| Tuesday,
June 15, 2004
Subject: Changes at Google
Whoa! I tried one of my typical complex Google
queries, that I've been doing for ages - and it FAILED, with this error:
"radio" (and any subsequent words) was ignored because
we limit queries to 10 words.
When did this 10 word limitation start? This is bad
news - many of the queries I use on Google will no longer work!
___ Scott MacLean
This is the first I have heard of any of this.
But:
If you search google groups for google "was ignored
because we limit queries", the earliest mention is in late 2000, showing
that they've done it for years.
Thanks, Kolya Rice
Thanks!
========
Hello Dr. Pournelle.
First, though this message isn't about Firefly, I did
like the show, and I think Jewel Staite is what my assistant would call a
"cutie." With a background well grounded in Heinlein and Doc Smith, it
didn't give me any real heartburn.
I see you are thinking that this may be your last
convention. I'd hate to hear that, but if it isn't fun anymore, it isn't.
Now I'm still intending to take a couple of weeks off when I get back to the
US and do some vacating in southern California, and it would be nice to be
able to catch you at a con or something, so I can at least talk Creation of
the Empire of Man from the Kingdom of Sparta with you. A subject near and
dear to my heart.
Here is more of the same. The temperature is a cool
108 right now, and for a wonder, the wind is not blowing much dust around.
Someday I'll need to talk computer use here with you. Not to mention email
(I have 4 official email addresses not counting use of titles as well as
names for mail) and some security implications.
I'm very close to my mid tour leave now, and I'm once
again planning on hitting the UK. I saw little of my intended targets last
time, and I want to be more comprehensive.
I'm coming to the conclusion that the typical Iraqi
insurgent who wants to kill us isn't really our enemy. They can be a
nuisance, perhaps a challenge, but they can't defeat us. We have two enemies
here, the AQ factions and the media. Of the two, I have more confidence that
we can deal with AQ than the media, even though they can do spectacular
attacks, there really aren't that many competent terrorists out there. They
can't waste themselves, and every one we take out is one fewer to train
suicide bombers and whatnot. The media, on the other hand, we can do little
about. They are certainly working against us as surely as the actual
combatants, but unless your investigation is more current than I think it
is, that conversation will go nowhere. I thought the imbedded journalist
program was going to payoff bigger than it did.
Still and all, I can now honestly say I've endured
Kuwait with a busted air conditioner. Not many can make that claim.
G
So the real question is, how can
responsible people (like me, I hope) deal with this? I don't want to
encourage us to further reaches; even if the Iraq adventure succeeds it was,
I think, the wrong thing to do; but I certainly do not wish us failure in
order to show I was right all along, or to discourage future adventures. The
Afghan adventure was needed -- although had State been given charge under
Schultz as the Soviets were pulling out, we could probably have installed
the old Royal government as a neutral, much as Austria was created by
US/Soviet cooperation when the Soviets ended their occupation there.
But given that we did not cooperate with
the Soviets in creating a neutral state in Afghanistan, and the Taliban took
over to become a haven for terrorists operating against both us and the
USSR, then our most recent Afghan adventure was needed, and I don't want
failure or success in Iraq to discourage further needed preemptive actions.
It's a puzzlement: what do people like me
do now? I try to report what I can verify or what comes from trusted
sources; and I watch; and I hope for the best.
I do agree: AQ has problems, and they are
getting worse. Recruiting people to come to the USA and kill themselves, not
betraying themselves while in transition, is difficult: witness their lack
of success in this since 911. At the same time, they are getting suicide
bombers in Iraq in numbers. This is worth thinking about although I doubt
the neo-Cons have thought much on the subject.
==========================
Subject: Outlook between Laptop
and Desktop - Buffy Willow
Jerry,
I am in the third week of a trial for keeping one
Outlook file between two, or more, machines. I use a laptop primarily, with
a desktop as a backup. I travel a lot, plus I like using Outlook. I have
read with interest your travails using Outlook and the difficulty moving
between machines. I think I may have a solution, that while not too elegant,
appears to be working.
I work for the federal government. I use a 1.2 GHz
PIII Gateway laptop with a 40 GB hard drive as my main machine. I travel a
fair amount. The agency I work for uses GroupWise as the mail client. I
discovered a long time ago that Outlook will also serve as a client with a
GroupWise server. You lose some functionality, primarily group scheduling
and notifications, but the email works great.
My desktop is an old Dell PIII. It is good enough. I
have added a Firewire/USB 2.0 card as well as a SATA card. It has a 30 GB
main drive and a 120 GB SATA internal drive.
I purchased two LaCie 120 GB D2 Firewire external
drives. I use these, along with LapLink, to mirror both my laptop, desktop,
and home machine. Once every six months or so I burn everything off of one
of the LaCie's to DVD's. Basically, between my work desktop, the two LaCie's,
and my home machine, as well as the DVDs, I have at least four copies of my
total computing experience at all times.
I use Outlook XP on the laptop, and Outlook 2000 on
the desktop. The experiment has been to move between my laptop and desktop
as I travel and return.
My solution was to place both my Outlook.pst and
Archive.pst file on one of the LaCie's, and take it with me wherever I go.
So far, rules included, I haven't had any problems. I also use the backup
utility that MS offers on their Outlook support site. So I actually have
three files that I carry around with me on the external hard drive;
Outlook.pst, FY04 Backup.pst, and Personal Folders Backup.pst.
I think that one of the shirt-pocket sized external
hard drives, USB 2.0 probably, would be perfect to slim down and really
portablize this solution. I heard you talk about how Outlook 2003 limits the
location where it expects the .pst files to be, so this solution may be
obsolete for you.
Your thoughts are appreciated, and your column is the
first thing I read each Monday. Keep up the good work.
Rod Wittler
That will certainly do it.
Two points. First, Outlook 2003 will allow
you to keep the Outlook.pst in other places than where it wants it, but it
doesn't make it easy, and I decided to just let it do things its way.
But with that file where Outlook thinks it
belongs, I have had no problems just shutting down Outlook on machine one;
restart because Outlook does things in background anyway!; copying the
Outlook.pst file to machine 2 in the place it expects to be; go on the road
with machine two and use it normally; return, shut down Outlook, restart
machine two; copy Outlook.pst to machine 1; and open Outlook. I just did
that after the last trip and it worked fine.
So I guess I have solved the problem. This
is with Outlook 2003 on both machines. I do like Outlook 2003, and if you
can upgrade you should. I believe your system will work with Outlook 2003
without problems.
===================
Subject:
Doctorow and Lessig: Two of a
kind?
Dear Jerry:
I blame Esther Dyson for starting this nonsense about
"give it away and people will pay." She and Graham Nash were touting this at
the Silicon Studio conference where Ray Bradbury stood in as Keynote Speaker
at the last moment for Michael Crieghton several years ago. And you're right
about the way they frame an argument. I've read Lessig's book "Free Culture"
and it is full of emotionalism and false analogies.
I think that this push to abolish copyright is the new
secular religion. As the Jesuits say, "Matters of Faith cannot be argued." .
I posted a short take on Lessig's book on my "The Fight For Copyright" blog
and, since he doesn't have e-mail on his web site, snail mailed him a print
out. (Feel free to link to it.)
Today I found, by Googol search, let another big
database provider who is selling my articles with out proper permission. I
called them. Seems they are getting as much as $45.00 each (!!!!) for
copies. Fine, I said, great for you, but guess what? I own those, the
copyrights are registered, and you can find those registrations online, so
how about you starting paying me the same percentage of the gross that
Lightning Source does. 45%. That would be $20.25 per copy and their market
is corporate intranets, where they buy in bulk and pay by the each.
They're thinking about it. Which they should , because
at those prices they're on the hook for a lot of money. Almost a hundred
articles in that publication and the aggregator probably provided them the
entire file.
I challenged Lessig, in my blog , to undertake some
poor freelancer's case based on the law as it is, not as he would like it to
be. Joi Ito is has also joined the "creative commons" parade with his blog.
The entire thing begins to have that same ultra left flavor that infected
the Virtual Reality community a decade ago. That reached its peak when some
ultra feminist proposed that the Cartesian model of space (X, Y, and Z
coordinates) be replaced by some softer, more feminine form in the virtual.
world. (Yeah, I'm a Liberal, in the political social justice mode, but I'm
not freaking nuts!).
I think that my best move is to just keep doing what
I'm doing; asserting my rights to be paid for the use of the intellectual
property I've created. It really takes people aback that you've found a way
to sell the stuff yourself. This they never expected. Not on that scale. And
it brings up a non-copyright legal issue; Unfair Competition, which you can
sue for other places than a Federal Court and the law in this area in
California is , well, interesting and includes attorney's fees..
Sincerely, Francis Hamit
I am not sure Doctorow wants to abolish
copyright, because despite being very assured and certain that he is
correct, he doesn't say things directly; or perhaps I am just not smart
enough to understand what he was saying.
But it did sound as if he is certain that
intellectual property rights are doomed. Also that it was easier to read
things on screen back in the old green screen Televideo smart terminal days
than now, which I find so incredible I wonder if he actually used one. He
certainly did say it. In my case I had a VDM board that did 16 x 64
characters, and it was fine but I sure would not have cared to read books on
it; in the early days Niven and I used to let the Diablo type out our books
and we would edit on paper and insert the corrections. It took us years
before we decided to edit on screen. Now it's automatic, of course.
In any event, I am sure there are great
changes coming, but I am not quite ready to abandon my digital rights to the
world without compensation, and I haven't seen precisely what his
compensation model is. It sounded a bit like a tax: you pay a fee to enjoy
the Internet, much as Brits pay a TV subscription fee, and the money is then
allocated to -- who? Norway does that, and sends money to SFWA, which may be
fine for a writers organization but it hasn't done much for me.
And see Eric Pobirs below
======================
Subject: Telemedicine and outsourcing
Dear Jerry:
The outsourcing of radiology to India is already a
reality. So you now have your choice of an Indian Radiologist here or one in
Bangalore et al. The law, as always, is dragging way beyond the technology,
so none of the off shore people are properly licensed. I'm not sure that's
really a vital issue since they're likely to be equally qualified and to
have attended the same medical schools. I have an e-book available online
called "Five Articles Concerning Recent Developments In Telemedicine",
available on Amazon, Powells, or Elibron. I think it gives a good overview
of the field, including the legal issues. Some of the articles won't seem
all that recent and some of the planned deployments never came to pass. The
Army gave up on virtual reality remote control surgery in favor of the
"Combat Lifesaver" program. Seems to have worked. The KIA to WIA ratio is
way down.
Sincerely, Francis Hamit
=================
And
on Firefly
Dr. Pournelle,
I'm surprised you have'nt seen FireFly, though with
the work you've been putting into Burning Tower I can certainly understand.
If you're curious about it, drop by the
www.fireflyfans.net or
www.starshipmodeler.com forums. The fans that hang out there and
the DVD sales of series really helped sell Joss Whedon's movie concept
despite being the series being killed early by FOX. It does seem to have a
polarizing effect on the SF community, though. Fen generally hate it or love
it with equal passion.
-Chris
I had never heard of the series. But then
I don't watch a lot of TV unless it's a show my wife likes also. I have
ordered the disk.
Regarding SP-2 RC-1
Regarding TSA
Dr. Pournelle:
A couple of items.
First is that if you are running Windows XP SP1 RC1
you will find that you may not be able to download files using IE. The
dialog box will get to 99% completion and then there is no option but to
cancel. Someone suggested I used Firefox, but I could not download Firefox
because the download would not complete. I had to use another system and
transfer across the lan to be able to download.
Regarding your problems with the TSA. I have carried a
camera many times with no problems. They do not even open the bag. Seems odd
that they target you. You’re not wearing a towel on your head by chance? But
that would be profiling so it has to be something else. Perhaps you’re a
journalist with a poison pen and that concerns them. Nope, I have read your
stuff.
But my experience with the TSA has not been pleasant.
They have rummage through my suitcases while I watch helplessly and they
move carefully packed items that were protected from breakage to the
unprotected area of the luggage. Desperate pleas to restore the position of
the item were met with stern denials. My offer to repack was of course not
considered as an option. On a recent flight some small items to be used as
gifts disappeared. The TSA stole the times. Imagine explaining to my German
friends that their gifts were stolen by petty thieves that were supposed to
be protecting us from harm. One item (a small ceramic figure) I think was
intentionally broken so they could peek inside. Attempting to file a claim
is like mud wrestling with a pig. You both get dirty but the pig likes it.
The TSA on their current course will certainly destroy
an entire industry. I have no fear of flying or of any terrorist activity
while flying. Any attempt to take over a plane will be met with severe pain
to the persons attempting such a tactic. I know that I would participate
gleefully in the breaking any joints by using forceful manipulation of the
joints at uncommon angles. What I fear is the TSA and the people that three
days ago could not sling French fries at McDonalds and are now fondling my
underwear, stealing from me, damaging equipment, and can shut down an entire
airport for no logical reason.
But we were born free.
Ray Thompson Tau Beta Pi (www.tbp.org <http://www.tbp.org/>
) The Engineering Honor Society 865-546-4578
I had no problems with downloading using
IE with SP-2 RC-1 on any machine and it was tested on at least three.
I am at this moment uninstalling RC-1 so
that I can install RC-2 and I will report on that.
Regarding TSA, they said that our tickets
were marked for the extraordinary search, and they had nothing to do with
that selection. All our luggage was hand searched, and I saw two of them
playing with my camera and remarking on it. I was offered a claim form but
that didn't seem reasonable, considering that we had to catch a plane and I
had previously been told I could not record the badge numbers of any of
those people.
========
Subject: Econ 101 in action,
Well, if the quantity is constrained (by the number of
tankers) and the demand is growing, what happens to the price?
Rod
http://www.newsletterscience.com/marex/
readmore.cgi?issue_id=50&article_id=431&l=1&s=3428
==========
Jerry,
Hi. I read your story about the TSA with dismay, and
mentioned it on my blog (http://eologism.blogspot.com). A friend with more
time than I had today beat me to the punch and called the TSA about it. His
email is attached; the deal seems to be that you are indeed well within your
rights to take down a badge number and name, and that, moreover, this is
what the badge and name are there for.
Better luck on future trips. I share your misgivings
about these encroachments on our personal freedoms.
Best regards, Christopher DeJong
I am pleased to hear it. And after I am
kept off the airplane and miss my flights and connections and they get
someone who understands that, I am sure it will be enormous compensation.
===============
Subject: For Laptop Users
Jerry,
Check out
http://www.climator.com/passivecooling.html
This is a laptop pad that contains a thing called "Glauber's
salt", which is hydrated sodium sulphate. Depending on how you prepare the
stuff, you can tailor the melting point so that it is above room
temperature, but still lower than how hot the bottom of a laptop gets. This
makes a block of "ice" that slowly melts under your laptop over a period of
several hours. Your lap stays nice and cool, fans come on less, and this is
totally passive and utterly SILENT (my pet peeve). Over a period of 30-60
minutes, the pad refreezes and you're ready to go again.
Pricey at 30 Euros, but I really like it. Also works
very well when you put the laptop on the desk, because the heat goes into
the latent heat of fusion of the pad, rather than getting hot on top of the
desk. I use a laptop at work and I find this keeps the laptop fans off for
nearly an entire workday.
BTW, they have several other clever uses for this
stuff and I expect we'll see this more, especially since oil prices may be
high for some time.
Chuck Bouldin
====
Letter from Uganda
Subject: the Brits, and their impact on Uganda
Jerry,
Sean Long wrote to you regarding the travelers and the
Brits, and I couldn’t help but make some observations of my own. As you
know, I’m presently in Kampala, Uganda, on business, and have been for the
past month. I am here several times a year, and will be moving here in the
fall for a couple years. During my trips here for the past two years, I’ve
made several observations, and it’s interesting to compare them to Sean’s
email.
Uganda was a British Colony until October 9, 1962,
when it was given independence. Nonetheless, it retains a great deal of the
British heritage, combined with much of the native Ugandan culture, which
makes an interesting mix at times. An excellent benefit of having been a
British colony is that everyone speaks English, although the differences
between British and American usage can be interesting at times especially
when you add the uniquely African flair.
As I sit in my hotel room, I note that my door will
not close and stay latched unless locked (with the key) from the inside.
Sean describes this as normal in Britain, and has been the same in nearly
every hotel room I have been in. Of course, this would NEVER pass muster in
the U.S., for fire and safety reasons. Can you imagine trying to unlock the
door with the key, as smoke, fire and panic surround you? That’s a lawsuit
just waiting to happen.
I also note that the sink in the bathroom has two
separate spigots, one for hot and one for cold, as was also mentioned. I do
note, however, that the shower combines hot and cold in one spout, but I can
assure you, its implementation is quite imperfect, alternately providing
shockingly cold or hot water that make a shower a ….uh…”bracing” experience
at the least.
Ugandan is a place where people are very polite, both
from the native culture, and the imported British standards. Unless you are
in a vehicle, everyone is very polite, but unlike Britain (I’ve spent some
time there as well), most people are also very friendly, and although I
usually have to initiate the contact, once I have spoken, smiles come out
and it is very easy to engage in a wonderful intimate conversation. I
usually have to initiate the contact for two reasons. One, I am white and
two, I have a long full beard and long hair. After making contact, most
Ugandans say they feared me until I began to speak to them, but then they
immediately begin to warm up. The effect as I walk down the street or drive
about in a vehicle is stunning. Heads turn, people stare, children stand
mesmerized, it’s quite interesting. I’ve had some children come up to me,
and want to touch my skin and my beard to see if it is real. A side note
here, lest anyone get the wrong idea, I am a conservative, voting Republican
most of the time, and had spent many, many years in the intelligence before
going into the private sector. That does not stop me from being a caring
person, despite the image the liberals have tried to paint of conservatives.
The difference is my company and the people I work with try to get folks to
begin to support themselves, instead of being locked in a dependent
relationship. It frustrates most liberals, and people who were once pushing
Globalization, have turned against it, because capitalism has begun to take
over in areas where it was introduced, and begun to remove the need for
foreign aid. If the need for foreign aid in a country is reduced, the need
for the NGO is reduced, and the need for its bureaucracy is reduced.
Americans are fairly easy to pick out in the crowd
here, because of their clothing, and either a brash or cloyingly apologetic
air. In truth, neither fits the environment here at all. People here don’t
understand persons acting this way at all, and it confuses them. When
riding, I always have a driver, and am glad of it, traffic in Kampala is
horrible, and competing for the space on a one lane road which drivers have
turned into three is a game that requires no small skill, especially when
you add the “Boda Boda” drivers, which are small motorcycle taxis whose
drivers are all bent on self destruction. It’s also a requirement to have a
big vehicle and driver in order to be taken seriously, as is wearing a full
suit and long sleeved dress shirts, despite the heat and humidity in a land
straddling the equator. Uganda is very much a class based society, having
retained much of the British influence. People here are referred to as “big
men” or “small men.” Yesterday when we were passing down a road, we had gone
by an area of furniture vendors, and I had commented that a particular style
of chair looked very comfortable. One of the men with me scoffed and said
“That is a chair of a small man, it will break down very quickly, and we
will go to a vendor of furniture befitting your status.”
Now I must tell you, this part of society here grates
on me, as it would most Americans, but I can tell you there is no getting
around it if you are going to operate in this country. If you don’t have
high status, government and business people will not deal with you, and you
will not even be able to get help, because your status reflects on anyone
working with or for you. If you are of low status, you might even be just
ignored in a store or business. Although there are many foreigners in
Kampala coming from fairly classless environments, as it is the seat of
government, I don’t see this changing soon.
As I sat at breakfast this morning, on an open veranda
at the Grand Imperial Hotel overlooking one of the main intersections in
Kampala, I was struck by comments made by Sean on British society. There was
a bit of an altercation where a man was selling newspapers on a street
corner (there are people selling newspapers all over in Kampala, in the
mornings, you can hardly go 50 meters without being offered any one of 6 or
so papers, each being sold for 700 Ugandan Shillings, or about 40 cents U.S.
Reading the paper every morning is almost a requirement for every Ugandan,
just to keep up with what is going on. In fact, if you haven’t read a
particular paper, others absolutely delight in updating you on what is in
it. For all its size, Kampala, and indeed Uganda, is like a small town.
Everyone wants to know what everyone else is doing. I have many stories that
illustrate it, but won’t bend your ear with them now. Back to the man
selling newspapers…as he was walking back and forth over the 15 or 20 meters
he had staked out, another man walked up and quite rudely began hawking
newspapers on the same corner. The first man became quite incensed, and
instead of confronting the man directly, began to gather support from
everyone around him, vendors nearby selling things on blankets, a cell phone
airtime vendor in a brightly painted booth (nearly all cell phones here
operate on the prepaid method, and you can buy airtime almost anywhere),
passersby, vendors riding by on their bicycles with a huge variety of things
for sale, vendors with brick and mortar storefronts (a different meaning
than the U.S.), and anyone else he could enlist. Soon, there was a crowd of
people offering advice and comments, and the second newspaper vendor backed
down and left in embarrassment. It’s very unlike the British concept, where
the first vendor probably would never have said a word, but have boiled
inside with sideways glances until one or the other left.
Another British import that we are “blessed” with here
is the power system. As an engineer (although now I get to do very little of
that, sigh) I am often appalled by the power systems. With the best of
intentions, the Brits built the “power taps” which Americans call electrical
outlets with “earth ground” as a requirement. Meaning you cannot plug a cord
into them that does not have the third connection for the ground. The
mixture of appliances you see here is from Britain and Europe, all 230v, but
the European appliance don’t have “earth ground,” nor are their plugs the
same, the British leads being square, and the European being round. Of
course, there are the Netherlands/Danish ones, which add a whole new
dimension to the picture. All of them are just close enough to work, if
tweaked a little bit, and it is not uncommon to see someone with a knife
stuck in a power tap, bypassing the ground to get an appliance working
<shudder>. On the other hand, every power tap has an on/off switch on it,
which makes it safer, although Americans are often baffled that their lamp
or device does not work because the outlet switch is off, until they get
used to the system.
When I move here this fall, my grandson will be coming
with us, and I will be putting him in what would be the third grade in the
U.S, although it is defined differently here. He will be in an international
school, but will be following an English school curriculum, for the most
part. They do make concessions for the American students, and indeed, the
students take placement tests such as the Iowa Basics to ensure they meet
the standards of the U.S. schools. This education is somewhat expensive
though, I’ll have to pay around 10K a year for him to attend the school of
our choice. There are six international schools that I know of in Kampala.
I see I have rambled quite a lot, life in Uganda is
intriguing, and I’d be happy to give you updates if you are interested. I
have, of course, many pictures, also thank to the wonders of digital
photography, and I have traveled throughout Uganda extensively. I’m sitting
at my laptop now looking out over beautiful, lush, green tropics, in a
fairly quiet portion of Kampala. The long rainy season is about over, the
sky is beautiful, and Africa is out in all it’s glory. The people of Uganda
are some of the friendliest people on earth, and for the rest of my life, I
will never forget this place.
Tracy Walters
Thanks. Good picture.
===============
Linux and Windows
The issue with failure of Windows to boot following a
Linux install is receiving some publicity:
<
http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=04/05/26/1441241 > "... there
are reports that installing FC2 in a dual-boot configuration with Windows
2000 or XP might cause the Windows side of the machine to fail... (It is
hard to resist the temptation to ask whether this is really a bug or just a
security feature, and why anyone would want to run Windows anyway.)"
There are three main things to be kept in mind here: —
The problems are not just with Fedora 2 but any installer (XP or kernel
v2.6) which modifies the MBR — XP, like earlier versions of Windows, can
fail if startup files are more than 1024 cylinders away from the start
sector — A given BIOS will present different geometries depending on the MBR
already present.
Some discussion follows. _____
[1] The problems are not just with XP or Fedora 2:
<
http://mlf.linux.rulez.org/mlf/ezaz/ntfsresize.html >
"May 17, 2004 WARNING! Be careful when partitioning on
Linux 2.6 kernels! ... Reports are from users of Mandrake 10, SUSE 9.1 and
Fedora 2." ______
[2] XP, like earlier versions of Windows, can fail if
startup files are more than 1024 cylinders away from the start sector:
<
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;282191 > "UseBIOSToBoot
Entry in Unattend.txt Is Enabled Regardless of the Set Value"
"...the computer could become unbootable if the boot
files and kernel are ever located outside of the 1024 cylinder limit [8GB]
of data that is accessible by way of INT 13. This can happen unexpectedly
through the use of disk defragmenters or by the application of hotfixes and
service packs."
This deserves to be better known. To summarize,
"unattended" installations often introduce this problem. Saying "UseBIOSToBoot=0"
does not eliminate it - it confirms it. If "UseBIOSToBoot" is found AT ALL
in an Unattend.txt file, the Windows installer will turn on BIOS-based
geometry!
Perhaps such behaviour would count as a bug.
Unattended installs are very common on OEM Windows. Microsoft, though, is
clearly aware of the issue, so perhaps MS would call it a feature:
"You may create a "master" answer file that contains
all of the entries that are available in an Unattend.txt file, and set the
values of the unwanted options to Option=0 or Option=No; however, this
method may produce unexpected results."
[3] There is hysteresis in how a BIOS sees disk
geometry:
<
http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0311.3/1142.html >
In theory, the BIOS does not need to look in the
partition tables. However, in practice it does this :( ... if you partition
a disk with LBA turned off in the BIOS ... [then] turn LBA on, in many cases
BIOS will still show 16 heads... However, after cleaning the MBR the same
BIOS with the same settings will report 255 heads... Who knows what such
BIOS will do if it will find something other than a DOS partition table in
the first sector...
- So, contrary to received dogma among many IT
specialists, many i386 BIOS implementations do examine the Master Boot
Record when deciding how to present disk geometry to a boot program.
This means changing an MBR is not safe for Operating
Systems (like Windows, even XP) which can rely on the BIOS for disk
geometry, particularly when the MBR change assumes Linear Base Addressing (LBA).
-- Terry Cole admin@maths.otago.ac.nz System
Administrator Dept. of Maths and Stats, Otago University PO. Box 56, Dunedin
tel:64-3-4797739 NEW ZEALAND fax:64-3-4798427
But see below
========
On malpractice suits etc. (Reply
to view)
It is a never-ending source of amazement to me that
Americans tolerate a legal system that lowers their standard of living and
makes them an international laughing stock. Why? It's really easy to fix:
award costs when suits fail, limit or abolish class-action (what a scam),
stop open soliciting (Mike the HAMMER Shapiro!) etc. It's not as if there is
even any rational basis for disagreement about this. Nobody else in the
world has this problem.
-- Gavan
Well, you see the legislature is full of
lawyers, and the Democratic Party is beholden to the trial lawyers and their
money, so ...
And see John McCarthy's
comments below
And Greg Cochran on
the latest in Iraq:
Locals are now blowing up both the northern and
southern oil export pipelines; right now exports are down to ~40$ of prewar
levels, and I see no reason to think that it won't be shut down entirely
soon, now that the Shiites are in play as well as the Sunnis.
Certain pinheads said that Iraq woud be self-financing
- that oil would easily pay for reconstruction. Not true, reconstruction
costs are big - but it was true that oil exports ( which make up 95% of
Iraqi exports) paid for for everyday costs of the Iraqi system. Probably the
biggest such cost is subsidized food - over half of all the food in Iraq is
imported. I don't have hard numbers yet that has to cost something like 20
billion a year.
If oil revenues don't pay the food bills -we're going
to, at least if current policy continues. It's either that or try to achieve
our silly political goals while watching half the population starve to
death.
So, as oil exports go down. occupation costs go up
just that much. If I'm thinking straight here. And of course our oil import
bill stays high as well.
I have not heard any columnists talk about this, but
then it does involve numbers.
Gregory Cochran
Someone please cheer me up.
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