Despite having a TabletPC and wireless through the house, I
find my morning routine with newspapers on paper a bit more congenial. Of
course that means I get news that is several hours old, but I can live with
that; and newspapers have other uses. They can be folded to threaten a
wolf-dog who is becoming insistent that it is time for the morning walk, why
haven't we left yet. Of course the threats seldom work, but at least you can
do that with a newspaper. Threatening Sable with the TabletPC would be
absurd...
I presume that one day we will all read our morning papers
on screens. The other day when waiting for my dermatologist to make holes in
my face I found a wireless connection and was able to do some work in the
waiting room, and for a lark I brought in the latest news as well; but the
experience isn't the same as reading the Wall Street Journal on paper. I
wonder how many more generations will know the difference? How long will
newspapers on paper last?
I do know that the TabletPC has become the one tool I like
having with me when I am away from my desk. My HP Compaq 1100 TabletPC is a
tad heavy; but not more so than a large hardbound book is heavy, and
LisaBetta can hold a thousand books plus all my work plus connect to the
rest of the world. When TabletPC's become ubiquitous -- and another
iteration or so in technology will make them a lot more attractive although
they are already worth the cost and trouble now in my judgment -- when they
become ubiquitous I suspect we will get novels written just for that medium:
perhaps not cut scenes (at least at first) but digital photos of settings,
maps, bridges, etc. as part of the experience. We'll see.
"Subject: eBooks
"The weight of a laptop does not approach that of the
books the average student backpacks today. What we need is a laptop that
will not work for any purpose but school, to make it les subject to theft.
Perhaps a DNA sensor, or an implanted rfid? Or perhaps a circuit that must
be reset by the school master computer periodically. In such a market, I
suspect these could be made for less than the yearly book budget.
"Walter E. Wallis"
An interesting concept. I wonder if Bill Gates still reads
this page? It's a good idea...
I have enough mail now to conclude that most of you don't want me to drop
the political discussions, but for my own sanity I intend to tone them back
a bit; once a point is made it is made, and while I do like to present
arguments opposed to mine, sometimes they are merely an excuse for me to
hammer my own points home again; something we all enjoy doing, but which for
this readership is hardly instructive.
As an old OR man I tend to react to what's going on and
observe how things actually are working rather than work from pure theory.
====
I have been asked to participate in a pretty snazzy
conference on the future of Weapons of Mass Destruction, and I'm now open to
suggestions, power point graphs, thoughts, snatches of ideas, and anything
else that makes sense on the subject. Fair warning, anything you send me may
appear later as my own with or without attribution and/or acknowledgement.
Yesterday Sable the Siberian Husky got her 2
year shots including Lyme Disease, and last night her face was all swollen
up and she was pretty miserable. It was asymmetric and the conclusion of the
Animal Emergency Hospital (we are fortunate to have a night emergency clinic
for dogs in Studio City) was that she had probably got hold of a bee.
Benadryl and some other anti-histamine seems to have done the trick. It
wasn't cheap, but peace of mind is worth a hundred bucks. Our only problem
now is that unlike our previous Huskies, Sable is particular about what she
swallows, and she's not all that fond of meat and cheese. She can catch
something in the air and swallow it in one gulp, but she generally doesn't,
so out come the capsules when put into the throat. And stuffing something
down a wolf's throat is a bit of an adventure anyway. She doesn't growl at
me, but she's not at all happy with this procedure.
Ah well. It made for a long night as she kept coming in to the bedroom to
make sure we were still here, and she has trouble with the doggy door while
her face is swollen.
To top it off she needs to lose about 5 pounds, despite the exercise she
gets.
Having raised four boys and half a dozen male dogs I can say that raising
daughters is different...
====
It is pollen season and boy did I need this today:
Sable, having been induced to swallow Benadryl mostly by sheer
intimidation -- she tried to intimidate me, and I did the same with her, and
the result was that I stuffed the pills way down her throat and held the
muzzle closed until she swallowed them, following with a PetTab treat she
likes -- looks normal again but a bit subdued on our walk and run this
morning. Ran when I did, but wasn't trying to pull me around the block,
which is her usual response when I try to jog. Neighbors couldn't believe
it, me running with Sable running alongside like a normal dog.
Thanks to all for the suggestions, but neither peanut butter nor cheese
nor Velveeta, all of which worked with Sasha our previous Husky, had any
effect on getting Sable to swallow pills. As Dr. Huth remarked about his
Lab, "You think I can't smell your stupid pills? Do you really think you are
smarter than me?" was the response to various tricks of that sort. So,
eventually, it was "I'm the alpha and you will let me stick my hand down
your throat, and that's the way it is." Which works, and once it's over
we're all friends again. There may be a lesson in there somewhere.
==========
I have bought, for more than I really wanted to spend, an HP 90W Air/Auto?AC
Combo Adaptor which presumably allows me to use LisaBetta, my HP TabletPC,
on an airplane, assuming the airplane provides electricity for laptops.
Fine. Dandy. Wonderful. But I have no idea how to do that. HP has sent me
several pieces of paper, with diagrams, each covered with warning messages
in a dozen languages. I now know, in many languages, how not to kill myself
with that, and that the power cord isn't intended to be used to commit
suicide. Every message is given in all these languages, and at no place is
all the English collected together. English sentences are interspersed with
all the other languages. There is page after page of warranty information in
tiny print in every conceivable language.
What there is not is one single word showing me which of the various
cords I will need to plug into an airplane. I have no idea what kind of
socket the airplanes provide, never having done this before. I suppose that
somewhere out on the Internet there is some information, but I would have
thought, having paid over a hundred dollars to get this, I might have and
ONE DARNED DIAGRAM OF INSTRUCTION IN ENGLISH on how to use it. All the
various cords have little numbers, and 2 -- only 2 -- of them are actually
mentioned by number in an unbelievably banal instruction in 11 languages,
but none of the other cords are given a name at all. Just that unexplained
number.
Oh. And another note, in 12 languages, tells me "WARNING Do Not Charge
the notebook battery onboard aircraft. Charging the battery may damage
aircraft electronic systems." Now that's fascinating since I bought
this overpriced battery charger precisely because the web site said that
this was for Air/Auto/AC use and that with this kit I would be able to use
my TabletPC anywhere. I am presuming that this warning, which takes up much
of the room that ought to be used to give me instructions because it is
given in so many languages, applies to an external battery, not to running
my TabletPC? But I don't know. And I am guessing that the diagram that
comes with this shows that I plug one cord into the socket provided by the
airplane (there's an entirely unlabelled socket in the stupid diagram),
thence to the linelump, thence to the PC. I am assuming that, but of course
HP can't have been bothered to TELL me. Instead it uses up all the
instruction room for warnings.
If there is an HP executive out there, first: go fire the entire staff
that produced these instructions. They may or may not be saving you from
lawsuits, but they are certainly infuriating your customers, or, in my case,
ex-customers because I don't want to buy from people as contemptuous of me
as the people who sold me this thing have been. Fire them. All of them. With
prejudice. Or give them references in hopes that your rivals will hire them.
And if one of you out there knows which of these cords I use to connect
my TabletPC to whatever power is furnished in American and Delta Business
Class, can you drop me a note?
For most of you: you will see this for a short time and I am taking it
off. It goes in the column. This imbecility has to be seen to be believed.
Of course by the time it gets in the column it will be considerably
softened. But not, I hope, too much so.
While walking for some reason -- probably the honeysuckle -- I thought of
this:
http://www.rienzihills.com/SING/imgoinback.htm . Actually I wondered if
I could ever find the lyrics to this silly song. I probably first heard it
when Poul Anderson and I were sailing down the coast, and we had no wind,
and were sitting becalmed and thinking of ways to pass the time... But
Google found it on about the third try. Amazing.
Which leads me to
Subject: Your Site
A real issue I've got with your site, Dr. Pournelle,
is the time I spend on the internet because of it.
Not the time spent ON your site, mind you, but the
time I spend on sites pointed to by sites pointed to etc. . . . pointed to
by your site.
His bags have been packed for weeks. Farewell. It is not likely that we
will see his like again in our lifetimes.
Non habemus Papem
=========================
The Republic is safe. Martha Stewart is still on
probation and has served prison time for telling investigators she did not
do an act that turned out not to be criminal if she had done it. Sandy
Berger will pay a fine for removal of national security documents and for
destroying some of them; and will not be charged with lying to federal
officers when he said he hadn't done it, then said it was inadvertent. We
will not be safer for jailing Sandy Berger.
===============
It's column time. We have a new MEDIA PC, and a new AMD SLI system.
Column Time. We have been building a new system
and installing everything. It all works. Finally. The new machine is named
Satine; I will let you figure out why.
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,
8,000 -
12,000 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.
This site is run on the "public radio" model; see below.
If
you have no idea what you are doing here, see the What is this
place?,
which tries to make order of chaos.
Boiler Plate:
If you want to PAY FOR THIS,
the site is run like public radio: you don't have to pay, but if no one
does, it will go away. On how to pay, I keep the latest HERE. MY
THANKS to all of you who have 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.
