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Week of 1 November 1999 Sunday, 07 November 1999 09:36 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, 1 November 1999 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] Busy week this week, so updates may be short. Today, the electrician comes to give us a quote on installing a service disconnect that will allow us to cut all power to the house. I also need to climb up on the roof and blow out the gutters, because we have fallen leaves all over the place and heavy rain is in the forecast for tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow, we go up to pick up our new Border Collie pup. The remainder of the week will be occupied with various other stuff.
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Tuesday, 2 November 1999 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] Here's an idea for getting even with someone you don't like. Barbara forwarded me the URL for DogDoo.com, whose service is "One fresh canine bowel movement delivered anonymously to any address in the world!" They even offer different sizes. My favorite was the giant 2 lb. (0.9 kilo) economy size. It's puppy day today. We're off after lunch to go pick up the new puppy, who has now been officially named Malcolm. Duncan knows something is up. Barbara stopped the other day to pick up puppy supplies. Among other things, she got two one quart stainless steel bowls for food and water. I put them down in the den yesterday afternoon. Duncan walked over and examined them closely several times. He knows what they're for, but he also recognizes that they're a fifth the size of his own bowls. I'm pretty sure he's grasped the implications. Barbara prepared a nesting box yesterday, a medium-size cardboard box with numerous towels, puppy blankets, and chew toys in it. In theory, Barbara, both dogs, and I will drive up to get the puppy. It's about a 45 minute drive each way, and we fondly hope that the puppy will sleep on the return journey. Not likely, though. It took Duncan about 2 minutes to climb out of the box on his original ride home. Somehow I doubt that it will take Malcolm much longer. I got an Intel CA810E motherboard yesterday. Actually, Intel has changed the terminology. It's now a "desktop board." This is a pre-production model, but the CA810E should soon be available for purchase from retailers. The CA810E is a Socket 370 board that can accept PPGA Celerons and the new FC PGA Pentium IIIs. It has integrated SoundBlaster audio and Intel i752 video. This sample also has the optional integrated 100BaseT LAN interface. Anand recently reviewed the Intel Pentium III E FC PGA Coppermine processors and the Intel CA810E motherboard. As usual, he completely missed the point. If Anand reviewed a Ferrari, he'd complain that it didn't have the hauling capacity of his favorite dump truck. If he reviewed a Mack dump truck, he'd complain that it didn't corner like his favorite sports car. As Anand rightly points out, the integrated i752 video means that this isn't a motherboard for serious gamers. But this motherboard was not designed for people who live in Quake. For the rest of us, the CA810E has some very attractive features, not least of which is its support for 66 MHz, 100 MHz, and 133 MHz FSB speeds. That means you can build a very inexpensive system around this motherboard with a low-end Celeron (using PC133 SDRAM), and still be able to upgrade later to a fast Pentium III once their prices come down. I'm still waiting for the Pentium III E processor, so I haven't had a chance to build a system around this board, but my guess is that the embedded video will be more than good enough for typical uses, including casual gaming. More later, once I have a chance to work with the motherboard. * * * * *
Thanks. I didn't include the text because it's copyrighted, but it refers to the RealJukebox Trojan horse. I've never much cared for that company's products, and this is yet more more reason to avoid them. I note that they've already posted a patch on their site to zero out the GUID. That's not enough, not by a long shot. If the situation is as represented, and I have no reason to think it is not, this company is engaging in practices that are certainly illegal and Europe and almost certainly illegal in the US. They should be prosecuted, and should be fined enough to put the company out of business. The people responsible should have to serve some serious jail time as well. I think it's interesting that the scum-sucking lawyers who went after Toshiba (and now Compaq with a similar suit) got a billion dollar settlement, but Real, who have apparently raped the privacy of millions of users, are likely to escape unscathed. I hope that the bad publicity will be adequate to put Real out of business, but I somehow doubt that will happen. * * * * *
Congratulations! It sounds like you're well on your way to your MCSE. As far as scores, I can't imagine anyone caring what you got. The fact that you passed is all that counts. In med school, there used to be a riddle, "What do you call the guy who graduates last in his class?" The answer, of course, was "Doctor". * * * * *
Hmm. I remember a joke that went the rounds when European unification was first being discussed. It was something like, "if this goes as we hope, we'll all have British police, French wine, German automobiles, and Italian shoes. But more likely we'll end up with British wine, French automobiles, German shoes, and Italian police." Or something like that. As far as protecting my dog, I'd simply claim that the guy was attacking me and that my dog was defending me. I shot not to defend my dog, but to defend my own life, because I (as a reasonable man) feared that I would be killed or done grievous bodily harm. And I'd make sure that any cat owner on the jury was dismissed for cause.
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Wednesday, 3 November 1999 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] The puppy is starting to fit into his new pack. It's amazing how much commotion a 4.5 pound (2 kg) ball of fur can cause. Malcolm is already well on his way to being completely pillow-trained, as the photos below show. Incidentally, these are two of the many photos that show him when his switch is in the Off position. Most of the time, it's On, and the digital camera has trouble capturing him. There's about a half second pause between the time the shutter release is pressed and the time the photo is actually captured. That's enough time for him to have moved across the room.
I'm going to try to get some work done today, but that may be hard. Barbara is spending much of the day at her parent's house, helping her dad with yard work. We assembled a giant wire cage downstairs. It's literally big enough to hold a small lion, and Malcolm is in it right now, although he's not happy about it. He yaps constantly for attention, but is quiet at the moment. That must mean he's asleep. * * * * *
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I posted a statement on 3/30 that your billing staff had finally contacted me the preceding Friday about a refund. To the best of my recollection, I described the whole sorry process accurately on my pages. What pair Networks does not seem to realize is that your staffing problems are your problem, not mine. By making it into my problem, you cost me more in wasted time than the entire amount I paid for a year's subscription to your service. You don't seem to understand that you can't overcharge someone's credit card and then simply ignore all attempts to contact you for three weeks. That's just not an acceptable way of doing business, and your internal staffing problems don't excuse it. What's just as bad was the fact that when I finally said I was going to dispute the overcharged amount on my credit card, pair threatened to discontinue service. If you have inadequate staff to deal with billing problems, the answer is to hire more staff, not to ignore and threaten your customers. I note that your billing staff had no problem in charging my credit card immediately. Correcting their mistake was another matter. * * * * *
Not really, except that the KP6-BS was available at the time, and the BXB-S was out of stock. That and the fact that I usually prefer separate expansion cards for things like SCSI. But the BXB-S has, I believe, Adaptec U2W SCSI built-in, which is exactly what I installed via an Adaptec 2940U2W host adapter. * * * * *
I think they send their packages UPS rather than USPS. You're obviously a lot more concerned about this than I am. Have at 'em. * * * * *
ARRRRGHHH. * * * * *
Well, you were serious. I don't consider dog crap to be hazardous waste, but I guess some might consider it to be. But I think that putting these folks in the same class as those who mail letter bombs is overreacting a bit. * * * * *
I know of the company. Pournelle has been recommending Granite cables for years. I visited their web site a month or two ago, and was flabbergasted to see that their long cables sell for as much as $1,500. Even a short cables (e.g. an 8" U2W) are well over $100. I've never had any problems with the cables that Adaptec supplies with their host adapters, so I've been loath to consider spending that much extra to solve a non-existent problem. If anyone could demonstrate to me a real difference in performance or reliability, I'd be happy to consider recommending Granite, but so far I haven't seen any evidence to that effect. * * * * *
What threat? Your billing department doesn't answer email for three weeks, and there is no voice telephone number to call. I wasn't about to drive to Pittsburgh to talk to them, but I was considering asking some of my riding buddies to drop over and speak to them, which is exactly what I said. If you somehow interpret that as a threat, that's your choice. But I made no threat. That must have been some script error. One of my friends signed up with pair the day before I did. As I recall, that script calculated his discount correctly at 24%, but the mailed invoice he received indicated that he'd paid only for six months when he'd paid for a year. As for not discovering the problem until later in March, I immediately (within a few minutes of receiving the invoice) notified billing@pair.com of the problem. If they read their mail, perhaps they would have discovered the problem in a timely manner. I don't recall when you mentioned the staffing problems (or if indeed it was you that mentioned them), but I distinctly recall being told that there were only a couple of people in billing and that they were covered up for weeks every time invoices were mailed. Come to think of it, it was you that I talked to about this, in earlier private mail. If you'll recall, I suggested staggering billing rather than dropping all invoices the same day. You said you'd tried that but it didn't work any better. As to the threat to discontinue service, I quote from your posted policies: "Please note also that upon receiving a chargeback notice, we reserve the right to suspend services while we investigate the cause..." If that's not a threat to discontinue service to someone who disputes a charge, I don't know what is. All of that said, I have recommended pair Networks to many people since this all happened. I know of at least four people who have signed up with pair based on my recommendation, and I'm sure there are many others. What I tell them is that you're technically very competent, have better connectivity than many well-known countries, but have the Billing Department from Hell.
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Thursday, 4 November 1999 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] Our new Border Collie puppy, Malcolm, is settling in well. He turns six weeks old today. I'd always believed that one shouldn't take a pup from its mother until it was at least six or seven weeks old, but this is the second pup we've gotten at 5.5 weeks old. Duncan turned out well, and this pup also appears to be doing well. Of course, both Duncan and Malcolm immediately formed very strong bonds to Barbara, whom they probably consider a mother-substitute. Malcolm has had surprisingly few accidents. He's already trying to hit the absorbent puppy pads that Barbara puts down for him. Sometimes he does, and sometimes he ends up with his front end over the puppy pad and his back end off it. Fortunately, we have hard wood floors throughout the house, so cleaning up is pretty easy. The best part is that house training appears to be going well. When he wakes up from a nap, we immediately pick him up and take him outside, where he immediately settles down to business. Duncan was unpredictable as a puppy. He never needed to go immediately after he ate. It was anything from half an hour to five hours, literally. Malcolm is more predictable. Also, like a volcano, Malcolm begins to emit noticeable gaseous emanations shortly before the eruption. Barbara takes Malcolm for his first vet visit this afternoon. After working intensively with Windows 2000 Professional RC2 for about a month, I find little to recommend it over Windows NT 4 Workstation. Nearly every improvement relative to NT4 has to do with hardware and installation, and that's just not enough to make NT5 a must-have upgrade. Specifically, NT5 supports Plug-'N-Play, USB, and adds Device Manager. All of those are nice, but I regard them as relatively minor features. With the exception of installing ISA PnP devices like sound cards, I've never had a hardware configuration problem when installing NT4. (The answer to getting an ISA PnP card installed and recognized is to download PNPISA.INF). USB support is nice if you need it. In fact, I remember the rumors going around a year or so ago. According to them, Microsoft had a patch available that implemented USB support for NT4, but had decided not to release it because USB support would be a major reason for people to upgrade to NT5. I can believe that, because it looks to me that USB support is one of the few reasons that anyone would want to upgrade. So, in short, I can't see many good reasons to upgrade a working NT4W system to W2KP, particularly given the high price that Microsoft will be charging for the upgrade--$149 to upgrade from NT and $219 to upgrade from Win9X. A full license for W2KP will cost $319, which should give a lot of people pause. Linux may start looking better and better to a lot of people. * * * * * After reading through the sad story of Pournelle's experience with buying from an auction site, I sent him the following message last night: I don't think anyone has said this yet, so I will. Thanks for doing that so I didn't have to. Coincidentally, I was just considering my first auction purchase when you posted your experiences. I need to take some photographs for our book (using the Olympus D400-Z; thanks for that advice also), and I no longer have a copy stand. I checked B&H photo and other sources, and found that a decent copy stand with lights would probably run me at least $300. That seemed a bit much for what I wanted to do with it. My friend Steve Tucker buys stuff regularly from Ebay, so I decided to see what they might have available. There I found a couple of copy stands listed, and proceeded to read all about the bidding process. One item was a Beseler C14 copy stand with light supports but no lights. It showed a reserve price of $97 (as I recall), but the high bid was only $51. That didn't make any sense to me. What's the point of bidding less than the reserve price in an auction? I tried to figure out what was going on, but never managed to do so. Apparently, I'm stupid like you. It was about this time that you posted your experiences with your own auction. At that point, I'd about decided just to bite the bullet and buy a new copy stand. Then I finally realized that all I really need is relatively even lighting at a level that will allow the Olympus D400-Z to autofocus reliably. These photos, after all, are going to be published in monochrome with a relatively rough screen size, so it's not like I'm shooting a color layout for a double-truck at 2,540 dpi. I already have a decent tripod, so I decided to look in the Office Depot catalog for some lights. Sure enough, I find they sell heavy-base gooseneck lamps for about $10 each. Two of those, a couple of 60 watt light bulbs, and I'm good to go. The Olympus D400-Z has a very good white balance function, so I'm sure the photos will turn out just fine even without adjustment. Thanks again for doing that so I didn't have to. * * * * *
I was born in 1953. I believe that Chris is about 5 years younger than I am. Britain threw away its status as a superpower by declaring war on Germany twice. In more than ten years of all-out war, they spent the accrued treasure of more than 200 years of empire and sacrificed two generations of the young men who might otherwise have maintained their status as a major player on the world stage. The economic miracles that occurred in Japan and West Germany are a testimony to what capitalism can accomplish when it is not hindered by nonsensical rules and regulations imposed by government. Marshall Plan money served as seed money, but ultimately it was Japanese and German capitalists who were responsible for the miracle. If there can be said to be anything good about having your infrastructure bombed to rubble, it's this: starting from nowhere, one is not hindered by old and obsolete plant and equipment. * * * * *
I used to subscribe to NTBugTraq, but NT has so many bugs that the volume soon became more than I can handle. But I agree that it's worth reading for anyone who administers NT. I've added it to my links page. * * * * *
There is that. pair Networks is an unusual company. My perception of pair is that it comprises a bunch of competent techies but no business people at all. I think they should probably hire one MBA and listen to what he tells them. But I do appreciate their technical competence and their superb infrastructure. They just need to focus a bit more on customer service. Good luck with the cable modem. I wish I could get one. Actually, I'd prefer xDSL, but I'll take what I can get when I can get it. Winston-Salem is supposed to be a "connected city." Our home is a mile or so from Wake Forest University. We have a fibre loop that surrounds the entire city. One would think that getting decent connectivity would be easy. Not so. It now appears that xDSL and cable modems may be available some time next year, although xDSL was promised for this year and has in fact been made available in parts of Winston-Salem. Just not around here. I guess I'll just have to envy those of you with good connectivity.
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Friday, 5 November 1999 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] Barbara returned from grocery shopping and other errands yesterday with a couple of gooseneck desk lamps from Office Depot. They have horrifying warnings on them: FIRE HAZARD: USE 60 WATT BULB MAX. So I'm going to use 300 watt bulbs in them. They'll probably be on for only a minute or so at a time, so they're not likely to overheat and catch fire if I quintuple the rated bulb size. Barbara suggests I try 100 watt bulbs first, which I may. The Olympus D400-Z is auto-exposure and auto-focus. That means that the more light I can put on the subject, the easier time the camera will have focusing. More light also means a higher shutter speed (camera shake less an issue) and/or a smaller aperture (greater depth of field).
That motherboard, incidentally, is the Intel CA810E, which will probably go into a Pentium III Coppermine system this weekend. We'll have to see where my work area ends up. Barbara says the kitchen table, where the lights are now, is unacceptable. I suggested the dining room table, but she plans to put Christmas decorations there. I suggested that my new lamps would look very festive with tinsel and bows on them, but she didn't buy that idea. For the short term, we'll probably move them back to Barbara's office. She's willing to give up her desk surface (as opposed to her computer table) for that purpose, and that'll probably be workable for now. Ultimately, I'm going to have to do some expansion of my work area. Right now, I have a 30" X 60" folding table as my credenza/work area behind my main desk and chair. I think we're going to replace that with a 30" X 80" solid-core door, which will give me 33% more flat area to store my clutter. I'll probably set up a folding table or two in my mom's living area in the basement. In addition to giving me more work space for building test bed systems and so on, I'll probably move a main server down there. That means that if we have a long-term power failure (either from Y2K or ice storms) it'll be easy for Barbara and me to continue working downstairs. I've about decided, incidentally, not to have a service disconnect installed for the electric power to the house. We got one quote from Salem Electric. They wanted $515 to install an external cabinet with a 140 amp breaker. That seemed like an awful lot of money for a simple job. All I really wanted was an outside box that could be padlocked, and contained a Frankenstein-type TPDT knife switch that I could manually throw when I wanted to connect my generator to the house wiring. I can't imagine that there'd be more than an hour or two's work involved, and external enclosures aren't that expensive. So I decided not to worry about it. I'll simply buy a couple of long heavy-duty extension cords. If the power fails, I'll use those to power the downstairs freezer, refrigerator, and computers. If the power outage looks to be long-term, I'm perfectly cable of opening the junction box and powering the furnace blower from the generator. Of course, we also have natural gas logs upstairs that literally put out as many BTUs as the furnace, as well as a wood-burning fireplace downstairs. If I seem paranoid about power failures, it's because we had a terrible ice storm three or four years back. Our power failed for the better part of a week, and the temperatures were in the mid-teens (-10C). We went through all of our firewood, along with a lot of scrap lumber we had in the basement. We were seriously considering whether to start burning books or furniture when the power finally came back on. Malcolm continues to explore and learn. It's really amazing to watch him work. I had him out in the front yard yesterday with both of the big dogs. He was working them, circling around to cut them off and then dropping into the famous Border Collie crouch. Seeing a six-week old puppy give "sheep" a steely-eyed puppy stare is quite amusing. Well, to me anyway. The big dogs aren't amused. Here's a picture of Malcolm on break, with his butt on a Frisbee and his face buried in one of my old tennis shoes.
Like all of our previous pups, Malcolm has a foot fetish. Feet, socks, shoes, anything at all to do with feet fascinates him. The other day, I took a step and noticed that my foot felt heavier than usual. I looked down and found a puppy fanged onto my tennis shoe. He also likes to run over, plop down next to your foot, curl up and go to sleep. It doesn't take him long, either. It seems like half the time I look down and find a sleeping pup against my foot. Not just when we're sitting down, either. A while ago I opened the refrigerator to get some Coke. In the time it took me to open the door and extract the 3-litre bottle, he was already against my foot with his eyes closed. Malcolm made his first visit to the vet yesterday afternoon. He has a slight heart murmur, but the vet assures us that this is not unusual and almost always clears itself up. Malcolm is due to go back to the vet in three weeks for all his shots and to have the murmur checked again. Olympus announces the C-2020 Zoom Filmless Digital Camera. The C-2020 retains the 1600 X 1200 resolution of the C-2000, and includes several useful new features, including QuickTime Movie and black-and-white shooting modes, manual exposure mode, automatic exposure bracketing, and manual focus from 8" to infinity. External flash has been improved to avoid camera-shaking and the PC sync now has an external flash mode. There are also numerous incremental improvements, including reduced power consumption and support for an expanded range of ISO-equivalent film speed settings. The C-2020 Zoom will be available this month, with an expected street price of $899. I haven't seen the camera yet, but based on its specs the C-2020 Zoom would definitely be on my short list if I were buying a prosumer-grade digital camera for Christmas.. * * * * *
Cable companies are pushing hard to upgrade their cable plant and facilities to support data. Time-Warner cable just upgraded our area's cable to fibre last month. I was hoping that meant that we'd soon have cable modem service available, especially since they told me last summer that they planned to deploy the service by the end of this year. As it turns out, they probably won't offer the service until "sometime in 2000", probably at least mid-2000. Meanwhile, BellSouth already offers xDSL in some parts of Winston-Salem, but not around here. An article in the newspaper last month said that BellSouth was offering free installation and setup for a limited time. I got all excited, thinking that at last the service was available. When I called, they said it wasn't available in my area. "Okay", says I, "I'd like to sign up anyway so that I'll get free installation and setup when you do get around to making it available here". "No deal", says they, "you'll have to wait until it's actually available in your area before you can sign up". That sucks. * * * * *
That's news to me. As far as I knew, NT4 had no support for USB at all. I would be interested to learn how that works. * * * * * -----Original Message-----
Congratulations on becoming a libertarian.
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Check www.libertarian.org. I'm sure they have links to various local Libertarian Party organizers.
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Saturday, 6 November 1999 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] Well, the preliminary findings of fact in the Microsoft case are in. I have to say that I can't see that Microsoft has done anything wrong at all. In true Orwellian double-speak, the actions represented as "anti-competitive" are in fact simply evidence that Microsoft has competed successfully. What we have here are a bunch of whining losers using the government's force majeur to cover their own inadequacies. They weren't capable of competing in the market, so they played the government card. The findings make much of the fact that Internet Explorer has grabbed a lot of market share from Navigator. So what? Internet Explorer is a much better browser, and has been for at least the last couple of years, which is the period in question. Netscape hasn't updated their browser significantly since they released the botched Navigator 4.0 more than two years ago, while Microsoft has released IE4 and IE5, both of which were significant improvements over their predecessors. Given the choice between using IE3 and the latest Navigator, I'd choose IE3 in a heartbeat. So why should it come as a surprise that people are giving up Navigator in droves? Navigator is a miserable excuse for a browser. As regular readers of this page know, I'm no apologist for Microsoft. I despise Microsoft. I detest Microsoft. I hate Microsoft. I've said that many times, and it remains true. I dislike Office 2000 intensely, and stated recently that I can't see that Windows 2000 Professional is much of an upgrade over Windows NT 4 Workstation. I hope that Linux eats W2KS's lunch. I have said repeatedly that Windows 2000 Server won't be even marginally usable until at least early 2001, and that anyone who puts W2KS on a production server before at least SP3 is a complete idiot. I'd love to see Microsoft lose in the marketplace, to be beaten by superior software. But beating them this way diminishes us all. I realize that most people will be celebrating this decision. I think they'll have cause to regret that. The Good Guys lost this one. Microsoft lost, certainly. But more important, those of us who use software lost. Even the software companies behind the suit lost, although it may appear that they won. What they won was a Pyrrhic victory. Who won? As usual, no one but the government and the lawyers. All we need is a government bureaucracy and a bunch of lawyers in charge of software development. I am unutterably disgusted. I think I'll go watch Harrison Bergeron again. * * * * *
Hmm. Dunno what driver they would have installed. I assume you're running Win9X, and my guess is they simply set an optimal value for MTU, but then I don't really know much about Win98. * * * * *
I checked the Iomega web site yesterday after I got your message. As far as I can tell, Iomega has written custom drivers for some of their products that allow them to use the USB interface under Windows NT. That doesn't mean that Windows NT supports USB, unfortunately, just that Iomega drives can access them via custom driver as opposed to an OS service. * * * * *
I think that's certainly true to some extent, but perhaps not as much as you think. The general speech patterns may indeed be merging as you suggest, but there are still numerous regional and local peculiarities that allow someone with a discerning ear to identify where a speaker likely originated. For example, I speak largely unaccented North American English. However, I was born and grew up in Western Pennsylvania, about 50 miles north of Pittsburgh. That area, for a radius of perhaps 25 miles, is the only area in the United States that uses the Short British O, typified by the fact that I and others who originated there pronounce "dawn" and "Don" identically. Similarly, the form "gum band" for "rubber band" is peculiar to the city of Pittsburgh and its immediate environs (in New Castle, about 50 miles north of Pittsburgh, we called them "rubber bands" like everyone else). Many regions and localities have similar peculiarities of accent, speech patterns, and word usage. Twenty years ago or more, I used to study some of these differences, and could often closely identify where a person came from simply from his speech, sometimes to the precise city. I'm not sure I could do that nowadays, because speech patterns have blurred during the interim, because Americans move around a great deal more these days, and because I no longer pay as much attention as I used to. But I'm confident, for example, that I could identify Wisconsin versus North Dakota or Vermont versus Massachusetts. There is even a "US Army accent", which has strong roots in the general Southern accent, but is (or at least was) clearly differentiable from a civilian Southern accent. One exception to this is that girls and young women from all regions have begun to speak with a marked California accent, due no doubt to their desire to emulate the girls they see on television. I suspect Chris will tell you that, although British regional accents are blurring, he can still easily differentiate between a Tyneside speaker and a Merseyside speaker, as can I. He'd be no more likely to confuse a Newcastle-upon-Tyne native with a Liverpool native than we would be to confuse a Boston native with an Atlanta native. I recall shocking a vendor marketing rep once. She was British, and during the phone conversation I paused to think. She asked what was wrong. I told her I was trying to figure out where she was from. No doubt used to such comments, she said she was British. I said, "I *know* that. I'm trying to figure out where in Britain you're from. Carlisle, right?" There was a long pause before she said, "How could you possibly know that?" I told her that the North Cumbrian accent was quite easily distinguished from other British accents by most Americans. Heh. * * * * *
I haven't done much exploration of HTML, and tend to stick to the basics. Originally that was both because I didn't have time to learn the bells and whistles, and because I wanted to maintain browser independence. Nowadays, with 3.0 browsers going out of use and Netscape becoming a niche player, the second factor is much less critical. But the first factor still obtains. I'm dipping my toe in the water gradually (as with the active links I've started to use and some experiments with collapsible outlines at the bottom of my links page and so on), but I simply don't have time to learn about HTML, CSS, etc. As far as a natural gas generator, I did consider it, but multi-fuel generators cost hundreds more than the equivalent gasoline-only models, and getting the natural gas connected to the generator would cost still hundreds more again. Natural gas also extracts a performance penalty. As I recall a 5 KW gasoline generator only provides something like 3.5 KW when run with NG. On balance, this generator is simply for emergencies, so I'll be satisfied with being able to power the essentials--freezer, refrigerator, a few computers, perhaps the furnace, etc. I don't expect any long-term Y2K power outages around here, so if I can provide minimal power for a week or so, that's all I really care about. If I were building a house, I would probably install an automobile engine powered by NG as you suggest. In addition to providing all the power I could possible want, that would also be a much lower maintenance solution. I'm told that running with NG quadruples or quintuples the oil-change interval over gasoline, for example. But I really don't need anything like that here. We have gas logs, a gas furnace, and a gas hot water heater. Our stove and dryer are electric, but we can live with our gas grill and we have plenty of clothes to hold us until power is restored.
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Sunday, 7 November 1999 [Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week] Laundry and cleaning day today. Barbara's parents and sister are coming over for dinner and to meet Malcolm. We should have named him Fang, because that's all he does. When you pick him up, he fangs you. When you put him down, he fangs you. When you pet him, he fangs you. When he curls up by your feet, he fangs you. And those little puppy teeth are sharp. I'm considering getting him a dorsal fin attachment. Every carpet shark should have one. Fortunately, they outgrow that pretty quickly. Duncan was a worse fanger, if anything, and he's grown up to be the sweetest dog I've ever had. * * * * *
Well, yes. The fact is that none of the practices that Microsoft is accused of engaging in are at all unusual or unacceptable. The entire case hinges on the government's incorrect designation of Microsoft software products as a "monopoly", which of course they are not. There are any number of competing desktop operating systems readily available, including Linux, Apple's OS, BeOS, and so on. The fact that few people choose to use them does not mean that Microsoft has a monopoly. Microsoft would have a monopoly only if anyone who wanted to run a desktop computer had no choice but to purchase and use Microsoft Windows. That's clearly not the case. And before anyone raises the question, it is quite easy to buy an Intel-based computer without Microsoft Windows. If the government is really concerned about anti-competitive behavior, they need look no further than the cola industry. Coke and Pepsi engage in the same practices that Microsoft is accused of, and have done for years. That's one reason we pay $1.49 for a 3-litre bottle of flavored fizzy water. The big two have split the market and driven out their lower-priced competitors. Try buying a Coke at Pizza Hut, for example, or a Pepsi at McDonalds. You can't, because the cola companies sign exclusive contracts with these companies which explicitly forbid them from selling competing products. Or learn about the shelf space wars at supermarkets, where manufacturers pay huge amounts for featured placements and to exclude their competition. They recoup those costs from us, of course. Speaking of chips, forget about Intel. Learn about Frito-Lay and what they do to make sure that their chips, which sell for two or three times what their competitors' chips sell for, continue to dominate chip sales. Intel wishes they had the margins that Frito-Lay gets. I find this whole situation almost literally sickening. Microsoft plays hardball. So what? They don't cheat. They don't steal. They don't defraud people. With very few exceptions (e.g. Stac), Microsoft fights clean. They provide products that people choose to buy and use. That's it. Their great sin is that they've done so very successfully. I hate to see America come to this, but it seems that many or most Americans can't stand to see a winner. Ask Jeff Gordon. When he was completely dominating Winston Cup racing, many (perhaps most) race fans regarded him as the Devil Incarnate. Why? Not because he did anything wrong. Because he won, and won often. Have we really come to the point that we hate to see winners? That does not bode well for the country. I hope Jackson rots in Hell. * * * * *
C'mon, Chuck. There's a very obvious difference here. The criminal gang is compelling you to do what they want. Microsoft is trying to convince you to do so voluntarily. If you don't do what the criminals demand, they shoot you. If you don't do what Microsoft wants, they don't shoot you. They don't even talk mean to you. Microsoft takes the approach, "Here's what we want you to do. If you do what we want, here's what we'll do for you in exchange." That's called voluntary co-operation. The criminal gang takes the approach, "Here's what we want you to do. If you do what we want, we'll let you live, maybe. If you don't, we'll kill you immediately." That's called compulsion. Microsoft has not compelled anyone to act against their will. I think you're confusing not having things your own way with not having a choice. We have the choice not to use Microsoft products. What you're really saying is that you want to use Microsoft products, but on your terms rather than on theirs. That's called theft. Doing things your way puts you in the place of the criminal gang, and Microsoft in the place of the innocent victim. * * * * *
Well, to tell you the truth, I'm not sure which features require IE4 and which don't. Furthermore, I'm not too worried about it. I don't intentionally do anything to make my site browser-specific, but neither do I spend any time worrying about making it browser-neutral. I write for mainstream readers, most of whom use IE4 and IE5 at 800X600 or higher. I don't intentionally try to break Netscape or browsers running at 640 X 480, but neither do I have the time to spend making sure that my pages render correctly in any browser at any resolution. If you choose to use an unusual configuration, you have to expect to run into some problems. Expecting everyone to accommodate your special requirements is unrealistic. Not voting for a man for whom you would otherwise have voted simply because his web page does not display correctly on your Linux system strikes me as the action of a fanatic. * * * * *
I can't think of any similar situation where the government got involved and things ended up better for it. As far as fuel cells, it's interesting that you mention them. I read an article a couple of months ago about fuel cells, in Scientific American, I think. An inexpensive, reliable NG fuel cell would indeed be a nice thing to have.
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