| Saturday,
September 21, 2002 We have a number
of reports of trouble free SP-1 installations.
Good morning Dr P, re Win XP SP1. I do desktop admin
for a, in New Zealand terms, medium sized Company. I have installed Win XP
SP1 on 8 XP Pro machines so far both laptops and desktops, at home and at
work. I have to report that in these cases there have been no problems at
all. No machines have refused to boot and no software has been crippled. I
must point out that I am a great believer in ensuring that machines are
working OK prior to SP installation. If a machine has problems, other than
bugs specifically addressed in the Service Pack, installing the SP, or
doing an OS upgrade, will often make the problems worse. I have also
slipstreamed SP1 into the XP install CD and have had no problems building
machines with SP1 integrated. Your mileage may vary.
One interesting point about SP1 is that if you need
a Java Virtual Machine under XP installing SP1 is the only way to get it.
Microsoft disabled Install On Demand for the Win XP JVM in July following
legal action by Sun.
Regards
Gordon Jackson, NZCE, MCSE Engineer, Infrastructure
Support
====
Jerry,
I suppose for the sake of balance and democracy I
should report that I have installed SP-1 for Windows XP and have
experienced no problems. My machine continues to be as solid as rock.
I will note for the record that some of the security
and privacy settings used by Internet Exploder had to be reset manually.
The install defaults are more restrictive than before and can display some
peculiar behavior in regard to cookies, scripts and other dynamic content.
I advise checking and verifying all IE settings before releasing an
updated machine for general use. In my case, I've pretty much switched to
Opera but keep IE available for sites like my Credit Union that won't work
without IE proper. BTW, all of these continue to work fine after the
update.
It appears, from the limited information available,
that your correspondent Slover is experiencing some form of disk
corruption. There are several similar reports on the Microsoft Newsgroup
for XP. The recommended fix is to boot from the install CD and run the
restore facility against the Windows partition (the restore facility is
the one that comes up the SECOND time setup offers a restore option...the
first merely gives you a "console" that bears a striking
resemblance to a DOS box and isn't much help. Unless you need a DOS box).
SP-1's installer may overwrite some necessary
third-party drivers a RAID machine and improperly initialize the disk
subsystem in others. This is a problem with SP-1 to be sure and while
recovery is possible and not particularly noxious it should be
unnecessary.
One would think after all these years the folk
wisdom warning any significant change to a Microsoft operating system
ought to be done in the context of a reformat and clean install would have
dispatched to myth. Does not seem to be the case. My advice for anyone
needing the service pack (and if you run XP you need the service pack) is
to backup critical data (don't forget the IE favorites) and format,
install, apply the service pack and validate the system before
reinstalling applications.
Installing Microsoft Office as a network store to a
different partition during the initial setup helps to reduce the pain of
subsequent installations. If you do this Office can be reinstalled without
having to find the distribution CDs or product keys. It also goes very
quickly when executed from the hard disk. The Outlook .PST is a pain and
compound potential hazard but it sure makes it easy to put all your data
back into a new Office installation.
I have also compiled a CD holding the distribution
files for my current set of downloaded applications and utilities (and
written serial numbers and install codes there as well.) Having them on
one disk is convenient.
As an aside, my spousal unit hates Science Fiction.
Generally won't touch it with a stick. Well, last night she insisted that
I write and tell you she loved The Burning City and can't wait for Burning
Tower. Yet more kudos for you and Larry. She can be a tough critic...she
tossed Clancy's latest on the barbecue after about 30 pages. I've started
her on the wonderful collection of all of Arthur Clarke's short stories
that I bought last year and may make a convert of her yet.
Regards Ron Morse
Thanks
And there is this to think about:
Science News
Week of Aug. 17, 2002; Vol. 162, No. 7
Nature's Own: Ocean yields gases that had seemed
humanmade
Sid Perkins
Chemical analyses of seawater provide the first
direct evidence that the ocean may be a significant source of certain
atmospheric gases that scientists had previously assumed to be produced
primarily by industrial activity.
The two gases-methyl nitrate and ethyl nitrate-are
members of a group called alkyl nitrates. Such substances consist of a
nitrate ion chemically bonded to a hydrocarbon molecule that's lost one of
its hydrogen atoms. Forest fires and the burning of fossil fuels produce
alkyl nitrates, which react with other atmospheric gases in sunlight to
form urban smog (SN: 6/1/02, p. 346: http://www.sciencenews.org/20020601/bob9.asp
). Alkyl nitrates also influence the amount of ozone in the lower
atmosphere over remote ocean areas, says Peter S. Liss, an atmospheric
scientist at the University of East Anglia in Norfolk, England.
During extended cruises from England to the South
Atlantic Ocean, Liss and his colleagues measured the concentrations of
methyl and ethyl nitrates in samples of surface and deep water, as well as
in air samples collected over the waves. In places, especially where cool,
nutrient-rich waters rise from the deep, the water is supersaturated with
the dissolved nitrates, the scientists found. At some sites along the
equator, the water holds more than eight times the amount of the methyl
and ethyl nitrates than would be present at saturation for the observed
temperatures and pressures. The researchers report their findings in the
Aug. 16 Science.
The supersaturation of nitrates is strong evidence
that the gases are being produced in the ocean and aren't being pulled
from the air into the water, says Elliot Atlas, an atmospheric chemist at
the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
"It's been hard to convince some chemists that
the ocean could be a significant source of these chemicals," says
Atlas. "This research should do it."
Liss and his team aren't sure how the alkyl nitrates
are generated in the ocean. The methyl and ethyl nitrates appear to be
produced by different mechanisms. Methyl nitrate concentrations are
highest in surface waters, where sunlight-absorbing phytoplankton form the
base of the ocean's food chain. However, the concentrations of ethyl
nitrate are also pronounced at depths below 100 meters, where little
sunlight reaches.
References and Sources
References:
Chuck, A.L., S.M. Turner, and P.S. Liss. 2002.
Direct evidence for a marine source of C1 and C2 alkyl nitrates. Science
297(Aug. 16):1151-1154. Abstract available at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/297/5584/1151.
Further Readings:
Gorman, J. 2002. The air that's up there. Science
News 161(Jun. 1):346-348. Available to subscribers at http://www.sciencenews.org/20020601/bob9.asp
.
Sources:
Elliot Atlas Atmospheric Chemistry Division National
Center for Atmospheric Research P.O. Box 3000 Boulder, CO 80307
Peter S. Liss University of East Anglia School of
Environmental Sciences Norwich, Norfolk NR4 7TJ United Kingdom
http://www.sciencenews.org/20020817/fob8.asp
From Science News, Vol. 162, No. 7, Aug. 17, 2002,
p. 102.
Copyright (c) 2002 Science Service. All rights
reserved.
So.
==============
And on another matter:
Dear Dr. Pournelle,
I just finished reading Volume IV of "THE
ENDLESS FRONTIER: Life Among the Asteroids" in witch Eric Drexler
thinks the Asteroids are the better resource and we aught to head off
there first and not be bothered with the Moon and you take the opposite
view.
I think we will have to go to the moon first just to
learn HOW to refine ore in zero gee, as there is a big difference between
thinking and doing. Problems to solve include: 1) How big a mirror. Most
metals melt at over 1000 C. That will take several acres of mirror (more,
out in the Asteroids) to keep pointed at one spot. (Mylar stiffened with
inflated ribs?) 2) How small do you need to crush the ore for processing?
3) The crucible, what type of material, shape, and size of do you need? 4)
Will you need an inert gas to help heat conduction? 5) How do you separate
the metal from the slag? Do you spin the crucible? If so how do you
decouple it from the mirror assembly? Or do you spin the whole thing and
have artificial gravity and live on the back of the mirror. (One man's
slag is another mans building material) 6) Once you have a batch melted,
how does the next batch get into position? (Its out at the focal point of
the big mirror) or is there some way for a continuous process? 7) There
may be more than one type of metal, how do you separate them? 8) Assuming
the ore has water or gases, how do we get it away from contaminating the
batch, and recover it for later use?
That is just the start of it, it still needs to be
built, MAJOR construction (think logistics of getting it built out
there.), and tested and a few shakedown runs so you know what kinds of
spares to take. Nothing lasts forever and if it moves it wears out,
especially at high temp.
Steve Martz
I said 30 years ago that I know how to get to the
Moon and keep people alive there, but I do not know how to get them to the
asteroids. I know how to build a self-sustaining colony on the Moon. I am
fairly certain I do not know how to build one on an asteroid.
This is not to say we cannot learn; but the
obvious first extra-territorial home for humanity is the Moon. Eventually
we will learn how to make use of the asteroids and the other planets.
Eventually may not even be a long time. But first we need to learn to get
to space economically, then to stay there, and after that to explore the
rest of the solar system.
We'll do it. What language those who go will
speak isn't so clear.
Dear Dr Pournelle,
Getting people to the moon is hard. To Mars is
harder, to the Belt harder still. But why bother?
We should bring asteroids or comets to us, in low
Earth orbit. They would make great fuel dumps or structural material (all
that CHON and sideritic iron). They could be small enough to convert into
the next space station (2002 MN, 100m diameter), or used as a source of
rocket fuel instead of hauling the stuff up Earth's gravity well.
You will remember the recent near-miss asteroid,
"2002 NT7" which passed by in mid-August, is next due at 2019,
and might actually hit the planet in 2060. There are numerous others, like
1950 DA, which far from being a threat should in my view be seen as
opportunities.
Some weeks ago the local satellite TV company (Sky)
put on a documentary looking into the evolution of the solar system. It
observed that in a billion years or so the sun would expand, heating the
oceans 'to a rolling boil', and discussed the use of powered asteroids
tugging the Earth gradually to a 'higher' orbit. That broadcast had me
reconsidering the uses of asteroids. Such a feat requires reversing the
'slingshot' technique for adding energy to probe trajectories on their way
out of the solar system.
My stage II Astrophysics course notes (1975,
Canterbury Uni.) were pretty sketchy on the energetics of orbital
mechanics, but eventually I worked out that while most asteroids have far
too much orbital energy to be brought to a parking orbit with present
technology, it is a different matter for those approaching Earth from
behind.
I see no reason why a small ion motor should not be
installed on such near-miss asteroids. Something like this will have to be
done anyway to prevent the 2060 encounter from being terminal. Instead of
pushing an asteroid away from Earth, bring it close enough (300km?) to
land on. Small ones can be consumed. Big ones can be bases. They have
enough inertia to anchor a sky ladder, and the strength-of-materials
requirements for web tethers are not looking quite so impossible as they
once did (monocrystalline diamond, forsooth).
Other possibilities include a bus service to the
moon. Get the orbit right and a 200m asteroid will endlessly loop around
the Earth, then the moon, then the Earth again. It would require
correction from time to time, so would probably need a base. But you get
the idea, and your correspondent Steve Martz has more of them. Shaping
these things is not too hard. You wouldn't stiffen mylar mirrors with
inflated ribs, you would use a shape memory alloy, but otherwise that's
the obvious technique. A mirror wouldn't needed to be coupled to a
crucible (such as a stony asteroid) at all. You probably wouldn't crush
the ore, sideritic iron can be extremely pure, but if you wanted tiny
little pieces I suppose one could arrange a collision (then mine the
rings). Delivery to Earth? Put on retro-rockets and tell the inhabitants
of central Australia to watch their heads. Separate the metals on the
ground.
Earth-based engineering methods aren't necessarily a
good guide to best space practice. One thing I would do (after an orbital
base and fuel mine) would be to make a hole in an asteroid - the mirror
should be able to handle that. Then cantilever a kilometre of track
through the resulting torus, and whoopee, a linear accelerator. Or heat an
iron asteroid till it glows white, thrust a tube to the centre, pump water
in, and watch the steam bubble inflate your new habitat/spacecraft. Spin
it for gravity.
Regards, TC
-- Terry Cole BA/BSc/BE/BA(hons) (tcole@maths.otago.ac.nz)
System Administrator, Dept. of Maths. & Stats., Otago Uni. PO Box 56,
Dunedin, NZ.
To do that would require that you know how to go
live on an asteroid for a while. We'll learn that and we will learn about
mass drivers and such. But we better learn to live in space first.
I have a question re your remark 'So perhaps it is
well, once in a while, to realize the consequences of "Socialism in
one "country"...'.
First up, I am no communist. In fact, I consider the
inherent evils of capitalism to be far less than those of any other
economic system yet devised by Man.
But Socialism is not an economic system, it is a
social philosophy. I was taught at University (if I understood my teachers
correctly) that the essence of Socialism is captured in Marx's phrase 'to
each according to his needs, from each according to his means'. The
essence of Communism, otoh, is encapsulated in the phrase 'the control by
the State of the means of production'.
While nearly everyone now considers Communism to be
a failed experiment, it seems to me that Socialism is alive and well
throughout the Western world - in fact, socialist objectives are found in
the manifestos of almost every Western political party, including the US
Republican party. Any bill that tries to raise the standard of living of
the poor using the taxes of the rich, or any taxation system which
incorporates a sliding scale of tax rates (as do those of all Western
countries afaik) is surely intrinsically socialist.
My question is: in your sentence which I quoted in
the first line of this letter, did you really mean to say "Communist'
rather than 'Socialist'? If not, what exactly are your definitions of
Communism and Socialism?
Cheers,
Julian Treadwell
I meant to say "Socialism in one
country" because that is what Lenin said, and Stalin said after him.
Those were their words, and you make a distinction that others try to make
and perhaps rightly so; but it was not a distinction the revolutionaries
made. The phrase they used for soft socialists unwilling to understand the
revolution was "useful idiots."
"In a world in which the state is the sole
employer, dissent mean starvation." Tell me who said that, please.
And of course there are "middle way"
attempts, as in Scandinavia. Perhaps it all works, although the difference
between "control of the means of production" and control of all
the output of the system through regulation and redistribution may not be
all that great.
Old timer here.
Map to H. Beam Piper's Federation. Drove to
Hosigoscon where they gave me an hour by myself. Carr sent me the Return
of Space Viking script and I kept sending it back to him one chapter at a
time, expanded. Etc.
At the end of Starswarm you say "The End".
End of the first part, more likely.
The Starwarm are just as dangerous to humans
economically, as Piper's Fuzzies are psycho-symbiotically.
If Starswarm were to be taken to other worlds....
What would civilization be like without
manufacturing and the price of goods dropping dramatically as one
starswarm can compete with another starswarm?
The alternate view is: Can one company survive
godhood without eventual corruption?
Either choice deserves a sequel.
William Taylor G. F. Armoury Books 5
Indeed....
and Michael Flynn says:
Ignore previous e-mail. Never depend on memory. Here
is the citation:
"Not so long ago a [French] television
broadcast reported as historical the famous words: "Kill them all,
God will recognize his own," at the time of the massacre of Beziers
in 1209. Now it has been more than a hundred years (it was precisely in
1866) since a scholar demonstrated, and without any difficulty, that the
sentence... is not found in any of the historical sources for that period
but only in the Dialogue on Miracles (Diagolus Miraculorum), whose title
gives a sufficient idea what it is about, composed some sixty years after
the event by the German monk Caesarius of Heisterbach, an author endowed
with an ardent imagination and very little concern for historical
authenticity. No historian since 1866 has subscribed to the famous
"Kill them all;" but story writers still use it, and that is
enough to prove how slow scientific acquisitions are in this regard to
penetrate the public domain."
-- Regine Pernoud, Those Terrible Middle Ages!
(Ignatius, San Francisco, 2000), p. 19. Translated from the 1977 French
edition by Anne Englund Nash.
Which may be correct; I have not gone beyond
secondary sources. Interesting.
It was my understanding -- and indeed the author
of the account I read said it explicitly -- that the phrase was in a
report written by the bishop in charge of matters spiritual, and was
"I have ordered the soldiers to kill them all. God will know His
own." It sounded a terrible thing to say, yet it wasn't beyond
belief.
Dr Pournelle
Re: Bepublic and Empire
As a reader of yours for some time now, I thought
you might appreciate this URL from the UK Guardian as a contribution to
the debate on republic and empire:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,794163,00.html
Many thanks for what is probably one of the very
best sites on the internet.
Christopher Woolfrey, United Kingdom c.woolfrey@bushinternet.com
Thank you.
" This poem has haunted me since high
school"
The "Hound
of Heaven" chased me down years ago. Truly an incredible poem,
but aptly describes the God who never quits the chase for those He
pursues.
Respectfully,
Jim Brown
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