Cycling not related to global warming



"raisethe" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

>> > Are there any techniques you can use when buying hardware and software
>> > which will minimise the hassle?

>>
>> Keep the OS patched and up to date, don't look at dodgy websites, don't
>> use
>> IE, don't read/open spam, install as few programs as possible, have a
>> firewall, have antivirus, keep back ups of files you wish to keep.

>
> Yes, I do all that, and periodically defrag and use a couple of
> registry cleaners, yet still I get the freeze ups - it took me four
> attempts to boot up today. I can't open 3 windows on the internet
> without the computer seizing, windows media player doesn't work, my
> newish external hard drive doesn't work, the original cdwriter has
> long since failed, as has the original monitor, printer and modem.
> When I upload pictures from my camera it is hit or miss whether it
> works or I lose them forever. I can only play one CD before it seizes
> the computer and even then it closes excel for some reason. The rest
> of my music is on the broken hard drive so is inaccessible.


At work in that situation we go for the pragmatic approach : wipe the hard
disk and reinstall from scratch. However our guys are used to doing this, so
can just reimage without much effort. In your case I'd consider buying a new
internal HD, install from scratch on that, then copy what stuff you need
from the old one.

FWIW in some ways I'm slacker than some, eg I use IE and OE, and never touch
registry cleaners, and don't have any problems.

Unless of course your hardware is knackered somehow. You could try a knoppix
CD to see if this is any happier - if it works fine, that would imply the
hardware is ok.

cheers,
clive
 
Quoting raisethe <[email protected]>:
>That is interesting. I am neither a hardware or software person.
>Computer stress of one sort or another generally brings me out in
>spots.


You're awfully eager to pontificate about a subject about which you know
nothing, then.
--
David Damerell <[email protected]> flcl?
Today is Stilday, May - a weekend.
 
Quoting John Kane <[email protected]>:
>There are a few people who insist that global warming is not caused by
>CO2 . I am sure that there are some scientists who insist that
>smoking cigarettes is harmless.


Generally funded by the same astroturf organisations, too.

>Also you see to think that dealing with global warming is going to
>cost a lot. Sir Nicolas Sterns says no, and I heard an interview with
>an Australian economist who sees it as a possible bonanza.


But, frankly, that's wishful thinking.
--
David Damerell <[email protected]> flcl?
Today is Stilday, May - a weekend.
 
Quoting Tony Raven <[email protected]>:
>A lot of the recent battle over wording was about how much constraint
>the developed world could put on the energy use and growth of the
>developing world which threatens their economies.
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6364663.stm


You score a bonus point if you can get a single denier to argue both that
it is a Western capitalist conspiracy to cripple developing countries
_and_ that it is a socialist conspiracy to cripple Western economies.
--
David Damerell <[email protected]> flcl?
Today is Stilday, May - a weekend.
 
On 20 May, 22:18, Tony Raven <[email protected]> wrote:
> > What processor speed and how much memory do you have? Insufficient

> memory can really slow things down as the computer has to keep swapping
> stuff between memory and a hard disk cache.
>


The processor is Athlon 1,000 mhz. I increased the memory from 128mb
to 640 last year. It reduced the boot up time from say 10 minutes down
to a couple, but had no effect on the tendency of the machine to
freeze.

Ray
 
On 21 May, 00:20, "Clive George" <[email protected]> wrote:
> > At work in that situation we go for the pragmatic approach : wipe the hard

> disk and reinstall from scratch. However our guys are used to doing this, so
> can just reimage without much effort.


I've had to wipe the hard drive about once per year since I bought the
pc. Looking at my log, I haven't done it since September 2005. This is
due to being able to recover with Norton Goback which I installed at
about that time.

It is quite traumatic doing a complete wipe, it needs to go overnight
and can take two or three goes to get right. Add on the need to
reload various software and there is a lot of time involved, so I try
to put it off for as long as I can.

In your case I'd consider buying a new
> internal HD, install from scratch on that, then copy what stuff you need
> from the old one.


That would be a good idea, particularly as my current drive only has
18Gb. The drawback however is that the OS is in a secret compartment
on the hard drive and I don't know how to get at it.

>
> Unless of course your hardware is knackered somehow. You could try a knoppix
> CD to see if this is any happier - if it works fine, that would imply the
> hardware is ok.


Just spent half an hour finding out what this is. It could be helpful
so I've ordered a Knoppix CD. Thanks for the tip.
>


Ray
 
On May 21, 11:23 am, David Damerell <[email protected]>
wrote:
> Quoting John Kane <[email protected]>:
>
> >There are a few people who insist that global warming is not caused by
> >CO2 . I am sure that there are some scientists who insist that
> >smoking cigarettes is harmless.

>
> Generally funded by the same astroturf organisations, too.
>
> >Also you see to think that dealing with global warming is going to
> >cost a lot. Sir Nicolas Sterns says no, and I heard an interview with
> >an Australian economist who sees it as a possible bonanza.

>
> But, frankly, that's wishful thinking.


Well as one of my favourite sayings goes. "God made economists to
make astrologers look good".

Still, I'll withhold judgement until I see the study (if I ever do).
 
In article <[email protected]>,
raisethe
[email protected] says...

> Is the only solution then to not add software to your computer? Of
> course, this won't be ideal. Norton anti virus software also gave me
> some hassles, but when I didn't use it I got viruses from the
> internet, so the internet would also be out.
>

I haven't been following this thread so I apologise if this has been
mentioned already, but Norton security software is probably best avoided
if you don't want your machine to be slowed to a crawl. There is other
software (some of it free) that will provide adequate protection without
choking your performance and causing various network/software problems.
 
Tony Raven <[email protected]> wrote:

> Roger Merriman wrote on 20/05/2007 11:52 +0100:
> >>

> > niether do i but, certinaly for the last 8 years when i was a postie the
> > winters got warmer and dryer. last winter i only stopped wearing shorts
> > becuase i got fed up of being told "your wearing shorts" compared to
> > when i started when we'd go out in full battle gear.
> >

>
> But while you were wearing shorts, California went through a long hard
> freeze (in the teens farenheit) which cost its citrus fruit industry
> $1Bn as all the fruit froze on the trees. While Europe was short of
> snow, where I went skiing in Canada had had record snow falls. So its
> not as simple as judging by your local climatic experience
>
> Meanwhile I can remember the forecasters forecasting a very hot summer
> (over 100C)last year and after that failed to materialise a very hard
> winter in the UK which failed to materialise either.


sure yes these where though, this year, it has slowly during my postie
life, got warmer, more noticble in winter as inspite of working longer
you needed less weather gear.

but again 8 years is meaningless in time frame of earth.

roger
 
raisethe <[email protected]> wrote:

> Whilst I am on this steep learning curve, can you explain why
> computers are so unreliable (to IT illiterates at least). It is not
> just me, everyone I know has grief at some time or other with their
> home pc. One of many hassles I have learnt to live with on my machine
> is that the software I use for my ipod nano thing and playing music
> shuts down excel, whilst playing a second CD is enough to seize my
> computer. I could give you a much longer list of various hardware and
> software issues I've had in the last few years.


> It seems to me (of course I may be missing something) that the
> technology is advancing faster than the industry is able to cope, and
> hence reliability suffers. The nano music players are an excellent
> invention, but I would sooner have waited an extra 2 or 3 years to get
> one that doesn't play up my computer.


But the problem is that you didn't. If you had, and plenty of other
people waited for the stuff to work properly too, then there'd be no
market for stuff that doesn't work properly and nobody would be
selling it.

--
Chris Malcolm [email protected] DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]
 
Alan Braggins <[email protected]> wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>, Tony Raven wrote:
>>John Kane wrote on 19/05/2007 17:55 +0100:
>>>
>>> Pascal's Wager applies.

>>
>>An interesting choice in this context.
>>Pascal's Wager was about religious faith.
>>It assumes that you gain everything and loose nothing by believing.


> It also assumes that either you can choose to genuinely believe in God
> because you think it's safer to do so, or that God will be satisfied
> with a pretence.


Why should God be any different from other authority figures?
 
Ben C <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 2007-05-19, John Kane <[email protected]> wrote:


>> There are a few people who insist that global warming is not caused by
>> CO2 . I am sure that there are some scientists who insist that
>> smoking cigarettes is harmless. Thomas Kuhn mentions scientists
>> like them in his book on paradiam shifts. They cannot handle the
>> paradign shift and IIRC the solution in science is just to let them
>> die off naturally.


> Yes but when is a paradigm a paradigm and not just a fashion?


When you think experiment trumps the opinion of an authority.

--
Chris Malcolm [email protected] DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]
 
Chris Malcolm wrote on 23/05/2007 10:38 +0100:
>
> When I worked for ICL I once paused on my way to the coffee kettle
> while taking a break in the code simulation to admire a craftsman
> doing some very delicate work on a door he was painting. He had
> lightly painted some darker brown over lighter brown and was using
> feathers trimmed into comb-like shapes to wipe patterns suggestive of
> wood grain. It was really very good indeed. He told me he was
> specifically emulating the grain of oak. I asked him what the door was
> made of. Oak, he told me.
>


When I joined the Civil Service many moons ago a man turned up at my
nice new office and proceeded to rip up the fitted carpet, remove the
coat stand and fix some coat hooks because that is what the book said my
grade was entitled too. A few months later I got promoted and the same
man turned up to lay a new carpet, deliver a coat stand and remove the
coat hooks because that is what the book said my new grade was entitled
to.

One converted building had a corridor the size of a football pitch
because the rules said every office had to have a window and a maximum
size. Once they had fitted offices of that maximum size round the
perimeter of the building there was nothing they could do with the
football pitch sized space left in the middle because there were no
windows. Nor were they allowed to make the pokey offices larger because
that would break the rules.

--
Tony

"The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there
is no good evidence either way."
- Bertrand Russell
 
raisethe <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 20 May, 22:18, Tony Raven <[email protected]> wrote:
>> > What processor speed and how much memory do you have? Insufficient

>> memory can really slow things down as the computer has to keep swapping
>> stuff between memory and a hard disk cache.


> The processor is Athlon 1,000 mhz. I increased the memory from 128mb
> to 640 last year. It reduced the boot up time from say 10 minutes down
> to a couple, but had no effect on the tendency of the machine to
> freeze.


Ah, same kind of processor as my old workhorse. I recently started
playing with much larger camera images than I had before (I had
upgraded from a 3Mpixel snapper to a serious 10Mpixel device). It was
struggling a lot when displaying the big images. I increased memory to
1.5G and it speeded up enormously, but started crashing all over the
place. Taking the covers off and directing some more fans at it
increased the length of time before crashes. Adding more fannage to
the case reduced crashes but could not remove them.

It was a "Red Storm" overclocked processor, which it turned out has
DIP switches on the motherboard controlling how far the speed was
ramped up. So I dropped speed down a bit, and it now runs like a train
again. I guess it had originally been performance tuned with its
original memory size, and found my additional memory too much for its
elderly legs without the refreshing pauses for disc swaps it used to
enjoy :)

Should be able to nurse the old thing along for another few years :)

--
Chris Malcolm [email protected] DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]
 
On 24 May, 11:40, Chris Malcolm <[email protected]> wrote:
> raisethe <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On 20 May, 22:18, Tony Raven <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> > What processor speed and how much memory do you have? Insufficient
> >> memory can really slow things down as the computer has to keep swapping
> >> stuff between memory and a hard disk cache.

> > The processor is Athlon 1,000 mhz. I increased the memory from 128mb
> > to 640 last year. It reduced the boot up time from say 10 minutes down
> > to a couple, but had no effect on the tendency of the machine to
> > freeze.

>
> Ah, same kind of processor as my old workhorse. I recently started
> playing with much larger camera images than I had before (I had
> upgraded from a 3Mpixel snapper to a serious 10Mpixel device). It was
> struggling a lot when displaying the big images. I increased memory to
> 1.5G and it speeded up enormously, but started crashing all over the
> place. Taking the covers off and directing some more fans at it
> increased the length of time before crashes. Adding more fannage to
> the case reduced crashes but could not remove them.
>
> It was a "Red Storm" overclocked processor, which it turned out has
> DIP switches on the motherboard controlling how far the speed was
> ramped up. So I dropped speed down a bit, and it now runs like a train
> again. I guess it had originally been performance tuned with its
> original memory size, and found my additional memory too much for its
> elderly legs without the refreshing pauses for disc swaps it used to
> enjoy :)
>
> Should be able to nurse the old thing along for another few years :)
>
> --
> Chris Malcolm [email protected] DoD #205
> IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
> [http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]


Aha, that kind of makes sense to my experience. Mine may not even have
been correctly 'tuned' from new. Perhaps its time I threw in the towel
and got a new one.
 
Tony Raven <[email protected]> wrote:
> Chris Malcolm wrote on 23/05/2007 10:38 +0100:
>>
>> When I worked for ICL I once paused on my way to the coffee kettle
>> while taking a break in the code simulation to admire a craftsman
>> doing some very delicate work on a door he was painting. He had
>> lightly painted some darker brown over lighter brown and was using
>> feathers trimmed into comb-like shapes to wipe patterns suggestive of
>> wood grain. It was really very good indeed. He told me he was
>> specifically emulating the grain of oak. I asked him what the door was
>> made of. Oak, he told me.


> When I joined the Civil Service many moons ago a man turned up at my
> nice new office and proceeded to rip up the fitted carpet, remove the
> coat stand and fix some coat hooks because that is what the book said my
> grade was entitled too. A few months later I got promoted and the same
> man turned up to lay a new carpet, deliver a coat stand and remove the
> coat hooks because that is what the book said my new grade was entitled
> to.


At least they explained the rules. I can remember being in charge of a
new lab and asking for a phone to be installed. I was told it wasn't
possible for various technical reasons, some kind of systemic upgrade
needed which they weren't ever going to have done, much too
expensive. We'd simply have to do without.

A few months later I was promoted. Someone from admin I was showing
round the new lab said "You need a phone in here. I'll arrange that."

I told him about the technical problems making it impossible. "Aha!"
she grinned, "But you hadn't been promoted then!" The phone was
installed the next day...

--
Chris Malcolm [email protected] DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]