It's Our Economy...

"The president has tried, but his policies haven't worked. He's great as a -- as a -- as a speaker and describing his plans and his vision. That's wonderful, except we have a record to look at. And that record shows he just hasn't been able to cut the deficit, to put in place reforms for Medicare and Social Security to preserve them, to get us the rising incomes we need. Median income is down $4,300 a family and 23 million Americans out of work. That's what this election is about. It's about who can get the middle class in this country a bright and prosperous future and assure our kids the kind of hope and optimism they deserve."

-- Mitt Romney, 16 October 2016

Ref: http://www.npr.org/2012/10/16/163050988/transcript-obama-romney-2nd-presidential-debate

There Are No 47 Percent Ads

47 Percent Ads are now irrelevant, as if they never happened. Neither protagonist nor antagonist for those advertisements showed up in person last night at the first debate. Mr. Romney came across as likable; at least as likable as one might need in a President. On the other side, Mr. Obama was void in bringing the 47 Percent issue up. It simply is not important to him. If the 47 Percent Ads continue to play, it's only because of a large -- and odd -- disconnect between the campaign and its candidate. The only reasons for continuing to show the 47 Percent Ads are the disingenuous reasons.

Camping on a Lie

"Overall, FactCheck.org found, there is no clear evidence that Romney, during Bain’s management of this company, shipped U.S. jobs to China." "Three Pinocchios = Significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions." -- Washington Post, 18 September 2012

President Obama’s jab at Mitt Romney: ‘All you’ve done is send [China] our jobs’

President Obama continues to campaign on this significant political lie. Further, sit back for a second. It makes no sense. Why would Mr. Romney as future President want to send jobs overseas? And why is something done in the 1990s so important to Mr. Obama? Creating jobs in the USA is a carefully watched metric. Mr. Obama cannot lie about the jobs he hasn't made as President, so his campaign does lie about the lesser known history of Mr. Romney at Bain Capital.

President Obama's record is 43 consecutive months of over 8% unemployment, while at the same time, the labor force participation rate has fallen to a 30 year low. These are the facts at the end of August 2012 from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Ref:

• http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
• http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/09/where-have-all-the-workers-gone.html

How I remember it...

It was the delicately cool and quiet part of the morning here in Arizona, when via the television news I was suddenly in a place -- that was always just a simple head toss East or West in the persistent geography of my youth -- with fainting powerful thoughts on my mind.

16 Trillion US dollars

I was upset when we, the United States, crossed $2 trillion in debt. It felt wrong twice over. The nation is now at $16 trillion. We continue adding to that debt as you read this.

I've found a clean, easy to read excerpt from Bob Woodward's book,

Inside story of Obama’s struggle to keep Congress from controlling outcome of debt ceiling crisis

Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Socialist, ... I don't care what your political bent is, you need to read this. It wont take all that long, but I did have trouble breathing while reading it. You've been warned. Pedantic comments aside, seriously. Read it.

The debt now fundamentally (not just theoretically) breaks the checks and balances the country was formed upon.

The scary thought I'm trying to talk myself out of is that it may not matter who is elected. There maybe no vested interest by any key politician to reduce the debt.

Canada reacts to Iran

So, I read a Canadian news report on today's closing of the Iranian embassy and it boils down to this:

"The calls were sparked by a July news report that said Iran's cultural counsellor in Ottawa, Hamid Mohammadi, suggested Iranian expatriates should be nurtured to be of service to Iran."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/09/07/pol-baird-canada-iran-embassy.html

I doubt this is a policy isolated to Canada, rather this is Iran's global policy.

Experimenting with the economy

"And the truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades. It'll require common effort, shared responsibility, and the kind of bold, persistent experimentation that Franklin Roosevelt pursued during the only crisis worse than this one." - President Obama, 7 Sep 2012

The massive recovery effort to save the Too Big To Fail started months before he was even elected; it's now 3 1/2 years since he took office and he proposes experimenting with the economy!

A global marketplace with hundreds of billions of dollars sitting on the sidelines, praying for stability, and he wants to engage in century defining liberal economic policies.

They didn't even work for FDR. The 2nd World War made his failing policies moot.

Corporations are people

‎"President Obama listened to the voices that mattered to him most -- the voices of the auto workers and the communities that depended on them. ... To President Obama they weren't just companies that needed a loan, they were communities that needed a leader to stand up for them." - Mayor Rahm Emanuel, 4 Sep 2012

So what you're saying is that corporations are people, my friend?

I'm not really digging at Rahm, I digging at the Left's rant-o-sphere. They rail against Mitt Romney's heckle driven "Corporations are people, my friend." But Obama propping up GM is a cheer amongst cheers. Their hypocrisy is ripe.

In Mitt's case, corporate taxes effect both the worker and the stock holder. Both of these are people. I suppose it also effects the politicians that would then have less money to hand-out as earmarks.

It should also be pointed out that a vast raft of the bailout money went to GM's expansion into the People's Republic of China. Money that in theory will flow back to the U.S. as ... corporate profits.

Ray Ozzie leaving post as Microsoft's chief software architect

This is something that makes me stop and consider where the software industry is going.

Nick Eaton at the Seattle PI Blogs as able to come up with a run down of Ozzie's stint at Microsoft soon after his stepping down was announced Monday. http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/225271.asp

Wikipedia has the bio on Ozzie. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Ozzie

Does this mean that SharePoint Workspace is dead?

Verizon-Google and Net Neutrality

Josh Silver expounds on the Google-Verizon Deal: The End of The Internet as We Know It.

The Verizon-Google deal is not clear to anyone right now. However, this and other deals like it do need to be watched and guarded against being too far reaching. When Silver says, "all video, radio, phone and other services will soon be delivered through an Internet connection" -- that is mostly true. Digital TV might as well be all Internet-based. Big Media video over the Internet is why Big Tech and Big Telecom are inking deals like this. But if you study the broadcast industry at the dawn of television you will also see articles describing "power plays" for radio place. The Internet is good at routing around censorship and "damage", it is part of the design of the Internet.

I'll be watching this one.

WebKit's New JavaScript Performance

Platform: PPC, PowerMac G4 2x867MHz, 2GB RAM, Mac OS X 10.4.11, Safari 3 web browser.

Below are each build's SunSpider benchmark results -- built locally, but no special build flags.

This is revision 36535, 2008-09-16...

http://www2.webkit.org/perf/sunspider-0.9/sunspider-results.html?%7B%223d-cube%22:%5B3020,2115,1647,2118,2115%5D,%223d-morph%22:%5B1176,1149,1140,1155,1151%5D,%223d-raytrace%22:%5B1344,1045,1064,1326,1339%5D,%22access-binary-trees%22:%5B193,135,132,136,131%5D,%22access-fannkuch%22:%5B238,236,236,236,237%5D,%22access-nbody%22:%5B3078,2361,2494,3040,3178%5D,%22access-nsieve%22:%5B90,85,90,83,97%5D,%22bitops-3bit-bits-in-byte%22:%5B91,83,89,81,85%5D,%22bitops-bits-in-byte%22:%5B116,115,121,115,118%5D,%22bitops-bitwise-and%22:%5B139,138,137,139,144%5D,%22bitops-nsieve-bits%22:%5B504,417,425,483,522%5D,%22controlflow-recursive%22:%5B81,72,73,75,84%5D,%22crypto-aes%22:%5B124,118,116,115,115%5D,%22crypto-md5%22:%5B384,327,327,350,411%5D,%22crypto-sha1%22:%5B334,346,337,337,362%5D,%22date-format-tofte%22:%5B271,256,264,257,261%5D,%22date-format-xparb%22:%5B408,417,400,403,410%5D,%22math-cordic%22:%5B1418,1102,1126,1386,1561%5D,%22math-partial-sums%22:%5B1761,1372,1395,1722,2215%5D,%22math-spectral-norm%22:%5B826,668,687,834,864%5D,%22regexp-dna%22:%5B1173,1126,1130,1133,1194%5D,%22string-base64%22:%5B205,189,209,212,217%5D,%22string-fasta%22:%5B435,409,421,434,449%5D,%22string-tagcloud%22:%5B556,544,531,525,589%5D,%22string-unpack-code%22:%5B452,438,449,439,422%5D,%22string-validate-input%22:%5B453,413,442,438,442%5D%7D


This is revision 36738, 2008-09-21...

http://www2.webkit.org/perf/sunspider-0.9/sunspider-results.html?%7B%223d-cube%22:%5B401,403,400,399,397%5D,%223d-morph%22:%5B509,510,510,506,505%5D,%223d-raytrace%22:%5B324,366,349,356,333%5D,%22access-binary-trees%22:%5B110,111,124,113,113%5D,%22access-fannkuch%22:%5B246,237,235,236,238%5D,%22access-nbody%22:%5B405,452,478,456,452%5D,%22access-nsieve%22:%5B86,82,82,85,85%5D,%22bitops-3bit-bits-in-byte%22:%5B87,87,87,88,88%5D,%22bitops-bits-in-byte%22:%5B118,118,117,117,117%5D,%22bitops-bitwise-and%22:%5B137,137,140,136,140%5D,%22bitops-nsieve-bits%22:%5B190,196,206,195,207%5D,%22controlflow-recursive%22:%5B78,78,77,77,77%5D,%22crypto-aes%22:%5B128,129,124,124,124%5D,%22crypto-md5%22:%5B130,129,134,135,127%5D,%22crypto-sha1%22:%5B132,131,131,131,133%5D,%22date-format-tofte%22:%5B232,232,233,244,247%5D,%22date-format-xparb%22:%5B325,321,321,316,319%5D,%22math-cordic%22:%5B334,328,328,328,334%5D,%22math-partial-sums%22:%5B402,418,405,408,404%5D,%22math-spectral-norm%22:%5B209,211,223,212,211%5D,%22regexp-dna%22:%5B1092,1067,1078,1069,1066%5D,%22string-base64%22:%5B157,158,152,156,154%5D,%22string-fasta%22:%5B268,267,272,262,270%5D,%22string-tagcloud%22:%5B480,475,468,463,466%5D,%22string-unpack-code%22:%5B425,426,434,440,432%5D,%22string-validate-input%22:%5B327,322,328,328,330%5D%7D


TEST COMPARISON FROM TO DETAILS

=============================================================================

** TOTAL **: 2.34x as fast 17262.6ms +/- 11.7% 7381.6ms +/- 0.6% significant

=============================================================================

3d: 3.65x as fast 4580.8ms +/- 16.8% 1253.6ms +/- 1.9% significant
cube: 5.51x as fast 2203.0ms +/- 28.2% 400.0ms +/- 0.7% significant
morph: 2.27x as fast 1154.2ms +/- 1.4% 508.0ms +/- 0.6% significant
raytrace: 3.54x as fast 1223.6ms +/- 15.7% 345.6ms +/- 6.1% significant

access: 3.73x as fast 3301.2ms +/- 14.6% 885.2ms +/- 3.6% significant
binary-trees: 1.27x as fast 145.4ms +/- 22.8% 114.2ms +/- 6.1% significant
fannkuch: ?? 236.6ms +/- 0.5% 238.4ms +/- 2.3% not conclusive: might be *1.01x as slow*
nbody: 6.31x as fast 2830.2ms +/- 16.4% 448.6ms +/- 7.4% significant
nsieve: - 89.0ms +/- 7.6% 84.0ms +/- 2.8%

bitops: 1.50x as fast 812.4ms +/- 7.6% 541.6ms +/- 2.0% significant
3bit-bits-in-byte: ?? 85.8ms +/- 6.0% 87.4ms +/- 0.8% not conclusive: might be *1.02x as slow*
bits-in-byte: ?? 117.0ms +/- 2.7% 117.4ms +/- 0.6% not conclusive: might be *1.00x as slow*
bitwise-and: - 139.4ms +/- 2.4% 138.0ms +/- 1.7%
nsieve-bits: 2.37x as fast 470.2ms +/- 12.4% 198.8ms +/- 4.6% significant

controlflow: ?? 77.0ms +/- 8.5% 77.4ms +/- 0.9% not conclusive: might be *1.01x as slow*
recursive: ?? 77.0ms +/- 8.5% 77.4ms +/- 0.9% not conclusive: might be *1.01x as slow*

crypto: 2.11x as fast 820.6ms +/- 6.7% 388.4ms +/- 0.8% significant
aes: *1.07x as slow* 117.6ms +/- 4.0% 125.8ms +/- 2.5% significant
md5: 2.75x as fast 359.8ms +/- 12.8% 131.0ms +/- 3.2% significant
sha1: 2.61x as fast 343.2ms +/- 4.1% 131.6ms +/- 0.8% significant

date: 1.20x as fast 669.4ms +/- 1.4% 558.0ms +/- 1.2% significant
format-tofte: 1.10x as fast 261.8ms +/- 2.9% 237.6ms +/- 3.8% significant
format-xparb: 1.27x as fast 407.6ms +/- 2.0% 320.4ms +/- 1.3% significant

math: 3.98x as fast 3787.4ms +/- 20.4% 951.0ms +/- 0.7% significant
cordic: 3.99x as fast 1318.6ms +/- 18.7% 330.4ms +/- 1.2% significant
partial-sums: 4.16x as fast 1693.0ms +/- 25.2% 407.4ms +/- 1.9% significant
spectral-norm: 3.64x as fast 775.8ms +/- 14.6% 213.2ms +/- 3.3% significant

regexp: 1.07x as fast 1151.2ms +/- 3.3% 1074.4ms +/- 1.3% significant
dna: 1.07x as fast 1151.2ms +/- 3.3% 1074.4ms +/- 1.3% significant

string: 1.25x as fast 2062.6ms +/- 3.0% 1652.0ms +/- 0.3% significant
base64: 1.33x as fast 206.4ms +/- 6.4% 155.4ms +/- 1.9% significant
fasta: 1.60x as fast 429.6ms +/- 4.4% 267.8ms +/- 1.7% significant
tagcloud: 1.17x as fast 549.0ms +/- 5.7% 470.4ms +/- 1.8% significant
unpack-code: - 440.0ms +/- 3.3% 431.4ms +/- 1.8%
validate-input: 1.34x as fast 437.6ms +/- 4.2% 327.0ms +/- 1.1% significant

Found Work

I have not been updating lately, but maybe that will change. Back in March I started a new job. Getting back on top of things has taken a while, but within the bounds of protecting the privacy of my new employer, I'll have to say you will not be reading much about my new job here.

I think there is plenty else that I can talk about that will be fun to blog about.

New Desktop, Windows Vista Need Not Apply

Problem: A client had a four and a half year old Dell Dimension with oozing capacitors and slow performance. Further, the client was strongly adverse to being a Vista "guinea pig". Client was a modest computer user in her mid-60s, that also played some older PC games with her 8 year-old grandson. Eventually the new computer might be loaded with Windows Vista after it becomes more mature and the legacy software the client had was no longer a "must have".

Solution:
Dell OptiPlex 320 Mini Tower

CPU: P4 Intel Pentium Dual Core processor E2140 (1.60GHz, 1M, 800MHz FS)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, SP2
File System: NTFS
Memory: 1.0GB DDR2 non-ECC SDRAM, 667MHz, (1DIMM)
Keyboard: Dell USB Keyboard, no hot keys, English, Black
Monitors: no monitor
Video Card: ATI Radeon X1300 128MB, DVI and TV-out
Boot Hard Drives: 160GB SATA 3.0Gb/s, 8MB cache
Floppy Drive Options: no floppy drive
Mouse: Dell USB 2-Button Entry Mouse with Scroll, Black
Removable Media Storage Devices: no optical device
Speakers: no internal speaker
Resource CD: Resources CD contains Diagnostics and Driver for OptiPlex
Warranty & Service: 3 year Limited Hardware Warranty with next business day on-site service

Total Price
Sub-total: $567.00
Shipping & Handling: $29.99
Shipping & Handling Discount: -$29.99
Tax: $31.76
Total Price: $598.76

NOTES
(1) The "Pentium" CPU (E2140) is a Core 2 Duo, except with reduced internal cache. It is fully 64-bit capable. It's named "Pentium" for marketing reasons.
(2) No DVD/CDROM drive was needed in this case because the client was transferring a recently purchased Samsung DVD±RW with Nero DVD software from the previous computer. This OptiPlex — and few other new Dells — has an IDE (PATA) connector for optical drives.
(3) The client had also recently purchased a wide-panel Samsung LCD, so this computer really needed a DVI connector, but I would have preferred a video card with 256MB RAM. The on-board video controller only exited the computer via a VGA connector.

If only we all thought through starting a blog as well as Ted.

Worth A Try

Simson Garfinkel blogs about getting hard disk drives working by putting them in your kitchen freezer.

I've worked this trick since the mid-1990s. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't; but the price is right.

I always place the drive in a "zip-lock" bag — get as much air out as possible. Any moister in the air will freeze, of course.

Hard drives are designed to passively move heat. I have always felt that an hour or two was long enough. Then, I try mounting the drive while it is still freezer cold, but I also try as (and after) it has warmed back to room temperatures.

When a hard drive is obsolete or beyond repair they are always good for a few rare-earth magnets!

Please Sir, May I Have Some More?

No one likes a whiner; therefore I haven't written to my blog lately.

Here are a few quick list of things happening right now:

1. After nine years working independently, I'm looking for a full-time salary job, wish me luck!
2. I've been doing volunteer work for WebKit. WebKit is the web engine behind Apple's Safari web browser.
3. PT Wetter 3 is actively remaking his to-do system, Frictionless. I will be trying this out tonight.
4. I have been fixing-up my 1993 Volvo 850 GLT sedan. It's got 179,000 miles and going strong.
5. Now that it is past 15 May it's Summer in this part of Arizona.

Something Techies Should Know By Now

Prelude: Client hoses his operation system because he is an aggressive power-user. Techs at BestBuy and CompUSA declare that his hard drive is failing. Client buys new computer. A third (part-time?) tech recovers client data to a CD-R.

Start working the problem:

1. CD-R disc is discovered not have important files, like outlook.pst.
   
2. The hard drive was placed in a bubble wrap envelope, with no anti-static properties.
   
3. The SATA connector is partially broken; someone used hot-glue to hold their connector cable.
   
4. Hardware-wise the hard drive works fine.
   
5. The file system could be in better shape: many zero-size files with names like, "X~@", but scandisk returns no errors.
   
6. Cannot access some folders. Hmm . . .
   
7. The operating system is — can you guess? — Windows XP Professional!
   
8. Unlock the folders. The procedure is nicely documented at MSKB 810881.
   
9. Recover 9.5 Gigabytes of personal data, including a 0.5 GB outlook.pst file.
   

Optimize Mail.app Database

I found Hawk Wing's blog entry very notable this morning, since I use Apple's Mail.app all the time. This tip optimizes the Mail.app "Envelope" database.

From my Terminal.app:
% ls -lah ~/Library/Mail/Envelope\ Index
-rw-r--r-- 1 user admin 32M Mar 1 17:23 /Users/user/Library/Mail/Envelope Index
% sqlite3 ~/Library/Mail/Envelope\ Index vacuum;
% ls -lah ~/Library/Mail/Envelope\ Index
-rw-r--r-- 1 user admin 26M Mar 2 08:07 /Users/user/Library/Mail/Envelope Index
% exit

From http://www.sqlite.org/lang_vacuum.html:

SQL As Understood By SQLite

VACUUM

sql-statement ::= VACUUM [index-or-table-name]

The VACUUM command is an SQLite extension modeled after a similar command found in PostgreSQL. If VACUUM is invoked with the name of a table or index then it is suppose to clean up the named table or index. In version 1.0 of SQLite, the VACUUM command would invoke gdbm_reorganize() to clean up the backend database file.

VACUUM became a no-op when the GDBM backend was removed from SQLITE in version 2.0.0. VACUUM was reimplemented in version 2.8.1. The index or table name argument is now ignored.

When an object (table, index, or trigger) is dropped from the database, it leaves behind empty space. This makes the database file larger than it needs to be, but can speed up inserts. In time inserts and deletes can leave the database file structure fragmented, which slows down disk access to the database contents. The VACUUM command cleans the main database by copying its contents to a temporary database file and reloading the original database file from the copy. This eliminates free pages, aligns table data to be contiguous, and otherwise cleans up the database file structure. It is not possible to perform the same process on an attached database file.

This command will fail if there is an active transaction. This command has no effect on an in-memory database.

As of SQLite version 3.1, an alternative to using the VACUUM command is auto-vacuum mode, enabled using the auto_vacuum pragma.

This page last modified on 2007/02/13 02:03:25

Major Moto

I like Zeldman's work, so I loaded one of his templates for this blog. Turns out that Zeldman doesn't use his own template these days. Oh well.

Since I was planning on taking the design apart and making it my own; I used it anyway. "It" being Zeldman's "Mr. Moto" template.

In hacking through the template, I found the following error:

Originally:
Variable name="bodyFont" description="Text Font" type="font" default="normal normal 100% 'tahoma Trebuchet MS', ...

Corrected:
Variable name="bodyFont" description="Text Font" type="font" default="normal normal 100% tahoma, 'Trebuchet MS', ...

Then there was the 3-pixel height the heading got pushed down the page. I still haven't firgured that one out, yet. But I did force the headline back into place. That was and is still a frustrating bug.

Before You Trash It

Before disposing of an Apple Performa 6400 or Power Mac 6400 or Power Mac 6500 you will want to pull the really unique speaker (subwoofer) from the case. Collect two of them and you might really have something.

Getting into the case is not straight forward. They don't build 'em like they used to, which is good in this instance. Skipping one of the following steps will not speed things up!

1. Remove the front façade, starting at the bottom. Release the two bottom tabs and pull very hard.
2. Pry-off the small front façade, staring at its side-seams.
3. Remove the screw from the top-back; slide the top façade off by pushing to the back.
4. Lightly pry-up the 2 centimeter tab molded into the plastic panel's front edge on the computer's right side façade. Now slide this panel off  by pushing to the back.
5. Remove the nine Philips-head screws from the steel side panel.
6. Remove the side panel by sliding it to the rear about 1 centimeter and then lift up.
7. Remove the four T-10 screws from the bottom. These have rubber bushings that are worth saving too.
8. Release the red and black speaker lead wires. It is attached, by just friction, to the small printed circuit board (PCB) near the top-rear of the computer.
9. Remove the speaker and fish out the lead wires.
10. Done.