| Friday,
May 12, 2000 OK, Galahad thinks it controls a domain called
Chaosmanor, it thinks the other machines are part of it, but nothing
works. Windows 2000 workstations still demand passwords but there is no
way to supply a password, I can't print except from one workstation, and
to print anything I have to suck it up into this one, which makes paying
the bills a bit difficult although I suppose not impossible. The Windows
2000 Server doesn't actually seem to be relevant to anything, and
resetting machines doesn't change that.
When I had a simple peer to peer network I could accomplish a lot more.
The first lesson here is that if you go over to "real servers"
you are insane to have only one. You need a Backup Domain Server, and that
has to be set up quickly, essentially as soon as you have a Primary Domain
Server, because otherwise your simple peer to peer net will vanish.
Second, Windows 2000 Server is not only complicated, but
"upgrading" to it doesn't solve your problems. I think that not
only must each member of this network be restarted, but each one has to be
done in as a member of the old domain, changed to something else, then
brought back in. I suspect that would have to happen even if a new
computer became the PDS for NT 4; the login process looks for a particular
Network Interface Card, each one of which has a separate ID, and --
AHA!! Well, I am in business now. By changing my Windows 98
machines over to being in the WORKGROUP rather than logging in to a
domain, they can now all see the printers, and the Windows 2000
workstations. They also see the new Windows 2000 Server; my guess is
that if I put the printer drivers there instead of on a Windows 2000
workstation where they temporarily reside I could print through the new
2000 Server. At least that seems to be the situation just now. So
the key is not merely to restart the systems that are on the domain, but
to take the off it. Now to see what happens if I put one back on the
domain and out of the workgroup...
Meanwhile the Internet acts as if it were full of molasses, and
periodically I cannot reach any mail servers. I suspect this is Earthlink
being jammed up. But at least my internals are no longer a complete mess.
I can get at everything. In fact the only machine NOW crippled is poor
little Princess, which is the primary Windows 2000 workstation, and which
hasn't been taken off the network, restarted, put back on, and restarted.
That's next I guess. Perhaps I'll just put Princess on as a member of a
workgroup and forget about this domain business until next week when I
have some time.
Good thing I tested this idea with Fergie, another Windows 2000
Professional workstation: taking Fergie off Chaos Manor allowed that
machine to access anything it had once found: double-clicking on various
mapped drives got to those drives including many on machines that
previously demanded log-on passwords: BUT! Whereas the Windows 98 machines
see the CHAOSMANOR network as well as the workgroup in Network
Neighborhoods, Fergie in Entire Network ONLY sees the JERRYONE workgroup,
and attempting to put Fergie back on the CHAOSMANOR domain gets first a
demand that I give it a name and password of someone qualified to add
members to the domain, then when that is supplied, a message that the
domain cannot be found. Curiouser and curiouser. But all the previous
connections and mappings now work. This has become insane, and NETWORK
ADMINISTRATORS SHOULD BEWARE, workstations that have been removed from a
network and in theory can no longer be part of that net MAY STILL HAVE
FILE ACCESS privileges if they had it before they were removed from the
Net! I don't know if this is a major security hole or not, but it sure
works for me.
I can't add Fergie to the Domain either by push or by pull, but it sure
can get to other computers, and couldn't before. This is all VERY
mysterious.
And I really do have to get a life.
Now to pay bills and get ready for a real life.
First, though SEE MAIL for a
possible security hole in Linux. Sigh. At least the net congestion
seems to have cleared up.
And finally, for amusement only:
Dr,
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d106:HR03548:@@@L&;summ2=m&;
alternatively, you can point your browser to:
http://thomas.loc.gov
and type, "HR 3548" in the box marked, 'by bill
number'.
Even if today's been unusually horrific, I suspect
you'll find this amusing.
Rod McFadden
Centreville,VA
Thanks! I needed that.
And regarding the new anti-discrimination laws, I
got this from someone who doesn't want to be named, but then haven't we
all had this experience?
I have been on more than one narrow-body commercial
flight where there was a person seated in an over-wing exit row who
appeared to my eye to be far too large to fit through the exit next to
them. Anyone who needed to get out of that exit in an emergency would find
it firmly plugged with (possibly roasting, by then) human flesh.
I have asked flight attendants about the matter and
all have said that they know it is a problem but that they "can't
discriminate".
One wonders who to sue for wrongful death if a
relative is killed because the exit was blocked by someone who couldn't
get through it? Ah well.
Regarding Battlefield
Earth, I have not yet seen a good review of it as a film. My own view is
that it may be a good picture for teenagers; I don't understand teenage
tastes in films. Books, yes, but most teenagers don't read books; my girl
and boys all did, and it has been a generation since they were teen aged
anyway. But I doubt that many of my readers will much like this movie.
One thing it is not is a tract for Scientology,
and I am a bit disturbed that anyone would seriously suggest that it is.
It's no more that than was Independence Day, and indeed it's a good bit
like Independence Day in intent if not in sophistication. Independence Day
made little more scientific sense than this picture. Both employed the
modern convention that you can outrun explosions (as did Mission
Impossible and a dozen other pictures I have seen recently). Neither had
any scientific stuffing: that is, when Niven and I, or either of us, write
a science fiction story, we have worked out in some detail the underlying
science. What is possible, what is not, in that universe. In Mote we had a
form of faster than light travel, and a defensive shield which are well
beyond modern technology, and the FTL Drive is outside what's known of
science (but didn't contradict anything known at least at the time we
wrote it). We had pocket computers with wireless linkages, which was
considered far out when we wrote Mote. Hubbard was not that kind of
science fiction writer (if you doubt that see his 240,000 Miles Straight
Up!), and when he wrote Battlefield Earth he wasn't even trying to be that
kind of writer. Battlefield Earth was a romp, space opera, entertainment,
and apparently there were many who liked it a lot. I never read it; not
quite my cup of tea at its length.
But it was a story of pure virtue and pure evil,
no complexities in the good guys and not much in the bad guys; certainly
that was the way the film worked, and I'm sure the book was that way as
well. Hubbard was capable of some character development and complexities,
as in for instance TO THE STARS, a book that doesn't read all that well
now, but which I thought at age 13 or so was the best novel I had ever
read. This wasn't that kind of book. But the moral virtues in Battlefield
Earth -- courage, loyalty, willingness to sacrifice oneself for comrades
and a good cause -- are hardly unique to that book, nor to Scientology:
Jews, Christians, Muslims, and what Dante called 'virtuous pagans' would
have no trouble with the moral principles expressed in the film.
Why the villains talk like Ferengi isn't clear to
me, but anti-capitalism is politically correct these days. But then
bashing the bourgeoisie -- epater les bourgeoisie! -- has been the
mark of intellectuals since long before Stendahl and Flaubert, and can be
said to be a defining characteristic of intellectuals Left and Right to
this moment. Few intellectuals are encouraged by the greed for money
whether or not they think of it as the root of all evil; few thoughtful
people believe a great nation can be built on the bottom line alone.
(Property rights are a necessary part of a free non-religious society, and
property rights tend toward economic freedom which generally leads to
capitalism, which is the most efficient system for allocating investment
resources to maximize economic goods production we know; but maximum
economic goods alone does not necessarily make for The Good Society. It's
sure a lot easier to divide up a big pie and be fair to all than to divide
up a little one, though...)
Anyway, there were places in the film where I was
certain that Travolta was simply having a good time, as every stage actor
I know longs sometimes to say "Aha, me proud beauty!" and tie
the heroine to the railroad track. Travolta got to do the equivalent in
this film, and I am sure he was having the time of his life. The Director
should have curbed Travolta's self indulgence to over-acting, but did not.
He also shot the film at crazy angles, and the editing could have been
done a lot better.
I feel a bit like AJ Budrys did trying to review
Battlefield Earth as a book: there's a story in there, and it's a pretty
straightforward one. How well it's presented is another matter.
The science is, well, non-existent. There are
inconsistencies even within the film's universe. I doubt that the Denver
Library would have all those books lying about in heaps after all those
years even if the roof didn't leak; has no one heard of bookworms and
silverfish? A planet blew up with shock waves that had to propagate at
about Mach 50, which I do believe is impossible. Those are but two of
hundreds of such details I could cite. If you want to enjoy this picture,
suspend disbelief. Suspend it a LOT.
The villains' arrogance was their downfall, but
one wonders why they hadn't been defeated the first time they tried
conquest anywhere: they were really really incompetent as bad guys. People
who are that bad at the bad guy business had ought to join a monastery as
a pure act of self-preservation.
I know a number of teenagers in the audience at
the Chinese Theater loved it. Most were relatives of the cast, I suppose
-- they were seated in the areas reserved for Warner invitees, not where I
was. I don't think many of my readers will care for this film at all.
Travolta will survive the bad reviews, and
perhaps he has got some of this out of his system and will be a better
actor for it. I doubt that Scientology has the clout to make this a major
picture even if they try out of loyalty to Hubbard (one suspects they
will) so this may be a test of that capability. If they can make this a
big box office success, or even equal the success of Battlestar Galactica,
I will be quite astonished. I doubt that without such support it will last
long, but again I don't have any great estimate of what draws teenagers: I
don't know what makes rock concerts a success either.
Finally as to my connection to Scientology, just
for the (quite well known and public) record I, Niven, Charles Sheffield,
Fred Pohl, Jack Williamson, Tim Powers, Orson Scott Card, Algis Budrys,
Doug Beeson, Yoji Kondo, and a good half dozen more well known science
fiction writers am a judge in their Writers of the Future contest. I have
had my way paid to a couple of their annual awards presentations (I
wouldn't have gone had I had to pay my own way, and I didn't particularly
want to go anyway: on one occasion I had to get from Flagstaff where I was
at a board meeting of the Lowell Observatory to New York City in about 7
hours, a feat of travel logistics that astounds me: whatever else the
Writers of the Future have they have good travel agency connections). I
get a few free dinners, and I got free parking for the opening of
Battlefield Earth. The contest is fair and a good one for new writers;
they also hold classes for beginning writers, taught by Powers and Card
and Budrys among others, and I am told it is an exciting experience: I
believe that. It is a matter of public record that Tim Powers is a Roman
Catholic and Orson Scott Card a member of the Latter Day Saints. Doug
Beeson is I believe Anglican. Winners of the contest seem to include the
spectrum from Wicca through Catholic to born-again to atheist, and if any
have been Scientologists it certainly played no part in the contest: we
get the stories doublespaced in manuscript with story title and no author
names.
Mr. Heinlein used to say that the way for me to
pay him back for his help to me was to pay it forward. Apparently Hubbard
had the same notions which is why the contest was founded. It is run by
Author Services which is the agency representing Hubbard's estate. I
presume the Church of Scientology owns the estate itself, but I don't
know. I don't know who runs the Church of Scientology and I don't care. I
know the people who run Author Services and I like them. Some are
presumably members of the Church of Scientology. At least one is not. None
of the judges are.
So much for that.
If I am kinder to Battlefield Earth than many
reviewers, it's largely because I had a good time at the film before and
after, and I don't see any point in piling on. The movie wasn't my cup of
tea, and I doubt many of those who like my stories will care for it, but
stranger things have happened.
And installing NetBEUI
solved the mysterious "I can connect to it but I can't see
it" problem. I put NetBEUI on Fergie and she can see all. I'll
regularize next week, but we do seem to have connectivity.
Is the Internet dying? Apparently I am not the
only one with problems the last few days.
On the theory that I do these silly things so you
don't have to, and that it will drag in some new
subscriptions just to see me look silly, I have decided to do the
following.
First, tonight, I'll use Windows 2000 Server to create an entirely new
domain called Chaos2000, and see just what I can do with that. Can I
create accounts? Can the other machines log on to it? How hard is it to
get it working?
Next week, if that hasn't been so wildly successful that I am happy
with Windows 2000 Server (and wouldn't THAT be loverly?), I'll scrub
Galahad (The W 2000 Server) down and install NT 4. Doing that with an
Intel CA810E board turns out not to be as easy as you think, and I am
reserving THAT particular story for the column. Once I get NT 4 running I
can create yet another New Domain, Utterchaos, and see what happens when I
take machines off the other one and put them on that. Now that I know that
with NetBEUI and a workgroup I can in fact survive a long time in this mad
NT/2000 universe, I'm willing to experiment.
Anyway that's all coming up. Doesn't that make you want to subscribe?
They tell me there's been a bad router and a DDOS attack on slashdot,
and this may have something to do with the Net behavior I have noticed. So
I wasn't dreaming... It seems crisp enough now.
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