RANT: TV services at the hospitals

Friday, November 26, 2010

TVR (Long Island, NY) supplies TV service at RWJU Hospital and SPU Hospital in New Brunswick NJ. The costs are absurd.

• At $5/day, that’s $150/month for a very limited service from Direct TV that has tremendous weather issues. I have cable service at two residential locations for $40/month. How is that comparable?

• They also rent phone services at $4/day or $120/month. I also have two residential services at 30$/month and cell phones at comparable rates.

• When they fail to collect the fee in person, their collection process charges an exorbitant “handling fee” of $2 on $4.50 “rental”.

I feel they are ripping off people that are a captive audience.

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MACBOOKAIR: Hardware problem. (Remember Apple Computers are on my “Not Recommended” list)

Friday, November 26, 2010

“No output sound devices defined” (No input either.)

Conclusion after ½ on the phone is it’s a hardware problem.

NOO, really!

Argh!

They want me to leave the machine for three days for them to diag, order parts, and repair.

You gotta be kidding me.

Or, I can send it in and this is with the extended warranty.

Argh!

This is for a machine that won’t sync. (They never figured that one out either.)

Hence my time machine is a giant router in disguise. That’s all it is good for.

Argh!

BAck when I first got the machine and wasn’t totally “on” it, the screen took a week to replace.

Cloud computing, with all it’s version control issues, is looking better and better.

Argh!

# # # # # posted 2010-11-26 15:34


QUOTE: Support, not illumination

Friday, November 26, 2010

http://nicholasnigro.blogspot.com/2010/11/drunks-and-lampposts.html

Legendary baseball broadcaster Vin Scully once said, “Statistics are used much like a drunk uses a lamppost—for support, not illumination.”

*** begin quote ***

But come to think of it, uber-controversial chitchat and proselytizing are unwelcome and not encouraged by most of us.

*** end quote ***

But then keep your goons from bothering the rest of us. Unfortunately, these costumed dolts seem to think they have some right to use force on anyone who, without injuring someone else, object to their “help”.

Argj!!!

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IPAD: Some irritations with the IPAD

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Major irritations with the way applications are handled on the IPAD. Can’t nuke stuff without going to iTunes. Some applications show up in the “settings”, but most do not. (Why is that?) After upgrading the os, I find I have a new piece of “crapware” added in. Said piece of software has a dumb “sequential” password validation against rules that are not known in advance.

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FUN: Periodic Table Makeover

Thursday, November 25, 2010

http://www.wired.com/playbook/2010/11/periodic-table-baseball/

Periodic Table Gets a Hall of Fame Makeover
(Sent from Flipboard)

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No idea too dumb?

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TINFOILHAT: The Obama Birth Certificate

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=231097

*** begin quote ***

I think those who have pushed resolution in the courts are brave and commendable for their efforts. But, as I have said countless times, there is no judge in America who is ever going to rule the sitting “president” ineligible. It’s just not going to happen. The judiciary is, like it or not, a political institution.

*** and ***

Think about the ramifications of even one state approving such a bill and getting it signed into law by the governor.

It will mean that Barack Obama will have a tough decision to make in 2012. He is going to have to cough up what he has been unwilling to produce for the American people – a long-form birth certificate.

Now I don’t know why he has been unwilling to do that. But at this late date, I strongly suspect he can’t or won’t under any circumstances. Either it would prove him ineligible or what it will reveal is so embarrassing and contradictory to his stated life narrative that it would render him political toast.

So what will he do in the face of such a requirement by even one state?

He can’t afford to write off a state. To do so would be tantamount to an admission he is and has been ineligible from the beginning.

His only other option is not seeking re-election.

That is exactly my prediction of what will happen should one courageous state legislature and one courageous governor do the right thing – Obama’s media acolytes be damned.

*** end quote ***

Yes, I’m a “birther”. Just too many things don’t add up. And, the final nail in the coffin of truth: why spend more than an estimated two point five million dollars to keep ALL the Obama historical documents “private”? Just explain that, and I’ll happily reconsider the “evidence”. Until that happens, I’ll adjust my tin foil hat and see what develops.

What will go in his “Presidential Library”? Everything since his election.

If BHO44 “chooses” not to seek reelection, it will make you wonder if he was EVER qualified.

In 60 years, the truth will come out. Just as it did about FDR “causing” Pearl Harbor and the JFK assassination. Those are just two that I’ve been following for decades. There are countless more “official stories” just waiting to have the “covers” ripped off.

The lesson this tin foil hat would like to have everyone learn is that the “official story” is rarely true. We may not know the “truth”, cue my Jack Nicholson in “A Few Good Men”, but you can be sure it’s NOT what you are being told.

Donna Nobis Pacem,

Responding to “I think I’m entitled to the truth!” “Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Whose gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather


UBUNTU: Playing with U 10.10 on Luggable

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Running it from the “try it option” off a CD I just burned.

(Old hardware is fun! Didn’t remember how loud or how heavy this “notebook” was. There’s a reason I called it “luggable”. Reminds me of the old Kaypro suitcase.)

First try it just hung. Second reboot it just worked.

Had to configure the wifi but it appears to work nicely. (No, refusal to connect as under U8.

Just starting to play.

# # # # # posted 2010-11-24 06:51


MONEY: Rage at the dying of the … … penny!

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

http://cafehayek.com/2010/11/uncommon-cents.html

Uncommon cents

by RUSS ROBERTS on NOVEMBER 17, 2010

in MONETARY POLICY

*** begin quote ***

The penny is almost irrelevant already.

*** end quote ***

Doesn’t any one feel a sense of outrage? The reason the penny is a seen as burden is that the FED has stolen 97% of the value of a “dollar”. That’s wealth that has been stolen from “We, The Sheeple” as sure as it the Prez, any Prez of either of the supposed political parties, had taken a gun and robbed you in the street. The fact, that it’s done sight unseen by the magic of paper, doesn’t make it any less of a robbery. We just don’t see the masked men. But everyone’s attitude about the penny is the evidence that the crime was committed.

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POLITICAL: The only correct corporate tax rate is zero

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/11/21/0157216/Google-Warns-Irish-Government-Against-Tax-Increase

Posted by timothy on Sunday November 21, @02:02AM

from the shame-if-anything-was-to-happen dept.

*** begin quote ***

theodp writes “The Irish government has been given a stark warning from some of the biggest American companies in Ireland on the risk of a mass exodus if the country’s controversial low corporate tax rate is raised in return for an IMF/EU bailout to shore up the country’s beleaguered banking system. According to The Telegraph, a statement signed by senior execs at Microsoft, HP, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, and Intel points out that although Ireland’s tax rate may be low in European terms, it is not when compared with locations such as Singapore, India and China.

*** end quote ***

Once again demonstrating that the only correct corporate tax rate is zero. Only real human beings pay taxes.

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INTERESTING: The TSA’s gloves (Updated: 26NOV10@1000)

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Having spent a lot of tie in hospital lately. And, time in two different ones — RWJUH and SPUH — thankfully not as the patient — some of which was under “Neutropenic Precautions” and infection control. One thing that I vividly remember is the Nurses goign through gloves darn near every minute.

The gloves, while protecting the nurses and patients, were expendable. They could carry an infection from one patient to another.

How many times does the TSA screen change those gloves?

Any one test them?

So not only is the search a violation of everyone’s Fourth (i.e., secure in your person) and Fifth Amendment (i.e., takings) rights. Not only is that back scatter xray an unproven safe “medical device” (Has the FDA certified it?), that has radiologists publicly avoiding it and operated by unlicensed technicians.

But, those gloves could be a disease vector!

Anyone thought of that?

If they have I haven’t seen it.

# # # # # posted 2010-11-23 07:34

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=232457

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINES
Doctors sound TSA germ alert
Dangers include syphilis, lice, viruses, ringworm
Posted: November 24, 2010 9:09 pm Eastern
By Bob Unruh

*** begin quote ***

Syphilis, lice, gonorrhea, ringworm, chlamydia, staph, strep, noro and papilloma viruses all are part of the possible fringe benefits when airline passengers next go through a full hands-on pat-down by agents of the federal government’s Transportation Security Administration, according to doctors.

*** and ***

“If an athlete with jock itch (a fungal infection) undergoes a TSA pat-down, that TSA agent could spread the passenger’s jock itch from his crotch to his armpits and neck. The same is true for a person suffering from ringworm or other skin fungal infections: Merely touching them and then touching another body part can cause them to spread,” the website said. “Even worse, if that same TSA agent does not change his or her gloves between pat-downs, they could be spreading jock itch, ringworm or other infections from traveler to traveler. So traveler #2 could end up with the jock itch picked up from traveler #1.”

*** end quote ***

Glad to see that folks with MD after their name confirm my suspicions. Doesn’t take a genius to figure this one out. I’m surprised it took me so long to tumble to it. After my decade plus on the First Aid Squad, I should have been on it sooner. Touching ANYTHING after touching a patient without fresh gloves would most certainly get a reprimand.

# # # # # posted 2010-11-26 10:11