Leuf Daynotes MM week 12

Daynotes: Week of 20 - 26 Mar, MM

Daily notes and commentary -- Week 12

* Link to: last modified 26 March MM at 23:45 GMT+2.

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Earlier weeks, see the Daynotes index.

Monday 20 March

Some late additions to Sunday were uploaded this morning.

The following news was actually announced Friday...

The US abandons plans to bring back rocks from the surface of Mars before the end of the decade (e.g. by 2008). This can set back hopes of a Mars astronaut landing by many years. "The search for life on the Red Planet will have to slow down until people on Earth have worked out how to land on Mars without crashing," said Dr Carl Pilcher, the scientist leading Nasa's planetary exploration program. (Ok, Bill, it's time to form MarsSoft!)

A good recent NEAR image of Eros is here. Interesting because the image insets a box the size of a "familiar" landmark to give an impression of size we can relate to (well, sort of -- the Empire State building in NYC is in fact hard enough to grasp in size even if one has been there, but it does help).

(Travel day today. Any update for today likely to be late.)

Tuesday 21 March

Yo, all! I've had my nose in the bookkeeping all day -- 10 days to have it all done and the tax forms filled out. Apart from that, I've enjoyed a cool but sunny spring-like day. The sun is hot! -- UV enriched as it were -- which made indoor temperatures climb steeply until things began to cloud over late afternoon. Livingroom, balcony and kitchen have southeast to southwest exposure and big windows (which I need to clean RSN).

Noted items...

Between January and March this year, MS invested more than $250 million in mostly e-commerce Web sites. The giant moves, spreading pocket change as it goes. The money trail may show us the future of MS Web.
Buckyballs (fullerenes) show gas! "Buckyballs" are hollow cages of carbon that look like soccer balls and can trap atoms inside their structure. These molecules, which come in various discrete sizes, have been the subject of intense study since their discovery in 1985. Now scientists find gases from space (such as He₃) are caged inside fullerenes buried in clay sediments all around the world. Some arrived on Earth about 65 million years ago during an asteroid impact that scientists theorize ended the age of the dinosaurs. "We now have a powerful new tracer to look at sediment layers very carefully," Luann Becker, of the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, says. "It opens new possibilities in looking at the problem of how planetary atmospheres evolved and maybe even how life evolved on Earth and perhaps on other moons and planets."
Speaking of which... A newly-discovered (9 March) asteroid, designated 2000 EW70, will pass moderately close to the Earth in the next few days -- within about 1.9 million kilometers, or about five times the Earth-Moon distance. It will be about as bright as Pluto, the most distant planet. But despite its faintness, the rock will streak across the sky at about one degree per hour, or two diameters of the full Moon.

Locally, a Finance Ministry study is strongly recommending the abolishment of all special rules for private pension savings. Hehe, what else is new? Only a few years of all-out tax-breaks to get people to solidly buy into the concept and so lessen pressure on the state pensions, and now the govt looks ready to do an about-face just short of confiscating the privately saved funds. This is seriously going to tick off people, in an election year yet.

There are moments when I get the impression that nobody really wants to win an election in this country. It's so much easier to "rule" from opposition.

Wednesday 22 March

Gray and foggy, inside and out. I got some things done, but they seem to mainly belong to the category non-visible productivity.

Luckily, I did not go for the recent Office 2000 SR-1, or I must assume productivity would have reached zero on the computer. As it was, I was not spared Windows weirdness -- the old 486 notebook with Win95 started experiencing total lock-up freeze, which stole time today. Power-off was only way out. Isabel needed to write a couple of papers for her studies, so she was seriously inconvenienced by the problem.

I can't tell if this is a hardware or software problem. I've been running different configurations most of the evening with no lock-up -- but she managed a whole series while writing.

Speaking of oddities, I've discovered that some programs ignore the default printer setting. I was in a hurry to print an image file and went via the Office's Photo Editor. Clicking on Print suddenly seemed to bring the system down as all kinds of things started happening in the background, eating response time. Sure enough, soon up popped that resource hog Outlook (which had not been running) -- but why? Aha, I eventually found that Photo Editor was set to use the Symantic Fax module as "printer". Well, I reset that to what elsewhere is the default printer, processed the image, and opened a new one. Same ton of bricks as Outlook once again opens for a new fax! ... Turns out that Photo Editor not only doesn't use the system default setting, it doesn't even remember settings in the same session -- each image opened has it go back to the top of the list of installed printers, in my case the fax driver.

Thursday 23 March

Glorious sunshine, and hot-hot-hot in the kitchen, where I made my lunch. Much colder outside, however, even if it is still a nice early spring day.

I went to the bank to cash a check today, not my local branch, since they charge rather a lot for cashing checks from another bank. Nothing like getting a feeling of being subversive and odd to start the day, and the best way to do that is to visit a bank... The counts against me...

I don't especially look like my ID photo, in addition I am usually taken for a foreigner.
I was not known at that branch of that bank, which I don't use (although my wife has a few accounts there, largely through accidents of previous bank mergers).
I was cashing a personal check -- it's getting so I wonder if the youngest bank staff members know what that slip of paper is supposed to represent anymore.
I was (gasp) going to walk out of there with cash, all of it! (I refrained from asking if it was unmarked bills.)

I was eyed very suspiciously indeed, and many minutes passed in silence before the lady finished examining the check and finally submitted it to the machine.

The bank's surveillance tapes have I'm sure been placed in the security pile for later analysis.

Hmm, phone cards are ubiquitous now, coin machines having virtually vanished. Trouble is, we have an almost full card (USD 15), that doesn't work. Oh, the phones accept it and display units left ok, but as soon as the dialled party lifts the receiver, the call is broken due to a "technical error". Now, everybody and their dog sells the pre-filled, plastic-wrapped cards, but all "technical" faults must be taken up in person at the telco central Customer Care. Not on my regular routes... RSN.

com hem The (still telco-owned, but to be sold off) too-cute cable-tv company "comm/come home" (com hem) dumped a "welcome home" folder in my mail, in my name. In it they claim we have the telco's cable service and we can therefore sign up for the flat rate "broadband" Internet (512 kbps) in addition to the new digital cable-tv services.

That needs checking, because last I knew the building still had an independent provider (SOL). Granted, mergers and buy-outs come fast and furious at times. And the new landlord since New Year may have changed provider.

Oh well, I looked through the (vacuous) folder, eyed the foldout subscription form with its detachable terms (itty-bitty fine-print running the equivalent of perhaps 24 ordinary typed pages, says my trained writer's eye), and tried to weigh the campaign offer tendered so personally, valid until 10 April...

about USD 35/month for digital TV, including several premium movie channels
a 300,000 title on-demand CD-quality music selection
a pay-per-view movie channel
National Geographic Channel, CNBC, BBC Prime, ...

This translated into a total first year cost of just under USD 450, as noted in very small print, along with some complex rates for subsequent years. The difference between monthly and yearly costs is due to a yearly program-card fee. And I'm not counting the yearly TV-license, since that is charged whatever signal feed you have -- it's enough to own a tv or radio tuner (USD 16/mo).

Nothing said about Internet costs, however, so I surfed over to the comhem website for some more info. The prices found there for "Version 1.0" of this package...

about USD 23/month unmetered access at 512 kbps
network card is another USD 25 (once only?)
cable modem finally adds USD 175 to the total.

So figuring that out for cable Internet access from scratch, i.e. get digital cable service and add Internet...

setup USD 230
monthly USD 58/month

Grand total investment first year: USD 926. Hmm, I think I'll stay with ISDN for a while longer.

Where did the day go to...?

I preach tolerance to him, but he says tolerance is yet another thing he can't stand. -- Dr Keyboard

Friday 24 March

The Pope is at the time of writing holding a mass "on the mount" in Galilee, keynote sermon "Blessed are the poor..." -- in many ways a remarkable event. Broadcast live, of course. Billed an "important interfaith moment".

Curiously, I see that the cross cut into the seat where the Pope is sitting is "upside down" and seems lopsided. ... The BBC on-location commentator in fact just remarked on this too, wondering if there was some symbolic meaning intended in this. So far, the event is still in the preliminaries, with a long speech by the (Greek) Catholic Bishop for the region.

The whole week, BBC has been reporting on Clinton's India visit and the Pope's "spiritual pilgrimage" to the Holy Land. A very curious juxtaposition given their split-screen image when advertising the fact: Clinton on the left looking slightly up (somewhat belligerently), the Pope on the right looking habitually slightly down (as the aged often do).

Some other news items...

Transient training. A (unique) Swedish study just published ties in rather well with recent space biology research. In it, former athletes and sportmen were followed up on how their bone mass was affected long-term after their retirement from active practice. Popular belief has it that intensive training while young is prophylactic in the sense that it builds greater and stronger bone mass, offsetting the increased risk of bone fractures in old age. Turns out the actual correlation is zero -- the study could not find a single shred of evidence to support the belief, much to the surprise of the researchers themselves. The conclusion drawn from the new studies is that people must continue to exercise regularly (e.g. walking daily) in order to keep up bone mass in old age.
The human body is much more dynamic than previously thought, even in such "permanent" structures as bone. The old ("new age") adage has it that everything in the body is renewed every 7 years. In particular, bone mass adapts surprisingly quickly to variations in stress, not only to increased stress, but also reduced stress.
In the space context, this means walking exercise performed in such a way that bone stress comparable to 1 g occurs in the legs -- ideally in e.g. a spinning wheel so that all parts of the skeleton feel realistic stress for extended periods of time. Conversely, this would imply that humans can rapidly (a few years) adapt to other gravity environments, albeit perhaps not without uncomfortable side-effects.
Two-thirds of faculty moonlighting. The claim was in the local newspaper, and referred to the Lund University Business Economics faculty. The administration complains that it has not received adequate disclosure, despite stricter rules. A special form will be distributed to faculty members.
Abandon shop! CEO of Swedish H&M, a multi-national clothing chain these days, bailed out yesterday, shocking shareholders. H&M shares immediately fell 30%, which brought down the Stockholm exchange overall by 2.3%.
IKEA goes Russian. With well over 150 furniture emporiums now open world-wide, the Swedish firm IKEA now opens a presence on the highway between Moscow and the airport. During the year, IKEA hopes to open another few outlets in Moscow and one in St. Petersburg.
Rabid bats cross bridge. Vet experts now worry that rabies may much more easily spread from Denmark to Sweden. The (retrofitted addition of) lighting on the new Öresund Bridge means bats will commute over the bridge as they feed on insects attracted to the lights.
Left pol left out in cold. As reported earlier, an elected left-party rep was strongly criticized for being a "porn star". The local branch of the party has now voted to throw him out of the party. An informal poll shows that most of the central committee is inclined to ratify that, even though the (woman) party leader has in public interviews said that she has no problems with an elected rep earning money from porn.
New speeding record. Swedish driver caught doing 225 km/h (140+ mph) on a 90 km/h (56 mph) stretch. Driver sets record, loses licence and has stiff fines to look forward to.
Speed trials. In other bridge crossing news, trials with new Adrians train on Öresund Bridge resulted in a new speed record there too -- 180 km/h. The bridge rail link was designed for 200 km/h passenger and 120 km/h freight. Interestingly, discussions are still running high about where the tracks should lead on the Swedish approach -- there are strong demands for a non-urban loop for risk-classed freight, and the rail tunnel to the Central Station (as well as the new South Central Station) has yet to be built.

Hmm, delays in posting this. Some of the main (DNS?) nodes to the US seem down at the moment. Neither ISP can route any packets outside Sweden to particular destinations -- tracert dies after a handful of hops. The domains than can be reached are according to tracert being shunted in unusual directions.

(later, past noon) On-site support response from the server host end:

Currently there seems to be a problem with the ATT, we are routing everything through UUNET and this will resolve the problem.

But, clearly this re-routing has not propagated to the Swedish backbones yet, as I am still unable to access particular domains. Wonder what is up, more Denial of Service attacks?

(13:40) Well, the situation has still not been "resolved", ATT or UUNET, so I'll have to defer this update until later. Other things to do.

I end with a quote or two...

Religious creationists and scientific materialists are equally dogmatic and insensitive. By their arrogance they bring both science and religion into disrepute. The media exaggerate their numbers and importance. -- Freeman John Dyson
It is the practice of systems to devote more and more of their energy to structure. -- Jerry Pournelle

Saturday 25 March

Despite today being the new-traditional "long Saturday", we went out shopping for new shoes. Long Saturday is the last weekend of the month when shops are open longer than usual. Shops do this because wage-earners have just received their monthly pay in the bank, so must encourage them to part with substantial sums ASAP. Money makes the world go round...

It is a good day to become poor.

And of course it was crowded in what passes for malls around here. (For US readers: Think the smallest mall in a remote district on a bad day when most deliveries have been cancelled for most of the week. Then imagine that well over half the parking lots have mysteriously vanished, and for good measure shrink access roads to single lanes in all directions, and shrink everything by another 20% in all dimensions. Getting close...) We were reasonably lucky (I guess by being just a tad out of sync with the rest of the world), found parking space, walking space, and ultimately decent shoes for the kids at halfway decent prices. We also lucked out on lines when it was time to pay and leave.

Well, we shopped, ate out, and rented home a few videos to round off the day. The weather was gray and with intermittent showers, so one didn't really want to be out for much. We ended the day with waffles, jam and whipped cream, between videos.

Sunday 26 March *

Argh. Stupid errors in the latest compiled and public release of my bookkeeping program broke main report summations, as I found out on Friday -- needed to be fixed by today, latest, which cost time I really don't have. Then again, I use the program myself to generate the figures I need for the tax declarations, so it will get done. (How's that for a devoted programmer...)

There, done, fixed, and posted to the support website. Thank heavens I don't have to cut update diskettes and mail out. Web and email support works for all.

Trouble is, however, the more I try to adapt to the newer variants of the systems the registered users have, the greater the risk that other things break. I don't have the setups myself to test on, so in part I have to code on assumptions. Getting tired of that.

As if this wasn't enough, they went and stole an hour from us this morning. Wash day, slot 2 in the day, and when we come down to the laundry room for the third inning as it were, this guy is standing outside the door waiting with his laundry basket. "Uh, you want to start early?" we ask, clueless. No, it's five minutes past his starting time, he informs us, which is when the daylight-savings dawns...

Mad scramble to collect drywear and wetwear, but he graciously offers to let us use the driers for another 40 minutes until he comes down after the first wash. Thank you, kind neighbor, and although this still leaves us with piles of stuff to dry upstairs, it is far better than immediate eviction.

Then it is time to hunt down all the relevant clocks in the home to update to GMT+2. Damnfool tradition anyway, resetting clocks. All to easy to miss a critical one -- bedroom radio alarm, VCR, or some computer.(oops, the "fax" computer).

The rest of the day drizzled on... into a rainy night.

I try to see what the week will be like, and the scheduled points so far look to waste at least a couple of the days. Not good. For starters, tomorrow is squeezed from two ends by meetings. Useful time for me has rapidly approached zero as we've fine-tuned who does what, where, and when.

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