Mail 116 August 28 - September 3, 2000

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Mail 116 August 28 - September 3, 2000

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Highlights this week:

The ADHD Debates continue: Ed Hume
Documents and Settings folder on W2K
MSCONFIG
More on Japanese literacy
Floppy confusion in W2K
B-drive madness and the LS - 120
Frys
Ghastly Security Hole in Windows etc.
Gulf War Syndrome and Depleted Uranium

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Monday August 28, 2000

This began some time ago and I hope one day to pull all relevant comments together into one page. The current discussion began with comments by Joat Simeon and expanded from there.

We continue with comments from Ed Hume, psychiatrist. This is long and should be. You will want to read it all if you have any interest in the subject.:

"But Mr. Unz also credits the replacement of whole language reading with phonics."

Kevin Trainor's son gets hyperactive on additives and calms down on Benadryl, a sedating antihistamine.

What's going on here?

As a working shrink, I would like to share a few hypotheses I have developed over the years. I call them hypotheses because I have not formally tested them.

First of all, Roberta's [Mrs. Roberta Pournelle; Ed is a long time family friend] work salvaging "incorrigible" children with "dyslexia" is one of the bits of evidence that I cite in condemning professional educators' use of the "whole language" method of teaching children to read. Whole language was created by academics to teach bright kids to read faster. Kids who don't learn to read this way are considered dyslexic. Back before the Internet, National Review had an article that pointed out how the shift from phonics and repetition to whole language coincided with an abrupt increase in the numbers of semi-literate people in the US. It seems to me (a hypothesis) that failure in school may drive a sour-grapes disinterest in school. Worse: parents who failed in school now pass on their hostile attitude to their children, who may not have a similar difficulty with whole language. These children lack motivation to pay attention in school.

Now we have the theory with which to condemn whole language methods: multiple intelligences. People have varying abilities across a range of ways to interact with the world. Sesame Street gives us a taste of it: with melody, rhythm, color, phonetic analysis, phonetic synthesis and repetition the producers struggle to teach TV-watching kids to read (but then they undermine it with slash-cut editing, but that's an issue for a little later). Learning to read old-style meant clambering over the phonetic alphabet, that triumph of Western civilization, and doing it over and over again until we got it right (anyone who doubts that the phonetic alphabet is not a triumph of civilization should look into Chinese, and the immense difficulties that ancient Chinese lexicographers had in recording their language well enough to make dictionaries). At bottom, with enough repetition one can learn what those letters sound like, and can hear in one's mind the words that one reads. Of course, the step of hearing the word theoretically slows fast readers down; but by giving up phonics one gives up one about one sixth of our students (and I doubt that phonics slows down readers; my daughter learned to read that way and she is supersonic).

First ADHD hypothesis: bad teaching methods make kids inattentive. Inattentive kids fidget. This of course is not original; but it does explain a lot of kids who are situationally hyperactive-problems at school but not at home. Add to that teachers enervated by swelling demands to make sociologic interventions, to juggle the forces of administration and parents, to fight hunger and uncivilized surroundings (Lord of the Flies re-enacted daily on the streets). And no one to "motivate" students with the threat of punishment.

Jerry, you were criticized for praising the motivational factors that kept your attention on your work. Let me share an experience related by "C. J. Cherryh." Before she wrote SF she taught high school. To help bring Roman times alive for her class, she recreated a Roman classroom, complete with punishment. Of course, she only simulated the punishment by firing a pink slip at the student who did not instantly come up with the correct answer when the answer was demanded. Volunteers initially came from the usual suspects-those bright and eager intellectuals. But they wilted under the barrage of negative feedback. Then a funny thing happened ("Gee, that's funny . . ."): the kids who usually sat in the back began volunteering; seems they thought they could handle the questions and the pressure, and they did. The kids who did not do well in a normal American classroom situation thrived in a simulated Roman system. Again, multiple intelligences probably "explains" this phenomenon, and leads to a startling question: would classrooms taught in different styles to accommodate students of varying learning styles produce better overall results? Might we abandon one-size-fits-all education? But those questions are off the track. The point is, motivation is probably important in attention "disorders".

Some kids are hyperactive compared to the normal. But every kid I see in our psychiatric emergency facility-and these are extreme kids-is able to sit glued to something, be it a videogame, TV sports, or the computer. But then they like to play. If the streets are too dangerous and they have to stay in their apartments, they bounce off the walls, like suburban kids when it rains and they have to stay in the house (a la The Cat in the Hat).

Some kids do have ADHD, the real thing. Real ADHD is like being half asleep. Parents are familiar with kids who get "over-tired", and become hyperactive chaos-mongers as bedtime is passed. ADHD is like that, but all day. This is why (my hypothesis here) stimulants work: they wake kids up so they don't have to stir up the environment to keep themselves awake.

Now we have almost come to Kevin's kid. Ponder this pattern: kid is hard to drag out of bed in the morning. Drags along until midday, when he starts to warm up. By the evening he is scorching, and frequently is active long into the night. True ADHD kids are usually bushed at the end of their tiring day (unless they are kept awake with stimulants) and crash. Bipolar kids, on the other hand, are energized at night.

Bipolar disorder? Manic-depressive disorder?

No, not manic-depressive disorder. In manic-depressive disorder (bipolar type 1) you see discreet episodes of mania and depression, with normal mood in between. In other types of bipolar disorder (there are arguments on whether to lump them all as type 2 or split them into 6 or so categories) the mood is never normal. People show exaggerated responses to successes and reverses, and their moods even without stressors bucking broncos. They have little control over their moods. They collect diagnoses like borderline personality disorder, neurotic depression, reactive depression, atypical depression, cyclothymic personality, etc. The hypomanic (abnormal, but not as severe as manic) component is usually missed, and the dysfunctional personality elements usually present are felt (without proof) to be causative of the mood problems. Antidepressants don't help much (antidepressants are often helpful in true ADD/ADHD), and often make the situation worse.

This mood instability is treated with "mood stabilizers", valproic acid, Depakote, Lamictal and Topamax-all anticonvulsants. Not only do these meds stabilize moods, but with one on board, antidepressants can actually work.

Now we have come to Kevin's kid, or at least the situation his son represents (one cannot diagnose someone without actually examining him). Some people are psychiatrically destabilized by allergies. Some people are psychiatrically destabilized by chemicals. Benadryl is not only an antihistamine, but also a sedative. Antihistamines take a while to actually combat an allergic process. Ditto Benadryl. It works much faster as a sedative. I use it to help calm down agitated mentally ill people in the emergency facility.

Some psychiatrists believe-and I agree with them-that much of what masquerades as ADHD is undiagnosed bipolar disorder. Worse, they believe that stimulants and antidepressants make bipolar disorder worse through a phenomenon called "kindling", a process first seen in the study epilepsy where a chronic irritant kindles a seizure disorder.

So, to summarize, I hypothesize that most kids labeled ADHD are

1. Mostly normally-active kids who find lots of reasons not to pay attention and few reasons to pay attention, so they do other things at school, physical things. 2. Some kids with bipolar disorder who are misdiagnosed ADHD. 3. A few kids with real ADHD.

Ed Hume www.pshrink.com

Precisely. Let me add that in classrooms the important thing is to maintain discipline. In some societies that is nearly automatic. In others, it requires credible threats of meaningful punishment. While I don't hold with the old English practice of caning and nothing of that sort was remotely in my past, I certainly do hold that a couple of swats with a ping pong paddle -- more realistically the credible threat of same -- is pretty effective. In my youth we did not dwell on the horrors of corporal punishment because it didn't happen often; but we did pretend to be deathly afraid ("She's got an extra thick paddle with holes in it!") in part as a means of excusing our goody two-shows behavior to our less orderly peers.

ADHD and dyslexia seem related in many and rather curious ways.

Your point that whole language instruction is designed to make reading kids read faster is a good one; I had not known that they call a kid dyslexic if he can't read that way. Of course reading text and "hearing" the words said in your head is slower than 'just reading it', but it's more reliable. I have to read some things as if I were listening, and I always try to read novels that way unless they are so light I just want to see how it all came out. That's called skimming. I can read faster than I should, but I don't get as much out of it. I expect that's true for others.

I can't do much introspection here because I can't remember a time when I could not read, and that goes back to a place memory that was when I was 3 years old. At 5 I was in first grade (August birthday) in a Catholic school because no other school would take me; with our 2 grades to a room we learned phonics by drill. I think I had not known how that worked until then; but it meant that I could now read books with words I had never seen before, and that opened a large world for me since we had books in the house. Also newspapers.

Couple your observations with Greg Cochran's dictum that dysfunctional problems that we think are inherited but which impose a large reproductive disadvantage -- I would think bi-polar would fit nicely -- are probably infectious diseases, and we may be on to something here.

And now more irreverence from Joat Simeon

Dear Jerry:

Reading some of the postings, I'm tempted to break into a chorus of "J-J Rousseau, what sins have been committed in Thy name!" The myth of infant innocence seems to be alive and well among the logically-challenged.

The fact of the matter is that children are not human beings, except in a narrowly technical sense.

They're small wild animals, who have (with some tragic exceptions) the _capacity_ to be _taught_ to be human beings. If they're not, they become large wild animals, and very cunning and dangerous ones.

And in the initial stages, teaching them to be human is not much different from teaching a puppy not to piddle on the floor; both positive (biscuit) and negative (rolled-up newspaper) reinforcement are necessary.

Everyone who makes wheels, makes them round. Everyone who makes chairs, makes them much the same way as the Egyptians did. The reason for this is not lack of imagination; nor is it a genetic blueprint for wheels or chairs. The reason is that once you've discovered the optimum way to do something given the constraints of natural law, all changes are likely to lead to decreased function.

_Some_ things about childhood really have changed; we can afford to prolong it beyond what our ancestors could, and we can afford to teach everyone things -- literacy, for example -- once the preserve of a small elite. The quality of parent-child interaction is different now that very few infants die of natural causes.

But it's unlikely the basics of successful socialization will change until we've altered the genetic nature of the beast.

One of these basics is that an occasional swat is a highly effective method -- when combined with the other usual suspects, like affection. The fact that whole legislatures can solemnly sit down and classify a spanking as assault provokes thoughts similar to those which arise when I consider the Emperor Diocletian's economic program; namely, that we may eliminate poverty and sickness, but we'll never escape well-meaning idiocy.

During some research, I stumbled across an archaeologists' account of reading an unopened letter from around 1800 BC, in the ruins of the city of Mari in Mesopotamia. (The Babylonians sent clay-tablet letters wrapped in a clay, with the name, address and sender written on the wet clay of the envelope.)

The letter had been tossed aside unopened on a rubbish pile some time before the destruction of the city by Hammurabi. Eager to see what communication had waited more than 3000 years to be exposed to human eyes once more, the scientists carefully broke the envelope and read:

"This is the third letter I have written you about the silver you owe me for the sheep..."

Sic transit gloria mundi.

Joat Simeon

"Not human beings" is perhaps an extreme way of saying it, but then an acorn or a sapling is not an oak tree and we accept that...

Thanks.

Now for the subject of abuse:

Hi Jerry...

What is child abuse, anyway? Some people (like Mr.Gabbour) seem to feel that it is physical pain inflicted as punishment. Mr. Heinlein, in _Citizen of the Galaxy_ explained the necessity of "spankings" far better than I ever could, and Baslim's disciplining of Thorby seemed to me to be accurate and far truer to reality than Dr. B. Spock's Baby Books ever did. Pain for canalization, and love -- lots of love!

The really sad thing is there are far more abused children today than ever before, and it seems to me that it can primarily be traced to the philosopy behind this kind of thought: "Maybe the only real lesson is that I should really (and not just in words) try to work for a world where people do not have to pathetically defend the beatings and domination they experienced as weak children... no one should be considered so pitiable or pathetic. And while I obviously desire to insult you for advocating what I consider abuse, I am clearly little better until I stop and actually try to change things." How does insulting you (speaking of pathetic...) solve ANYTHING? Children need discipline and limits. Some can be ravaged by a harsh word and a time-out. Some REQUIRE much more forceful efforts, including application of "the rod of correction" to the fundament. Refusing to appropriately discipline a child because "you'll hurt his little psyche" or because it is painful to you is one of the most dangerous forms of child abuse there is. Theoretically, at least, the parent has discipline and self control also, and knows the difference between discipline and abuse. There is something the schools should teach. Hah! Fat chance of that! I'm in your corner on this one.

Jerry Wright mailto:deadguy@consultant.com

(an email address for the hatemail...)

I would certainly think the worst abuse of all is raising a child in a way that is nearly guaranteed to get him a life in prison. For really smart people it may be true that crime pays, but for most of them there are better ways. For everyone on the left and the first part of the right of the bell curve, the old radio show admonition is correct: "Get this and get it straight, crime is a sucker's road and those who take it end up in the gutter, the prison, or the grave." Failure to teach that lesson and make it stick is abuse, far more so than caning in schools.

Ah well.

Dr. Pournelle:

Of those who complain about rearing children using methods other than 100% gentle:

1. I hope Tj Gabbour has read Starship Troopers. (The book, not the movie!) 2. It would help if he would read Starswarm also. 3. As I see it, there's some correlation between behavior and child-rearing methods; too gentle and too strict seem to result in problems. Apparently, kids who can't get away with anything and kids who get away with everything both have trouble adjusting to adult responsibilities.

Of dyslexia:

Did you ever meet a dyslexic rabbi? He goes around saying "Yo!"

jomath

Ouch.

Here in middle-class suburbia I often see one way that "non-violent" child rearing leads ultimately to physical abuse. The recurring pattern is that Mom "ignores" misbehavior to discourage it, then she threatens time-outs, then she negotiates with an irrational toddler, and things on occasion continue until she loses her temper and whacks him. This either produces the desired result, leading to praise, or it doesn't, leading to remorse. Either way, the kid gets lots of positive attention. Mom and kid learn that physical punishment is not an impersonal "this is going to hurt me more than it does you" growing experience, but rather a way to express one's own frustrations.

-Tim Herbst, hardly an expert on parenting as my oldest approaches 13...

That certainly happens, and fairly often.

And now for shameless self promotion:

Dear Mr. Pournelle; Greetings from a 50 year old life-long science fiction fan. I've always enjoyed your work, whether solo or in collaboration with Niven and others. "The Mote In God's Eye" is one of my top ten favorite novels.
Like you I grew up reading Heinlein's juvenile novels and they stand as a benchmark for good science fiction. "Citizen Of The Galaxy" is also in my top ten.
I just finished "Starswarm" and want to congratulate you. You've captured everything that made Heinlein's juveniles so great and told an excellent story. I found the ending rather abrupt, but perhaps that means a sequel. Thanks for another good read.

Yours, Don Bridge

What can I say? Thanks.

I've used MSCONFIG to get rid of Sound Blaster Live value's in your face bar. (Hidden just well enough so noticed it until your mouse pointer hits the top of the screen causing it to drop down). With ME I've noticed a new wrinkle. Once I've removed the annoying bar with MSCONFIG, my system would start up with a blurb saying I was using selective startup "for trouble shooting".

It did offer to not show the dialog box in the future if I clicked a box, but I went back to MSCONFIG and selected normal instead of selective startup. sure enough when I restarted my system, the bar was back. I hunted around in launcher bar and found a drop down menu with a "load on startup" box. I unchecked it. Now I get a "normal startup" with no Sound Blaster launcher bar.

Joseph Germann

Indeed.

I just went over to download mouse and keyboard drivers for my Microsoft IntelliMice (of various versions) and my Natural Keyboards (also of various versions). I thought the mouse drivers were a bit large at 4 MB, but at least you can use that same driver with any MS mouse. The keyboard drivers are something else entirely. The first thing it asks you is which OS you're running. I chose WinMe, and find that the IntelliType keyboard driver for that OS is 18 MB! What in the name of the Great Gorp can they possibly be putting in a keyboard driver to take up 18 MB? I remember when entire office suites fit in less than that. And then I suppose I'll have three more 18 MB downloads for WinNT4, Win2K, and Win98.

No, as it turns out. The WinMe version is IntelliType Pro 1.2. The version for 98/NT4/2K is 1.1. It's an 18.5 MB download, but apparently the same setup file can be used with any of those OSs. -- Robert Bruce Thompson thompson@ttgnet.com http://www.ttgnet.com

Great Balls of Fire!

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Tuesday, August 29, 2000

Dear Jerry:

Wading in on this issue, I've no doubt that phonics is superior... on the whole and for the majority of children. The others can learn that way too, so for most schools, phonics are the way to go. It's the method the alphabetic scripts were developed for, after all, and why they're superior to the older Bronze Age systems, or Chinese ideographs.

I learned to read in a rather unusual way; I memorized a book. It was "Naughty Red Lion Beware", one of those classic children's stories with knights, fair damsels, castles, and heraldic shield animals that came alive at night. I've still got it -- right here above my computer.

I loved that book, and insisted on having it read to me every night, and on looking at the pages as my parents read to me. After a while, I could repeat large passages of it, and I went through attaching words to the clumps of letters. In effect, I taught myself to read as if it were an ideographic script, like the Chinese.

This caused me endless problems when I started school, a little later; for a while, the teachers thought I might be retarded, or have some sort of learning problem (I don't know if "dyslexia" was a current term in 1959).

As a result, I had problems learning the alphabet and my spelling was atrocious for a long time; plus new words could stump me, although I generally made them out from context.

On the other hand, I did develop a very high reading speed; by the time I was nine, I could zip through something like "Princess of Mars" in one long summer's afternoon. Luckily for me, I've always liked rereading books.

Yours, Steve Stirling

I can't recall learning to read, but I can recall learning the sounds of the letters, through drill. Learning English as if it were Chinese sets tings back about 3000 years; and what do you do when you find a word you never say before, like dihedral or dimethyldiethyltoluene...

Jerry,

A couple of further notes on Japan and learning to read:

1) Spoken Japanese has an extremely regular and limited set of sounds. Children begin by reading the phonetic characters known as kana. There is a one-to-one correspondence between kana and available sounds. They learn the kanji (adapted Chinese characters) after they have already mastered reading with the kana. Schoolbooks usually have the kana written in small type over the kanji, to help students associate the pronunciation with the ideograph. In essence, Japanese is tailor-made for phonetic instruction.

2) Even in first grade, nearly all Japanese children attend additional tutoring after their regular school. Their parents care enough to pay for those tutors. I suspect the additional instruction is less important than the attitude conveyed by the parents.

phonics + dedicated parents = literacy

That's the lesson we ought to learn from Japan, but of course, the only lesson our schools have learned is "do lots of homework" and thus we get busywork every night.

Steve Setzer

Well, what we need to learn is that methods count, but it takes a certain will also. But every young human can learn to read English. For some it's harder work, but except for severely retarded, reading is possible. It does take work by both pupil and teacher.

Hi Jerry,

A few questions and comments:

1. Could you (or someone) please provide a quick and easy definition of the various ways to teach a child to read? I understand phonics as I think I was taught that method in elementary school back in the 70's. However, I'm a bit confused on the other variations as I've not seen them or read up on them. Much appreciated.

2. Punishment

One thing that has always confused me: why do parents insist on teaching children that life does not have pain? This is an argument I always throw at anti-punishment arguments: During the experience of life, someone will eventually have something happen to them that is painful, either emotionally, physically or both. Why do you deny the child a chance to learn this, learn from it, and learn to recognize it? Wouldn't a child, in the long run, be harmed more from a lack of exposure to this (within reason, I'm not advocating wide-spread whippings here) than the other way around? This plays into my next comment...

For two years I worked in a teen center as a low-level support staff. This center was essentially a last-step before going off to a correctional facility. The center ran in a household, and was designed to simulate a "normal" household upbringing for kids. They were required to do chores, homework, bed times, etc. At first I thought this was a pretty cool job, but it quickly became a nightmare. I escaped from the job two years later with the following observation: These kids don't *think*.

I don't mean they aren't intelligent, or that they can't learn, but that they don't process information and come to a conclusion. The idea of cause and effect is a complete mystery to them. I repeatedly tried to get a few kids to think through "If you do this, the result will be thus, and nothing you can do will affect that - except not to do this". Complete blank - nada. I never once saw a kid do a rational thought - except "If I go out this window I can go get drunk". That was the most frustrating thing to me, to see a otherwise bright kid get sent off to a correctional facility because they could not grasp this simple concept.

I saw probably 30 kids in those two years, some incredibly smart, some incredibly dumb, and some with ADHD and other issues. I still think most of them could have become productive adults, if they figured out that simple concept. Maybe I had it ingrained in me because I did receive punishment when I did something wrong, and I figured it out somewhere along the way. Maybe it was because my parents always took the time to explain the issue before and after the punishment "Because you did this, and we told you not too, you will get this spanking. If you didn't do it, we wouldn't do this...". I don't know - I'm not a shrink.

Maybe I'll have some more insight after my first child is born. I've often been told "Oh, you'll understand when you have a child". Anyway, I've written a bit more than I intended. Let me end by saying I love your site, and echo the comments of "where else can I get this variety and intelligence in one spot?".

Thanks, -Rod

I haven't time to do an essay on reading methods alas. "Whole language" can mean what the teachers want it to, but usually means learning words 'as a whole' without analysis into the sounds of the syllables. 'Phonics' is sometimes called 'decoding' and can again mean whatever they want it to, but is supposed to mean that we treat the phonetic alphabet as phonetic. Many kids are natural readers and it doesn't matter what method is used to teach them. Unfortunately many more including some smart ones need SYSTEMATIC PHONICS which is formal recognition of the phonetic (90+%) nature of English as written, and systematic drills. Just as learning the addition and times tables helps all your life with arithmetic, phonetic instruction lets you read words you never saw before -- and often discover you know the word because it's in your speaking vocabulary. See Mrs. Pournelle's site for more information.

Also see below.

Dear Jerry:

In saying that small children are not human beings, I _was_ perhaps being a little extreme.

However, not much, IMHO. As one proceeds up the evolutionary ladder (I know that's a dangerously simplified metaphor, but this is a letter) learned behaviors become more important.

Any higher mammal, particularly a social one -- wolves, say -- will be permanently impaired if not taught by the parents and other caregivers, and taught _at the appropriate developmental stages_. It's notoriously difficult to reintroduce them into the wild if they've been raised by humans, for instance. Any cub will pounce, stalk, chase and wrestle, but without the example of adult wolves, it won't learn effective hunting or social-dominance behaviors. Wolf-packs differ widely in their "national character" for precisely this reason. For instance, some leave their neighbors alone; others tend to make unprovoked fatal attacks on wolves in adjacent packs.

With humans, the same is true only much more so. There are a number of facilities which humans have the genetic _capacity_ to develop, but which require intense doses of learned behavior to _actualize_, and the instruction has to be administered at the right time. I'm speaking of unconscious instruction by example, of course, as well as the deliberate kind administered in classrooms.

Loss of language faculty in "feral child" situations is the most notorious example, but there are plenty of others. Some children are born sociopathic, in whole or part; but any child can grow up into a fairly good imitiation of a sociopath (1) if not given the necessary socialization at the right stage.

All this is, I think, an important reason why humans differ so widely between cultures, not only in superficial aspects, but in the basic "shape" of the common personality-type. The underlying impulses -- status competition, for example -- are there in any group, part of human nature _sensu strictu_, but the way they're mediated and expressed differs radically.

Eg., contemporary Western civilization (mostly, with some exceptional sub-cultures) teaches by deliberate precept and by example absorbed by osmosis, a high degree of impulse control -- particularly on violent or aggressive impulses. So high that a fair amount of military basic training is devoted to overcoming it.

But if you go back, say, eight hundred years, you'll find that members of Western civilization were not socialized into that sort of control to nearly the same degree. Reading early-Modern books of manners for the instruction of courtiers, for instance, I'm struck by how childlike the adult is assumed to be -- they're full of warnings against screaming and waving your fists when angry, or sulking in corners when offended, or pouting, or bursting into sobs. (As well as things like picking your teeth with your dagger.) The sort of self-control we take for granted is regarded by the manuals as exceptional, the province of a narrow elite of the extremely cultivated and wealthy.

Yamomano children still aren't taught our sort of self-control. When they feel like hitting someone, they hit -- unless deterred by fear of direct retaliation. The result is that women and children get hit a _lot_, and lethal brawls between adult males are startlingly common.

So a child that doesn't get some sort of structured, intensive training in how to be human -- how to interact with others according to a set of structured rules and principles -- is going to grow up without part of the internal framework that makes for what we recognize as a "human" being. They're even worse off than a wolf-cub reared apart from its pack; much less functional. To put it another way, they're the Natural Man, and natural man has little place in a civilized setting.

Yours, Steve Stirling

PS: (1) speaking of sociopaths, the military has been doing some research, and found that a certain type of personality (low affect, highly unempathetic, among other distinguishing traits) are indeed "natural born killers".

They evidently make up about 4% of personnel, but in a combat situation do a disproportionate share of the killing, and act as catalysts inspiring others to kill. They're not daunted by physical danger, in fact find it exhilarating, and show a lifelong attraction to highly competitive, dangerous types of contact sports as well. They enjoy confrontation, enjoy triumphing over others, and they kill easily and without regret or later trauma in any situation where it's allowed. They don't have to be 'disinhibited' by training; quite the contrary.

They don't make very good officers, and they're a lot of trouble in peacetime, but they're invaluable as PFC's and junior NCO's up at the sharp end of things.

The father of a friend of mine was, when I look back on it, exactly this type. He was once found, slightly overdue from shore leave, hitchhiking back to his ship from the Honolulu zoo. He was drunk, which isn't surprising; what's surprising is that the kangaroo he'd stolen from the zoo was also drunk, and that he'd managed to make it about halfway back to the ship with the beast in tow.

This guy also threw a CPO overboard while on route to Korea -- he was one of the first people in post-WWII North America to earn a judo black belt.

It isn't that he was stupid; he passed through underwater demolitions school with extremely high grades, which requires a high degree of wit and even discipline. He just got terminally bored if he wasn't challenged; and once you got him to someplace he could fight, he was a model of focused intensity, which is why he wasn't in the glasshouse all the time, or given a bad-conduct discharge.

His CO was willing to put up with him and nurse him along.

According to the study I read, the examples of this type in the military these days also tend to be of above-average intelligence and to come from middle-to-upper-class backgrounds. This is because a stupid or impoverished person with this personality type generally ends up dead or in jail, in our society, well before he can get into uniform.

These people don't internalize rules against hurting people well; but if sufficiently intelligent, they can understand that obeying the rules is functional from their own point of view.

They also do best in settings with highly developed, formal rule-systems; rules which can be read in a manual and applied without having to really understand them in an emotional sense.

Fehrenbach tells the story of Sgt. Gypsy Joe Martin in THIS KIND OF WAR. Same thing, and every officer is pleased to have that kind of trooper in his outfit --when there's fighting to be done. In peace time it's a bit different...

This summarizes the Win 2k install situation nicely:

Hi Jerry

Great column. Always makes great reading and sometimes raises some interesting points.

With regards to NT 4.0 to W2K upgrades I've noticed that a clean installation of W2K creates the Document and Settings folders and creates all user profiles underneath it but a straight NT4 to W2K upgrade leaves the profiles directory where it is and route everything through that without any loss in functionality as you mentioned.

I have feeling that this is by design and might have to do with backwards compatibility for applications that are installed before the upgrade occurs.

Yours truly Peter Johnson

The only anomaly is that when we upgraded Princess from NT 4 to W 2k this did NOT happen; but that was with a pre-release version of W2K and I now believe they changed the installer for the release version. Thus we had two different experiences and that caused the apparent difficulty. In fact it makes sense to do it this way.

Jerry,

Joseph Germann wrote: . "Once I've removed the annoying bar with MSCONFIG, my system would start up with a blurb saying I was using selective startup "for trouble shooting". It did offer to not show the dialog box in the future if I clicked a box, but I went back to MSCONFIG and selected normal instead of selective startup. sure enough when I restarted my system, the bar was back."

MSConfig gives that message because when you disable startup items you are "selectively" starting up your system. This is normal, tell the box to go away and it's just fine. If you go back in and select normal startup, then all of the items you've "selected" come back

Donald R

Right. Thanks.

Dr.Pournelle,

I was reading your current mail and saw a letter from another reader that I think I may be able to offer some useful (I hope) insight on. Please pass this along.

I just got the first release of the SB Live card series (the one that came before Valu/X-Gamer/Platinum, etc.) about a month back from a co-worker who had upgraded and therefore was offering this unit cheap. The first thing I did was upgrade to the latest drivers for the unit and play with it a bit (that guitar emulator is a neat toy!) and then quickly became bored with the resource demands and ever annoying pop-down menu/taskbar that the software stuck me with.

As I too am a big fan of msconfig I disabled the creative launcher and came across the same message upon boot. So I re-checked the spot in msconfig and rebooted with no diagnostic message. I just thought I would live with it or shut it down manually upon each boot where it would matter. I did so by accessing the corner menu and disabling the program and promptly forgot about it. What I did notice was that after I had disabled it in the corner menu of the pull-down itself it never came back and I have not seen that diagnostic message since. I can re-activate the util by going to the creative listing in my programs bar, but with the exception of the adjusting of some EAX variables for certain games there is little to no reason for keeping that bar. In fact most good EAX games (Half-Life, Unreal, Soldier Of Fortune) have built in presets that run automatcally and detect EAX on their own.

Hope this is of some help to you. <smile>

Jerry, as an aside directed at you I would like to take this opportunity to state that I like the current set up of your mail and prefer this to a typical web database setup. Sure I may not see my letters in here all the time but then of the few I have written they are of a more personal nature along the lines of fan mail rather than something that would inspire or deserve comment from other readers. Keep thinks as they are, me and the other neo-Luddites get nervous when we hear talk of change.

Chris Boatright Tualitan, OR

p.s. If anyone asks, I didn't touch the loom. The dog did it.

Thanks. I have a new Turtle Beach sound board that will be in the column...

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Wednesday, August 30, 2000

Some new information on Japanese literacy

One thing to note about Japanese literacy - it implies a fairly simple grasp of the language. There are approximately two thousand kanji in the standard lexicon, and quite a few archaic ones that aren't in common usage (thus, the need for a secondary kana "alphabet" for things like pronunciation). Just like you don't need to know all the English vocabulary, you don't need to know all the kanji - in fact, few do.

Of course, learning words in an ideogrammatic language is an entirely different monster from learning them in an alphabetic one. I can pick up a word from a single reading, and (while spelling mistakes can and do happen - rarely) reproduce it immediately, from memory, every time. It doesn't take any particular effort on my part. The written Japanese language, which is generally learned by rote, does not yield so easily to snap learning.

Combine this with the multiple-pronunciation problem. Most kanji have two readings, one of Chinese and one of local origin. Now imagine trying to data-enter somebody's name into a computer, given nothing but the kanji to enter it and the kana on your keyboard. (Oh, and with names, all bets are off - some don't match -either- of the standard pronunciations.) I have a friend that does this... and only this... for her living. Oy!

That said, the rate of "real" functional illiteracy is higher than published figures, but still lower than the US - the schools are generally more than competent in teaching the language. Nowadays, most Japanese language instruction debate centers entirely on the teaching of English.

Andy Kent

Thanks!

And from Dr. Hume and others on ADD and discipline:

Rod's comments remind me: in the 19th century people who did not learn that negative social consequences attach to "bad" acts were called "moral idiots," for obvious reasons. A better name can be found in the title of a book on the subject: "The Criminal Personality."

Ed Hume

www.pshrink.com

Dear Dr. Pournelle:

I have been very interested in the ADD discussion because over the last few years I have come to the conclusion that I was, or even still, ADD to a degree. I was lucky to have been in Catholic schools from 3rd grade on, as the good Sisters had the attitude that "you will get an education...if you want it or not." Having a father who was a retired CPO did not hurt either. Actually, it did at times, but I usually had to really screw up. I write because I would submit that ADD is not always a "problem" that has to be corrected.

I am a lawyer, and in court you have a dozen things going on at the same time. A good lawyer has to keep track of all that. I can. My wife, who is also a lawyer, never can understand how I do it (she does not do trial work). She also hates Windows because of "all those boxes to keep track of". I love going out in the woods and never have understood how people around me miss so much. My brother, who is retired from the Army, told me that I had an amazing situational awareness. In retrospect, I have to give a lot of the credit to harnessed ADD. Growing up, I always thought that I could just keep track of a lot of things at the same time. Nowadays it would be called multitasking. In the olden days, it was probably the ability to stay alive in a world that was not overly concerned with if you lived or died.

Why can't kids with ADD be taught to do this? I know that there is not a lot of call for hunters and park rangers these days, and God knows that we don't need any more lawyers. However, it concerns me that while we pay lip service to "diversity", we as a society are forcing (or drugging) our children into some fairly narrow molds.

I wish I had some answers. However, my dad is dead and the Sisters would be in jail if they did half of what they did then now.

Rick Cartwright

I think one problem is that we tend to find something real but rare like dyslexia -- there really are kids with neurological wiring problems that make it very difficult for them to distinguish b from d and p from q, but it is quite rare -- and apply it to anyone with a problem that it would take hard work to solve. There. The kid's "got" dyslexia or ADD and thus it's not OUR fault that this poor bit of protoplasm can't learn in regular school, we must have all kinds of specialists. We know more about dyslexia because in thousands of kids diagnosed with it, my wife found ZERO who really "had" it -- she taught every one of those "dyslexic" kids to read using systematic phonics. That was before ADD became a popular diagnosis so we don't have similar personal data on that, but it seems to be about the same: real ADD is fairly rare and may need some kind of drug treatment, but the symptoms fade into those of "normal boy", and since active bright normal boys can be a pain in the arse, the thing to do is quiet them down by any means necessary.

And I was clearly one of those who would have been called ADHD if anyone knew to do it in Capleville 1941. Fortunately no one knew to do that, so instead I was controlled by fear of having my bottom whacked with a paddle. Didn't take but one time for me to learn to avoid that...

From: Stephen M. St. Onge saintonge@hotmail.com

Subject: child discipline

Dear Jerry:

I remember an anecdote of an acquaintence: she pushed her mother till she got hit one day, because she just wanted to see if Ma would do it. Once the limit was established, it wasn't necessary again.

I've also read accounts of REAL child abuse (see e.g. _Carr: Five Years of Rape and Murder_, by Robert Frederick Carr and Edna Buchanan; highest recommendation, but only if you have a strong stomach). He commented that he got hit whenever he did anything wrong -- and whenever he didn't. The inconsistency seems more important than the method of discipline used.

Best, Stephen

Either Cotton Mather or Jonathan Williams said: "Tether a beast at midnight and by dawn it will know the length of its tether." Of course people seek to find limits. Good parenting largely consists of making those limits clear and ENFORCING them. Certainly that is what Roberta did with our boys.

And on remotely locating OUTLOOK.PST:

Jerry,

You mentioned: "And I find that putting the OUTLOOK.PST file out on a server is the wrong thing to do. It really slows things down. See the column..."

I almost sent you a message about this before, but I thought you'd found a way to make it work for you. Have you considered using Exchange Server? It would manage your Outlook files on the server for you (no more OUTLOOK.PST file), making them accessible from any workstation quite painlessly. Plus, you'd be able to access your mail when you are on the road through Outlook Web Access (OWA), provided your server had an IP address you can see from the Internet.

Works great for us here.

Tracy Walters, Networking Rocky Mountain Technology Group

This is what Roland wants to do here and we'll get at it shortly. As to locating the file remotely, "I do all these silly things so you won't have to..." I have to try sometimes. Thanks.

And an anomaly...

Jerry, I thought you might be interested in the very odd behavior I have run across on my system.

I have a Computer with an 800 MHZ Athlon CPU. It has an 18 GB SCSI Hard Drive and a supporting csst of SCSI Peripherals, except for one. It came with an LS 120 drive in lieu of a standard 1.44 MB floppy. I run DOS, Win2000 and Linux. The LS 120 runs off the IDE2 controller as the Slave. There are no other IDE devices in the system.

The LS 120 drive performs well, both in DOS and in Win2K except for one major aspect. It is not recognized as the A: drive by some software. Linux recognizes its existence when it is booted, but will not write to the drive. I went to test the BEOS software, which requires (for Win2K) creating a boot floppy and booting from that. It would not write to the LS 120 drive as the A: drive. Some older DOS software would not install from that drive.

So I purchased and installed a standard 1.44 MB floppy. It works fine in DOS, along with the LS 120, being recognized as the A: drive, and I can

readily boot from it with a floppy to DOS. The LS 120 is recognized as the B: drive. Then I booted to WIN2K and the situation was reversed. There the LS 120 comes up as the A: drive and the 1.4 MB floppy as the B: drive. I can find no method in Win2K to change that (though there are ways to change Hard drive designations).

So I uninstalled both, shut off the machine, and disconnected the LS 120 and booted up to Win2K. Fine - the 1.44 MB floppy was now the A: drive. I thought that when I reinstalled the LS 120 it would now show up as the B: drive. But to my surprise, when I reinstalled it and booted up to Win2K the situation was still as before. In DOS things were as they should be. In Win2K the LS 120 is still the A: drive and the 1.44 MB floppy the B: drive and I am back where I was.

So, is there any way of getting the DOS assignments and the Win2K assignments in synch. ?

I note that Linux now recognizes the 1.44 MB floppy as the A: drive i.e with the appropriate Unix designation \fd0.

Morton Kaplon

Perhaps an adjustment in the BIOS? It seems very odd indeed, and I have no idea of what you should do. Maybe a reader will know.

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Thursday, August 31, 2000

I haven't had time to figure out if this is a hoax or not. If it's real it doesn't astonish me. Not now...

Hi Jerry,

I get an email newsletter called Patent News from an fellow named Greg Aharonian. Great stuff, maybe you already get it. If so this won't be news to you. Greg was featured in Wired a couple or three months ago. Anyway, since you often write about social and political themes, I thought I'd bring this to your attention in case it happens to be of interest. If not, you know where the delete key is...

Apparently someone has managed to get a patent on a process for turning a socialist economy into a capitolist economy... I'll assume that you are capable of looking up a patent if you want to go further than the excerpt attached here. I'm downloading the text now (42 pages) and I doubt I'll wade through it all, they can be so stimulating :-)

United States Patent No. 6,112,188

-Burch Seymour

Here is part of an attachment to Mr. Seymour's letter:

United States Patent No. 6,112,188

Abstract: Computerized methods and tools for developing and implementing economic policies are provided. The methods and tools, which do not rely on advanced communications of financial market trading infrastructure, include the principal steps of preparing a privatization business plan that includes an cost of the assets and a plan for distributing the assets. The review of the privatization plan by a Privatization Board. Executing the plan. Restructuring the enterprise in accordance to the plan. Submitting an application for certification of demonopolization to the Privatization Board. Receiving an effective demonopolization date from the Privatization Board .

Claim 1:

1. A method to achieve widespread share ownership by aggregating rights to state owned assets, in the context of uncertainty and volatility in the value of said state owned assets, and in the context of constraints on investment sophistication and technical infrastructure, comprising the steps of:

< snip >

It looks genuine, but I don't see what even an insane patent examiner would find patentable.

Hi Jerry,

I thought that it was about time that I resubscribed, hopefully it should get to you via Roberta's credit card system

As an aside, I thought that you might be interested to know that I am in the process of teaching myself Old English using the internet. I'm using a book called 'First Steps in Old English' by Stephen Pollington and a website called Old English Aloud ( http://www.kami.demon.co.uk/gesithas/readings/readings.html )

Not, I suppose terribly useful, but it's still a fun use of technologies separated by 500 years and it gives my mind a welcome break from from these damned machines :-)

Keep up the good work - both computer wrestling and the SF writing.

BTW - belated congratulations on your new grandchild.

Regards Norman Hills

It is certainly an unusual use of the Internet! Thanks.

And getting back to computers...

Jerry, I thought you might be interested in the very odd behavior I have run across on my system.

So I purchased and installed a standard 1.44 MB floppy. It works fine in DOS, along with the LS 120, being recognized as the A: drive, and I can readily boot from it with a floppy to DOS. The LS 120 is recognized as the B: drive. Then I booted to WIN2K and the situation was reversed. There the LS 120 comes up as the A: drive and the 1.4 MB floppy as the B: drive. I can find no method in Win2K to change that (though there are ways to change Hard drive designations).

So, is there any way of getting the DOS assignments and the Win2K assignments in synch. ?

I note that Linux now recognizes the 1.44 MB floppy as the A: drive i.e with the appropriate Unix designation \fd0.

Morton Kaplon

I have no experience with the LS - 120 which I suspect is a systems whose time will never get here -- that is a good idea that showed up at a bad time -- but I would guess there is some BIOS issue here. But that's a guess, since I've never worked with one of those. Perhaps a reader has had a similar problem.

Jerry, You mentioned that you were installing a new HP color scanner for USB. I just finished installing a Canon Canoscan 650U USB scanner. It was probably the easiest installation I have ever done. No power cube required, just the USB cable plugged into the port on the computer, then into the port on the scanner, after unlocking the shipping retainer. The system autodetected and installed the scanner. Popped in the CD with all the software, and in about 5 minutes, I did my first scan.

I chose the Canon product mainly because it was the only one at Best Buy that showed Win2K support on the box. Several others offered an updated driver if you downloaded it from the Internet, but I figured I would rather get the whole package up front. Also, the scanner is a tiny little thing, only 1.3 inches high. It Scan of photographs look pretty nice, haven't tried the OCR software that came with it (Caere Omnipage), but I already own and am happy with Textbridge, so I use that with it. The 650U has 600x1200, 36-bit color and goes for $99 at Best Buy, it's big brother (in name and performance, not in size, as they look exactly the same), is a 1200x2400 42-bit scanner, and costs $199 at Best Buy.

Tracy Walters, Networking Rocky Mountain Technology Group

Thanks for the report. I'm doing the USB HP scanner in about an hour. It came with W 2000 drivers, and they promise Windows ME drivers before ME is officially released (ME is an UNRELEASED product at this time so please do not pay much attention to negative reports until it's out. That said, except for a couple of problems with ancient DOS programs I find no problems with ME.)

Jerry,

I totally agree with you that all physical discipline is not bad, and may even be more necessary the more intelligent the miscreant. When I was taking algebra, I had a hard time figuring out how to solve quadratic equations. My problem was that I could do any simple single variable/two constant equation in my head and hadn't paid attention to learning the basics earlier in the year. (Cautionary tale: being a good calculator or having any other acute mental skill is a blessing, but it can be a disadvantage in learning the underlying discipline that you need for advanced work.) One night my dad was trying to teach me those basics when I mouthed off at him about not having to learn how the dumb kids did things. After fetching up against the refrigerator half a second later with a bright red hand print on my face, I realized that maybe I wasn't as smart as I thought I was. I also learned how to solve quadratics before the end of the week.

Now the above may sound a bit over the top, but it was the first time my dad had ever given me more than fair to midlin' swat on rear end - a rare even in itself - and it was the last time he _ever_ had to strike me. I learned real quick who was boss and didn't forget it. When I look back, I'm certain it saved me from a lot of suffering later on.

Well, that's how the issue looks from my foxhole, anyway.

Tony Evans

And of course today he would be in jail and you would be raised in a foster home, and the world would be so much a better place for it.

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Friday,

Day devoured by locusts

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I have a paper for a NASA symposium that I must do

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Sunday, September 3, 2000

Amazing amounts of mail about Fry's. I'll only put up a bit of it here.

Dr.Pournelle,

Reading about your woes in the View for Thursday I looked up a link that I thought I would share with you and your readers. It rings true for anyone who has ever been so desperate to consult with a "trained" sales associate at that particular store.

http://www.best.com/~braith/frys.htm

Hope the chuckle makes the pain of being ripped of by those scoundrels a little more bearable.

pax, Rev Chris Boatright. Tualitan, OR.

Well, scoundrel is a stronger word than I would use now, but I thought it fitting when it happened. The way of the world....

Fry's Return Practices

Dear Jerry:

You have more patience than I have if you even try to return things to Fry's.

I normally shop at the San Diego Fry's although I've been to others. In San Diego, Fry's has up to 50 cashier's stations to take your money and the wait is seldom more than 5 minutes.

Try to return something? There are two or three people working there, the process takes ten minutes...once you've stood in line for about an hour.

I don't have an hour to spend on a simple return and I've eaten several smaller defective products. In my opinion the practice is deliberate and it is reminescent of how some of the New York photo and camera mail order houses operate.

Unlike you I've never had Fry's refuse to take an item back but it doesn't surprise me given their poor return practices.

Best wishes,

James McCaffrey jmcc@rmilaw.com.mx http://www.mccaffreypc.com

Well, I go in the mornings on weekdays and I have never had much of a line to stand in. And up to now it has been efficient and simple. Which is what makes this so odd, given the trivial amount of money involved.

Hi,

I was commenting to a co-worker the other day (who lives near Phoenix) that I envied him living near such a large city that he has a Fry's nearby. I have read enough times that you had gotten some great bargain there that I envied you both for awhile. I used to live near Chicago (for 18 years), so I know what having abundant shopping of some kind is like. That makes living in a town of 75,000 difficult, as shopping here is pretty poor. One mall of 100+ stores, another with 50+, and one Best Buy, but not much else.

I am an OS/2 fan (though IBM makes it VERY difficult), love Pascal (not C/C++, yet), am learning Linux slowly, and am stuck running WIN/95 due to the lack of an OS/2 VPN client (you CAN envy me a little, I DO have a cable modem). BUT, I am not-so-mainstream, technology-wise as relates to PC's. That makes going to Best Buy less than fruitful at times. I use SCSI wherever I can, for speed and reliability, and finding it is Best Buy is a lost cause. And, oh, I develop MAINFRAME software for CA in ASSEMBLER. Sigh. I do that because I can, and therefore, I keep getting dragged back into that environment because I need to feed the family. But, I digress.

My point was, over the years, Fry's has given you some incredible deals which I cannot get in THIS town, so, overall, you still haven't really lost to them. The most recent experience was not encouraging however. I have never set foot into one of their stores (nor even seen one), but after your recent experience, I won't rush to do so.

Thanks for the warning, and all the other good work. Since the death of paper-BYTE, I find I read your web site every day. I HAVE to look at paying for that, as I have gotten MY money's worth in your hardware / software recommendations many times over, as well as constantly enjoying an intelligent point of view of the world which I seldom see elsewhere. Thanks again.

Larry O'Neal DB2 Utilities Development Computer Associates International, inc.

"Beware of Microsoft Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is fut... GENERAL PROTECTION FAULT in borg32.dll"

Well, it can be a convenient place. But one wants to beware. See the column and thanks for the kind words.

Jerry, It seems you've finally come to a realization that most of us have, regarding Fry's. I'm a recent transplant from the east coast, and on the up side, Fry's is convenient and has the kind of electronic and computer parts, trinkets, and gadgets that you just don't see since the loss of companies like Lafayette Radio Electonics and Heathkit. (Radio Shack is but a shadow of its former self in terms of stocking true electronic parts) I think back to my younger days when a hacker or hobbyist was one that actually designed and built things on little perf boards and you could etch your own circuit boards if you wanted to be really fancy.

On the down side Fry's return policies SUCK!, their lines are horrendous and the staff doesn't seem to care if you wait in line for 10 minutes or 10 hours. Returning something to them is like trying to run a mile in a potatoe sack, it's possible but who really wants to do THAT! Like you, I've decided to only watch their ads for some great deals, of which they have at least one or two a month that are real bargains (provided you don't intend to bring the item back) and just purchase those if I'm so inclined. Or I'll just run down there when I need a small cable or part quickly and don't have the time, patience or desire to pay $10 in shipping for a $2 part. Other than those 2 cases I stay away. It's a shame though, how many stores can you think of where you can walk down isles and see things like shrink tubing, soldering stations, pwb ethcing kits, and individual semiconductor components... alas, I feel most of those days are falling further and further behind us.

Marv Shelton

and finally

Alternatives to Frys

You might try http://www.outpost.com. I've had good experience with them, their prices are competitive, and they ship overnight for free. As a matter of fact, I just got an Epson Stylus Color 760 inkjet printer from them yesterday. Also, several of my readers report good experiences with them, and I've not heard any bad reports.

You might remember the Outpost.com commercials that made them famous--firing gerbils out of a cannon through the "O" in Outpost (most of which missed and bounced off the sign); the high school marching band attacked by wolves; and the child-care center invaded by a tatoo artist. See http://www.cabletvadbureau.com/Case%20Studies/CSCyberian%20Outpost.htm for details.

Their prices are generally better than those you quote from Fry's, they don't repackage used stuff and sell it as new, and you can order this evening and have it by tomorrow morning.

Bob -- Robert Bruce Thompson

thompson@ttgnet.com http://www.ttgnet.com

Well yes, but if I want something NOW it's darned convenient to drive 15 minutes, find it on a shelf, get it, and get home: under an hour for almost anything from a cable to a vacuum cleaner to $3/gigabyte hard drives. I just have to stop being upset and factor in some of their business practices in my expectations.

I have many other letters on the subject, and thanks to all for writing.

Custom info in W98 Device Manager?

Jerry,

I recently did a total fresh reload of W98 on one of my computers. While cleaning up hardware glitches in Control Panel's Device Manager, I noticed that the OEM W98 CD didn't reload the computer maker's customized splash information that shows up on the Device Manager's GENERAL tab.

I can reload all the old W98 files from my backups, but I really don't want to load any more files other than the .dll (or whatever) file that stores this customized information. I tried replacing "Control.exe" and that didn't do it. My few reference books don't get into this. Got a clue as to which file stores this information?

Thanks in advance,

Don Burns

I haven't looked into that and probably won't for a while. Perhaps readers know precisely, but I suspect the answer is, "that depends", meaning which system and how they implemented it.

Dear Jerry,

In regard to the message from Don Burns regarding "the computer maker's customized splash information that shows up on the Device Manager's GENERAL tab" missing from his fresh install.

There are two files involved: OEMinfo.ini OEMlogo.bmp The information in the ini file can be anything the manufacturer thinks is important, usually how to get to the support their functions. At this point his choices are to find the files on the support CD or copy from another similar system.

FWIW, Control Panel's System applet is easier to use if these files are deleted. Without the files, the left tab (General) has the load focus, and touching the right arrow selects the Device Manager tab.

John Ruff. J R u f f @ E x c i t e . c o m

Thanks! That was fast!

Jerry,

Several years ago, I read a "War World" novel. This novel ended with the Sarons{sp} detonating a pony nuke outside their citadel and the rebels running for their lives.

Has there been a sequal to this?

Mike

That book was done by a coterie of distinguished authors all of whom have other stuff to do; I own the series and one day perhaps I'll commission some other newer authors to do the work. I won't have time. It was a VERY good series.

You have seen this elsewhere, and I am remiss in not getting it up earlier. It is the worst security hole so far found:

http://www.pgp.com/research/covert/advisories/045.asp

Roland Dobbins <mordant@gothik.org>

Related to this:

To: BugTraq Subject: Outlook winmail.dat Date: Thu Aug 24 2000 13:36:40 Author: Bryce Walter < brycewalter@hotmail.com > Message-ID:

<LAW2-F305bYiMCIqtQv0000069d@hotmail.com>

When a message is sent from Outlook in RTF format, Outlook attaches a file named winmail.dat. This file is used for transmitting the RTF-specific formatting information. If the recipient opens the email in Outlook they will not see the attachment. Additionally, default behaviour of Exchange Server 5.5 appears to strip the attachment from messages going to recipients external to the orginization.

In the situation of an Outlook user with a POP3/SMTP account (such as their ISP) sending a message to someone who uses an email client other than Outlook (a Hotmail account for example) the recipient will see winmail.dat listed as an attachment. Upon opening winmail.dat with a text viewer you can clearly make out a line that contains the full path to the .pst location on the sender's hard drive. Since this is located by default in the users profile directory, you can see the sender's NT account name as well as the domain name.

The attachment of winmail.dat in Outlook RTF emails is documented in MS KB articles. They detail how to prevent the attachment of winmail.dat (configure the removal at the Exchange Server level, or don't use RTF formatting in your Outlook client). However they do not document what is contained in winmail.dat. Upon contacting secure@microsoft about this (4 months ago) I was informed a KB article detailing the contents of winmail.dat would be forthcoming (I cannot yet locate anything on their site).

This behaviour was seen in Outlook 2000. I have not tested previous versions of Outlook, but judging by the KB articles, previous versions of Outlook have the exact same behaviour in regards to winmail.dat as Outlook 2000.

As a side note it would be an interesting excercise to see if Outlook is susceptible to a message with a malformed winmail.dat attached. One could theoretically use winmail.dat to hit on holes in either Outlook itself, or the Outlook RTF engine (Outlook does not use the same RTF engine as Wordpad).

regards, Bryce Roland Dobbins <rdobbins@netmore.net>

Hi Jerry,

I just downloaded this program called Advanced Direct Remailer (ADR) after reading about it on BetaNews, and I think it's something you might find a use for after reading about your occasional problems with Outlook and Earthlink's mail servers.

In a nutshell, it's a personal SMTP mail server, it allows you to send mail right from your PC bypassing your ISP's server altogether. It works great and the setup could not be easier, basically you just install it and then go into your Outlook account settings and change the SMTP server to 'localhost' (without the quotes), then you just continue to use Outlook as you normally would. That's it. The only 2 options I changed in ADR was to send the mail immediately rather than delay it, and to not save a copy of the outgoing email. This thing works great!

Here's the URL, this page contains more info and a download link: http://www.elcomsoft.com/adr.html

In my case the problem it solved was the following:

I have two email accounts, a Flashcom DSL account, and a Mindspring dial-up account, I keep the Mindspring dial-up as a back up ISP and for use when I'm travelling, and as well, many people have my Mindspring email address. When I have Outlook download my email it checks both accounts through Flashcom because my DSL connection is up all the time. This is not a problem because Mindspring allows access to their POP3 server from another ISP's network.

The problem occurs when I try to reply to email, Outlook automatically send a reply thru the same account the the original message was received from, which means a reply to any message received from Mindspring will be sent through Mindspring.

Herein lies the rub, Mindspring (correctly, as it stops strangers from spamming thru your server) does not allow access to it's SMTP server from an outside network address. When I reply to a Mindspring message, Outlook times out trying to send the message. This makes it a major PITA when trying to unsubscribe from a mailing list, etc. I can get around it by changing the Outlook account temporarily to Dial-up, semd the mssage, and then change the settings back, but who wants to go thru that hasle every time?

Now I all outgoing mail gets sent thru ADR and as you would say, Bob's your uncle.

Do yourself a favor and check this out, it's free to try for two weeks, and only $40 to purchase, a bargain in my view. They have some other mailing list related tools as well (adress validity checkers etc.) which are of no use to me, but which you may find useful.

Regards, Dean Stacey

PS. I am not affiliated with Elcomsoft in any way, shape or form.

Anyone else have experience with this? I have found that so long as I do not have bad EARTHLINK addresses, I can use Outlook 2000 sending through Earthlink. I hesitate to make fundamental changes until I get DSL or cable modem, both of which are rumored to be coming here Real Soon Now. When I have faster access I suspect many of my problems will vanish.

From that story you put in the link to:

"Depleted uranium does not occur naturally. It is the by-product of the industrial processing of waste from nuclear reactors and is better known as weapons-grade uranium. It is used to strengthen the tips of shells to ensure that they pierce armour."

And here I thought that depleted uranium was natural uranium from which nearly all of the U-235 had been extracted, whereas weapons grade uranium was that in which the percentage of U-235 had been boosted to very high levels. And now I learn that depleted uranium and weapons-grade uranium are just two names for the same thing. Also, I never realized that depleted uranium was used to "strengthen the tips of shells". Here all this time I've been thinking that it was used in discarding sabot rounds, where it formed the body of the penetrator itself, except perhaps the tip, which was made of tungsten or ceramic composite.

If they're as confused as they seem to be about the fundamentals, it kind of makes you wonder what else they got wrong, doesn't it?

-- Robert Bruce Thompson thompson@ttgnet.com http://www.ttgnet.com

It does indeed. They do seem to have got all the weapons information wrong. I would be astonished if they had the rest correct also: uranium is a heavy metal and it's not very reactive. You certainly can get overdoses from too much exposure to depleted uranium, but I would have thought you would have to work at it to do it.

I still suspect that GWS, if it exists, is from squalene used as an enhancer to the shot package given all those to be deployed. For most nothing happened, but some got their immune systems messed up. I am no fan of giving combinations of such shots anyway. I think the system is better of responding to one at a time. I even worried about DPT shots for my kids at an early age, although nothing seems to have come of it.

Now I am not one of those people against vaccinations. Far from it. But I do think a few days or weeks between bouts with mild cases of deadly diseases is a better way to go than whacking people with all of them at once. And enhancers like squalene seem to me a bit much especially when you are giving a cocktail of disease immunizations like pox, plague, anthrax, encephalitis, etc. (And yes I know that vaccination and immunization are not used interchangeably by health professionals, but the general public doesn't know the difference nor has to.)

I am not a Health Physicist or a doctor but I have been working in the Nuclear field for 25 years and currently hold an NRC Reactor Operator Licence. Depleted Uranium (DU) is nothing special, just natural Uranium that has greater than normal amounts of the U238 isotope. It is the slag left after the U235 has been concentrated out of it. It is an alpha emitter and will cause heavy metal poisoning if ingested. Gulf War syndrome does not resemble heavy metal poisoning. I am sure that the military use of DU did result in particulate and that higher than "normal" levels will be found in soldiers handling such rounds or being exposed to dust from their use. Today's micro assay techniques will show any excretion in the parts per billion range. Since normal body burden is essentially ZERO any amount will be a huge increase. Also whole body radiation monitors while not being able to show internal alpha do report beta and gamma levels detected and what isotope produced the dose. Besides I don't believe anybody had to flee the US because his life was threatened. Sorry, I can't buy into all this conspiracy nonsense. See HealthCentral.com under mass sociogenic illness.

http://www.healthcentral.com/drdean/deanfulltexttopics.cfm?id=13303 GWS

http://www.healthcentral.com/drdean/deanfulltexttopics.cfm?id=13659 MSI

The kinetic energy of a A-10's gun firing DU rounds hitting steel plate is pretty awesome and may be high enough to cause epithermal fission of Uranium. I have not seen any studies on this as it may be classified. But I do know the place in Maryland that test fired this combo is a superfund sight due to heavy metal / radiation contamination (pollution). This brings up a whole new group of isotopes. However these Actinides would be high beta/gamma emitters and would show up on Geiger detectors as well as whole body counters. I don't think that the Gulf War vets working here have unusual whole body count profiles. And they don't set off any of the portal monitors which are very sensitive.

Thomas A. Weaver taweaver@charter.net

Thanks. It's an expensive way to kill tanks, but effective...

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