THE VIEW FROM CHAOS MANOR

View 94 March 27 - April 2, 2000

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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 place is about, please go to the VIEW PAGE.

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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.
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Highlights this week:

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• Help! Font needed. (Done; thanks!)
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• Virus Warning
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Cleaning off my desk, We're working on Roberta's reading program. Progress is being made, and I am feeling at least human. There's an improveent...

We need an updated driver for a Sony CRX 100e CD-RW drive. Trying to find one is an exercise in frustration. Sony's site is intended to drive you crazy and make your head implode.  All help appreciated.

THANKS> I have that one covered. I'll tell the whole story shortly. Thanks.

Greg Cochran has a very defensible theory that many problems we think are hereditary are in fact caused by infectious agents (as ulcers turned out to be). I'm in correspondence with him. One of these days we'll have a large presentation, but until then

will give a summary. May be one of the most important inferences from the theory of evolution we have ever made.

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We need, ASAP, a font. It needs to be more or less Letter Gothic: the Mac one we used was Letter Gothic, and we need the same thing for Windows. The closer to the Mac version (which is bit-mapped) we can get in TrueType the better. The actual specs needed are:

1.  a san serif monospaced font.  Monospace is important. 

2. It must have a bullet character which is a filled circle the size of the letter o (lower case), with the same cell size as the other letters, and which is centered in the character cell.

3. TrueType (we can live with bit-mapped if it looks OK at 12 point)

4. I need to have unlimited use rights to incorporate it into programs. I'm willing to pay.

You would not think that hard to find, but it has been, at least for me.

(AND DONE: I have the fonts I need, see below. Thanks!)

If you have nothing better to do, have a look at EXTREME overclocking and its results:

http://totl.net/Eunuch/Eunuch2.html 

And don't say you were not warned....   

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Wow. That didn't take long. Thanks to all of you who sent me fonts or pointers to fonts. One or another of those should do the job, and THANKS AGAIN!

Busy day. Let me again recommend GETRIGHT, which I have used to download a whole string of stuff, fonts, and NASA documents, and just all kinds of things: I queue them up at night, go to bed, and in the morning they're all done and sorted into the folders I designated for them.  Great program, works good.

I have done some mild reorganization, preparatory to major change of archiving another bunch of MAIL and VIEW pages. As part of that I moved some stuff to the subweb known as 'ancient'.  Fair warning: pages in the Ancient subweb tend to be wide, wildly formatted, and have other problems; this was done before I learned to use FrontPage properly, and a few were actually done using WORD.

Now to see if this is easily retrieved. First a page moved there long ago, but on which I did just a tiny bit of change. That would be the page mail2. Then there is a page of old blatherings .

Finally lets see if images transfer properly.

This should conclude the test...

Mr Dobbins reports that the Stephen King pdf file was hacked:

I said at the time that this would happen, and fairly quickly.  The implications for this kind of publishing are not entirely clear.

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I have done some major reorganization. To be specific, I converted the archives sub-web back into a folder; moved all the mail and view through #80 into the appropriate subfolder; reconverted archives into a sub-web; and alowed publish to take care of the whole thing. It looks to have worked. Any broken links I have seen are external and probably stuff that has moved.

This makes the publishing times much shorter. I'll do more reorganization of things that don't change a lot now that I know it works.

I have a sort of tirade on space over in Mail.

And the political correctness factor goes up. Mr. Dobbins reports under the subject "The Ministry of Love":

http://www.nandotimes.com/nation/story/0,1038,500186175-500248628-501254552-0,00.html  -- 

I thought it was an April Fool when I read it. It was not.

I have had some mail regarding Kiddie Porn; no one wants to be quoted, which I suppose is reasonable. I find myself in the odd position of advocating the right of local communities to limit what is displayed for sale (or even sold for that matter, but enforcement is expensive and probably fruitless) to the point where I would grant my local neighbors the right to ban my books in Studio City or even in Los Angeles. Of course I would argue that they should not DO that, but that's a different matter. But I do not grant similar rights to the Federal Government, and while I am all for protecting children from pimps and pederasts and those who would film children in explicit sexual actions, it's the act of filming, not the possession of a digital image, particularly if the digital image is one of a person who never existed, that ought to be a crime. Arresting some old janitor for downloading fantasy images -- suppose it's the violation of an elf lady for heaven's sake, or a Gilbert and Sullivan Fairy (in Iolanthe the fairies all look like they are underage ladies) -- does not seem to me a proper action for the awful majesty of the law. It's not a Federal Case. No such power was given in the Constitution, and none is needed.

The XVIII Amendment gave the Feds the right to prohibit the manufacture, sale, or possession of alcohol. It had not had that power before. It might or might not have had the power to prohibit its shipment interstate, and almost certainly was intended to have the power to prohibit its import. It has from an early time had the power to tax liquor, although it took the Whisky Rebellion to make it stick, and even then there was a lot of dissent: what right does Washington have to tell a farmer what he can make with his own corn and his own still if he doesn't offer it for sale? And if he does, is that not a state matter? But we seem to have settled that one. So which Amendment gives Congress the power to ban the possession of Kiddie Porn? If you say "general welfare" (which is in the preamble not in the grants of power Article) beware: ANYTHING can be argued to be for the general welfare.

Of course I once asked Speaker Gingrich which Amendment gave Congress the right to make possession of drugs illegal. Not interstate shipment, not importation, but growing your own. If it took the XVIII to give Congress that power for alcohol which one does it for drugs?  His answer was interesting.  "Good point, but of course it's all different now."  What's different wasn't explained. The words on paper? The intentions of the Framers? The harm that hashish can do? I doubt any of that is different from the time the Court held the Volstead Act unconstitutional. 

This just in:

CNN.

 Scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California report distinct changes in Earth's climate can be tracked in cycles of ocean conditions over thousands of years. These cycles reveal that Earth is currently experiencing a natural rise in global temperatures and this, combined with warming from the greenhouse effect, will push the planet through an era of rapid global warming. Strong oceanic tides are the engines behind this warming-cooling cycle that may help determine future climate change, according to Charles Keeling and Timothy Whorf of Scripps. Their research was published in the March 21 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Their research is the first comprehensive study of the effects of tidal mixing on climate change spanning a 1000-year period. The current phase in the cycle suggests that a natural warming trend began 100 years ago, picked up in the 1970s, and should continue over the next 500 years. Strong oceanic tides drive changes in climate due to their ability to increase vertical mixing in the ocean and thereby transport cold ocean water to the surface, suggest the researchers. Strong tides elicit cool conditions on the sea surface, which in turn lowers temperatures in air and over land, resulting in cooler climates around the planet, often accompanied by drought conditions. Weak tides lead to less cold water mixing and result in warmer periods on Earth. "The 1800-year cycle arises when tidal forces become maximized near optimal alignment and closest approach of the sun and moon with the Earth. Slow changes in the orbital parameters which control how strong the tidal effect might be, bring about the 1800-year cycle," said Whorf. "Such astronomical changes also occur on shorter time scales, such as 90 and 180 years, causing episodes of cooling and warming depending upon whether the tidal forcing is stronger or weaker. One such episode of cooling during the period 1940-1975, when tidal forcing was stronger, may have temporarily masked the appearance of the greenhouse effect in global temperatures, and contributed to the controversy of whether greenhouse warming was occurring at all," said Whorf. In addition to offering clues to climate change, the research also shows a new mechanism for analyzing events in world history. The paper reports on the near coincidence of major tidal fluctuations with worldwide phenomena, including the Little Ice Age of AD 1400-1700, major dust layers in Minnesota lake sediments space about 1800 years apart and a major drought in the Amazon Basin around 2200 BC. It also could explain a 2000 BC drought that may have contributed to the collapse of Akkad, a Mesopotamian civilization regarded as the world's first empire. The Vikings established Greenland in temperate conditions in the 10th century near the end of weak tidal activity, but perished or left Greenland when tides strengthened near the beginning of the Little Ice Age in the 13th century.

As we have been saying for years...  Ah Well. So what does Kyoto do other than treat a bunch of people to a trip?

I seem to have broken my ORTEK MCK-142 keyboard. I need a new one, and the old one repaired. Making contact with that company seems very difficult. It's worth it. That is one great keyboard.

Now all I have to do is track them down.

And AHA!

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I love being me. Well, that takes explanation. But I put up my lament about the Ortek keyboard and my inability to figure out how to find the people who sell them last night, went to bed, and this morning Rod Montgomery sends:

From: monty@sprintmail.com 

Subj: ORTEK MCK-142 keyboard

Suffering from insomnia, I visited the Manor, saw your keyboard-broken alarm, and did a little Web-surfing.

ORTEK seems to be in Taiwan. From their Web site at www.ortek.com, I get the impression they deal mainly in shipping-container lots of 1750 pieces (20-foot container) or 3500 pieces (40-foot container).

But a search on MCK-142 yielded a US dealer: http://www.monu-cad.com/keyboard.htm 

And guess whose review of the keyboard, in April 1998 Byte, they quote? 8-)

followed by:

From: monty@sprintmail.com 

Subj: ORTEK MCK-142 keyboard -- followup

As previously reported, there appears (from Web-searching) to be a US dealer at http://www.monu-cad.com/keyboard.htm 

But wait! There's more!

The company -- "Monumental Computer Applications Inc." -- are: "Since 1986 -- Pioneers in Desktop Memorial Design and Manufacturing". That is, they sell software for computer-assisted design and manufacturing of cemetary monuments. How appropriate, given your fondness for Buffy The Vampire Slayer!

They seem to be really enthusiastic about the MCK-142: it turns out that http://www.mck142.com/  points to the very same page.

But Monu-Cad are in New York State. If you want someplace geographically closer -- if less enthusiastic -- you might try an Arizona company: http://www.fentek-ind.com/pos.htm 

Fentek seem to be a keyboard boutique. All kindsa keyboards. Custom keyboards. "Panic Buttons". "Novelty Keys". A keyboard with one-inch-square keys, for the visually and motor-impaired and for little kiddies. I think I'm going to spend a while browsing there, some time soon!

Hmm... I wonder why the LookSmart search on "MCK-142" yielded all these hits on Amazon.com? "Amazon.com: buying info: New Music with Guitar Vol 4 / Da... " "Amazon.com: buying info: 68000 Microprocessor, The: Hardw... "

I guess I do understand the Amazon.com hits on "Upgrading and Repairing PCs....".

Personally, I think it's time for me to buy a MCK-142 from Monu-CAD.

Of course I knew I had reviewed the keyboard and did a search on my own web site, but I could not for the life of me find the URL for the US people I bought it from. I just got on line and ordered two of them.  At $129 each this is not cheap, but I really like those keyboards, particularly for on-line work: that programmable key set is just wonderful. Anyway, THANKS, and yes, it may be time to buy an MCK-142. I'll also have a look at that Arizona place.

I have never seen the net as slow as it is this morning. It takes forever just to change pages at pair by ws_ftp95. I hope I can post all this stuff before breakfast. Are we having another DoS attack in honor of April First? I sure hope not.

The net is so slow (8:40 AM PST) I can't post anything at all. I'll try later.

The net is BAD today. Intermittently it clears up and things work, then dead again. Earthlink used to have a net news message if you called their tech support line that said whether there were known problems. Now that's gone. Less service all the time. Why not?

Now things cleared again and ftp is fast. Until next time...

1400: it's all cleared up, as if there never had been a problem. Maybe one day I will learn what happened....

Is there any way to learn who these people are? They provide a phone number, and they must have some kind of account with VISA and AMEX. I am tempted to send in an order just so that I can then complain to my credit card people. This outfit sends hundreds of spam offering to set me up in business sending hundreds and hundreds of spams. I wish I knew where they were located. Something lingering, with boiling oil, tar and feathers...

ANd another with the same pitch but these are not fax numbers:

*407-957-8776 or 361-774-7565*

Where ARE those people?

I seem to have killed my Ortek keyboard. I'll tell all with the moral to the story in the column. Meanwhile I have ordered two others, and I am using a Microsoft "Web" keyboard. This one has some interesting extra buttons. The key feel is all right if you like that kind, which is softer and quieter than the ones I like. I like the old clunky ones that click and clack. Otherwise, this is a perfectly reasonable keyboard....  This one is not one of the hump-back kind. Larry Niven loves the humpback keyboards.

And

> An actual tip from page 16 of the HP "Environmental, Health &; Safety
> Handbook for Employees: "Blink your eyelids periodically to lubricate your
> eyes."

But see mail...

And there is a new letter about Velikovsky which I put on that page.

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I don't much go in for April Fool jokes. The world is too absurd already.

I have managed to fix my wonderful Ortek keyboard. Full story in the column. And some mail on keyboards with some of my notes in mail.

And tomorrow they want me to call in for jury duty. For 30 years I have simply said on the form "I have a Ph.D. in psychology, and I used to teach Constitutional Law although I am not a lawyer. I believe in jury nullification. The chances that any lawyer will let me on his jury are low, and that both will are nil."

Up to now they have never summoned me. This time they did, and my attorney says they are even calling lawyers for jury duty now. We'll see. And I have the column to do and Internet World this week. Sigh.

I have done a massive reorganization, moving stuff to subwebs. If you find bad INTERNAL links, please tell me. External links I can't do anything about.

Does anyone know whether it's possible to routinely change folders to sub-webs and back in FrontPage? If so, it would make maintenance of this place a great deal easier...

VIRUS Warning Mr. Dobbins telephoned the NIPC and the watch officer confirms this is real.

I "upgraded" my WS-FTP32 and I wish I hadn't. The new interface for editing your connections properties sucks dead lizards, the whole mess is hard to understand, and the "improvements" don't appear helpful. It mucks up your old installation, says it is going to preserve old settings and doesn't: if you decide to "upgrade" from Ipswitch, save everything relevant on another machine, or in a folder the upgrade can't find. I paid money for this? I am thinking of protesting to American Express. I really hate it when a company "improves" something, and in doing it makes it less useful than the old one was. Thanks a bunch.

It also resets your machine for you, and if there's much warning I didn't get it. I am used to Windows 2000 not needing to be shut down and restarted in order to install. In any event , the new ws_ftp thinks it must reset, and does it: and I do not recall being asked if I wanted to do that now or later.  Thanks a bunch. I lost some work.

Finally, the "new" one doesn't understand time zones. It keeps telling me there is a "later" version out on my site. Well of course there is. Ohio is in a time zone east of me. How could there not be a "later" version if I update things fairly often? At least that feature can be disabled although you must dig to find out where.

LATER: I will leave the above stand since it is genuine dismay, but I have figured out how the new stuff works. It may BE an improvement, but it sure makes you work to figure it out if you are used to the old.

Let me emphasize that the VIRUS WARNING is real.

And for those who missed it last week, grandmother and grandchild are posted.

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I know there are a lot of hoaxes, but the VIRUS WARNING mentioned above appears to be quite real. Mr. Dobbins telephoned NIPC and the watch officer confirmed the alert. 

What to DO:  if you are on the net direct, without a firewall, with a Windows machine, be sure that SHARING is turned OFF.  If you use sharing on an internal network -- I do -- separate your machine from the Internet with a firewall. More on that another time. If you MUST have file and print sharing turned on on a computer directly connected to the Internet, set it up to require a PASSWORD, and that means a real one, not just a blank. This will mean you have to log on to your own computer. So be it. But that's not SAFE, just an inconvenience to the bad guys. To be SAFE you need a firewall.

We use the atomz search engine here: and it apparently doesn't reset itself and rescan too often. It shows some items for last week (view 93) is being in currentview. They rescan weekly, which is more often than most; this is not a complaint about atomz, which serves us well and costs nothing. Indeed, I can recommend it.

Gibson will tell you a lot about Internet Security: see

https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2 

and scroll down to the explanations.  Read the various side pages. He explains it all in basic terms and as well as I could.

Note that if you do all your internal file sharing by NetBEUI and not TCP/IP you will enhance security because NetBEUI is not a protocol intended for the Internet (it is "non-routable"). I don't know of any hacks that will allow NetBEUI messages (including Trojan commands to your computer) to move through Internet routers, but then I don't know a lot about that sort of thing: fortunately within an hour or two someone who does will tell me more, and I'll post it here. Meanwhile, if you have a Windows machine with sharing turned on connected directly to the Internet, you are vulnerable. See Gibson for more. While you are at it, see

http://grc.com/optout.htm 

for as much about the "Aureate" scare as you will want to know.

More on the SEARCH:

Atomz looks at the site weekly early on Monday Morning. Alas, I usually rename currentview and currentmail on Monday afternoons, so there will be a week in which files shown in current will actually be in the last numbered mail or view. As Mr. Thompson says, I should count myself lucky: many search engine systems rescan monthly. But if you find something is supposed to be in the current view or mail, and it's not, it is very likely in last week's.

And of course none of the big major reorganization I have just done will be in either the atomz search engine or in the MAILDEX, VIEWDEX, and NEW ORDER indices that Mr. Rice gives me in his copious free time, and for which I don't thank him enough.

NetBEUI and security in Mail.

And my friend Francis Jeffrey has sent a letter on how whales and dolphins influenced his creative processes. Francis worked with John Lilly, and is either mad or a genius. It takes a while to decide which. I have opted for genius.

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