Posts by Len

21) Message boards : Number crunching : The Kitty smoke stop fundraiser....... (Message 1201695)
Posted 474 days ago by

Len

Are there some posts missing here?
I was looking for my post to find out how much I now owe, but can't find it. Looks like the replies only date back from January.

[Edit]
I found 'em. I owe £25. I shall get it paid at the weekend.

Len

After the 1st post it says:

Only the first post and the last 75 posts (of the 141 posts in this thread) are displayed.
Click here to also display the remaining posts.

Claggy

Yeah, I saw that after I'd given up looking for my first post. I can only claim to be in the middle of a Fibromyalgia flare up, so last night was either pain or prescription analgesics. I don't remember which, but either one accounts for my lack of concentration. Today is the same. Right now its the analgesics, so I can't work today, but at least I am feeling no pain.

I should really take this machine apart and remove dust bunnies as the temps are running slightly high, meaning I have to leave the CPU on 'high performance' instead of 'max performance'. However the opiates leave me with CBA. (Thats 'Can't Be Arsed' for those who didn't know.) ;)

Probably unwise to tinker with things that involve electrickery in my current condition anyway.

Len

22) Message boards : Number crunching : The Kitty smoke stop fundraiser....... (Message 1201494)
Posted 475 days ago by

Len

Are there some posts missing here?
I was looking for my post to find out how much I now owe, but can't find it. Looks like the replies only date back from January.

[Edit]
I found 'em. I owe £25. I shall get it paid at the weekend.

Len

23) Message boards : Number crunching : The Kitty smoke stop fundraiser....... (Message 1190090)
Posted 506 days ago by

Len

Nearly time to add a proud "Ex-Smoker" tag to your sig. Mark. 8)

Len
Long time proud Ex-Smoker. ;)

24) Message boards : Number crunching : The Kitty smoke stop fundraiser....... (Message 1187351)
Posted 515 days ago by

Len

So its not only your bad habits that have to be changed.

Keep going Mark there's a whole lot of us out here who are backing you up.

Indeed it is not just the bad habits.

This:

Relax on the couch after a nice meal........shaZaaaaaam.......have a few beers.......shaZaaaaaaam.......whap, whop, who's your daddy?

Tells you that it is the normal everyday habits that trigger the craving. They are the things that give the other dragon strength. Breaking ALL your habits at once involves 'No couch after a nice meal; No 'few beers'. Those are the triggers. The bell that makes the dog salivate.

Why give the dragon attacks of opportunity? The water routine does more than the flushing and scrubbing away of nicotine. It also replaces many of the habits with a new routine, which helps attack both Dragons at once.

All the best of luck Mark. I really am rooting for you. ... and anyone else your lead inspires to follow suit.

Len

25) Message boards : Number crunching : The Kitty smoke stop fundraiser....... (Message 1187107)
Posted 515 days ago by

Len

Cangrats, hang in there & welcome back!

Forums just weren't the same without you...

Yeah, and I just wasn't the same without y'all either........or them dang cigs......

Somebody......when does the craving go away???????????
Still has me tearing my hair out and I don't know how long I can endure it.
I did go to the gas stations today, filled up...got a half tank of gas, can of coffee, powereball ticket, and he had my usual pack of cigs on the counter............OMG......I said NO.........got a bit of a puzzled look after all these years, but drove away with another handful of cash in my hand.......LOLouch.

Your post here tells you, if you listen, when the craving will go away.
Currently you are not an ex-smoker, but someone trying to give up cigarettes.

Its two things:

Physically

physical

Mentally,

The fact that you ordered your pack before you had realised tells me, and should tell you, that you are still running on the same habit, and are constantly fighting against your own Pavlovian responses.
You know full well that when you go to the gas station you buy a pack, and that habit is still in your head. Change your habits, and get the nicotine out of your system. Then, and only then will you join the ranks of us ex-smokers.

You appear to have taken the harder road because the easier road I told you about in a post above looked too hard at first glance. However you can still do it your way, most people do.

When people use nicotine patches or gum, they are using them to allay the physical craving while they deal with the mental task of becoming a non-smoker. Once they have mastered that, they then have to deal with the nicotine habit that they still have. It is a very long, drawn out, two stage process.

Since they have by that time hopefully, conquered the mental dragon, the physical dragon is less fearsome. However defeating both dragons at once is only one single fight, and you can use one dragon to help defeat the other, so it can be over more quickly. It really does make some sense, even proverbially.

Len

26) Message boards : SETI@home Science : Imagine one day human are able to travel to other star system (Message 1186108)
Posted 518 days ago by

Len

parting the sea ?/

It's been a long time since that's been done well !!
Same thing for the Virgin Birth !!

Parthenogenesis happens all the time. Just not usually in primates like us.

Who is to say whether it happens to ET? It may be normal reproductive behaviour. If the folks writing a couple of thousand years ago had known how common it was in other species, it might not have seemed such a magical/miraculous occurrence.

Len

27) Message boards : SETI@home Science : At Least 100 Billion Planets (Message 1185109)
Posted 523 days ago by

Len

As there are only 63 stars within 50 light years of earth, 1500 planets would mean some stars would have a lot of them.

Steve

Are we really sure about the low figure of 63?

Having not spent any time counting them myself, I am loathe to state anything as fact; but a quick search of previous counts and estimates from scientific sources places the 1500 figure on the conservative side. 1600 to over 2000 being the predominant range that I found.

Len

I have this.
http://www.solstation.com/stars3/100-gs.htm

Steve

Hmm. I have three apples and four oranges. However there are seven pieces of fruit. If one were to re-define fruit as "non-citrus fruit", then my statement that I had seven fruits would be wrong by the new definition of fruit, but where would that leave apples? Are they no longer fruit?.

The original poster mentioned "stars". Not spectral type "G" stars. Of those there appears to be 64, granted. But the limit as to a specific spectral type was never given by the original poster.

28) Message boards : SETI@home Science : At Least 100 Billion Planets (Message 1185102)
Posted 523 days ago by

Len

A planet is a body that orbits the Sun, is massive enough for its own gravity to make it round, and has "cleared its neighbourhood" of smaller objects around its orbit. If we were to substitute "the sun" with "its star", I think we have a working definition of planet, surely?

29) Message boards : SETI@home Science : At Least 100 Billion Planets (Message 1184811)
Posted 524 days ago by

Len

As there are only 63 stars within 50 light years of earth, 1500 planets would mean some stars would have a lot of them.

Steve

Are we really sure about the low figure of 63?

Having not spent any time counting them myself, I am loathe to state anything as fact; but a quick search of previous counts and estimates from scientific sources places the 1500 figure on the conservative side. 1600 to over 2000 being the predominant range that I found.

Len

30) Message boards : Number crunching : The Kitty smoke stop fundraiser....... (Message 1184388)
Posted 526 days ago by

Len

Hang in there Mark.
I'm still rooting for you.

31) Message boards : Number crunching : The Kitty smoke stop fundraiser....... (Message 1182126)
Posted 535 days ago by

Len

Good luck to you, both in this endeavour and life in general. I know this is not your only challenge. I hope 2012 brings us all some cheer.

32) Message boards : Number crunching : The Kitty smoke stop fundraiser....... (Message 1181580)
Posted 537 days ago by

Len

I disagree Chris. The step-down method doesn't work for EVERYONE. I stopped 10 years ago cold-turkey-never smoked again.

When Sattler has been completely smoke free for 6 months straight, I will give as part of this fundraiser.

I didn't want to be quite that harsh on the man. However, Mark, you now have at least some incentive to prove to us ex-smokers that you can do it.

I too simply stopped smoking. In the '70s I was in training and assisted at two post mortems of road accident victims. One was a smoker, one was a non-smoker; both from a rural area. Their lungs were totally different looking organs. One had pink lungs the other grey. - It was not smoking that killed either of them. That was just the state of their lungs.

I gave up very shortly after that. I went from 30-40 a day to none.

I used a method based on ridding the body of nicotine AND breaking all my habits at once, then selectively taking up only those I wished to continue with. It took two weeks.

First, realise that most of your smoking is habit. So is coffee, tea, carbonated caffeine drinks, alcohol, sitting in your favourite chair after meals, and all the other things that you do by habit. Prepare to stop doing them all for two weeks. After two weeks you can take up whatever other habits you want to.

Then, to rid the body of nicotine, realise that nicotine is slightly soluble in water, and use water to flush it out.
Water on the inside.
Drink only water, and drink more than you need. This will help flush out the nicotine. (which must go to stop the cravings) It will also help make you feel fuller before meals to drink a large glass of water about 5 minutes before the meal. This will help prevent the weight gain that often accompanies smoking cessation.
Water on the outside.
Make a ritual out of this:

scrub

This will take nine days.
Next:
By now, you are thoroughly scrubbed, you have not smoked for well over a week, you have flushed your insides with water.

On the tenth day get a clean, preferably new white towel. Take a sauna if possible, if not get yourself hot and sweaty somehow. Then thoroughly rub yourself down with the clean white towel. Then, and only then, put the towel to your face and breathe deeply through your nose. - The towel smells like an ash tray right? - You need to wash that off your body, right now!

This should allow you to push on through to your goal.

If you find you have to cheat, cheat with the alcohol, coffee, tea, or something that you intend to take up again anyway. (For me, this was coffee, which I have since cut out.) Do not cheat with the tobacco.

Be prepared to catch a few coughs and colds for a while. The smoke has not only been killing you, but helping to kill everything you came in contact with. Including infections. Eventually, your system will no longer rely on a film of tar and poisons to keep it 'safe' from infections. Your body will start to use its own defences like the rest of us.

33) Message boards : Number crunching : The Kitty smoke stop fundraiser....... (Message 1181368)
Posted 538 days ago by

Len

Mark,
I don't know anyone who actually quit by 'giving up for a month'. So I will donate £25, or 'as near as dammit is to swearing' in dollars, to Seti@home, but only when you actually give up smoking completely as I did back in the '70s.

One month's 'smoking adjournment' is simply not giving up. Everyone I know who successfully gave up smoking was able to say "I don't smoke any more", not "I am giving up for a month".

If you are still a non-smoker once you get to the end of February, a full 29 day month after you have achieved your own goal. Then You will stand a good chance of having quit for good. That way, not only Seti@Home wins, but so do you.

34) Message boards : Number crunching : Rebuttal......... (Message 1180336)
Posted 544 days ago by

Len

I mainly read, and seldom post.

You have never offended me, nor do I expect you ever will. You speak your mind, and having an opinion is no crime in my book, whether that opinion agrees with my own or not.

Reading this, I shall know that if at sometime in the future I feel offended by something you write, I must try to remember that you had the humility and courage to write this. I hope then, if it should ever happen, that I will be capable of biting my tongue and not go crying to a mod.

With everything else that is happening in your life, I would hope that others too will cut you some slack.

Be strong, but do not be afraid to appear weak in the eyes of your true friends. For sometimes it is the strong themselves who must call on the strength of others to help them survive.

Len

35) Message boards : Number crunching : Id be more willing to crunch Seti@ home if the credits were increased (Message 1094667)
Posted 803 days ago by

Len

Look how worried I am about the credits. So long as the numbers go up, I know I am donating process time that is actually being used. Beyond that I don't mind what the numbers are. If this is some kind of competition, I am just an also ran.

I have spare capacity. I donate it to Seti@home. They don't pay me, and I don't want paying either. They give me credits by way of recognition. If I were after credits, I could more than double them just by not hobbling the machine. I could run a 64bit OS instead of the one I do. Neither project gets much donated time after I get home and release the shackles.

I have my machine hobbled to 3/8 speed during the day while it is watching the security setup. I have Boinc use 1/2 the CPUs, and have CPDN get equal CPU time, because Seti sometimes doesn't have the CPU work for it even in its hobbled state.

As well as reducing power usage, I need to reduce the capacity the machine has because otherwise the image analysis sees the reflection of the beating of a butterflies wings in china as a change in image and starts image capture. As it is, with Seti using the GPU and Seti/CPDN half the hobbled CPU, it takes an absent cloud revealing the sun before the system screams "invader". (English weather helps keep it dim normally.)

With CPDN's problems recently and the increased available work from Seti, the two have reversed their credit rating for me.
Len

36) Message boards : Number crunching : Off topic advice needed (Message 1063953)
Posted 895 days ago by

Len

Since '98 it has not been standard for floppy drives to 'read-as-you-write' to validate the write, so it does not get picked up till you try to read it.

Hi Len
For clarification. Do you mean Win 98 or 1998 ?

Just wondering

T.A.

Win98.

Though Win95 revision C was still being issued in 1998, so both really.
Because a version of DOS underpinned Win95 it was possible to set validate=On. Win98 stopped that. :(

Len

37) Message boards : Number crunching : Off topic advice needed (Message 1063481)
Posted 897 days ago by

Len

If the drive itself has been in use for years, or was canablised from an old system, it may be the drive itself that is faulty. Most of the 'Write once - read if you're lucky' problems stem from the ancient (damaged) drive working more like a lathe, skimming off the surface of the disk as it writes.

Since '98 it has not been standard for floppy drives to 'read-as-you-write' to validate the write, so it does not get picked up till you try to read it.

Experience appears to back up the fact that modern floppy disks are less robust than older ones, but actually accusing the manufacturers of putting out previously rejected sub-standard product as new, would probably be going too far. Personally I would blame Vista. It was never validated as stable enough to run the programs I have to support. GOK if it has decent floppy support.

Old games on new machines is always fun. Especially when the first thing you see is a message that says Game Over. Play again?

Len

38) Message boards : Number crunching : Crap II.... (Message 1050214)
Posted 941 days ago by

Len

Its not as though getting old is something you or I have done on purpose. I still have the "25yr old Inside" sticker on my case though. If only my knees knew they were now below minimum spec.

...

Len
So your knees are near, my God, to thee?

LOL......I get a little more into the kneeling bit myself these days.

No, I no longer get on my knees. I can still do it in theory, but it then becomes a semi-permanent state of affairs and they complain for days afterwards by ballooning. Since I then have to use a stick and look like an old man for several days, I have learned simply not to do it.

One day, technology will have evolved to the point where a decent permanent replacement is worth doing, and my own are no longer up to the job. So far therapy is slowing the deterioration well, provided I take due care. (The human knee joint is complex.) Till then, they soldier on, below spec, but still basically functional with enough TLC. Just like a SETI@home server really.

Len

39) Message boards : Number crunching : Crap II.... (Message 1050078)
Posted 942 days ago by

Len

Kids! I dunno about that. I'll be 69 in 2 weeks.

...

BR
Art

OK. I am younger than you. I concede defeat on the age thing. Old Man :p

Its not as though getting old is something you or I have done on purpose. I still have the "25yr old Inside" sticker on my case though. If only my knees knew they were now below minimum spec.

I also wish I still had my details from when I first started on this search. I never clocked up much of a score, and I'm still not bothered by the numbers. I now have an ulterior motive, and therefore more of a reason to crunch for SETI than I did then. Back then it was the screen saver version that was just a talking point.

Len

40) Message boards : Number crunching : Crap II.... (Message 1049945)
Posted 942 days ago by

Len

You kids ! ;)

Your Amstrad CP128 ran cpm3, not DOS v1. I had one too. DOS 1 had no "folders" or Directories", and therefore no tree structure. At least cpm had "user levels" that could be used in a similar manner to structure files.
DOS started to go downhill after DOS 3.3, DOS 4 was accepted by the industry as a whole about as well as Windows ME and Vista would later be. After DOS 5 it was a very slippery slope, and DOS 5 was the last millenium complient version as M$ built IN the Y2K bug into backup software that was not there in earlier versions. DOS 7 was only ever issued to IBM, never released to the public.
I led our organisation's Y2K project, and still support our legacy software from prior to 2005. All because I am now almost the only one who knows how things work without Windows butting in and saying "I'll do that for you."

I run "Windows7" on my personal netbook, which admittedly is a little more beefed up than it came from the shop, and it is very stable. It is everything Vista tried to be. One advantage is the nice little sneaky trick that lets you kind of expand RAM by using an SD card or USB disk. Much cheaper, and it overcomes some otherwise limiting barriers.

The Machine I use to donate time to SET@Home, and that I am sitting in front of right now is an XP 32bit machine, even though it would theoretically work great with the 64bit version. I have some security software running on it, and one of the reasons I run SETI and Climateprediction.net is to nail one foot to the floor. I have my machine slowed right down during the day (When SETI is up) so that it is not oversensitive. Otherwise it appears whenever a butterfly flaps it wings anywhere in the local group the damned software takes snapshots and uploads them to the clouds. I can make my cpu slower temporarily, but the dammned graphics processor is still too sensitive unless I give it some WUs to play with.

Anyway, lets not get into a competition about who is oldest or I will have to tell you that I wrote my first stock control program in 1966 while working for NCR, and it was 25ft long when punched onto Mylar tape.

Len

Previous 20 · Next 20