A democratic newspaper that hates Donald Trump, printed an unlikely story, based on anonymous sources. Senior administration officials, speaking on camera, and giving their names, called the story false. Monday TV news talked about nothing else, all day. The gist of the Wash Post story was that Trump gave classified intel to the Russians at last week's meeting with the Russian ambassador.
While this bit of fake news completely blanketed the TV news, serious issues, the economy, tax reform, Obamacare reform or repeal, tariffs, budget, the Wall, Dodd Frank repeal or reform, military spending, the NORKs, Syria, ISIS, get no coverage at all. Way to go national news media.
It's so bad that I heard a Fox News talking head say "The daily press briefing is our opportunity to hold the administration to account". Wrong Fox newsie. The daily press briefing is the Administration's opportunity to present stories that put the administration in a good light. Your job is to pass along the stories you judge true or useful, and silently give no mention to stories you judge false. You newsies are supposed to be investigators, not avengers.
Tuesday, May 16, 2017
Monday, May 15, 2017
NORK missiles are mostly liquid fuel. Wall St Journal.
The Journal ran a piece on the NORK missile program today. They showed sketches of three NORK missiles, all liquid fuel. Later on in the article they mentioned that the NORKs were working on, and had test fired at least one solid fuel missile. But the missiles in the sketches were all liquid fuel.
Why do we care? Liquid fuel is half liquid oxygen (LOX) and the other half is something like kerosene, or alcohol, or perhaps even hydrogen. As soon as the missile is fueled with LOX, the LOX starts boiling off. The boiling point of LOX is minus 183 degrees Centigrade. Putting LOX inside an aluminum missile fuel tank in ordinary air (plus 20 C) and the LOX starts to boil off into oxygen gas. The fuel tank pressure relief valve lets the gas vent outside to keep the tank pressure down. Not a problem if you launch right after fueling, but you cannot keep a liquid fueled missile fueled for more than tens of hours. Give it ten or twenty hours and all the LOX is gone, boiled away. You cannot keep a fleet of liquid fueled missiles fueled and ready to launch at a moment's notice. After the order to launch is given, figure an hour or two for fueling before main stage ignition.
Far better as a weapon is a solid fueled missile. The earliest solid fuel was plain old black gunpowder, and 4th of July skyrockets still use gunpowder. Far better solid fuels can be made but the chemistry is complicated. Modern solid fuel has a lot of plastic explosive in it, usually some powdered aluminum for extra hot burning, and a lot of magic chemicals to slow the burn rate down so it doesn't just explode and blow the missile to bits. Just what the magic chemicals are is secret, and tricky. We didn't get it figured out until the first submarine launched Polaris missiles in the 1960's. It will take the NORKs a while to come up to speed on making solid fuel missiles.
With solid fuel missiles, you can launch within a minute or two after the red phone rings with a launch order. Which makes a much more reliable weapon than liquid fuel missiles.
Why do we care? Liquid fuel is half liquid oxygen (LOX) and the other half is something like kerosene, or alcohol, or perhaps even hydrogen. As soon as the missile is fueled with LOX, the LOX starts boiling off. The boiling point of LOX is minus 183 degrees Centigrade. Putting LOX inside an aluminum missile fuel tank in ordinary air (plus 20 C) and the LOX starts to boil off into oxygen gas. The fuel tank pressure relief valve lets the gas vent outside to keep the tank pressure down. Not a problem if you launch right after fueling, but you cannot keep a liquid fueled missile fueled for more than tens of hours. Give it ten or twenty hours and all the LOX is gone, boiled away. You cannot keep a fleet of liquid fueled missiles fueled and ready to launch at a moment's notice. After the order to launch is given, figure an hour or two for fueling before main stage ignition.
Far better as a weapon is a solid fueled missile. The earliest solid fuel was plain old black gunpowder, and 4th of July skyrockets still use gunpowder. Far better solid fuels can be made but the chemistry is complicated. Modern solid fuel has a lot of plastic explosive in it, usually some powdered aluminum for extra hot burning, and a lot of magic chemicals to slow the burn rate down so it doesn't just explode and blow the missile to bits. Just what the magic chemicals are is secret, and tricky. We didn't get it figured out until the first submarine launched Polaris missiles in the 1960's. It will take the NORKs a while to come up to speed on making solid fuel missiles.
With solid fuel missiles, you can launch within a minute or two after the red phone rings with a launch order. Which makes a much more reliable weapon than liquid fuel missiles.
Patch for the Wanna Cry virus on Windows XP
You can find it by googling for Wanna Cry patch on Windows XP. And you can download the patch using any browser, you don't have to use Internet Exploder. The patch file has the longest filename I ever saw, just to make things hard for us users. Thanks M$. windowsxp-kb4012598-x86-custom-enu_eceb7d5023bbb23c0dc633e469c2f14fa6ee9dd.exe. Don't try to google for that, it's too long to type correctly. Google for "Wanna Cry patch windows XP".
M$ decided that Wanna Cry was so bad that they released a patch for XP, which they have declared obsolete, dead as a doornail, and windows update no longer works on XP. Too bad. Of the various flavors of windows, XP is the fastest, the smallest, and can do everything the newer flavors of Windows can do, and do it faster. A lot of us still run XP, cause the newer and fatter versions won't run on our elder but still very capable computers.
If you are running one of the newer, slower, and fatter versions there are special versions of the patch for use on them. M$ brags that windows update will have automatically patched the newer versions. You can believe as much of that as you want to.
Now, to see if the patch actually works. It doesn't seem to a broken anything. Only time will tell if it stops the Wanna Cry virus.
The Wall St Journal says law enforcement world wide is looking for the Wanna Cry perps. If the cops catch them, I can think of some cruel and unusual punishments that would fit the crime.
M$ decided that Wanna Cry was so bad that they released a patch for XP, which they have declared obsolete, dead as a doornail, and windows update no longer works on XP. Too bad. Of the various flavors of windows, XP is the fastest, the smallest, and can do everything the newer flavors of Windows can do, and do it faster. A lot of us still run XP, cause the newer and fatter versions won't run on our elder but still very capable computers.
If you are running one of the newer, slower, and fatter versions there are special versions of the patch for use on them. M$ brags that windows update will have automatically patched the newer versions. You can believe as much of that as you want to.
Now, to see if the patch actually works. It doesn't seem to a broken anything. Only time will tell if it stops the Wanna Cry virus.
The Wall St Journal says law enforcement world wide is looking for the Wanna Cry perps. If the cops catch them, I can think of some cruel and unusual punishments that would fit the crime.
Sunday, May 14, 2017
Does your Windows machine run slow?
Not that any flavor of Windows is speedy, but if you notice your machine running slower than usual, it might be the wuauclt bug in Windows. How to tell?
Run task manager and look at the processes. If you see process SVChost.exe using 99% of your CPU time, you have the problem. You are looking at service wuauclt.exe locked up in a loop. Microsoft does something unneeded and unusual here, they run one program (wuauclt) but make task manager display the name svchost, rather than the program's true name of wuauclt. This is pure obstructionism on Micro$oft's part.
You can regain control of your machine by using task manager to kill process svchost.exe. You can ignore the scary warning task manager displays when you do. Nothing bad will happen. Go ahead and kill it.
Various internet postings tell me that wuauclt is part of windows update. Windows update is supposed to go thru the list of patches for various things, and sort thru the patches that are new, and the patches that have been already applied, and just apply the new patches. M$ programmers bungled this bit of code, and as the patch lists get longer and longer, wuauclt gets into a loop and hogs 100% CPU time for as long as a hour.
If like me, you are running trusty old XP, you might as well turn windows update off, M$ isn't issuing patches for XP anymore. You can do this with services.msc, which you can start from the run box. Find "automatic updates". Stop it. Then click properties and set the startup mode to disabled.
According to a couple of internet postings, the wuauclt runaway is caused by or aggravated by missing patches in Internet Exploder. There are multiple versions of IE out in the wild, V6, V7, and V8. You ought to update to at least V8. And then run Windows Update (if functional) from within IE to apply all the outstanding IE patches. I did that, haven't run long enough to say if it works. But it's a good thing to do in any case. Better is to use another browser, any other browser is faster and safer than IE. I only keep IE on my machine to run Windows Update, I do all my web cruising with Firefox.
Good luck.
Run task manager and look at the processes. If you see process SVChost.exe using 99% of your CPU time, you have the problem. You are looking at service wuauclt.exe locked up in a loop. Microsoft does something unneeded and unusual here, they run one program (wuauclt) but make task manager display the name svchost, rather than the program's true name of wuauclt. This is pure obstructionism on Micro$oft's part.
You can regain control of your machine by using task manager to kill process svchost.exe. You can ignore the scary warning task manager displays when you do. Nothing bad will happen. Go ahead and kill it.
Various internet postings tell me that wuauclt is part of windows update. Windows update is supposed to go thru the list of patches for various things, and sort thru the patches that are new, and the patches that have been already applied, and just apply the new patches. M$ programmers bungled this bit of code, and as the patch lists get longer and longer, wuauclt gets into a loop and hogs 100% CPU time for as long as a hour.
If like me, you are running trusty old XP, you might as well turn windows update off, M$ isn't issuing patches for XP anymore. You can do this with services.msc, which you can start from the run box. Find "automatic updates". Stop it. Then click properties and set the startup mode to disabled.
According to a couple of internet postings, the wuauclt runaway is caused by or aggravated by missing patches in Internet Exploder. There are multiple versions of IE out in the wild, V6, V7, and V8. You ought to update to at least V8. And then run Windows Update (if functional) from within IE to apply all the outstanding IE patches. I did that, haven't run long enough to say if it works. But it's a good thing to do in any case. Better is to use another browser, any other browser is faster and safer than IE. I only keep IE on my machine to run Windows Update, I do all my web cruising with Firefox.
Good luck.
Guardians of the Galaxy Part 2
I went to see it at Littleton's Jax Jr. yesterday afternoon. It wasn't as good as the first one. Huge amount of special effects/CGI. We had explosions, fires, spaceship chases, gun fights, sword fights, fist fights, and weird monsters with lots of tentacles. We have the original cast, with the exception of Groot. Groot was in the movie, but he is now only 12 inches tall, as compared with the 10 foot tall tree person in the first movie. Lotta sight gags, lotta lines making fun of other Hollywood movies.
If the movie had a plot, I never caught on to it. If it had a protagonist I would vote for Rocket Racoon who had most of the best lines. Peter what's-his-face and his green skinned girl friend were present for duty, but didn't do much. We had a new villain, who called himself Peter's father, who tries to bend Peter to the dark side, which results in a lot of hand to hand fighting.
All in all, a less than distinguished movie.
Thursday, May 11, 2017
Unsolicited advice for Detroit automakers
Yesterday's Wall St Journal had a piece on troubles at Ford. Sales have been going down. I missed this, but Ford apparently let their last CEO Allan Mulally go a couple of years ago. First I had heard. Mulally got Ford thru Great Depression 2.0 with out declaring bankruptcy like GM and Chrysler did. Dunno why Ford ever let Mulally go, he was good.
Anyhow, here is my advice as to how to make cars and earn money.
1. Build the best selling car. Behemoths like the big three (GM, Ford, Chrysler) cannot survive selling into niche markets. Look at Corvette. Highly desirable car, but there just aren't enough guys with Corvette money to feed a Gigantosaurus like GM. Right now, the volume car is the small four door econobox. Just take a look around on 128 during rush hour. Most of the traffic is little econoboxes. Pickup trucks are way fewer, and luxury sedans (Bimmers) even fewer. If you are one of the big three, you have to build a winning econobox to stay in business.
2. Sell the car under one name. Don't do badge engineering (selling the same car under different names), just changing the badge on the fender. It confuses the customers, and it dilutes your advertising. Say you can afford to run 1000 ads. If 500 of the ads call the car by one name, and 500 ads call the car by the other name, few customers will remember either name. More effective, run 1000 ads calling the car by the same name. More customers will remember that your car even exists, let alone is it desirable.
3. Build a car, not a rolling desktop computer. Customers care about styling, interior fit and finish, price, gas mileage, handling in snow and rain, low vibration and low noise at speed, reliability, resale value, and intangibles like a good name, and prestige. Most of 'em are happy with an FM radio. Customer's don't like fancy electronic nav systems or voice commanded sound systems, especially when they fail to work. Besides, really fancy electronic doo-dads are too expensive to leave in the car. Customers like to take their electronics with them. Just offer an audio plug that lets the Ipod play back thru the cars speakers, and maybe some power receptacles.
3. A good name for a car is worth a lot of sales. The easiest way to make a name good is keep on using it. Don't do the Datsun-Nissan hari-kari. GM has a closet full of good old names that it doesn't use anymore. Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Impala, Roadmaster and more. Why they ever named a car Beretta is beyond me. Everyone knows Beretta is an Italian handgun, carried by James Bond, before Q sold him on the Walthers PPK.
4. Design the dashboard so you can work it at night. Use some real knobs that you can feel in the dark. The modern cheapy dash of 100 pushbuttons, all alike, all with labels too small to read without taking off your driving glasses is a PITA.
5. If you have a car that sells, keep on making it, don't try to change the car into something else. Witness Cadillac, famous for luxury six passenger boats, which has stopped making boats, and is now trying to sell a four passenger sport sedan going up against Bimmers. Caddy even has a racing program now. They aren't doing very well either at the track or in the showroom. GM would have done better to keep Caddy selling boats and SUVs. and used another name for the sports sedan, Pontiac maybe.
Anyhow, here is my advice as to how to make cars and earn money.
1. Build the best selling car. Behemoths like the big three (GM, Ford, Chrysler) cannot survive selling into niche markets. Look at Corvette. Highly desirable car, but there just aren't enough guys with Corvette money to feed a Gigantosaurus like GM. Right now, the volume car is the small four door econobox. Just take a look around on 128 during rush hour. Most of the traffic is little econoboxes. Pickup trucks are way fewer, and luxury sedans (Bimmers) even fewer. If you are one of the big three, you have to build a winning econobox to stay in business.
2. Sell the car under one name. Don't do badge engineering (selling the same car under different names), just changing the badge on the fender. It confuses the customers, and it dilutes your advertising. Say you can afford to run 1000 ads. If 500 of the ads call the car by one name, and 500 ads call the car by the other name, few customers will remember either name. More effective, run 1000 ads calling the car by the same name. More customers will remember that your car even exists, let alone is it desirable.
3. Build a car, not a rolling desktop computer. Customers care about styling, interior fit and finish, price, gas mileage, handling in snow and rain, low vibration and low noise at speed, reliability, resale value, and intangibles like a good name, and prestige. Most of 'em are happy with an FM radio. Customer's don't like fancy electronic nav systems or voice commanded sound systems, especially when they fail to work. Besides, really fancy electronic doo-dads are too expensive to leave in the car. Customers like to take their electronics with them. Just offer an audio plug that lets the Ipod play back thru the cars speakers, and maybe some power receptacles.
3. A good name for a car is worth a lot of sales. The easiest way to make a name good is keep on using it. Don't do the Datsun-Nissan hari-kari. GM has a closet full of good old names that it doesn't use anymore. Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Impala, Roadmaster and more. Why they ever named a car Beretta is beyond me. Everyone knows Beretta is an Italian handgun, carried by James Bond, before Q sold him on the Walthers PPK.
4. Design the dashboard so you can work it at night. Use some real knobs that you can feel in the dark. The modern cheapy dash of 100 pushbuttons, all alike, all with labels too small to read without taking off your driving glasses is a PITA.
5. If you have a car that sells, keep on making it, don't try to change the car into something else. Witness Cadillac, famous for luxury six passenger boats, which has stopped making boats, and is now trying to sell a four passenger sport sedan going up against Bimmers. Caddy even has a racing program now. They aren't doing very well either at the track or in the showroom. GM would have done better to keep Caddy selling boats and SUVs. and used another name for the sports sedan, Pontiac maybe.
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
Dominate the news cycle. Fire your FBI director,
News of Comey's firing hit the TV news last night around 5 PM. Bombshell. The TV news has talked about little else since. Not sure what to think about the firing. All I know about Comey is his dramatic press conferences during the election, the first where he said Hillary was off the hook on her private email server. Followed by a lot of commentary about how Hillary's conduct was dumb in the extreme but not prosecutable. If Comey had had two brain cells firing that day, he would never have given that press conference but instead simply forwarded the case to the Justice Department. Lesson: If you are handed a hot potato, get rid of it, don't juggle it in public. As part of this screwball press conference, Comey promised to keep Congress informed if anything else came up.
And, sure enough, the Weiner laptop stuffed with Hillary's State Dept emails turned up. And Comey went public with it before anyone had time to look at the stuff. A week later, Comey admitted that the Weiner laptop material wasn't all that bad. All of this must have done Hillary some damage, just how much is impossible to know.
And so, Trump fired Comey last night. Probably not a bad idea, his mishandling of the Hillary email server affair is enough to make me doubt Comey's common sense. I gotta feeling a bunch of FBI agents feel the same way. And the FBI director is a very powerful official. J. Edgar Hoover was so feared in DC that no president had the stones to fire him for fear Hoover had file cabinets stuffed with ugly dirt that he would release to the press.
Chuckie the Schumer was on TV claiming that Comey was fired to prevent an FBI investigation of Trump's Russian involvement. Pure BS. No American with an ounce of brains is going to make a deal with the Russians, they have a century long reputation for treachery and backstabbing. You can't make a deal with them, they weasel out of it, or just flat break it every single time. Everyone knows that.
Big question. Who can Trump find to replace Comey? I've heard Kelly Ayotte mentioned. I'm OK with Kelly, I actually know her, she is tough, has her head screwed on nose to the front. She is a republican so the democrats will have heartburn over that.
And, sure enough, the Weiner laptop stuffed with Hillary's State Dept emails turned up. And Comey went public with it before anyone had time to look at the stuff. A week later, Comey admitted that the Weiner laptop material wasn't all that bad. All of this must have done Hillary some damage, just how much is impossible to know.
And so, Trump fired Comey last night. Probably not a bad idea, his mishandling of the Hillary email server affair is enough to make me doubt Comey's common sense. I gotta feeling a bunch of FBI agents feel the same way. And the FBI director is a very powerful official. J. Edgar Hoover was so feared in DC that no president had the stones to fire him for fear Hoover had file cabinets stuffed with ugly dirt that he would release to the press.
Chuckie the Schumer was on TV claiming that Comey was fired to prevent an FBI investigation of Trump's Russian involvement. Pure BS. No American with an ounce of brains is going to make a deal with the Russians, they have a century long reputation for treachery and backstabbing. You can't make a deal with them, they weasel out of it, or just flat break it every single time. Everyone knows that.
Big question. Who can Trump find to replace Comey? I've heard Kelly Ayotte mentioned. I'm OK with Kelly, I actually know her, she is tough, has her head screwed on nose to the front. She is a republican so the democrats will have heartburn over that.
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