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Sunday, July 4, 1999

Happy Birthday, America

Suzy and the kids are off to see Granddaddy for a couple of weeks and I have a busy traveling schedule.  I have trips planned to Bristol, TN and Denver, CO, but may also have to make a trip this week to Indianapolis.

I found it quite curious last night as I watched the end of the Pepsi 400 that NASCAR allowed Dale Jarrett to ride in front of the pace car on the last couple of laps.  I was always under the impression that if you passed the pace car they would black flag you.  There he was riding on the apron of the track to conserve his precious fuel and was clearly in front of the pace car.  Maybe the excuse will be that he was on the apron and therefore not on the racing surface.  I did note, however, that his dad in the broadcast booth did not mention this little piece of trivia. Suzy and I both made the same observation independently.  She was busy with some last minute Florida packing and walked into the room wondering aloud the same same question and she is not a rookie Winston Cup race watcher.

I think I will spend my Independence Day afternoon baking at the pool as the family heads off to Daytona Beach.

* * * * * *

You might want to check out the Day Noters page if you haven't already.   This is a collection of folks who keep journals much like this one, except they a heck of a lot more about what's happening in the computer industry than this writer.

Monday, July 5, 1999

I spent a little while last evening trying to fix some of the hyperlinks that were left over from when I moved pages around, etc.  I would appreciate an email when you find a particularly aggravating broken link and I will try to fix the page.   You will notice I said when.  Lot's of confidence here :-)

FrontPage still reports broken links in archived notes pages and stat pages, so I'm going to be honest here.  I am not going back and fix those.  The ones I attempted to fix were on active pages.  Call me lazy.

I attempted to go to the pool yesterday as promised.  Just as my luck would have it as soon as I arrived the downpour started, but I waited it out.  Didn't even get in the water, but was able to gouge myself on the traditional American cookout of hot dogs, hamburgers and bbq chicken.  I definitely got my five bucks worth.

Suzy called from Florida about 10:30 PM last night to announce they had arrived safely.  She reported the kids did well on the trip, except for about the last 2:00 - 2:30.  Can't really expect much more than that from a seven and 11 year old on a >9 hour car ride in the heat of the summer.  She reported they were already scoping out Granddaddy's pool, but hadn't plunged in yet, although I think that was in the cards before the night was over.  That was one phone call I was glad to receive.

This could be an interesting site:  Domain Games.Com.  Allows you to search for domains using wildcards.  It also claims to have a report of new domains and dropped domains, but since it was a Sunday when I found this site the new and dropped test turned up null.  However I was able to bring up a bunch of domains by using the tuck* . * wilcard.  Tucker.Com is still not available.  Rats.   However it appears Tucker.Net or Tucker.Org would be available.  Wonder if I can convince Internic that I'm a non-profit.  Sure appears that way lately.

If you're looking to download a take it for a spin, SoftSeek may be a good place to start.

Mid-Day Update: Since I had the day off today and the house to myself I decided to stay up late last night and watch Saving Private Ryan from my Direct-TV satellite.  This is one intense war movie and I found myself riveted to the tube until 3:30 AM.  I'm not going to attempt a movie review here (you can get that from the Internet Movie Database), but if you haven't already seen this movie you might want to catch it somehow.  I felt it lived up to its billing and I'm not a war movie buff.  You can add this movie to your personal collection from Amazon.com.

Tuesday, July 6, 1999

I will admit that I may be one of the world's worst when it comes to making a good backup of my systems.  I am not regimented in that way and yes, I have been lucky.  In my opinion the most valuable folder I have on my network drives is my data drive, so I decided to burn a regular CD of this folder just as a precaution.  I have all of my machines storing data in the same location so it's easier to find. The folder came within 40 megs of filling up a CD.  This folder and it also includes the subdirectory /data/downloads where I stick all of my downloads.  After the CD was burnt (I was gutsy and made it at 4x across the network with no problems..) I decided to fire up BakupExec to make a full backup of my machines.  Instead of selecting all machines and making a 2 or 3 volume backup I decided to backup a couple of machines at a time.  The first one went well.  However, when I attempted to make the second backup it blew up part way through the process reporting the error Bad Data.  I was insulted that Backup Exec thought some of my data was bad.  I then erased that tape and started the backup again and it bombed a second time at about halfway through the backup.  It bombed on one of the files in NT service pack 4.  That should tell Microsoft something.  I then decided that I would not attempt this backup again last night and will try a different tape the next time.  I probably need to clean the heads on the drive.  No telling when the last time they saw the alcohol ladden cotten swab.

Early evening update:

Here are the results of my backup:

Bambam, Betty and Wilma are network machines and Fred is the local machine to the HP SureSTore (TR-4) tape drive , but that was easy to discern from the speed of the backup.  My network is a 10mbps network with a mixture of 10 and 10/100 mbps network cards and a 10 mbps hub.  Wilma and Betty have the 10/100mbps cards.  The speed of the backup was cut in half when backing up across the network.  This backup was done when there was very little other network traffic.  It appears I was achieving a transfer rate of approximately 2.8 mbps when backing up across the network. 

* * * * * *

I heard from Suzy today and I guess my name is mud in Daytona Beach.   I think I mentioned that Andrew was taking his Star Wars Pod Racer game with him to Florida and that this game was a resource hog.  I had mentioned to Suzy's brother, Sam, that it required a 3D video card and that he should run out to Best Buy and have one installed when the troops arrived in Ormond Beach.  Apparently he did, installed it and it killed his system.  Suzy said it killed his system so bad that he was having to take it somewhere to be repaired.  He is running Windows 95 and I can't imagine what hosed his system so badly.  Suzy said something about it not booting, killing his lan, the sound card not working, etc. and that he was having a hard time getting it back to a functioning state.  She said he was having to take his machine to some repair shop to get in back in working order.  Sam is pretty savvy when it comes to computers, so I can't imagine what might have been going on, unless is something that was about to happen anyway.  I can't imagine the installation of a video card causing these kinds of problems, but we are talking about a computer here.  Needless to say he is returning the card to Best Buy for a full refund.  I  think he purchased one of the Voodoo cards.  I had a similiar problem when I purchased an ATI 3-D card for Bambam, but my problem was the video card grabbed the same interrupt the sound card was using and just rendered the sound card useless.  I was out of spare interrupts since I also had a SCSI card in that machine and once I removed the ATI 3-D card everything was back to normal.  I may have deleted my sound from the device manager and let the Windows 95 Plug and Play find it and install it again.  I'll have to check my change log on that one.

* * * * * *

It appears you have the choice of downloading service pack 1 for Windows 98 from Microsoft's site or you can purchase Windows 98 Service Pack 1 on CD, which will include Internet Explorer 5, for just the shipping costs ($5) from Microsoft's support website.

Wednesday, July 7, 1999

Well I am off to Bristol to the Winston No Bull Showdown.  This promises to be a very unique Winston Drag event as Top Fuelers will be racing against the Funny Cars for the first time.  There's been some lively debate about how John Force is going to destroy the Top Fuel cars with his fast Funny Car.   It will be interesting to say the least. I'll take my notebook and try to give you some updates.

I had this email from my brother-in-law down in Florida and it looks like he has his system back up and running, sans a 3-D video card and the Star Wars Pod Racer game.

From: Samuel D. Mollenkof

I bought the voodoo card, it thoroughly shuffled my IRQ’s and required professional assistance (a visit to the PC clinic), but is now back up. I’ll load as many of the games he brought, that is, as many as my paltry hard disks have space for.

Pursuant to your email to Katie, I have Netscape 4.5 installed, which includes AOL’s Instant Messenger by mandatory default. Don’t much care for AOL. It’s a cesspool for malicious code (so says every information security trade publication I read).

I am sure you niece would appreciate her "AIM", but if you feel uncomfortable with it on your system, then I know the two of you can work something out.  After all,, it's your machine and she'll live without communicating to her "buddy list>"

* * * * * *

I may have mentioned before that one of the stocks I play in is @Home, which now also has Excite.  @Home-Excite is partially owned by AT&T and there's a debate going on as to whether cable companies who are offering high speed cable modem access should have to share their lines with competing cable modem companies who have no affiliation with a cable provider.  Obviously as a owner of a minute part of a company who wants to keep its exclusive deal I am not in favor of sharing.  However, and not trying to influence your opinion,  ZDTV is running a survey on this very subject if you would like to participate.  I say let AOL go out and cut their own deal.

Thursday

Things got under way yesterday at Bristol Dragway, also known as Thunder Valley, as the Winston No Bull Showdown opened up with fan night and the introduction of three new paint jobs.  John Force introduced the Superman Funny Car, Joe Amato unveiled the Superman Top Fuel car and Jerry Tolliver's WWF Undertaker car took center stage as well.  I brought along my Sony Mavica digital camera and here are some photos from the night's activities

And this followup message from Sam regarding his computer being trashed when changing video cards:

System is up and running again.

The VooDoo scrambled my IRQ's beyond my technical expertise.
When installed, I lost my CD-ROM, sound and network.
When uninstalled and replaced with the original Trident, no sound or network.
J & R updated my BIOS, installed the VooDoo, and sorted out the IRQ's.

I will be installing the Pod Racer.

Have fun in Bristol.

Glad to hear you are going again without too much trouble.  I think you will like the Pod Racing game.  Maybe you and Andrew can run a match race. 

I have some photos from fan night at Bristol up on the site:  http://www.wakeolda.com/racing/No Bull Showdown/fannight.htm

Friday,July 9, 1999

It was a long day at the new Bristol Dragway today and when the final qualifying runs were in the book there were no surprises.  Gary Sceilzi and John Force were tops with better than 300 MPH run.  Scelzi negotiated the quarter-mile in 4.61 seconds and was clocked at 303.78 MPH.  John Force ran 4.94 seconds and was trapped at 305 miles per hour.  Angelle Seeling was tops in the Pro Stock bike ranks with a 177 MPH run in 7.385 seconds.

Here are a couple shots from the Team Winston pits at the Winston No Bull Showdown on Thursday.

* * * * * *

I received this response from Imogea's tech support staff on my posting to their web site earlier this week regarding my Jaz drive problems:

If you have additional questions regarding your case, please reply directly to this e-mail message. To submit new cases, please visit Iomega's Online Support site at http://www.iomega.com/support/

Dear steve@wakeolda.com,

I understand that after installing your Jaz drive, it did access for awhile, but currently you receive an error "X:\ is not accessible, The device is not ready. This most often occurs if, the SCSI Chain termination is not correct. Below I have included Basic SCSI rules for your SCSI chain. Please apply these rules to your Chain. Please Remember to place the Faster Devices Closer to the SCSI card, and slower devices farther away. The Jaz is am Ultra SCSI device, and should be placed as the First or Second Device after the card.

SCSI Rules :

1. You may have a serial connection of up to seven SCSI devices plus the SCSI card cabled together forming one continuous SCSI bus or chain.
2. The combined SCSI chain length (the total of all cables in the SCSI chain) should not exceed six meters (19.6 feet)
3. The fastest device (comparing data transfer rates) should be the last or farthest from the computer.
4. Each device on the SCSI chain must have a unique SCSI ID or address. SCSI ID #7 is usually reserved for the SCSI host adapter or SCSI card.
5. SCSI termination must be installed (switched ON (I) or AUTO (A)) for the first and last devices in the SCSI chain, and removed (or switched OFF) on all others. Signal         reflections may otherwise interfere with data transfers or cause erratic operation.

How do I check the SCSI ID and Termination on Jaz?

If you have an internal Jaz drive To set the ID on your internal Jaz drive,  first power off your computer. On the back of the Jaz drive locate the SCSI ID jumper block. Refer to your documentation that came with your Jaz drive for jumper settings. Jaz drives support SCSI ID numbers 0-7. Jaz internal drives require a termination block or another terminating device on the SCSI chain. Place the termination block on the last connector on the ribbon cable.

Connect the ribbon cable to the SCSI card, then the Jaz drive and place the termination block on the last connector. After you have correctly set the Jaz drive's ID and termination, power on your computer. If you have an external Jaz drive To set the ID number on your external Jaz drive, power off the drive and computer.

Next, move the slide switch located on the back of the Jaz drive to either 5 or 6. The ID for the Jaz drive must be unique to the Jaz drive. The default setting is ON or ID 5. Located next to the ID slider, is the TERM slider.

Move the TERM slider to either the ON (I) or OFF (O) position. If it is in the ON position, then the Jaz drive is the last device ion the SCSI chain.

If the TERM slider is in the OFF position, then the Jaz drive is not the last device in the SCSI chain. The Jaz drive is terminated by default. Refer to the documentation that came with your Jaz Drive for additional information. There are diagrams and procedures that will guide you through changing SCSI ID and Termination.

I apologize for any inconvenience that this issue has caused.

 Sincerely,

Matthew

Iomega Technical Support

I wanted to send back this message:

DUH!

But I resisted.

* * * * * *

As I am getting ready to leave for the track:  

I received this message from Bob Thompson regarding the speed of this Nitro burning cars on the Winston Drag Racing circuit:

Scelzi negotiated the quarter-mile in 4.61 seconds and was clocked at 303.78 MPH. John Force ran 4.94 seconds and was trapped at 305 miles per hour. I still say those guys need to get rid of their internal combustion engines and go to solid fuel rockets. I sat down one day and calculated how fast they could move, assuming reasonable accelerations that wouldn't turn the driver into strawberry jelly. Fighter pilots can take 9 to 10 Gs for short periods, so I assumed that drivers could do the same if they wore pressurized suits that would help prevent blackouts.

Assuming a constant 10 G acceleration, about 320 feet per second per second, and using the formula [(a*t*t)/2], that means they'd be travelling 160 feet/s (about 109 mph) at the end of 1 second, when they'd be 160 feet down the track; 640 feet/s (about 436 mph) at the end of 2 seconds, when they'd be 560 feet down the track; and 1,440 feet/s (about 981 mph) at the end of 3 seconds, when they'd be 1,600 feet down the track.

You'd have sub-3 second run times for the quarter with 800 mph+ top speeds for the run and a great sonic boom very near the end of the run. Of course, there'd be the very real possibility that they'd go airborn. And they'd need one hell of a long track to slow down. You'd probably use up a lot of drivers (and quite a few spectators), but imagine the excitement.

Some of these guys already claim they are sitting on a rocket.

Saturday, July 10, 1999

I see the question as to why Dale Jarrett was allowed to run in front of the pace car I was raising here after last week's Pepsi 400 has been answered.  Both Dale Jarrett and NASCAR had a answer.  Duh.  NASCAR says the rule is in place so one competitor can not gain an advantage and Jarrett did not gain an advantage.

And while we are on the subject of Winston Cup racing I received this email from Bob Thompson.

Since you printed my suggestions for drag, I figured I'd also give you my suggestions for improving Winston Cup racing. Here are my Top Ten, In no particular order:

1. Revise the points system. There's something seriously deranged when the driver who wins the race may get exactly the same number of points as the guy who finishes second. I suggest something on a binary basis. That is, the guy who wins should get twice as many points as the guy who's second, who should get twice as many points as the guy who's third, etc. If you don't finish in at least 10th place, you don't get any points or any money. All the current system does is encourage mediocrity.

2. Eliminate speed limits on pit road. It would make things much more exciting.

3. Get rid of cautions entirely. They're just a bogus way to let the scrubs keep up with the good guys. They should start the race and it should run without interruptions until the winner crosses the line. I've never seen a wreck that literally blocked the entire track. The surviving cars could always thread their way through the broken cars and other stuff lying on the track.

4. Get rid of restrictor plates and get the horsepower up on those pathetic little engines. 850 horsepower is nothing. They should be running 2,000 to 3,000 horsepower. My father's B-17 engines did that 60 years ago. That much horsepower would let them hit 350 to 450 MPH on the straight-aways. They could also install side firing rocket thrusters to counteract centripetal force on the turns, allowing them to take them at or near full speed.

5. Get rid of roof flaps. They make wrecks much less exciting. Spectators enjoy watching hoods floating hundreds of feet in the air. If they get the speeds up, they could watch engines floating hundreds of feet in the air, too.

6. Get rid of the stupid limit on gas tank size. They should be able to use a 500 gallon tank if they want to. That'd also help with making the wrecks more exciting.

7. Speaking of gas tanks, make the drivers change their own tires and pump their own gas. They are supposed to be athletes, after all. 8. Get the length and duration of the races up. I'd like to see a 24-hour race, night and day, non-stop. You could call it the Winston 6000.

9. Get rid of all the stupid rules. It should be wide open. No templates, no restrictions on engine size. No nothing. Bring the fastest car you can and try to win the race. Use what gasoline, tires, etc. you want to. And, by the way, stop calling them Fords, or Chevys or Pontiacs. That might have meant something twenty-five years ago and more, but nowadays about the only OEM equipment is the manufacturer's name plate. Why pretend?

10. To really increase the excitement level, start half the field in one direction and half in the other. With the electronics you use nowadays, it'd be easy to keep track of laps whether a particular car was racing clockwise or anticlockwise. Plus which, imagine the excitement level as two cars closed at 600 or 1,000 miles per hour combined and then passed by inches (or not).

Bob

And what does Barbara, the race and sports fan in the Thompson household think of your ideas?

* * * * * *

The Undertaker at the Winston No Bull Showdown

When I left the Bristol Dragway on Friday I thought Winston's driver Gary Scelizi has firmly secured himselg atop the qualifying order with a pass down the quarter-mile of 4.57 seconds.  Not.  As I was watching the final qualifying on ESPN did I find out that Bob Vandergriff, whose best previous run has him in the 11th qualifying position, laid down a pass of 4.55 seconds to grab the no. 1 spot.  Vandergriff's speed was an amazing 322 miles per hour.  It's no surprise that John Force is the fastest Funny Car qualifier.

I'll bet Andrew will be jealous with this one.  WWF wrestler "the Undertaker" was at Bristol Dragway ysterday and thanks to my friends on the Winston Drag team I had a chance to meet the Underaker.  I asked him not to beat me up.   He obliged.  The Undertaker has more tatoos on his body that you might see on everyone combined at Bike Week in Daytona.  And he's huge.  Unfortunately Jerry Tolliver in his new Undertaker paint schemed Funny Car did not make the Winston No Bull Showdown field.

Heading to the track:  I check my email this morning before I headed to Bristol Dragway for the eliminations in the Winston No Bull Showdown I received a couple of emails from The Thompsons on Bob's suggestions for changing NASCAR Winston Cup racing.

From: Robert Bruce Thompson [thompson@ttgnet.com]

Actually, she more or less agrees with all of them. Well, most of them. Well, some of them. Well, a couple of them anyway.

Why am I not surprised.

And this one from  Barbara F. Thompson [barbara@ttgnet.com]

Barbara the real race fan doesn't think much of her husbands suggestions.

Instead of No Bull, they are All Bull. I do however agree somewhat with two of his ideas.

Get rid of restrictor plates. Yes, they will go a lot faster, but not being bunched up stand less a chance of getting hurt when there is a wreck or hurting ten other drivers.

Have a single body design for everybody.

Here are my other suggestions:

Do not end a race under caution. With ten laps or less remaining in the race and there is a wreck cautions laps would not count. Singe file restarts with 25 laps or less. Cars more than 50 laps down not allowed back on the track.

Email Steve Tucker