So, this blog has now moved to http://www.jdharper.com/blog

For those of you reading from RSS readers, this affects you too. But, here’s the good news: This is the last time you’ll ever have to worry about re-subscribing to this blog. My new RSS feed URL is, and will always be, http://feeds.feedburner.com/jdharper. Since I’m using Feedburner, if I ever have the need to move the blog again, it will be easy for me to change it behind the scenes. If you want to keep receiving updates from me, please subscribe to that feed.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to see you on my new blog!

EDIT: (I actually switched back from Habari to WordPress–it’s gotten better since I wrote this post. Still at the same address above.)

I’m really getting sick of WordPress. I may retire this blog and move to something else soon. We’ll see.

But it turns out the Center for Disease Control actually keeps stats on this issue. There’s a lot of interesting stuff in this survey, which was obtained by face-to-face interviews in 1995 with more than ten thousand women (a representative sample of the US).

In particular, Table 21 (on page 64 if you’re following along) lists “probability of first marriage disruption by duration of marriage.” It includes both divorces and separations without formal divorces, separated into columns by years and into rows by different characteristics, such as education, income, and religion.

If I’m reading this chart right, 43% of marriages fail in the first 15 years, which makes the often-stated 50% estimate for all marriages sound pretty reasonable.

More interesting is the breakdown by categories. It looks like if you want a long-lasting marriage, the best thing for you to do is to be an Asian. 23% of Asian marriages failed by the 15 year mark, compared with 42% each of white and Hispanic marriages and 55% of black marriages.

Religion does play a role, but not as much as you’d think given how much the Religious Right bangs on about the sanctity of marriage. 40% of “Fundamentalist” marriages marriages broke down before the 15 year mark, compared with 37% of Catholic marriages, 44% of “Other Protestant” marriages, and 56% of those claiming no religious affiliation.

How seriously you take your religion makes a difference too. 39% of those who claim religion as Very Important to them had a broken marriage by the 15 year mark, compared with 45% of those claiming it as Somewhat Important and 54% of those claiming it as Not Important.

There’s a lot of other factors that they track, and not just about marriage breakdowns. There are tables about the likelihood of first marriage by age (75% of women are marriage by age 30), probability of cohabitation transitioning into marriage, and probability of remarriage after divorce. It’s fascinating stuff to explore.

Apparently Team Fortress 2 hasn’t been updated since the Johnson administration.

And apparently EA wants you to pay a little protection money. In case something should “happen” to your files. We wouldn’t want there to be an “accident.”

zanna — self-indulgent guesswork about matters that nobody can be certain of one way or the other but which makes people quarrelsome and stupidly sectarian

I’m glad to have found this, because there needs to be a single word to describe the sorts of arguments I hear all the time about religion, especially in the fundamentalist circles. It is unbelievable the petty arguments that I hear, and that I’ve participated in.

For example, there is significant controversy over whether Christians will be called up to heaven to be with God before the final seven years of Tribulation, or whether they will have to endure the Tribulation before being called up. This issue is quintessential zanna: People have divided up into “pre-trib” and “post-trib” camps over an issue which has absolutely zero bearing on Christians’ behavior.

Another example is the King James Only controversy, wherein one camp believes that God specifically protected the Textus Recepticus (the Greek and Hebrew source materials for the King James Bible) from copy errors, and the other camp believes that modern archaeologists have discovered better Greek and Hebrew source texts. This issue has literally divided Christian fundamentalists into two separate factions, when all the variations between the two texts could fit on a single piece of paper. It is absurd.

Of course, this behavior is hardly new for Christianity. The Arian schism in the second century AD (where people argued vehemently for decades over whether Jesus was the same substance as the Father, or whether he was of a similar substance as the Father) threatened to tear the early church apart. Century after century, Christianity breaks into smaller and smaller factions, usually over the weakest of differences.

Zanna, all of it. Paul calls it “carnal” –fleshly, unholy behavior. Enough.

When we fight over zanna, we substitute love for one another (by which all men are to know that we are his disciples) for animosity. We trade the peace of God for unholy conflict.

But the worst thing about zanna is the fact that while we argue over the things we cannot know, we neglect the things that we do know. We neglect the Golden Rule. We neglect our duties to the poor and the fatherless. We neglect the kindness and humbleness that Christ exemplified. People die lost and alone while we argue over metaphysics.

It’s time for peace. It’s time to come together and to admit that we all worship the same God. We all want to live in peace here on Earth, and we all ought to be kind to each other while we’re down here. Let’s stop guessing at the details of the divine plan and start doing what we all know we should be doing instead.

After some hours of struggle, I was finally able to get my computer upgraded to SP1. Part of the problem is that the main Fujitsu site doesn’t have the drivers you need on their web site at the moment. So, here’s what you have to do to update the T4215 to Vista SP1:

(I take no responsibility for what you do to your computer.)

Update the Display Drivers

Intel Display
• For x86-based computers: Igdkmd32.sys – versions between and including driver 7.14.10.1322 and 7.14.10.1403
• For x64-based computers: Igdkmd64.sys – versions between and including driver 7.14.10.1322 and 7.14.10.1403

At some point I had upgraded my display drivers from Intel’s website. If you are using the stock video drivers that were installed on the T4215, skip this step. If you upgraded to a generic video driver that falls inside of the range listed above, like I did, you’ll need to read on.

Go to this page on the Intel website to download the ZIP file that contains the drivers you need. Extract it.

Now, unfortunately, you can’t just use the setup program in the zip file, because it will tell you that the drivers haven’t been certified for this computer. They want you to update using the drivers supplied by Fujitsu, but since Fujitsu hasn’t updated the display drivers since the T4215 came out, that won’t work. Instead, you’ll need to follow the advice on this Intel help page.

1. Go to the Control Panel and type “hardware” in the search box. Click the link that says “View Hardware and Devices.”
2. Click the plus sign next to Display Adapters
3. Right-click Mobile Intel(R) 945 Chipset Family and click “Update Driver Software”
4. Click “Browse My Computer for Driver Software”
5. Click “Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer”
6. Click “Have Disk”
7. Click “Browse”
8. Locate the folder that you unzipped the zip file to and open the Graphics folder
9. Click “Open”
10. Click “Next” to install the driver
11. Click “Finish.” Your computer will probably need to be restarted.

Update the Fingerprint Drivers

AuthenTec Fingerprint Sensor with the Atswpdrv.sys driver file – version 7.7.1.7 or earlier

Next, you’ll need to update the drivers for your fingerprint scanner. Unfortunately, Fujitsu’s main website has not seen fit to update this driver on their website. You’ll have to get it from the Fujitsu-Siemens website, which has version 7.10.0.2.

Simply download the ZIP and run the ATMinInstall.exe file. You’ll probably have to reboot at the end of the process.

Uninstall the Shock Sensor utility
The stock version of the Shock Sensor utility will make Vista SP1 go into a Blue Screen of Death every time the laptop gets shaken too hard. You’ll need to install the new version after installing SP1, but go ahead and remove the Shock Sensor Utility now by going to the Control Panel, clicking “Uninstall a Program,” clicking the Shock Sensor utility, and clicking Uninstall from the bar at the top of the screen.

Download SP1
We still have one more driver that needs to be updated before the Windows Automatic Update utility will show us SP1:

SigmaTel
• For x86-based computers: Sthda.sys – version 5.10.5762.0 or earlier
• For x64-based computers: Sthda64.sys – version 5.10.5762.0 or earlier

Unfortunately, none of the Fujitsu pages have a newer version (they only have version V6.10.5362.0). However, according to IDT, the company that bought Sigmatel, the problem has to do with the User Account Control system when SP1 installs, not how SP1 runs after it installs. All we have to do is reinstall the old driver from Fujitsu after SP1 installs.

Unfortunately, this means that we don’t have access to the Automatic Update to get SP1. So, we can either A) download SP1 manually, install it, and then reinstall the audio drivers, or B) we can remove the Sigmatel audio drivers, run and refresh the Automatic Update, which should allow us to get SP1 automatically now, and reinstall the audio drivers. The first option is simpler, but the second option will save you some download time. I chose the simpler one on my machine.

Go to Microsoft’s website to download the 32-bit version of SP1. The download is 434.5 megabytes, so it will take a little while. I played Team Fortress 2 on my desktop while I waited.

Backup Everything
In case this update screws up your computer, you’re going to want to have everything backed up to DVD’s or an external hard drive. Do that first, before you install SP1.

Install SP1
Run the file that you downloaded from Microsoft, and go through their little wizard. This will take some time.

Reinstall the Sound Card drivers
Download and run this file from Fujitsu to install the latest drivers for the Sigmatel High Definition Audio CODEC.

Install the new Shock Sensor Utility
Finally, you’ll need to get the latest version of the Shock Sensor Utility from Fujitsu-Siemens. After you unzip this file, run the Setup.exe in the ShockSensor_Utility_2.0L20 folder.

Drink a Refreshing Beverage
That should do it. If everything went right, you’re now running Vista SP1. Click the Start button, right click on Computer and click Properties. Under Windows Vista Business, it should say Service Pack 1. If it does, you win!

Thanks especially to Jace ‘n’ Place for linking to several sites that listed drivers for the T4215. He also links to an excellent replacement for the Omnipass fingerprint software, which I’d recommend you go check out.

Your newly-updated computer will now no longer sit for a minute and say “calculating time remaining” when you move networked files around. Enjoy!

LINCOLN: In my opinion, slavery will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Excuse me, did an Elijah H. Johnson attend your church?

LINCOLN: When I was a boy in Illinois forty years ago, yes. I think he was a deacon.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Are you aware that he regularly called Kentucky “a land of swine and whores”?

LINCOLN: Sounds right — his ex-wife was from Kentucky.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Why did you remain in the church after hearing those statements?

LINCOLN: I was eight.

DOUGLAS: This is an important question George — it’s an issue that certainly will be raised in the fall.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you denounce him?

LINCOLN: I’d like to get back to the divided house if I may.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you denounce and reject him?

LINCOLN: If it will make you shut up, yes, I denounce and reject him.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you denounce and reject him with sugar on top?

LINCOLN: Yes.

There’s more. Frankly, no matter who wins, I’ll be glad when the election season is over.

Well, apparently, there are now bacteria that literally eat our antibiotics. The bacteria cited in the article can, if necessary, live only on antibiotics.

The good news is that these bacteria aren’t the kind that attack humans, but the bad news is that they’re “closely related to those that cause cystic fibrosis (Burkholderia cepacia) and blood infections (Serratia marcescens).”

On the one hand it’s terrible, because as we continue to overuse antibiotics and antibacterial soaps and the like, this is going to happen faster and faster until the antibiotic-resistant strains of our most dreaded diseases are the most common strains. On the other hand, it’s fascinating to hear about these new strains of bacteria evolving right before our eyes.

OK, I think we’re good now. Fingers are crossed, but I think I’ve fixed the problems that cropped up in the theme. Let me know if anything looks obviously wrong.

On the good side, they redesigned the backend that I’m using right now to type this, and it’s a lot prettier. Much less messy. So far, I approve.