| Thursday,
December 4, 2008 Well we lost some ground yesterday. Not only
didn't I get any real writing done, but the plumbers tell us that it's going
to cost us about 3 grand to fix our sewer system: the toilets backed up.
Probably roots. And we don't seem to have a main inspection-cleanout port,
which is astonishing. Actually the astonishing thing is that we've got along
for 40 years in this house without needing one. But of course putting one in
isn't going to be cheap. There went Christmas... Of
course we have no choice in the matter. Ah well.
Roberta tells me I must stop complaining and say something cheerful. I'll
think on that. At the moment I have been trying to find some icon to change
to for one of my command prompts to open in a particular place, and
discovering that VISTA doesn't seem to have any standard set of icons the
way Windows did for a decade and more. That is the "Change Icon" button
doesn't lead you to anything, and search on icons gets no results.
Apparently Microsoft decided not to bother. Or maybe I just have very old
memories, and none of this was in XP either. But I can remember that
Microsoft Windows used to offer a set of standard icons you could use to
identify different command prompt windows, so that it was easier to see
which window you were selecting (I used one that showed a wad of money to
open my accounting program, which is an old DOS program I wrote donkey's
years ago but still use because it's easier than changing accounting
systems). Buy not I can't even get Vista to tell me where it stores the icon
images. I guess Microsoft just doesn't much care any more.
Googling Vista Icons gets me a lot of paid positioning sites all of which
offer me downloads only they don't; after a while you realize that they
aren't going to actually do anything but let you see advertisements, and I
presume that each time you try to download something you are given them
another hit to report to Google. Nice work if you can get it, but it's pure
deception. Or perhaps I have finally lost my reasoning ability because I
sure haven't got anywhere. One place seems to take me in a big circle, a
couple stages of which are offers to sell me things. Again I suspect it
generates Google clicks, but it does me no good. I am beginning to think I
have lost touch with the wonderful world of Vista. For that matter I don't
seem to know much about XP. The problem is that I had those things set up
properly at one time, and in changing over from Domain to Workgroup all my
user settings got lost, and Microsoft's defaults are so horrible I can't get
anything done.
Ah. Here is it. My Computer Tools Folder Options in XP. In Vista it's go
to help and search for folder options and then click on it. Hmm. It does
tell me that it resides in Control Panel. Actually the logical place for it.
Good old Microsoft. But Change Icons doesn't have any help. Oh well, I can
just rename the command window that has had its properties changed to open
in a different place. That will work. Pity I can't change the icon, but I
haven't time to keep looking for where Vista stores optional icons, if
indeed it does that at all. I suppose I am merely remembering another time.
============
As to cheering up and being cheerful, we cheered up. Things could be
worse. So they got worse, and it's going to cost about five time what we
thought it would. Now I really need a new best seller. That's a cheering
thought. Assuming I can still do it. I think it's time to get to work...
==============
“we don't seem to have a main inspection-cleanout
port, which is astonishing”
Dr. Pournelle:
The same thing happened to me about 25 years ago.
The “rooter” crew was able to get a smaller “spear point” tool through the
clog using an access port on the top of the main trap. This fixed the
problem temporarily. The next time it clogged (about two years later) I
did a little exploring, and found that I did in fact have a main cleanout
port, but it had been covered in mud in the “sewer pit”. A little work
with a garden trowel exposed the port. This time the rooter crew was able
to put a 4” saw through the main line, which kept it clear for a longer
period. Eventually the tree that was the culprit died, and since then I
haven’t had root problems.
I hope you find a lower cost solution—you might want
to get a second opinion.
Best regards—
Doug Ely
Yeah. They went in with the camera and found the pipe is cracked. Just
cleaning it out won't work. There's a nest of roots. They'll have to dig
down and take out the cracked section and replace that. We now have a
cleanout port installed this morning. Looking at the pictures from the
inspection camera it's astonishing that it worked this long. Sigh. It's
going to be expensive. Merry Christmas...
================
While I am being cheerful, I got my first subscription cancellation last
night. It wasn't a long standing subscription. The charge was that this has
become a place of right wing ranting and nothing else, but there wasn't a
specification so I don't know what ranting I have done.
=====================
On Mumbai
Hi Jerry,
I was watching the live web feed from Mumbai during
the early part of the action. One of the reports I saw fairly early on,
and not repeated again was that a small group of the terrorists had set up
outside of the hospital that was designated as the site of the command
post for anti terrorism during an attack, and they waited until after the
first attacks, then killed the head guys as they arrived to set up the
command post.
Also, the weapons were not AK's, but were actually
H&K MP5's <http://www.anatreptic.com/2008/12/no_third_world_guns.html>
which almost had to have come from Pakistan's ISI.
Ian Vaughan
I am also informed that the Enfield rifles carried by the largely
untrained police were
=========================
I love your book "A Step Farther Out"
I've read it 3 or 4 times since I found it in a used
book store some time ago. I wish more people would be optimistic about the
future, and care about "getting out there." Instead just about everybody
spends their time worrying about "green house gases" etc.
Thanks for keeping the dream alive.
Question: Why isn't NASA applying NERVA-type engines
in its new moon program? It seems to me that they're basically just
reinventing the Apollo program. Don't we need something better than
chemical rockets to make spaceflight practical?
Thanks,
Vernon
Texas
Thank you. When I wrote that book the Club of Rome was predicting a huge
planetary die off by 2010, and most of the universities were teaching doom
and gloom. My lecture Survival With Style was popular but often shouted down
-- not by students but by faculty!
I do not believe NASA will be terribly relevant to getting to space. Yes:
we need something like NERVA if we are going to be a spacefaring nation,
although we don't need it just to go to the Moon; but if we are to do much
in the way of interplanetary travel, we do need something better than
chemicals. NERVA is a good candidate.
The NERVA program was successful, but cancelled as not needed. As to
reinventing Apollo, would that we were that good. Still, my son's outfit
XCOR sold a ticket to space yesterday, with some fanfare.
http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2008/12/
xcor-suborbital-tickets-on-sale-now.html
=========================
This is daybook stuff. It will be in the column
Icons
Changing the icon of a shortcut works the same in
Vista as in XP. Right-click the shortcut Select Properties Click "Change
Icon"
Which brings up a the familiar default list of
icons...
By default, in a virgin copy of Vista the file that
contains the icons is: %SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll
You can, of course, change it to anything else you
want (if you want to extract an icon out of an executable file, for
example).
Perhaps you changed it at some time and forgot about
having done so...
-Ted Longman
Well, I knew about the right click change icons; but the only icon it
showed me to change to was the cmd icon because it was \system32\cmd.exe and
I had no idea to look in SHELL32.dll. It lets you browse, and browsing
to Shell32.dll works to show a bunch of choices. On the other hand HELP
doesn't know anything about a shell32.dll nor does the Missing Manual book
nor any of the other books I have. Oh well. I suppose most people are
just supposed to know that it's shell32.dll. It's so intuitive.
==
There are, it seems, more in /system32/imageres.dll and of course
that's intuitive to nearly anyone on the planet. Except me.
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