Blogrilla

I don’t know when this message will post. Today is Friday, September 3rd, 2004. My computer is in pieces. Many small pieces. Both computers are in pieces.

Last night I decided I would get the new computer fired up and see how “live” I could make it. My plan was to make sure the computer could start with just the monitor plugged in and one of the memory cards. I added an unformatted HDD as well. Then I would introduce more hardware one at a time. It would probably be more time consuming than adding everything in at once, but I wanted to make sure everything worked right.

When I turned on the power the first time nothing happened. Nothing. No HDD spinning up. No nuthin! Only the face of the case lit up. It cycled through some colors and looked very pretty. Useless, but pretty. I didn’t take this too badly since I knew it was probably something simple. I started closely examining the 500W power supply and the cables that should go to the motherboard. To me that seemed like the logical first place to start.

The motherboard wasn’t plugged in! After supplying power the fan on the CPU started right up! The good news is its an easy fix. The bad news is that the supplier was supposed to have done that. I found a couple of fans and I plugged them in. I wondered what else the supplier skipped.

One thing of which I was suspicious was that the heatsink on top of the CPU seemed to kind of pivot a little. That is, it didn’t seemed like it was securely fastened to the motherboard. But I’m not very knoweledgable about CPU’s and motherboards and heatsinks and maybe its ok for it to do that.

So, now the LED’s light up, the fans on the case spin and the fan on the CPU spins. The monitor doesn’t come though. Hmm… I turned it over in my head for a while and a couple of different things. Finally I removed one of the memory cards. THEN the monitor came on and showed the Biostar company logo.

Five seconds later the whole machine shut down.

THIS bothered me.

I more closely inspected the mysterious swivelling heatsink. Its a piece of metal about 2/3rds as big as my fist. Like a billard ball. Its big. To shorten my already lengthy story it turns out that the heatsink is secured to a plastic frame that fits around the CPU. The plastic frame is screwed down to the motherboard in two places (right/left side). Each screw goes in to a little metal shaft with threads on the inside. The shaft looks like its secured to the motherboard.

This assembly provides a stable base to anchor the heatsink. Since the heatsink requires a very tight fit to the CPU in order to move the heat away from the CPU it has to have a stable base. In this case one of the metal shafts has parted company from the motherboard. So the anchor has nothing firm to hang on to!

The computer continued to shut itself down because the CPU was overheating within 10 seconds of starting.

I called the supplier and was very upset with everything. I think I was able to adequately explain what the problem was, but I don’ tt think the supplier understood.

They decided to send me a new heatsink assembly. I think that those shafts are PART of the motherboard. Therefore, I think I need a new motherboard.

Or some superglue.

I told Liz that I thought I could superglue the piece where it belongs. Afterall, its only job is to sit still! She said “Rob, listen to yourself. You want to SUPERGLUE your motherboard. Does that SOUND like a good idea?”

She has a point.

So I’m going to wait for the heatsink assembly to arrive to see if the part is in there. I can’t believe it will be there. In the meantime both computers have been canabalized and are in many pieces. I suppose I could put the old one back together but I don’t think there’s a rush.

Only this blog is updated from there. So by the time this message is posted my computer should be all better! It might be a while, though.

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Sure enough! My hardware arrived last night! I can start putting it together! The case is made of aluminum and I have to admit that it seems to be of a very light yet sturdy construction and was thoughtfully put together. Years ago, computer makers didn’t think owners should be getting in to their computers so to discourage this behavior they made the cases difficult to access.

This is my opinion. This commuter was clearly designed to allow easy access to everything. There’s a small digital panel on the front to display temperatures and HDD access. I don’t think they needed it, but its there nonetheless. A pair of USB 2.0 ports are on the front along with the MIC and headphone ports. Also, there’s a firewire port up front. One of the side panels is made partially of a clear sheet of plastic with a fan smack dab in the middle. The fan has LED lights in side it to cast an eerie glow on the inside of the machine. Likewise, there are some LED’s that will illuminate the front of the computer.

Last night we went out and made arrangements for a new pair of bunk beds for the girls. Grace has been good with the boys’ bunked for many moons now and we don’t feel she will get in to too much trouble with her own. Chloe is really getting too big for her toddler bed. Also we got two dressers that will match the bunked. It will all be done in white. I think Liz even found bedding last night. Those pieces of furniture are due in about a month.

I’m never crazy about spending a pile of money, but this seemed like the right place in which to spend it. Its all high quality furniture that I think will last many many years.

Because we went out last night I didn’t get a chance to start putting the Franken-puter together. I have everything now except for the video card. If I need to I can cannibalize my current system and take the Radeon 9200 from there. Its far more modest than the GeForce FX 5700 but with the increased capability of the CPU I should be able to try some new stuff out. Nonetheless, I’m considering holding off on putting it all together until I get the video card. I guess I don’t NEED to rush.

Some very nice gamers at work gave me “Far Cry” and “Doom 3″ so I’ll have something to do once the computer is finished. I’m looking forward to it.

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Being There
What does 9/11 tell us about Bush? Nothing.
By William Saletan
Posted Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2004, at 11:19 AM PT

It’s not what you do, it’s how you look

For the past month, a group of veterans funded by a Bush campaign contributor and advised by a Bush campaign lawyer has attacked the story of John Kerry’s heroism in Vietnam. They have argued, contrary to all known contemporaneous records, that Kerry was too brutal in a counterattack that earned him the Silver Star, and that he survived only mines, not bullets, when he rescued a fellow serviceman from a river. President Bush, who joined the National Guard as a young man to avoid Vietnam, has been challenged to denounce the group’s charges. He has refused.

Now the Republican National Convention is showcasing Bush’s own heroic moment. As John McCain put it last night: “I knew my confidence was well placed when I watched him stand on the rubble of the World Trade Center with his arm around a hero of September 11 and, in our moment of mourning and anger, strengthen our unity and our resolve by promising to right this terrible wrong and to stand up and fight for the values we hold dear.”

Pardon me for asking, but where exactly is the heroism in this story? Where, indeed, is the heroism in anything Bush has done before 9/11 or since?

Two days ago at an Ellis Island rally, Dick Cheney described Bush’s 9/11 leadership this way: “In the weeks following the terrorist attacks on America, people in every part of the country, regardless of party, took great comfort and pride in the conduct and the character of our president. They saw a man calm in a crisis, comfortable with responsibility, and determined to do everything necessary to protect our people.”

Calm and comfortable. I appreciate that. This was a major selling point of Bush’s 2000 campaign: He would allow us to “look at the White House with pride.” But isn’t a president supposed to, um, do things? Isn’t it a bit strange to praise a man’s leadership not for doing something, but for maintaining a certain appearance?

Bush partisans point out that he did do things in the 9/11 aftermath. In his convention address last night, former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik recalled Bush’s famous visit to New York, “inspiring a nation as he stood on hallowed ground, supporting the first responders.”

OK, so Bush stood there. He “supported,” in a Clintonesque sense, the people who were doing something. He touched the mayor. As Rudy Giuliani told the New York Times over the weekend, “When he got off the helicopter, he put his arm around the back of my neck and said, ‘What can I do for you?’ It was a personal thing: ‘I know what you’ve been through, and what I can do to support you?’ ”

Amid all this touching, did Bush put himself in any peril? He certainly did. As Giuliani explained to the convention audience:

When President Bush came here on September 14, 2001, the Secret Service was not really happy about his remaining in the area so long. With buildings still unstable, with fires raging below ground of 2,000 degrees or more, there was good reason for their concern. Well, the president remained there. And talked to everyone. … [A construction worker] grabbed the president of the United States in this massive bear hug, and he started squeezing him. And the Secret Service agent standing next to me, who wasn’t happy about any of this, instead of running over and getting the president out of this grip, puts his finger in my face and he says to me, “If this guy hurts the president, Giuliani, you’re finished.”

This is Bush’s heroism? Showing up three days later, “remaining in the area,” and enduring a hug?

The only moment of physical bravery any of last night’s speakers could find in Bush’s life was his secret trip to Iraq. “As I think about his leadership,” Kerik recalled, “I think of the courage it took for our commander in chief to land on an airstrip in the dark of night, a world away, to be with our troops on Thanksgiving.”

Thanksgiving? You mean, six months after we captured the airport and Bush declared victory?

And isn’t “the dark of night” normally a term we use to describe the preferred arrival and departure time of people who aren’t exactly overflowing with courage?

Or is Kerik pointing out the difficulty of landing a plane in the dark? Is he unaware, perhaps, that Bush wasn’t flying the plane? That once again, as in Vietnam, somebody else was doing the hard part and Bush was along for the ride? That Air Force One has more security systems than any other vehicle on Earth? That Bush went to Baghdad to “be with” the troops in the same way he went to New York to “be with” the firefighters? That waiting for a safe time and place to “be with” people who have braved unsafe places at unsafe times is the difference between heroism and a photo op?

Maybe Bush’s courage is moral rather than physical. Maybe it lies in the conviction Giuliani extolled last night: “President Bush sees world terrorism for the evil that it is.”

Calling terrorism evil? Answering a deed with a word? This is courage?

Not fair, says the Bush camp. Bush has answered terrorism with far more than words. “He worked effectively to secure the cooperation of Pakistan,” McCain pointed out last night. “He encouraged other friends to recognize the peril that terrorism posed for them and won their help in apprehending many of those who would attack us again and in helping to freeze the assets they used to fund their bloody work.”

Ah, diplomacy. Now, that’s courage.

The ultimate testament to Bush’s manhood, supposedly, is the two wars he launched. As McCain put it, “He ordered American forces to Afghanistan” and “made the difficult decision to liberate Iraq.” But the salient word in each of those boasts is the verb. Bush gives orders and makes decisions. He doesn’t take personal risks. He never has.

I don’t mean to be unfair to Bush. Vietnam was a lousy war. He wanted a way out, and he found it. But isn’t it odd to see Republicans belittle the physical risks Kerry took in battle while exalting Bush’s armchair wars and post-9/11 photo ops? Isn’t it embarrassing to see Bob Dole, the GOP’s previous presidential nominee, praise Bush’s heroism while suggesting that Kerry’s three combat wounds weren’t bad enough to justify sending him home from Vietnam?

Watching the attacks on Kerry and the glorification of Bush reminds me of something Dole said in his speech to the Republican convention eight years ago. It was “demeaning to the nation,” Dole argued, to be governed by people “who never grew up, never did anything real, never sacrificed, never suffered and never learned.”

You tell me which of this year’s presidential candidates that statement best describes.

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I expected that by now I would have had my new computer assembled and blasting away. No such luck. Some of the components came quickly but others have taken longer than expected. I had earlier considered the idea of assembling the beast as the pieces arrived, so if one of the less important pieces took longer it wouldn’t bother me. As long as the crucial parts arrived in time.

What am I waiting for?
Case
CPU
Motherboard
Video Card

What have I received?
1GB Memory
1 DVD writer
1 120GB hard drive

Its all bass-ackwards, isn’t it? I also recently placed an order with Levenger’s. I love Levenger’s, but don’t usually shop there for myself. I think its a good place for gifts and since I rarely get myself a “gift” I don’t buy myself things. But they recently had a giant sale. While I wouldn’t pay $20 for an outstanding set of notecards I would pay $3. I also needed a new clock for work so I spent $15 on a very stylish desk clock (http://www.levenger.com/PAGETEMPLATES/PRODUCT/addtionalImage.asp?pageID=1662). There’s nothing functionally special about it — I just thought it was very attractive.

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“Wartime”

There’s been a lot of use lately of the phrase “war on terror” and I can’t tell you how much doubt it instills in me to hear this. I have no doubt that there are many people in law enforcement who are waging a campaign to track down terrorists and prevent attacks. There are soldiers from all over the world in Afghanistan working hard to piece together a government that can keep the peace and make it an unattractive place for Al Qaida to operate. Pakistan is involved in tracking down Al Qaida terrorists and they’re doing the world a service.

But I don’t think this constitutes a “war”. Heck, if it were a war, there would be Prisoners of War, wouldn’t there? The prisoners in Guantanamo, Cuba would be afforded the rights guaranteed them in the Geneva Conventions if they were prisoners of war. We hear a lot about a “wartime president” and are constantly being taught lessons from the government on how to behave “in times of war”.

You can’t talk about The War on Terror without considering Iraq, can you? Nobody pretends you can. The tricky part is that Iraq has NEVER had anything to do with The War on Terror. Intelligence services found ONE confirmed terrorist there getting some medical attention. Did they sponsor the 9/11 attackers? no. Did they send their own people to perform terrorist acts? no. Did they sponsor other attacks on the US? no.

Are Americans safer without Saddam Hussein in power? no.

So, despite the fact that Iraq has somehow been inextricably and inexplicably tied to “The War on Terror” it has nothing to do with terrorizing the US. There are 130,000 Americans in Iraq who are fighting a war for … democracy? I think that’s the right word. I understand that the neo-cons want to change the dynamic in the middle east so democracy and free market economics will spread. And I think the war in Iraq has a lot more to do with the spread of Democracy than with terror.

So if we take Iraq out of the “War on Terror” equation what does that leave us? Is it like The War on Drugs, that Ronald Reagan waged? I mean, it turns in to a law enforcement issue, doesn’t it? Its a buzzword that I think everyone has bought in to. We’re certainly not on a war-footing. Our economy not churning out guns and ammunition. There’s no draft.

This is what goes through my mind every time I hear “War on Terror” making me even more angry with George Bush.

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