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THE VIEW FROM CHAOS MANOR

View 229 October 28 - November 3, 2002

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Monday  October 28, 2002

Friday it rained, sort of, in Los Angeles. Saturday we were supposed to go out to Edwards AFB for the Air Show including Chuck Yeager's last supersonic flight. Instead, we ended up in Fontana, driving out in Friday afternoon freeway traffic, and coming home through rain and more evening traffic. It was all worth it:

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Meet Sable, the world's cutest Siberian Husky puppy. She is 7 weeks old, and has been living with her brothers and sisters, some other dogs, and a family that gets into the pen with the puppies and lets them crawl all over. She likes people. Friday was a little hectic getting her to sleep, and Roberta wasn't about to leave her alone Saturday, so we missed General Yaeger.

Roberta wasn't too sure about getting another dog, then she decided it was time, and once that decision was made, it was time Right Now, which is why Wednesday through Friday were spent in phone calls and on the web, and Friday afternoon and evening in traffic. As an aside, my sincere sympathies to people who have to do that every day. I had forgotten. It's astonishing that the entire civilization doesn't collapse.

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Anyway, that's why we missed the Air Show, and I didn't get much done this weekend. Now we need to send in her AKC papers, and get her acquainted with the veterinarian although at the moment she doesn't need anything, she has her shots and she's fully weaned.

These photos are too big but I don't have time to recompress just now. I also clearly don't know how to crop pictures and get this darned thing to save the cropped image. Later. 

So now it's back to business more or less as usual at Chaos Manor...

Mail, and some observations later.

 

 

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Tuesday, October 29, 2002

I seem to be falling behind. Thanks to everyone who wrote about Sable. Today was our first walk:

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which went amazingly well, about a mile, with some carrying. Previous dogs took a couple of days to adjust to a leash. Sable decided this was fun and after about one minute of whimpering forgot the thing was there. She follows or leads depending on what's interesting and who's ahead, and she gets picked up when there is any sign of another dog; until she has all her shots we don't want her around other dogs. But after a mile walk, she still had plenty of energy:

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But that didn't last, and she's asleep in her doggy carrier bed. I won't bore you with too many baby pictures...

iDSL continues to work, although there are unexpected and sudden interruptions. Yesterday there were several. Calling the Maegapath hot line produced no information at all. But in fact it came back on in ten or fifteen minutes. Sometimes it shuts down for a couple of hours at night, again no warning. But it's less flaky than the satellite.


I owe you an essay on what's going on, but it's tricky. I already had my say about the politically correct profilers -- profiling is not even a black art, it's more akin to a con game to get public funds and lots of media attention. At least Peter Hurkos, my late neighbor who claimed to be a psychic but was found at times doing what appeared to be investigative work, only claimed to be  psychic -- and due to his investigations he was right a lot more often than the "professional" profilers who take public money and lots of TV air time to blather and distract.

The evidence that the anthrax attacks were the work of a lone white disgruntled US scientist is precisely as good as the "evidence" that the DC sniper was a lone white nerdy guy looking for attention, and probably about as accurate. The obvious hypothesis is that the anthrax attacks were part of the al queda plot, another string to their bow. They disrupted things, added to chaos, cost us a lot of money, and left us worried about them; precisely what was wanted. But that's the obvious answer: not as dramatic as an FBI Con Man Profiler straining like a gear box to come up with a "profile" based on nothing and contrary to the more obvious evidence like the visits of the 911 gang to a dermatologist and the location of the first target of their attacks. It wouldn't be politically correct to assume this was the work of avowed enemies of the US. Much better to keep us all stirred up seeking witches among the scientists. Why not?  The purpose of government is to collect resources to pay people to work for the government, and profilers have to live too.  And they dare not anger any large and organized pressure group, so....

I see that Winona Ryder's defense is that she was practicing for a part on instructions from a director. The odd thing is that I believe it, particularly since it was done at Sax, where she had every right to believe that when she was done she could go to the management, pay for what she wanted and return what she didn't, and all would be well. It would have worked at Nieman's, or some other place more used to Beverly Hills. Sax apparently got its instructions from New York, which is stupid on the face of it. You can't run a Beverly Hills store from New York City.  I know that Sax has managed to alienate a lot of their cust0mers with this prosecution. You don't DO that in Hollywood...  But it has been good for Nieman Marcus in a slump time...

I have mail referring to the Moscow incident as "Russia's Waco." I don't see it that way. Koresh gave no deadlines and wasn't going to start shooting hostages. He hadn't rigged bombs all over. There was no extreme time pressure other than Janet Reno and her boss were beginning to look bad as it dragged on, and the elite wonderful hostage rescue team was "getting tired" but wasn't willing to let the Texas Rangers take over. Waco was imperial murder; there were no real exigent circumstances excusing those horrible people. Putin was under extreme time pressure.

As to what the gas was, it looks like weaponized Valium: an opium based narcotic. It killed 100 or more of the hostages, but the bombs didn't go off. I am more inclined to sympathy for the Russian authorities than I am for the Butchers of Waco.

And we move inexorably toward war. I must confess that when I see who is against the war it moves me to be for it, just to avoid that kind of company: if people I mostly respect tell me that they find it necessary, and people whose judgment I have little use for on all other issues say we must not do this, I have to rethink my situation.

My opposition to the war is largely based on the commitments of a republic: I don't think we ought to be mucking about in other people's affairs, and I don't think the US taxpayers are responsible for European security except in so far as it affects our own. I still believe that proper investments in our own resources and security would be far better than a foreign adventure in Mesopotamia, and in part that's based on the results when the French and British decided to muck about over there. We aren't better at those games than they are -- unless we go all out, occupation and proconsuls and compete rebuilding of the country, and I don't think we have the patience, nor do I think Iraq a good place for us to try that; if we want to rebuild a Muslim country, God help us, Bosnia would be a better bet to experiment with. Or if we want to occupy and rebuild a mixed and divided land, Lebanon looks a lot easier.  But our success in Haiti doesn't argue well for what our results would be.

But if the alternative to the war is to continue to muck about overseas, to expose ourselves to danger and provoke others to anger while we accomplish nothing, we might as well take over the Iraqi oil fields. That should discourage other Arab governments from harboring terrorists.

In and out fast; or a long term occupation providing first good government (C0lonial style) then, maybe, one day "when they are ready for it" some democracy: are those the choices?  Colonialism with a different name.  Well, there are worse fates for a people than to be colonized by the United States; and I suppose there are worse careers for Americans and governing Iraq (I think I might rather have those of imperial temperament who want to be in government over there than over here...)

And I see I am rambling without a point, which usually means I need to rethink my positions.

And Joe Zeff has a warning about e-cards. See mail.

 

 

 

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Wednesday, October 30, 2002

The Israeli government is coming apart over the issue of what my friend Run Unz calls "the crazy settlers." It is certainly the issue that will split any government of national unity there; it is also the issue on which any real peace settlement in Israel will founder.

The settlements make it impossible to let the Palestinians have their own country. Without them Israel could build physical barriers separating the two peoples. The Palestinian state might be three chunks, possibly four depending on what some of the Arab communities now part of the original 1948 Israel might elect to do, but it would at least be definable. The settlements permeate Judea, Samaria, and Gaza like holes in Swiss cheese, and it is simply impossible to provide even the illusion of security to the settlements without measures that are entirely disruptive to the normal life of the Palestinians. 

There are those who say it would be kinder to expel the entire Arab population than to continue things as they are: for an Arab in any part of the West Bank and for most of Gaza there is no rule of law, no rights whatever even for elected officials and especially not for police; no house is safe from the bulldozer, no school playground safe from a missile launched at a suspected terrorist, no grocery shopper safe from the sudden imposition of a curfew declared without warning and enforced by any armed Israeli including armed settlers. I wish I were making all that up, but it's a simple statement of fact.

Now yes: I understand; these are necessary measures if Israel is to have any tranquility within Israel itself. They are also measures which drive more and more people to the kind of despair that leads to suicide bombings against other innocent people. The image of the two school girls, one the bomber and the other the victim, should be haunting enough. 

The only remedy to suicide bombings is physical separation -- and the settlements make that impossible, and protecting the settlements requires periodic road closures, army patrols in civilian areas, cleared fields and the seizure of land, bulldozers and snipers, and the abrogation of even a pretense at rule of law.

And having said all that, I have only a profound sense of relief that I don't have to make decisions for Israel. I can wish my friends, Jewish and Christian, who live in what we still call the Holy Land a better life than they are likely to have. The dilemma is stark: no elected government of Israel can remove the settlers by force and build the wall that everyone knows must be part of any permanent solution. Or put the other way, no government capable of imposing peace in that area can be democratically elected by the people who live there. There is no consent of the governed.

 In 1970 the Mayor of Gaza could seriously propose a single nation, a confederation of Israel and Palestine on the Swiss model, that might include Jordan and parts of Lebanon and Syria. He was quite serious. Today it sounds like a bad joke.

My friend John McCarthy is one of the ten smartest men I have ever known. His view that that time may settle the situation, and nothing else will: the only thing for Israel to do in the Middle East is to hang on and wait for better times. It's not an attractive notion for either side: but I have no better advice.


Libertarians and those interested in libertarian views will probably want to read J. Neil Schulman's essay, which I have included as a Report.

 

 

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Thursday, October 31, 2002

All Hallow's Eve

 

Resistance is Futile


The following has NOTHING to do with the picture above, which is intended to be humor. What comes next is a deadly serious Halloween story.

It took me a while to find the actual stories; the best way is to go the "read the Press" link on http://www.youmaybenext.com/news.html ; but once there it was horrifying enough.

If there were justice in this country, something horrible, physical, and public would happen to lawyers who play games like this; while Patent Office officials who stupidly issue patents on common activities ought to be paraded in dunce caps to an auto-de-fe. They need not be burned alive, but all the other humiliations are in order.

One good thing about an Empire: an emperor could rid us of legal barnacles. The Emperor Claudius, for example, is said to have thrown out over a thousand laws and regulations that harried the people of Rome and nearly destroyed foreign commerce through barratry in the law courts. He also exiled forty lawyers whose sole purpose seemed to him to be obstructionism for their own personal gains...


I may have to go back to the satellite and dialup connectivity. Covad seems unable to keep my communications going with any degree of reliability. Yesterday the system connections died at least five times, no warning, and for the first hour or so not even a message on their network announcements hot line. Later there was a message, which said, the system is having problems, and we don't know when it will be back.

A few minutes ago the same thing this morning. No warning. Just it's gone. No connection.

I will certainly need a way to fail over to dialup; I may need to go back to dialup for routine activities and the satellite for big files. I do not recommend Megapath and their service provider Covad for anyone who needs reliable connections.

Ten minutes and counting, from failure without warning. We'll see how long this time. At least their hot line says the problems are Covad, and Los Angeles. What it does not say is when it will be fixed. "We're aware of the problem. We have no clues about when it will be fixed."

I wish Pac Bell offered iDSL, or DSL... Interestingly, the modem lights show I have a good connection to a high speed line. Apparently the problem is in the server. Tracert shows that I do get out into the wide world, but then  everything times out.  Sigh.

And the satellite system (Mercury) turned out to have needed massive software updates, so that it is taking a while. Of course not all that long ago I wasn't on line at all, then I was only periodically with dialup; now it's a flap if I lose connectivity for half an hour...

Anyway, this is by satellite. But I'll try the Megapath iDSL again shortly. One problem is that there's no convenient way to know when it's up, since the lights don't change...

And man! do I get tired of waiting for page requests by satellite. Impatience is one by-product of good Internet connectivity...

Add to the unreliability of the Megapath system egregious unreliability of the Earth and Beyond game network, and rather shaky software. You can find yourself disconnected due to Megapath or due to E&B, without warning and with considerable waste of time (Yeah, I know, talking about wasting time when trying to play on-line games is a bit odd...) The result is unpleasant.  When E&B is working it can be frustrating, but a lot of fun if you stick with it; but being repeatedly unable to connect, or dropped in the middle of a fight, is infuriating.

I think their servers are overloaded. I suppose they are happy to be successful, but too much success after collecting money for memberships may work for cheap health clubs, but it's not the right thing for an on line game company to do. It has taken me ten minutes of staring at the "transfer" screen only to be dropped to the log-in again: and that three times. This isn't acceptable if it keeps up. I expect they'll fix it; growing pains and all that.

On the other hand, the Halloween specials -- goofy costumes, and Great Pumpkins as advertising stunts for a weapons systems company -- are neat, and may have added to the overload.  I have to say, it's been fun. And now I HAVE TO WORK...

Went hiking with Niven. Is now after dinner. 

And clearly Earth & Beyond is overwhelmed. Their solution is simple to dump you back to the login screen after a long period of  "loading", and act as if you had some kind of network link problem. No explanation, no apology. This is more infuriating than if they admitted the problem.  

And they don't give you any estimate on how long the problem will last. I wonder if they are signing up new accounts, while being unable to accommodate the ones they have?

And after two hours it is still that way. This is no fun, and I can't in conscience recommend this game. It's very frustrating when you want to play, go through a long log-on sequence, and without explanation are just kept waiting a long time, then dumped back to the login screen. If there is anyone out there who has a way to communicate with the Earth & Beyond people, I would like to know how to do it. I'd like to know if they know what they are doing, and if something is going to be fixed.


Later: the problems have fixed themselves. I suspect that their Halloween Specials got in the way two ways: new patches and art and objects, and they attracted more people than they expected, which overwhelmed the servers.

 

Anyway, it's back again, and when it's working I like it well enough.

 

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Friday, November 1, 2002

All Saints Day

Errands all morning. Building a 3+ GHz machine for the column.

And I find Earth and Beyond has another severe deficiency. With Everquest, to move the game from one machine to another -- something that I have to do if I am going to see performance differences -- I just move the Everquest Directory. Now I log in as usual. All works. With Earth and Beyond, no, it won't work. Missing registry keys and the like.

This is stupid on their part. What do they care if I "install" it on more than one machine, or play from more than one location? They ought to want to make it easier. Or do they? With the overcrowding of their servers, maybe it's intentional?  Anyway I'll have to see how to move this game to a new machine. I don't like programs that waste my time.

And if I play on two different machines are the files coordinated?


The elections have become nasty. The Democrats want Imperial power centered in Washington as a matter of principle, and are a wholly owned subsidiary of the unions -- particularly government worker and educationist unions -- and the trial lawyers. The Republicans are willing to allow the states a few perks, but not many, and if the matter is "important they too want it controlled in Washington, as witness persecution of physicians who use the California medical marijuana laws; and while they are not a wholly owned subsidiary of the international corporations, there's entirely too much of their influence.

And a few thousand dock workers can shut the country down. So could a few bombs in the harbors. The US no longer makes what it needs, nor do we have inventories of what we need. We are an imperial nation that requires a smooth flow of free trade from all parts of the world. Securing that may be more difficult than Washington believes.

The election results ought to be interesting.


I have been informed in no uncertain terms that "servers" have nothing to do with my problems with the iSDN connections, which, incidentally, have fixed themselves and all is well. Alas, because of the flakiness of the network and the Earth and Beyond servers -- that, I think I can safely say -- I didn't get my pumpkin launcher.  Sigh.

Anyway, network service providers like Megapath  using Covad don't employ "servers" except for DNS purposes and there are lots of those scattered around everywhere: that wasn't the problem). Routers, and I suppose some kind of network monitoring systems, but servers don't play a part in network providing of that kind; which, if I stop to think about it, I knew, and I should have been more careful in what I said. Oh well.


Regarding Earth and Beyond, here is how to transfer to a new machine:

Install from Disks
Copy the directory from the old machine to the new, over-writing all. Now try to play. First it will update the video settings, and test them. Then you'll get a demand to log in to EA, using your EA name and password.

Do that and be PATIENT since it takes minutes to determine that you are in fact you. Eventually you'll be allowed to go to the E&B login, and after that give the name and password again, and Lo! it works.  I still do not know about synchronizing if you have played on one machine and returned to another. But this works all right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Saturday, November 2, 2001

On the Minnesota election, Eric found this: http://www.lileks.com/bleats/ 

and it says much of it, about that and other elections next Tuesday. And there is http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/ which is very much to the point.

Was just out to Niven's Party. 

Column time.

Puppy pictures tomorrow.

Mail tomorrow.

New machine finished: 3.07 GHz, ATI 9700 Pro Video Board. It screams...

Charles Sheffield, RIP

And my long time friend and co-author Charles Sheffield has died. We founded the Jupiter imprint series. He did far more of the work on Higher Education than I did. Ph.D. in physics, a world class engineering scientist in optics and imagery. An expert on the Darwins, he single handedly revived interest in Erasmus Darwin. I'll miss him. A good writer, a good friend, and a hard worker. 

 

 

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Sunday, November 3, 2002

Column time. I'll try to get some mail up.

 

 

 

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