Dear Dr. Pournelle,

I’ve read with interest your problems with FP and offline saving. I’m curious… you never mention the Personal Web Server software. Did you decline to install it when you installed FP? This software lets your machine act as a local web server. You will always have a local copy of your web site that you can access through your browser.

One caveat – you’ll probably want to change its default port from 80 to 8000 (or some other unused port).

I’m a year or so out of practice with web technologies (I’ve been doing VB and C++ on contracts and independently), but last year when I was doing Internet development I found the PWS extremely useful.

Bill Cavanaugh

<a href="mailto:billcav@pobox.com">

billcav@pobox.com

Jerry,

I’m hoping you feel better soon. In the meantime, here’s some non-computer-related things to mull over.

Was it you who recommended that I read Plato? Or was it Aristotle that you wanted me to read? Anyway, after finishing _Popper Selections_, I’ve started to dive into _The Republic_. I have to say that while many of the arguments tickle my intellect, I’m surprised at how much there is to disagree with in this book. Socrates’ continuing use of argument by analogy is particularly unconvincing.

Now, about half of the conclusions drawn by the debaters in the book are ones I consider either absurd or heinous; Yet, it may be that since I’m an American with a different set of values than the Hellenes, it may be that my sense of absurdity is at fault; Yet, it seems that I can often spot the logical flaw which led them to the absurdity. Which means that now the conclusions with which I agree are now also suspect, since it may be that those arguments are flawed too, and I simply failed to spot them.

Here’s an example: In setting up the basis for the Republic, Socrates makes an analogy between men and states. To paraphrase Robert Heinlein, "Men are not potatos", I would say "States are not men." He then further goes on to say that one who is by nature a cobbler should stick to cobbling and not farming, because each man should do only that one thing which is in his nature to do best. My argument would be that Socrates should not be a philosopher then, for Socrates is a most excellent Hellene; He speaks the Hellenic language far better than I, and affects the Hellenic mode of dress;

He embodies the culture and mores of a Hellene far better than do I. He is, in all respects compared to myself, or any barbarian, a superior example of a Hellene; Whereas by his own (admittedly modest) opinion, he is a poor philosopher. So he should stick to being a Hellene and avoid philosophy, and the same holds true for all those Hellenes who would be cobblers, farmers, traders, and physicians. The fact is, however, that no man is just one thing, and to say that he is is the kind of oversimplification that is rife throughout this book.

Of course, the real inspiration of my argument comes from Musashi, who said that a Warrior must learn all trades. And although my critiques of Plato are different from Popper’s, having read Popper first gives me a considerable advantage.

I sometimes fancy that if I ever go back to school, I want to learn about philosophy, politics, sociology, and history—in other words, all of the things that Computer Programmers aren’t supposed to be interested in. The reason is this: In the realm of the Internet, where communication between persons is the primary application, nothing is more fundamental than understanding how large groups of people interact. If one wants to figure a way to make Usenet or the Web really work as a communication medium as opposed to a big waste of time, one will need the skills of a Jefferson or a Paine as much if not more than the skills of a Minsky or a Kay.

New Subject: I’ve also been doing a lot of thinking about Marx after reading Popper. While Marx was clearly wrong about a number of things, I think that he was right in this respect: The Capitalist State, at least in the sense of the 18^th and 19^th century capitalism that Marx knew of, _has_ partially withered away, from its own inconsistencies. The business models used by United Airlines, or by most Silicon Valley startups are probably closer to the communist (with a small ‘c’) ideal than anything that was ever done in Russia or China. I’m not talking about socialism, but rather the idea that workers who own at least part of the means of production (and who have a commensurate power to go along with that ownership) are better and more efficient workers than those who are merely laborers for hire.

I don’t think that capitalism as we know it today is the last word in efficiency, although what might improve upon I don’t know. Capitalism’s great advantage is that it harnesses self-interest; However, it is not completely effective in that it harnesses the self-interest of entrepreneurs, especially those with financial skill, far more effectively than the self-interest of merely excellent craftsmen. I know that in my own industry, if I want to be really successful, I must become an entrepreneur; No matter how good of a programmer I am, being employed by a typical game company will not bring me riches. Any windfall profits I create would be diluted amongst many, and the lion’s share will go to the administrators, who will convince themselves that it was their brilliant decision to hire me and to choose which project I work on that is the true source of the wealth. Whereas as an entrepreneur, even with a modest idea and talent, I can potentially reap a share of the profits that is far larger than an employee’s salary. Thus I am incentivized to be an entrepreneur first and a programmer second. (Microsoft is an exception that proves the rule; While there are rich programmers at Microsoft, the entrepreneurs are so wealthy as to make the programmers look like paupers.)

Whatever the next stage of economic development might be, I know that it will not be imposed from above, but instead will emerge as a new mutation which will slowly grow and thrive. As Popper said (at least my interpretation of him), when you impose a social order from above, you of necessity destroy the feedback mechanisms which allow you to measure your success; And without those feedback mechanisms, your social order must inevitably go astray. Therefore: whatever this thing is, it will not be incompatible with either liberty or a free market, but it might not involve the buying and selling of abstract fictitious entities such as corporations.

[http://www.sylvantech.com/~talin]

Don’t brood. As you note, not everyone can "handle" your format.

Doing the daybook online will put you more in a position similar to e.g. supportlines, with much more direct and unreflected responses from varying sources. Having provided customer/user support in different circumstances, I recognize the lament. Many people seem to have a very narrow focus on their immediate issue, made worse by their expectations and use of "instant email". The complaints one can get about provided information and self-help can be very, um, "strange" at times.

There are essentially two responses to these mails: 1) spend the sometimes considerable time to find the wavelength these people are on and try to respond (individually) in this mode, 2) largely ignore these complaints in terms of personal impact and answer-demands, without necessarily ignoring any useful information they may otherwise contain or imply.

Thanks for all the T4 SP4 info, for the day I may attempt this.

/ Bo

--

Hi Jerry!

First of all, keep up the good work. Your column was on of the biggest reasons that I read Byte (Rest In piece ol’ mag) at all. And your reporting in your columns some years ago about the Delta Clipper got me really hocked on the Delta Clipper and it’s tragic fate. So now I regularly visit your WEB site and look into what you have to tell us. I’m working as an IS-Consultant with Windows NT as a specialty and find your columns so enjoying. Windows isn’t always as easy as they want us to believe.

Over to the subject:

I saw a CE PalmPC when I visited TechEd in Nice this summer (1998) and I felt that I have to have this. I have been using Outlook for some time now but the problem was to synchronize my paper calendar with the electronic version in Outlook. When I saw this device running Pocket Outlook I felt that this was the answer to all my needs. I have heard about the Palm III, but I wanted the functionality of Outlook and not a third part software which I was afraid would be complicated to synchronize.

I bought a CASIO Cassiopeia E-10 in August and can’t live without it since then.

One month ago I was comparing the CE machine to a Palm III that a colleague of mine had been using for some time. And here is a list of differences between these two. There are so many more things in a Windows CE PalmPC that you should really look into it:

Advantage Palm III

• Speed, The Palm , although it uses a slower CPU, feels much snappier. The response is immediate. I never before reflected that I sometimes had to wait for 0.1-0.2 seconds for a program to start. But when I saw the Palm III work, I knew that The CE machines must get this speed. Still it never bothered me.

Advantage CE PalmPC

• WYSIWYW (What You See Is What You Write). It really shocked me that Palm III didn’t show you what you wrote. And that you have to learn a special way of writing to use it. On a CE machine you see the ink lines as you draw them. This visual feedback is what you are used to from pen and paper. And of course you write with real letters no graffitti special strokes. Much easier to learn and use.
• Screen Size. As the screen on a CE machine is used for the touch sensitive screen you can easily hide the input area to get full screen size. Very useful when you want to cram a whole week view of your calendar into that small screen.
• WYHIWYS (What You Hear Is What You Said). The best feature of the CE machine is non existent on the Palm III. Every CE machine has an built-in microphone and speaker. Many times when I drive the car or do other things when I just don’t have both hands free, I just pop up my little machine from the shirt pocket and press the record button and record a memo to myself. So instead of writing down stuff about your upcoming books you could just record it and play it back later. These sound files are actually standard WAV files. So I have all but quit writing mail to my friends. I send them Voicemail as I always have my CE machine with me and everybody with a Windows machine can play them.
• IRDA. Even though the Palm III had a really nice IR port It was only compatible with other Palm devices. All CE machines have IRDA compatible IR ports which means that I can communicate with EVERYTHING (except a Palm III). It’s easy to send text and sound files or contact cards to friends with CE machines. I can connect to the latest Nokia and Ericsson mobile phones and use them as modems through the IR port. I can connect to printers (mostly HP printers) and just print out my notes. And I can easily synchronize my CE machine with my portable PC just by holding the device in front of the portables IR port. This is something that 3Com has to fix IRDA is THE standard not Palm III.
• CompactFlash-Card. Every CE machine has room for an standard CompactFlash Card. Notice the word standard. The latest Kodak Digital cameras uses CompactFlash Cards. So I could just take a CompactFlash card from my camera and plug it into my CE machine to be able to manage my photos or even watch them at the tiny screen. IBM has just released a 300Mb Hard disk that is mounted in a CompactFlash -card. There is even a GPS navigation flash-card which together with Microsoft Pocket streets (which ships with the CE device) can pinpoint your position in the world and give you an accurate map picture. Again this works with every electronic device out there, but the Palm III
• Memory. Palm PC ships with minimum 4 MB RAM and 4 MB ROM. The latest models have raised this to 8MB minimum (memory is cheap, remember). Even though 4 MB is plenty it is really nice to be able to download some files and use it as an portable storage media. The Palm III has 2 MB RAM I believe.
• Autosync. Just as the Palm III I have just to insert my CE device into the cradle to synchronize the machine. But I don’t have to push any buttons. It’s Plug n Play automatic (even in NT). So dock, watch the animated synchronize dialog box on the screen for 15 seconds, undock and you are ready to go.
• Integration. Microsoft has of course the upper hand in this. Just as IE4 integrates better than Netscape into the Windows operating system, so does Windows CE integrate better into the desktop than Palm III. Se the screen shoot I attached to this mail. As you can see there, the File system of my CE device just becomes a natural branch of my desktop very easy and convenient. If I drag the Note Taker files from the CE device to the local hard disk then they get converted to Word Documents and vice versa of course. Very nice, very easy!
• Competitive hardware. As in the PC business Microsoft does the OS and everybody else does the hardware which gives a good competitive marketplace for hardware. Compare this to the Palm III, that as the Mac has only one source for both the hardware and software, and we all know what happened with the Mac even though it still is a very nice OS.

There is even more but I don’t want to make this E-mail a mile long. All I have to say is that you have to try this! Give a PalmPC a fair run against your Palm and I believe you will agree with me and my friends.

Best regards from Sweden!!

Bruno Horvat

Combitech Network AB

Tel: 0708-89 49 93

From: Pat Connors [pmc@primenet.com]

Dear Jerry,

I read this one first, then wnt back and read the comments.

Clark E. Myers
e-mail at:
ClarkEMyers@msn.com

I am whacking myself upside the head to learn that you had not installed Personal Web Server when you first installed FrontPage. Of course that makes sense because the idea then was to try several applications before settling down on one. As you noted briefly, and promised an explanation real soon now, you sometimes practice a gambling strategy.

Some of your problems that I could not understand are now obvious. One lesson I will take to heart is to make adoption of a personal standard a conscious two step process. That is I can't help being a little haphazard during the trial period when I don't have the sophistication to make wise choices. When I settle, I will budget time to do a fresh install of what I settle on as well as a clean-up. Things have been moving in this direction anyway as we all see the order in which applications are installed and upgraded is a convenient way to either edit the registry or have the registry edited for you. Where I am picky, that is where I use it intensively as I do PIMs and Outlook, I already do this.

My log book is a steno book because it fits in the monitor riser. I don't think Graphito or Jot or the Cross pad will work for me. I am looking forward to the day I can use a dictation cube (maybe WindowsCE driven) and voice recognition to transcribe notes legibly. For general value added to your Daybook at little extra effort as well as configuration control and understanding for the group perhaps you could use the Cross pad or Palm Pilot or add scans of your handwritten log book as they apply to current projects.

And in hindsight I think you settled on the right web software (and process) for you even though it is not the one I use. Much as I would enjoy having you lead a user-group of my favorite applications that is not what you do, or should do.

Michael Hipp letter moved. Click here.)

Jerry,

I really like the ideas that you put forth in TSCR. I think once you polish it up it will be a great essay. I remember thinking a couple of years ago that the Computer Revolution was being inexorably rolled back, that a new priesthood was forming. Oh, not that anyone was going to take away those boxes on our desks. But we were going to be kept away from what’s inside those boxes.

Take for example, the whole Network Computer "movement". The whole idea, as I understood it, was to _centralize_ the management of the system and the storage of data. All of the applications you used, all of the settings and parameters would be under the control of a central administrator. You wouldn’t be able to store files locally, they would be on the server. If you wanted to upgrade to a new version of your word processor, that would have to be done by asking the IS manager; And if you _didn’t_ want to upgrade, that decision would be in their hands as well. This would be a "boon" (I use the term sarcastically) to companies who currently have to deal with the chaos of letting each user configure their system in their own individual way. (IMHO, this shoulds like a "manufactured" problem, i.e. the perception of the problem is created in order to sell boxes.)

Another example is the growth in ever-more restrictive "shrinkwrap licenses" which attempt to subvert the spirit of copyright law (i.e. copyright law benefits both consumers as well as inventors, but large content-creation companies want all of the protections of copyright with none of the fair-use exceptions, so they attempt to use contract law to make the customer implicitly agree to a more restrictive set of terms.)

Anyway, your essay gives me a bit of hope on this score. Thanks.

BTW, do you plan to do Orchids and Onions on the site, and will you also be doing the yearly predictions and comparisons of past predictions? I always enjoyed those.

--

E Gray [eqdztsg@usa.net]

Specifically here:

dsmith [report@top-10.com]

Your report was prepared using the search engines listed below. "MUSINGS" was the term used for the search. The #’s beside each search engine represents the position in which that engine reported your website.

Yahoo 000

Lycos 000

Excite 000

HotBot 000

LycosPro 000

Magellan 012

InfoSeek 000

N.Lights 000

AltaVista 000

WVI 012

A complete explanation of this report is available at:

Thanks for using our report. It is available to you any time at no charge.

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

Re: Nude Doctors On The Net

Search engines were originally conceived as a way to attempt to catalog the astounding 5000 sites that once were the web. It had become apparent that humans could no longer keep track of what was out there, so technology was developed to generate indexes.

Since then, search sites have developed partnerships with other sites, which will, of course, find their way to the top of the results. In some cases, it’s been alleged that search sites don’t index the content on their competitors.

Add to that the fact that those 5000 sites have turned into several million, that people now have the capability to refuse the indexer access to their site, and you have a web that’s filled with nooks and crannies nobody can find. Those generic search engines are doing a job that’s equivalent to you reading the Library of Congress to create a comprehensive index. By the time you get to the end, books you processed are gone and new books have arrived. At any given time, you’re terribly behind.

Coincidentally, my Daily Dispatch from CNet today contained a link to their coverage of the Dr. Laura pictures, including the name of the site where they’re to be found and a history of the company that runs the site (they’re the same people that got in trouble selling tapes of Pamela Anderson (then Lee) and Tommy Lee.

Like with any research, you just need to know where to look. For news, you need to search CNN, CNet, ZDNet, MSNBC, and so on. For financial information, CNNfn is great.

Bill Cavanaugh

<a href="mailto:billcav@pobox.com">

billcav@pobox.com

Drake Christensen [mighty@parsoft.com]

Pssssst—this is a secret. Tell everyone you know except John Glenn.

When John Glenn returns from space, let’s all dress in ape suits.

Robert J. Peters [rjpeters@gdi.net]

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

Keep it up, love your work. While reading Talin’s response to your Second Computer Revolution article, I was struck by the idea of people (like me mostly) who enjoy the benefits of scientific progress without materially contributing to said progress. I am reminded of an old question important for colonizing other planets: "What is the minimum number of people needed to maintain technical civilization?" Next question: "What is the minimum number of people needed for technology to advance?"

In our case, around six billion seems to be about right for future scientific progress. We don’t have any real way of saying "this" person did not contribute to "that" advance because of the connectedness of all things and people.

Dave Farquhar [Dave_Farquhar@jmail.jour.missouri.edu]

Jerry,

Your fruitless search for Dr. Laura reminded me of my frustrations using search engines. There are a few tactics that make them more useful. I speak mostly about AltaVista—I started using it back when it truly seemed to be the best search engine out there. That may no longer be the case, but since I developed my tricks on that engine, I continue to use it.

The simplest, most useful trick is to group phrases together. A search for +"Dr. Laura" will definitely turn up better results than +Dr. +Laura will.

When I want to know the issues about running Windows NT on an AMD K6-based

system, I always enter a search line that looks something like +"Windows

NT" +"AMD K6" which filters out some of the discussion of running Windows

3.1 on AMD 386DX-40s. (And despite the plusses, for some reason pages that meet half the requirements always seem to creep in, don’t they?)

I’m not too thrilled with the changes at AltaVista’s site lately. I guess it looks less intimidating now, but to a guy who’s been using it for three years, it’s now a lot less useful. They probably don’t approve of this, but I took their basic page and advanced page, ripped the HTML code for their forms out, combined them, set my own defaults, and stored the resulting file on my local machine (I did the same for DejaNews; it’s part of the same file). If I pass either engine’s CGI scripts the proper variables, it doesn’t matter what the source page was. I found that customizing the engines with the options I most frequently use and putting it all in one place made them more useful tools for me.

Of course, even with all of my personal measures in place, AltaVista still returns some false paths, but it helps.

Main body subject: Search Engine Problems 11f

Dave Farquhar makes several good points about how to get the best results from AltaVista. I think this whole discussion misses the real point, however. Finding information that’s been indexed isn’t the problem. I never have much problem finding information that’s there just by using the brute force approach—adding more +<required term> and -<forbidden term> entries until I have the number of hits down to a reasonable level.

The real problem is that a lot of information isn’t available that you might reasonably think should be. For example, I did a search using the term "+url:www.jerrypournelle.com" on AltaVista and got only 37 hits. That search should have returned a list of every page on your site. Similarly, when I did one using "+url:www.ttgnet.com", I got only 44 hits when there should have been 80+. This despite the fact that I regularly submit my site to AltaVista for indexing, and the fact that my logs show that it does spider my site.

The Northern Light search engine (http://www.northernlight.com) does a more complete job of indexing both our sites--it comes up with 105 hits for your site and 93 for mine—but even it has currency problems. The most recent page listed for your site is dated 7/24/98 and for my site is 9/24/98. Again, this despite the fact that I resubmit my URL to them on a weekly basis.

Even the largest search engines can’t keep up with the number of new and changed pages on the web. It’s not really their fault, given the primitive method they have to use—retrieving a page, parsing and indexing it, walking its links to locate other pages, etc.

What’s really needed is a standardized method whereby site management tools like FrontPage could co-operate with search engines to make their jobs easier. At its simplest, this could be just a header on the index page that listed each child page along with the date it was last changed. At a more complex level, FrontPage could actually periodically notify specified search engines automatically of which pages in the site needed to be updated.

Bob

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

"Installed Windows 95 and upgraded to 98 on an AMD system with a board that is capable of 100 mhz and the chip can go to 300. It's that AMD 3d thing. But I have no video boards that will run with a 100 mhz board, and I recall Peter Glaskowsky telling me that few if any peripherals are happy at more than 66."

What chipset does your motherboard use? If it’s a VIA MVP3 there is a setting to run the PCI (and AGP if present) busses asynchronously. That is, instead of running the PCI bus at ½ the bus speed (50 MHz on a 100 MHz board), it runs at 33 MHz regardless of the bus speed. (It also runs the AGP bus at 66 MHz). In addition, it can be set to also run the memory bus at 66 MHz to allow the use of older memory.

If you don’t have a VIA chipset, some of the others have settings to run the PCI and AGP busses asynchronously. I know SiS does, and some of the TX Pro II boards as well. (Most "Super 7" boards should have this.)

Stan Field [sfield@commandcom.com]

Good Morning Jerry! <cheerful wave and smile>

I have two quick items for you:

Take care and keep up the great work.

Stan Field

Steven Hamlin [s_hamlin49@hotmail.com]

Hi,

I’m not sure you can help, but I thought I would ask. I’d like to be able to talk about it in my college class.

I read an article that said poverty line was $22,400/year for a San Diego, California family of three. I broke it down and came to $10.76/hr (22400/2080).

My questions are:

(a) What does poverty line cover?

(b) Is this for a one income or two income family?

(c) Does it make it different if they’re divorced?

(d) Is unemployment rate a ratio of the poverty line?

(e) Where would I look to see how much the poverty line had gone down since President Clinton was elected?

What I have found on the subject didn’t really explain it, and I didn’t really understand the article.

I’d like to thank you, in advance, for helping me to understand, and talk, about this in my class.