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Week of 16 April 2001 Latest
Update: Friday, 05 July 2002 09:16 |
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Monday, 16 April 2001 [Last
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| Taxes are done for another year.
I propose a short hunting season on politicians and bureaucrats each year, say from 16 April through 30 April. Any taxpayer is entitled to a hunting license, but the bag limit is one (buck or doe) politician and two (buck or doe) bureaucrats per person, just to make sure there are enough to go around. I would purely love to be able to drive around with a tagged politician or bureaucrat roped to the hood of my truck. Mounted heads would make good decorations for the den, too, I think. No bag limit or closed season on lawyers, of course. They're vermin.
And speaking of lawyers, I see that Iomega has settled a class action suit brought on behalf of Zip drive purchasers. As usual, the lawyers get all the money, and the members of the class get discount coupons. Here's a novel idea: let's change the rules for class action suits so that the victims get the money and the lawyers get the coupons. Geez. Under the current rules, class action suits are simply the Lawyers' Full Employment Act. Need some money? Just go find someone with deep pockets--anyone will do--and sue them for something--anything will do. File a class action lawsuit, supposedly on behalf on the injured parties, and then keep most or all of the actual money generated by the settlement. The victims can just be happy with coupons for products they don't want and would not otherwise have bought. What a racket.
I am completely whacked, as I always am on tax day. I wonder how many people keel over dead from strokes and heart attacks while doing their taxes. And, Oh Joy, I see that I have a dentist appointment for a cleaning Wednesday morning. I just love lying back while the dental tech assaults my mouth with sharp instruments. At any rate, I'd better get to work to earn some money so that I can give it to the IRS. Click here to read or post responses to this week's journal entries Click here to read or post responses to the Linux Chronicles Forum [Top] |
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Tuesday, 17 April 2001 [Last
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| Depressing news in the paper this morning. Poor
Winston-Salem. The RJR-Nabisco debacle left RJR in Winston-Salem, but only
a shadow of its former self. The US Air/Piedmont Aviation debacle resulted
in Winston-Salem losing Piedmont Aviation, which was one of the better
airlines around. And yesterday it was announced that First Union Bank is
buying Wachovia, which means that Winston-Salem will lose Wachovia as
well, thereby ending Winston-Salem's pretenses as a financial center.
Between corporate mergers and acquisitions and the waning fortunes of the
tobacco and textile industries, the last 10 years or so have been hard for
Winston-Salem.
The newspaper also ran a feature article on ad-blocking software such as AdSubtract, Internet JunkBuster, and Webwasher. If there was ever any doubt that Internet advertising is dead, the appearance of articles like this in the mainstream media eliminate it. Up until a year or so ago, only knowledgeable users installed ad-blocking software. Nowadays, even casual users are installing it. Banner ads were bad enough. When it became obvious that banner ads didn't work, advertisers began using increasingly intrusive popups and other obnoxious methods to get users' attention. It should come as no surprise to advertisers that users are fighting back. According to the article, the ad-removal software folks are cutting deals with hardware manufacturers to bundle ad-removal software with modems, new PCs, and so on. It can't be much longer until Internet ads die completely, and with them the ad-supported Internet sites. Expect to start paying to access your favorite ad-supported sites in the near future. That's where things are headed.
There's an interesting article on AnandTech that details their server farm configuration and describes the random lockup problems they had with some of their KT133-based Athlon servers. Anand concluded that the problem was caused by defective MSI motherboards, and decided to swap out those boards for ASUS boards. Good luck to him, but I still think he's making a mistake to run production servers on motherboards that use PC-class chipsets. If it were me, I'd install real servers instead of mucking about with toys. Click here to read or post responses to this week's journal entries Click here to read or post responses to the Linux Chronicles Forum [Top] |
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Wednesday, 18 April 2001 [Last
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| Pournelle filed
his income taxes Monday and fled the country Tuesday, which may be a
coincidence. If you've arrived here for the first time from Jerry's site,
welcome. If not, welcome back.
Unlike Jerry, I don't maintain a separate Mail page. Instead, reader mail is posted and responded to on one of two messageboards:
If you haven't done so already, visit both messageboards and sign up by clicking on the "register" link in the top left corner. Registration is free, but is required before you can post to the board. You don't need to use your real name, although you do need a working email account to register (a hotmail or yahoo "disposable" account is fine). We don't give out information about our users. You'll probably see references to subscribing, and if you attempt to visit some pages you may get a login prompt. Those refer to the fact that this site is subscriber-supported. Most resources are available to anyone visiting the site, but some are accessible only to subscribers. For more information about subscribing, click here. If you're looking for new stuff to read while Jerry is away, I suggest that you also visit the Daynotes.com portal, where you'll find links to a couple of dozen other daily journal keepers.
Snow yesterday, coming only a few days after temperatures near 90F (32C). I like living in a place that has four distinct seasons, but having them all in the space of a week is a bit much. Well, it's off to the dentist this morning for a cleaning. More later, if I survive. Click here to read or post responses to this week's journal entries Click here to read or post responses to the Linux Chronicles Forum [Top] |
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Thursday, 19 April 2001 [Last
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| Well, it's later and I did survive. I asked the dentist if
I'd live. He said I would, but told me to come back for another cleaning
in six months, which I took to be an ominous sign.
Spare a thought this morning for fellow Daynoter Bob Walder, whose father is hospitalized. Barbara's and my thoughts are with Bob and Lynne during what we know is a difficult time for them.
Yesterday, Barbara and I made our usual library visit, followed by dinner and then the monthly meeting of the Forsyth Astronomical Society, which is always held at SciWorks. Every meeting includes a presentation, and last night's presentation took place in the planetarium. Sitting in a planetarium always takes me back to the magic I experienced in the early 1960's as an elementary school student when I first visited the Buhl Planetarium in Pittsburgh. The SciWorks planetarium does fine relative to other similar facilities, but I can't believe the place isn't packed with school kids every day and with adults on evenings and weekends. What a resource to leave so lightly used. It makes me wonder where our next generation of scientists will come from. Click here to read or post responses to this week's journal entries Click here to read or post responses to the Linux Chronicles Forum [Top] |
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Friday, 20 April 2001 [Last
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| Thanks to the reader who sent me the link to Redheads
are Neanderthals. Interesting article. In the past, I've described
myself as a Viking-American, but after reading this article, I think I'll
substitute Neanderthal-American. Perhaps I'll have Barbara get me one of
those "Proud to be a Neanderthal" t-shirts.
Throughout history, we redheads have had an impact on events all out of proportion to our numbers, from Cain to Ramses the Great to Alexander the Great to Julius Caesar to Octavian/Augustus to Judas Iscariot to Nero to Charlemagne to Richard Lionheart to Frederick Barbarossa to Leonardo Da Vinci to Christopher Columbus and Isabella to Titian to Galileo to Elizabeth the First and Walter Raleigh to William Shakespeare to Isaac Newton to Peter the Great to Vivaldi and Johann Sebastian Bach to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and the Marquis de Lafayette to Napoleon to Emily Dickinson to Vincent Van Gogh to Mark Twain to John D. Rockefeller to Winston Churchill. Now it turns out that may be because we speak softly and carry a big club. Click here to read or post responses to this week's journal entries Click here to read or post responses to the Linux Chronicles Forum [Top] |
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Saturday, 21 April 2001 [Last
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| I'm thinking about astronomy this morning, so if you have
no interest in that you might want to just click on by...
One of the interesting things about belonging to an astronomy club is that one recognizes other members by voice and not necessarily by sight. At one observing session last month, Barbara and I spent two or three hours with Priscilla, who is the vice president of the club. At the meeting Wednesday, I didn't recognize her until she spoke. There are apparently friendships of years-long standing among amateur astronomers in which neither party would recognize the other because they've never seen each other in broad daylight. We were supposed to head up to one of the Forsyth Astronomical Society observing sites this evening, but the cloud cover is currently 10/10, so it doesn't look like that will be on. Getting everything to cooperate--our schedules, temperature, clouds, day of the week, and so on--is not easy. We've had otherwise good nights when the wind chill was down in the teens or twenties (say -5C to -10C). We've had warm nights when everything cooperated except the clouds. We've had nights when one or another thing ruled out observing until everything suddenly became perfect, but by that time it was 11:00 p.m. and we were too tired to start a session. There's a saying among amateur astronomers, Aperture Rules. That's right, as far as it goes. Larger aperture means more light gathering ability, more objects visible, and higher resolution. But it also means a larger, heavier instrument that's difficult to move and set up. If I were limited to only one scope, there's no doubt in my mind that it would have to be a medium- to large-aperture one like the 10"/250mm reflector we currently have. But I also understand why most people who have larger instruments also have a small telescope, usually called a "grab-'n-go" or "quick look" scope. Something small, light, relatively inexpensive, and easy to set up. The usual choice for a quick look scope is a Schmidt-Cassegrain (SCT), a Maksutov-Cassegrain (MCT), collectively called catadioptrics or cats, or a small refractor on an equatorial mount. I've ruled out a cat on price, because the least expensive cat I'd want costs upwards of $1,500 mounted, which is a bit expensive for something I'd want to be able to toss in the back of the truck and not worry about. The so-called "Short Tube" refractors have become extremely popular, but I can't see why other than their small size and easy portability. They typically have 80 mm or 90 mm objectives with a focal ratio in the f/5 to f/6 range. That gives you a focal length of around 500 mm, which just isn't long enough to be practical for planetary or lunar viewing using eyepieces of reasonable focal length. And even if you Barlow them and use a very short eyepiece for higher magnification, their image quality breaks down dramatically beyond 75X or so, whereas you really need at least 175X to 225X for planetary and Lunar work. About the only thing the short tubes are good for is wide-field viewing of deep-sky objects, and those views are very disappointing compared to those in a large reflector. The other problem, of course, is that fast achromats (those with small focal ratios) have very poor correction, so bright objects are yellowish with a surrounding blob of purple haze. Since what I want a quick look scope for is the gas giants, Mars, Luna, and so on, a fast focal ratio is a bad idea. What I'd like to get is an achromat in the 120mm range, but in that range, an achromat needs to be up around f/15 or higher to mostly eliminate secondary color fringing. The problem with that is that the OTA (optical tube assembly) for a 120mm f/15 scope is about 1.8 metres (6 feet) long, which means it needs a larger, heavier, more expensive equatorial mounting, which in turn reduces portability. The objects we'd normally be viewing with a quick look scope are bright ones, so the light gathering advantage of a large aperture is relatively unimportant. Giving up aperture also gives up resolution, but that's also relatively unimportant unless seeing conditions are superb. So, having ruled out the cats and the short tube refractors, the choice comes down to one of the commonly available small refractor configurations, which are 90mm f/11.1 and 120mm f/8.3. Either of those has a focal length of about 1000mm, which is adequate for Lunar and planetary observing, particularly if Barlowed. My inclination is to go with something like the Taiwanese Guan Sheng GS-300, which is resold by Orion as their SkyView Deluxe 90mm Refractor for $399. The SVD mount, although relatively light, should be heavy enough for this scope for visual purposes. The alternative is the Red Chinese Synta 90mm refractor, resold by Orion as their AstroView 90mm refractor, for $269. The extra $130 buys a Taiwanese-sourced scope on a considerably heavier and more stable mount, a better focuser and finder, and usable Plössl eyepieces rather than the cheap Kellners supplied with the less expensive scope. Besides, as Pournelle and others have pointed out, Red Chinese stuff is made by what amounts to slave labor, and I have no interest in encouraging that.
Click here to read or post responses to this week's journal entries Click here to read or post responses to the Linux Chronicles Forum [Top] |
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| I awoke this morning to my computer chiming. As it turned
out, it was protesting the loss of IP connectivity from Roadrunner at
about 7:45 a.m. The cable light on the cable modem was flashing rather
than solid and IP was deader than the proverbial doornail, so I dialed the
Roadrunner tech support number. After working my way through the phone
menu, it transferred me to the local Time-Warner operation. I worked my
way through another phone menu tree, whereupon it told me that no one was
available to take my call and offered to take a message.
About 11:30 a Time-Warner truck came cruising down our street. It finally stopped several houses down and the guy went up in the cherry picker. An hour or so later my connectivity came back. By that time, I was in the midst of doing my full weekly backup, so I didn't want to open FrontPage (or anything else that'd open files on the server). So I'm posting this belatedly.
We ended up going to the Forsyth Astronomical Society club observation site yesterday. By late afternoon, there was actually some blue sky visible and the sun was forming shadows. My brother showed up to visit my mother, which makes things easier for us because we don't have to worry about leaving her and the dogs for so long. By about 6:30 p.m. we'd finished dinner and the skies appeared to be clearing a bit, so we headed for the Bullington site, which is about 25 miles from our home. When we got up there, we found Bonnie, one of the club members, already there and with her Celestron C8 SCT set up. After dark, several other members showed up, and we had a good time talking and observing. Two of the people who came, Phil and Robert, are experienced observers, so I took the opportunity to have them star-test our scope. Star testing simply means to focus on a bright star and then rack the focuser in and out of focus, observing the changes to the star image on both sides of focus. It's an extremely sensitive test for optical problems, collimation problems, and so on. Phil and Robert both said the seemed well collimated and showed no noticeable aberrations, which pleased me. Click here to read or post responses to this week's journal entries Click here to read or post responses to the Linux Chronicles Forum [Top] |
