8:30 -
I haven't been paying much attention to the situation in Israel, but this
morning I spent a few minutes reading about it in the morning paper and on
CNN. There are plenty of people deploring the violence, of course, but it
seems to me that they're all missing the point. Israel is being attacked
by terrorists. What else do you call the suicide bombers who have slaughtered
numerous Israelis over the past week? The US shouldn't be trying to mediate
the situation. The US should be supporting Israel, which is our only real
ally in the Middle East. The US should be telling Israel, "Do what you need
to do. We'll support you, diplomatically, politically, and in every other
way."
The UN says that Israel should withdraw from Palestinian territories. I say,
screw the UN. The US should help Israel do whatever it needs to do to eradicate
the bastards who are slaughtering Israeli citizens. If that means standing
by while Israel expels all Palestinians and Arabs from Israeli territory,
so be it. If that means using the veto in the UN Security Council to prevent
any resolution against Israeli actions from being passed, so be it. If that
means announcing that any attack upon Israel by Syria or other hostile neighbors
will be regarded as an attack upon the US, so be it.
The US should make it clear that we don't like Arabs, that we recognize Islamic
nations don't like the US, and that we don't care what Islamic nations think
of the US. The US should make it clear to Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing
countries that the US expects them to keep their mouths shut and the petroleum
flowing. If they don't, it'd be easy enough for the US to dispose of the
house of Saud and substitute a friendly puppet government. In fact, the US
should probably do that anyway, just on general principles.
The US should make it clear that we support our allies and destroy our enemies.
Israel is our ally. Arab nations are our enemies. It's time for the US to
start acting accordingly.
It now being April 1st, it's time for me to start on taxes. I suppose I'll
order TurboTax yet again. I despise Intuit, but I suppose I'm stuck with
them.
11:40 -
Someone recommended I get TaxCut instead of TurboTax. Fair enough. I went
over to the TaxCut web site where I found that they have a federal edition
that includes one free state edition "after rebate". Okay. But they also
offer the products via download, which is the method I intended to use. So
I click on the Buy icon for the federal version. It asks me to choose my
delivery method, so I choose "download". It asks me to choose my state, so
I choose North Carolina. And it presents the final invoice, which includes
$20 for the "free" state edition. Huh?
According to the site, I have to send back the included coupon to get my
$20 refunded. What coupon? This is a download. I'm going to download it from
the TaxCut site itself, and I'll be paying them directly. Why does it not
just show a $0 charge for the state edition, which I want to download with
the federal edition?
Enough of this nonsense. Barbara and I will head for the mall tomorrow and
pick up a copy of TurboTax Deluxe, along with a book that Pournelle suggested
I read. TurboTax Deluxe also includes one free state version. I figure, best
case, I'll be able just to download the North Carolina version from TurboTax.
If worse comes to horrible, I have several friends who use TurboTax, and
I can just get a copy of the North Carolina version from them.
Tuesday,
2 April 2002
[Last Week] [Monday
] [Tuesday] [Wednesday
] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]
[Daynotes
Journal Messageboard] [HardwareGuys.com Messageboard
]
8:25 - The new edition of
PC Hardware in a Nutshell is now available for pre-ordering from
Amazon.com,
Barnes & Noble
, and presumably other on-line booksellers. O'Reilly decided to boost the
list price from $29.95 to $39.95, and that makes me a bit nervous. In practice,
the $10 price boost means the book will actually sell for about $7 more than
the previous edition, which means we'll earn an additional $0.50 or $0.75
per copy sold. The big question, of course, is to what extent the higher
price will damage sales volume.
Obviously, we're hoping the book will do well. If you plan to buy the book,
please consider pre-ordering it now. A large number of pre-orders helps get
the book started right. When distributors and bookstores see pre-orders coming
in, they tend to increase their own pre-orders, which helps get copies of
the book out on the store shelves. The more copies that are out there, the
better.
Although I don't buy from Amazon.com because I don't like their business
practices, I'm aware that many people are Amazon.com customers. If you are
and want to order the book, it appears that Amazon.com has the best price
on it of any vendor I've seen.
Barbara and I are off this morning to Barnes &
Noble to pick up a copy of TurboTax Deluxe and a couple of books. When we
return, I'm going to build
herschel, my new primary Linux desktop system.
13:45 - Brian Bilbrey sent me an
interesting link this morning. It's an article from
The Times (of London), entitled "
Spare us from any more Middle East peace plans
". Obviously, at least one British columnist has learned that "Peace in our
time" is anything but. No one has ever gained anything from talking with
gangsters or terrorists, nor by reasoning with them, and most certainly not
by appeasing them. The answer to people like this is firepower. You don't
talk with gangsters and terrorists. You kill them, preferably spectacularly.
If I were the Israeli leaders, I'd have dropped an FAE on Arafat's compound
by now. If it's bombs he likes, give him bombs.
Wednesday,
3 April 2002
[Last Week] [Monday
] [Tuesday] [Wednesday
] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]
[Daynotes
Journal Messageboard] [HardwareGuys.com Messageboard
]
8:45 -
I didn't get around to building
herschel
yesterday, although the case is open and waiting on the kitchen table. I
did pick up a copy of TurboTax Deluxe at Best Buy. They printed out a rebate
form and everything. I don't know if I'll even bother to send it in. Rebates
are often just a ripoff. Manufacturers know that not many people will bother
to send them in, and even those who do often forget that they've done so
or are willing to believe that they forgot to include some required item
or other or didn't meet the deadline. If rebates were real, they'd be applied
at the point of purchase (or the manufacturer would simply reduce the price
of the product). Overall, I'd guess that not more than 5% or 10% of eligible
purchasers ever actually get the rebate. That means that Intuit's "$10" rebate
on TurboTax Deluxe is in effect a $0.50 or $1.00 rebate.
I always tell people who are buying computer hardware to forget about any
rebates and just assume they're going to end up paying the full price before
the rebate. That's the way it usually ends up.
Perhaps I'll send this one in just to see what happens. I'll bet that Intuit
"forgets" to send me my rebate check, or that they claim I've done something
wrong or missed a deadline.
Thursday,
4 April 2002
[Last Week] [Monday
] [Tuesday] [Wednesday
] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]
[Daynotes
Journal Messageboard] [HardwareGuys.com Messageboard
]
8:15 -
I still didn't get around to building
herschel
yesterday, although I now have components spread all over the kitchen table.
That way, Barbara will remind me soon that it's time to finish building
herschel and get her kitchen table cleaned up.
It seems I am doomed to have multiple browsers installed on my systems. I
now have Mozilla 0.9.9, which generally works, but which sometimes takes
literally 30 seconds to start up (even with the stub resident in memory)
and which frequently refuses to accept input in the URL entry box. This on
several machines, so it's nothing about the computer that's causing the problem.
Also, Mozilla sometimes refuses to display graphics and other page elements.
For example, see
this page and
this page
. On the first page, the center graphic is missing completely. On the second,
the text in the menu box on the left is missing, although the links are active.
Again, this happens on several machines, so it's not the machine causing
the problem.
Then we have Opera 6.1, which I actually like best of all the browsers I
use. The problem with Opera is that it frequently chokes on pages that have
a vertical scroll bar. The scroll bar is there, but it does nothing. All
I can see is the top of the page. I can't scroll down to read the rest of
it. That happens often enough that I can't use Opera as my primary browser.
I really must get converted over to Linux, so that I can exchange these annoying bugs for a new set of annoying bugs.
Many people have emailed me to say that they've gotten rebate checks from
numerous vendors without any problem, so perhaps I've just been unlucky.
On the other hand, I've also gotten several emails describing various problems
getting rebates, so it's not just me. The question, of course, is how much
time, effort, and aggravation it's worth to get a small rebate. For a $10
rebate, having to fill out a short form and drop it in the mail is one thing.
But some of the stuff that I've read about (and encountered myself) makes
getting that $10 rebate check a Pyrrhic Victory.
Friday,
5 April 2002
[Last Week] [Monday
] [Tuesday] [Wednesday
] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]
[Daynotes
Journal Messageboard] [HardwareGuys.com Messageboard
]
9:00 -
I still haven't installed TurboTax or gotten started on the taxes. This
weekend for sure. And I still have a case and other components for
herschel
(my new Linux desktop system) sitting on the kitchen table. I need to get
that system built, if only to get it out of the way. I have web pages and
whole web sites that need to be created. All of this on my increasingly large
to-do list.
But I am going to take some time off this evening. Barbara and I are going to head up to Bullington to do some observing. The
Clear Sky Clock
says it's to be cloudless tonight, although the transparency isn't ideal.
Still, we should be able to get some objects logged. Sunset is at 18:47 this
evening, with nautical twilight at 19:43 and astronomical twilight at 20:15.
Saturday,
6 April 2002
[Last Week] [Monday
] [Tuesday] [Wednesday
] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]
[Daynotes
Journal Messageboard] [HardwareGuys.com Messageboard
]
12:05 -
We did go up to Bullington last night, arriving around 19:00. Paul and Mary
were also up there, as was Bonnie, although Mary and Bonnie had to leave
early. The weather was much warmer than forecast, dropping no lower than
45F or so during the course of the evening. There weren't any clouds, but
the transparency was just average, particularly at 45 degrees and lower.
Barbara and I did both manage to log quite a few Messier Objects for our
AL project, including M1, M3, M40, M44, M52, M63, M78, M94, M101, M102, and M109.
I also managed to log M41, M46, M47, M48, M50, M51, M81, M82, M93, M97, M106,
and M108 myself, although Barbara didn't log those last night.
Barbara is running around all day today doing wedding-related errands. Her
sister is getting married in two weeks, and Barbara is out with her today
doing all sorts of things that guys never learn about. Apparently, one of
them is learning how to help get her sister into her wedding gown, which
is something I'd never thought about. If I'd ever thought about it, I'd probably
have assumed that the bride simply put on a wedding gown like any other dress,
but apparently it's more akin to a medieval knight preparing for battle,
strapping on armor and having a squire assist with tightening straps and
so on.
Barbara left early, and I managed to sleep in until almost 9:00 a.m. which
is a record for me. The dogs were good, although they were all lying with
their legs crossed when I woke up. I took them out to give them a chance
to untank, read the paper and caught up on email, and then made my mom's
breakfast. I may take it easy today and just read a few mysteries or something.
I do still have the kitchen table covered up with components for
herschel
, though, so perhaps I should do something about that. I did find that, believe
it or not, I don't have any 7,200 RPM IDE drives available. So
herschel is going to end up with a Seagate 15,000 RPM Cheetah.
Sunday,
7 April 2002
[Last Week] [Monday
] [Tuesday] [Wednesday
] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]
[Daynotes
Journal Messageboard] [HardwareGuys.com Messageboard
]
9:00 - Daylight Saving Time. Ugh.
I installed TurboTax yesterday, after first turning off Norton Internet Security
and NAV, as the TT release notes suggested. One of my readers warned me that
installing TurboTax installs Internet Explorer 5.5 without so much as a by-your-leave,
and so it does. How obnoxious. After I installed TurboTax, I went to the
on-line menu to get the "free download" of the state edition. The free download
costs $29.95.
I didn't want to send any more money to these people despite their promise
to rebate the cost of the state download, so I decided to email one of my
local friends whom I know uses TurboTax and ask him if he'd mind sending
me a copy of the NC state program. Given that according to the box I'm entitled
to a free download, I didn't feel that doing this was hoisting the Jolly
Roger.
So, after turning NIS and NAV back on, I double-clicked the Outlook icon,
and found that my system couldn't access my main PST file on the server.
Nor, as it turned out, could my system access any network drive. My system
was, in fact, completely isolated from the network of which it is a member.
So I fired up NIS Personal Firewall configuration and immediately noticed
that NIS Trusted Sites had no members. I had had the entire private C-block
that I use locally in the NIS Trusted Sites zone, so something had obviously
changed this. TT installation, perhaps? Or perhaps disabling NIS caused it
to lose its mind. At any rate, I wasn't pleased.
This is the last year for TurboTax. Next year, I'll buy TaxCut or just do my taxes manually.
I'd better get started on the laundry. And herschel is still sitting in pieces on the kitchen table...
Copyright © 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002
by Robert Bruce Thompson. All Rights Reserved.
