Electrofags and Linux

(Put the drink down. It’s one of those posts)

No, I have not yet managed to run an Electrofag on Linux but as it’s impossible, I just have to try. So far, flushed with success after making the little Acer run Linux Mint, I have made my Gateway laptop run Ubuntu, and that thing will have room to run both Ubuntu and Windows (although I don’t think I really need the Windows) once I decide whether it’s a dual-boot or a sod-Windows machine.

An ancient and somewhat dusty Acer Travelmate 240 laptop with a totally dead battery has so far failed to load Mint and cannot run Ubuntu. Hell, it barely works at all and can’t even hold the system time. Maybe I can fix it. Might as well take it apart and try, it’s worthless anyway. If I can get it at least functioning it will be my next donation to my friend (who is rapidly running out of fingers) to keep him amused. It has a DVD drive so he can even watch films on it and the necessity of always having to plug it in won’t bother him.

I want to get used to Linux on these old machines because the next desktop will be Linux. That decision is made. Windows updates just fill up a hard disk and the travelling machines can’t cope with that. They also don’t have easily upgraded hard drives. Linux has pretty much everything I want built in, it’s far smaller than Windows and it sells at my favourite price. Free.

 

Today’s Electrofag story consists of an attempt to run down some serious academics (yes, there are some left) who point out that, unknown as Electrofag’s long-term effects might be, they are as nothing compared to those attributed to smoking. Because the range of diseases attributed to smoking consists of pretty much all of them. Even cervical and arse cancers. If you are getting those cancers from smoking, you are doing it wrong. Just the thought of getting prostate cancer from smoking brings a tear to the eye.

The fact that Electrofag cannot possibly be blamed for all the things smoking gets blamed for is obvious to anyone who can boot up a brain cell even if it runs on CP/M (who remembers that one, eh?)

Let’s face it, if you add up everything attributed to smoking, it is safer to snort plutonium than to smoke. Acccording to all NHS predictions, I died in 1986. Of smoking-related dandruff complicated by smoking-related acne with a side order of smoker’s elbow.

We still hear about the ‘6000 toxins in every cigarette’. There are about 0.6 grams of tobacco in a typical readymade cigarette. If all of it combusts (ie no ash remaining at all) and since most of it is cellulose, there must be far less than 0.0001 grams of each toxin present. It’s hardly bloody Chernobyl, is it? It’s not even detectable in a second’s inhalation of street-level traffic fumes.

Electrofag has more chromium and nickel and other metals in its vapour than is found in tobacco smoke. Well duh. Electrofag is made of metal. Cigarettes are made of leaves. Leaves are not made of metal unless they are from the Cornish tin tree and that’s been extinct for three weeks. So yes, there are more metal ions emitted by Electrofag than by a burning leaf fragment. It’s like claiming that cigarette smoke contains more nicotine than a welding torch.

Trace amounts of metal ions are not dangerous at all and if there were more than that in the vapour, Electrofag would get shorter with use. It doesn’t. Some trace amouints of metals are essential. For example, you need a trace amount of copper to survive. Lots of copper and you die. As for zinc, that white cream you get for burns and skin abrasions contains zinc oxide. It speeds healing. I keep some in the kitchen. Many a time I have been saved by trying everything including the kitchen zinc.

If you have a metal shower head, there are metal ions in the steam you’re breathing in there. Just like in Electrofag. If you boil a kettle, metal ions from the element get into the water. Poison in your coffee, poison in your tea. I’ll get back to you on the caffeine since Experts will Soon Say that caffeine in tea is a gateway to harder stuff, like espresso and Pro Plus pills. Then you have to go and live in a clinic where an orderly will beat you to sleep with an oar every night. It’s the only reliable treatment known for caffeine overdose.

I left a few comments on the Mail’s (allegedly unmoderated) comment thread on hte Electrofag farcticle. So far none have appeared. I won’t be at all surprised if they don’t. I have commented on unmoderated threads before and fallen foul of the moderators on there.

Well, I am back at the Old Job tomorrow so best get some sleep. My conditions are that I will do Saturday and Sunday and occasional holiday cover. Any build-up and I just don’t turn up. The rest of the week is writing, model building and eBay – once the kitchen rebuild is complete (it nearly is). With a daily rant to keep me going. The tax office still has me as partly self-employed so even if I was sacked for shitting in the cherry display, my CV can pretend this job just didn’t happen. Oh, the power!

I’ve never been fired before but I suspect it’s the only way out of this one.