Mail 134 January 6 - 14, 2001 (original) (raw)

Thursday, January 11, 2000

Dr. Breggin stated:

>They sometimes suggest that only medication can stave off a bleak future of delinquency and occupational failure. They even >call child protective services to investigate parents for child neglect and they sometimes testify against parents in court. Often >the schools recommend particular physicians who favor the use of stimulant drugs to control behavior.

I have serious problems with these statements. Schools, teachers, etc. do *not* do this unless they want to be liable for the payments! If a school or teacher recommends a course of treatment, or a doctor, they can, by federal guidelines for special education, be presumed to be assuming the cost of said course of treatment and doctor visitation.

We have been warned very specifically that we are *not* to diagnose a child, recommend a particular doctor, recommend testing, etc. If a parent asks, we may give them information about clinics where they can find more information, but we may not recommend one clinic over another.

Susan Nixon

You may have serious problems with this, but I have several sources telling me that it happens, and that parents who don't use the services of some of these drug them all physicians are threatened with visits from Child Services. Given that one child was taken from a mother who called a help line to ask if it was normal to get some sexual thrill from her daughter nursing -- and it took $5000 in legal fees to get the child back -- in some communities the Child Welfare people are as feared as ever was the Gestapo. I expect this varies not only from state to state but within states, but it is not, I think, an idle concern.

Hello. I read your article regarding (re)writable cd technology and found it quite helpful, thank you. I was wondering though...are "home-burnt" cd's longevity the same as those that are manufactured? I have heard some dyes are better than others. Thank you.

Kam Daneshvar

I would certainly be careful to buy Kodak if I were concerned about longevity, but in fact I suspect it's not likely to matter.

I am unsure what to make of this next letter:

Hello... you are really different from other writers because you are always talking abaout your experiences.

Have I been complimented or?

And there is this:

May I ask if you are related to a sci-fi author of similar name?

RJ.

You may ask. and I believe I am...

Hi, Jerry. Chris Hare.. I sent you mail once before, about a year ago now. Different account, probably, can't remember what it was about, no matter. Anyhow, I do recall being able to set up 2000 Pro as a peer-to-peer network, IPX and NetBEUI and NetBIOS. Took a bit of swearing at, but it's possible. If you feel interested enough, I can tell you more. Right now, it's on a peer-to-peer with a series of varyingly dodgy Win98SE boxes. I could, if you feel like it, try to rebuild something as 2000 Server, and try to make that work peer to peer as well. Never done it, seems vaugely interesting, and I was planning to rebuild the 2000 Server hard drive, now the machine it'll be attached to got upgraded. Up to you, if you care to hear. Chris Hare

Yes, sorry, I was joking. You can use Windows 2000 Pro in peer to peer and in fact that's what I recommend for simple networks. I don't really need Server here except that I need to have experience with it so I can write about it. And in fact I really prefer things set up "properly"; but it does take time and effort.

W 2000 will work peer to peer with NetBEUI or TCP/IP and works quite well. Of course if you want to share Internet connections you need to implement TCP/IP

I never quite know what to say when someone sends a thing like this:

Hi, Jerry

I enjoy reading your books and articles. Including (as your column mentioned) The Mote in God's Eye. I've always maintained that the web will have truly arrived when I can read it in the bathroom.

Anyhow, I'm writing about your Jan 3. column. No doubt you're aware that the Pentium 4 is receiving poor and lukewarm reviews from various places.

Practical: http://www.aceshardware.com/Spades/read.php?article_id=15000196 http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2000/46/ns-19162.html http://www4.tomshardware.com/cpu/00q4/001120/p4-26.html

Theoretical: http://www.emulators.com/pentium4.htm

Many are saying that AMD has eclipsed Intel-- that their current chips are more than a match for Intel's newest.

So if you're touting the Pentium 4 as a revolution, it would strengthen your article significantly to say why you believe those people are wrong. To say what you think about AMD's ability to compete. It seems you feel it's a Pentium Pro situation-- update the software and the performance will come. But I'm just guessing here.

Part of what I find confusing about the article is that I run a Celeron system (a 300A @ 450 MHz), and find it suits my needs as a musician quite well. I've never used more than 64 tracks. For me, that independent music revolution has been here since 98. Sure, I can't do noise reduction or really complicated effects in real time, but I'd rather do those in postproduction anyhow.

I do see the possibility of music changing, since home studios make it more convenient to record at a whim. Certainly, that freedom is attractive to me, but working freeform also makes me aware of my limitations as a recording engineer. The problem is that recording music isn't just about the equipment. Producing a quality album requires the skills of an audio engineer, and that's the limiting factor I see for many.

I also mess around with video. Some of the filtering is so processor intensive that I run it overnight. But I'm not sure that even a 4x speed increase would be good enough for me.

So while Intel's always been the one to beat, I'm not sure this is a revolution.

Aaron

-- Aaron Bentley abentley.dyndns.org

And I am not sure you are responsive to what I said. Perhaps there ought to have been a stronger paragraph break between the section on the P IV and what followed about "systems LIKE the Pentium IV" which was generic? If so that's my fault.

As to audio engineers and so forth, perhaps. And perhaps there is such a thing as an artist who can figure out how to edit. The thrust of what I was saying was that widespread availability of high quality recording systems will help break the stranglehold the Recording Industry has had. And that is GOOD. Publishers have never had the power over authors that recording companies have had over performers.

Now certainly, the revolution is more likely to be accomplished with some specialization, with some people working with the equipment and others being artistic composers and arrangers and others performing. Certainly I left some of that to the imagination of the readership. But my point was, and is, that once the investment requirements for making professional quality recordings have come down sharply, you will see some variety.

As with BLAIR WITCH and some other such in the movie business. And having better video editing and computer graphics creation and rendering capabilities at low cost will continue to change the movie and TV industry too.

I never quite know how to deal with people who accuse me of "TOUTING". I don't tout, and I rather dislike having that term used for what I do.

I am sure you know more about all this than I do. Have a nice day. As to video, read Alex Pournelle and David Em, who work with this a lot more than me.

Finally, AMD may have caught up with Intel and may not, but what I said stands: the performance of the P IV with software written to take advantage of its instructions appeared to me to be very impressive. It works here, too, not just at COMDEX. But there isn't a lot of such software, there is certainly nothing like Soft Image using the P IV instructions, and until there is, the effect isn't going to be all that great. AMD is doing a good job, and it's good for us all to have competition. And I think I have said that many times.

A couple of days ago I sent out a tip on MS Excel 2000's hidden autosave function. Well, here's a update on a side effect that I found - one that is on par with the original problem.

Let me set the environment I'm in.... I have a large file - over 340 pages at 50 lines per page - that is the wide area network equipment and PBX equipment inventory for a nationwide company - and it doesn't include the users PCs, printers or servers.

Anyway, I was massaging the data and correcting errors like the 24 different spellings - so far - of "Hewlett Packard" that I've found. Or the 9 different "Cisco" variations - "Crisco 7000 rooter" presents an interesting mental picture...

Here's the latest gotcha:

Yesterday I was asked by a co-corker to print out a list of all the equipment with asset tags but missing manufacturers name or model numbers - sort of a "hit list" for the field personnel to look for on site visits.

OK, no problem. Look for the model number value or UNKNOWN.

I load the file, select all, sort it by model number, delete everything before the model number value UNKNOWN, select and delete everything after UNKNOWN up to the lines that have empty model number cells, and print what's left to 11x17 paper. Sent the co-worker over to the Laserjet 5si that has the 11x17 tray. He comes back a few minutes later with 39 pages at 50 lines per page. No problem. Close the file *without* saving, reopen it and go back to work on what I was doing before the co-workers request.

What's wrong with the above picture?

When I opened the original file all that was there was the just-created subset of the data... Excel's autosave had saved the file *back to the original filename* while I was printing. Fortunately just 15 minutes before my co-worker asked for the "hit list" printout I had emailed the file to another department and my most recent work was still in my sent mail folder. Thank you, God.

No Thanks to the brains at Microsoft. Either they give us no autosave or they give us autosave to the main file - not a temp file that Excel looks for on startup and recovers from... Hey guys - go look at Word Perfect 5.1 for MS-DOS 3.3 from 20 years ago. Copy their technique. It works and doesn't get in the way of getting work done.

And based on past performance (Office 95 and Office 97) it will be 2-3 years before it's fixed, and it will probably require the users to adapt - again - to a new way of doing things.

Mike Morris

Thanks!

NOW I get THIS:

In a message dated 1/11/01 8:27:55 PM !!!First Boot!!!,
jerryp@jerrypournelle.com writes:

I think so

Did you know the editor of Analog? RJ. ichee_index

I wonder what is going on?

My daughter sent this URL, commenting "Good God. We need to wrap the kids in cotton batting, obviously. ARGH!"

http://www.msnbc.com/local/STRIB/STALRG08.asp?0nm=-18K

The news is about how schools are shying away from allowing animals, party food from home, plants in elementary school class rooms. Might trigger an allergy--or a lawsuit. And we wonder why modern folk are cut off from the real world.

Julie Woodman

Aarrgggh indeed. In our desire to protect everyone from everything at all times we have lost sight of purpose. I have some sympathy for those with allergies but they HAVE them, and depriving everyone else is probably not the best answer to it. The end of that logic is "if there are no cripples and asthmatics the rest of us can live better lives"; and don't kid yourself that there have not been civilizations that adopted that as their marching order. Religion slows that tendency; but we have a war on religion, too,

And on the subject of religion, the following was posted in another discussion group.

First who:

Carol Iannone writes on literature and culture for a variety of publications. Her article, "The Truth about Inherit the Wind" appeared in First Things, February 1997.

I could add a lot more including her articles in COMMENTARY and other places. In any event I have long been an admirer. This arose in a long discussion on evolution. I pointed out that St. Augustine speculated that the universe might have been created in "germinal causes" and left to work out things by itself, with Divine Intervention rare compared to the "normal" run of things (this in contrast to the "no sparrow shall fall" school). This was not good enough for some of those in the discussion. It went on for a while, and Carol posted this. Note that the included quotations are from public sources:

When I say that evolution and creationism constitute a standoff between two worldviews, I mean that it's a standoff between two ways of looking at life and the universe and the nature of man, two belief systems that both have immediate and practical consequences, in William James sense, leaving aside the ability to "prove" either in some final sense. Both are compatible with the experience of those who profess them.

The spiritual or metaphysical is not the same as occultism and supernaturalism, as many seem ignorantly to think.

The "Christian Darwinists" that Jon Entine refers to below "who believe that God created Nature to set the Darwinian processes in motion" have a a basically incoherent position, as do evolutionists who imagine that this position is valid. And Jon seems to suggest that when he says that belief in intervention is "just a relic of Judeo-Christianity." Kind of condescendingly, evolutionists let Christians say this silly thing just to feel better, all the while knowing that there is no basis in evolutionary theory for the idea. Regarding Eastern religion being more compatible with evolution, that is beside the point for our culture, for Western culture partly built on Judeo-Christianity.

And I am only answering Ron Unz and others who wonder at how conservatives could have the temerity to disbelieve in evolution. So I repeat:

>>As William Provine, historian of > > science from Cornell and a leading adherent of Darwinian evolution, put it, > > "prominent evolutionists have joined with equally prominent theologians and > > religious leaders to sweep under the rug the incompatibilities of evolution > > and religion." Provine insists that evolution finds no intelligent design > > operating in nature and "no such thing as immortality or life after death." >> Instead, "we're produced by a process that gives not one damn about us," the > > same process that produced the AIDS virus, he goes on to say.

So I say, stop the farce. Be as honest as Provine. Stop pretending. Just say it openly and repeatedly in open forums. That evolution is completely and totally incompatible with any meaningful idea of God, providence, afterlife, morality not based on evolutionary premises, and the idea of a soul Then the standoff between the two views will be clearer and more understandable. And people will be able to understand why conservatives resist it.

I put Paul Gross into the honest Provine category since he has posted the following, to my great relief:

"But it is a fact that evolutionary science (which includes nowadays quite a lot of physics) has, so far, nothing to do with God or the "transcendent." Maybe someday it will, when and if somebody produces objective evidence for one or both of those." And for adding this:

"The transcendent, or whatever name you want to use for it, is clearly a part of human cognition and culture; so it must be conveyed via education, one way or another."

Thank you Paul. At the same time, it must be said that many conservatives are drawn to the idea of sociobiology because it suggests that there is an innate human nature that social engineers cannot endlessly manipulate to achieve their egalitarian ends.

Which, I think, frames the discussion nicely. I have never had any problem being a scientist and retaining my religion; at least no more than I would have being a non-scientist and doing so. Either there is some meaning to this vast universe or there is not. I do not think pure science will find that meaning. That does not mean that in a conflict between science and revelation science is wrong; as Acquinas points out, in such conflicts it seems we have misunderstood the science, misunderstood its meaning, or we have misunderstood revelation. Any or all of these are not only possible but probable...

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