After more googling favorite daughter found a mail order place, Compusource Inc, in Swedesboto NJ. The guy on the telephone knew how many laptops they had in stock, at which warehouse, which ones were loaded with XP, and promise a before Christmas delivery. Gave 'em my credit card number, and lo and behold, UPS drops the machine off on the porch. It powered up, runs well, detects the wireless router, and isn't completely overloaded with craplets. Comes with a real Windows XP CD in case you need to re install after some terrible catastrophe. In fact, only ONE icon, the recycle bin is on the desk top.
So we do some cleaning. Zap Norton antivirus, the trial version of office, and some other stuff. Try out the recommended backup utility. The backup utility asks for 18!!! CD's or a mere 3 DVD's. We feed it the first blank CD. A lot of backing happens, but we only get thru the first DVD and the backup util cannot move onto the 2nd and 3rd. Three DVD's is 15 Gbytes of stuff, and it is unclear how much of it we care about. The Windows XP disc has all the HP drivers and Windows on it. What more do we care about on a virgin machine?
Monday, December 17, 2007
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Why don't they make furnaces with external combustion air?
It's all relative, humidity that is. Heating season is always dry, dry, and dryer indoors. The dryness causes all those winter colds and sniffles, does evil things to wood in the house, and creates all that static electricity. It gets so bad that merely stroking the cat gives you, and it, a 20KV jolt, most upsetting to cats.
The house gets dry, 'cause humidity is relative. Air feels moist when it is carrying all the moisture it can hold, and feels dry when the air is short on moisture and is sucking moist out of everything in the room. Magic science fact: Warm air can hold more moisture than cold air. The house is dry 'cause cold outside air was warmed by $3 a gallon furnace oil. As the air warms, it can hold more moisture, so it starts sucking moist from everything in the house. Eventually the warm air picks up enough moisture from people, showers, sinks soaking the dirty dishes, evaporation from toilets, humidifiers, and ceases to feel to damnable dry.
About this time, the furnace lights off. The burner takes air (a lot of expensively heated air) from inside the house, and sends it up the stack. Zip. Nature abhors a vacuum (Magic science fact #2) and so cold outside air slips into the house thru cracks around the doors and windows, leaks in the walls, somewhere. The new air is cold, and as it warms up it does the moisture sucking thing and the house gets drier.
Why not make furnaces with an combustion air inlet? You run a air duct to the outdoors and then the furnace sucks its combustion air from the cold outdoors rather than the expensively heated indoors. The indoor air stays moister, which is nicer. The cat approves.
The wood stove people understand this already. Good woodstoves are sealed and have a single air inlet which gets ducted to the outside. What is holding the furnace people back?
The house gets dry, 'cause humidity is relative. Air feels moist when it is carrying all the moisture it can hold, and feels dry when the air is short on moisture and is sucking moist out of everything in the room. Magic science fact: Warm air can hold more moisture than cold air. The house is dry 'cause cold outside air was warmed by $3 a gallon furnace oil. As the air warms, it can hold more moisture, so it starts sucking moist from everything in the house. Eventually the warm air picks up enough moisture from people, showers, sinks soaking the dirty dishes, evaporation from toilets, humidifiers, and ceases to feel to damnable dry.
About this time, the furnace lights off. The burner takes air (a lot of expensively heated air) from inside the house, and sends it up the stack. Zip. Nature abhors a vacuum (Magic science fact #2) and so cold outside air slips into the house thru cracks around the doors and windows, leaks in the walls, somewhere. The new air is cold, and as it warms up it does the moisture sucking thing and the house gets drier.
Why not make furnaces with an combustion air inlet? You run a air duct to the outdoors and then the furnace sucks its combustion air from the cold outdoors rather than the expensively heated indoors. The indoor air stays moister, which is nicer. The cat approves.
The wood stove people understand this already. Good woodstoves are sealed and have a single air inlet which gets ducted to the outside. What is holding the furnace people back?
Getting the lead out
I loose track of the number of TV news stories about this or that child's toy recalled for "excessive" or "dangerous" amounts of lead. The toy maker is inevitably Chinese, the effects are always dire, and good luck finding Christmas toys that aren't made in China.
Never is the amount of lead mentioned. Are we talking about 40 percent lead? 1% lead, 1 part per million? one part per billion? Modern chemical analysis equipment is so sensitive that it can detect tiny levels of anything, in anything. Are we talking about a trace amount of lead that might be detected by modern equipment, or are we talking about a thick coat of pure white lead oxide paint? Modern newsies are innumerate, so we never get the real facts of the story, numbers, just the opinions. Opinions are like a**h***s, every one has one.
Latest lead story, this morning, reports Christmas lights with the bulbs soldered together with standard 60-40 tin-lead solder. The precautions recommended over the radio were more appropriate for handling plutonium or beryllium. To be hazardous the child would have to remove the light bulbs, put them in the mouth, and suck on the soldered tip for about a month. All without breaking the glass bulb, sharp fragments of which will cut. Somehow I don't worry about children sucking on light bulbs as a hazard. Surely the most ignorant parent would not allow their kids to chew on light bulbs.
How much of the lead in toys furore is really safety related and how much is anti Chinese imports related?
Especially as metallic lead isn't terribly dangerous, so long as you don't eat it. According to the MSDS lead is not terribly reactive with anything. Half the water pipes in the US are copper tubing soldered together with 50-50 tin lead solder. The water in the pipes doesn't dissolve out enough lead to matter. We survived 50 years of gasoline spiked with tetra ethyl lead. The major hazard connected with lead was the use of white lead as a pigment in house paint. The paint would peels and small children would eat the chips cause the lead dioxide tasted sweet. White paint was converted over to titanium dioxide in the 1960's.
Never is the amount of lead mentioned. Are we talking about 40 percent lead? 1% lead, 1 part per million? one part per billion? Modern chemical analysis equipment is so sensitive that it can detect tiny levels of anything, in anything. Are we talking about a trace amount of lead that might be detected by modern equipment, or are we talking about a thick coat of pure white lead oxide paint? Modern newsies are innumerate, so we never get the real facts of the story, numbers, just the opinions. Opinions are like a**h***s, every one has one.
Latest lead story, this morning, reports Christmas lights with the bulbs soldered together with standard 60-40 tin-lead solder. The precautions recommended over the radio were more appropriate for handling plutonium or beryllium. To be hazardous the child would have to remove the light bulbs, put them in the mouth, and suck on the soldered tip for about a month. All without breaking the glass bulb, sharp fragments of which will cut. Somehow I don't worry about children sucking on light bulbs as a hazard. Surely the most ignorant parent would not allow their kids to chew on light bulbs.
How much of the lead in toys furore is really safety related and how much is anti Chinese imports related?
Especially as metallic lead isn't terribly dangerous, so long as you don't eat it. According to the MSDS lead is not terribly reactive with anything. Half the water pipes in the US are copper tubing soldered together with 50-50 tin lead solder. The water in the pipes doesn't dissolve out enough lead to matter. We survived 50 years of gasoline spiked with tetra ethyl lead. The major hazard connected with lead was the use of white lead as a pigment in house paint. The paint would peels and small children would eat the chips cause the lead dioxide tasted sweet. White paint was converted over to titanium dioxide in the 1960's.
The great Nor'easter, gets way up north
Started snowing in the early AM. Town plow went by at 8 am. Kept snowing hard. By 10:15 I decided going down three mile hill to church was a bad idea, too much chance of dinging DeVille somewhere. Town plow made a second pass at 11 AM. No sign of Ken King who plows my driveway, but on the other hand, I have no pressing need to go anywhere. So far we have 8 to 10 inches down and we may get more. It has slacked off in the last few minutes, but the weather radio&TV is threatening more for this afternoon. Skiing is superb, best snow before Christmas in a long long time.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Hazards of being a winter squirrel
We have a nice fresh snowfall on the ground. All bright white with a brilliant sun. We need the sun, it's nearly zero outside. Bunch of chilly squirrels scurrying about on the snow. Legs are too short to reach thru the powder snow and touch the ground, and they are so heavy that they sink right in. You can see 'em struggling in the deeper parts. They are all dark, and stand out on the brilliant white snow, making themselves perfect targets for any kind of hawk. Dunno what brought them out today, usually they hibernate thru the winter. If they were truly into being active-in-the-winter critters you would think they would grow white fur coats.
Beowulf, the movie
Not bad at all. The movie retells the ancient legend and remains surprisingly close to the original saga. Beowulf comes across first as a true hero, strong, brave, and wise, in the prime of life, out to win glory by slaying a dreadful monster. Then in the second part, Beowulf is older, a successful and beloved king faced with a second coming of monsters. Despite loyal followers, wives, and mistresses trying to talk him out of it, a graying Beowulf pulls on his mail shirt, picks up his sword and goes to protect his people from a dragon. It's well done, and we left the theater with a warm spot in our hearts for Beowulf, a tough guy who never flinches from the path of duty.
The movie is three D (they issue glasses). The 3-D is used for spectacular effects which do get your attention. Spears and arrows and suchlike fly right out of the screen into your face. The rest of the flick is mostly CGI. It's well done, looking at the lead actors, Beowulf, Grendel's mother you almost think they are live. Some of the supporting cast do show their CGI origins, but all and all, its a big step forward for computers, another few years and we won't be able to tell live actors from CGI. Angelina Joli as Grendel's mother is very successful. She has Angelina's face, and some CGI bodily inhancements and I couldn't tell just how it was done. Did they digitize Angelina's face and create the actress entirely from pixels or did Angelina act the part live and the CGI wizards souped it up afterwards? There are some things I would have done differently, but all in all it's a good action adventure flick.
Any student assigned Beowulf as classwork should see this movie.
The movie is three D (they issue glasses). The 3-D is used for spectacular effects which do get your attention. Spears and arrows and suchlike fly right out of the screen into your face. The rest of the flick is mostly CGI. It's well done, looking at the lead actors, Beowulf, Grendel's mother you almost think they are live. Some of the supporting cast do show their CGI origins, but all and all, its a big step forward for computers, another few years and we won't be able to tell live actors from CGI. Angelina Joli as Grendel's mother is very successful. She has Angelina's face, and some CGI bodily inhancements and I couldn't tell just how it was done. Did they digitize Angelina's face and create the actress entirely from pixels or did Angelina act the part live and the CGI wizards souped it up afterwards? There are some things I would have done differently, but all in all it's a good action adventure flick.
Any student assigned Beowulf as classwork should see this movie.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Who to vote for? NH primary is getting closer
Let's talk Republicans today. All my Republican friends really want a candidate who can win the election, i.e. beat Hillary. NH Republicans assume Hillary will get nominated, 'cause the polls say so, and because she seems the toughest candidate to beat. Most of us New Hampsters are waiting for Iowa, so we can see who is electable and who is not. None of the Republican front runners is irresistable. McCain's record commands respect, but his involvement in McCain-Feingold and last summer's immigration bill plus his age are negatives. Romney has good name recognition, but his lack luster performance down south in Massachusetts, and some well publicized policy changes on hot button issues raise questions. Guliani's performance in NYC during 9/11 make him seem like a good man in a storm, but his personal life and support for gun control and abortion don't make anyone happy. Huckabee was an also ran just a few weeks ago and no one up here sees any reason to change their minds on that, unless he should win in Iowa. Then Huckabee would be formidable. He is conservative as they come, and lacks the worrisome negatives of the other three front runners. On the other hand if he loses in Iowa, nobody up here will vote for him, who wants to hand the election over to Hillary?
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