PureBasic Forums - English

My wife got an email, supposedly from PayPal, about a charge to her account for something ordered from eBay. It did not ring a bell with her, and sounded bogus to me. I logged directly into PayPal (avoiding the provided link altogether), and found no charge. Then I reported it as an effort to spoof her account to PayPal, eBay, and to an internet abuse group. Found another post where someone had followed the link and ended up giving away personal info, including his Social Security Number. Watch out, somebody's trying to get you!

My wife's PC started acting up. I tried to restore an older image from an
external drive, but it apparently overheated and developed errors. Another did the same. My external cases do not have cooling fans, so I ordered some new cases from www.ComputerNYC.com for $24.95, or 3+ @ $20 each. Best price I found anywhere. Meanwhile, impatient wife is giving me heck, so I set a cookie tin on the drive case, put a Glad bad of ice cubes in it (didn't leak), and it kept the drive cool to the touch for over five hours. I had to do a reformat on one drive to get it back up, but the other was more difficult - I had to install it as primary in my wife's PC, then use a DOS-based Low Level Format utility on it to get it restored - if you can't format or run PartitionMagic on a drive because of partition table errors, don't give up until you do a low level format!

Been involved with heated off-line discussions elsewhere about Global
Warming. Lot's of people cling to the idea that it can't happen, or if it is
happening, it's not man's fault, or even that technology will give us an answer to the problem. I'm afraid it can, the rocks tells us that it did
happen millions of years ago, and temperature trends suggest that it is
going on right now. Three things have emerged from my study into the
subject: (1) web sites that try to refute Global Warming primarily limit
themselves to CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) emissions, then argue that the CO2
man emits accounts to only about 2 percent of the total greenhouse effect, meaning we haven't done much at all to help cause it. (2) Global Warming apparently is causing worldwide change, hence we see the tundra defrosting, glaciers retreating, and ice packs shrinking. Weather seems to be getting more extreme as well. But people who believe the first statement argue it must be occuring natually, not by any action on man's part. And (3), most Global Warming alarmists believe that when the permafrost melts and oceans warm, that much of the naturally occuring methane and CO2 that is trapped will escape into the atmosphere, causing a positive feedback to the warming trend. If that happens, it can't be stopped. Right now it looks like we only have a decade or two left before the facts really start to speak for themselves.

I can say one thing for sure: we are definitely experiencing global warming. When I was a kid my dad made a hockey rink in the backyard every winter starting after Jan 1. It was rock-hard for 9-10 weeks and was totally reliable year after year. That was 50 years ago and now the concept of someone trying to build an outdoor rink here would be laughable. It couldn't be done and if you succeeded it wouldn't last a week. All you'd get is slush. If that isn't global warming I don't know what is.

I believe in global warming..
but i have to add another fact: there are up and downs in the temperature of our history..

Its like a curve, and we is on a place in time right now where temperature is rising. Combined with global warming, this gives a heck of a speed :/

Im not sure about the CO2 and methane trapped in the tundra's but again, im not a proffessor

Even though i have only lived in about 18 years, i think the weather has changed a lot the past years.. Less snow, hotter summers..


ONE thing that has been positively developed is the ozone layer. After getting rid of Freon and so on in spray cans, the ozone layer actually havent been going thinner lately. Wich is good!

Recommended reading: State of Fear

Recommended reading: State of Fear

Awesome book!

Haven't read the book, but that linked page sure had some very sobering content.

OldFoxx,

You are lucky with that "ice box" solution!! Very dangerous!! You could end up with a rusted (innner) HD. Be careful next time, extreme cooling can give condensation internally in the drive!! Which will fail due to corrosion of the platers (where the data is recorded on the disk).

Jan V.

Global warming? Bah humbug wait a few years then we freeze over in summertime!!

There is the 11 year sun(spot) cycle. so in a few years we have cold wnters again.

J.V.

"Eighteen hundred and froze-to-death". Interesting read (along with the links) at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_A_Summer

All sorts of things stack up here. We are as likely to get an ice age.

Melting icecaps can help swing it. You get secondary effects (like massive iceflows cooling the oceans and changing reflectivity, etc)

Radiation traps play a part. Water vapour, carbon dioxide traps, etc. What lets it in, what lets it out.

The avg temp of the earth is around 14 C (287K?). If it drops 3 C we have an ice age, and we've been there before (if not us personally )

For the worry-warts, consider this:

Approx every 10,000 years there is a galactic "pulse". A core event that shoves out huge amounts of radiation. Effects from one in a galaxy many millions of light years away reached us recently. Many satellites went into "defensive" mode, and two shut down. Our galaxy is overdue, and the centre is a whole lot closer.

There are regularly giant eruptions of plasma from our own sun. These blobs go out way past our orbit. We have never been in the direct line of fire, so here we are, un-incinerated.

Yellowstone volcano goes off. Goodbye much of the USA, and shortly after, goodbye many of the rest of us. (See above link).

And worst of all - politicians!

They say global warming is caused by the decreasing number of pirates, there's scientific proof: http://www.venganza.org

Or an inversity thereof. But the author has it wrong! The UK government takes this one seriously, and is considering appropriate remedial action:

http://www.deadbrain.co.uk/news/article ... 2_1232.php


But wait:

These guys have pictorial proof:

http://www.humorgazette.com/blog/item/65/

This is so sad that I had to compose a song for it. To the tune of "My Bonny lies .."

• My dunny lies under the ocean,
  My dunny lies under the sea
  My dunny lies under the ocean
  And now I have nowhere to pee.
  
  Bring back, oh bring back, oh bring back my dunny to me, to me
  (Repeat, less one "to me")
  
  Its those flatulent sheep in New Zealand
  Their gasses destroyed the O-Zone
  And now I have nowhere to Pee, And
  I no longer can sit on my throne!
  
  [chorus]
  
  They say global warming's the reason,
  I now have got nowhere to sit,
  And since we've had summer each season,
  I find that I can't take a
  • but you get the drift

Lot's of possible outcomes there, and on a galatic scale, this world will likely to endure many fates over time. One of the chief reasons against the possibility that some exterrestial civilizations will ever contact us is that man has only been able for consider and use the science involved for a very brief period, yet our kind has been around for hundreds of thousands of years. On top of which it took hundreds of millions of years for humans to evolve in the first place.

So what are the chances that our brief period of being able to detect radiation from another civilization, assuming that there is one and that it's brief period of being able to advance far enough to send a message could ever and overlap? Also given that the further the presumed world is from us, the further back in time when they would have had to begin transmitting.

So it is not like they could have started transmitting tens of thousands of years ago on the assumption that we would evolve enough in that time to read a level of development that we could detect their signal as it flashed by. I mean the whole premise of off-world civilizations communicating with us is so riddled with pitfalls that I cannot believe presumably smart people spend their whole life in pursuit of such an improbability.

As to the ice bag solution to cooling an external hard drive, there is really very little risk involved if you are careful. First, the cookie tin served to catch any spilled water, so it would not get wet. Second, we are talking low voltages here. Of course there is a higher current level, but again,
you are taking care not to wet anything. Third, the external drive case is
what is getting cooled - aside from some metal contact between the drive and the case, there is a small air gap. The drive still gets warm, and the case stays cool, and you have a heat exchange between the two by metal and by air. The drive is not going to experience any condensation because it stays warm. There is no air exchange with the outside, so no moisture other than the small bit of air trapped inside between the case
and the drive, so there is very little moisture content to condense out anyway. The condensation outside the case is not important.

If it bothers you, don't do it. You could double- or triple-bag the ice as well. Fact is, just putting a small boilder with some water in it on the drive would greatly increase the heat sink, extending the time until the whole mass heats up. If large enough, the surface area would radiate away enough heat to keep it cool without any water involved.

Still not happy? Get a small personal fan and have it blow on the case.
That would work by keeping the air circulating around it. I'm not trying
to be particular about how you do this. You could also use thermal
compound and bond some heat sinks to the case, but that gets a bit more expensive. But realiize that external drive cases that are not designed or
built to provide some degree of cooling become heat traps for the drive inside and will greatly shorten its life or cause it to become error prone.

Most modern hard drives are equipped with S.M.A.R.T. capabilities, and you can find monitoring software on the internet, some free, that will tell you such things as drive temperature. You can use that technology to determine just how hot your drive is running, and how effective you are
in keeping it cool. Keep in mind that drives work best if kept at about the same temperature under all circumstances, and electronics work best if kept reasonably cool.

Dare2 wrote:This is so sad that I had to compose a song for it. To the tune of "My Bonny lies .."

• My dunny lies under the ocean,
  My dunny lies under the sea
  My dunny lies under the ocean
  And now I have nowhere to pee.
  
  Bring back, oh bring back, oh bring back my dunny to me, to me
  (Repeat, less one "to me")
  
  Its those flatulent sheep in New Zealand
  Their gasses destroyed the O-Zone
  And now I have nowhere to Pee, And
  I no longer can sit on my throne!
  
  [chorus]
  
  They say global warming's the reason,
  I now have got nowhere to sit,
  And since we've had summer each season,
  I find that I can't take a
  • but you get the drift

No, that's:

Me body lies over the ocean,
me legs they lie over the sea,
me mudder lay over me fudder,
and dat's how they came to get me.

Bring back, bring back, me mudder and fudder to me, e, e,
Bring back, bring back, to gimme a bdudder you see!

oldefoxx wrote:Been involved with heated off-line discussions elsewhere about Global Warming.
Lot's of people cling to the idea that it can't happen, or if it is
happening, it's not man's fault,...

Global warming is "man's doing". Consider we currently pull and refine approximately 80 million barrels of crude oil each and every day. That translates to about 80 BILLION gallons of gasoline "burned" into the atmosphere every day.

To put into perspective, the heat produced by burning this horrendous amount of gasoline is equivelent 1000 Hiroshima Bombs ... dissapated over the day ... each and every day! That's right ... 1000 hiroshimas each and every day. Do the math. The numbers are all over the internet.

We are definitely destoying the planet and thus it has been my observation that "Mankind's dependance on technology should never excede the understanding of the common man." (I said that! although I'm sure someone else probably said something similar.)

The masses drive their luxury autos and 99% of them haven't a clue about how they are manufactured, how they run, or how to fix them. That alone ought to be enough to have them outlawed. An airplane pilot knows (or is supposed to know) what every screw on his plane is for and the consequences of not having them all in place. Why does this philosophy not apply to automobiles? Toasters? Toilets? Anything man made? The reasons are all obvious (at least to me) as is the posiblility of any notable recourse. Resistance is futile.

[EDIT]
EIA: "Oil accounts for 40 percent of the world's energy consumption, and it will continue to do so for the next 20 years, the analysts project. World oil use is projected to increase from 75 million barrels per day in 1999 to 120 million barrels per day in 2020."
http://www.kwikpower.com/AREAS/GC/gc05.htm

Well Randy, I might suggest that you enter into the discussions taking place on PowerBasic's Cafe on the subject. You will get some lively responses,
some useful links, and a lot of attitude and opinion. There are a few people
there that will attack you personally for holding opinions that differ from theirs, a tactic I find distressing, but still and all, it's been informative.