| Friday, May
18, 2001
Roland send this with the subject "Beria
Wept."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/5/19003.html
Ah well.
Am I allowed to say what my favorite Pournelle book
is? No?
Well then, ONE of my favorite Pournelle-edited books
is "Can Freedom Survive", published lo these many years ago. The
book included the short story "Lipidleggin", which re-emerged
today on the freemarket network:
"In 1978, libertarian science fiction author F.
Paul Wilson wrote a short story called "Lipidleggin'". In the
story, a government agent sent out to arrest dealers of fatty foods is
undone by his secret weakness for real, creamy, fresh butter.
"Wilson meant the story as a satire and as a
warning. Now, in 2001, interest groups are pressuring the federal
government to impose a "Twinkie tax," a surcharge on fatty foods
meant to twist your arm, so you'll eat more food they consider healthy.
Little did people 23 years ago imagine that fact would come to imitate
fiction so closely.
"Defy the nanny state -- eat Twinkies!
"For our drawing this month, the Guest Choice
Network will give one of you 500 Twinkies, so you -- and perhaps everyone
you know -- can do just that. As Dave Barry says: I'm not making this
up."
Rod McFadden
Heh.
Dear Dr. Pournelle,
I hesitate to write because I am very much in awe of
you and your experience. I have read your column for more than 10 years, I
depend upon it like a vitamin of common sense. Even if you do those things
so that I don't have too, I can still appreciate your efforts.
My mind is like a bookshelf: Each new memory or
factoid causes an old one to fall off the other end.
Now to my point. About your broadband access - I
know this is obvious, and the decision tree may be very short, but have
you considered moving to a location where broadband is available?
Just a thought. My wife wouldn't move either. But on
the off chance that it is a viable option for you, I thought you should at
least consider it.
Can't wait for Monday to read another column. Keep
them coming, please!
Rodney J. Wittler, Ph.D. Hydraulic Engineer US
Bureau of Reclamation
That would be a bit drastic. After more than 30
years in the same house I don't think I CAN move. Besides, I have 50
square miles of park a block away, Studio City village to walk to for
coffee, and the LA Opera a half hour away in rush hours. I don't think
even broadband is worth giving all that up for. But thanks for the
suggestion.
Jerry, the cardiologist should find an Audiologist
colleague who dispenses hearing aides from Starkey Labs of Eden Prairie,
MN.
Starkey has long been in for forefront of customized
electronic hearing aides and may well have an in-the-ear solution for him
that may allow use of a conventional stethoscope.
It's been a while since I followed their product
line and research, but in the past Starkey has also worked on
unconventional solutions including electronic stethoscopes. But I believe
that an in-the-ear solution may be 'what the doctor ordered".
I'm not affiliated with Starkey in any way, shape or
form, just have some familiarity with their products and research.
http://www.starkey.com
Chuck Kuhlman
PS, any thoughts on the following:
a) a new administrator for NASA b) a new FBI
director
The only person I think of for Administrator of
NASA has turned it down. The other would be me and I'd turn it down too. I
don't know anyone to recommend for FBI director.
InQuest wrote an article that said, among other
things, that the Pentium 4 gets so hot it goes into a half-speed slowdown
as a safety feature. They speculated that this could impact performance
for the P4.
http://www.inqst.com/articles/p4bandwidth/p4bandwidthmain.htm
I was mostly annoyed that Intel has been touting the
average-case heat dissipation rather than the worst-case, making the P4
look better than the Athlon when it isn't. I figured that people would
just cool the P4 adequately and it would never slow down.
Here is a follow-up to that article, in which they
find that the P4 does indeed slow down. And if you work the chip hard
enough, *no* heatsink can prevent a slowdown, due to a really hot spot on
the chip that cannot shed heat fast enough. Check out the graph that shows
the P4 at 1.4 GHz running benchmarks faster than the P4 at 1.7 GHz,
because at the 1.7 speed the P4 overheats and forces a slowdown for
cooling and at 1.4 it does not.
This article also discusses how the Palomino was
specifically designed to run cool: it seems that it is 20% cooler than
current Athlons at equivalent clock rates.
They also extrapolate the heat dissipation of the P4
at 2 GHz: about 110 Watts! Intel had better get the die shrink to .13 done
quickly. The .13 chip with 2.2 GHz speed should be a huge improvement over
the current P4.
http://www.inqst.com/articles/athlon4/0516main.htm
-- Steve R. Hastings "Vita est" steve@hastings.org
http://www.blarg.net/~steveha
Fascinating. Anyone else know much about this?
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