Don’t get old!

Thursday, April 20, 2006

While I urge evryone to get the paperwork in order when they are young, (i.e., will, poa, hcp, and advanced directive), I predict that we all will get old. I have three old folk that I am responsible for. Tonight I am elder-sitting my Mom who just came home from the hospital. She lives in NYC and I’m in Jersey. This would have been so much much easier if I could have convinced her to move to NJ with the rest of the relatives decades ago. But her stuborness, and my inability to convince, and my failure to “make her”, puts me where I am today. She’s getting older and could have had an easier life by being closer.

So, under the theory that you dont have to pay tuition for every lesson (i.e., don’t make the same mistakes I do; learn from the mistakes of others; be a “fortune teller” predict the future), learn from my mistakes. If you are an only child, have your parents physically close to you. Whine, cajole, cry, snivel, snit, and even be down right nasty about it. Cause it’s a pay now or pay later situation. I’m paying now. And I regret not have prepaid for this trouble.

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Posted by reinkefj

FUP: on Ed’s post

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Well in this case it was not handholding that was needed but a solution. The product did install after a slew of retries, I lost count after 10, I was not eligible for a free first support because I was already a customer. I bought a copy a few years ago and it works for me. I foolishly showed my doc friend how neat it was and he had me buy a copy for him, install it, and help him get running. Even after getting it running, it stopped working (i.e., just will not execute the code). It works flawlessly on my notebook but not his. Oh and By The Way, Dragon is Nuanced also. Which is why I aimed him at ViaVoice as opposed to Dragon. Bottom line: Buyer beware.

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Posted by reinkefj

Ed Foster “IBM’s Brand Takes on a Different Nuance” — that me! ;-)

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

http://weblog.infoworld.com/foster/2006/04/11_a386.html#a386

IBM's Brand Takes on a Different Nuance

{Begin Quote}

When you buy a product because you trust the brand, it can be a shock to discover a completely different company is actually doing technical support. For example, many IBM ThinkPad customers were unhappy when IBM sold that brand to Lenovo. And now a reader finds that support for another product with Big Blue's name on it – the IBM ViaVoice speech recognition software– is actually done by ScanSoft. Or, as ScanSoft now calls itself, Nuance Communications.

(End Quote}

Hey that's my story. I'm famous! I shared it with Ed because he has a knack for highlighting the problems. Not that in this case anything got done. The doc still can't use his voice. BUT, at least the story is out there for others to profit from.

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Posted by reinkefj

Froschmausekrieg = “war between the frogs and the mice”

Friday, April 7, 2006

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/04/07/word_of_the_day_fros.html

George Dyson explains my favorite (descriptive if not lengthy) German word is Froschmausekrieg. It means "war between the frogs and the mice" or the pointlessness of war or feuding.

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Posted by reinkefj

Suggestion study economics!

Thursday, April 6, 2006

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/04/06/the_week_on_plugin_h.html

{Begin Quote}

 Forget about a manned mission to Mars. Let's challenge NASA to make a vehicle for earthlings.

{End Quote}

Sigh, once again, someone calling to save us. "Save us mommy government." "We can't do it on our own!" "It's tooo hard".

NASA can't do squat. Certainly can't do anyhting cost effectively. Thinking that they could invent "an eliminate our dependence on foreign oil" car is a paradigm error. When you think of NASA, think Post Office. Yup, nothing good coming out of them but hire taxes.

How about this?

We close NASA. Nuke it. And with the 9B$ budget, we give a tax free 3B$ prize to the first verifiable entrepreneur who goes to the moon and returns. AND, we give a tax free 3B$ prize to the first carmaker who sells let's say 10 Million cars that get 100 mpg or better. AND, the last 3B$, we apply to the national debt.

Each year the prize goes unclaimed, we bump it up by the same amount.

My guess is that in three years, we will be up to our ass in cars and vacation offers to the moon.

You see the problem is that we don't try to see all public policy problems through economic glasses. It may be the best use of human talent, right this minute, that sneakers get made in some far away country rather than me trying to make my own. The fellow overseas will do a better job of it than I could and he will enjoy my writing. ;-) 

Seriously, the economic cost of a 100 mpg car may not be the best use of scarce resources. The free marketplace gives us a very complex calculator that helps us decided if we really really want that ice cream cone or would we really rather have a beer. That complex calculator ensures that we have choices. It's only when the gumamint takes our money and makes choices for us (i.e., you want to go to the moon). They enslave us via money manipulation into believing that only government can solve a problem.

No, government is the problem!

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Posted by reinkefj

The trials of gettign old, sigh.

Thursday, April 6, 2006

"Emergency" run to the city to cure an "out of money" condition. Note to self: don't ever get old. Or, too stupid to plan ahead. No reason for the distance. Now it's just an giant problem. The old folks care depends on the kindness of strangers. Tired! And sad because it was all avoidable and preventable. Technology is so much easier. 

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Posted by reinkefj

Gatto’s speech clearly outlines what is wrong with “education” in USA today

Monday, April 3, 2006

http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/04/03/experiential_learning_vstraditional_schooling_john.htm#

Some great snips:

We live in a time of great school crisis. Our children rank at the bottom of nineteen industrial nations in reading, writing and arithmetic. At the very bottom.

The truth is that schools don't really teach anything except how to obey orders.

Schools were designed by Horace Mann and Barnard Sears and Harper of the University of Chicago and Thorndyke of Columbia Teachers College and some other men to be instruments of the scientific management of a mass population. Schools are intended to produce through the application of formulae, formulaic human beings whose behavior can be predicted and controlled.

It is absurd and anti-life to move from cell to cell at the sound of a gong for every day of your natural youth in an institution that allows you no privacy and even follows you into the sanctuary of your home demanding that you do its "homework".

At the core of this elite system of education is the belief that self-knowledge is the only basis of true knowledge. Everywhere in this system, at every age, you will find arrangements to place the child alone in an unguided setting with a problem to solve.

Time for a return to Democracy, Individuality, and family.

Oh, I seee, you take my money by force (taxes) to fund an institution that doesn't work and I can't use. Good plan. Drive old people from their homes by high taxation. Drive young people to self-distruction. And, foist the dregs on the dole. Hey as long as it empowers the gumamint!

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Posted by reinkefj

RANT: UT prof better off dead?

Monday, April 3, 2006

http://story.seguingazette.com/drudge.html

UT professor says death is imminent
By Jamie Mobley
The Gazette-Enterprise
Published April 2, 2006

{Begin Quote}

AUSTIN – A University of Texas professor says the Earth would be better off with 90 percent of the human population dead.

{End Quote}

Starting with him. Here's a good argument for eliminating tenure and state skools!

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Posted by reinkefj

With old age coming, I begrudge every dollar I have had to put into the “Social Security Insurance” Ponzi scheme

Saturday, April 1, 2006

THE LIBERATOR ONLINE
March 31, 2006
Vol. 11, No. 7
Circulation: 65,767 subscribers in over 100 countries.
The world's largest-circulation libertarian publication!
Published by the Advocates for Self-Government
Edited by Bill Winter | Email: billw@TheAdvocates.org
Senior Editor: James W. Harris

Want to read the enhanced HTML version of this LIBERATOR ONLINE? Just click on:
http://www.theadvocates.org/liberator/vol-11-num-7.html

{Begin Quote}

Imagine being forced into a government retirement system that takes your money,
makes no guarantees on how much you'll get, and gives you a poor return for the
money taken from your paycheck. Now imagine putting aside the same amount of
money in your own retirement account, getting interest on your savings, and
retiring with a personal nest egg of over $1 million. Probably more. That's the
power of compound interest. That's the difference between government-run Social
Security — and private retirement accounts.

{End Quote}

SSI is neither "Social", "Security", nor "Insurance". The estimated roi of ssi contributions is guesstimated by better people than me to be a negative one percent. Anytime one deals with the government figurign out the true cost is akin to knowing where an electron is — impossible. I do know that when I put money aside for my old age that there will be no fudging around. It'll be there for me and mine. SSN is another joke.

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Posted by reinkefj

ARGHH! I remember something but I can’t recall it. No prob, I’ll google it up. WRONG!

Saturday, April 1, 2006

Something I was reading triggered a memory of an old, and this is how I remember it, as late 60s joke, about the "Mensa Human Operating Instructions". It had come up in the Nineties and I found it after a struggle. Should be easier now. With Yahoo, Google, and a gaggle of others. Nope. 9 grazillion results for Joe Somebody's book with a simialr title. Yup, mechanized search has a long way to go. Now how can I find it?

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Posted by reinkefj

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