Patricia’s computer needs more memory. It’s got half a gig, but it’s being brought to its knees. The board’s about four or five years old (I think it’s running a 1.8 MHz Athlon). It’s got an extra DIMM slot, but I don’t know how big a stick it can take. I can’t find the mobo manual, but I figured I could find one on line. The only identifier I can see on it says “Micro-Star Model MS-5390.” But when I do a search on that, I come up empty. I assume that it’s an MSI, but that model number doesn’t seem to exist in their data base. Anyone have any idea what’s going on? What are the chances that a board of that vintage can’t handle a gigbyte stick? I don’t want to go out and buy one unless I know it will work. On the other hand, just adding another half a gig would probably solve her problem.
[Update in the late afternoon]
Well, after reviewing the options (buying half a gig for sixty bucks or a full gig for a hundred and ten) and realizing that the memory I was buying would probably be useless on the next upgrade, I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade now. Athlon 64 and a gig of DDR2 for ~$250. I can use the other mobo for a development linux box.
Al Gore is going to testify on global warming today, in about half an hour. Bjorn Lomborg will be on the second panel. Unfortunately, they won’t be debating each other, which is something I’d pay to watch. I think that Gore would get eviscerated.
[Going to check the schedule]
It’s going to be carried on CSPAN3, if you don’t have the bandwidth.
…with Ramesh, on who should replace Gonzales (and yes, I think he should be replaced–I never thought he should have been appointed in the first place):
I just want it to be somebody the president has never met.
The biggest flaw of this president is selecting cronies and people he knows and trusts for key positions, rather than looking for those most qualified (Harriett Myers being the most prominent example). Unfortunately, it’s a failing of almost every president. (Anyone remember Craig Livingstone?)
The War on (some) Drugs, that is. In the real war. In Afghanistan:
We are winning in Afghanistan – that is the clear view on the ground. In contrast to Iraq, the Taliban are heavily on the back foot. Continued success, however, will be hampered by attempts to eradicate opium poppies…We are winning precisely because we are fighting the Taliban with “hearts and minds”, not just militarily might. Success hinges on not driving the locals into supporting the enemy. Yet this is precisely what poppy eradication is starting to do. Farmers grow poppies in Helmand for the same reason farmers decide what to grow the world over – because it is the rational thing to do. It is not part of a cunning scheme to flood the infidel West with cheap heroin. To a Pashtun farmer, poppies mean an instant cash-crop. Advocates of poppy eradication like to argue that narcotics fuel the insurgency. The truth is the precise opposite. Farmers carry a financial risk when they grow poppies having already been paid for their unharvested crop. Destroying their crop will make it impossible to pay their debts. As a direct consequence, they then become much more likely to accept work as hired-guns for the Taliban. Fear of poppy eradication is mobilising local farmers to side with the Taliban. In the poppy growing Sanjin valley, the locals have teamed up with the Taliban and so that is now where our troops face the fiercest fighting. As Americans say, “Go figure”.