A small box store going for the guy business. Eclectic mix of hand tools, automobile parts, garden stuff, pet feed, some clothing of the work boot, cowboy hat and blue jean sort. Brand new store building, across the parking lot from Wal Mart. All merchandise marked "China". The marketing dept was live wire enough to mail me a "grand opening" flyer with a $10 discount card.
So I visited them. Walked clean around the store looking at stuff. Despite the discount card, got out again with out buying anything. Didn't need car parts, the hand tools were nicely chromed and polished but I couldn't help wondering if the underlying steel was any good. Didn't have anywhere to stash a 50 pound sack of cat food, and cowboy hats aren't my style. I wish them luck, but they need someone else's money, rather than mine.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Save the world for $10 billion
The Wall St Journal had Newt Gengrich and Jerry Brown each explain how they would improve to condition of the world if they had $10 billion to spend. As one might imagine there was a divergence is approach.
Jerry plumped for improving efficiency of appliances and cars and such, conserving energy. He would blow his money on efficiency programs. Hmm. Are not the current prices of fuel and electricity incentive enough to sell the most efficient possible devices and hand the expense? Look at the Prius sales compared to SUV sales this year. Prius is efficient and expensive and selling well. They are giving away SUV's and pickup trucks cause nobody wants to pay for filling 'em up. Far as I can see, Jerry's plan won't anything that the free market isn't already doing. I'm sure he could spend the $10 billion. What ex politician ever had trouble spending money? But it won't make any difference.
Newt on the other hand, favored offering prizes for technology we need. Like a malaria vaccine, a cheap sea water desalinization process, cheap travel to low earth orbit. I was a little disappointed in Newt when he proposed a prize for a hydrogen car engine and a nuclear fuel rod recycle plan. Ordinary car engines can run on hydrogen, and nuclear fuel rods can be recycled for a profit, they are rich in valuable uranium and plutonium. The only reason we don't recycle them now is fear that the plutonium might get diverted into terrorist nukes. I used to think Newt was well informed. Not so sure about that now.
Jerry plumped for improving efficiency of appliances and cars and such, conserving energy. He would blow his money on efficiency programs. Hmm. Are not the current prices of fuel and electricity incentive enough to sell the most efficient possible devices and hand the expense? Look at the Prius sales compared to SUV sales this year. Prius is efficient and expensive and selling well. They are giving away SUV's and pickup trucks cause nobody wants to pay for filling 'em up. Far as I can see, Jerry's plan won't anything that the free market isn't already doing. I'm sure he could spend the $10 billion. What ex politician ever had trouble spending money? But it won't make any difference.
Newt on the other hand, favored offering prizes for technology we need. Like a malaria vaccine, a cheap sea water desalinization process, cheap travel to low earth orbit. I was a little disappointed in Newt when he proposed a prize for a hydrogen car engine and a nuclear fuel rod recycle plan. Ordinary car engines can run on hydrogen, and nuclear fuel rods can be recycled for a profit, they are rich in valuable uranium and plutonium. The only reason we don't recycle them now is fear that the plutonium might get diverted into terrorist nukes. I used to think Newt was well informed. Not so sure about that now.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Forty days and forty nights until the sewers back up
We are working on forty. By my count we are up to twenty back to back rainy days. We now get "Emergency Flood Warnings" with an attention getting urk urk urk noise on the FM radio. We have grass assaulting the house 'cause it's too wet to mow. It's so chilly we light the fireplace, in August. Must be more global warming...
Bloatware
Finally upgraded the home computer inkjet printer. The ten year old HP 600, with the erratic paper feed, got retired to the town transfer station (aka dump) and replaced by a one year old HP 4260, kindness of youngest son who won't be needing it at college.
XP's plug&play detected the new printer but lacked a driver for it. Since all good drivers are on the net, I was able to down load the right one from the HP website. 35 Megabytes of printer driver. Oink. The old 600 driver came on a pair of 3.5" floppy discs, total capacity 2 megabytes. So, software to do the same task, has grown 17.5X fatter over ten years. Are all the competant programmers retired or what?
Also noticed the new drivers didn't use plug & play (aka plug & pray). HP was very firm about loading the driver BEFORE hooking up the printer, which totally defeats the plug and play logic in XP. Plug and play was supposed make driver loading dead easy for the user. XP polls the hardware to see what was out there at each boot time, and only if it can't find a driver does it go thru the "New hardware detected; Please insert diskette" routine. Good idea, but MS never got the bugs out of it I guess. I did a plug&play driver back in Win 98 days, and the intense pain required to get it to work is still fresh in my memory. Looks like the pain is still there, causing the HP guys to bypass plug&play. One of the reasons for XP's sluggish boot up is all the time spent polling all the hardware, every time it boots.
XP's plug&play detected the new printer but lacked a driver for it. Since all good drivers are on the net, I was able to down load the right one from the HP website. 35 Megabytes of printer driver. Oink. The old 600 driver came on a pair of 3.5" floppy discs, total capacity 2 megabytes. So, software to do the same task, has grown 17.5X fatter over ten years. Are all the competant programmers retired or what?
Also noticed the new drivers didn't use plug & play (aka plug & pray). HP was very firm about loading the driver BEFORE hooking up the printer, which totally defeats the plug and play logic in XP. Plug and play was supposed make driver loading dead easy for the user. XP polls the hardware to see what was out there at each boot time, and only if it can't find a driver does it go thru the "New hardware detected; Please insert diskette" routine. Good idea, but MS never got the bugs out of it I guess. I did a plug&play driver back in Win 98 days, and the intense pain required to get it to work is still fresh in my memory. Looks like the pain is still there, causing the HP guys to bypass plug&play. One of the reasons for XP's sluggish boot up is all the time spent polling all the hardware, every time it boots.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
I survived Service Pack 3
Microsoft Update (trusty little piece of nagware) has been nagging me to download service pack 3 (for XP) for a couple of weeks now. I held off, not wanting to be the first one to debug it. After two weeks, with no bad news about SP3 on the net, I decided to go with it. My computer survived the upgrade, and in fact appears to run a bit faster.
Russia invades Georgia. And the US does what?
The Georgia invasion did make the two Sunday pundit shows, after discussions of banking reforms and the John Edwards scandal. Give the pundits that much. But no pundit really grasped what's going on here. The Russian army is invading a European country that is a US ally. If the US does nothing, (diplomacy is nothing) then the entire world learns that what the Russians want, the Russians get, and resistance is futile. If the US sends troops to defend Georgia, like we did for Kuwait, then we risk getting into a shooting war with the Russians. Both alternatives are horrible.
It's clearly up to the US. The Europeans are already scared of the Russians, except for the British they lack an effective military, and they are divided politically. They aren't going to tell the Russians to pull out or else. Maybe, with strong US leadership, a few of them would help us out a little, but that's about all. The disasters in ex-Yugoslavia (the Balkans) since Tito's death demonstrate what happens when it's up to the Europeans. Namely nothing.
For America, we are between a rock and a hard place. Nobody wants to get into a scrap with the Russians, at any time. For the fifty years of the Cold War we managed to avoid putting American troops within shooting distance of the Red Army, lest an outbreak of firing escalate into the Last Nuclear War. That's still a good policy. You don't crack open the door to Hell just to see if the fires still burn down there.
On the other hand, the Russians are taking South Ossetia today, and next step is all of Georgia. If we rushed a US division into the Georgian capitol (Tbilisi) tomorrow, the Russians might settle for promises of protection for the Russians living in South Ossetia, as opposed to conquering all of Georgia. Might.
The Russians want all of Georgia to gain control of the BTC pipeline, the only way to get central Asian oil out to the West. Look for crude oil to jump back up to $150 a barrel as soon as the BTC pipeline is closed to the West.
If we let the Russians conquer Georgia, it will give them the green light to take over all the over places that used to be part of the old Soviet Union, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania,Poland, Hungary,Czechoslovakia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and all the rest of the 'stans. The Russians mean to reverse the enormous loss of territory that occurred at the breakup of the old Soviet Union back in 1989. If we don't oppose them, it will happen. After re acquiring their empire, what next will they try? They would be in a position to restart the Cold War.
McCain has called for resistance. Obama favors "diplomacy". I don't like either alternative, but I'm inclined to reluctantly back up McCain.
It's clearly up to the US. The Europeans are already scared of the Russians, except for the British they lack an effective military, and they are divided politically. They aren't going to tell the Russians to pull out or else. Maybe, with strong US leadership, a few of them would help us out a little, but that's about all. The disasters in ex-Yugoslavia (the Balkans) since Tito's death demonstrate what happens when it's up to the Europeans. Namely nothing.
For America, we are between a rock and a hard place. Nobody wants to get into a scrap with the Russians, at any time. For the fifty years of the Cold War we managed to avoid putting American troops within shooting distance of the Red Army, lest an outbreak of firing escalate into the Last Nuclear War. That's still a good policy. You don't crack open the door to Hell just to see if the fires still burn down there.
On the other hand, the Russians are taking South Ossetia today, and next step is all of Georgia. If we rushed a US division into the Georgian capitol (Tbilisi) tomorrow, the Russians might settle for promises of protection for the Russians living in South Ossetia, as opposed to conquering all of Georgia. Might.
The Russians want all of Georgia to gain control of the BTC pipeline, the only way to get central Asian oil out to the West. Look for crude oil to jump back up to $150 a barrel as soon as the BTC pipeline is closed to the West.
If we let the Russians conquer Georgia, it will give them the green light to take over all the over places that used to be part of the old Soviet Union, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania,Poland, Hungary,Czechoslovakia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and all the rest of the 'stans. The Russians mean to reverse the enormous loss of territory that occurred at the breakup of the old Soviet Union back in 1989. If we don't oppose them, it will happen. After re acquiring their empire, what next will they try? They would be in a position to restart the Cold War.
McCain has called for resistance. Obama favors "diplomacy". I don't like either alternative, but I'm inclined to reluctantly back up McCain.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
China puts on one hellova show
Watched the opening of the Olympics on NBC last night. Enormous show, thousands of dancers and drummers and such, all dressed in gorgeous costumes, filling the field of the "Birds Nest" stadium. A smoothness and precision to the dancing that must have taken months of practice to get so smooth. Fireworks, heavy continuous bursts of fire, like the grand finale of a 4th of July over here, but going on and on. Loved it. It's clear the Chinese spared no effort and no expense to put on the show, and they impressed this couch potato.
It took a couple of hours for all the contestants to enter the field and stroll around it. The Americans, all 600 odd of them, were looking very preppy in blue blazers, white ducks, and white golf caps. Not as good as the Western shirts and cowboy hats of years ago. Plenty of athletes in fancy native costumes. Some stick-in-the-muds in dark business suits and ties. The South Koreans send a huge contingent, young, all dressed in white, smiling and laughing and singing. The North Koreans were older, fewer, dressed in dark business suits and none of them looked very happy to be there. The Iraqi's got a big hand when they appeared.
NBC camera men were bad. Constant zooming, panning and scanning, too quick jumping from camera to camera, and failure to get closeups of the hordes of beautiful young men and women, wearing fantatically good costumes. The voice over commentators spouted the usual drivel, and failed to name the performers, or tell us anything about them, probably 'cause they didn't know much. I hope the Chinese got to watch better coverage on Chinese TV.
It took a couple of hours for all the contestants to enter the field and stroll around it. The Americans, all 600 odd of them, were looking very preppy in blue blazers, white ducks, and white golf caps. Not as good as the Western shirts and cowboy hats of years ago. Plenty of athletes in fancy native costumes. Some stick-in-the-muds in dark business suits and ties. The South Koreans send a huge contingent, young, all dressed in white, smiling and laughing and singing. The North Koreans were older, fewer, dressed in dark business suits and none of them looked very happy to be there. The Iraqi's got a big hand when they appeared.
NBC camera men were bad. Constant zooming, panning and scanning, too quick jumping from camera to camera, and failure to get closeups of the hordes of beautiful young men and women, wearing fantatically good costumes. The voice over commentators spouted the usual drivel, and failed to name the performers, or tell us anything about them, probably 'cause they didn't know much. I hope the Chinese got to watch better coverage on Chinese TV.
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