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Immortal (so far)'s LiveJournal:
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| Monday, November 16th, 2009 | | 5:37 pm |
| | Monday, August 10th, 2009 | | 8:38 am |
Swiftboating healthcare reform.
The other day, not for the first time, I was challenged as to the necessity of healthcare reform on the grounds that the British NHS has a lower survival rate for cancer than the US and, in fact, the US has the highest survival rate in the world. This has been seized by the same PR firm that brought us "swiftboat veterans for truth" to prove that healthcare reform isn't needed. Right? Er, no. While the statistics were supposed to give the NHS a kick in the pants (and maybe hand over more money to big pharma), they refer to people who are being treated for cancer, not those who have it. The figures for those who die from the disease (for the year 2000) are 321.9 deaths per 100,000 in the United States vs 253.5 for the United Kingdom - that's an extra 25%. Those who get treatment in the US are those who already have excellent health insurance or enough money to cover the cost and those people don't even appear in the NHS statistics. Therefore, when you compare like-with-like (those without private funds or health insurance) you're comparing the NHS with the uninsured in the US. Then the mortality is not the 56-91% vs 40-69% but the near-100% mortality of those without insurance. The NHS does need to improve and the first stage of US reform should be to drive down costs by removing insurance companies from the equation but such flagrant misrepresentation just to preserve the wealth of an elite just rubs me up the wrong way. Current Mood:  contemplative | | Sunday, August 2nd, 2009 | | 1:49 pm |
| | Friday, July 31st, 2009 | | 7:51 pm |
Hello Facebook. Goodbye Facebook.
Apologies to those who went to the trouble of adding me to their friends on facebook during my abortive foray into their brand of social networking. Facebook, I discovered, was playing far too free and easy with my actual data. This has a value, a high value in that it is irreplaceable should it become compromised. I was on guard the moment they asked for a GMail password to import your contacts list. I don't use GMail (for obvious reasons) but if I did, I certainly wouldn't hand over my password to anyone. Then I didn't like the fact that they insisted on displaying my real name. Online, I am ImmortalSoFar. That is my identity, no less valid than my meat-space one. After refusing to provide the plethora of personal information including inter-relationships and connections (wouldn't data miners just love to get hold of that little lot, either spam hackers or the government's latest "if we knew everything about everyone, we'd be able to predict everything" type project). The final straw was when they asked (nay demanded) a cell phone number before they would allow me to select a nickname. Quite aside from the fact that I don't own a cellphone, that's yet another piece of the marketers arsenal I am not prepared to provide. Whatever their privacy policy now, if times get hard the possibility is there for them to sell that information or lose it and I'm not prepared to accept that risk. Facebook is a marketer's wet dream - I'd rather lose my credit card number (annoying but replaceable) than the data they are asking for. Additional: Purely by chance, there's a New Scientist story about social networking and privacy. Current Mood:  aggravatedCurrent Music: Hazel O'Connor - Monsters in Disguise | | Monday, July 20th, 2009 | | 3:43 pm |
Do you own what you think you own?
Over the weekend, Amazon remotely deleted hundreds of copies of George Orwell's work from customers' Kindles. This, apparently, was perfectly legal since according to their terms and conditions you never quite own the works you purchase. The reason? Despite the copyright expiring in the rest of the world, there was some uncertainty as to the position in North America and so to be on the safe side (ie the side of their big-business partners) they decided to reach out and delete the offending text from their customers' bought-and-paid-for machines. As a PR stunt, it was an amazing own-goal but it does throw into stark relief a disturbing trend in technology. You don't own the kindle. You can't open it up and do something else with it and the manufacturer retain full control over its contents. You don't own the files you put on there. All you are doing is renting it which is why, despite the nice tech of the lcd paper screen, I wouldn't be seen dead with one. A similar situation arises with Windows XP. We think we own it but, as was brought home to me during the last install, we don't. Before the explosion of NetBooks, Microsoft had announced that it would no longer be supporting XP. This was not a problem - talking to some non-technical support guy in an Indian sweat shop was never a big part of my experience. However, the third hard drive had rendered the original key invalid and I had to call up their support line to get "permission" to reinstall it. If M$ are pushing Vista/7 then how long until that line is deactivated and I end up with some software that won't run without a key from a non-existent source? All forms of DRM-protected data suffer from this flaw. There's nothing to prevent the manufacturer from forcing you to buy your stuff all over again. The good news is that open-source software is coming of age and overtaking the bespoke offerings of big business. If the author stops supporting it, there will always be someone prepared to take up where they left off. If you have to buy shrink-wrapped software, tread warily and always check to see if there's an open-source alternative that suits your requirements. At least then you know that you own what you paid for. Current Mood: contemplative | | Saturday, May 23rd, 2009 | | 4:49 pm |
| | Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 | | 11:07 am |
"MSplas8hnproof keyboard"M
Not so 7gbood axctually. O8hn, and don9'mt 8hnit t8hne xcontrol key - it sends you to anot8hner window. And t8hne (last letter of t8hne alp8hnabet) key sends t8hne xcomputer to sleep. Does not like xcoffee, apparently. Time for a new keyboard.> Current Mood:  blah | | Friday, May 8th, 2009 | | 8:34 pm |
Geek meets Ubuntu
WOW!!!(Posted from Firefox under Ubuntu) So, I've been working away from M$ software for a while now, particularly after the fiasco getting XP to run, and I downloaded the install for Ubuntu. I've used Unix/Linux since the old SVR4 days when a user interface involved "curses" so I figured I'd be able to handle it. I thought I'd wait until I get my next hard drive, allocate a linux partition and take it from there but I was getting impatient so I looked into ghosting part of my existing partition... Then I discovered that you don't need to create a new partition to run Ubuntu! No shit, just install it on the current hard drive and tell it how much disk space to take. Cool! ( Installation )( Configuration )( Installing Software )So far, it had taken me 20 minutes to do what took me 2 days under XP ( 1 when M$ wasn't refusing to validate my XP copy) but now for the acid test. ( Server software )( Torrent files )ConclusionUbuntu is an operating system for dummies...And I mean that in the nicest possible way. I did in 20 minutes effortless ease what takes 3 days in XP. The preconfigured software available would never be listed in a proprietary OS. So much for M$'s dark hints of "total cost of ownership". I've already saved days of hard work! Ubuntu is mine!No software checking you aren't doing what Microsoft don't want you to do, nothing gobbling up your CPU time, no frequent bugfix updates (Unix and Linux have been developed since the '60s and open source detects and fixes security leaks far faster than commercial companies) and a distinct lack of viruses. With Vista (reincarnated as Windows 7) trying to take ever-increasing control over what you do, this is definitely the way to go. Code::Blocks isn't quite Visual Studio but it's damned close and, being open source, it's improving all the time in the direction that its users want it to regardless of corporate policy. I'd already switched to OpenOffice (far better than M$ Office), Code::Blocks and it won't be a great loss to go from Dreamweaver to Quanta Plus. If I had the Dreamweaver code, there are already numerous things I'd change! As soon as I point SQL server to my existing databases and Apache to my existing site base, Ubuntu is going to be my default OS. Recommendation:Go for it! Install Ubuntu, check it out and see what you think. Current Mood:  ecstaticCurrent Music: Chumbawamba - You can't trust anyone nowadays. | | Thursday, April 30th, 2009 | | 1:56 am |
| | Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 | | 3:13 am |
I am so done with Microsoft
I know every time I end up making a major change to my system there's a load of hassle but this time I am finished with them. ( Don )So as soon as my new hard drive arrives, I'm installing Linux and XP will be relegated to the laptop (needed for testing pages in IE). I've been wanting to make the switch for ages but this latest in OS disasters has finally given me the push I need. Bye bye Microsoft. Our abusive relationship is finally over! Current Mood: determined | | Saturday, December 27th, 2008 | | 12:11 pm |
Made it to internet connectivity
Another desperate dash and, while we're not home, we've at least made it to the internet. ( cut for pictures (same as Sarmonster) )The tracks we'd cut helped get up some momentum and the near-emptiness of the parking lot helped but escape still involved throwing the 2½ ton vehicle around to make use of the momentum. Fortunately, whenever it got stuck, a few inches backing up gave us the momentum to move forward a bit more and the front end wasn't sliding about quite as badly as in the powder. The roads were pretty bad until we hit the main routes. We only managed it up one hill by maintaining momentum. It took several attempts driving between frozen walls of snow to find a gas station that hadn't stopped selling propane for insurance reasons (grrr!). Every now and then, a frozen patch would twitch us towards the ditch. The last 2 roads leading to Joel's were solid snow and ice. The back end was constantly slipping and I had to try and steer with the front without spinning out. So long as I kept the momentum up I managed to stay more or less straight. As soon as we get the "fairly clear" from Gold Bar, we'll try and reach home. Current Mood:  anxious | | Monday, December 22nd, 2008 | | 2:51 pm |
Stranded in Olympia
Had a client meeting on Saturday so we went to Oponn's on Friday to break up the journey. I was almost ready to cancel but decided to give it a go. The Beastie is definitely not designed for snow! First it got stuck in the snow getting out of the drive but by then it was too late to get back to our parking spot. We had to put a towel under the wheels to get enough traction to avoid hitting the tree on our way out. The main roads weren't too bad and we made the meeting but it started to snow again while we were in there. I was worried we wouldn't be able to make it out of the sloping driveway to get back onto the road. Afterwards we headed to Olympia for Chief's Festivus party and the snow and road conditions just got worse. By the time we hit Olympia's roads I was desperately trying to control 2 tons of fish-tailing beastie on a foot of slippery powder. We got to the parking lot, the back end slid around and wedged against a low wall and the tires stuck on the kerb leaving the beastie blocking the road. We used the towel trick again and got half-way up the slope before sticking again. Now I was too terrified to take my foot off the brake since the slightest jolt could have sent up sliding back down the slope and into the idiot who parked directly opposite the entrance. We managed to push the vehicle away from the wall, dig out the rear wheels, sand the underlying ice and make it onto the flatter area. We always have to be out of the parking lot by Monday since the spaces are rented during the week by Washington State employees. We tried to move to Chief's spot but managed to get all of 3 feet before getting stuck again. Fortunately, there wasn't a single new car in there this morning. There's another storm due on Wednesday. I don't think we'll make it back into the driveway in Gold Bar so we'll probably try making a dash for Joel's place tomorrow before it hits. At least that way we'll have wi-fi and can get some work done. | | Monday, July 28th, 2008 | | 5:33 pm |
More pure evil
I've added a couple more levels to Evil Tetris - 'Mohammad's Mountain' and 'Timewarp'. The latter is pure evil but take time between curses to pity your truly having to debug it. I won't tell you what they do because that would spoil the surprise! Current Mood: Evil! | | Saturday, July 26th, 2008 | | 8:47 pm |
Evil Tetris
I needed something I could get my teeth into rather than my constant diet of interfacing web pages to databases so I wrote, in javascript, a tetris clone in about half a day. Then, of course, it needed a reason to exist. Why would the world need yet another version of tetris? Therefore, I present Evil Tetris! Share and enjoy! Current Mood: geekyCurrent Music: Vangelis - Pulstar | | Thursday, July 17th, 2008 | | 1:33 am |
| | Friday, June 13th, 2008 | | 5:46 am |
Bad Phorm
There's a certain irony in that what a company says in adverts, which everyone assumes to be lies, are better regulated than what it says to news agencies which everyone assumes to be true. ( Case in point. ) Current Mood: aggravatedCurrent Music: (Sarah snoring) | | Saturday, May 3rd, 2008 | | 3:42 pm |
| | Monday, January 14th, 2008 | | 11:27 pm |
What Do You Have To Say? - Put It On Repeat
Only one (even desert Island Disks give you ten) would have to be one that has stood the test of time. Orff's Carmina Burana, Beethoven's 9th (Berlin Philharmonic version). Contemporary would be The Wall (at least that way you get two), Bat out of Hell or ELO's Time. Maybe the Moody Blues "On the threshold of a dream" - I've enjoyed listening to that one for 35 years. | | Sunday, November 4th, 2007 | | 9:01 am |
How to implement linked lists in SQL
Having had this bit of uber-geekery on my mind for the past few months (and found no online source for it), I've solved the problem and figured I'd post it where other lost-souls might find it via internet search. If anyone does, please comment below to let me know I haven't completely wasted my time! Not rocket science but tricky enough so that it doesn't seem to be documented anywhere. Current Mood: geekyCurrent Music: Hawkwind - Masters of the Universe | | Thursday, October 25th, 2007 | | 4:08 pm |
What Do You Have To Say? - Fashion: Costume Construction
 Using fishing line to hold the legs and particularly the crotch in place. This was the "sanitized" version for work - it had a mini-skirt to cover up the fishnet stocking suspenders and panties with "stripper" across the back. |
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