HolyMoly

safe

It is a serious problem. But, it's also a short-term problem that will solve itself ... though probably not as quickly as some people would like. Years ago, Japan could produce automobiles cheaper than we could. Consequently, Detroit was in turmoil. To a certain degree, they still are. While the final assembly of most cars remains domestic, more and more parts are outsourced to overseas entities. But slowly, even that is changing. A few years ago, Mercury took bids from auto-production entities to see who could build their Capri cheaper. Japanese auto manufacturers LOST their bids. Who outbid them? A company in Australia. As the Japanese economy acquired more wealth and power, Japanese workers began to demand more and more income to keep pace with that economy. Some Japanese workers even started suggesting something employers found distasteful -- labor unions -- as a solution to their problems. Nowadays, take a look in any department store. Try to find any product that's "Made In Japan." Twenty years ago, you'd have no problem. Today, you would. Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, etc., etc. have underbid them for outsourced work the same way the Japanese underbid us years ago. And, as those countries become more industrialized, they, too, will find themselves in Japan's quandry. It simple capitalist sociology (grin). The more a worker's lifestyle gets better, the more that lifestyle costs ... requiring a higher salary to maintain it ... and on and on until things begin to equalize themselves. That article's author asked the question, "Would you pay an engineer $120,000 for a job that the exact same engineer with the exact same abilities can do for $20,000?" My question to the author would be, "How long will it be before that $20,000 engineer starts asking for $30k, $40k, etc., etc.?" It's going to happen eventually ... and all I can say is he better enjoy his cheap engineers while he can.

As the article stated, some of the stations (including all of the XM and Sirius talk-radio stations) have ads. If it was totally ad-free, I might go for it. Instead, on my wish list, I'm putting down an MP3 CD player for my car ... so I can slap in 10 hours of music I've "personally" chosen for long-haul drives (with no commercials guaranteed, hehe).

All's well that ends well, I guess. I'll post in a month or so to give a new critique, good or bad, after I've had a chance to let things fly for a while. In the meantime, CLICK HERE to read my response to the NY Times article on Vonage. The guy who wrote the article doesn't have all the facts straight.

Uh, actually, Baby Bell's charge extra for unlisted numbers. Not being listed in a directory is something I'd consider a plus, not a minus. Possibly true when he signed up but not anymore. You don't get 911 service through Vonage automatically. You have to "activate" it (free) ... and part of the activation requirement is to supply a physical address which is forwarded to the PSAP (public safety access point) at the time you make your call to 911. I activated mine before the box even arrived (grin). Similar to the problem I had though I didn't have to call the ethernet card manufacturer. Vonage knew what the problem was right away and the fix was immediate. I wonder if he knows that you can go online and choose from three different bandwidth settings to "assign" to voice? ... or because he hasn't gone online, as suggested in my last paragraph, to tweek his bandwidth settings to give voice a higher priority. But, there could be other reasons. If he lives in a large metro area with a lot of cable customers in close proximity, that could drain bandwidth, too ... and that's probably something Vonage (or any other VOIP provider) can't solve. It's a capacity issue. Horsefeathers (grin). He's probably reading Vonage's edict in the owner manual, "Never plug your Vonage connection into your wall phone connector." On it's face, that's good advice ... but only because, whether you're a Baby Bell customer or not, the Baby Bell owns the line into your house. If you've chosen Vonage over your Baby Bell ... and Baby Bell notices a "signal" generating from the line (trust me, they can tell), they'll try to spike it into silence ... and that would probably do damage to your Vonage box. The secret? Go outside to your phone box and simply disconnect the incoming-line wires from the internal phone wiring in your house. THEN plug your Vonage box into your wall phone connector so every phone jack in your house will be Vonage-connected - and your Baby Bell will be clueless. The incoming-line wires may belong to them but the telephone wiring inside your house belongs to you. Screw Ma Bell, hehe. BTW, the Motorola phone converter box comes with connections for "two" phones on the back, not just one (grin). Plug the phone next to your computer into one jack and plug the other jack into your wall connector -- AFTER you've disconnected your Baby Bell's incoming-line wires. It works in my house and that's a fact!!! Actually, I'm going to contact Comcast to see if they have an approved battery-backup scenario for the RCA cable-modem and Motorola box. That's a damn good idea. How sweet it is, too, hehe. So long, Ma Bell ... and good riddance.

Installation did not go all that smoothly ... but in fairness to Vonage.com, this was primarily due to the weirdness of Win98SE that might not be experienced by users of other operating systems. What follows are the trials/tribulations I went through during the install process. The first problem I ran into was my cable-modem, an RCA model DCM245. When I originally signed up for broadband access, my ISP was ATTBI.com. And, since I had no ethernet card at the time, ATTBI techs hooked up my computer via a USB connection. When it comes to internet connections, the modem will work either way. Later, ATTBI sold out to Comcast and I had no break in cable internet comms. Prior to signing up for Vonage.com, I looked at their recommended installation instructions for single-computer usage. And, it was pretty straightforward ... with one hitch they didn't explain. They said that Vonage services would only work over ethernet cables, not USB. Fortunately, before my "special box" arrived from Vonage, I found the reason why. The RCA DCM245 modem may have both USB and ethernet ports on the back ... but both cannot work simultaneously. This is right in the modem's user manual. If I'd kept my computer hooked up to my modem with a USB cable and merely plugged Vonage's box into the modem's ethernet port, the modem would "default" to the first port it found active and shut off the other port. So, I had to buy an ethernet card. I chose the D-Link DFE-530TX+ card ($14 at Best Buy). Installation instructions for the drivers seemed quite simple but were not. In theory, the driver CD would simply load the drivers and ask me to reboot ... and after reboot, things would work. And a precautionary call to Comcast garnered the same information. "Sure," said Comcast, "simply disconnect your USB cable, install your ethernet card drivers, plug your ethernet card into your modem and off you go!" Wrongamundo. Instead of installing the drivers, the driver installation CD asked me to insert my Win98SE OEM CD to look first for one file (SECUR32.DLL) ... then asked me to insert it again to look for another (SNMPAPI.DLL). But here's the rub. The directory location specified to look for those two files on the Win98SE OEM CD doesn't exist on any Win98SE OEM CD. However (thank God I have a good memory), the directory location does exist on the old old ATTBI installation CD for the RCA modem ... which most Comcast customers have probably thrown away. Fortunately, I found a quick fix. I rebooted. Then, when the driver installation CD asked me to insert my Win98SE OEM CD to look for SECUR32.DLL, I merely clicked OK. This gave me a default location window showing the ATTBI installation disk directory. I knew that SECUR32.DLL existed in my WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory ... so I changed the info in the default location window to reflect that. It accepted it. Then, when the driver installation CD asked me to insert my Win98SE OEM CD again to look for SNMPAPI.DLL, I clicked OK again ... giving me the default location showing the ATTBI installation disk directory. I knew that SNMPAPI.DLL existed in my WINDOWS directory ... so I change the info in the default location window to reflect that. It accepted it, loaded the ethernet card drivers, and only then asked me if I wanted to reboot. And, upon reboot, I was back on the net (phew). Mind you, at this time, I was still waiting for my Vonage box to come UPS. I figured its installation, with my driver problems behind me, would be a breeze. The box arrived today. I followed the instructions exactly as described. And, once I was done, my phone connection worked just fine ... but my browsers did not. I couldn't go anywhere on the web or even get email. So, at 5:40 PM PST (using my Vonage phone connection), I called up Vonage technical support ... where I listened to the same short piece of elevator music repeating itself over and over amidst short voiceovers of "Please continue to hold. Our representatives will be with you in a moment." A human being finally came on the line at 6:07 PM PST (that's 27 minutes on hold, folks). And to fix the problem, I had to do something that was not in the installation brochure. I had to click on my START button, click on RUN, and type in WINIPCFG. When I ran that, it showed "PPP Adapter" in the window. He asked me to click on the arrow ... and below "PPP Adapter," I saw a reference to my D-Link Ethernet card. I chose the card, clicked the "Release" button then the "Renew" button ... and finally, I was browsing the web. Afterward, I made 2 calls ... one local, one long distance. And, during the long distance call, I experimented by uploading a large file at the same time. The phone performed flawlessly and sounded as good as (or better than) an ordinary phone call. However, I did notice two things on the local call worth mentioning. VOIP callers must remember that they're not connected to Ma Bell anymore. First, all numbers must be dialed with 11-digit dialing, EVEN local calls (1-555-555-5555). Secondly, when you hang up the phone, it takes Vonage about 30 seconds or so to realize that you've "hung up." An immediate callback to me following a hangup garnered a busy signal. But 30 or so seconds later, I got the ring. Of course (grin), for all I know, it could be the same for regular phone service. Now ... I've only had this system installed for an hour or so. But, outside of the long wait for technical support, I'm otherwise impressed with the service. The tech knew exactly what my problem was (a Win98SE configuration problem, not a Vonage problem) and led me right to the source ... and the fix was immediate. And quality-wise, like I said, calls sound as good as (or better than) an ordinary phone call. If I don't run into any other issues, I'm sold! P.S. However, before hanging up with the tech support person, I had to offer one suggestion -- to change that damned annoying and repetitive "on hold" elevator music to, say, at least 4 or 5 different tunes playing back to back. It was REALLY annoying. I'd sooner listen to "Macarena" than that ... and that says a lot (grin).

I just peeked into the KLite forum and found people discussing a 2.6 version of KLite ... still in Beta testing. So, while the KLite site may not offer downloads of KLite anymore, it apparently hasn't stopped KLite development. I wonder how they plan to distribute it so people are sure they're getting a "genuine" KLite product?

I must say that my first impression of Ares was not a good one. Allowing the user to manually choose which files/directories to share should be a "default" upon installation, not an after-the-fact "option." And installing malware when their own site says "no spyware" rubs me the wrong way. NavExcel is considered a browser "hijacker" utility.

Teensy problem. I downloaded the latest Ares software and installed it. At first, it attempted to share everything on my computer. I finally found the button to manually configure it ... by the time it was up to about 5,000 files. But, the real rub I didn't find out about until later. When I logged off of Ares, I got two alerts from ZoneAlarm ... the first one asked if I wanted to give Explorer.exe access to the net (usually, not a good sign). And the 2nd thing it asked me was if I wanted to give a file named NHUpdater.exe access to the net. According to Bazooka spyware/adware detector, NHUpdater is classified as "adware" (CLICK HERE). So, I followed their directions for uninstalling it from the Control Panel and rebooted. The first thing that happened is a DOS window opened and closed in a fraction of a second (another not so good sign). So, confident that the Control Panel uninstall did NOT totally uninstall it, I followed my standard operation procedure in such cases -- running, one after the other, AdAware, Spybot, and my anti-virus software. Spybot and my AV caught nothing ... but AdAware caught 7 occurrences of NavExcel and 2 occurrences of MainPean Dialer in my registry (both considered "malware" by AdAware). I let AdAware delete the registry entries, re-booted (this time without the DOS window opening/closing), ran AdAware again (to make certain something wasn't re-auto-loaded) ... then ran Ares again. It seemed to work fine without the adware/malware. But just to make sure running Ares didn't "do" something, I ran AdAware one more time - and it found nothing. So Ares looks like a good P2P alternative ... but its sheets aren't entirely clean, at least not without intervention.

"I'm Going Home (by helicopter)" (Ten Years After, from the Woodstock soundtrack)

I'd like to see it become a pay-client, too ... but only if there's some kind of agreement with the music industry that some of that "pay" ends up in the hands of copyright holders. If they're just holding out their hands and asking me to pay $29.95 for Kazaa+ v2.6 ("or else, we'll slap invasive spyware/adware on your machine"), they're expecting too much. I've always hoped such a pay-client would emerge. In reality, the only pay-clients out there now are little more than "top-40" radio stations that force consumers to accept their "playlist" (always promising to add more music in the future but usually only adding newer, not older, material). The beauty of unfettered sharing, to me, is the abandonment of any "playlist" scenario ... or rather, a "playlist" whose sole limitation is the preferences of its usership. And it's sad that the RIAA cannot see the obvious solution. If they can track users to the uploading or downloading of a song, they can also track songs to copyright holders. And, if they were to bring back Napster (as it was) ... or some other client with a "centralized" server that could track shared songs ... determining a copyright-royalty scenario to agree upon with the file-sharing client developer would be a piece of cake and make EVERYBODY happy. Unfortunately, the issue isn't money, it's control ... and the RIAA wants it all.

"Gila Monster" (King's X)

Speaking of Iraq, Saddam, and our justification for going in there, the Daily Telegraph published an article two days ago that could have major ramifications for both George Bush and Tony Blair. This is an excerpt from that article: Now ... think about that for a second. If this memo is genuine, it means that the 9/11/2001 attacks came from a Nidal/Hussein collaboration. This gives Bush/Blair absolute justification in going after Saddam. BUT ... It also means something else. It means we wrongly accused Osama bin Laden for masterminding the attack ... and as a result, invaded Afghanistan on a false premise when all the Taliban was doing was protecting an "innocent man." There is nothing about that article that connects Atta to Osama but, instead, connects him to Nidal and Hussein. OOPS. Do we give Afghanistan back to the Taliban now and say, "Gee, sorry about that?" Nahhhhhh ... hehe.

Not sure. But, I listen to Art Bell (et. al.) occasionally, too, and that's where I heard him. Later, I went to Bell's website where I found a link to Salla's website. This guy really believes what he preaches. Ah, yes ... Project Monarch ... where author, Cathy O'Brien claims in her book "Trance Formation of America" that George Bush shape-shifted into a reptile in front of her (grin).

BTW, heard a funny news-byte today. While patrolling Tikrit the day after Saddam was captured, American soldiers were verbally assaulted by townspeople shouting, "SADDAM IS IN OUR HEARTS! SADDAM IS IN OUR BLOOD!" To which an unidentified American soldier yelled back, "SADDAM IS IN OUR JAIL!"

Hmm. I visited their SuperLearning.com website. It sounds intriguing. However, I couldn't find a page on their site showing the Ostranders'/Schroeder's credentials (degrees, business, etc.). And on the Amazon.com site, there are a number of negative reviews of the book ... one calling it a "528-page advertisement" for other techniques/stories. Of course, these critics could be wrong (grin). But, prior to their original SuperLearning book, the only other books published by the Ostrander/Schroeder team appear to be "Handbook of PSI Discoveries," "Psychic Experiences: ESP Investigated," "Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain," and "Seventy-Six Psychic Techniques: A Primer in Parapsychology." I'd be interested to see their credentials in the area of cognitive science. P.S. Mind you, that doesn't mean lack of credentials is a strike against them. Some people with lots of credentials have exceptionally bizarre theories. Case in point - here are the credentials of Dr. Michael Salla, a professor at American University in Washington, DC (CLICK HERE). Impressive, isn't it? Now ... read his theory on why we went to war with Iraq because Saddam Hussein had contacted aliens and was in possession of a "Stargate" ... which the US wanted (CLICK HERE). BTW, one of his credentials not shown is the dubious honor of being a sometime guest on Art Bell's "Coast To Coast AM" radio show, now usually hosted by George Noory. As I said, people who have "anomalous" abilities or knowledge tend to keep silent to retain normalcy in their lives ... leaving only those with a profit motive (selling books, audio tapes, seminars, workshops, etc.).

OK ... then I guess I was wrong ... the smaller-size file is the correct file. I'll archive it for future reference since I already have 2.4.3 installed. BTW, I also noticed an article on Slyck.com stating that future versions of Kazaa's desktop will be able to recognize "diet" or "altered" versions of itself: http://slyck.com/news.php?story=339 Of course, this raises an interesting question. Can the full (adware/spyware-free) version be distributed ... or is it tied to one single computer somehow? In short, can someone buy Kazaa+ v2.6 and share it with others?

Thank you, Mr. Powell (grin). Good (grin). I can live with 4-5 years without the typical taxes/fees baby Bells tack onto a bill. But even past that, VOIP will be offered in a competitive environment (at first, anyway) and rates will naturally be lower than local/LD rates via phone companies.

Does that thread indicate which filesize is the "original" filesize of the "klitekpp243e.exe" file as it was on Kazaa Lite's servers? That's the one I'd want to preserve for posterity. It works ... and I'd be a bit scared to try other versions, some of which may be "buggy" versions released by hackers or even Sharman (to encourage people to abandon KLite in favor of Kazaa).

True story. I was always very good in school when I was young though I really didn't understand why or care why. I just learned concepts easier than other kids in my age-range. One day, my fifth grade teacher gave everyone an assignment for the next day. She gave each of us a small book of poems and each of us was assigned one poem in it to recite the next day. My assigned poem was, "Robinson Crusoe" ... not as long as the novel, but still a long poem. So, I took the book home, read my assigned poem through once, did the rest of my homework and watched TV. The next day in class when I was called on, I walked over to the teacher, gave her the book, and went to the podium ... where I recited the poem verbatim from memory. Other kids in the class started giggling and I couldn't understand why. I didn't find out why until I got home. Apparently, after class, my teacher called my mom and told her about my reciting the poem from memory ... and she told the teacher, "that's just the way he does things." My mom called me aside and told me she'd known for a long time that I had photographic memory ... but said to never demonstrate it in front of others again because they wouldn't understand. I followed her advice ... but found that my ability faded away and completely disappeared by the time I'd left high school. In the early part of the 20th Century, most people believed that photographic memory was a gift that some people had ... that it really existed. But with the rise of cognitive science, psychologists began to poo-poo the ability ... assigning it to the "woo-woo" realm of pseudoscience. Anyhoo, when I got out of the Navy (still, pre-Internet) and had some time on my hands, I scoured my local library for information on photographic memory. And, all I could seem to find were short pieces by cognitive therapists poo-pooing the phenomenon. But, as an Encyclopedia Britannica owner, I had access to Britannica Research Service -- and sent them a request for all information on serious research into the phenomenon. They only found one item ... a study performed by Bell Labs in the 1940s using people claiming to have the ability. They were able to conclude that there were some people who had it ... but most were children whose ability faded away by adulthood. More importantly, since they were unable to show "why" the ability existed at all, the study was considered inconclusive and halted. This changed in 1995 when two researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Labs, Dr. Jerry Yin and Dr. Tim Tully, made a discovery. Both men are molecular biologists ... and they discovered that the hippocampal region of the brain produced 2 DNA subprotiens called CREB activator and CREB repressor. And via animal testing, they discovered that memory was enhanced when they chemically induced a high CREB activator level ... and that memory suffered when they chemically induced a high CREB repressor level. This fell in line with the abandoned Bell Labs study. Quite likely, some children are born with higher-than-normal CREB activator levels ... levels that "balance out" with CREB repressor when most such children go through puberty and approach adulthood. For a while, I subscribed to CSHL's newsletter for lay-people. And in one of those newsletters, they discussed an experiment that can be performed at home to prove photographic (aka "eidetic") memory exists. This is based on their experiments which used chemicals to heat the brain (heat induces CREB activator release while cold induces CREB repressor release). And if anyone reading this right now is a student (grin), you can use this experiment to "cram" for a test. Here's how it works. If you're studying material you need to memorize, put yourself into a room where you have the heat turned up as hot as you can stand it ... then study. People will remember more of what they study if the studying is done in a "hot" room than if they study in a "cold" room. This is because the hot room will induce your hippocampus to release copious amounts of CREB activator ... enhancing your memory of everything that occurs in the room (like studying). Try it. I have ... and it works. P.S. Yin and Tully are continuing their research. They do NOT propose the creation of hypermemoried humans (grin) by permanently altering human brain chemistry. But, their research may lead to future therapy for those suffering from amnesia ... including the most severe kind of amnesia found in sufferers of Alzheimer's Disease. P.P.S. Regarding "anomalous phenomena," I'm a believer. But, I honestly think that the people with REAL gifts tend to remain silent about them ... just like I was told by my mom to remain silent about mine (leaving only the hoaxters and charlatans in the public eye). And, it makes perfect sense to me. For example, if someone went in front of the media and clearly demonstrated a psychokinetic ability ... moving objects with his mind ... how long do you think that person's life would remain normal? Sooner or later, men wearing black suits and dark glasses would whisk that person away ... and that person would spend the rest of their life being poked and prodded by "experts" trying to find out how they did it. BTW, there's a lesson to be learned from the "X-Men" saga. Sooner or later, the human race will "evolve" into something else. If that "something else" has a gift that invokes fear or awe, what we saw in the first "X-Men" movie would come to pass. Right now ... as we speak ... I am absolutely certain that there are "mutants" living among us. No, not people with metal claws coming out of their knuckles (snicker) ... but people who can do some things that other people cannot do and have no idea WHY they can do them. There are even some brave psychiatrists who have gone so far as to suggest that schizophrenia is not a disease. Think about it. Do schizophrenic people "see/hear things that aren't there" ... or are schizophrenics people who can "see/hear things that ARE there, but that others can't perceive?"

Thanks. BTW, during the heyday of our Afghanistan campaign, there was a political cartoon published I'll never forget ... alluding to the fact that freedom would overcome the Taliban. It showed a bunch of Taliban officials staring wide-eyed in horror at a note sent to them by President Bush. The note read, "Give us Osama bin Laden now. If you don't, we'll send your women to college!"

As the old saying goes, "Success is the best revenge." And while it's nice to see Saddam out of circulation, the real success won't be realized until a democratic and free Iraq and Afghanistan are functioning on their own ... without a U.S. presence necessary to maintain their respective governments. Even Osama bin Laden can't compete with freedom. Iran is trying ... and if their youth is any guide, they're failing. Sustained freedom will be the real victory over terror.

Now that Kazaa Lite is no longer available from "official" sites, you can only download it from unofficial locations. Now, in theory, the filename of the last English-language version of Kazaa Lite is: klitekpp243e.exe However, I've done some checking for that file and find different filesizes for this download. Some download locations show filesize to be 3,366,186 bytes while others show filesize to be 2,785,833. To my knowledge, the bigger filesize is the correct filesize for that version. But this makes me wonder what the smaller filesize files really are. Anyone know?

And I'll stick with Win98SE. BTW, did you know that retailers are still selling OEM disks for Win98SE? Not openly, mind you ... you have to ask for it ... and in some cases, it may have to be ordered. But it's still available. More importantly, most software available on the market is still written to be Win98SE compatible. I just bought a brand new Ethernet card the other day and it has Win98SE drivers ... along with Me/2000/XP drivers. And, FWIW, Mac OS9.x is also supported. Mac users would know better than me ... but I suspect many look upon OS10 in the same suspicious way some PC users look upon XP. BTW, I run a hosting service and track visitors by OS and browser ... and WinXP visitors are still in the minority. I don't think Microsoft will fully capture the marketplace with 32-bit XP ... but might when the 64-bit Itanium chip becomes standard. By that time, I'm hoping there will be a "creative explosion" among Linux developers. If I ever upgrade my OS, I'd much rather upgrade to Linux than XP.

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