Wednesday, July 20, 2016
Friday, May 13, 2016
Energy
This is a short post about a big topic and a couple of web posts/articles which explain it very well. Progress is being made and very quickly.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/05/12/3776728/climate-change-solutions/
In the thinkprogress post there is a link. I give it here for simplicity. It's got a ton of graphs and charts and you can browse it without reading a lot.
http://about.bnef.com/content/uploads/sites/4/2016/04/BNEF-Summit-Keynote-2016.pdf
If you had any doubt that electing Democrats, or any politicians, who believe in pushing for a more compitititive and "green" energy world could make a change, just look at these. It matters.http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/05/12/3776728/climate-change-solutions/
In the thinkprogress post there is a link. I give it here for simplicity. It's got a ton of graphs and charts and you can browse it without reading a lot.
http://about.bnef.com/content/uploads/sites/4/2016/04/BNEF-Summit-Keynote-2016.pdf
Update: Already, better sunlight to electricity:
http://www.gizmag.com/solar-cell-electricity-efficiency-world-record-unsw/43384/
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Elections Bring Hope for Change
I don't agree a lot with Bernie Sanders, but he, and most Democrats, recognize the dangers America faces because our economic system isn't working correctly. We would all like the economy to be growing at a faster rate, but as long as the benefits of that aren't distributed to everyone's benefit it's a worthless exercise -- or worse. Today America's corporations are hoarding money overseas and they're paying an already very low federal tax rate and they're not feeling any pressure to be especially entrepreneurial or patriotic. The effects of this are that the wealth being produced by Americans is being taken off-shore and used to the benefit of other peoples, that the federal government is (to a degree) bought and paid for, so it can't raise the minimum wage rate or the tax rate. One secondary effect is that the slow economy means it's hard for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates or to reduce supports to corporations. Another is that the debt problems means we can't really afford to waste money on military excursions around the world. That leads to other consequences we don't want. We need to pressure the fat and happy lazy rich corporations to pay their taxes, so we can pay down our debts, raise money to build infrastructure and help pay more for education. They should pay their workers more, so those people can put money back into the economy to begin a cycle upward instead of lazy circles in the sky. They should pay the profits they're holding to their stockholders, so it can be taxed. The rich corporations and their lackeys are killing us.
But, elections bring hope for change.America has to choose. Let's hope they choose to make progress of some kind. We can't afford to fiddle while Rome burns.
Thursday, September 3, 2015
Update: Windows 10 and The Case of the Disappearing CD/DVD Optical Disc Drive
Yesterday I lost my CD-DVD drive. Well, it seemed that way.
A friend loaned me a DVD with some chess material and when I put it in the drive it just whirred a few seconds and then went quiet. When I clicked on "This PC" (an icon on my Desktop) it showed the top levels of my file system and there was no optical drive in sight. OMG, what happened? Has it died?
I started up Device Manager and it wasn't listed there as an attached device. How could this calamity befall me now?
My next step, after the inevitable hot sweaty panic and the cooling down phase, was to go onto the Internet. Oh wait, that's not working either. What the heck is going on here?
Total freakout phase begins...
I restarted my PC and that didn't help, so I had to reboot the Wireless device, remove its battery, put it back together (not a long process) and then restart again. Thankfully that worked to make the wireless access point reboot and I had internet access again. Whew.
Thought the world was falling apart for a few minutes there.
So, as I was saying, I went onto the Internet and began to look for solutions to my optical drive problem. Time for another Trump-like digression? Did I mention the time? It was already closing in on midnight and I haven't been able to study for school. These problematic interventions aren't helpful. I went to Microsoft and HP (maker of my PC) and neither seemed terribly helpful, though I did learn HP also wants to intrude onto my PC with their Personal Assistant software and regular updates (of what I know not). Everybody wants to steal my computer and I don't mean the hackers.
Somewhere in my browsing I came across an article saying a few people had gone to their BIOS configuration program (reached at reboot/restart time by pressing a function key which your PC maker specified). This isn't necessary to fix the problem, but for those who are comfortable with this kind of thing it's helpful to realize your BIOS still recognizes the optical drive hardware is still there and in good working order. In fact, the main thing your BIOS software does at startup is to check your RAM, CPU, Keyboard and other things to see if you have a working computer and only after a few things like that does it begin to load the operating system (Win 7, Linux, etc.). Well, my PC's BIOS showed the optical drive was still there. Whew! Now, why wasn't the operating system (oh, wait Windows 10 is new) recognizing it.
A little more browsing and I found a Microsoft discussion forum with the answers.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-files/windows-10-dvd-drive-missing/f246ef3d-ff9a-4cd2-9746-7de01184c258
Apparently there have been some other people who "lost" their CD/DVD drive after Windows 10 was installed. Why hadn't I thought of that? I had lost use of my printer right after Windows 10 was installed and just doing a device driver update solved that problem. The big difference was that my PC hadn't completely lost sight of the printer. Now my PC wasn't even recognizing there was hardware on my PC.
When I first read through the forum discussion I wasn't sure I could trust them. The answer seemed odd and I don't like messing with things which I'm not absolutely certain are broken. But, reading the discussion showed several people had tried the 'solution' and it had worked. Finally, the HP "help guy" also endorsed it as THE solution.
So, I did it and it worked immediately.
By now it was about 1:30am, but I was feeling like a weight had been lifted.
The solution was to go to Device Manager, click on the IDE/ATA Controllers list and uninstall the shorter ones. One by one and suddenly the OS says it's time to Restart your computer NOW. After the Restart the optical drive is back and working fine. Easy.
Is this the answer for all problems? No, but for this specific problem of the disappearing CD/DVD drive it worked like a charm.
Now back to studying.
A friend loaned me a DVD with some chess material and when I put it in the drive it just whirred a few seconds and then went quiet. When I clicked on "This PC" (an icon on my Desktop) it showed the top levels of my file system and there was no optical drive in sight. OMG, what happened? Has it died?
I started up Device Manager and it wasn't listed there as an attached device. How could this calamity befall me now?
My next step, after the inevitable hot sweaty panic and the cooling down phase, was to go onto the Internet. Oh wait, that's not working either. What the heck is going on here?
Total freakout phase begins...
I restarted my PC and that didn't help, so I had to reboot the Wireless device, remove its battery, put it back together (not a long process) and then restart again. Thankfully that worked to make the wireless access point reboot and I had internet access again. Whew.
Thought the world was falling apart for a few minutes there.
So, as I was saying, I went onto the Internet and began to look for solutions to my optical drive problem. Time for another Trump-like digression? Did I mention the time? It was already closing in on midnight and I haven't been able to study for school. These problematic interventions aren't helpful. I went to Microsoft and HP (maker of my PC) and neither seemed terribly helpful, though I did learn HP also wants to intrude onto my PC with their Personal Assistant software and regular updates (of what I know not). Everybody wants to steal my computer and I don't mean the hackers.
Somewhere in my browsing I came across an article saying a few people had gone to their BIOS configuration program (reached at reboot/restart time by pressing a function key which your PC maker specified). This isn't necessary to fix the problem, but for those who are comfortable with this kind of thing it's helpful to realize your BIOS still recognizes the optical drive hardware is still there and in good working order. In fact, the main thing your BIOS software does at startup is to check your RAM, CPU, Keyboard and other things to see if you have a working computer and only after a few things like that does it begin to load the operating system (Win 7, Linux, etc.). Well, my PC's BIOS showed the optical drive was still there. Whew! Now, why wasn't the operating system (oh, wait Windows 10 is new) recognizing it.
A little more browsing and I found a Microsoft discussion forum with the answers.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-files/windows-10-dvd-drive-missing/f246ef3d-ff9a-4cd2-9746-7de01184c258
Apparently there have been some other people who "lost" their CD/DVD drive after Windows 10 was installed. Why hadn't I thought of that? I had lost use of my printer right after Windows 10 was installed and just doing a device driver update solved that problem. The big difference was that my PC hadn't completely lost sight of the printer. Now my PC wasn't even recognizing there was hardware on my PC.
When I first read through the forum discussion I wasn't sure I could trust them. The answer seemed odd and I don't like messing with things which I'm not absolutely certain are broken. But, reading the discussion showed several people had tried the 'solution' and it had worked. Finally, the HP "help guy" also endorsed it as THE solution.
So, I did it and it worked immediately.
By now it was about 1:30am, but I was feeling like a weight had been lifted.
The solution was to go to Device Manager, click on the IDE/ATA Controllers list and uninstall the shorter ones. One by one and suddenly the OS says it's time to Restart your computer NOW. After the Restart the optical drive is back and working fine. Easy.
Is this the answer for all problems? No, but for this specific problem of the disappearing CD/DVD drive it worked like a charm.
Now back to studying.
Friday, August 14, 2015
Windows 10, etc.
I downloaded Windows 10 and it took forrrrreeeeevvvvver. I don't know why exactly, but I can point to a couple of things as warnings for everyone else who will be doing this.
1) If you have a screen saver or auto-sleep mode set (these save power when nobody is using the PC for some time), turn them off (to "never") until you're done with the d/l. When they go into effect the download isn't recognized as activity which should keep the machine 'awake'. Apparently the only things they recognize are user-inputs like mouse, keyboard or other user devices. A running program to Microsoft is not 'activity'. This happened to me several times before I wised-up. Lots of wasted time and money there with no error message or warnings. When my machine went to "sleep" it stopped net activity and that led to the net going "dormant" and that meant no connection, so the Win10 download was stopped! I had tried to let it go all night, but apparently it stopped in about an hour and in the morning there was nothing to show for it. There is no pause (and resume later) for this download.
2) Make sure you have a secure internet connection for the entire download. I started with less than 3 GB and in the middle of the download had to load my Virgin Mobile account with some money and then apply that to get more 'data' for the next month. Then something truly horrible happened (apparently), I had to reboot and that destroyed my download. Yep. It all went away. All the time spent, all the internet connection money, gone. I had to start over. Similarly, if your internet connection dries up the downloader program (Windows Update I suppose) will stop and you probably lose it all.
After downloading it the set-up took a very long time. I went and had dinner and when I came back to look it was still working. It reboots your computer several times in the process. It's not hard to tell when it's done though. There is a good on-screen message showing how far along the process is and when it's done.
One note about the installation: consider this very personal question carefully, do you want a Custom or Express install? An Express installation lets Microsoft grab a lot of information from your PC for their commercial purposes, but a Custom installation lets you decide if you don't want some things and doesn't take long to go through. I suggest Custom, so you can tell Microsoft you don't want to give them anything about your personal life (as recorded on your PC).
So, now I have Win10 and it's not too bad. I just lost my internet connection and printer and have a bunch of metro "live" tiles on my start menu.
1) The default printer became the MS printer-to-PDF (as I recall), so the driver (it may be on your PC, but probably since it's a new OS it's to be found on the MicroSoft site or on the manufacturer's site where you originally found it) for your real printing device has to be re-found (just update the driver). Then, to use the printer properly it has to be set to DEFAULT. I actually did this several times with no effect, but somehow managed to get it to stick. I'm still not sure precisely where or how I did it when it really took effect. I suppose the advice is: just KEEP AT IT until it sticks.
2) OTOH, my wireless internet connection was well and truly killed. I talked to Virgin Mobile help-desk people and they told me the dongle I used to get wireless internet (like a cell phone contacting a cell tower) was simply incompatible with Win10. Darn. So, how much for a new one that will work? They don't have one. They suggest only one product (which I bought). It's the NetGear Mingle hotspot for Virgin Mobile (a wireless access point for everyone in the neighborhood to try hacking into). I bought it at Best Buy (they're great) for about $50 and, like most electronics, it's small and seems fragile. Well, so does my HP PC, so that's not unusual. If I take care of my stuff it should be alright. In this case my PC has no built-in wireless capability, so I feel somewhat lucky the Mingle has a cable which attaches it via mini-USB (on the Mingle) and USB (on my PC) to receive electrical power and, naturally, to let me use it via the wire. This makes it pretty much the same as a dongle except that it's also broadcasting to the neighborhood (though it does have a account & password security). I'd prefer to turn that off altogether and not broadcast the SSID.
Okay, so I fiddled with it and somehow turned it off, disabled it or something. It took a few tries for me to figure out how to use it. Calling Virgin Mobile is helpful if you need it.
The first thing that's neat is that it gets charged by the PC and can remain on and going even when my browser is off. Yeah, the neighborhood can see it even when I'm logged-off.
Second, with the auto settings it can be powered on and off automagically when my PC boots up or shuts down -- that's handy. I don't have to turn it on & off!
When it's off and you try to get it started there's one important trick. It doesn't have the IP address of the VM site, so you have to type in the IP address for your browser (it's in the instruction booklet). However, after it gets going you could just use the standard http:// address to get there. I must have fiddled with it for several hours before I figured that out.
They weren't kidding when they called the WWW the World-Wide Waste-of-time. You can waste a LOT of time watching Win10 download or fiddling with novel gadgets which almost work intuitively, but not quite.
Now when I start the browser it logs-in to the Mingle home page, I 'connect' and open a new tab to use the net. It provides pretty good speed (about 3.1Gbps). Previously I was supposedly getting 4G speed (about 8-100Mbps), but was really only getting about 4-5Gbps max. So, the speed now is good, but noticeably slower when I'm trying to load a webpage with a lot of graphics/pics or perhaps get my e-mail from Google GMail. But, with Google I don't know if the problem is with my Mingle or them -- they are often slow because they serve so many customers.
In conclusion:
Am I satisfied? So far it's been pretty good. There are some nifty things others might use more than me (Cortana, live tiles, snapping apps, the Edge browser, etc.) but I guess all the things I liked about Win7 are still there and quite usable. Will I "live happily ever after" with Win10? We'll see.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PRIVACY UPDATE:
Microsoft has said their search box on the taskbar sends some information back to the home base. How much information it's sending isn't quite known. You can remove this search box from the taskbar, but if you right-click on 'Start' it will still be in the list (if you must use it). Another detail not known is whether local searches of your PC (not the net) return information to MS when next you logon to the Internet.
1) If you have a screen saver or auto-sleep mode set (these save power when nobody is using the PC for some time), turn them off (to "never") until you're done with the d/l. When they go into effect the download isn't recognized as activity which should keep the machine 'awake'. Apparently the only things they recognize are user-inputs like mouse, keyboard or other user devices. A running program to Microsoft is not 'activity'. This happened to me several times before I wised-up. Lots of wasted time and money there with no error message or warnings. When my machine went to "sleep" it stopped net activity and that led to the net going "dormant" and that meant no connection, so the Win10 download was stopped! I had tried to let it go all night, but apparently it stopped in about an hour and in the morning there was nothing to show for it. There is no pause (and resume later) for this download.
2) Make sure you have a secure internet connection for the entire download. I started with less than 3 GB and in the middle of the download had to load my Virgin Mobile account with some money and then apply that to get more 'data' for the next month. Then something truly horrible happened (apparently), I had to reboot and that destroyed my download. Yep. It all went away. All the time spent, all the internet connection money, gone. I had to start over. Similarly, if your internet connection dries up the downloader program (Windows Update I suppose) will stop and you probably lose it all.
After downloading it the set-up took a very long time. I went and had dinner and when I came back to look it was still working. It reboots your computer several times in the process. It's not hard to tell when it's done though. There is a good on-screen message showing how far along the process is and when it's done.
One note about the installation: consider this very personal question carefully, do you want a Custom or Express install? An Express installation lets Microsoft grab a lot of information from your PC for their commercial purposes, but a Custom installation lets you decide if you don't want some things and doesn't take long to go through. I suggest Custom, so you can tell Microsoft you don't want to give them anything about your personal life (as recorded on your PC).
So, now I have Win10 and it's not too bad. I just lost my internet connection and printer and have a bunch of metro "live" tiles on my start menu.
1) The default printer became the MS printer-to-PDF (as I recall), so the driver (it may be on your PC, but probably since it's a new OS it's to be found on the MicroSoft site or on the manufacturer's site where you originally found it) for your real printing device has to be re-found (just update the driver). Then, to use the printer properly it has to be set to DEFAULT. I actually did this several times with no effect, but somehow managed to get it to stick. I'm still not sure precisely where or how I did it when it really took effect. I suppose the advice is: just KEEP AT IT until it sticks.
2) OTOH, my wireless internet connection was well and truly killed. I talked to Virgin Mobile help-desk people and they told me the dongle I used to get wireless internet (like a cell phone contacting a cell tower) was simply incompatible with Win10. Darn. So, how much for a new one that will work? They don't have one. They suggest only one product (which I bought). It's the NetGear Mingle hotspot for Virgin Mobile (a wireless access point for everyone in the neighborhood to try hacking into). I bought it at Best Buy (they're great) for about $50 and, like most electronics, it's small and seems fragile. Well, so does my HP PC, so that's not unusual. If I take care of my stuff it should be alright. In this case my PC has no built-in wireless capability, so I feel somewhat lucky the Mingle has a cable which attaches it via mini-USB (on the Mingle) and USB (on my PC) to receive electrical power and, naturally, to let me use it via the wire. This makes it pretty much the same as a dongle except that it's also broadcasting to the neighborhood (though it does have a account & password security). I'd prefer to turn that off altogether and not broadcast the SSID.
Okay, so I fiddled with it and somehow turned it off, disabled it or something. It took a few tries for me to figure out how to use it. Calling Virgin Mobile is helpful if you need it.
The first thing that's neat is that it gets charged by the PC and can remain on and going even when my browser is off. Yeah, the neighborhood can see it even when I'm logged-off.
Second, with the auto settings it can be powered on and off automagically when my PC boots up or shuts down -- that's handy. I don't have to turn it on & off!
When it's off and you try to get it started there's one important trick. It doesn't have the IP address of the VM site, so you have to type in the IP address for your browser (it's in the instruction booklet). However, after it gets going you could just use the standard http:// address to get there. I must have fiddled with it for several hours before I figured that out.
They weren't kidding when they called the WWW the World-Wide Waste-of-time. You can waste a LOT of time watching Win10 download or fiddling with novel gadgets which almost work intuitively, but not quite.
Now when I start the browser it logs-in to the Mingle home page, I 'connect' and open a new tab to use the net. It provides pretty good speed (about 3.1Gbps). Previously I was supposedly getting 4G speed (about 8-100Mbps), but was really only getting about 4-5Gbps max. So, the speed now is good, but noticeably slower when I'm trying to load a webpage with a lot of graphics/pics or perhaps get my e-mail from Google GMail. But, with Google I don't know if the problem is with my Mingle or them -- they are often slow because they serve so many customers.
In conclusion:
Am I satisfied? So far it's been pretty good. There are some nifty things others might use more than me (Cortana, live tiles, snapping apps, the Edge browser, etc.) but I guess all the things I liked about Win7 are still there and quite usable. Will I "live happily ever after" with Win10? We'll see.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PRIVACY UPDATE:
Microsoft has said their search box on the taskbar sends some information back to the home base. How much information it's sending isn't quite known. You can remove this search box from the taskbar, but if you right-click on 'Start' it will still be in the list (if you must use it). Another detail not known is whether local searches of your PC (not the net) return information to MS when next you logon to the Internet.
Saturday, August 8, 2015
The Long Gas & Water Problem on my Street Continues
Hi. I know it's been a while since I've written. I've been busy with school this summer and just recently I caught a cold. Still, I'm writing today because the odyssey of the gas & water problems on my street has continued.
You would think it should have ended when they dug up the entire street (well, almost) laid new plastic piping for a block and covered it all back over, paved it and opened the street. It looked so nice, like a black & gray patch-work quilt.
But, this morning when I awoke I didn't have hot water. I checked the water heater and furnace and there was simply no gas. I know I had hot water yesterday evening, what could have happened in the night.
I called the gas company and they sent out a fellow to check it out. He said the problem was likely in the new piping they had just put down and there were fixtures underneath the street which would possibly have to be dug up. But first, they can open each end and blow air through the pipe to clear out any water there might be. I just happened to watch at the moment when it blew out. There probably was about a cup of water, just enough to be a problem. But, how did the water get into the pipe?
They checked the line for pressure and found it wasn't sound. So, today, as on so many other days over the past few months, there are gas company trucks and backhoe on my street digging up the areas just freshly paved a week or two ago.
Fortunately they feel certain there's no problem in the part of the line from the sidewalk to my house. That's certainly good news. It's not a big surprise though. That piping was replaced about 5 years ago with plastic and it's been working fine since. It's the new work recently completed which was apparently not quite airtight.
You could say it began last winter when I wrote about a giant spray of water in the middle of the coldest day of winter, but really this problem goes back much further.
Years ago we had a leak which led to the replacement of the pipe to the house. This is a problem which is fighting to stick around. Why? I don't know.
You would think it should have ended when they dug up the entire street (well, almost) laid new plastic piping for a block and covered it all back over, paved it and opened the street. It looked so nice, like a black & gray patch-work quilt.
But, this morning when I awoke I didn't have hot water. I checked the water heater and furnace and there was simply no gas. I know I had hot water yesterday evening, what could have happened in the night.
I called the gas company and they sent out a fellow to check it out. He said the problem was likely in the new piping they had just put down and there were fixtures underneath the street which would possibly have to be dug up. But first, they can open each end and blow air through the pipe to clear out any water there might be. I just happened to watch at the moment when it blew out. There probably was about a cup of water, just enough to be a problem. But, how did the water get into the pipe?
They checked the line for pressure and found it wasn't sound. So, today, as on so many other days over the past few months, there are gas company trucks and backhoe on my street digging up the areas just freshly paved a week or two ago.
Fortunately they feel certain there's no problem in the part of the line from the sidewalk to my house. That's certainly good news. It's not a big surprise though. That piping was replaced about 5 years ago with plastic and it's been working fine since. It's the new work recently completed which was apparently not quite airtight.
You could say it began last winter when I wrote about a giant spray of water in the middle of the coldest day of winter, but really this problem goes back much further.
Years ago we had a leak which led to the replacement of the pipe to the house. This is a problem which is fighting to stick around. Why? I don't know.
Monday, July 13, 2015
Trump to the Rescue?
When Donald Trump says he can make a better trade deal "for us" I have to wonder who would benefit from his or any Republican trade deal. In the 1980s the Republicans sold down the river a lot of union workers by creating trade deals which were good for big business, but which also off-shored a lot of union jobs. Now they're working for minimum wage at McDonald's in a "career".
Donald Trump has trumpeted himself as a deal-maker, but it has always been (obviously) trades meant to benefit his company. If he were president his responsibility would be to 300 million Americans, but would he know how to do a deal which benefited anyone besides himself?
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