Monthly Archives: January 2007

Ah, the Dell Inspiron 5150 and how Hyperthreading blows.

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I’ve had mine for 3 years now, and I think I have this machine figured out.

As most owners of this machine, I’ve had my motherboard replaced because of some design flaw that caused it to overheat.

Here’s one very good page that discusses how to replace the thermal grease on the 1100, the 5100 and the 5150: http://www.danandsherree.com/2005/04/02/our_dell_inspiron_11.php 
I performed this procedure on both my and Bro Taguchi’s 5150. (Yes, we have the same computer. He bought his on my advice. Doh.) I think my computer is running more coolly now. In fact, with a bunch of other tweaks, it’s running the best it ever has.
I also am using Speedswitch XP and I8kfanGUI, which can be found here. I put those programs on Taguchi’s computer, but it was still running hot. I thought it might have been the processor switching back and forth between its battery mode and its ACDC mode, but it wasn’t switching. It would just stick in high gear, so to speak.

In the name of science, I turned off Hyperthreading (Restart your computer. press F2 during the Dell BIOS screen to enter the BIOS. Press ALT+P until you hit a screen with Hyperthreading and Speedstep options.) It allowed the computer to switch gears and thus to cool off.  It cooled off a lot–about 20 degrees–and the fan noise went down.

When I turned Hyperthreading back on, the temp went back up. Boo.

Some people have turned off Speedstep, but it looks like in this case, anyway, Hyperthreading was the culprit.

Enjoy.

–Agent Spanky McGee

Psychological egoism is *probably* false–the case of Wesley Autrey

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Wesley Autrey is The Guy. He’s the dude that recently jumped down on the subway tracks to save that student who fell on them. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16469039/

Autrey claims that he’s not a hero, he refused medical attention after the event, and he went back to work immediately afterwards. He said that anyone should what he did.
Now, psychological egoism is the view that all actions are performed exclusively for oneself.  Now, I’m not gonna give you a full treatise on this subject–but here’s a quick attack on the view. The defender of psychological egoism is going to tell you that Autrey was only concerned (consciously or not) to benefit only himself. The defender will say: “He knew he’d be famous, or he knew he’d get offered rewards, or he did it to feel good about himself…”

Blah blah blah. So far the evidence we have is against egoism. Autrey seems to be pretty altruistic to me, and he takes himself to be altruistic.

But the egoist is going to claim that Autrey is mistaken about his own motives and that the egoist knows better what Autrey’s motives were: exclusive self-benefit.

But what makes the egoist so sure that he knows what the real motives were? If Autrey can be mistaken about his mental states, so can the egoist. How the can the egoist know that he’s actually acting only for self-benefit?

But, if it is true the egoist always acts only for his self-benefit–that’s fine–but it won’t follow from that alone that Autrey did. How could one so easily generalize from one’s own case?

Now the egoist has more arguments, but I’ll stop here.

-MC Spanky McGee