writing very much. I'm happy that you haven't
been disciplined in your plan to devote less time to the site. Of course
it hurts me as much as it hurts you... I spend too much time reading and
responding.
Thank you for your courtesy,
Richard Micko
rmicko@clipperinc.com
Hmmm. You may have a point. Barbara returned yesterday from
playing golf with her father and reported that his Kenmore freezer had
failed without warning.
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard G. Samuels [mailto:rick@samuels.com]
Sent: Friday, November 03, 2000 7:10 AM
To: webmaster@ttgnet.com
Subject: Another word on dryers
Robert:
We have a dryer which I bought used when my oldest son was a newborn.
He's 16 now and has two younger siblings. The dryer has done an incredible
amount of laundry over the years. It has experienced symptoms similar to
yours a couple of times. In both cases it was not the heating element, but
rather a thermostat. It has two thermostats, one for minimum and one for
maximum temperature in the exhaust which cost about $15/each. If either
one fails, the element does not work. Took about 15 minutes to replace. I
also had to replace the idler pulley recently because its bearing failed
and it made a lot of noise. The new one was under $20 and it took about an
hour to replace. I could have bought a new dryer, but that would require
getting somebody to haul it up a flight of stairs and haul the old one
away.
An electric dryer is probably the simplest major appliance we have.
There's little in an electric dryer that a competent tinkerer can't fix
without special tools. The new models don't dry clothes any better or more
cheaply than my 20+ year old machine. Unless the motor or timer fails,
we'll probably keep the one we have. I'd rather spend my money on my
family and my toys than on a new dryer.
You're probably right that I could have made repairs and had the
dryer last another year or five. But the life expectancy of an electric
dryer is something like 14 years, and this one was already 20 years old,
so it's likely I'd fix one thing only to have another thing break before
long. And the motor and/or timer were the next likely candidates. It was
worth the cost of a new dryer to us to avoid the time and hassles likely
to result if we continued to depend on the old dryer. If my life were a
bit less hectic, I might have considered repairing it. But I have so many
balls in the air now that I don't need yet another thing demanding my
attention.
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wpoison
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Saturday,
4 November 2000
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Last night, I finally got around to reading A Civil Campaign,
the latest from Lois McMaster Bujold. Bujold is one of those SF authors
who doesn't get the respect she deserves. Well, in one sense she does.
She's won, I believe, four Hugo and two Nebula awards, which puts her at
the top of her field, and her books outsell by a wide margin those written
by many SF authors with "bigger" names. But in another sense she
doesn't. Many critics dismiss her books as "soft" science
fiction, because she focuses more on plot and (particularly)
characterization than on nuts-and-bolts hard science.
Just out of curiosity, I went over to Amazon.com to check the rank on A
Civil Campaign. In hardback, it sat at 2,750 (with 145 reader
reviews), which is simply amazing for a hardback novel released more than
a year ago. Most fiction hardbacks have an active shelf-life of something
like three or four months before they drop into the 25,000+ gulag over at
Amazon. Compare, for example, Pournelle's The
Burning City, which shipped in March and now sits at 36,563 with
34 reader reviews. That Bujold's book is still selling well enough after
more than a year in print to be at 2,750 on Amazon defies belief.
Of course, Amazon is at it again. They show the book as retailing at
$24, but offer it for $19.60, which is 20% off. Big of them. What they
don't mention is that the book has been remaindered, and is now selling at
remainder houses and on sale book tables for $10 or less. I think the
practice of continuing to price a book based on some fraction of its
retail price once that book has been remaindered borders on dishonest.
Now, it may be that Amazon is selling remaining stocks rather than
returning them for credit, as publishers allow. If they aren't, if they
are selling copies that the publisher has remaindered and sold to them for
a few dollars, then I consider that practice questionable to say the
least. And Amazon isn't the only one. I see that the Baen site itself is
still selling the book at retail price. Incredible. But even after a book
has been remaindered, at least the author gets paid for copies sold based
on retail price rather than those that have been remaindered. Or so I'd
hope.
At any rate, back to the book itself. If you like SF and haven't read
Bujold, give her a try. Actually, even if you don't like SF, give her a
try. There aren't any bug-eyed monsters in Bujold's books. Just
well-plotted stories with characters that her superb writing skills make
come alive. The current book is something like the tenth or twelfth title
in her Vor Saga, whose central character is Miles Vorkosigan. If you read
it, I suspect you'll want to go back and start at the beginning to read
all the way through the saga.
I ran web stats this morning, as usual, for my own site and for Pournelle's
site. Every Saturday, I process logs for the preceding week,
month-to-date, and year-to-date. As the year draws near its close, the
number of individual log entries contained in Pournelle's web log files
has gotten huge--something over 13,000,000 as of this morning. And as the
number of entries has grown, the processing time has slowed. Until today,
I've been running Analog (the log file analyzer program) on meepmeep,
my Roadrunner machine. That's because QDNS (the DNS lookup program I run
to resolve IP addresses to hostnames and domain names) isn't proxy-aware,
so it needs to run on a directly-connected box. But Analog, which actually
produces the reports, is a separate program, which doesn't require
Internet access of any sort to run.
But meepmeep is only a Celeron/366 with only 64 MB RAM. Producing
Pournelle's year-to-date report (not the DNS lookups in QDNS--just running
Analog to produce the report) has been taking more than two hours each
time I run it lately. This morning, it took 131 minutes and 13 seconds to
complete. For the last couple of months, Analog has also periodically been
generating low memory messages while running Pournelle's YTD report. So I
decided this morning to see how much difference having more memory would
make.
It doesn't make a lot of sense to tear down meepmeep and install
an extra 64 MB, because the only time the 64 MB is a problem is when I'm
running Pournelle's YTD report. So I decided to copy the DNS file and so
on over to kiwi, my main workstation. Kiwi has dual Pentium
III/550 processors (although Analog uses only one of them) and 256 MB of
RAM. Here are the times in HH:MM:SS required to run the identical report
on the two machines:
meepmeep - 2:11:13 (7873 seconds)
kiwi - 0:08:06 (486 seconds)
Granted, the Pentium III/550 has a clock speed 50% faster than the
Celeron/366, and also has a larger L2 cache. So overall meepmeep
runs at a bit less than two-thirds the speed of kiwi. But producing
the report on meepmeep took more than 16 times as long as producing
it on kiwi. Factoring out the difference attributable to differing
CPU speeds, that means that additional memory allowed the process to run
faster by a full order of magnitude.
-----Original Message-----
From: David Cefai [mailto:davcefai@keyworld.net]
Sent: Friday, November 03, 2000 5:18 PM
To: webmaster@ttgnet.com
Subject: Voltages
Dear Robert,
I'm intrigued! You state that driers run at 220V not 110V. Does this
mean that you need to step up your mains to 220V? And that American
manufacturers make 220V equipment for the domestic market?
On this side of the Atlantic we sometimes have to step down to 110V,
either for safety (working in wet areas) or control equipment of US origin
but I never thought that the reverse could apply.
Incidentally, on the subject of driers and the "innocence" of
children.
My sister once was running her drier away from the wall and with the
vent hose disconnected (don't know why). So she told her 4 year old son
"Don't put your hand in there, it will bite you."
From the look on his face it was obvious that the brat (now 20) was
going to investigate further, so my sister hung around to prevent the next
disaster. Sure enough, after a few minutes her son returns with his 2 year
old brother in tow, points to the vent hole and says "Andrew, ball in
there".
Actually, our mains run 220V from the transformer to the circuit
breaker panel. At the breaker panel, the 220V feed is broken out to two
110 V legs. (Actually, nominal voltage in the US varies by location from
108VAC to 125VAC, but most people call it 110V, 115V, or 120V and the
corresponding higher voltages 220V, 230V, or 240V.) Those two 110V legs
are subsequently run into the two sides of the breaker panel, from which
various 110V circuits exit.
But the 220V is also supplied as is to various high-draw devices.
In our home, for example, our central air conditioning, the stoves/ovens
in our kitchens, and our clothes dryer are supplied with 220V. In US
homes, everything that runs 220V (except the dryer and perhaps a water
heater) is hard wired, so about the only 220V receptacle you'll find is
the one behind the dryer. Our electrical codes, rightly I think, regard
220V as too dangerous for casual use. I don't have any fear of 110V,
although I treat it with some respect. I wasn't kidding, for example,
about installing Barbara's new receptacle without pulling the breaker. But
220V is something I won't mess with. Or if I do, I make sure Barbara is
standing nearby with a 2X4 to knock me loose if I screw up.
Your nephew reminds me of myself at that age. Come to that, he
reminds me of me now. My younger brother learned very early to beware of
me bearing gifts.
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard G. Samuels [mailto:rick@samuels.com]
Sent: Saturday, November 04, 2000 1:29 AM
To: webmaster@ttgnet.com
Subject: Re: Novell
I am also sorry to see the demise of Novell. It's a shame, because
Novell servers have measured uptime in years at least since version 2.
Novell has been on a downward spiral for many years, at least since they
bought Wordperfect for about $750 million. They had a product which
dominated the market and had one of the best customer service operations
in the industry. A few years later they virtually gave the product away to
Corel. They put incredible resources into Groupwise, which is an
abomination. Just backing up Groupwise is a major undertaking and I know
very few people (i.e. one - and it's not me) who can properly administer
Groupwise, even those who are Novell certified. Microsoft needs
competition to keep them honest. It's too bad that it hasn't and is not
likely to come from Novell.
I agree, and that's partially what I meant when I said that
NetWare is no longer a factor. But Microsoft has Linux to keep them honest
in server space. And perhaps in another year or two they'll have Linux to
keep them honest in desktop space. We'll see.
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Sherburne Jr [mailto:ryszards@bellsouth.net]
Sent: Saturday, November 04, 2000 10:34 AM
To: 'webmaster@ttgnet.com'
Subject: SETI ver 3.00
Just a note, last night I downloaded SETI ver. 3.00. Looks like it is
much more efficient than ver 2.4 It appears to have cut about 4%-6% off
the unit processing time.
On another note, thought I would ask your advice about building a new
every day computer. The main issues for me are 2; first whther to go
duron/athlon or PIII and second whether to scavenge my current main
computer's U2W SCSI drives or simply use the ATA66 drives I have laying
around. I run the unit 24X7 and will probably set it up to dual boot w2k
and NT4. I prefer NT4 every day but find w2k better for VPN access to my
employer's network. I do some work at home on it, word processing, email
& web access for legal research. I also spend a fair amount of time
online otherwise (too much sayeth my wife) and also need it to run DVD
movies out to my TV set. The DVD card I have available, a Hollywood Real
Magic, works great under w2k, so that is another reason to dual boot. I am
dabbling with the idea of also setting up to boot linux. Any thoughts as
to which processor or the drive choice? I do not do anything really
processor or video intensive, 3d whack-the-mole games are about as fun as
killing mosquitos. If it matters to your choice, I have some quality PC
100 memory laying around that I would like to use, as well as a PC Power
& Cooling case and power supply. I intend to turn my current main
machine into a server for the house, its 2 Pentium Pro processors should
run linux or NT4 server w/ no problems for quite a while.
On another note, poking around your site last night I ran across your
mayhem pages. I am not terribly surprised to learn we have chemistry
experiments and explosives in common, although I early discovered the
great value available in buying shotgun shells and removing the powder.
Much less chance of blowing up the house b/c of a mistaken process with
things like acids!
As far as the new SETI client, the FAQ says that on average it
requires something like 40% more time to process a unit than the old
client. It is, however, returning much more information than the old
client. The FAQ also says that processing time from unit to unit will vary
much more with the 3.0 client than with the older client. So I suspect
you've gotten some "fast" units. I think SETI made a blunder in
not providing more credit for units processed with the new client, say 1.5
units credited per 1.0 units completed. Participating in SETI brings a lot
of people's competitive instincts to the fore, and I suspect many of them
won't upgrade to a slower client since it would slow the rate at which
they accumulate completed units. I haven't upgraded yet, but that's mainly
because I don't have time to deal with it at the moment.
As far as your new system, I'd be inclined to go with a Gigabyte
motherboard and the Duron if you want to choose video, sound, and other
stuff ala carte. Our testing of the Duron versus the Pentium III
clock-for-clock shows the Duron to be only a few percent slower than the
Pentium III on integer performance, and about the same on floating point.
For example, for all intents and purposes, a Pentium III/733 and a
Duron/750 provide nearly identical real-world performance, and the Duron
costs a bit less.
Actually, I'd probably go with a slower Duron, because you'll be
hard-pressed to tell the difference between a Duron/600 or /650 and the
faster versions anyway. My rule of thumb is always to choose the low-end
processor unless you'll be using the system for something that's very CPU
intensive, which it doesn't sound like you'll be doing. A year or 18
months from now, you'll probably be able to swap out that $85 Duron/600
for an $85 Duron/1200 and thereby double processor speed cheaply. Assuming
that 100 MHz FSB Durons are available then, which I suspect they will be.
If you want to stick with an integrated motherboard, and there
are some good arguments for doing that, I'd go with an Intel D815EEA
motherboard and a Celeron/600. Since you'll be running a hardware DVD
decoder, CPU performance isn't an issue at all and, once again, you'll be
hard-pressed to tell the difference in performance between a Celeron/600
and one of the faster Duron, Athlon, or Pentium III processors.
As far as the U2W drives, I'd be inclined to leave them where
they are. It's often a mistake to tear down a functioning system and start
swapping components around. The ATA drives you mention, assuming they're
7,200 RPM, will provide decent performance, although they'll be slower
than SCSI if you put the system under heavy load. But since you've got
them, I'd go with them.
Check the system
guides at HardwareGuys.com for more information.
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wpoison
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Sunday,
5 November 2000
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Our work with Malcolm appears to be having some effect. We were afraid
that he was fear-aggressive, which is an extremely hard behavior pattern
to break in a Border Collie. As it turns out, though, it's not
fear-aggression. I finally realized what was going on a couple of months
ago. I told Barbara what I thought, and she agreed that it made sense
given Malcolm's behavior.
Basically, we made a mistake by not protecting Malcolm when he was a
pup. Like any pup, Malcolm was constantly in the big dogs' faces. Like any
adult male, Duncan and Kerry were at first very leery of defending
themselves because Malcolm's mother (Barbara) was right there, and any
male instinctively understands that a female is ferocious in protecting a
juvenile. So Duncan and Kerry would let Malcolm get away with biting their
ears, chomping on their tails, etc. They were clearly not happy about the
situation, so Barbara and I decided to encourage them to discipline
Malcolm when he got out of line.
When Malcolm got in Duncan's or Kerry's face, we'd encourage them to
"get him." That improved life as far as Duncan and Kerry were
concerned, but we've finally realized that Malcolm felt betrayed. Here he
was, a helpless little pup, left alone in the world with no one to defend
him, and surrounded by ferocious and monstrously large male dogs. He
feared for his life, and rightly so. There were times when the big dogs
really nailed Malcolm. On one notable occasion, Duncan bit Malcolm in the
snout so badly that the fang penetrated all the way through the top of
Malcolm's snout and into the roof of his mouth.
So Malcolm decided that it was up to him to protect himself. And when
he needed to protect himself the most was when he was getting attention
from Barbara or me. When Malcolm was playing chase the ball or tug the
rope with Barbara or me, the big dogs (particularly Duncan) would
intervene by lunging and snapping at Malcolm. So, naturally enough,
Malcolm concluded that playing with us was a particularly dangerous time
for him. But a puppy needs to play, so his only choice was to make sure
that when he was near us he warned the big dogs off.
So when we petted or played with Malcolm, he started growling and
baring his fangs as a threat display. That display wasn't aimed at us, but
at the big dogs. It was confusing for us for a long time, because the
threat appeared to be aimed at us, and me in particular. I'd scratch
Malcolm behind the ears, and he'd growl ferociously and show his fangs.
When I stopped scratching, he'd stop snarling and reach over with his paw
to pull my hand back, just like a normal dog. When I started scratching
again, he'd start snarling again.
Then I noticed that he was much less likely to snarl when being petted
if we were alone. Once I realized what was going on, the evidence was
pretty clear. Malcolm was pretty much a normal pup unless the big dogs
were around. I'd be sitting on the sofa petting him and he'd be acting
like a normal pup. Then Duncan would walk into the room, and Malcolm would
immediately turn on the threat display. And it works, too. Duncan shies
away when Malcolm starts snarling, and Malcolm periodically actually gets
into it with Duncan. There's lots of snarling, fanging, and punching
(really), but the only result is usually that they both have a lot of wet
fur around their faces and throats. No actual biting. But Duncan realizes
that Malcolm is capable of defending himself.
So now we've decided, belatedly, to protect Malcolm from the big dogs.
Not all the time, but enough that Malcolm realizes that he's not going to
be killed and eaten just because he's playing with us or up on the sofa
being petted. The growly behavior is tapering off some, although it's
almost an automatic defense mechanism. But Malcolm is gradually turning
into a normal pup again. He still growls and shows his fangs sometimes
when we're petting him. But we ignore that, and soon he's back to his
happy pup face.
I wish we'd realized earlier what was going on. From Malcolm's point of
view, we let him down. But he's a smart dog and I think he realizes things
are getting better. In fact, he may end up being top dog.
While Barbara is cleaning house this morning, I'll be doing
laundry. My first chance to get some serious work in with Barbara's new
Ferrari® clothes dryer. And I'd better get my office cleaned up a bit
today. Stuff is beginning to stack up. I have machines to build, web pages
to create, the Roundtable over on PlanetIT to prepare for, and chapters to
write. So I'd better get to work.
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