Quote of the Day

"Remember, programmers are very personally insecure people. It helps them write good code to prove they are good at something. It comes across, however, as totally having a stick up their ass."

Mike, commenting on a query about 32-bit versus 64-bit processors and SQL.

How Deep's That Gravity Well?

Others have linked to it but I'm gonna anyway: XKCD graphically and simply explains gravity wells.

Stolen entire from Roberta X.

Foreign Aid & Africa

Jody sent me a link to an old interview with James Shikwati. It is nice to hear someone agree with me.

SPIEGEL:

Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa...

Shikwati: ... for God's sake, please just stop.

SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty.

Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.

SPIEGEL: Do you have an explanation for this paradox?

Shikwati: Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.

Of course, stopping the tsunami of aid is going to be an uphill battle. There are too many people getting rich off of it, and there are too many bleeding hearts who really believe it is the only way to help. There are also eminent people who preach aid as the only way out of poverty for poor countries. Just because he's a professor at Harvard doesn't mean he's right. Matter of fact, it makes him suspect in my book. Ivy league slimeball.

One of the weirdest stories about Africa was one I read about the poor in Lagos, the capital of Nigeria. Nigeria, the king of the email scam. In most poor countries, the author wrote, the poor are often aimless, indolent, lacking in hope and purpose. But in Lagos he found people bustling about, working all kinds of menial jobs (carrying water bottles to construction workers for instance), earning a veritable pittance, but working, striving, and earning a living.

The world is a very strange place full of all kinds of people, most of whom disagree with either you or me or each other.

Quote of the Day

Using Google everything, at this point, has worked well enough for me, though I know I’ll be in a world of hurt the day Google removes the “Don’t Be Evil” mask and reveals themselves to be the sulfur-infused Internet Beelzebub that they likely are.

From Lone Prairie dot net via Dustbury. I feel pretty much the same way about Google. They had to accept certain restrictions when they expanded into the PRC (China). Whether they are helping to support the Communist regime, or helping to destroy their foundations is a matter of conjecture.

Obama and the Nobel Prize

A link from Dustbury took me to an astrology blog yesterday, where I found some strange and wonderful writing, including a bit about why the Nobel Prize committee gave one to our buddy Obama. It makes perfect sense to me, after all, it fits in with my conspiracy view of the world. What's that you say? You didn't know Obama was your buddy? Weren't you there at lunch with him last week? Oh, you weren't? Oops, me neither.

Funny Wrenches

My friend Jack inherited a bunch of tools from his father. Going through the socket wrenches he came across these two little oddballs. The short one kind of looks like a quarter-to-five-sixteenths adaptor, but it isn't really. I imagine it's for a drain plug with a 5/16" square recess. I really don't have a clue what the long thin one is for. The opening is sort of an oval. It looks like it fits a small round shaft with two flats on opposite sides.

As near as I can make out, the short one says "Snap on 5/16 PPM-410 USA" and the thin one says "Snap on TN-22A USA". They both also have a symbol that looks something like a capital I.

Update January 2017 replaced missing picture.

Stupid Water Heater

Yesterday at 5:30PM I drove to Lowe's and bought a new 50 gallon water heater for $600. Yesterday was New Year's Eve. They closed at 6. I managed to find someone to help me get it off the shelf (6 feet in the air) and onto the cart, but loading it into the truck I was on my own.

I have been fighting this thing for like two weeks thinking that it is just a bad valve or a bad joint and I can fix it and I won't have to shell out the money for a new one. But now it's New Year's Eve, the leak is worse than ever, Mom goes back to work Monday and she wants a new water heater. So, by her command, I went and bought the monster.

It started with the safety valve leaking. Why should the safety valve start leaking? Is it really getting too hot? The pressure shouldn't be getting too high. I mean the water mains pressure is only so much, if the hot water is getting hot enough to increase the pressure, it should just push back on the mains. There aren't any check valves, at least I don't think so. The water heater is fifteen years old, so maybe corrosion has caused it to start leaking. I buy a new one. But replacing it means shutting the supply valve. I shut the valve once, and open it once and all is well, but for some reason I need to close it again, and that was the second step on the road to my doom. It wouldn't open. It is a little brass gate valve and it is stripped. The handle goes around and around but it does nothing. The valve stays shut.

Now I need a new valve. Pulling the old valve means turning off the main water supply, which means a trip into the crawl space. The valve is 15 feet from the entrance. One trip in and back to turn it off. Another trip in and back to turn it back on. I have made this trip so many times now I could do it in my sleep.

The old valve is soldered on, so I need a torch to pull it off. I have a propane torch, but after a couple minutes with it I realize it's going to be an all day project to get this joint hot enough to take apart. Time for MAPP gas. Fortunately, I have a MAPP gas torch as well. Unfortunately, it is as old as MAPP gas and all I can get out of it is a small yellow flame. To Home Depot we go get a new torch, a bottle of gas, a new valve and a couple of fittings. Back home, I pull off the old valve, solder on a threaded fitting for the new valve, and thread the new valve on. Pull on the wrench to tighten it up and the newly soldered joint breaks loose. Bah! That's what happens when you get in a hurry and don't prep your surfaces well. At least I think that's what happened. Resolder and reinstall valve. This time it holds.

So now I have a new shut off valve and a new safety valve, but the leak is worse than ever. I dink with it now and again, but I have other work to do, so I put it off to the weekend. New Years is coming, the stores will be closed, time to bite the bullet. So today I put in the new water heater. Not too many problems. You should put the stub pipes in the top before you put the heater in position, no clearance for a pipe wrench afterwards.

Got it all hooked up and ready to go. Push the go button and ... nothing. It's got a fancy electronic gas valve. Push the button, push the ignitor, nothing. What gives? Read the instructions, try again. Still nothing. Finally call the hotline. Hold the button down for a minute, and now it works. Duh! I just realized it's just like the old mechanical valve, except you can't tell if the pilot light is lit! I am suddenly afflicted with the urge to strangle the buzzword injecting moron who came up with this gizmo.

Still have to resolder the joint again, it's still leaking but only a very little bit. I am out of flux, so I will have to go buy a new bottle tomorrow. Also need to exchange the torch: the built in ignitor doesn't. For $35 it durn well should. But we have hot water and the garage floor is dry. Still have to figure out how to get rid of the old one. I want to find out where the leak was, but that will take some work, and I don't know if I will have the energy.

Old Water Heater

Update July 2019 replace Picasa slideshow with photo and link to Google Photos album.