View 316 June 28 - July 4, 2004

THE VIEW FROM CHAOS MANOR

THIS is the CURRENT View.

SECURITY NOTICES PAGE

For Current Mail click here.

FOR BOOKS OF THE MONTH 1994-Present Click HERE

Last Week's View Next Week's View

Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun

Highlights this week:

Perpetual war for perpetual peace
The Chinese Ideogram puzzle
The water buffalo incident and the University of Pennsylvania: two views
Stephen Jay Gould and the Mismeasure of Man
A view of Iraq
Important note on malware
Hollywood's Missing Movies

This is a day book. It's not all that well edited. I try to keep this up daily, but sometimes I can't. I'll keep trying. See also the monthly COMPUTING AT CHAOS MANOR column, 4,000 - 7,000 words, depending. (Older columns here.) For more on what this page is about, please go to the VIEW PAGE. If you have never read the explanatory material on that page, please do so. If you got here through a link that didn't take you to the front page of this site, click here for a better explanation of what we're trying to do here.

If you are not paying for this place, click here...

Day-by-day...: Monday -- Tuesday -- Wednesday -- Thursday -- Friday -- Saturday -- Sunday

For Previous Weeks of the View, SEE VIEW HOME PAGE

Search: type in string and press return.

If you have no idea what you are doing here, see the What is this place?, which tries to make order of chaos.

If you intend to send MAIL to me, see the INSTRUCTIONS.

Boiler Plate:

If you want to PAY FOR THIS there are problems, but I keep the latest HERE. I'm trying. MY THANKS to all of you who sent money. Some of you went to a lot of trouble to send money from overseas. Thank you! There are also some new payment methods. I am preparing a special (electronic) mailing to all those who paid: there will be a couple of these. I am also toying with the notion of a subscriber section of the page. LET ME KNOW your thoughts.
.

If you subscribed:

CLICK HERE for a Special Request.

If you didn't and haven't, why not?

If this seems a lot about paying think of it as the Subscription Drive Nag. You'll see more.

For the BYTE story, click here.

For Current Mail click here.

The freefind search remains:

Site search Web search

This week:

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

TOP

Monday June 28, 2004

I am hard at work on my new novel. I also have bills to pay. There are good discussions in MAIL, and I'll get back to the rather depressing situation in Iraq. Again I take no pleasure in having been right, and I can hope that ultimately things will work out well there; but I have not changed my mind. We should do what we can to extricate ourselves from all foreign entanglements and invest heavily in energy independence: at least 50 1000 Megawatt nuclear power plants; x-projects and prizes to develop fuel cell and other electricity to mobility technologies; and x-projects and prizes to develop economical access to space. Once it's cheap to go to space, space solar power becomes quite economical.

The transition from filling stations and petroleum and internal combustion engines as the primary ecosystem for transportation to a new system based on electricity won't be easy. It may involve some intermediate distribution medium like hydrogen or propane. (Hydrogen has advantages and disadvantages, but it is a distribution system; there are no hydrogen wells. The power has to come from something else like solar or nuclear power.)

Energy independence won't come instantly, and it will be neither easy nor cheap -- but it will be both easier and cheaper than trying to transform the Middle East into peaceful nations friendly to the West.

There was a lot of good stuff in MAIL over the weekend.

And

Subject: I thought you might find this interesting

http://www.nwc.navy.mil/newrulesets/ThePentagonsNewMap.htm

Mark

and indeed it is: why we need perpetual war for perpetual peace...

============================

And we have from last Friday:

More on IIS/IE compromises

Be thankful you run Apache on Linux, heh:

http://www.microsoft.com/security/incident/download_ject.mspx

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5247187.html

---Roland Dobbins

Actually, my web site is run on a Unix box, and isn't likely to be attacked. I haven't seen what a firewall and NAT does to this worm.

Note that the first reference above gives information on how to detect and treat infections, and how to guard against them. No machine at Chaos Manor has been infected in any way.

======

Now go over to mail and look at this, and comment.....

Monday TOP Current Mail

This week:

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

TOP

Tuesday, June 29, 2004

Subject: Chinese Ideograms

Jerry,

I was wondering if your readers could help me. One of the people I work with gave one other individual and me some stones that have Chinese Ideograms engraved on them. He said they represent us pretty well, and that we have to find out what they mean. I've been searching the Internet, and haven't found anything close to the symbols on them. I'm guessing some of your readers can interpret these. Can you help? By the way, the one designated for me is on the left. I hope it's nothing bad!

Tracy

I have less than no idea, but as you say, perhaps a reader can help. (And how! See mail.)

Tuesday TOP Current Mail

This week:

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

TOP

Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Subject: Chinese Ideograms http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/view316.html#ideogram

Jerry,

As always, your website amazes me. Truly, your readers are from everywhere, and have access to everything. It was with amazing speed you had the answers for me.

Thank you so much!

Tracy

It was an interesting exercise. I have come to expect that there is almost no subject on which we don't have at least two experts and three knowledgeable amateurs among my readers.

If you want a picture of the future, you may recall this incident:

http://www.cycad.com/cgi-bin/pinc/dec98/books/r_kors.html and another view of it is at http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0503/hackney3.html

But we were born free. I am collecting some of these bizarre incidents since that is the atmosphere of my new novel set in the US about 40 years from now.

The notion that one's entire life can be changed simply because you called someone a water buffalo is so bizarre that the actual outcome is unimportant.

But we were born free. And see mail

===============

The end of an era

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/29/politics/29buckley.html

National Review Founder to Leave Stage
NYT June 29, 2004
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

In 1954, when Ronald Reagan was still a registered Democrat and host of "General Electric Theater," the 28-year-old William Frank Buckley Jr. decided to start a magazine as a standard-bearer for the fledgling conservative movement. In the 50-year ascent of the American right since then, his publication, National Review, has been its most influential journal and Mr. Buckley has been the magazine's guiding spirit and, until today, controlling shareholder.

Tonight, however, Mr. Buckley, 78, is giving up control. In an interview, he said he planned to relinquish his shares today to a board of trustees he had selected. <snip>

And if you have any interest in the IQ controversy, this review of Stephen Jay Gould should be of interest: http://www.cpsimoes.net/artigos/art_davis.html

For another view of Iraq see

http://www.commentarypage.com/johnson/johnson062904.php For comments see mail.

Wednesday TOP Current Mail

This week:

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

TOP

Thursday, July 1, 2004

There is important matter about malware in Mail.

And SpaceShipOne fans may find http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5327529/ interesting.

And this is from Allen Smalley:

And gives some critical information. Big ships turn slowly; it will take a long time to change that substantially. But it can be done.

Thursday TOP Current Mail

This week:

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

TOP

Friday, July 2, 2004

I would have had this up earlier but the phone rang: my appointment with the Group Product Manager for Digital Media at Microsoft. The column this month will be about that, Doctorow vs. Microsoft and the whole DRM future.

There is in mail the fix for the Russian Hack. Interestingly, last night I talked to some Microsoft product managers in the security team, and they wouldn't say when they would be releasing the Russian Hack fix.

Note that if you have Windows XP Sp-2 Rc-2 installed (this is a release candidate not a released product, but I have been using it since WinHEC on my TabletPC, this machine, and the main system I write on without problems) -- if you have SP-2 RC-2 installed you are already safe from the Russian Hack.

There is also a fix for The Lovegate Worm, and I have recorded both of these on the Security Page, which tries to keep track of some of this stuff.

Marlon Brando, RIP

Friday TOP Current Mail

This week:

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

TOP

Saturday, July 3. 2004

Hollywood's missing movies: http://reason.com/0006/fe.kb.hollywoods.shtml
And see mail

Most of the action this weekend is in mail. Go look there...

Saturday TOP Current Mail

This week:

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

TOP

Sunday, July 4,

In the year of our Lord 2004 and of the Independence of these United States the 228th

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, America

While poking around looking for something else I found this old essay on Republics and Conscription, and it ain't bad.

Sunday TOP Current View

Current Mail