Computer started dying last week. It had enough life left to back stuff up to CD before giving up the ghost. Luckily I had a spare computer, in fact, several of them, laptops abandoned by the children when they bought new. There was an HP unit that seemed to have a bit of life left in it. It was sluggish and out of disk space, but after removing a zillion games, Dragon Naturally Speaking, and running Windows Update for hours and hours, it became much more usable.
So, mission for the day, get my back email, my address book, my filters, and signature block off the CD's and into Thunderbird on the new machine. Thunderbird wants to serve multiple users, keeping each user's email and address books separate. To make this happen, Thunderbird keeps everything associated with a user in the user's private file space. So, with Explorer, cruise out to the C drive Documents and Settings/your_own_name/application_data/Thunderbird. Sometimes "Mozilla Thunderbird"
Go down one more level to "Profiles". On the old machine, copy "profiles" and all it's subdirectory out to CD to make the trip to the new machine. Under "Profiles" there will be one, maybe more, directories with computer generated names. If just one, your have found it, If more than one, you have to find the one containing your up-to-date stuff. Check the date stamps inside the directories or look inside a file profiles.ini in the "profile" directory.
On the new machine, install Thunderbird, and examine the "profile" directory it creates afresh. You should be able to now copy the computer generated name sub directory off the CD and into the new "profiles" directory, edit the file pointer in the "profiles.ini" file to point to the newly imported subdirectory and be done with it.
For some reason this didn't work. Each time I tried it, Thunderbird would get sick and refuse to start. The winning strategy is instead to copy the important files off the CD and into the newly created computer generated name directory. File abook.mab is your address book. Your various mail pouches (inbox, trash, sent, etc) are represented by pairs of files e.g. inbox and inbox.msf. You now copy the pairs of files off the CD onto the hard drive. Be sure to get msgfilterRules.dat off the CD if you use message filters.
After four hours of trial and error I got my old address book, with it's mailing lists, barrels of old mail, and all the message filters up on the new machine. My tricky signature file with a pointer to this blog got lost somewhere, but the rest of the stuff works. The message filters needed editing of their target mail pouch after the move.
Monday, April 6, 2009
A Model Sunday
The Ammonusuc Valley Railway Association has a modular HO layout. We accepted an invitation from the Lebanon train Show to bring the layout to the show. So, the clock radio starts yakking at me to get up at 5:30 Sunday morning. It's still dark. And snowing. Had to brush 1/2" of the white stuff off the car. Global warming at work. Got down to Lebanon at 8 and the rest of the club plus the trailer full of layout all arrived just about then. It being mud season, we couldn't back the trailer up to the back door, it would have sunk. Everything had to be hand trucked in the front door and down the corridors to the show room. Good thing they put in those wheelchair ramps, they are much easier to get up with a hand truck than the front stairs.
They let the showgoers in by 10. We had the layout mostly running by 10:30. We gotta get a new level, the one in the club tool box reads different amounts of tilt depending upon which way up you set it.
Had a fair turnout on the customer side, a little lighter than on the dealer side. I shopped around and picked up some minor stuff. I looked at structure kits for a hundred dollars, (too pricey for me) found some decals, some rolling stock, and called it a day. By the time we got the layout taken down and drove home it was 6:30. Time for a fire and a drink.
They let the showgoers in by 10. We had the layout mostly running by 10:30. We gotta get a new level, the one in the club tool box reads different amounts of tilt depending upon which way up you set it.
Had a fair turnout on the customer side, a little lighter than on the dealer side. I shopped around and picked up some minor stuff. I looked at structure kits for a hundred dollars, (too pricey for me) found some decals, some rolling stock, and called it a day. By the time we got the layout taken down and drove home it was 6:30. Time for a fire and a drink.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
What does Fox News have against Mark Gettlefinger?
Glenn Beck (and others) have been calling for Gettlefinger to be fired just like Rick Wagoner was.
But why? Gettlefinger's job is to extract the most possible money from the auto companies for his UAW workers. He's been quite effective at it. With the auto makers teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, Gettlefinger's UAW has made some concessions. The concession probably aren't enough, yet, but Gettlefinger's job is keep his people's paychecks and fringe bennies up, not to save GM or Chrysler. Just cause he can play harder hardball than the GM weenies, doesn't make him a bad guy.
But why? Gettlefinger's job is to extract the most possible money from the auto companies for his UAW workers. He's been quite effective at it. With the auto makers teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, Gettlefinger's UAW has made some concessions. The concession probably aren't enough, yet, but Gettlefinger's job is keep his people's paychecks and fringe bennies up, not to save GM or Chrysler. Just cause he can play harder hardball than the GM weenies, doesn't make him a bad guy.
FASB Folds
The Federal Accounting Standards Board (FASB) repealed the mark to market rule today. Wall St loved it, The Dow jumped better than 200 points, and nearly broke thru 8000. Abandoning mark to market means banks can carry worthless (nobody will buy them) assets at the price they paid for them. Presto, chango, zillions of dollars worth of mortgage backed securities can now be carried at what ever the bank wants to call their value, rather than their true market value. Toxic assets just got fumigated.
Remind me never to buy stock in any financial institution.
Big question. Will the banks believe the new plumper balance sheets? The banks have been whining since September that nobody will loan to them. Probably because everybody with money to loan fears the bank will go broke before they get their loan paid back. The fears, fueled by things like Lehman, center around the question of how much money does Bank X have in the vault to pay off depositors who make withdrawals. By law the bank is supposed to have 10% of depositors funds in the vault, preferable in cash. Due to continued bank whining over the years, the requirement for cash has been weakened, and "liquid assets", say mortgage backed securities and credit default swaps, now count as reserves. If a bank fails to pay out cash to depositors upon demand, it's broke. Word gets around and all the depositors run down to the bank and withdraw every penny, that is fatal to banks. Lenders to banks are worried that the bank might go poof just about any time.
Knowing that the bank reserves can be largely toxic unsellable assets isn't going to calm nervous lenders. Who probably won't lend.
Remind me never to buy stock in any financial institution.
Big question. Will the banks believe the new plumper balance sheets? The banks have been whining since September that nobody will loan to them. Probably because everybody with money to loan fears the bank will go broke before they get their loan paid back. The fears, fueled by things like Lehman, center around the question of how much money does Bank X have in the vault to pay off depositors who make withdrawals. By law the bank is supposed to have 10% of depositors funds in the vault, preferable in cash. Due to continued bank whining over the years, the requirement for cash has been weakened, and "liquid assets", say mortgage backed securities and credit default swaps, now count as reserves. If a bank fails to pay out cash to depositors upon demand, it's broke. Word gets around and all the depositors run down to the bank and withdraw every penny, that is fatal to banks. Lenders to banks are worried that the bank might go poof just about any time.
Knowing that the bank reserves can be largely toxic unsellable assets isn't going to calm nervous lenders. Who probably won't lend.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Bye bye Rick Waggoner
Glenn Beck was all upset about dumping the GM president, Mr. Waggoner. Unconstitutional, power grab, socialism, exceeding the authority of the office, and more.
I don't buy that. Obama merely said that he wasn't going to pump any more taxpayer money into GM unless there was new management. Waggoner took the hint. He is no loss. He has been running GM since 2000. During Waggoner's time at the helm, GM's stock has dropped to worthless, market share has dropped, and they have lost money every year since 2004. Waggoner is not a car guy, he could not tell a good car from a bad one. Not like old Lee Iacocca who invented the Mustang, the K-car and the minivan. Which is why GM has few to no good cars to sell. He hasn't been able to get GM's lenders to take a haircut, and hasn't been able to get UAW to concede enough to bring GM's costs in line with Toyota's. Who needs a car company president who knows little about cars, can't negotiate with the union, can't get his quality control up, lets the corporate bureaucracy run amuck, and is ineffective dealing with lenders?
GM's board has been totally ineffective for decades, if Obama didn't give Waggoner the heave ho, who would?
I don't buy that. Obama merely said that he wasn't going to pump any more taxpayer money into GM unless there was new management. Waggoner took the hint. He is no loss. He has been running GM since 2000. During Waggoner's time at the helm, GM's stock has dropped to worthless, market share has dropped, and they have lost money every year since 2004. Waggoner is not a car guy, he could not tell a good car from a bad one. Not like old Lee Iacocca who invented the Mustang, the K-car and the minivan. Which is why GM has few to no good cars to sell. He hasn't been able to get GM's lenders to take a haircut, and hasn't been able to get UAW to concede enough to bring GM's costs in line with Toyota's. Who needs a car company president who knows little about cars, can't negotiate with the union, can't get his quality control up, lets the corporate bureaucracy run amuck, and is ineffective dealing with lenders?
GM's board has been totally ineffective for decades, if Obama didn't give Waggoner the heave ho, who would?
Can electricity be transmitted from Iowa to New England?
The windmill enthusiasts have been talking about America, the Saudi of wind power. Install windmills in the breezy midwest and transmit the juice to the coasts. That's quite a haul. The old rule of thumb was electric power transmission worked for 400 miles, losses become excessive for anything more. From the midwest to the coasts is a helova lot more than 400 miles.
Question, has the state of the art improved enough to ignore the 400 mile rule of thumb?
Losses in wire are equal to current squared times resistance of the line. Power transmitted is volts times amps, and so power is transmitted at the highest possible voltage, to reduce the current. Since the losses are caused by current, the lower current means lower losses.
Wire is aluminum, cause it is much lighter weight and lower cost than copper. Some fiddling with Excel gives the resistance of 400 miles of American Wire Gauge 0000 aluminum wire (0.43 inch diameter), the largest size in the wire table, as 170 ohms.
Consider transmitting 1000 megawatts (output of just ONE nuclear plant) over 400 miles. Use the highest voltage you dare, 750000 volts. That requires a current of 1333 amps.
Not good. Of the 1000 megawatts put into the line, fully 300 megawatts, 30% is lost as heat. That's gonna run up the cost of power. And we have only gone 400 miles.
Use thicker wire you say? Lets try that. Double the wire diameter, which increases the cross section, (and reduces the resistance) by four times. That helps some. At 400 miles the loss drops to 7.5% (tolerable) but it's still 30% at 1600 miles, the distance from Iowa to New England.
So, before signing on to a glorious green future based on mid west windmills, the T. Boone Pickens solution, better get some quotations on transmission lines, and line losses.
Question, has the state of the art improved enough to ignore the 400 mile rule of thumb?
Losses in wire are equal to current squared times resistance of the line. Power transmitted is volts times amps, and so power is transmitted at the highest possible voltage, to reduce the current. Since the losses are caused by current, the lower current means lower losses.
Wire is aluminum, cause it is much lighter weight and lower cost than copper. Some fiddling with Excel gives the resistance of 400 miles of American Wire Gauge 0000 aluminum wire (0.43 inch diameter), the largest size in the wire table, as 170 ohms.
Consider transmitting 1000 megawatts (output of just ONE nuclear plant) over 400 miles. Use the highest voltage you dare, 750000 volts. That requires a current of 1333 amps.
Not good. Of the 1000 megawatts put into the line, fully 300 megawatts, 30% is lost as heat. That's gonna run up the cost of power. And we have only gone 400 miles.
Use thicker wire you say? Lets try that. Double the wire diameter, which increases the cross section, (and reduces the resistance) by four times. That helps some. At 400 miles the loss drops to 7.5% (tolerable) but it's still 30% at 1600 miles, the distance from Iowa to New England.
So, before signing on to a glorious green future based on mid west windmills, the T. Boone Pickens solution, better get some quotations on transmission lines, and line losses.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Hedging, a value destroying strategy
Wall St is in love with "hedges". As in hedging your bets. At Vegas, the hedger at roulette bets half his money on black, the other half on red. Spin the wheel, and doesn't matter which color comes up. You win one, you loose one, and you don't loose all your money. Of course you don't win much, but it's "safe".
On Wall St, they like to speak of credit default swaps, and puts and shorts and such as "legitimate hedges" as opposed to outright gambling. Clever brokers invent complex plays which preserve value no matter which way the market moves. They buy credit default swaps on shaky bond issues. The small cost of buying the swap guarantees the bond buyer against loss, if the bond defaults, the credit default swap pays off and makes the bond buyer whole.
This isn't what the market is supposed to do. The market is supposed to route investment money into winning enterprises and shut off credit to loosing ones. Economic growth, and jobs come from funding winners, not pouring money into losers. The bond buyers should be buying bonds from companies that will make enough money to pay off the bond. But with a hedge, a credit default swap, the buyer can buy high yielding bonds issued by losers and buy a credit default swap to cover the risk of the bond defaulting, which it is likely to do as soon as the loser loses big enough.
This is diverting valuable investment capital into losers. Is there any rational reason left to permit the sale and purchase of credit default swaps?
On Wall St, they like to speak of credit default swaps, and puts and shorts and such as "legitimate hedges" as opposed to outright gambling. Clever brokers invent complex plays which preserve value no matter which way the market moves. They buy credit default swaps on shaky bond issues. The small cost of buying the swap guarantees the bond buyer against loss, if the bond defaults, the credit default swap pays off and makes the bond buyer whole.
This isn't what the market is supposed to do. The market is supposed to route investment money into winning enterprises and shut off credit to loosing ones. Economic growth, and jobs come from funding winners, not pouring money into losers. The bond buyers should be buying bonds from companies that will make enough money to pay off the bond. But with a hedge, a credit default swap, the buyer can buy high yielding bonds issued by losers and buy a credit default swap to cover the risk of the bond defaulting, which it is likely to do as soon as the loser loses big enough.
This is diverting valuable investment capital into losers. Is there any rational reason left to permit the sale and purchase of credit default swaps?
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