THE VIEW FROM CHAOS MANOR

View 166 August 13 - 19, 2001

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Friday the 13th falls on a Monday this month. Actually I suppose it's not all that bad. I had a medical appointment and I suppose I'm all right although they sent me down for an EKG.  At my age I guess I worry about such things.

Siggraph started last weekend but the trade show opens Wednesday I guess. I will have to get down to the LA Convention Center for at least some of it. I expect many friends are in town for it and I ought to look them up.

I am playing about with XP, some parts of which are nice, some are a bit difficult for those who expect things to happen in a particular way.  We will see. It's worst working with unreleased software because it's hard to tell if some problems are bugs or features, as I found out over the weekend. My big problem turned out to be the wrong kind of installation of a Release Candidate (which is still a beta with a different name, and which doesn't have the full installation testing done). There was also a bug in the program release and I found it, ha ha hurrah.  It's not all that serious. Just infuriating. Actually there are some pretty good features to XP. So we will see...

The Writers of the Future events were nice and I have some pictures which I will try to do something with.  Again I seem to have less energy than I used to. Hectic weekend I guess. I'll get to it.

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I have to write several things. They don't seem to be as easy as such things used to be. One is a memorial for Poul Anderson, and while that has to be done, it is not only not easy, but in one sense it isn't particularly urgent: there will be plenty of them for the timely periodicals, and perhaps I ought to take my time. The other is for the National Academy of Sciences publication, and it's on an important theme and I hate to just dash it off. Ah well.

What I need help on is mechanical: there is a little white plastic thing that holds memory in place in the memory slot on a computer. One broke one of my machines. My guess is that it is purely mechanical, and a new one can be installed simply by using hemostats to squeeze it properly and insert it.  The problem is I don't have one and I have no notion where to get one. It's a plastic part that can't cost more than a fraction of a cent to make (once the setup molds have been done) and which are probably turned out by the hundreds of millions, but I can't think where to buy one. Perhaps I can take one off another machine.  Ugh.

Warning: DO NOT USE EL CHEAP MEMORY in 512K chunks. The story on that will be in the column, but DO NOT DO IT.  It sure cost me a lot of time.

I AM TOLD that I can ignore the little memory thing: it isn't part of any interlock system (it didn't appear to be, but the machine became flakey but that was due to el cheapo memory, do not use it!)  The simplest thing for me to do is nothing: put memory in that slot, let the gizmo on the other side click into place, and be sure it is properly seated on the end with the missing gizmo. So that is what I will do...

I REALLY HATE being back with low-speed modem communications. I mean I really hate it. In case you wonder, I hate it.  I am getting desperate enough to try the Cringeley tactic of going around to neighbors whose houses I can see and knocking on doors. The scotch part of my mostly Norman ancestry rebels at paying the prices ISDN wants for full time hookup, and the AT&T offer of partial DSL for an extravagant price may turn out to be another of those things that when the actually look into it they say "Oh gollies we can't do it after all."  The SPRINT attempt blows up: their downloaded test sofware don't run.

So here I am.  And I HATE it. I also can't download a number of web pages. Things seem to time out before I get them all. Sigh.

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A reader sent me a copy of an article on "respectable conservatives." Lest he be considered an unrespectable or "fever swamp" conservative he didn't want his name mentioned. I can't blame him. 

You can read the article at

http://sclos.org/whitaker/ 

and what you want is the August 11 commentaries.  I seldom agree with everything I read, but I think you will find this worth reading.

I was reminded of this when I ran across a quotation from Senator Edward Kennedy: "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids. schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is often the only protector of the individual rights that are at the heart of our democracy."

A while later Senator Kennedy told Robert Bork that his remarks were "nothing personal."

Respectable conservatives don't remind Senator Kennedy that his remarks may not have been personal, but they were a fabrication that Kennedy didn't believe himself.  Kennedy would protest that he's a moderate using moderate means, a bit in exaggeration, but that's politics. This sort of thing is moderation in our modern society, if done by moderates.

Well, a day. Those of us who believe that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed are by definition not very respectable.

And it has been a long day starting with getting a corpuscle speared and carried away screaming to the laboratory. They'll try to make it talk.

And I really have work to do.

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Another scorcher expected in the Valley. Thanks to my USAA home appliance policy my air conditioner works just fine...

Maybe it is the heat. I sure don't have a lot of energy.

HELP!  I have a bunch of mice that come as USB but with a green thing that converts from USB to PS/2.  I also have computers that don't much like USB.  Over time this place tends to be used as a mine, or things get lost: anyway I am way down to it on those adapters. I do not know where or how to buy more. They must exist, but I can't find them.  Can anyone tell me where I can buy about a dozen so I will always have them?  Thanks

http://www.usbtown.com/nav/subg.asp?sub=22 

Found it using Sherlock on my Mac.

Your fan, Tom

PS. Any word on new SF you've written. Mamalukes?

Wow that was fast! Unfortunately it is for ways to connect PS/2 devices to USB ports. What I need is the other way around: a gizmo that a USB plugs into so that I can then plug that into a PS/2 port.  And that I can't find on that website. Alas.

I see on the picture of the Belkin PS/2 Mouse at that site a little green adapter, which is precisely what I want, but I really don't want to have to buy the whole mouse to get the adapter...

And, alas, I find they don't sell them separately there. SOMEONE must sell the darned things!

But THIS IS IT!

http://9ab.com/product3.asp?pid=1007974 

Take a look at the above page, it looks like what you described. A warning,

I know nothing about the people offering it, I just did a Google search and

found them.

Frank

Thanks! I have ordered a dozen.

Only I have not: attempts to order get an error message

Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a000d'

Type mismatch: 'singleqt'

/pay.asp, line 12

Every darned time I try to proceed past giving them a name and address. I now know the parts are sold. 9ab.com will not sell them to me. Perhaps someone else will? Endlessly retrying this outfit is futile.

They have a way to sign up and log in. They want to know far more about me than I intend to tell them. Their 'privacy policy' which in theory I agree to is enormous, in tiny print, and would be a career to read. I won't do that just to buy parts. I would rather buy mice with the parts in them, dealing with a company that seems reasonable, not one that wants to know everything in the world about me.

If anyone is willing to deal with this outfit I cannot imagine why.  I just want to buy something I don't want to end up on every sucker list in the country. What business is it of theirs?

So I am still looking for the part

Which Found: but they want a lot of money for them. It turns out that a $9 Logitech Mouse is the cheapest source for the part so I bought three of them. Problem solved, and thanks to all.

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Re: PS/2 to Computer/USB to gadget adapters: Bought a couple of cheap mice, and Gary Utter has offered to send me a couple more of the adapters so all is well. Amazing: the outfit that will sell them for $2 a shot (9ab.com) won't sell me a dozen  won't sell them at all (their web page fails) unless I register with some third party "registry" that demands information I see no reason to give and agree to a "security policy" that, so far as I can tell from trying to read pages and pages of fine print, gives them the right to do any darned thing they feel like with my data, and gives me the right to be unhappy in silence as they do it. Another outfit will sell me the little adapters for $29.95 which is more than Fry's charges for Microsoft optical mice with the adapter.  

Logitech has a $9 mouse that has the adapter in it. I bought two, Mr. Utter will send me a couple more, and the problem is solved, but one wonders just how serious 9ab.com is about selling things. Anything. Do they have any stock? Do they sell things or do they merely collect information? 

It's one reason I go out to Fry's. Internet shopping isn't convenient when you have to fight with the sellers.

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I really have to do some photos of Anderson's memorial, and the presentation of a Lifetime Achievement Award to Algis Budrys.  The problem is that without Ricochet it takes so darned long to upload pictures that I haven't the enthusiasm I used to have. I suppose I will get over it.

There is some reasonable mail.

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Had a good lunch yesterday. I don't often go out to lunch, but this was an excellent conversation with Steve Sailer and Jim Pinkerton. Uneventful weekend otherwise...

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