Personality test

What military aircraft are you? F/A-22 Raptor You are an F/A-22. You are technologically inclined, and though you've never been tested in combat, your very name is feared. You like noise, but prefer not to pollute any more than you have to. And you can move with the best.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

H/T Signaleer

Don Thorp is historically "challenged"

In today's Palm Beach post we see a letter to the editor written by some historically challenged individual named Don Thorp. See if you can spot how Mr. Thorp rewrites history.

In "Start timer, gain leverage, share the pain" (Opinion, Dec. 9), Thomas L. Friedman has hit the nail on the head.

Like Iraq, England in the early 1800s was torn asunder by competing factions. Scottish Presbyterians sought to take over the government. Roman Catholics were willing to fight to restore their supremacy. Rural lords were in competition with one another. Oliver Cromwell's Protestant "Roundheads" said, "enough is enough." A great civil war erupted; Cromwell's forces were victorious over the Scots and Catholics. Peace, security and democracy finally were established in England.

Let the fight begin in Iraq, and may the best man win. English history is a good lesson. There is nothing to fear but fear itself. Let's get out and let them settle their affairs.

DON THORP

Did you spot it? In case you didn't here it is -- Cromwell had already been dead for about 150 years by the time of the early 1800'. If Mr. Thorp's judgment about Iraq is as keen as his sense of history , then one must wonder about his prescriptions as well.

One also must wonder about the competence and general educational level of Pravda in Paradise's editorial staff for allowing such egregious crap to make its way into print to be presented as "fact". But then again the Post's editorial staff comes from the "Krugman school" of journalism where fact is something you make up on the spot as needed to support your political viewpoint.

Borland TDUMP v4.1 - DOS extended, but still dumb

The Borland TDUMP utility that shipped with the last version of the 16 bit compilers (Borland C++ v4.x) looks to be a DOS extender app. That's cool right? It should be able to use the whole 48M of memory on my ancient DOS development machine to process .OBJ files and handle some truly big stuff right?

Wrong. TDUMP's transition from a plain old DOS app to a 32 bit extended DOS app didn't go too well it seems.

First thing I try is stuffing an .OBJ through it that has a somewhat largish number of segments, but still nowhere near the max that the OMF format supports. 3,001 of them to be exact. This shouldn't be a big deal since they're all small -- in fact, they're only one byte each - only a byte larger than the smallest segment -- one that's zero bytes long.

Well TDUMP gets down around segment 200 or so and dies crapping out a nasty Trap-D message. That's it end of story. Do not pass GO do not collect $200.

The old plain DOS version of TDUMP had similar issues. After about segment 200 or so it started spewing trash all over the screen and acting rather unseemly.

So what have we got here? Any of you who's been in the business for a while knows the answer already. TDUMP has an indexed static array of somethings with a fixed length and its not being checked against the index running off the end and other memory being scribbled into.

What would it have cost to up this fixed limit to the theoretical max number of segments one can stuff into a .OBJ file? The theoretical max on segment indexes is 32767. The OMF supports, theoretically, having up to 32K-1 segments in any given .OBJ file. So if you had an array of pointers to SEGDEF records that was 32K-1 entries long, its only going to burn ~128K of memory for the pointer array. 128K -- not much in a DOS extended world where many megs are available.

OK, so you still don't want to burn 128K for something that only a crazed maniac would want to do anyway? That's reasonable.

Then maybe you do something like I did in the .OBJ hacking utility I'm writing - you throw the suckers on a linked list and let it expand dynamically as they're encountered. The code I've got so far handles the 3,0001 segments test file just fine using the linked lists, and it does it still being a plain old DOS app unable to access anymore than the usual 640K.

Moron fired for surfing porn chat rooms by IBM

Just noticed this on Drudge link.

Here's my take as a retired ex-IBM Boca Raton engineer. This whiny twit very likely got exactly what he deserved.

Typically, when IBM decides its time to fire someone, that person's manager has normally constructed a pretty airtight paper trail of evidence over time against them so there won't be any blowback like this. There's only a small handful of offenses that warrant immediately being stripped of your badge and frog marched out the door. That would include things like pissing on your manager's desk and setting his office on fire, or having 10 kilos of crank and a handgun in your desk. Surfing porn, on its own, normally won't warrant the instant frog march, but it would get you a warning to knock it off and keep that shit at home.

This collection of evidence phase might last several months even as long as a year in some cases. A 2nd and 3rd line managers will also be notified if there is some employee that's under the microscope for poor performance or other issues. If you're worth a hoot at all, IBM wants to try and salvage you before dropping the hammer.

If your performance is poor, you might be asked if a new position in another area might help. If you're an alcoholic or doper, counseling services will be provided. If you've got family problems weighing on your mind ruining your performance, a family leave will be arranged.

IOW, when IBM whacks someone, its the last resort. To whack someone who's been there for 19 years its really, really, really, a last resort.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and speculate this was probably the "last straw" in a very long series of problems going back many many years with this guy.

IBM has traditionally had an amazing tolerance for what we used to call IPR's - In Plant Retirees. Those were the people who had been around for 20 years and do absolutely nothing of value at all. They always had pleasant demeanor, neat organized offices, came and left on the dot, etc. If really pressed on it, they could usually be relied on to present a report someone else had produced though. In fact that's how the IPR survives - they'll act like a remora and take a ride along with someone else who does the real work.

Dan Riehl needs your help

It would be tragic if that mushbrained retard simp Andrew Sullivan outpaces Dan. So vote early and vote often. Dan can't win, but he can put a beatdown on Sullivan with just a little help.

Blog Awards Voting

The moonbat quiz

CLICK HERE

My score was zero - I guess I'm not a moonbat.

H/T TigerHawk

Malkin going to Iraq to search for Jamil Hussein

Malkin

[...]I e-mailed my acceptance of Jordan's invitation this morning. No way should we just take the word of they guy who admitted covering up for Saddam Hussein and who resigned from CNN after baselessly slandering the U.S. military (maybe we'll find the Davos tape while we're on the search). Plus, it'll be an incredible opportunity to see Iraq and our troops firsthand. I have many friends, heroes, and contacts there I'd like to meet in person.[...]

AP fakes news again -- rewriting the Korean war this time

New York Post

[...] The most sensational account started in the 57th paragraph of the 3,448-word story, sourced to one Edward Daily. As AP told it, Daily was the only soldier at No Gun Ri who directly received orders from his officers to turn his water-cooled .30 caliber machinegun on the civilians and shoot them down in cold blood at point-blank range.

Daily's account was chilling. It was also - as AP should have known - a fantasy.

The AP story took at face value Daily's claims that he was a combat infantryman who won a battlefield commission just a few days after the events at No Gun Ri, and had been awarded the Distinguished Cross and three Purple-Hearts.

In reality, he was an enlisted mechanic in an entirely different unit, nowhere near No Gun Ri. He had fabricated his biography and credentials as well as his entire account of the events at No Gun Ri.

When I later confronted AP editors with the facts and records that showed their source Daily to be a fraud, they blew me off. What would a historian know about this topic after all, or a soldier?

The AP didn't issue a retraction, or even attempt to reinvestigate; and it certainly didn't withdraw the story from the Pulitzer competition. Instead, it attacked the messenger.

More AP fakery at Hot Air

Saddam's connections to terrorism

Even if only 1/10^th of what is presented here is true, its pretty clear that Saddam was very cozy with a bunch of terrorists and AQ. Even a democrat congressman is convinced Saddam was tight with AQ.

Regime of Terror

Iraq news - if it don't bleed, it don't lead

Imagine that - people going to work every day in the middle of a supposed civil war where the streets are running with blood How can this be?

MNF-IRAQ

[...]He directs a staff of 30 U.S. military and civilian personnel along with 50 Iraqi engineers who have the goal of turning Baghdad back into a great city. “It was the birthplace of civilization and today we’re investing huge of amounts of money to rebuild 30 years of neglect as residents regain their confidence that this city has a future. It’s hard when you’ve been repressed for that many decades to stand up for what you believe and that’s the challenge we’re facing.”

But Revolinsky is optimistic and that viewpoint starts with the Iraqis on his staff. “They’re awesome individuals. They put their lives on the line every day going out in the community to oversee the work going on. They sincerely want to help their country, they want to do a great job, and it’s a shame the hardships and danger they and their neighbors have to put up with. I respect them immensely. They want to make Baghdad a better place.”

Most of the Iraqis working for USACE are educated engineers trained at Baghdad University. “They visit the projects, write the reports, provide recommendations and suggest courses of action, and our intent is to eventually transition our office over to them as we work ourselves out of a job. They’re breaking the mold of listening to dictatorial orders that they grew up with and today are solving problems on their own. I’m very pleased with the direction we’re going.”

Throughout Baghdad Province, Revolinsky’s team is managing more than 300 projects valued in excess of $1.2 billion. That work includes $300 million for three major sewer trunk lines, more than $100 million for replacing the electric distribution network in Sadr City, refurbishing 18 gas stations, renovating hospitals, building new primary healthcare centers, new courthouses, new water distribution networks, repaving roads, repair of area schools and the construction of several new ones.

Nine new fire stations have been built in Baghdad decreasing response time from an average of 15 minutes to 5 or 6 minutes. “Residents can see first hand that their government is working, that improvements to their neighborhoods are taking place, that there’s reason for hope.”

The US non-Energy Policy produces some non-results

LED lighting is THE wave of the future. It is available today in limited form factors. Power consumption is roughly 1/5^th that of Compact Fluorescents for equivalent light output. CF's are roughly 1/4^th the power consumption of incandescents. The LED lights are expensive though compared to CF's or incandescents. This RPI development should start to increase the economic viability of the LED units.

Imagine having your whole house lit up like Times Square for the cost of burning an ordinary 100W incandescent bulb...and not having to change a light bulb for 10 years? That day is coming very very soon.

Can a significant reduction in US energy usage be as simple as changing some light bulbs? Yes, yes it can. Here's a flood light that only burns 6 watts.

RPI News

[...]compared to commercial white LEDs, prototypes of the new SPE LED technology produced 30 to 60 percent more light output and luminous efficacy — light output (lumens) per watt of electricity. This means more visible light is produced without increasing energy consumption.[...]

[...]The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy

Reuters: David "KKK" Duke is an "academic"

If David Duke is an "academic", so is Homer Simpson. Seriously, WTF?

In related news, noted "academic" Paris Hilton will be giving a talk at Stanford on splitting atoms with her pooter.

REUTERS

[...]The conference was inspired by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who since coming to power in August 2005 has sparked international condemnation with comments referring to the Holocaust as a "myth" and calling Israel a "tumor".

Among the participants was U.S. academic David Duke, a former Louisiana Republican Representative. He praised Iran for hosting the event.

"There must be freedom of speech, it is scandalous that the Holocaust cannot be discussed freely," Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader told Reuters. "It makes people turn a blind eye to Israel's crimes against the Palestinian people."[...]

H/T Say Anything

Teddy stiff arms Kerry

Kerry has become such a pathetic laughing stock I almost feel sorry for the guy...almost ;->

Boston Globe

Senator Edward M. Kennedy Monday dropped his public commitment to support Senator John F. Kerry in a 2008 presidential race, saying that he won't wait "indefinitely" for Kerry to declare his intentions while the Democratic primary field takes shape[...]

James Baker - flashback to 1994

Lets see - the Iranians have become nuttier, have demonstrably been shown to be providing fighters and weapons to the terrorists in Iraq, have demonstrably been shown to be supplying weapons and fighters for Hezb's attacks, have demonstrably been shown to lie about aid in fighting illegal drugs (Brit NV gear sent to Iran ostensibly to fight drugs, showing up in Hezb hands in Lebanon), and are now actively engaged in the development of nuclear weapons and promising the elimination of Israel, etc, etc, etc.

Yet, in spite of all that -- TODAY Baker believes they're going to help stabilize Iraq. Simply put - James Baker is a dangerously naive incompetent. He's senile. He's gone soft in the head. He needs to spend his days fly fishing or something.

Middle East Forum

In a discussion in Washington, D.C. on June 28, 1994, with Daniel Pipes and Patrick Clawson:

[...]"Obviously, the idea of reaching out to moderates in Iran was a nonstarter. On the other hand, for the full four years that I was there [at the Department of State], we were quite prepared to sit down at an official level with the government of Iran--there's no surprise about that--provided they understood the first topic on the agenda would be their support for state-sponsored terrorism. We were unwilling during our four years to have any of this back-channeling stuff. So, those are two different situations"[...]

H/T to a commenter at Iraq The Model

Nice Space Shuttle pic

To this day I remain amazed that Rockwell trusted a young punk engineer straight out of college to work on this incredible machine's flight computers back in 1980. But they did and I didn't let them down.

CLICK HERE

Since Jamil Hussein is nowhere to be found, the only rational conclusion is that Associated Press has kidnapped him for their own nefarious reasons.


H/T Flopping Aces for the pic

WaPo's David Ignatius's shocking stupidity

Can you envision a person as naive as Ignatius? I find it hard to, but yet here he is. Of course Iran/Syria will say "yes", then they'll continue to do as they've been doing all along. Syria will continue to aid jihadis entry, Iran will continue to provide IED's, and fighters in the south, and keep supplying the Hezb. The Iranian IED sourcing has already been well established, and the Brits keep catching Iranians in the south. What "diplomatic offensive" could possibly be launched that will get them to reverse actions which they previously and currently feel to be in their own best interests? We will get lip service.

Seriously, what fantasy world do these morons like Ignatius live in?

WAPO

I like this "New Diplomatic Offensive"...As for Iran and Syria, the great advantage of asking them to join a global effort to stabilize Iraq is that if they say no, it's blood on their hands. As the report notes, "An Iranian refusal to do so would demonstrate to Iraq and the rest of the world Iran's rejectionist attitude and approach, which could lead to its isolation."

Food fight at the Daily Kos!

Saw this Kos post link mentioned at Jules Crittenden's blog.

Kos suggests (almost, but not quite sanely, because his reasoning as always is retarded) that impeachment might not be such a good idea. Then read the comments to that post where "the faithful" start a food fight. Good stuff, really good stuff. The natives are restless and pissed off. I just selected a few comments below, there's scads more where those came from.

"What kind of message would that send to the country and the world? Our leaders are proven criminals, but we don't care because we're worried about the next election."

"I don't trust our "leaders" to do anything at all on behalf of the people.I have no choice but to push hard for impeachment ASAP."

"Kos, Bowers, and the new, upwardly-mobile Democratic elite want the American people to install and fund oversight solely as subsidies to Democratic Party 2008 election campaigns. Justice, governance, popular will be damned. And the outgoing Republicans will agree, to keep that revolving door of Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton rolling.
If Congress impeached Nixon, or even tried him after his resignation, would Reagan/Bush have had such an easy 1980 election after just 4 years?

What a gang of suckers. Them for thinking their copout protects their power, and us for listening to them."

"based on what I saw today in the Bush/Blair press conference of more of the same to come in Iraq, I think the Democrats might actually come to believe that in this case impeachment is governing."

Bugs, bugs, bugs -- when your tools fail you

One of the software tools I'd come to rely on was Borland's TDUMP utility. This is a little program that dumps out the records in a compiled .OBJ file in human readable form. Its been very handy in the past for examining compiler/assembler outputs and the modifications that my current project applies to those .OBJ file.

It seems TDUMP has some pretty egregious bugs when the count of LNAME strings start to grow beyond the trivial. It starts spewing worthless garbage.

OK fine, I'll try something else. MetaWare shipped a little utility called BD in their compiler packages. BD performs basically the same task as TDUMP and even gives a bit more information in some cases I'm interested in, a bit less in others. BD seemed to not choke on lots of LNAME strings, so that was a good thing.

However, the MetaWare BD utility seems to die with some sort of heap space issues when the number of segments (SEGDEF records) in a .OBJ file starts to get high. One of my test files I use to test my program with has thousands of segments in it and thousands of LNAME strings.

I believe Watcom shipped/ships a utility similar to TDUMP/BD in their compilers. This is a good excuse to load up some of the Watcom compilers which I need to test with anyway...

If the Watcom utility also fails, then I guess I'll have to write my own .OBJ dump utility. That wouldn't be a big deal really -- 90% of the work is already done since the program I'm working on reads .OBJ files and parses them anyway. Its just a matter of cruising through my internal record list and printing out what it contains.

At least my program doesn't choke on thousands of segments or LNAME strings, so I'd be in better shape right from the git go.

Microsoft MASM versus Borland TASM - two different architectures

Previously I noted you can tell a lot about a compiler's internal structure by examining the structure of the .OBJ modules it spits out. In the case of the Microsoft Macro Assembler (MASM) versus Borland's Turbo Assembler (TASM) this also turned out to be true.

MASM appears to be architecturally a multi-pass assembler, whereas TASM architecturally looks like a single pass assembler (with some limited multi-pass capability for compressing forward jump offsets).

How do I come to this conclusion? LNAMES records. The LNAMES record(s) in a .OBJ file specify the name strings representing segments names, segment groups names, and segment classes names.

When there are multiple segments in a .OBJ MASM collects up all the names used, removes duplicates, and (typically) emits a single LNAMES record. Since segments and group definition can be scattered all over a .ASM source file, of necessity one must scan the whole thing to the end to encounter them all. The fact that MASM eliminates any dupe names before emitting a LNAMES record in to the .OBJ shows it had to scan the .ASM file all the way to the end and adjust all the SEGDEF and GRPDEF record name indexes accordingly when the dups are zapped.

TASM takes a different approach. TASM emits a LNAMES record for every segment it encounters. This suggests that TASM doesn't make multiple passes to collect up name strings. Nor does TASM bother to remove duplicate names. The LNAMES records TAMS emits will contain duplicate strings, and there will be a lot more LNAMES records than MASM would emit. From a .OBJ semantics POV both approaches are identical. The TASM approach however results in .OBJ files that are plumper and make a linker do more work.

Single-pass - faster generation of result, plumper result.
Multi-pass - slower generation of result, more efficient result

In reality, MASM will generate multiple LNAMES records too when the total record length of a given LNAMES rec would exceed 1K bytes in length. TASM never encounters this issue because its emitting scads of tiny LNAMES records. Apparently there are some tools somewhere that imposed a 1K limit on the size of a record in a .OBJ. Internally, the project I'm working on deals with LNAMES in an idealized manner and collects up the whole wad in a manner MASM does, so I had to insert code to do the 1K parceling out of physical LNAMES when I emit an .OBJ as well.