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THE VIEW FROM CHAOS MANOR

View 196 March 11 - 17, 2002

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This is a day book. It's not all that well edited. I try to keep this up daily, but sometimes I can't. I'll keep trying. See also the monthly COMPUTING AT CHAOS MANOR column, 4,000 - 7,000 words, depending.  (Older columns here.) For more on what this page is about, please go to the VIEW PAGE. If you have never read the explanatory material on that page, please do so.

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If you want to PAY FOR THIS there are problems, but I keep the latest HERE. I'm trying. MY THANKS to all of you who sent money.  Some of you went to a lot of trouble to send money from overseas. Thank you! There are also some new payment methods. I am preparing a special (electronic) mailing to all those who paid: there will be a couple of these. I am also toying with the notion of a subscriber section of the page. LET ME KNOW your thoughts.
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Monday  March 11, 2002

Well the new column is up , and I see I got a date wrong: I don't remember what system I sent with Phil on the Tripoli in 1992. The AMD K6-2 went with him on another deployment in a cruiser a few years later. So it goes. That system still works but it's in the scrap bin, because the hard drive was destroyed for security reasons and I didn't rebuild it.

See last weeks View for Sunday for some interesting security matters, and an interesting web page gimmick.

And now I am getting spam from a special offers outfit that wants to sell me anti-spam software. SURE, I really want to run something they sell...

+++

Sigh: I need to find an email address for someone I corresponded with last year. It has all be archived by the automatic archiver in Outlook and I don't know how to make it look through that. I may find it in one of the reference books, but if anyone knows a simple way to make find look in archived files, I'd appreciate it.

This is driving me nuts. I don't know where OUTLOOK PUTS  the archive files. To make my life simpler I have an "OUTLOOK" folder in the root and that is where the PST file is. But Outlook archives somewhere else only I can't find where.

Well I found it. Help as usual is incomplete. First I had to find where it put the files
C:\WINNT\Profiles\jerryp\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\archive.pst

which is itself really silly. But then I tried to import from that and Outlook couldn't find the file. It said it didn't exist.

I managed, finally, but I don't know how. It kept telling me there was no such file. It simply would not see the archives file although there sure was one: I could see it in commander and explorer. Goofy. Eventually I was able to make it see it, but it's hard to describe how. It involved clicking on a path I had already given it but down in the filenames line rather than up at the top where I browsed. That let it see the archives file. If that sounds goofy, it was, and I can't really describe it any better, either.

But I was able to restore the file and find the email address and past correspondence. So it worked.

Then there is this:

http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/mdkfuture.php3 

which is an appeal from Mandrake that you join their support group. They want a bit more than I do:  they want you to join up at $5 a month to help keep them going. I think I may do that, largely because Joel and others have had good success at getting Mandrake Linux going although they are not experts (Experts use Slackware or Debian and I am NOT going to get into those fights!) 

Just as my January column was in fact a recommendation for the dual processor motherboards with all AMD chipsets in large part because I want to see come competition in this business, I want to see the easier to use Linux systems survive. Go read what they say and make up your own mind...

It is not a normal business model, but these are not normal times.

 

http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/
world/DailyNews/mercenaries020307.html#
 

 

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Tuesday, March 12, 2002

I have this from another place:

I was asked to test the free AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com

recently and it works as well as any AV software I have used.

I know no more about it.


In another place I said, regarding the new Bush steel tariff:

> 30% tariff is probably too high, but steel is pretty critical to the > Imperium. > > Better we would levy tribute on those we defend to pay subsidies, but we do > need a steel industry. > Relying on imports for everything while losing the ability to manufacture > anything including the basics like steel is probably a recipe for disaster.

Because that could have been misleading -- I think the steel tariff as it is applied is wrong -- I was working on a more carefully worded exposition when I got: 

For the record, U.S. steel production has increased from 85 million tons in 1990 to 128 million tons in 1999, while steel imports have grown from 17 million tons in 1990 to 31 million tons in 1999. Source: 2001 Statistical Abstract of the US, Table 994 (http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/01statab/manufact.pdf)

Overall U.S. manufacturing output increased 39% in constant dollars between 1990 and 1999.

I know there's a popular perception that the U.S. doesn't make anything anymore, but it is wrong. While imports are growing faster than domestic production, our output and manufacturing productivity has been growing at a very healthy pace for the last two decades.

Which prompts me to rethink my position.

I continue to say that tariff for revenue is legitimate. I also think it ought to be more or less across the board, not play favorites. I am willing to make an exception for key industries we might have to expand in time of war or blockade, but it needs to be studied. I don't know what the optimum tariff for revenue is. My guess is that it's about 10-15%; whatever it is, it ought to be varied a little every now and then, to see the effect on revenue, and maximizing tariff revenue ought to be the goal. That turns out to be the policy of the Democratic Party when I was growing up in Tennessee, and was taught in the grade schools: in 8th Grade we were given the differences between the two parties and why the South always went Democrat. Tariff for revenue only (as opposed to protective tariff) was the first difference in my history textbook...

If in fact we have more manufacturing jobs than ever, one of my key arguments doesn't hold. I need to look into this a lot more.

And I am still concerned about that 45 year old worker suddenly unemployable: from citizen to something else and very quickly. And yes, I understand that among the readers here this takes effort: if we were suddenly out of a job we'd quickly find another. Even at my age I could cope. Clerk in a garden store if nothing better. But I have contacts and a broad education, and my house is mostly paid for. I am not 45 years old having done the same thing (such as sewing sweat suits) all my life, living at the edge of income but living in a good lower middle class way with a house and car and kids (maybe grandchildren now) and a week's vacation every year. 

A Republic is not a nanny state, but it does put its citizens first.


I have the following response (I have taken out some of it) to my inquiry regarding the security hole described last week. Note the boldface item (emphasis mine).

One interesting note, based on the MSRC's investigation so far, is that it does not appear that there is any way to pass parameters to the program being run. So, for instance, the malicious user can open a command prompt but can't make anything happen within it. That said, Microsoft takes all reports of vulnerabilities in its products very seriously and is moving forward on the investigation with all due speed. When that investigation is completed, Microsoft will take the action that best serves its customers, providing the information customers need to help keep ensure the security of their systems. I will keep you posted on the outcome of this investigation.

This is from a Microsoft official. Wagged is also aware. 

This is also from last week:

While you are playing, look at this one, which is courtesy of Dr. Ed Hume. If you don't see anything try moving the cursor around.


And Roland says the Linux Security Hole reported yesterday is a Big Deal. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile I continue to be impressed by the messages from some of the AMD enthusiasts. It makes you wonder if there is any point in looking at such systems at all.

 

 

 

 

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Wednesday, March 13, 2002

Workmen at the house replacing ceiling exhaust fans. This ought to be fun.

The Internet clearly wants to drive me mad. Whenever I am in a hurry, I cannot establish a connection to upload to my site. Then when I say to heck with it and start something else, I get the "Hy, now I am connected!" signal.  Shesh.

There is lots of mail today, some important.

In another place someone commented on the Yates verdict. I decline to comment on that, which is a very disturbing situation. Then a discussion followed in which I took no part. Several women denounced Yates's husband for making her have more kids, home school them, and giving her no free time. I presume that is a true statement: as I say the case is disturbing, and happened a long way from here, and I don't have to think about it, so I don't. But then someone else said

"Sounds like Texas all across the board.  I don't think civilization
has reached there yet."

That prompted a response from me:

Is it your contention that the state should intervene in these situations? A psychiatrist says she ought not have more kids. The husband insists on unreasonable conditions in the home. The wife doesn't leave, doesn't go to the authorities, broods, and kills the kids. At what point did you want the uncivilized state of Texas to intervene?

How do you draft the legislation that allows the interventions?

Like New York, where a woman telephones a help line to ask if it is normal to get sexually excited when breast feeding her first-born, and hours later Social Services shows up, takes the infant away from her, jails her briefly, and makes her and her husband spend every cent they have getting the child back? Is that a good model of 'civilization'?

A republic assumes its citizens are more or less competent. Other forms of government make different assumptions about the subjects, and put the enlightened in charge on the grounds that everyone else is benighted. Which is "civilized"?

It is, I fear, a serious question. Is it possible to have a 'civilized' republic? Freedom will inevitably leave people free to do things many will not approve of. Where do you draw the line? And, if we are to have a completely secular republic uninformed by religion and religious traditions, why do you draw the line? That is, blasphemy was once considered a very serious crime: it was more serious to defame God than to defame the king, and the punishments were more severe. Civilized countries understood this: only barbarous places made it a worse crime to defame a man, even the King, than to defame God. We today don't consider blasphemy a crime at all. There was a trend for a while to decriminalize defaming the state, but I would not try it today in, say, an airport, and I particularly would not advise defaming the President in his presence: the Secret Service, at least in Clinton's time, routinely handcuffed people who shouted insults at the president. They may still do that, in the name of "security".

[My point here, missing in the original, was that either there is a well-spring of law or law is what the civilized people agree it is; and we have often opted for the 'law is what you can get a legislature to say is law, even if the legislators never intended that result and no one thinks it is good law. Law is following rigid procedures without regard to the intent of the legislation." There's a lot of that going around.]

Texas may or may not be "uncivilized". The Texas system seems to be to make the laws clear and enforce them severely. This is one way to run a government. California, on the other hand, has fuzzy laws and enforces few of them because if every California law were rigidly enforced there would be few of us out of jail. We in California by necessity have a government of men (and women) rather than a government of laws, because there are so many laws they cannot all be enforced.

Well, thank you for making me think about the subject.

====

It was, of course, a rant, and I am not sure I even agree with all I said; but it does seem worth putting out for discussion.


So. I see someone in the AMD community has now managed to forge my return address

http://www.byte.com/tangledthreads/
thread.jsp?forum=257&thread=10216
 

and put up an obscene message in my name. There is apparently no length to which these people will not go. Which tells me enough about writing about that particular subject. There are a lot of things to write about. 

I bought and paid for the dual processing board and the Athlon chips to test out the AMD Dual processing system. I recommended the system. That is not enough, apparently. Well, a day. 

 

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Thursday, March 14, 2002

First, let this stand for a dozen other letters:

Dear Jerry, This appears to be a 21st century version of the old Somerset Maughan story of the verger who could not read. When his vicar discovers his illiteracy he sacks him, verger opens a small corner shop, prospers, and is eventually interviewed by the local press. When he reveals that he is unable to read they ask how far he would have gotten if he could read......he answers that he would still be the verger at St Cuthberts

 Jim Braiden

And of course that is true. It's a fable in any case. Alas, there are a lot of fables and stories that one ought to know for one's soul's health that are no longer taught in the schools or recognized by anyone. Maybe modernization will help spread the lesson, which in this case was summarized in the old Uncle Remus song, "It's what you do with what you got that wins out in the end..." More in mail.

The identity theft bit at the BYTE forum has been remedied, or I think it has.

It is very windy today and I have a lot of work to get done. There is a long USAF policy review letter posted in reports. If the subject interests you it's worth your attention.

 

 

 

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Friday, The Ides of March, 2002

Birthday of Stefan T. Possony.  Pleasant dreams and challenging problems, Steve.

I think it likely that had it not been for the late Stefan Possony, we would still be engaged in the Cold War with 25,000 nuclear weapons targeted on the United States. Few remember him now, but he was a great man.

 

This arrived today:

Another Medium Risk virus is making its way around the Internet and could infect your computers unless you are protected. The "FBOUND" worm is rapidly infecting systems via email.

This worm mass-mails itself to all email addresses listed in the infected user's Windows Address Book (WAB). It arrives in an email with a subject line randomly selected from a group of Japanese language phrases if the email address of the recipient ends with .jp. It arrives with the attachment "PATCH.EXE."

I don't suppose anyone here needs to be told not to run unexpected mail attachments. If you didn't expect an attachment, don't run it, no matter who it says it is from.

 

 

 

 

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Saturday,

 

I took the day off

 

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Sunday, March 17, 2002

St. Patrick's Day

And greetings to all my Irish friends and relatives.

I took the day off.  Mostly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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