A post by Maynard

Having been educated at Starfleet Academy, leprosy is not my specialty. But I’ve heard it said that the primary damage comes as a result of loss of sensation. The leper may lose a limb because he was unaware an animal was chewing on it.

Pain serves a purpose. You need some way of knowing when you’re being hurt.

I mentioned earlier that I was building a new PC, using the Intel Core-i7 CPU. One of the key issues is to arrange for the processor to be adequately cooled. For this purpose, I selected this heatsink:

Maynard's Heatsink

If I mess this up, the $300 CPU chip will burn. I will feel pain.

The knowledge of my personal risk, and my options in managing that risk, motivates me to be wise in my heatsink selection and installation. I also have temperature monitoring tools to warn me if the system approaches the danger zone.

So far, so good. I seem to have gotten it right.

Things become dysfunctional when people don’t see the relationship between cause and effect.

Eating a cheeseburger does not immediately make you fat. Going on a diet does not immediately make you thin. With the lack of immediate feedback, it’s easy to stray from the diet we’ve resolved to follow.

Macroeconomics is even farther removed from our ability to perceive cause and effect. When the morons in Washington encouraged lending to unqualified home buyers, they were feeding the real estate bubble and setting up the trigger for the coming crash. But how many people understood that, or understand it now? Obviously a small minority.

The irony is that the architects of disaster are now politically strengthened by the onset of that disaster. For example, Barney Frank, who steered us into the rocks and actively resisted counsel that would have averted catastrophe, now chairs the Financial Services Committee. If Washington were not a madhouse, the Democrats would have themselves kicked Frank off the committee.

But why should anyone clean house? The voters don’t see the connection.

That’s why my PC works. And Washington doesn’t.

And that’s why you want people in charge of their own affairs, with minimal “help” from Washington.

Does anyone have a cure for national leprosy?

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3 Comments | Leave a comment
  1. bobdog1 says:

    Do I smell something burning?

  2. Rod says:

    Maynard
    I am aware of 2 proven methods of dealing with the national disease of leprosy:
    1. The prophylactic Barry Goldwater
    2. The antidote Ronald Reagan
    A bogus method which has failed twice in the last 20 years is the “Bush Nanny State”. This bogus cure in reality only makes leprosy much worse. Causing it to morph into advanced leprosy AKA Clinton or “O” aka “The One”.

  3. Rusty Boudreaux says:

    Several years ago I built my own water-cooled PC. Machined the water blocks myself. A high flow magnetic pump and massive auto radiator made for a totally silent machine. Designed and built the power supply for extreme efficiency since no fanless ones were on the market at the time. Thought about starting a company to sell the power supplies but BOM cost was about $300…didn’t think there was a market for $1k power supplies and didn’t want to go through the UL and FCC certification hurdles.

    Glad to see the DIY spirit is still going strong!

    Next you should try submersing the PC in Fluorinert and chilling the liquid bath via vapor compression refrigeration 🙂

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