10:14
- I'm still writing, or, more precisely, organizing, the new
astronomy book. Usually, I focus on chapters. Although I may have two
or three in progress at a time, and I sometimes stop work on the
current chapter to go add a quick thought to a new chapter, I generally
work pretty linearly. For this book, because of its nature, I have
literally dozens of chapters in progress simultaneously. That means I
still haven't submitted the first two chapters, and that milestone was
due 12/31/05. Still, I'm making a lot of progress, which is probably
all O'Reilly really cares about.
Because this is a field observing guide, we'll have a chance to "beta
test" it during our own observing sessions over the next few months.
We'll be using what we've written as a guide for our own observing
sessions, and modifying the original text as a result of those
sessions. By the time we're finished, our goal is to have the book we
wish we'd had when we were starting out. But there's going to be a lot
of work needed to get to that point.
08:18
- I didn't sleep very well last night. I dreamt that I was
trapped in a building full of Fundamentalist Christian Flesh-Eating
Zombies (FCFEZs).
I almost never have nightmares. When I do, they're generally over with
quickly. Ordinarily, I would just have pulled out my .45 Auto or my
Hi-Standard 10B riot shotgun loaded with anti-FCFEZ ammunition, blown
away a few of the monsters, and the rest would have fled in terror. (I
guess I really internalized that poster from my college days: "Yea,
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no
evil, for I am the meanest son-of-a-bitch in the valley.")
But this time I'd somehow forgotten to bring along my weapons. I was on
my own, defenseless. Even Duncan and Malcolm had gone over to the dark
side. Things were not looking good. I was alone in a room, with FCFEZs
trying to get in all the windows and doors. But then I heard a
disturbance outside. It was Barbara, coming down the corridor to my
rescue, killing FCFEZs left and right. Even FCFEZs don't mess with
Barbara.
And then I awakened.
Wednesday, 11
January 2006
08:52
- O'Reilly emailed me late yesterday to say that the QC2 PDF
galleys for Repairing and Upgrading
Your PC were available. I've downloaded them and will spend the
next couple of days blasting through them. At this point, only minor
errors can be fixed--typos and so on. Nothing that would change a page
break, let alone a chapter break. I won't bother posting these for my
subscribers to download, because the differences between the QC1
versions and the QC2 versions are very minor. We're scheduled to have
all corrections in by early next week, at which point the book is
finished and ready to go to the printer.
I usually prefer to buy top-quality stuff, at least if the price
difference is not large in absolute terms. That's why, for example, we
prefer to use super-premium Pentax eyepieces in our telescopes, despite
the fact that they sell for $300 to $500 each. But yesterday, while I
was ordering Barbara a Moon
Map from Orion, I decided to take a chance on a mid-priced
eyepiece.
The Pentax XWs are wonderful eyepieces. They have a 70° apparent
field of view, 20mm of eye relief, and absolutely superb coatings.
They're sharp across the entire field of view, even in scopes with fast
focal ratios, and their contrast is better than any other eyepiece
we've seen. The shortest Pentax we have is 10mm, which yields 125X
magnification in our primary scope. When we need higher magnification,
such as for Lunar/planetary viewing, we use Barlows with our longer
Pentax eyepieces to boost magnification to 180X, 250X, 270X, and
higher.
But Barbara dislikes using Barlows. She prefers using an eyepiece
that natively provides the magnification she wants. I considered buying
her a Pentax 5mm, shown on the right, but then I got to thinking. There
are alternatives to Pentax eyepieces. The Vixen Lanthanum Superwide
eyepieces, shown in the center, also have wide apparent fields of view,
20mm of eye relief, and good sharpness and contrast even when used in
fast scopes. They regularly sell for about $235, but Orion is having a
clearance sale on them right now for $200 each. The Vixen Superwide
LVWs are true premium eyepieces, but we consider them a half-step
behind the super-premiums like the Pentax XWs.
But Orion was also having a sale on their Stratus eyepieces, shown on
the left. The Stratuses are basically Chinese clones of the Japanese
Vixen LVWs. They have 68° apparent fields, 20mm of eye relief, and,
based on the limited number of reviews I've seen, apparently have good
sharpness and contrast and work well even in fast scopes. The Stratuses
normally sell for $120 each, but Orion had them on sale for $96 each,
so I decided to order a 5mm model. At a third the price of a Pentax XW,
I'm not expecting miracles, but it'll be interesting to see just how
close a $96 Chinese clone can come to the $300 super-premium Pentaxes.
Going in, I'm expecting the 5mm Stratus to be a close match to a 5mm
Pentax XW. I wouldn't expect the Stratus coatings to be as good as
Pentax coatings--no one's are--so the Stratus will probably have a bit
lower contrast than the XW. It also wouldn't surprise me if the Stratus
showed some flaring if a bright object is just outside the field of
view. In longer focal lengths, I'd expect the Stratus to show somewhat
more field curvature than the Pentax XW, but at 5mm I expect neither
will show any noticeable field curvature.
I almost didn't order the Stratus, in the expectation that I'd be
satisfied with nothing less than the Pentax XL, but after thinking
about it, I decided to go ahead and order the Stratus. If nothing
else, my astronomer readers will be interested in finding out how well
or poorly the Stratus eyepieces compare to premiums. And I can always
sell it if I don't like it.
Thursday,
12 January
2006
16:12
- I've fininished proofing the QC2 galleys for Repairing &
Upgrading Your PC, and sent my comments back to O'Reilly. At this
point, I'm whacked. Proof-reading is very hard work. I think I'll take
the rest of the day off and dive back into the astronomy book tomorrow.
Most Windows users I speak with are not just blind to the
fundamental design flaws in their chosen operating system, but seem to
be in a state of active denial. One such person commented to me the
other day that coverage of the WMF flaw was "overblown" and that it had
turned out to be "not so bad after all."
Not so bad? Not so bad as what? If there can be said to be levels of
catastrophic when it comes to security holes, this one takes top
honors. I know it's an old joke, but in this case it's true. The WMF
flaw is not a bug; it's a feature. Microsoft intentionally designed
this behavior into the way Windows handles WMF formatted files, and
somehow never noticed that by doing so they'd left a backdoor big
enough to drive an armored division through.
When my correspondent further stated that very few systems had been
victimized by exploits against this flaw, I asked him, "How do you
know? How could you ever know?" I don't know. Microsoft doesn't know.
No one knows. There could be "only" a million systems that have fallen
victim to this design feature. Or there could be ten million, or a
hundred million by now. We'll never know, because the exploits against
the WMF
hole are directed against a feature of Windows that allows the
malefactors to have their ways with the compromised systems.
If you detect a virus or spyware on a system, it's often impossible to
know for certain how it got there. So, when someone's scanner detects a
particular virus or spyware or Trojan, how does he know how it came to
be there? Can he prove it entered his system via an exploit against the
WMF flaw? Probably not, but that doesn't mean the WMF flaw wasn't
responsible.
And many infections will go unnoticed, because the last thing
malefactors want nowadays is to damage the infected system or in any
way to make it obvious that that system is infected. They prefer a
symbiotic relationship, where they do something somewhat useful for
your system, such as displaying current weather data in your task bar,
while hijacking your system to do something very useful for them, such
as hosting kiddy porn, serving as a spam relay host, launching paid-for
DDoS attacks, or accumulating your bank account numbers and other
information useful for identity theft.
Not so bad after all? I'm flabbergasted by the ability of so many
Windows users to ignore potentially catastrophic security and privacy
risks. I guess after so long working without a net, they've become
inured to the dangers. The frequent sounds of other Windows users
splatting on the pavement seems to be of no concern to them. It can't
happen to them, right?
10:08
- Friday the 13th falls on a Friday this month.
Some friends of ours are interested in learning to shoot, so we may go
out tomorrow and shoot some baby skeets, or at least give them the
scare of their lives. Barbara will probably come along, at least for
the ride, and may shoot as well.
I'll go along mainly to offer encouragement and moral support. I'm
likely to embarrass myself if I shoot. I've shot a few rounds of skeet
and trap, but my most recent outing was more than 25 years ago. And I
didn't do all that well then.
In my admittedly limited experience, some people are naturals with a
shotgun. Many years ago, I took my then-girlfriend out for an
introductory session with a manual trap and a 12-gauge 870 pump-action
shotgun. She'd never fired a shotgun before, so I had her fire a few
rounds just to get a feel for it. After giving her a few tips, I
had her start shooting at clays. She smoked the first one, which I put
down to beginner's luck. I was flabbergasted when she went on to
nail 18 clean and two cripples in her first round of 25. I don't expect
our friends to do nearly that well, but it could happen.
Saturday,
14 January
2006
00:00
-
00:00
-
Copyright
© 1998,
1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 by Robert Bruce
Thompson. All
Rights Reserved.
