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Sigh. The new motherboard is dead. No video with 3 different graphics cards (2 AGP, 1 PCI), 2 different monitors/cables. Return is in process. Dude, next time you're getting a Dell.

Nothing new on the job front, although a couple of very desirable companies have sniffed at my resume on Jobfind.com since I put it out on Friday. Let's hope something good comes of it.

Meanwhile, with the distraction of the Superbowl out of the way, we can all go back to thinking about the coming war with Iraq. The Washington Post reminds us that there are about 50,000 Iraqis who have entered the US since roughly the time of the Gulf War, and about 3,000 are here illegally and nowhere to be found. Saddam's son Udai, in a television interview last week, made threats that hinted he may know something about at least a few of these, and what they intend. Whatever it may be, he bragged that it would exceed 9/11. If the Iraqis decide to inflict civilian casualties on the US during their regime's death spasms, it is difficult to see how the US would avenge this against Iraq, where the majority would be only too glad to see Saddam and his supporters dead, a desire which I expect the US to have no trouble satisfying. The worst case for all of us is that another atrocity would awaken a thirst for vengeance in the US that killing Saddam would not slake. Bad things could happen then.

My father served in the Army Air Corps in China and India. The Japanese sneak attack at Pearl Harbor, their atrocities in China and the Philippines, their brutalization of POWs (downed fliers were usually killed immediately, although a few were kept and starved), and their disregard of the conventions of war led to a different kind of war than was fought in Europe, where the full extent of Nazi atrocities was known later. With Saddam gone, the last thing his supporters, apologists, and enablers (Saudi Arabia, France, Palestinians, jihadis, et al.) want to see is the US furious, armed, and looking for something else to wreck.

 
Adventures in hardware continue. I had a queasy feeling when the motherboard package proclaimed that it was for Win98, ME, XP, & 2000 ONLY, as though this was something to be proud of. Go figure. I had no idea why a motherboard would support only the later Windows stuff and not Linux. Well, here's why: There is no parallel, serial, or PS2 port on the god-damned thing! There is a welter of USB ports in both 1.1 and 2.0 flavors, and that's what I guess I'm supposed to use. Last I checked, USB support is sketchy under Linux. Linux tends to support each device individually, not the whole USB regimen. Also, it is so far impossible to find a backwards USB adapter that would let me hook up my "legacy" devices. These things are not that old, but it looks like hardware has a generational cycle shorter than that of fruit flies. Plus it seems to be allergic to my GEForce 4 video card, which is about as new as you can get. Maybe it's too new for the motherboard, just as the other stuff is too old. Now please excuse me while I go throw a tantrum.

 
Well, that was exciting. I shouldn't have spoken about smoke in my last post, because I nearly succeeded in setting fire to the computer. If you are interested in replicating this feat, here's how. All you need to do is mount the floppy drive and then connect the power cable. The standard connector for a floppy is not a real obvious looking thing, and if you can't see what you're doing and are working by feeling around, you can stick it on just 3 of the 4 contacts. The outer 2 contacts, the black wires, are grounds. The other 2 are live current. These are supposed to be kept separate and distinct, but if you follow my example, you will see the wires start to smoke, melt, spark, and eventually flame. It's really a sight worth seeing, as long as someone else is supplying the hardware. I suspect from my inablity to get Win95, NT, or Linux installed without the damned thing ab-ending in the setup program that the motherboard was a loss before I did this, but I sure didn't help matters. A new motherboard is on the way, with an up to date CPU. They don't make Slot A boards anymore, I gather.