SoylentNews

People try to put us d-down
Hard for us to get around
Things kids say sound awful c-c-cold
'cause I didn't die before I got old

This is my generation
This is my generation, baby

Why don't you all f-fade away
I can't dig what kids all s-s-say
I'm not trying to cause a big s-s-sensation
I'm just talkin' 'bout my g-g-g-generation

This is my generation
This is my generation, baby

Why don't you all fu-fu-fu go away
Forgot what I was going to say
I'm not trying to cause a b-big s-s-sensation
I'm just talkin' 'bout my g-g-generation

This is my generation
This is my generation, baby

People try to put us d-down
Hard for us to g-g-get around
Things they say sound awful c-c-cold
I didn't die before I got old

This is my generation
This is my generation, baby

In the old days, we had floppy disks. They were slow and unreliable, and we had to make multiple backups to avoid losing our bits. How did we do this? Easy, put in a new disk, FORMAT it with the /S switch, and then copy all the files over.

Then we got hard disk drives. They were better than floppies, although they still had a limited life span and were being superceded by faster, larger ones all the time. So when the time came to replace a hard disk, what did we do? FORMAT a new one and copy all the files over? It sounds like a good plan, but for unknown reasons it was actually a million times more difficult than this.

For a hard disk to be bootable it required several things. It needed a proper partition table with a partition set as "active." It needed code in the MBR to load the code in the bootsector to load the OS. If we were running MS-DOS, we could partition a new hard disk, format it (which includes installing a boot sector with proper BIOS Parameter Block and boot code), and by using FDISK's mysterious /mbr command we could even install the MBR boot code, and then we could copy all the files over. However, we could not set the partition active. FDISK imposes an arbitrary limitation on which partitions it can set to active. It will let us set the partition on our old hard disk, which we just booted from, which is already active, as active. It won't let us set the one on the new hard disk, which we have connected as slave or secondary, and are trying to make bootable so it can replace our old hard disk, as active. Why? Who knows. Microsoft dropped the ball.

This is where we have to take matters into our own hands and use a sector editor to go in and set one bit in the partition table to make it active. Only then could we take out the old hard disk and be able to boot from the new one and move on with life. That is, if we were running DOS. If we were running Windows 9x, then we had more problems. We couldn't copy all the files over from within DOS, because all of the new-fangled long names would not transfer over. We couldn't copy the files over from within Windows because we'd get a "sharing violation" or some horseshit. Why? Microsoft dropped the ball again.

Without using some third-party utility or using a second PC, the way to get around this roadblock was to install a second copy of Windows (in a different directory). From within the second Windows, we could copy all the files associated with the first Windows without getting stupid errors.

We may have thought we were pretty slick at this time. Upgrading hard disks left and right, without losing our data or having to waste time monkeying with floppies or CDs. But then we had to face Windows NT/2K/XP. Windows NT had different, incompatible boot sector code. And it had no SYS command to install that boot sector on our new disk (a third-party utility called BOOTPART could do it, but not from within Windows). Furthermore, if it was on NTFS instead of FAT, we couldn't even manage to copy all of the files over without being sabotaged by permissions or directory trees that link back on themselves or whatever. Microsoft had dropped the ball again.

There was only one thing we could think of. We would use the sector editor to copy the entire disk. MBR, boot sector, incomprehensible directory structures, all of it. And our new disk would boot. The only problem is that the partitions would still be sized according to our old disk. So we would create a new one to use the extra space, or if we already had two we might delete the second one and recreate it with a larger size.

It wasn't exactly utopia, but at least we could setup the NTLDR boot menu to list multiple operating systems, and by this time we had USB-to-IDE adaptors so we could connect multiple hard disks even to a laptop when necessary. Then suddenly, Windows Vista/7 appeared. Not only did it ditch NTLDR and the easily editable BOOT.INI, but it had an incompatible boot sector again, and even incompatible MBR boot code. It also couldn't be installed on FAT. It included a utility called BOOTSECT which looked like it was supposed to do something useful, but everytime we ran it an error was displayed.

It was rumored that Windows Vista/7 could resize partitions. However, we never got around to attempting it. Then Windows 8 happened, and things like UEFI and GPT showed up and we stopped caring about any of it.

This post is dedicated to all the time I just wasted replacing the hard disk in a computer with dual boot with a disk that I had just taken out of a computer with triple boot where I put a 320GB SATA in place of an old IDE. And to all the time wasted on such pursuits in years past.

PS, did you know the EnableBigLba registry key has to be added to let Windows 2000 recognize internal (but not USB-attached, apparently) disks larger than 128GB? And that a utility, FAT32FORMAT, can create gigantic FAT32 partitions?

A photo of me with a phone from 2020

Note: Typed this out last year but never got around to posting it.
        I’ve been meaning to install Linux on this notebook for quite some time, and finally got around to it Friday.
        I started using Linux back in 2002 with Mandrake, and I loved it. They later renamed it Mandriva, and I kept using it. Then I found out that they were disbanding and patches would stop coming, so I switched to kubuntu, which is Ubuntu with a KDE desktop instead of that God-awful Gnome desktop. It ran happily on an old HP tower for years until the old tower had a severe hardware failure. I still need to take its hard drive and video card out and install them in the old Dell, which isn’t on my network because it’s running XP.
        My first notebook I had like this one was stolen in a burglary five or six years ago. It was the same model as this, and it ran kubuntu very well, far better than its native Windows. With Windows I had to run a program from the ISP to get wi-fi working on it, but it just worked fine on kubuntu without my having to do anything.
        So Friday I put it on this notebook dual-boot, since I need Microsoft Word even though I hate Microsoft Word. Knowing it would take a while I plugged in its power, and plugged it into the network for more speed. It took ten minutes to get my part of the installation done, and watched the news as Linux installed.
        I booted it up when I was done, and egad, KDE! What have you done?! Yes, it’s a beautiful desktop, but it isn’t the same KDE I’ve been using for almost fifteen years.
        What the hell, you stupid wet behind the ears software designers, are you NUTS? Look, you dumbasses, changing an interface all around for no good reason is just brain-dead stupid. I don’t want to learn a brand new God damned interface unless it’s instantly recognizable as an improvement, and this is about the same stupid move Microsoft made with Windows Eight. Look, you morons, if I wanted to learn a new interface I’d install Gnome or something.
        Next I wanted to hear music, so I needed on the internet. I tried to connect to my server but simply couldn’t get on with the wi-fi. Strangely, I was able to connect with someone else’s unsecured wi-fi. It had gotten on the internet easily with the network card plugged in.
        Someone had said that Libre Office could read and write .doc files well, so I tried it. First I opened an Open Office document, and the font face was some cartoonish sans serif font instead of Gentium Book Basic.
        Then I opened a .doc file, and it opened, although instead of Courier it had a different sans serif face.
        I wanted to get at some files on my external hard drive, so I plugged the network cable in. It indicated a connection, and I could get on the internet through the router, but the external drive didn’t show up.
        I doubt that’s the OS’s fault, though, since it wouldn’t let me connect with my own wi-fi but was fine with someone else’s. I’m pretty sure it’s that damned modem-router that the cable company makes me rent. I’d change ISPs if I weren’t planning to move next Spring.
        At any rate, KDE now sucks. Someone said XCFE was good, I’ll have to try it.

(Note: I've been way too busy)

Mediocrity loves company, and the way it leverages the weak-minded is through highly selective compassion. But so long as you have no memory, no power of reason and no experience of life, this selective compassion sounds, well, compassionate.
I have a new favorite word: mediocracy. It means ‘rule by mediocre people’. I like it because it describes one facet of what I call Total Insanity – or that system under which we are, for now, living.

Under a mediocracy there are no objective standards. There are just feelings. It can – and will – use them to justify everything from opening the floodgates to an invasion of Europe, to feeling the pain of a 52-year-old father of seven who abandoned his family so he could live authentically as a six-year-old girl.

By waving the flag of selective compassion, mediocracy is forever misty-eyed at some new reason to undermine real culture, decency, manliness, and discipline.

However, what it hates more than anything is achievement. It talks about achievement, but only in a bland, touchy-feeling sort of way. In reality, its achievements are merely expressions of new ways to facilitate being weak and deluded; or roundabout ways of expressing such things in terms of ‘compassion’.

New no-tackle rugby
When you understand the agenda, it all gets quite dull after a while. But I was amused to see where the guns of compassion have now fixed their sights: school rugby.

The problem with rugby – at least within the context of schools – according to the self-appointed gurus of gush, apparently, is tackling.

In a Guardian piece about a letter – one breathlessly entitled UK health experts call for ban on tackling in school rugby – we are told: “The letter is the first stage of a campaign that will include a petition on the change.org website which, if it receives 100,000 signatures, will trigger the consideration of a debate by MPs on the issue.”

Now the gush police love online petitions. You can get 100,000 people to sign practically anything if you make it sound worthy enough. So long as it doesn’t require any effort or financial input on the part of those whose buttons you are pressing, they will press yours in return to give you the votes you need.

The driver for this new round of tosh is the fact that ‘more than 70 doctors and health experts have called for a ban on tackling in school rugby games.’

Most people who read the article will just scan the list of names featuring the title Doctor and think it must be a good cause. But, in reality, the document has two core signatures: those of two professors in areas which sound more related to social engineering than to anything physical (Sport and Masculinities – whatever that is – and Public Health Research and Policy).

The remaining signatures are ‘supporting’, of which two are actual practicing doctors (i.e. people who receive patients).

The rest are academics in such hard-hitting disciplines as Institute of Human Identity (Dr. Charles Silverstein) and Health Inequalities Group (Robin Ireland). The closest most of these people will have come to a sporting injury will be a paper cut from picking up a dissertation from the wrong angle.

This, clearly, has nothing to do with rugby and everything to do with imposing yet more unreality on the human tribe.

I was not a rugby player myself; I preferred soccer and athletics at school. But I have played rugby, and I am bright enough to understand one of its key features: it is meant to hurt. That’s why boys play it.

Getting punched and kicked when you’re nine is no great tragedy. Living in a hermetically sealed, bubble-wrapped environment without punches and slaps and kicks until you are twenty-something, and having no chance to test yourself, to build up stamina, courage, strength and will: that is a tragedy.

By the time these social engineers finish with school rugby, there will be no goal posts; you’ll just pass the ball around in a big circle making sure everyone gets a turn – being particularly careful to see that people in wheelchairs get two turns. You’ll score a try by explaining how much you feel you deserve one. But it won’t be a try for your side. The points will be shared among the players on the basis of who is most deserving. And when it’s over everyone will get a medal.

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/334733-education-mediocrity-rugby-feelings-compassion/

Imam Mohammed writes:

Following are excerpts from Sahin's article, titled "Monkeys Evolved from Humans." [2]

"Chromosomal Anomalies" In Monkeys "Have Never Led To The Birth Of Human Beings Or Of Monkeys Resembling Human Beings"

"Monkeys are animals that look like humans. Humans have 46 chromosomes and monkeys have 48. Since these chromosomes are similar in structure, these species can transfer from one to the other. When we, physicians, examine anomalies in chromosomes, we find that human chromosomal anomalies lead to the birth of humans similar to monkeys, as in cases of microcephaly, in which newborns resemble monkeys in form, intelligence, behavior, and social life. Such [deformed humans] must be kept under strict control. The numbers of such cases is not negligible.

"In monkeys too there are chromosomal anomalies, but these have never led to the birth of human beings or of monkeys resembling human beings. We understand from this that humans are not derived from monkeys, but that monkeys come from humans. There are many factors in the creation of such anomalies, among them divine, environmental, and chemical."

"Those Among You Who Violated The Saturday [Sabbath] Prohibitions... Will Become Miserable Monkeys [Koran 5:60]"

"Our God, the Creator of the universe, has also confirmed these truths. 'You know those among you who violated the Saturday [Sabbath] prohibitions. For them it is said that they will become miserable monkeys [Koran 2:65].'

"Also: 'Whomever Allah has cursed and punished, and those He turned into monkeys, pigs, and Satan worshippers, occupy the worst place [in His eyes], and they are perverts that have deviated from their path [Koran 5:60].'

"'And when they became arrogant and did not change their ways, they were told to become low and contemptible monkeys [Koran 7:166].'

"The [Koranic] verses above show us that monkeys have come from humans. Allah always tells the truth."

The Theory Of Evolution Is "An Opinion" By "A Jew Called Darwin"; "The Gorillas And Chimps Living Today In The Forests Of North Africa Are Cursed Jews"

"The theory of evolution was put forward by a Jew called Darwin. Therefore, it is an opinion. The aim of this theory is to turn the non-Jews away from their religion, to harm their faith, and to make them suspicious about their religion. Darwin, being a Jew, believed, lived, and was buried according to his religion. His real targets were the Muslims. Most likely, Darwin knew about these Koranic verses. In the Holy Koran, Allah responded very well to these perverts.

"Jews, who are well organized in the world's financial and scientific institutions, are so powerful that they terrorize the world of science. Through propaganda and through the reiteration of this nonsense, they have brainwashed and imposed this opinion as a rule, and sold this deception as scientific reality. Even some ignorant theologians have believed the propaganda of this theory...

"I believe that the gorillas and chimps living today in the forests of North Africa are cursed Jews. They are perverted humans that have mutated. This thought is much stronger and scientific than Darwin's theory. But we the Muslims, who believe this, do not have banks, money, or the organization inside the world of science [like the Jews have]. Neither do we have propaganda outlets, in order to scream this truth. But we have our intellect, we have our faith, and we have our Allah. Alhamdullillah [with the grace of Allah]."

http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/9008.htm [memri.org]
http://www.antisemitismwatch.com/tag/seyfi-sahin/ [antisemitismwatch.com]
https://www.rt.com/news/332514-turkey-darwin-jews-monkeys/ [rt.com]
http://www.diken.com.tr/vahdet-yazarindan-tersine-evrim-teorisi-afrikada-yasayan-sempanzeler-lanetlenmis-yahudi/ [diken.com.tr]

The caucuses? There's something wrong there.

Hillary got schlonged in New Hampshire, but she came away with more delegates than Bernie? What's up with that? Did Hillary pay for all those delegates in advance?

Ohhh, so THAT is why she's been getting zillions of dollars for prostituting herself to foreign interests! Makes sense now!

Hey, you really need to look into the corruption at Demcratic headquarters. Find out who got all that money for the delegate sale!

Ya know, this is mildly humorous. So few people understand why Trump is so popular. Prepaid delegates explains a lot of that. People are tired of the elites deciding in advance who is going to be president. We, the people, are quite tired of choosing between a shit sandwich or a shit sandwich. You don't understand it, Shrillary doesn't understand it, the DNC doesn't understand it, nor does the GOP understand.

We are simply tired of the corruption.

Super delegates my ass.

I get his newsletters. I don't know why, I've thought several times about unsubscribing. He whores himself to various corporations, pushing junk that almost nobody needs. Tactical pens? Today, it's a tactical crossbow. Ehhhh -

But, he does make some observations that are spot on the money. Today's email:

  Hillary Lost Because She Lied
By DICK MORRIS
Published on DickMorris.com on February 11, 2016
New Hampshire exit polls in the Democratic Primary indicate that Bernie Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton among self-described liberals by 60-39. Okay. But he also beat her among moderates and conservatives by a nearly identical 60-37 margin.

They also show that among the one-third of all voters who said "honesty and trustworthiness" were the most important qualities of a candidate in determining their vote, Sanders beat Clinton by 95-5.

  These data indicate that Sanders' victory was not the result of an ideological vote for a socialist but was due to a personal repudiation of a liar. It was Hillary's dearth of personal ethics and her lack of veracity, not her political ideology or her issue positions, that led to her smashing defeat in New Hampshire.

So when Hillary sought to co-opt and plagiarize Bernie's rhetoric in her concession speech, she did nothing to solve the problem that brought her low. Nor will any shift in her message or beheadings of her staff do much to help her.

It is not her position on the banks, TARP, Glass-Steagall, or campaign finance reform that is dragging her down. It is her email scandal, Benghazi, and her personal speeches for fees that are causing her candidacy to crash.

Hillary can change her issue positions as frequently and as totally as she changes her hair style. She can flip on the Keystone Pipeline and flop on the Trans Pacific Trade Deal. But she cannot go back and delete her lies, evasions, half-truths, and distortions. They live on video tape and in our memories, ready to spring to life as soon as she lies again.

This personal reputation is not something a new consultant can fix. All the king's horses and all the king's men cannot put Hillary back together again.

New Hampshire means Hillary is outed. It's downhill from here.

Recently I was reorganizing stuff in the basement and became lured into playing with some old motherboards I've been hoarding. (Speaking of old motherboards, let me just give a giant middle finger to those cursed Dallas RTC boxes (ST Micro made them too) Boo!)

I was running some memory benchmarks and a software 3D renderer. To test memory performance I used the block read, write, and copy instructions which are REP LODSD, REP STOSD, and REP MOVSD, respectively. When operating on large enough blocks, the cache(s) will miss on every line.

A bit of background...

A write-through cache only stores data that has been read. Writes always go to the bus, although the cache is updated at the same time if necessary.

A write-back cache, a.k.a. copy-back, only updates the data in the cache on a write. The data in main memory is only updated later, when the relevant cache line is going to be replaced. If a write occurs to a location which is not cached, there are two ways this can go. Either we write through (bypass the cache), or we load the data into the cache first so we can write to it there (this is called Write Allocate).

WA has the negative side effect of making block writes/copies slower, because the memory has to be read before then being overwritten. However, on modern systems with high memory bandwidth as well as high latency, writing an entire cache line in a burst is more efficient than doing a single write, so the downside of WA is mitigated. AFAIK, all x86 CPUs use WA going back to at least the Pentium II. Cache policy is configurable using MTRRs though, so that eg. video memory can be exempt.

One of the CPUs I tested is the Cyrix 6x86MX (running at 200MHz), which has non-standard MTRRs and an option to disable WA. The default setting by the BIOS, was Write Back and Write Allocate. Block writes ran at only 66MB/s. Using Write Through instead increased that to 100MB/s.

My 3D renderer, when showing a very simple model, spends most of its time on clearing the Z-buffer and frame buffer. Whereas showing a more complex model (80,000 triangles), nearly all the time is spent drawing. The rendering speed (framerate) of the simple model was faster using WT, but the complex model was conversely much faster using WB (.97fps vs .62fps). Now the interesting part... using WB *with WA disabled* caused both scenarios to acheive the higher performance.

Another important thing to note here is that I tested socket 7 boards with the VIA VP, VIA MVP3, and SIS 5582 chipsets. These support SDRAM but do NOT do write bursting. So writing 64-bits at a time is just as fast as writing a whole line. Hence a K6-3 at 400MHz has worse performance for block writes/copies than a Pentium II-400 with an Intel 440BX chipset. I think the 430VX with EDO DRAM even does a better job for block writes than those other socket 7 chipsets.

On a somewhat related note, while reading more about this topic online, I stumbled across AMD's software optimization guides for the Athlon and Athlon 64, wherein I learned a couple of tricks. Check out these two routines that do the same thing:

...
mov ecx,64
loopy:
lodsd
imul ebx
add eax,dword ptr [edi]
stosd
dec ecx
jnz loopy

...
add esi,256
add edi,256
mov ecx,-64
loopy:
mov eax,dword ptr [esi+ecx*4]
imul eax,ebx
add dword ptr [edi+ecx*4],eax
inc ecx
jnz loopy

The second one is a little faster on a Core 2 (maybe 10%), and much faster on an Athlon 64 (more than 50%)

I received a strange note, made of cut up magazines pasted to paper and slipped under my door. It read “Your muse has been kidnapped. If you want her back, meet under the Facebook Street Bridge after dark. Bring your wallet, passport, and an umbrella.”
        Crap, my muse was gone? I looked, and sure enough it was missing. It's really important to me, so I got my passport, made sure my wallet was in my pocket, and took an umbrella, even though the weatherman said there was no chance of rain. I went to the bridge around sunset and waited.
        The weatherman was wrong. As I waited under the bridge it started pouring. A little after dark a black limousine pulled up, and the rear door opened. “Get in,” a woman's voice said. I did.
        A mean looking short haired blonde in the front passenger seat was pointing a very large black handgun at me. “You're not Neo,” the skinny dark haired girl in the back said accusingly.
        “Me?” I replied, scared to death. Or scared of death, maybe. “No, I'm mcgrew, I don't know any Neo. I'm missing some property and someone said to wait under this bridge and I could get it back.”
        “Oh,” said the blonde, putting the gun away. “Morpheus said to give you this,” and handed my muse to me!
        I put my muse in my jacket and started to open the door. The blonde had her gun out again. “Fifty bucks, asshole!”
        I gave her two twenties and a ten. “Why was I told to bring a passport?” I asked. The dark haired skinny girl laughed. “Morpheous was just fucking with you. Now get out!”
        I still can't figure out what that was all about...