Magnifisyncopathological

Trooper pauses to survey his handiwork

Posted by drizzten at 05:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Still no joy on the new computer. I'll tend to that in a few days. Other things are more important at this point.

Be back later.

Posted by drizzten at 02:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[Updates below.]

Man, I've got all these great pictures of the installation and assembly of the new box and the damn thing won't do squat when turned on except for

1. light up the green power LED
   
2. engage the rear exhaust fan at the low speed setting that I set
   
3. light up the keyboard LEDs
   
4. engage AMD's stock CPU cooling fan
   
5. energize the hard drive (I think)

I swear this has nothing to do with the several beers I had that evening! And let me tell you, there isn't much that'll sober me up faster than a computer that gives me the bird after I treat it nicely. Kept the cat out of it and everything!

I built it in this order:

1. CPU & heatsink/fan
   
2. RAM
   
3. video card
   
4. IEEE 1394 header to the front connection
   
5. USB header to the front connection
   
6. audio header to the front connections
   
7. PC speaker, hard drive LED, case reset switch, power LED, case power switch
   
8. floppy ribbon cable from motherboard to drive
   
9. SATA hard drive cable from motherboard to drive
   
10. power cables from power supply to floppy and hard drives
    
11. audio cable from motherboard to optical drive
    
12. IDE ribbon cable from motherboard to optical drive
    
13. power cable from PS to optical drive
    
14. power cable from PS to motherboard
    
15. Advanced Air Chassis Guide (ACAG) air duct put back together and installed over the motherboard; shroud adjusted over CPU fan
    
16. power cable from PS to front bezel LEDs
    
17. USB header to 42-in-1 card reader

Voila. Close the case, plug in monitor cable and keyboard. Dig out the case's power cable and plug it into an outlet and the power supply. Attach Antec logo to front of the case. Stick the AMD sticker at an accidentally off-angle at the lower right case corner.

Ready. Set. Go!

No beeps. No video. Just the aforementioned LED and fan activity. I don't remember if the floppy light turned on. Hitting the power switch doesn't turn the system off. Hm. I now I am getting some signal through the video cable because when I kill the system's power via the power supply's On/Off switch and then unplug the monitor cable, the CRT goes into standby mode just like it does on my current system.

Repeated attempts gain no ground. Damn you, Hope.

So I decided to RTFM. Chapter 4, Section 2 is "Troubleshooting" and the relevant portion of the table in 4.2 is:

Probable	Solution
System inoperative. Keyboard lights are on, power indicator lights are lit, and hard drive is spinning.	Using even pressure on both ends of the DIMM, press down firmly until the module snaps into place.

Biostar apparently thinks this is indicates a RAM issue. I remind the reader that the parts in question are a retail Biostar NF4UL-A9 motherboard and a single OEM stick of Crucial 1GB 184-Pin SDRAM DDR 400.

Here are some shots I took of that part of the install on Sunday:

The RAM. That was the extent of its packaging, though as I said previously, it was also enclosed in a cardboard box containing other items.

When installed in the case, this is the top right hand corner. It took some effort to snap the bastard into place. I left the pink anti-static foam mat under the mobo the entire time and when I finally got the RAM in the slot and moved the board to the case, the pressure I had to use left a clear indention in the foam of the RAM slots' surrounding parts. I honestly thought once or twice that I'd snap something.

I concede it is possible I've seated the stick wrong. After the minor league tug-of-war to get the thing in there and secure the two latches at either end, I visually inspected the bus to make sure all the contacts were evenly lowed into the slots.

Click to see a larger picture from a different angle

Looks proper to me. Nothing seemed out of place. You can't insert it backwards due to the offset cut in the RAM board that matches to an offset notch in the connector on the motherboard. But I'll take the stick out and put it back in there before trying something else.

There are four slots to insert memory. Perhaps I have the RAM in the wrong slot? That'd be real damn annoying. Is there something intrinsic to the ATX/AMD standard that requires one to use a certain slot when only one piece of RAM is used? If so, and if I must place a single stick in a specific slot for the machine to work, that represents an electrical engineering hump someone needs to freakin' overcome. This is the age of Plug 'n Play, dammit.

On page 2 of the manual a table reads:

DIMM1	SS/DS	*	SS/DS	SS/DS
DIMM2	*	*	*	SS/DS
DIMM3	*	SS/DS	SS/DS	SS/DS
DIMM4	*	*	*	SS/DS

SS stands for single side DDR memory module and DS stands for double side memory module. The asterisk stands for an empty DIMM socket. At this point I should mention that NewEgg reviewers say the manual is wrong on how to install dual channel RAM. A representative sample:

...manual doesn't tell you how to set up RAM in Dual channel mode correctly, according to the manula you're supposed to place 2 dims in slot 1 and slot 3, this will cause it to boot in single channel, you have to color match the slots to get dual channel performance

Anyway...

Illustration via the mobo manual

The single piece of RAM I have is in DIMM1, and unless I'm misreading the manual, there's nothing wrong with putting it there. DIMM3 looks like an option, though, and I'll try it later tonight. Hell, I'll keep trying slots until one works.

If that fails, I'll unplug the optical drive, card reader, and all the headers save for the connections in Step 7 in the second list above. If booting into bare bones mode fails and the problem continues, I'm going to assume this is an issue with the stick of RAM I've got. Then - and only then - will I let this get to me.

Be back in a few.

UPDATED 12/21/2005 12:10am
Moving the memory module from DIMM slot to DIMM slot didn't change anything. I tried each of the three possible places and the outcome was the same each time. I can confirm the hard drive is spinning but the LED isn't lighting up. Neither are the floppy or optical drive lights. I might have bought a bad stick of RAM.

Tomorrow I'll try a bare-bones boot and see if that makes any difference.

UPDATED 1/23/2006 7:09pm

• Building a New Computer - The Past, the Present, and the Parts
  
• Building a New Computer - The Antec Sonata II Case
  
• Building a New Computer - The Guts Are Here
  
• Building a New Computer - POST Problems
  
• Building a New Computer - Complete!
  
• Building a New Computer - POST Revisited

Posted by drizzten at 03:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

[Updates below.]

Plugging things into other things isn't hard. Attaching plastic to steel to silicon isn't that difficult.

Energizing hundreds of millions of transistors in harmony such that they accomplish/send a Power On Self Test might be, however. I have encountered a problem and I'm not yet humble enough to say I can't fix it.

I assembled the various parts and pieces together this evening in the hope that I'd get a picture of a POST screen to conclude the day. No joy. Tomorrow (Monday) I'll write up the events of the day and discuss the building process. For now, I'll leave you with the simultaneously tantalizing and frustrating sight of a PC that is powered up, has the case and CPU fans running (with little noise), has spun up the hard drive, activated the keyboard lights, and sent some sort of signal to the monitor, yet will not send visuals to the CRT:

At least I was right about the blue case LEDs.

UPDATED 1/23/2006 7:05pm

• Building a New Computer - The Past, the Present, and the Parts
  
• Building a New Computer - The Antec Sonata II Case
  
• Building a New Computer - The Guts Are Here
  
• Building a New Computer - Diagnosing My POST Problem
  
• Building a New Computer - Complete!
  
• Building a New Computer - POST Revisited

Posted by drizzten at 01:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

[Updates below.]

*cue sound of angelic chorus*

Yep the parts arrived Thursday. Everything looks in order and appears in good condition. The OEM hard drive and floppy were shipped in bubble wrap. The OEM system memory arrived in the kind of clear plastic container you'd expect to see once you open the retail box. However, it was contained within the white cardboard box in the picture. That box also had the freebie CD wallet and motherboard sound card cable. Lots of packing peanuts keepin' things safe.

Be back Sunday.

UPDATED 1/23/2006 7:03pm

• Building a New Computer - The Past, the Present, and the Parts
  
• Building a New Computer - The Antec Sonata II Case
  
• Building a New Computer - POST Problems
  
• Building a New Computer - Diagnosing My POST Problem
  
• Building a New Computer - Complete!
  
• Building a New Computer - POST Revisited

Posted by drizzten at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

[Updates below.]

When in doubt, always have your cat check it out. Turbo appreciates good build quality even though he can't explain exactly why. He spent most of the evening rubbing his face on the edges of the chassis and corners of the side panel. So yeah, this thing doesn't have too many sharp surfaces. I found none and I spent more than an hour poking around inside.

In the event someone asks for them, I have high-resolution versions of these pictures available. Send me an e-mail [ drizz (at) drizzten (dot) com ] with a subject line mentioning "Sonata II" and I should be able to help you out. The subject line is crucial because that e-mail gets a ton of spam.

Here's what I was handed on Wednesday. The Windows XP package is on top. The case came shipped in the retail box which was sturdy enough to survive the trek from California. This should be a note of warning, however, to those who go through NewEgg.com: that if you think the case you want will be shipped by itself and might have a flimsy box, you might want to weigh the chances of shipping damage. Antec had the Sonata II well-protected and I didn't find anything wrong, but I've read case reviews on NewEgg that mentioned some issues.

Instant impression: this is a kick-ass computer case. Waiting to get rid of my 25" tall monster tower is getting harder every minute.

Here are the stats:

• 16.75"(H) x 18.25"(D) x 8.13"(W) /// 42.5cm (H) x 46.3cm (D) x 20.6cm(W)
  
• 20.7/25 lbs (net/gross) /// 9.4/11.34 kg (net/gross)
  
• Nine drive bays with three 5.25" accessible from the front, two 3.5" accessible from the front, and four 3.5" internal with rubber grommet installation points
  
• Seven expansion slots
  
• Accepts ATX motherboards up to 12"(W) x 9.6"(L) /// 30.48cm (W) x 24.38cm (L)
  
• High-gloss "piano black" exterior 0.8mm SECC steel surfaces
  
• Front ports for two USB, one IEEE 1394 FireWire/I.LINK, one headphone, and one microphone
  
• Lockable double-hinged front drive bay door (opens 270º)
  
• Lockable side panel
  
• One 120mm Tricool case exhaust fan with three-speed switch
  
• One 120mm case intake fan mount
  
• Washable and removable plastic air filter in front bezel
  
• Advanced Air Chassis Guide (ACAG) air duct that creates an isolated channel for the ventilating of CPUs and video cards
  
• ACAG CPU port has a 92mm fan mount; ACAG video card port has a 80mm fan mount and a fan cap that seals the port when not in use
  
• 450W/12V powersupply, ATX 2.0 qualified

Antec's spec sheet and features listing has all this, but in happier business-speak.

Can't do this on an empty stomach, right? The format of this review will be fairly simple. After going over some notable features, I'll spend the rest of my time discussing the ACAG. The next time I post, it will be in the process of installing the hardware and I'll append any case-related comments to this post.

I will assume the reader is somewhat familiar with computer cases and I won't bother with explaining things like "don't use the chassis as a jack stand" or "make sure to prevent animals from nesting in the drive bays" or "don't piss on the power supply." I don't have to say things like that, do I?

*squints at you*

Good.

Onward to the real shit!

---

I'll remind the reader I have not yet powered anything up nor installed a single piece of hardware in the case. This is a cold review. It's also the point where Turbo backed down and let me take the lead. Whatta cat, eh?

Some views of the interior with a measuring tape. It is more than 11" from back to front, more than 12" from below the SP to the case bottom, and more than 7" wide. I'm not a serious gamer so I won't be dealing with crazy interior situations like SLI video cards. My motherboard also has several I/O devices already installed that I plan on using until or unless they work out badly, so I won't have a bunch of things inserted into mobo slots.

A fearless prediction: I will not have much trouble fitting my mobo, processor, video card, and memory into this case.

Here are the front panel connectors. The faux-chrome cover is flipped up in this shot, rolled back into the bezel. It rolls smoothly and stays firmly in place. I'm not certain, but it does not feel as if it's spring-loaded. The microphone and headphone plugs are color-coded.

I tested the USB plugs with my digicam's USB cord. Though it required more effort than I expected to make a full connection, I don't think the effort is of a damaging level. I suppose the female connector will loosen with use. Still, the slight creaking of the plastic bezel is worth noting.

To the left and the right of the connector panel are clear jeweled inserts. I can't find the source now, but I believe I read somewhere that these glow blue when the system is powered on. Peering behind the front bezel, I found two wires leading to the spots where LEDs would be. If you look at the picture, you can see a small grey area on each side of the connector panel. I think these grey dots are the LEDs. Another picture below shows the same thing.

The wires leading to the front panel electronics are clearly marked, relieving some anxiety. I've had cases where all ya get are black wires and damn-near-identical plugs terminating them.

The rear 120mm fan has these leads. It's a washed-out block of white nothing, but the box to the right has a three-position switch for Low, Medium, and High and the box is marked "L" "M" and "H." This allows you to set the fan speed independent of other factors. The manual warns that setting the fan "to Medium or Low to a fan-control device may result in the fan not being able to start. The already lowered voltage from the fan control device will be further reduced by the TriCool circuitry," so keep those voltages at 5V and above.

A closeup of the many power supply wires. The motherboard power connector is interesting. It is normally a 20-pin harness but can be converted into a 24-pin harness by simply snapping an included 4-pin attachment to it. I'll be sure to let you know if this fails on my Biostar when I get going with the actual installation.

A shot of the rear case interior. The Sonata II came with an I/O panel installed but it is not color-coded. The Ethernet cutout is still in place, as are the cutouts for the joystick, audio line-in, audio line-out, and microphone. Lots of space in there.

I'm curious to hear the 120mm fan running at each of its speeds. My current system is stationed less than 3 feet at eye level from my left ear. I have a generic power supply (PS), a small case intake fan, a busted video card fan, and three very different hard drives whose noise occasionally resonate into a distracting hum. That piece of paper at the top...

...was attached like so. It came like this, reading: By design, rear fan does not turn on automatically at start-up. It is automatically activated as needed. Honestly, my initial impression was that this was insane. Of all the heat-generating devices in a modern PC, I thought power supplies were among the things that needed active cooling at all times. After reading about either this model or one very like it, I'm not too worried and am pleasantly surprised to see PS technology get to this level. In addition, the manual says this:

THE PUSH-PULL FAN QUIET POWER SUPPLY SmartPower 2.0 features an innovative design to help decrease noise during normal use, but which still allows for superior cooling capabilities as load increases. To this end, SmartPower 2.0 features both an internal intake fan as well as a unique external exhaust fan. The internal intake fan operates when the power supply is turned on. It rotates slowly to blow out the hot air from the power supply, and is thermally controlled, speeding up as heat increases. The external exhaust fan remains off to make sure your computer maintains a quiet computing environment until the power supply senses the required temperature to turn on the external exhaust fan.

Nifty. It attempts to keep the piece of gear most likely to be heard during regular operation inside the case, baffled by PS components and away from direct outside contact with ambient room air.

The bottom of the Sonata II has two tabs which, if pressed together, release the inner air filter. Each square is about 1 1/8" in length and width and as best as I can tell from a crappy measuring tape, the holes are about 1/16" in width. It is plastic and it isn't of a very fine mesh. However, when I blow through it and hold a hand on the other side, "filtering" my breath, there is a significant reduction in air force. If one were anal enough, sticking a foam filter or something with even greater debris capturing ability would not be tough.

The instructions don't mention exactly what kind of "washable" this filter is. It appears sturdy enough to take hot tap water and hand soap.

The internal 3.5" drive bay cage with one rail partially removed.

Closeups of the individual drive rail assembly. There is one black rubber grommet per corner and through those the drive screws are supposed to go. They are soft and feel just loose enough to be able to replace by hand if necessary.

From the manual:

Note: Don't over tighten.

[...]

Note: You can mount the drives with either the connectors facing you or away from you. If you mount them with the connectors facing away from you (into the case) you may wish to connect the data cables before sliding the drive into the locked position.
Note: Mounting the drives with the cables facing you (towards the open side of the case) may make squeezing the release clips more difficult.

This is important to note because the release clips closest to the front of the case are less than a half inch away from the rolled edge of the front bulkhead. Folks with large fingers might have trouble.

The lockable features of the case. My keys have a three digit number stamped on them. You have to push the keys in and compress a spring before you can lock or unlock the doors. I don't have any ballpoint pens handy to see if they can defeat these locks as they can defeat other, more popular cylindrical-locks.

The side panel is "hinged" at the front of the case so the rear swings towards the front of the case. The "hinge" isn't really such; it takes little effort and fewer tools to pull the door off the pivot. There are two oversized thumbscrews to remove; pull the handle and the door comes out with ease.

The instruction manual says the front panel door can be removed and I gave it a shot. I wouldn't recommend taking the door on and off regularly since the short posts holding the hinge in place are just over a 1/16" in width and the "small plastic tab" mentioned in the instructions had to be manipulated with an equally small flathead screwdriver. Getting the door back on didn't inspire lots of confidence to take it back off. You shouldn't expect to slam the door shut, though, and it needs a little guidance to fully close.

I find it easier to open when grasping the top or the middle of the door rather than the bottom. It swings open so far it can almost sit flush against the left side panel. Not quite "parallel" as the manual says, but damn close. When closed, it also conceals the power and reset buttons.

A few reviewers on NewEgg.com have complained, saying the hinge is flimsy. However, beyond my concerns about the two hinge posts, I don't have that impression. It is plastic and it bends a bit when opening or closing. Meh, not that big a deal. I'll probably leave my door attached and closed until I need to access a drive.

These are the drive rails mounted to the inside of the 5.25" drive bay blanks. The instructions suggest attaching the rails to the hard drives and then sliding the apparatus into position. These rails offer the same removable functionality as the internal 3.5" drive bays mentioned above.

The two external 3.5" drive bays. I couldn't tell at first whether these bays had separate bay covers; they do, but you have to remove the entire bay and then using a small Phillips head driver, unscrew the bay cover you wish to remove. They, unlike the 5.25" covers, are painted metal rather than black plastic. Except for the colder feel of the steel, the feel and look of the two are very similar. Antec managed to produce the 3.5" bay covers to match the plastic bay covers' texture.

The supplied case fan is mounted in a straight line behind these 3.5" drives. You can also see the grey LED "dots" I mentioned above to the sides of the front connector panel.

The fasteners and other equipment included in the case. There are plenty of brass motherboard spacers. Note the differences between the lined-up screws on the right and the lined-up screws on the left. In the first picture, the screws on the right are the screws piled in the center whereas the screws on the left are the screws piled near the bottom of the first photo. The manual does not tell you what fasteners to use where (except for the motherboard spacers), so I plan on being careful when attaching things. Antec tossed in a logo sticker/emblem that'll fit a rectangular spot near the top of the door. It measures 1" x 1".

And now on to the Advanced Air Chassis Guide (ACAG) air duct. When I assemble the computer, I'll update this post. I hope the combination of Athlon 64 3500+ and Biostar NF4UL-A9 motherboard work together to place the CPU close enough to the shroud to make it effective.

Here is the ACAG in a variety of positions. It can be adjusted in three ways:

• Height of the shroud off the CPU
• Distance of the shroud from the bottom of the PS
• Distance of the whole ACAG duct from the backside of the case

The first two are adjusted using large thumbscrews and have five holes in which to fasten them. I tried pulling the shroud out further than the fifth position and screwing the screw into the wall of the shroud, but it didn't hold well and wasn't hard to knock loose. Drilling more holes is always a possibility.

The third dimension is adjusted by gently pulling the whole duct towards the front of the case, also in increments of five.

The manual is clear and accurate* regarding the removal of the ACAG duct:

• Remove the two small screws holding the elbow of the duct to the bottom of the case and loosen the thumbscrews near the 120mm rear exhaust fan and near the PS
  
• gently slide the duct towards the front of the case until the part connected to the PS hits the stop
  
• (here's the tricky part) tilt the duct so that the part near the PS points to you and simultaneously twist the elbow inwards so the whole thing can slide off a rectangular tube attached to the backside of the case

*Except for one thing: the metal joint the elbow attaches to should be removed entirely before taking out or installing the ACAG.

This is the tube lying on the case floor after removal from the backside. It slides off and on easily.

I don't plan on adding fans to the ACAG so I won't go into how to crack it open. However, I did take it apart to get a feel for the process and discovered a design weakness.

Here's the problem. That tiny post inserted through a flange to the left of a latch may be a secure way to keep the two parts together. However, you've got to be careful because the post is tiny and I broke one without knowing it until I had the whole thing almost put back together. You've got to put a bit of force into releasing those latches, so be wary.

I'll be busy until Sunday so I won't be able to get started on the full assembly yet.

But I'll be back no later than then to tackle the serious fun.

UPDATED 1/23/2006 7:01pm

• Building a New Computer - The Past, the Present, and the Parts
  
• Building a New Computer - The Guts Are Here
  
• Building a New Computer - POST Problems
  
• Building a New Computer - Diagnosing My POST Problem
  
• Building a New Computer - Complete!
  
• Building a New Computer - POST Revisited

Posted by drizzten at 02:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

[Updates below.]

The PC I have now is largely the result of an unsolicited loan offer from Wells Fargo they sent during my first months in Austin by myself. This was 2000 and the computer I had at the time was a Dell several years past its prime. I bought a Monarch full-tower Athlon system and have been tinkering with it ever since. It last went through a major overhaul in 2002 when I replaced the motherboard, processor, and RAM with faster components. Unfortunately, better hardware can only compensate creaking and infected software to a certain point. I'm also sick of full tower systems. My needs don't encompass six 5" external drive bays and 35+ pounds of steel.

It is now time to start from scratch. As an early Christmas gift, my father donated some money to help finance my final purchase. I fired off this order to NewEgg.com last Friday:

1. CASE: Antec LifeStyle SONATA II w/450W ATX 2.0 power supply (retail)...$99.99
   
2. MOTHERBOARD: Biostar NF4UL-A9 (retail)...$78.00
   
3. CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice (retail)...$201.00
   
4. RAM: Crucial 1GB 184-Pin SDRAM DDR 400 (OEM)...$96.00
   
5. HARD DRIVE: Western Digital Caviar SE WD2500JS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA II (OEM)...$99.75
   
6. VIDEO CARD: Chaintech SE6600G Geforce 6600GT 128MB GDDR3 PCI Express (retail)...$125.99
   
7. OPTICAL DRIVE: Plextor Black IDE DVD Burner PX-740A/SW-BL (retail)...$74.99
   
8. CARD READER: Sabrent SBT-ICR42B 42-in-1 USB 2.0 Black Internal & External (retail)...$12.99
   
9. FLOPPY: Samsung Black 1.44MB 3.5" (OEM)...$7.50
   
10. SURGE PROTECTOR: Belkin SurgeMaster Maximum F9M923-08...$25.99
    
11. OS: Windows XP Home Edition w/Service Pack 2 (OEM)...$87.95

With shipping this totaled to $933.88 and includes a free CD wallet and audio connector cable. UPS says the case and the Windows package are in Austin today; I should get everything else tomorrow. For now I'm sticking with a surplus/discount 19" Dell CRT that I found at Fry's for less than $200. And even though the Biostar has built-in 8-channel audio output, I'm holding onto my ad hoc speaker system of mid-80's Realistic 2-way drivers plugged into an obsolete but entirely functional Creative SoundWorks (I think 5") subwoofer. Those Realistics were my parents' and they outlasted the speakers included with a long-gone Sony stereo system. I'll have pictures up later. My desk project was completed a few weeks ago, so it needs showing off as well.

Though I've been a tech geek for more than a decade and have purchased or picked out more than 5 pre-built systems for friends and family (all Dells), I've never actually bought all the individual components and put the whole thing together on my own. I'm only familar with XP from using the computers at work. I've also got a few dozen gigs of photos, video, and MP3s to transfer. Challenges that seem like good things to blog.

Besides, I gotta get away from politics for a while.

UPDATED 1/23/2006 7:01pm

• Building a New Computer - The Antec Sonata II Case
  
• Building a New Computer - The Guts Are Here
  
• Building a New Computer - POST Problems
  
• Building a New Computer - Diagnosing My POST Problem
  
• Building a New Computer - Complete!
  
• Building a New Computer - POST Revisited

Posted by drizzten at 09:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

This is the paper I wrote for my Terrorism/Disaster Preparedness class at St. Edward's University. It, like my paper on public goods and national defense, was rushed into production at a late date. It was due last Wednesday, but I didn't begin research until the Sunday before it and didn't go beyond a rough outline until Wednesday morning, 16 hours before deadline. Consequently, it suffered a bit. I wanted to spend more time talking about the political response of the British government and examine both Sinn Féin's changes over the years and current PIRA/Sinn Féin rhetoric. Damn that 7-10 page limit; the paper would read better if the sections had an extra paragraph or two to them.

However, she thought it was good enough to warrant a score of 200 out of a possible 200, so I suppose her standards are lower than mine. I didn't expect a perfect score, especially considering her request that we use the APA writing standard, one I've never tried. I always get a few points taken off over that kind of thing.

Other collegiate material I've written: The Theoretical Impact of School Consolidation on the Role of Superintendents, The Pros and Cons of a Minimum Wage, For the Privatization of Education, and the rough draft of the latter, The Pros and Cons of Education Privatization.

All 11 double-spaced pages below:

A Threat Analysis of the Provisional Irish Republican Army
Charles Hueter
P-PSMG4341.80, Terrorism/Disaster Preparedness
St. Edwards University

Abstract

This paper presents a review of the Provisional Irish Republican Army's history, its acts of significant violence, and its strategy. A recounting of American involvement with the group and British government response to its terrorism follows. The current threat posed by the group will then be analyzed.

In today's political climate, if you mention "terrorism" chances are the subject has something to do with Muslim political violence. The September 11, 2001, attacks and the then-reinvigorated Israel-Palestinian conflict focused the world's attention on the Middle East, but also on other terrorist conflicts. One of these conflicts is between Irish nationalists and Irish-British unionists, also known as "The Troubles." Even though these troubles have not resulted in a major terrorist action in recent years, it is still instructive to examine the partisans in order to understand terrorist organizations to reduce the threat they pose to others. In this paper, I have chosen to examine the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA).

History

The PIRA is a paramilitary organization that splintered from the "official" Irish Republican Army in 1969 over a disagreement on how to pursue the goal of a united Irish republic that encompassed the entire island. The original IRA and its associated political wing, Sinn Féin, wished to deemphasize the importance of violence and instead toy with political solutions while the PIRA asserted a focus on military efforts would lead to victory (Page and Smith, 2000). Despite these republican differences of opinion, they have always been against the "systematic discrimination and political marginalization" at the hands of the Protestant-controlled Northern Ireland government created in 1922 (Stevenson, 2003, p. 160).

There is a religious element to the conflict in Northern Ireland. The nationalist republicans tend to be Roman Catholic and the unionist loyalists tend to be Protestant. There is an extreme element in the latter community who see their "ultimate authority not the British government, not even the monarchy, but the Bible itself, or rather its anti-Catholic interpretation of it" (Heskin, 1985, p. 490). Therefore, an additional PIRA goal was the protection of Catholics from Protestant civil violence and discrimination. The organization not only fought against the British military and the police force of Northern Ireland, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), but also unionist paramilitary groups such as the Ulster Defence Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force.

Strategies and Tactics

The Provisional Irish Republican Army is organized hierarchically and has traditionally not been under the political control of Sinn Féin, despite appearances to the contrary. This arrangement is due to the long history of IRA hardliners considering political methods as tantamount to surrender (Page and Smith, 2000). Explosives have been the PIRA's most notorious weapon of choice; however, it has not shied away from "exploiting democracy" via the "pluralism, transparency, and equity that can translate into vulnerability" (Stevenson, 2003, p. 159). It has also evolved from an organization with members who would refuse to recognize the British courts as legitimate into an organization that reversed course in the 1980's in order to use the courts as a venue to impose costs upon the British and garner public attention for their cause (McEvoy, 2000).

Yet violence remains the hallmark of the PIRA. There have been many PIRA/IRA attacks that resulted in serious loss of life and property. The "Bloody Friday" bombings in Belfast, Northern Ireland on July 21, 1972, killed seven civilians and two members of the British Army, injuring well over 100. Twin explosions in Birmingham, England on November 21, 1974, killed 20 civilians. A fire bomb attack killed 12 civilians in Northern Ireland's County Down on February 17, 1978. Eighteen British Army members were killed after two remote-controlled bombs detonated on August 27, 1979, in Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland. A bomb at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, England, that exploded on October 12, 1984, killed five people (including a Member of Parliament), wounded more than 30, and narrowly missed Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Large bombs hit London's Stock Exchange (July 20, 1990) and Docklands (February 10, 1996). In one of PIRA's last major operations, a massive bomb was set off in Manchester, England on June 15, 1996, injuring more than 200 and creating extensive destruction. There are dozens of other incidents involving smaller numbers of victims (Violence - Chronology, 2005; Provisional Irish Republican Army, 2005).

Criminal activities have been a fundraising and terrorizing tactic of the PIRA for years and, like most paramilitary organizations, "have traditionally engaged in forms of extortion, racketeering and robberies" to fund themselves (Norman, 1998, p. 378). PIRA has also been the recipient of overseas donations.

International Connections

The Irish-American community has been a source of support for Irish nationalism for decades. Several organizations have sprung up to raise funds and awareness of the nationalists' cause and have called for political pressure to be placed on the British, Irish, and Northern Irish governments.

One in particular was Irish Northern Aid (NORAID), "the most militantly republican of all Irish-American organizations" (Guelke, 1996, p. 524). From its founding in 1970 by a member of an IRA brigade to 1986, it sent an estimated $3 million to Irish nationalists. It was also accused of unreported cash transfers to active terrorist cells and smuggling weapons (Guelke, 1996).

Connections to other countries and movements have surfaced over time. Libya was caught shipping 150 tons of arms to PIRA (Guelke, 1996). Three IRA members were arrested after "for training the anti-American Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC) in August, 2001" (Stevenson, 2003, p. 163). Masters (2004) noted that strikingly similar kinds of support for armed struggled exists in interviewed PIRA and Palestinian terror group members.

Government Response to PIRA

The United Kingdom did not take this threat sitting down. Cuthbertson (2001) provides an overview of the changes in British legal strategy to make it harder for Irish terrorists to act. Laws reducing individual freedom and casting aside traditional protections against government abuse were enacted and absorbed into the legal code. For example, police forces were granted powers "to arrest, detain, and conduct search-and-seizure raids against suspected terrorists" and conduct "body search[es]" without need of a warrant (Cuthbertson, 2001, p. 29). In the "second wave" of anti-terrorism legislation, police could "stop and conduct body searches on any passerby, even in the absence of any clear suspicion of involvement with terrorist activity" once a "special zone" was declared (Cuthbertson, 2001, p. 30).

The establishment of the British Terrorist Financing Unit in 1989 came as more and more in the law enforcement community recognized that a great deal "of the illegal financial activities of paramilitaries fall outside the competence of the RUC" (Norman, 1998, p. 379). The agency was embodied with broader powers and specialized expertise to combat terrorist funding by "act[ing] proactively to tackle paramilitary fundraising" (Norman, 1998, p. 380).

Change hasn't been limited to the investigative and legislative realm. After Irish bombs were set off in London in the 1990's, the city government began a process of protecting high-value targets, attempting "to control and regulate space within the U.K.'s financial heart" (Coaffee, 2003, p. 65). Vehicle traffic management, closed-circuit television cameras, and a "ring of steel" approach were used in progressively higher degrees as terrorist attacks continued.

The Current Threat

Despite its militant, uncompromising past, the PIRA has settled down in recent years and progress has been made since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. The PIRA declared an end to hostilities on July 28, 2005. On September 26, 2005, international weapons monitors declared the PIRA had disarmed as the agreement specified (Independent Monitoring Commission, 2005).

This is a promising direction for the PIRA to take after nearly 30 years of warfare. Though the tragedy of the London transportation system attacks in July can't be overstated, they did put even greater pressure on more people in the nationalist community to seek a peaceful resolution for their claims. Even though other splinter groups such as the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA have not decommissioned as the PIRA has and have not accepted the 1998 or previous agreements, they are much smaller entities than the PIRA.

As long as PIRA keeps its word regarding weapons decommissioning and adherence to political processes over violence, unionists refrain from initiating hostilities, and the success of community-based restorative justice programs continue (Mika and McEvoy, 2001), I see the Provisional Irish Republican Army threat diminishing steadily into the future.

References

CAIN Web Service. (2005). Violence - Chronology of major violent incidents, 1969-1998. Retrieved December 6, 2005, from http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/violence/chronmaj.htm.

Coaffee, J. (2003). Morphing the counter-terrorist response: beating the bombers in London's financial heart. Knowledge, Technology & Policy, 16(2). 63-83.

Cuthbertson, I. (2001/2002). Whittling liberties - Britain's not-so-temporary antiterrorism laws. World Policy Journal, 18(4). 27-33.

Guelke, A. (1996). The United States, Irish Americans, and the Northern Ireland peace process. International Affairs, 72(3). 521-536.

Heskin, K. (1985). Political violence in Northern Ireland. Journal of Psychology, 119(5). 481-494.

Independent Monitoring Commission. (2005). Seventh report of the independent monitoring commission. London: The Stationary Office.

Masters, D. (2004). Support and Nonsupport for Nationalist Rebellion: A Prospect Theory Approach. Political Psychology, 25(5). 703-726.

McEvoy, K. (2000). Law, Struggle, and Political Transformation in Northern Ireland. Journal of Law & Society, 27(4).

Mika, H. & McEvoy, K. (2001). Restorative Justice in Conflict: Paramilitarism, Community, and the Construction of Legitimacy in Northern Ireland. Contemporary Justice Review, 4(3). 291-319.

Norman, P. (1998). The Terrorist Finance Unit and the Joint Action Group on Organised Crime: New Organisational Models and Investigative Strategies to Counter 'Organised Crime' in the UK. Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 37(4). 375-392.

Page, M. & Smith, M. L. R. (2000). War by Other Means: The Problem of Political Control in Irish Republican Strategy. Armed Forces & Society, 27(1). 79-104.

Stevenson, J. (2003). Exploiting Democracy: The IRA's Tactical Cease-Fire. Review of International Affairs, 2(3). 159-170.

Wikipedia. (2005). Provisional Irish Republican Army. Retrieved December 6, 2005, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Irish_Republican_Army.

Posted by drizzten at 04:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Austin-American Statesman: Butt-numb-a-thon Report

The expected visitor was Kong, the world's eighth wonder. Unspooling as the second film of a 12-title lineup, the great ape's newly retold tragedy inspired a standing ovation and had many grown men weeping. The three-hour epic, which was often staggeringly effective, was bookended by two films...

Anyone who's read Drudge over the last week has heard roughly the same thing. Adult men (24-hour paragons of emotional bottling!) are crying when they see King Kong. In my opinion, that doesn't necessarily make the new version good or better over the previous films. I'm still planning on buying a ticket, but not to be "touched emotionally."

Flesh-and-blood appearances came from...some associates of animation legend Ray Harryhausen, who are putting together a series of stop-motion shorts based on Edgar Allan Poe's tales.

I am so very down with that concept.

...the real coup of the day: "V for Vendetta," a comic-book adaptation about a masked vigilante haunting London, drew huge applause for its not-so-veiled criticism of governments who exploit fear to stay in power.

Copyright 2001-2005 Cox Texas Newspapers, L.P. All rights reserved.

There aren't many cheeky, cheery characters in V IS FOR VENDETTA; and it's for people who don't switch off the news. - David Lloyd

Posted by drizzten at 08:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

AP via ABCNews: Cafe Stirs Debate Over Kids' Behavior

Too often, though, our cultural emphasis on freedom and individual rights gets taken to the extreme, becoming "a kind of selfish entitlement that undermines our ability to function as a civil community," says George Scarlett, a professor of child development at Tufts University in Boston.

Where is this culture? Can you point me in its general direction?

I don't see it in the United States...in fact, too often is it the case where freedom and individual rights are violated, repressed, denied, and infringed.

Do you think Professor Scarlett is the victim of bad editing and reporting? From the article, it seems he thinks collectivistic altruism ultimately trumps individualistic egoism. Such a moral code wouldn't surprise me. Digging around, I find the following: his mentorship/sponsorship of a "Part-Time Lecturer: Rights of Children to Social Services Spring 2006" position at Tufts University. I have little doubt the "right to social services" isn't fundamentally questioned in that class.

"The rights of any one individual whether he or she be a parent, child or stranger do not negate the rights of others."

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

It says here that Professor Scarlett's expertise is in "Children's play, Religious and spiritual development, Approaches to managing children's problem behavior, Organized youth sports." So why was he quoted and published as an authority on ethics and rights?

Certainly that last bit about rights-negation sounds good. But isn't such a dogmatic, hard-liner, extreme position too hard on poor Civil Community?

Posted by drizzten at 09:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ideally, Saddam "I am not afraid of execution" Hussein would have been put to death by those Iraqis he harmed during his rule. Barring that, it would have been ideal if he had slowly bled a moaning painful death in public after the shrapnel of a 500-lb bomb gutted him during the opening stages of either of the Gulf Wars. Barring even that, the ideal would have been death from an ignominious sucking chest wound from the rifle of a Coalition infantryman in a trash-strewn back alley such that his dog-mauled body wouldn't be found for days.

Instead, we get this fucking stupid legal sideshow where the buffoon is afforded respect he simply does not deserve and the world is treated to the absurdity of a trial where no matter what the outcome, nearly everyone would agree the guy is a monster beneath contempt, entitled to no less than imprisonment for the rest of his life.

The man was at the top of a dictatorship. End of debate.

Posted by drizzten at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

News8Austin: Mabel Davis Park reopens

Mabel Davis Park in Southeast Austin reopened Saturday with the city's first concrete skate park.

The 12,000 square foot skate park has a skate bowl, streetscape elements and a grass seating area for spectators.

I wrote about the push for a quality Austin skate park last year, agreeing that it would be a good idea to have a serious skate park but disagreeing that it ought to be funded and regulated/operated by the government.

The park was originally a landfill, but in 1974 the city of Austin bought the land, cleaned it up and turned it into a park. In 1999, during creek erosion repair, further contamination was discovered.

The park closed in June 2000 while the city studied then designed and implemented a $9.4 million remediation project.

Copyright ©2005TWEAN News Channel of Austin, L.P. d.b.a. News 8 Austin

The cleanup was partly funded by an EPA grant of $490,000. The local skating community donated $8,000 to build the skate portion of the park, which is only part of the park's approximately 50 acres.

Mabel Davis Park is located across IH-35 from St. Edward's University, between Ben White Blvd and Wickshire Lane and between Parker Lane and Catalina Drive. The actual address is 3427 Parker Lane; view a map here. According to this page, the estimated cost of the Mabel Davis Park restoration was given as "$8-9 million" and primarily paid through city bonds. For a more detailed backgrounder on the park, click here. The skate park was dedicated last Saturday.

Again, the end is something I applaud. I'd love to head out there one weekday evening or during lunch on the weekend and watch some skaters go at it. I can't skateboard for shit, but I enjoy seeing others. But the means to that end I cannot endorse.

Austin-American Statesman: Mabel Davis Park re-opened

"This is huge for the skateboard community," said Jared Ficklin, co-director of the Austin Public Skatepark Action Committee. "We finally have a place to skate where we're not trespassing."

And part of that little urban staple is due to the vast amounts of land "owned" by the city. I've yet to hear a convincing argument that explains why land owned by The People (or, Representatives of The People) is supposedly ours...yet a variety of activities (drink, smoke, skateboard, carry a firearm, etc.) we want to do on most of it are prohibited and police violence is likely to result if caught.

"Here is the park today. For you. A promise delivered," said Willie Rhodes, director of city solid waste services.

A promise for which I did not ask and neither did thousands of other Austinites, people who aren't even aware of the park in the first place and who didn't bother to vote on the proposals or politicians involved in the promise. But our wishes or ignorance is immaterial; all of us with homes and land and businesses will be required to pay for it.

The Skatepark of Austin demonstrates that these can be privately owned and operated, so if there is enough of a demand for a bigger and better park located elsewhere, why does the city need to be involved? Why not raise all the money on your own and start a non-profit to run the place? I would have hoped the inclination of the skating community would have hampered efforts to join forces with local government.

Posted by drizzten at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

If we take a classic laissez-faire neoliberal approach to prostitution and say that there are no services which it is inappropriate to exchange for money, and that therefore performing sex for money is no different from typing or canning fish for money -- hey, it's just supply and demand, rational actors completing a transaction like any other in a free market -- then how do we at the same time maintain that the secretary should not be required to fellate the boss? After all, if there is nothing shaming or demeaning about performing sexual acts on persons for whom one has no intimate affection, no basis of trust or love, then why should this not be in her job description right along with shorthand and typing?

But instinctively we know that using the lever of money-power to coerce sexual service is a qualitatively different type of transaction from paying for 8 hours of someone's time to translate documents or wash cars.

-DeAnander, commenting at European Tribune

At what point did DeAnander screw up in this analysis? Here's how I see it.

A "classic laissez-faire neoliberal approach" to prostitution says that, as a result of self-ownership and individual liberty, men and women ought to be free to offer sexual services for money if they so choose. This economic exchange would be no fundamentally different from offering their time and ability to type or can fish in exchange for payment. Labor for money. Such an approach would therefore find little fundamental fault with hiring someone to not only perform office duties but bedroom duties as well.

"You've got mail."

But the condemnation of such a practice by those of us who think people ought to be free to voluntarily exchange their labor for wages probably isn't based on whether someone should be free to perform sex acts for and on a boss. It's more likely based on the practical problems such relationships are prone to generate.

There are two ways to argue against something: you think it is morally wrong or it isn't effective. While it would be moral for a woman to offer spanking or blowjobs to her boss along with note-taking, scheduling, and other office tasks...in the context of an office environment with other co-workers that stuff just tends to screw things up.

Males might grow jealous of the boss and females might become jealous of the secretary if those people already had crushes on the respective individuals. Other bosses at the same or higher administrative levels might consider the Sex Act Boss a public relations or efficiency liability. Other secretaries might angrily wonder if the Sex Act Secretary is getting better compensation "under the table" even though they do the same level of clerical labor. Then there are all other the problems most of us are aware of when you are intimate with a co-worker.

But to what is DeAnander referring with "using the lever of money-power to coerce sexual service is a qualitatively different type of transaction from paying for 8 hours of someone's time to translate documents or wash cars"? He (or she), goes on to say:

Permitting extreme physical intimacy from an untrusted and unloved Other or stranger, on their terms, according to their demand, requires a renunciation of fundamental human boundaries, the acceptance of a profound violation of personal space and bodily/emotional integrity.

First, we can dispense with any notion that merely offering bucks for services is "coercion"...it isn't. There are countless hypothetical situations I can cite all day in support of this. Extending the example to sexual services doesn't change the fundamental nature of the action, because when one is aware of terms in an agreement that involve "extreme physical intimacy" and decides to move forward in acceptance with those terms, it is no different than when one decides to accept the fact that getting a loan implies the hardship of paying it back. You've weighed those values and picked. Hopefully, you've left yourself an "out" in the contract/agreement in case you grow tired of the terms.

Furthermore, unless we're talking about the vast wasteland of government-imposed or -regulated contracts, voluntary arrangements are made with the consent of all parties...so it would be flatly wrong to say categorically that all sexual-labor relationships are done for the benefit of the boss, "on their terms, according to their demand." If the employee wasn't getting something above and beyond standard compensation for office work, why do it unless he or she just enjoys the sex?

Not that I deny that there are bastards out there who do literally and figuratively screw their employees. Threatening to punish an employee for not going down on you is coercive and does constitute "a renunciation of fundamental human boundaries." I wouldn't say it arises to the level of a moral crime until the employer threatens the use of physical force, but it is slimy and objectionable if the employee was not made aware of these additional duties prior to hiring or prior to taking the position. It is even conceivable that this could rise all the way to outright fraud if a bait-and-switch were used to snare employees. In that case, it does constitute a moral crime.

However, if the employee doesn't want the added "duties" and the threat is delivered, the response to that is "why don't you go fuck yourself, Sir?" and to proceed onwards with life. Which is to simply say, a secretary shouldn't be "required" to fellate the boss unless the secretary agreed to do so as part of a mutual, good faith agreement made without coercion. Whether that is an appropriate relationship conducive to good business operations is an entirely different matter.

Posted by drizzten at 03:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

One of my sisters is studying to be a nurse at Texas Tech and as part of her responsibilities, must do a certain number of hours of community service in the medical field.

So the nutball volunteered to be an EMT at a fucking GWAR show. They played at The Pavilion on November 28th.

I've quoted the e-mail she sent me below.

Let me fill you in on Gwar. HOLY SHIT! By far the craziest stuff I've ever seen before in my life, and my descriptions won't do justice to to weirdness....you had to be there! Before every song they had a little skit where they would bring someone out dressed up as people they don't like and kill them. They disembowled George Bush/Dick Cheney, beheaded a Nazi pope, cut off Sharon Osbourne's breasts, cut off Michael Jackson's 5 ft long penis and breasts, the lead singer gave a blow job to a baby, and then he masturbated with HIS 3 ft long penis and sprayed urine/semen all over the crowd. Everytime they cut a head or body part off, they sprayed blood all over the crowd. Interestingly enough, I only treated one injury (a scraped elbow). Crazy shit man, CRAZY.

Man, what the hell was GWAR doing in Lubbock? In 2004, the county election results went 69,675/22,331 (75%/25%) in favor of Bush. Talk about deep behind hostile territory.

Posted by drizzten at 08:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)