I have come accross many articles linking GWS to Aspartame Poisoning. The symptoms are similar, and could also explain why those not going to the war were affected. Also, there seem to be a growing number of cases diagnosed with similar symptoms that are not called GWS because of the lack of any connecting time/place/occupation factors.

Is the possibility of Aspartame poisoning goofy?

Subject: NT Memory Leaks (long &; technical)

Jerry, I hope the following is useful when you have an NT system that hangs after a long period for no apparent reason.

Some methods of diagnosing memory leaks, a prime cause of a hung NT system. At the end a list of TechNet articles on memory leaks. This info courtesy of Paula Sharick at Windows NT Magazine.

Taking Corrective Action

Many documented cases of NT memory leaks exist. Corrective action includes installing updated software; stopping and starting the service, process, or application responsible for the memory leak; and rebooting the machine regularly until a permanent fix is available. When the source of a memory leak is a core component of the OS that you can’t start and stop, the only way to correct the problem is to reboot the system often enough to keep adequate memory free until updated software is available.

When a native or third-party service is responsible for a memory leak, stopping the service releases its allocated memory. To temporarily correct the problem, stop and start the service in the Services applet in Control Panel or from the command line (using NET STOP and NET START commands). If memory leaks are causing problems on several servers, you can write a script to start and stop the responsible service and run the script on a daily or weekly basis.

You can also use the stop and start technique as a temporary solution for applications that are leaking memory. If you can’t stop an application because it is mission-critical, you might be able to schedule the application to restart after business hours. Be sure to use the application’s native shutdown feature, if available, to avoid database or file corruption and ensure an optimal application restart. These corrective techniques will help you keep memory utilization under control until a permanent solution (i.e., a service pack, hotfix, or upgrade) is available. Now that Windows 2000 (Win2K—formerly NT 5.0) is on the horizon, Microsoft has announced the elimination of more than 400 memory leaks—let’s just hope the developers don’t introduce as many problems as they fixed.

Shortcut for Spotting Memory Leaks

Launch Task Manager.

Click the Processes tab.

Click Mem Usage to arrange the processes by memory use.

Use common sense to determine if an application has a memory leak. For example, if an application has run all day or for several days and is using more memory than you’d expect (such as Netscape using 45MB), the application probably isn’t allocating memory correctly.

If you find an application that is suspect, perform the following steps: Shut down the application, log off and log back on, relaunch Task Manager, click the Processes tab, click Mem Usage to arrange the processes by memory use, and restart the application. You’ll see immediately how much memory the application needs to start (e.g., 3140KB). This figure provides a baseline estimate of the required memory. If this number grows substantially over time, the process might have a memory leak.

Subject: NATO Day Celebrations in Washington DC

You may have heard about the plans for NATO Day in Washington DC. The leaders of the NATO countries will be in Washington from April 23^rd through 25^th, meeting in the International Trade Center and the Ronald Reagan Building. A huge part of downtown DC will be closed for this—from 9^th Street to 15^th Street and from Pennsylvania Avenue to the Southwest Freeway. Federal employees in the area are getting the day off, and contractors have been told to stay away. The original story was that the tourist crowds were the concern, but the quiet word even then was that it was security—the Ronald Reagan Building has a large open interior space with free unrestricted access and a number of agencies regard it to be a high risk location for terrorist attack. The word now is that the roads will be blocked in the area, and pedestrians will be allowed only with special passes. Since most of the major Smithsonian museums are in this area, they will be closed (or open only for the NATO officials). It’s the end of the cherry blossom season, but won’t a good weekend for tourists.

Welcome to the Imperial Presidency.

AOL Startup Problem and Memory Hogging Programs You Don't Need

Hello Jerry,

I noticed that you were still having problems with AOL IM loading on startup. I thought that you had killed the little yellow man, but it seems he was able to avoid death(electronicly speaking :)).

The easiest way to uninstall the AOL IM is to start the program and click to the setup button, select the "misc" tab, and them un-check the "Start AIM when Windows starts" box.

That should be the end to your problem. If you can’t seem to locate the program, it(normally) resides in:

"C:\Program Files\Netscape\Communicator\Program\AIM\Aim.exe"

Just launch the file and follow the steps above, and it will remove itself from your startup sequence. It will also free up a little under four megs(3.63) of memory that your system could be using on other tasks. People tend to forget that programs in the taskbar are taking up valueable resources even when you don’t use them. Another common program that sets itself up running in the tray is RealPlayer(7.64). Anytime you see an icon in your taskbar and you don’t know what it is, make sure you need it running or you might waste money on upgrading when you could have just turned a few programs off.

I had a customer a while back that called and said her system was running way too slow. After a few minutes of checking, I realized that she had no less than 47 megs of programs opening on startup! The problem was that she had only 32 megs of ram. That meant everything she did from then on would be working with virtual memory, with the appropriate dropoff in performance. I asked her if she used any of these programs and it turns out she didn’t even know she had most of them(freinds would come over to "help her out" and install their favorite programs) and didn’t even know what most of them did!

The easiest way to see what is running on your system is to run Norton System Information, and check the memory tab. It might not show you everything, but it will show what programs are taking most of your memory.

Sorry to ramble on like that, but it is an issue that most people don’t ever think of when deciding if they need to buy a new system. Spend your hard earned cash on a memory upgrade and kill some of those programs you don’t need, and you can reward yourself by buying one of Jerry’s recommended toys!

Keep up the good work!

NOTE: If you wish to put this in your letters section, that is fine, but please don’t include my e-mail address.

Dear Mr. Pournelle

In your January 1999 "Computing at Chaos Manor" column, I was surprised to read that

"The CPU in your system doesn’t use much energy, and you don’t dare turn off the fans, which use more than everything else put together."

Back when I was shopping for my current computer, I researched power usage and noise output. According to the specifications, the fans in my system (a then typical Pentium II) take relatively little energy, and the CPU is one of the largest energy users. Here is the breakdown by component:

The biggest energy users are the power supply (not the fan, but the losses in the power conversion process), the CPU and the motherboard. The 3 fans together use about 5 watts (3% of the total power), about as much as one PCI card.

You awarded "another Chaos Manor onion: to the "energy savers" like Nader who have dictated all kinds of silly "green" software that doesn’t do what it is supposed to do, and often costs a great deal more energy in wear and tear on systems."

You also mention the inadvisability of shutting off fans. That is not the only way to handle reduced cooling needs when a system is in a low power state, one can use variable speed fans that slow down when less cooling is required. A big advantage of slowing down fans, and putting disks to sleep is making the computer quieter. Most computers are far too noisy. Typical computer stores are so noisy that you can’t tell how loud a system is before you get it home. I appreciate your occasional comments about this or that being a quiet system, but it would be really nice if comparative reviews would give an objective measure of the noise output of each system reviewed.

I enjoyed your columns in Byte and am glad you are continuing to publish them. Really miss the old Byte of years ago when it was for people who enjoyed small computers, not just for business people.

Notes:

Newer, faster 3d accelerators tend to run much hotter, and therefore probably use more power than my older card.

OmniKey Still exists!

They can have my OmniKey when they pry it from my cold dead hands! <g>

• Mike Day [mikeday@frye.com]

+-----------------------------------------+

Dear Dr. Pournelle:

I just read your latest published Byte column about keyboards. I think your observation on carpal tunnel problems and wrist resting has some validity. I, too, learned to touch type on a manual typewriter about the size of a 15-inch monitor [the ultra-modern steam typewriters were reserved for the girls who were in my high school’s secretarial track, but I digress].

However, having that training, I disagree with your thoughts about exiling the Control Key. I’ve been a reporter, magazine editor, and now a tech writer, and I am loathe to take my fingers from the keyboard. When I have to stop and move the mouse to accomplish something, it not only slows me down, but can sometimes break my chain of thought [there was once an anology about writing on the defunct sitcom Love &; War: Writing is like carrying a large shallow bowl of water full to the brim].

I use the control key as much as possible to do tasks like Select All, Save, Print, etc. I do agree with you, though, about those Windows keys.

My favorite keyboard was an NCR model that was feather-light compared to the boat-anchor keyboard that came with my AT clone.

In response to your readers who report having trouble finding the Ortek MCK-142 Pro keyboard, I believe we can help.

We have a page on our web site dedicated to the MCK-142 Pro and we usually have ample supply in stock and can ship in one day.

Thank you.

You wrote:

IIRC, he was also leaning out of the Blair House window while the Secret Service and the Puerto Rico nationals were having their shoot-out. I’m not sure that qualifies him as a good model . . .

The Smithsonian isn’t closing the popular museums: Air &; Space, Natural History &; American History. They are closing Arts &; Industries, the Castle, and the art museums. In any event, the cherry blossoms are mostly gone, as are the Cherry Blossom tourists.

Under WinNT HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services is where services are started. There should be no need to edit manually, the Services applet in the Control Panel controls these keys.

Too bad it is not a popular viewpoint.

Sorry for the presumption in addressing you by first name, but I feel I know you after 30+ years of reading your fiction, columns in InfoWorld, Byte, and now online.

One other thing while I have your attention. I have read probably every SF book you have had published and I have enjoyed them all with one glaring exception. I thought ‘The Gripping Hand’ was slow, wordy, and perhaps even self-indulgent. What happened? Both Larry Niven and yourself have always exhibited a fine hand for dialog, action and plot, but this particular novel was the first of yours I ever had to struggle to finish.

Byte Online is looking excellent, keep up the good work, both there and your own site.

Rounds, Keven [krounds@Carlson.com]

CMG Loyalty IT - TAG

p.s. In a former reincarnation I was hardware support, and more than once I used your "in the shower" approach to keyboard maintenance. It worked without fail, though I learned not to tell how I managed to make them work again!

Jerry,

But the corrosive acid of "neo conservatism" which counts cheap underwear as more important than having a local dry goods store owner who is also the Boy Scout leader and who OWNS his shop and has some independence; which counts the mega-complexes like ADM as far more important than a network of independent family farmers; which preaches that companies have no obligations to their workers, only to their stockholders, because money is the only thing that matters, and "investment" of money is FAR more important than an investment of time and work and devotion; this acid has destroyed the civilization I grew up in, and it is now reaping its reward.

--------------------------------------

Incarnationis Mysterium

OF THE GREAT JUBILEE

OF THE YEAR 2000

12. One sign of the mercy of God which is especially necessary today is the sign of charity, which opens our eyes to the needs of those who are poor and excluded. Such is the situation affecting vast sectors of society and casting its shadow of death upon whole peoples. The human race is facing forms of slavery which are new and more subtle than those of the past; and for too many people freedom remains a word without meaning. Some nations, especially the poorer ones, are oppressed by a debt so huge that repayment is practically impossible. It is clear, therefore, that there can be no real progress without effective cooperation between the peoples of every language, race, nationality and religion. The abuses of power which result in some dominating others must stop: such abuses are sinful and unjust. Whoever is concerned to accumulate treasure only on earth (cf. Mt 6:19) "is not rich in the sight of God" (Lk 12:21).

There is also a need to create a new culture of international solidarity and cooperation, where all - particularly the wealthy nations and the private sector - accept responsibility for an economic model which serves everyone. There should be no more postponement of the time when the poor Lazarus can sit beside the rich man to share the same banquet and be forced no more to feed on the scraps that fall from the table (cf. Lk 16:19-31). Extreme poverty is a source of violence, bitterness and scandal; and to eradicate it is to do the work of justice and therefore the work of peace.

The Jubilee is a further summons to conversion of heart through a change of life. It is a reminder to all that they should give absolute importance neither to the goods of the earth, since these are not God, nor to man’s domination or claim to domination, since the earth belongs to God and to him alone: "the earth is mine and you are strangers and sojourners with me" (Lev 25:23). May this year of grace touch the hearts of those who hold in their hands the fate of the world’s peoples!

Mr. Pournelle,

Is the lack of job security really such a bad thing?

In the early '80s I took a trip to Europe and one day spoke with our bus driver. He was in his mid-twenties. He had apprenticed to become a tour bus driver. It appeared clear from the conversation that he fully expected to be a tour bus driver for his entire working life.

Contrast that with a similar conversation with an American bus driver. He would very likely say, "I'm driving a bus for now." I think a large part of that attitude is that America, as a culture, thrives on change, flexibility, and innovation. For some people, the security of knowing where they'll be 15 years from now is very important. But I think most Americans would very much prefer to find something new every few years. They would find the European bus driver's attitude incomprehensible.

For example, just out of high school I worked at a non-chain pizza place. When the guy who owned it sold it, he commented that he noticed in himself that he changes his entire life about every seven years. He went on to be a sales rep in the apparel industry. It's appears to be a personal choice for him rather than a situation forced on him by lack of loyalty by the companies he has worked for.

In the high tech industries, I think job fluidity is inherent to the industry. Technology moves so fast that there is no way for any single company to guarantee that a person's constantly-evolving skill set will match the company's needs for more than a few years in the future. Therefore, everyone acknowledges that their position at a particular company is very likely temporary. After a few years a given person will likely need to find a new position within the company. Or find another company that is heading in a direction that he wants to go.

And that's not really a problem for a person who is competent in their field. Another facet of the fast-paced change is that for most high tech industries it's a seller's market. People are having to learn new skills so quickly that there's a chronic shortage of people. As you keep saying, it's a good life if you don't tire.

I'm a programmer, and I use the gaps in employment for long vacations and opportunities to explore new areas, which should make me worth more to my next employer. In addition, I have some potential entrepreneurial opportunities on the horizon. I find the flexibility suits me very well.

I am a net newbie and impressed by the ability of your readers to tackle the most arcane problems. Living in the UK where local phone calls are pretty expensive I was paranoid about allowing automatic connection in IE4 (.01 SP1) which runs with Win 98 on a Dell Dimension 450 PII ( delivered the day they announced PIII !!)

In a weak moment I checked auto connect, now every time I try to uncheck it the system resets right back to the power up memory check. I am totally befuddled, any pointers gratefully received.

Was the generation before yours reminiscent about how wonderful it was that [robber baron of the month] was ‘letting’ the widow Bradley stay in the company-owned housing for a couple weeks after the funeral of her husband who fell in the pickling vat at the factory?

The expectation of retirement and some respect is a comparatively recent phenomenon in this country. This country’s spent a large amount of time over-subscribing the available resources of the planet... we are just now starting to see the consequences of that overuse in terms of what’s available for the average members of our society.

Large numbers of my generation, and the younger ones, are terribly cynical about there being anything for us at the end of the road beyond what grubbing we can do for ourselves. Gordon Gecko declaring that ‘Greed is good’ was seen by many as an exaggeration for effect in the movie Wall street, but day-to-day life in the late 90s leads one to suspect that maybe there aren’t any realistic alternatives to Gecko’s creed.

Kind of a depressing discussion for a rainy (here in KS) Friday. :)

...brig

--

Brig C. McCoy - KS Lib Association WebMaster

Dr. Pournelle,

I seem to be remember a while back that you were looking to replace a Northgate Keyboard. I am currently typing from an Northgate Omni Key/102 which I consider to be the finest non-verbal oratory device in the world. It clacks like IBM designed keyboards to and it has the function keys on the left where God designed them to be.

Subject: Pentium III's

I'm writing about your recent Chaos Manor column on Pentium III's. I've found that whenever someone talks or writes about how "overpowered" a machine/CPU/network is, that person usually turns out to be wrong in the not-too-distant future. It seems that we always expand to the capacity of whatever hardware is available. For instance, with an inexpensive digital subscriber line (DSL) connection, I find myself downloading megabytes of multimedia from the web. Yet 5 years ago, I wouldn't even have considered such a thing. Back then, a 25MB Star Wars trailer or a 30MB Internet Explorer download would have been absurd. Yet today it's commonplace. And wasn't it Bill Gates who's often quoted from the early 80's as saying that 1MB of memory should be enough for anyone? At the time, it was an incredible amount of memory. The Apple II could only go up to 128K. Yet these days, it's hard to run any application on a machine with only the base 640K of DOS memory. And it's effectively impossible to run Windows 9x/NT. And remember when a Gigabyte of hard drive space was unbelievably huge?

I can see, 5 years from now, looking back in amazement at this column and wondering how a lowly Pentium III could be overpowered in any respect. Who knows what lays ahead? Can you imagine the first GigaHertz CPU? Shouldn't be very long. The next decade may bring quantum computers that surpass the current processing by orders of magnitude -- encryption keys will be in the thousands of bits instead of the tens of bits. I bet we'll quickly find a use for all that capacity.

Chad Cloman [ccloman@heuristec.com]

It took 3 cops to get the truth out of me.

And I didn’t mind talking. Well, not much.

It started this Thursday when I visited a client who has an older 486/50. After a bit of talk I recommended that she get a new computer. The old one was about to give it up. The next day, Friday, she called and asked if a Gateway PII was a good computer for $ 500.00. I allowed as how it just might be a great deal, perhapes, too good a deal. She said the computer was considered damaged goods and her client was making her a special deal. I asked for a serial number and told her I would get back.

Gateway 2000 knows every computer they make, who made it and who bought it. In this case the computer was made at the end of 1998 after Christmas and sold to the Polk County School Board. At this point I knew the computer was stolen. First, Gateway never has damaged goods out there in the world. If it breaks or UPS runs over it with a brown truck, the whole thing goes back to Gateway. They send a replacement so fast it makes Fed Ex a rich company. Second, the school board is not in the habit of selling off Pentium II computers they have just bought.

I called the school board and found the inventory people in accounting rather quickly. It was getting close to 3 in the afternoon and these folks tend to not be there when needed. Sure enough, the inventory person was not there but a helpful clerk said she would look up the computer. I gave her the make and serial number and she said the computer was at Rochelle Magnet School. I asked it was stolen and she assured me it was not and The school had it. After all, if it was stolen, the school would have reported it stolen. I decided to call the school.

Friday afternoon getting on to 4:00 is a tough time to talk to school administrators. They want to go home. The principal was on a field trip and getting the assistant principal was a chore. tFinally, three calls later I was talking to Ms. Wellman. I asked if she had any computers stolen lately. She started a song and dance I really could not believe about a locked room and lots of people having keys and she doesn’t really know much about stolen computers. It took some talking, but eventually she admitted that 6 top-of-the-line Pentium II machines had somehow walked out or her school. She doesn’t know how they left and doesn’t know serial numbers. She doesn"t know much until I tell her.

So, I told her she ought to tell the School Board about the theft and maybe even the police. She said she would have to tell the school administration. I wasn’t real worried about that. Since she had my name I figured this wasn’t over yet. I needed to tell my client to get rid of the hot computer she had. I called and she was out her door in minutes and was shoving the computer into the hands of the guy she got it from. I had done my bit for my client and I was a happy camper.

This whole thing took about an hour. I discovered that the computer was stolen, where it was stolen from, and what to tell my client. I also discovered that the school board has an administrator who should have someone hold her hand when she crosses the street. She certainly should not be in charge of accounting for expensive computers.

I had dinner and forgot the whole thing. That was until a bit after 8:00 when we get a knock on the door and it is a big police officer (all police look big to me). He wants to know if I would like to talk to a couple detectives. I allowed as how I really didn’t but would anyway. Along comes a detective who sits down and I tell the story. His partner comes along after a bit and they all hear it. At the end, he wants to know the name and address of my client, which he gets. They are off tracing down stolen computers.

They visit my client who tells them about the guy who sold the stolen computer. Off they go to that guy who is out two hot computers and $ 1000.00. Not good for him. No one got arrested yet that I know of. The school board is now missing only 4 computers and still has Ms. Wellman watching out for the others that were sent to her school.

There is bound to be a moral here. Darned if I know what it is. However, if someone wants to sell you a ‘damaged goods’ Gateway computer, run like hell.

Folksy superstition v. findings of science

There is no need to get upset over your particular set of hang-ups (even if this particular set has cost more American lives then all their wars, to date, taken together...). But let us not waste time in what would be a mistaken attempt to disturb someone’s precious mental prison with any ray of reality!

It is always very saddening to see a likable, brilliant and talented person (e.g. marvelously efficient translation of difficult technical data into something perfectly fit for human consumption... etc.) so enslaved - and all that in the name of so called "freedom".

I hope that with all the necessary information nowadays freely available you cannot do much damage with your particular prejudices.

I’ve read somewhere - (I think it was Doris Lessing) something which you might profitably appreciate. I think it applies to certain mental processes of in all of us - at one time or another:

THE MIND OF A BIGOT IS LIKE THE PUPIL ON AN EYE. THE MORE LIGHT YOU SHINE IN IT, THE MORE IT CLOSES.

Jf

Jerry,

You provided a wonderful link several weeks ago, which in the meanwhile has vanished:

The ATI Rage Pro awful text problem is fixed. Go to: http://support.atitech.ca/drivers/fix/w82545en.html and download the fix ... install ... and [you will have] a very trouble-free system now that the "ugly text" problem is fixed.

But ATI has not kept the updated drivers, as far as I can find them. There is no trace of a build n° 2545, but only the build 2440 that has been there for months. Your link doesn’t lead to anywhere.

Your pull is admirable, but do you have any idea what ATI did with their new improved drivers after they sent them to you?

James Siddall jr

siddall@tin.it

The ATI Pro W82545en.exe driver can be found here. It has apparently become a ‘release candidate’.

--

I wasn’t sure if you were aware that ATI is not often the best place to get the latest ATI drivers. ATI can go months before updating driver builds for the Rage Pro and Rage Fury, while the first two sites listed below always seem to have them right away. Particularly for games, the latest driver-of-the-week seems to help.

For a company that doesn’t even post their own excellent software DVD player for the Rage Fury, this is not surprising. BTW, you can get the ATI DVD 3.1 player at the last link below (ATI31.ZIP).