A good night

or

us

ts

wish

It sure impresses me. Display, mag reader, RPN programmable calculator, all discrete.

I wonder how long it took "Hewlett-Packard Updates" to patch its bloatware off the internet on boot-up, and what kind of anti-virus software it ran? Does it have HP-BIOS rev 237, patch # 1/24/2012_23c?

Bill Gates owns the first 5-10 minutes on my new computer (MS Updates and all). Eventually, he lets me use it. Then, he won't let me turn it off. (more updates)

-- Cheers, James Arthur

The 9100 was nicely programmable. When I was just a kid I used to run steamship propulsion simulations on one, before I got my PDP-8.

If it was running a program, you could switch the power off. When you turned it back on, it would resume from where it stopped.

You gave to turn all that garbage off if you want to be able to use your PC within a half hour of startup.

John

On a sunny day (Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:36:23 -0800 (PST)) it happened snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote in :

You do not have to put up with Balmer's folly. (Gates was not that much of an idiot, he could actually program).

Just install Linux. If everybody does that the software application suppliers will HAVE to follow.

Or is it not a free country where YOU decide what you use, and what happens on YOUR hardware? I just got appalled at CNN this morning, wanted to look up what Obanana's state (of the Union, or was it onion) looked like I can see in the browser endless lookups for facebook and IP 1.1.1.2.. Took ages to load. Gotta get iptables firewall up on this thing, though I compiled it in...

Hi Jon,

Yes, I think it must something like that. Amazing stuff.

llow.

I loaded Linux 10 or 12 years ago, but it really wasn't ready. It might be time for another look.

I just really want to use the computer, not modify and recompile the OS. I use it for work; I'm not looking for another hobby.

oked like

Oh, save your time--it was just more 8th-grade(*)(**) class-struggle Marxist drivel. Obfuscation, propaganda, emotionally-charged platitudes. Translation: hike taxes, control the economy and population through infinite regulations on everything.

(*)

OTOH, Mitch Daniels' rebuttal was absolutely spot-on. Govt's not the solution, it's the problem.

Cheers, James Arthur

On a sunny day (Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:08:03 -0800 (PST)) it happened snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote in :

Loaded it too: 'sls-linux', then slackware kernel 0.9.something IIRC Has always been a fight, but i am not afraid to pick a fight that I am sure I can win. Most of the applications I needed I had to write myself, including the newsreader, there was no 'free agent'for Linux. You cannot win from microsoft, as they change the rules while playing to suit them, and publish no source so you can never fix things, are forced to buy their next product, that then is worse. But it is true that it takes a lot of time, depends a lot on what you need to run.

He sounded convincing, and I found the republican comments rather weak. You guys better do better else he gets a second term. :-)

lo=3D

I guess I'm a harder sell, since I know the actual numbers. When Obama blabbers that raping a handful of "millionaires", reaping $100 billion a year (his newly exaggerated number, magically up from $70B) is going to let him spend even more money, fix America's $1,300 billion a year deficit, repay the debt, cure poverty, and somehow keep poor people from dropping out of school and having kids on the dole, he just sounds like a moron.

Substantively, Daniels was great. Obama rouses rabble superficially better with a teleprompter, but Daniels had the facts. If that's not plain to the masses, yes, that's worrying.

Collectively, though, the American people are amazingly wise. They're not sure why, but they understand all this carp(tm) isn't working. That's why the President is trying so desperately to get them worrying about something else.

I downloaded a bunch of carp(tm) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics over the weekend. More Americans want / need work today than when unemployment peaked two years ago.(*) People feel that.

(*) See

James

ea=3D

On a sunny day (Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:17:34 -0800 (PST)) it happened snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote in :

I see it this way, well one aspect of it that makes sense to me: There is China, and it produces cheap, There is US, it got spoiled over the years, and it produces expensive. China standard of living was very low, the US standard of livingvwasvvery high. Both are connected via global trade. Like 2 vessels of water, things will equalize. China will go up, US will go down. No matter who is in power, or what happens, If a US president wanted to stop that, then one of his few options is to close the border for foreign trade. That has side effects. The other option is to destroy the competition, for example a war between China and Japan would get rid of the debt as well as the competition. And Carthago must be destroyed?? ?? If no action is taken people may revolt (we now see occupy) if poverty hits them.

I think it will be war and market protection. This is good for gov, as now people can be motived to work for 'freedom', not for money, and no food on the table can be blamed on the bad guys you are fighting. What games the politicians will play... You have to choose between getting shot or getting hanged, so you may be wasting time with trying to influence the decision process. The pendulum moves, it is very tiring to try to stop it, you get hit twice if in the middle, and you get hit once if you are on either side. So the good place to be is at the pivoting point, and sit on it, and watch the show. Time is a precious thing, and why watch a couple of sucking leaders who are as blind as the masses they lead. Just have some fun while you can.

A vector graphics arcade game. Battleship would be appropriate. Imagine the look on the faces of the Navy techs who once used it.

TV sets with 15 tubes are more impressive than LED panels too.

But you would need diodes in that case too, no???

The resistor array must do some kind of decoding I guess, rather than a lookup of random bit patterns.

No. It's not that simple.

I believe what you are doing is called "the lump of labor fallacy". As to China, there is a metric to describe the 70% of the US domestic economy that is consumer spending. It's called the PCE ( Personal Consumption Expenditure)

And not all that much of it actually goes to China: (Krugman in a rare non-flamey mode...)

He figures about 15% of that 70% of GDP actually goes to China. Dunno what non-PCE fraction is, but I have gotten some good deals on great tech toys from the far East, and this has been going on since Compaq was founded, so I'm happy about it.

The way I look at it is that China has still significant subsidies for stuff like rent and food, and they're transferring much of the margin from that to us. Then they buy some of our bonds ( which is darned nice of 'em ).

China and Japan

We don't have a debt problem; we have a *cash flow* problem. I think, anyway.

them.

Could be. Now who wins that? We do...

fighting.

We are retiring perfectly good ag. land at an alarming rate... google "texas land bank" some time.... it's not just in texas, neither...

wasting time

show.

Heck, I'm having a ball.

-- Les Cargill

(I can't reply directly due to my googlegroups block.)

I think they are wise individually and stupid collectively. If it was not so, the progressive movement would have negative feedback. Putting people on the dole weakens their individualism and makes them stupid voters who vote for more progressivism.

China and Japan

them.

China's not a problem. We're so wealthy we'd barely notice a little leakage there. More people prospering is a good thing.

The problem is simple--we're doing a bunch of lame things to ourselves, which the President has put on overdrive. It's completely curable, but he wants to go farther instead.

The gov't is meddling in everything, bungling all.

(e.g. Obamacare, mortgages, $250K Chevy Volts, "green" energy, ethanol. Redistribution. Making failed companies permanent, and turning them into gov't zombies. Stopping oil, gas, and coal, even from Canada(!), increasing the cost of energy. Suing states who try to resist illegal border crossings. Stopping trucks on the highway. The tax system is so complicated that even PhD chemists can't understand the basics.)

Cost of complying with gov't regulation was $1.75T in 2008(*), before Obama's explosion. Heaven knows what it is now. That's wasted. Half that turned from waste to productivity would pay the whole deficit and leave us handily in surplus.

(*)

All of this low-hanging fruit, and all Obama can offer is "tax the rich," i.e., "take from someone who has more than you." That math doesn't even work, let alone address why poor people are poor.

fighting.

wasting time

show.

Why watch it crumble when it can be fixed? That's immoral. I got, in part, one guy to vote against Obamacare. If I'd gotten two more, IIRC, it wouldn't have passed.

I'll still have fun even if it all collapses. I've got half a dozen oscilloscopes, half a dozen lathes, plenty of scrap metal, and parts by the reel. :-)

-- Cheers, James Arthur

China and Japan

them.

fighting.

wasting time

the show.

Electronics is a great place to hide from reality.

John

On a sunny day (Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:39:05 -0800 (PST)) it happened snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote in :

You are in debt to China for billions. You are living on borrowed money, they will want it back with interest. There is this site that shows how much each person, averaged per person, including little kids and newborns, has to pay back. Thousands and thousands of dollars.

US is a land of immigrants, do not forget your origins, came from Europe and killed the native Americans. Then you say: This land is my land', and put a fence around it. In the same way LOL when the number of Mexicans that is illegally in your country exceeds the number of you, then they will do the same to you as you did to the native Americans. So, like I said in an other post, "just the dinosaurs of our time fighting for food. Is it good? Is it bad? It is the way it is, and from a very limited POV that good and bad depends on which side you are on.

You mentioned oil price, IIRC GWB (your club) had that oil price way up there too, and the price of petrol. The big oil companies like that high oil price, pestering Iran helps increase profit, invading it acquires resources, same as you did in Iraq, and high oil prices keep Russia content too. As to PhD chemists, yes, and Volts on fire.

Obanana is a bad salesman, you need somebody who can sell US. I do not see anybody from the republican spectrum at this time. And would it not be just an other bubble? Like Clinton and the IT bubble? But at least he got the deficit down. Selling is merely creating an illusion that others want, like Jobs did with the pad or pod or whatever, touched a lot of people, I look a those things and wonder "why?(would I want this)". To make America a wanted object (so to speak) you need a sales person like Jobs. And he was more than that, visionair perhaps. But even all that would be just buying some time. When China and US finally become in equilibrium, the unlikely case things would progress without a WW3, then maybe things will improve.

If I see a building being demolished, would I go there and stand under it to try to keep it up? No, get the camera, make a nice picture ;-)

We had electronic voting here once, was about some decision, I know computahs, I selected 'yes', and the display replied with 'no'. I left the building sort of - not going to play that game again -. I think GWB was selected by a virus, cannot remember who wrote it,

Yes, but without electrickity, we need to get that Italian cold fusion at home.

You're mixing up two causes. The Chinese hold around a trillion $ of US Treasury bonds, which is money they're lending us to pay for all this gov't spending, not the trade deficit.

Obama's spending has increased our national debt more in three years than Bush did in eight, wars / tax cuts / whatever included.

Those who came before us did the same, and those before them, just as you did in your country. But, I don't know any country in the world other than America today that just lets huge numbers of poor people come and stay illegally, supports them financially, then adapts to them and their culture rather than the reverse.

My friend Wayne--a hard-working, productive Swiss taxpayer--got kicked out of Switzerland on 24hrs notice, after working there legally for years, because they changed their bureaucratic minds.

in your

ou did

Ah, so, you wouldn't mind if Spain's or France's, or Germany's poor moved north, since they all had claims on you once upon a time? You'd just put them on your social services for free, educate their children, start speaking their languages, raise their flags, and celebrate their holidays?

When someone overstays their visa, do you let them stay? We do.

g for food.

here too,

Not my club.

ease profit,

ces

Obama's doing it deliberately. Before he got elected he said he'd "bankrupt" coal plants, and the price of electricity would "necessarily skyrocket." It sounds incredible, but we heard him say it. There's audio. And he's doing it.

So Obama's in with Big Oil even worse than Bush ever was, to the people who think that way, right? Nope.

Half

Obama's an anti-salesman--he goes around telling people we're bad, and insulting our friends. Our allies can't depend on him, and our enemies think he's a joke. We just grossly insulted Canada, one of our greatest friends..

e Jobs.

Even if it's *your* house?

No, the left demanded electronic voting _after_ GWB because their voters didn't know how to use paper. That's why they say they lost in

home.

Easy--I'll just salvage from all the failed green energy companies.

-- Cheers, James

Electronics is great in that you can imagine what could be--almost anything you want--then make it so.

James

Trillions, actually.

Ain't it great?

That's what inflation was invented for: to cancel paying interest.

Most of it will never be paid back.

John

An electronic design is a machine with hundreds, or billions, of moving parts, something that has no mechanical equivalent for speed or complexity. And electronics is reliable enough that we can design machines with thousands of parts, and have it work to incredible precision, again something that's not possible in any other realm than, maybe, software. And software is just an extension of electronics. [1]

I think you need to be able to visualize the moving parts, look at a circuit and see and feel the forces and the motion, to appreciate how cool this is.

John