USA: The gooferement kills private rail

Sunday, September 9, 2007

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2007/tle433-20070902-05.html

 

Of Rails and Liberty
by Daniel G. Jennings
Jdangjenn@aol.com

Credit The Libertarian Enterprise

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Once upon a time, America had an efficient, cost effective transportation system technology that adequately served the needs of virtually all citizens. This transportation system utilized cutting edge high technology and didn’t run on imported energy sources like oil. Best of all this transportation was almost entirely owned and operated by private enterprise and developed without government money.

The year was 1910 and the transportation system was electric powered rail. Back in 1910 residents of most American urban areas could take an electric powered trolley car to work for about five cents. Private developers were expanding what we would call light rail networks to suburban and rural areas. Plans were even afoot for high speed electric powered trains that connected major cities similar to the Japanese and French bullet trains.

So what happened to this transportation system? Government and politicians got to work that’s happened. The politicians didn’t like rail because it was an efficient privately owned and operated transportation system that they couldn’t control. So they looked around for an alternative and found one: the automobile.

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Interesting?

Gooferment creates the problem. Then, “solves” it.

Argh!

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TECHNOLOGY: Getting back Frau’s game

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Frau has one game she likes. I bought it for her eons ago. Naturally it doesn’t work on Vista. Argh! Trek back to the developer. It’s site suggested running it in compatibility mode. Works. But now it times out as unregistered. Luckily I have our serial number. Back to the developers site, and download. Install. (Twice. Vista burped.) Register it by typing in a huge serial number. (Darn, I’m good got it right on the first try despite Dell’s pop up in the middle of things. Let see what goes wrong next.

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PRODUCTIVITY: Power Napping

Sunday, September 9, 2007

http://ririanproject.com/2007/09/05/10-benefits-of-power-napping-and-how-to-do-it

10 Benefits of Power Napping, and How to Do It

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How Long Is A Good Nap?

# THE NANO-NAP: 10 to 20 seconds. Sleep studies haven’t yet concluded whether there are benefits to these brief intervals, like when you nod off on someone’s shoulder on the train.
# THE MICRO-NAP: two to five minutes. Shown to be surprisingly effective at shedding sleepiness.
# THE MINI-NAP: five to 20 minutes. Increases alertness, stamina, motor learning, and motor performance.
# THE ORIGINAL POWER NAP: 20 minutes. Includes the benefits of the micro and the mini, but additionally improves muscle memory and clears the brain of useless built-up information, which helps with long-term memory (remembering facts, events, and names).
# THE LAZY MAN’S NAP: 50 to 90 minutes. Includes slow-wave plus REM sleep; good for improving perceptual processing; also when the system is flooded with human growth hormone, great for repairing bones and muscles.

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Always seemed like a smart idea. But not in an american workplace.

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NATIONAL: Putting the gooferment in health care .. ya gotta be kiddin

Sunday, September 9, 2007

http://www.telegraphbusinessclub.co.uk/default.asp?p_id=search&showresults=1&showarticle=2261

A helping hand with checking patients

Consultant David Morgan tells Philip Smith why he’s invested in technology to give medical staff instant access to records.

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According to the National Patient Safety Agency, each year tens of thousands of NHS patients are given the wrong treatment or operation because of mistaken identity – and it can be very serious.

“There are the famous stories of people having the wrong kidney removed. As it was their only functioning kidney, the patients died,” said David Morgan, a consultant ENT surgeon at Birmingham Heartlands NHS Trust.

It’s a startling statistic even when placed in the context of a health service providing 49m hospital treatments a year. “The errors are usually the result of both human and system errors. It’s usually down to the operating list being changed at the last minute which can happen for a number of reasons,” he added.

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While doing casual duty while in the USAF waiting for orders in TX in 1970 (i.e., casual duty was making you a gopher while you were idle), I was assigned to the base hospital. (I had both civilian EMT training and the USAF survival schools under my belt.) In this role I was considered more useful than a candy stripper but less than a janitor. It was the first time, while waiting to transport a patient to the OR, that I saw an old full bird colonel surgeon say to a patient: “This leg, right?”. And, he had his crew of junior wanna bees, all agreeing. And, (I was stunned), he whips out this big old black magic marker and proceeds to write on the OTHER leg “wrong leg” all over it. He smiled knowingly and said “just to be sure”. Then to me “airmen, this man is ready for transport. Don’t drop him at the exit.” Everyone laughed at his joke. (He struck me as the kinda guy who didn’t take to mistakes.) Later, in my training, (that I never got to use), I was taught that when giving pain killers in the field to mark foreheads with Ax’s in lipstick and write details in magic marker on the stomach to prevent overdoses. Seems like these bozos in NHS could learn from the good colonel with some X’s and O’s. I think, if I was a patient, I’d have someone mark me as sort of self-help or self-defense. And we laff at witch doctors at least they don’t kill you with their pixie dust. Argh!

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