Jul 25 2009

Obamacare = Bad HMO

reasonmclucus

A group of bicyclists are riding across the country raising money to provide the latest NASA developed rehabilitative equipment called secure ambulation modules for military veterans injured in the current conflicts.   My first reaction to seeing the story on a local tv station was “isn’t that great”.  We have people wanting to devote time and energy to help injured veterans.

After thinking about it for a while,  I wondered why veterans needed outside assistance to fund their medical care.  Don’t we have a president who claims he will correct deficiencies in health care?

So why doesn’t President Barack Obama provide state of the art health care to federal employees who were “injured on the job?”   Why did he at one point suggest requiring veterans pay for their own treatment for service connected injuries?  Pressure from veterans forced him to back down.

Obama’s failure to fully cover current federal employees health care costs and  attempting to reduce the health coverage provided to former  federal  employees with on the job injuries indicates he isn’t telling the truth when he says his proposal won’t result in reduced  health coverage.

I learned long ago to evaluate politicians according to what they do rather than what they say.   Obama says his proposal will increase health care, but his actions indicate he wants to do the opposite.

I also learned that if something sounds too good to be true it probably is.   I doubt that Obama’s promises about health care are worth any more than Bernie Madoff’s promises to make his clients richer.

24 comments | posted in Politics

Jul 23 2009

100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About

grump

I got this off of Wired’s Geekdad blog.  Sadly some of the stuff on I’d almost already forgotten about.

There are some things in this world that will never be forgotten, this week’s 40th anniversary of the moon landing for one. But Moore’s Law and our ever-increasing quest for simpler, smaller, faster and better widgets and thingamabobs will always ensure that some of the technology we grew up with will not be passed down the line to the next generation of geeks.

That is, of course, unless we tell them all about the good old days of modems and typewriters, slide rules and encyclopedias …Photo Credit: makelessnoise via flickr

Audio-Visual Entertainment

  1. Inserting a VHS tape into a VCR to watch a movie or to record something.
  2. Super-8 movies and cine film of all kinds.
  3. Playing music on an audio tape using a personal stereo. See what happens when you give a Walkman to todays teenager.
  4. The number of TV channels being a single digit. I remember it being a massive event when Britain got its fourth channel.
  5. Standard-definition, CRT TVs filling up half your living room.
  6. Rotary dial televisions with no remote control. You know, the ones where the kids were the remote control.
  7. High-speed dubbing.
  8. 8-track cartridges.
  9. Vinyl records. Even today’s DJs are going laptop or CD.
  10. Betamax tapes.
  11. MiniDisc.
  12. Laserdisc: the LP of DVD.
  13. Scanning the radio dial and hearing static between stations. (Digital tuners + HD radio bork this concept.)
  14. Shortwave radio.
  15. 3-D movies meaning red-and-green glasses.
  16. Watching TV when the networks say you should. Tivo and Sky+ are slowing killing this one.
  17. That there was a time before ‘reality TV.’<i>Photo credit: smin via flickr</i>

    18. Computers and Videogaming

  18. Wires. OK, so they’re not gone yet, but it won’t be long
  19. The scream of a modem connecting.
  20. The buzz of a dot-matrix printer
  21. 5- and 3-inch floppies, Zip Discs and countless other forms of data storage.
  22. Using jumpers to set IRQs.
  23. DOS.
  24. Terminals accessing the mainframe.
  25. Screens being just green (or orange) on black.
  26. Tweaking the volume setting on your tape deck to get a computer game to load, and waiting ages for it to actually do it.
  27. Daisy chaining your SCSI devices and making sure they’ve all got a different ID.
  28. Counting in kilobytes.
  29. Wondering if you can afford to buy a RAM upgrade.
  30. Blowing the dust out of a NES cartridge in the hopes that it’ll load this time.
  31. Turning a PlayStation on its end to try and get a game to load.
  32. Joysticks.
  33. Having to delete something to make room on your hard drive.
  34. Booting your computer off of a floppy disk.
  35. Recording a song in a studio.Photo credit: ghbrett via flickr

    36. The Internet

  36. NCSA Mosaic.
  37. Finding out information from an encyclopedia.
  38. Using a road atlas to get from A to B.
  39. Doing bank business only when the bank is open.
  40. Shopping only during the day, Monday to Saturday.
  41. Phone books and Yellow Pages.
  42. Newspapers and magazines made from dead trees.
  43. Actually being able to get a domain name consisting of real words.
  44. Filling out an order form by hand, putting it in an envelope and posting it.
  45. Not knowing exactly what all of your friends are doing and thinking at every moment.
  46. Carrying on a correspondence with real letters, especially the handwritten kind.
  47. Archie searches.
  48. Gopher searches.
  49. Concatenating and UUDecoding binaries from Usenet.
  50. Privacy.
  51. The fact that words generally don’t have num8er5 in them.
  52. Correct spelling of phrases, rather than TLAs.
  53. Waiting several minutes (or even hours!) to download something.
  54. The time before botnets/security vulnerabilities due to always-on and always-connected PCs
  55. The time before PC networks.
  56. When Spam was just a meat product — or even a Monty Python sketch.Photo credit: Chris Devers via flickr

    57. Gadgets

  57. Typewriters.
  58. Putting film in your camera: 35mm may have some life still, but what about APS or disk?
  59. Sending that film away to be processed.
  60. Having physical prints of photographs come back to you.
  61. CB radios.
  62. Getting lost. With GPS coming to more and more phones, your location is only a click away.
  63. Rotary-dial telephones.
  64. Answering machines.
  65. Using a stick to point at information on a wallchart
  66. Pay phones.
  67. Phones with actual bells in them.
  68. Fax machines.
  69. Vacuum cleaners with bags in them.Photo credit: ansik via flickr

    70. Everything Else

  70. Taking turns picking a radio station, or selecting a tape, for everyone to listen to during a long drive.
  71. Remembering someone’s phone number.
  72. Not knowing who was calling you on the phone.
  73. Actually going down to a Blockbuster store to rent a movie.
  74. Toys actually being suitable for the under-3s.
  75. LEGO just being square blocks of various sizes, with the odd wheel, window or door.
  76. Waiting for the television-network premiere to watch a movie after its run at the theater.
  77. Relying on the 5-minute sport segment on the nightly news for baseball highlights.
  78. Neat handwriting.
  79. The days before the nanny state.
  80. Starbuck being a man.
  81. Han shoots first.
  82. “Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.” But they’ve already seen episode III, so it’s no big surprise.
  83. Kentucky Fried Chicken, as opposed to KFC.
  84. Trig tables and log tables.
  85. “Don’t know what a slide rule is for …”
  86. Finding books in a card catalog at the library.
  87. Swimming pools with diving boards.
  88. Hershey bars in silver wrappers.
  89. Sliding the paper outer wrapper off a Kit-Kat, placing it on the palm of your hand and clapping to make it bang loudly. Then sliding your finger down the silver foil of break off the first finger
  90. A Marathon bar (what a Snickers used to be called in Britain).
  91. Having to manually unlock a car door.
  92. Writing a check.
  93. Looking out the window during a long drive.
  94. Roller skates, as opposed to blades.
  95. Cash.
  96. Libraries as a place to get books rather than a place to use the internet.
  97. Spending your entire allowance at the arcade in the mall.
  98. Omni Magazine
  99. A physical dictionary — either for spelling or definitions.
  100. When a ‘geek’ and a ‘nerd’ were one and the same.

My thanks go out to all of my fellow GeekDads for their contributions to this list.

4 comments | posted in Funny, Life

Jul 21 2009

Question for anyone about Tecumseh Square

Felistorm

I am trying to find out who I would need to contact in regards to a store that is there called ladybug lane. I know they are going to be tearing all that down and doing something with it and I am glad. The thing is though I did alot of murals in that store and the sign on top of the building. The lady who owned it was a friend so I was doing them for her but she closed up shop and left rather quickly so I didn’t get many pics of my artwork and I like to document it. I really want to find out about going in and taking pics of it all before it is gone for good. Especially since I haven’t done many murals. I did one other for a friend’s nursery of a teddy bear. These were alot of assorted like I did a jungle in the bathroom, alot of ladybugs of course, a castle on one wall…etc. If anyone could point me in the right direction it would be very much appreciated. Thanks all :)

3 comments   |  tags: | posted in General

Jul 14 2009

Blog Problems?

Aquarius

I had a prob getting the blog lists of posts and when I clicked on the user place the lists showed up. I wish someone would take some interest and post someting. I miss Leslie. We could always count on her to start a thread. Anyway if you want to post just click the user list and the lists of posts will show up. Later.

4 comments | posted in General

Jul 11 2009

Will China Take Neverland?

reasonmclucus

China has taken jobs and even the Hummer from the United States.  Tom Qian of  Shanghai Daily reports that Qiu Xuefan, vice director of Wenzhou Chamber of Commerce, has announced plans to construct a smaller version of Neverland  at Xianghua Town of Chongming County, which is about an hour drive from downtown Shanghai.  The project which will cover  667,000 square meters is expected to cost 100 million yuan (US$14.6 million) and be completed in a year.

Meanwhile Gerald Posner of the   Daily Beast reports that a senior executive of Colony Capital which controls the original Neverland states that it will not be used as a  Michael Jackson museum.

No wonder China is growing economically while the U.S. is declining.  Chinese business leaders recognize opportunities that Americans do not.

Michael Jackson may or  may not have been the “greatest entertainer of all time” as his supporters claim, but he continues to be very popular.  His fans are at least as dedicated to him as Elvis Presley’s fans are to him.   Elvis Presley’s home Graceland continues to attract his fans 32 years after his death.  Paul Simon even wrote a popular song about Graceland.

Opening a museum to Michael Jackson isn’t about Jackson, it’s about his fans.   They deserve  a place  they can go to  feel close to him and remember him.

Those who aren’t sentimental or dislike Jackson should consider the economics.   A Michael Jackson memorial would create jobs.  People would work at the site.  Others would provide services to those going to and from the site.  Visitors from other states and countries would want lodgings and meals.

The Chinese recognize the potential value of a Neverland.    Why should  Michael’s fans have to travel to China to visit his memorial when we have the original?

If Colony Capital cannot recognize the value of Neverland, perhaps the citizens of California could pass a referendum to preserve the site and even make it a state park.  The referendum could authorize issuing bonds to finance purchase of the site by the state of California.  The bonds would be repaid through admission fees, memorabilia sales, etc.  The bonds might be so popular they would become a collector’s item themselves.

California legislators who want Michael’s  fans to vote for them might want to go ahead and authorize the project without waiting for a referendum.  Any excess fees from “Michael Jackson State Park” could be used to fund other state park activities.  Then there are  the tax revenues that tourism would generate.  Perhaps Congress could provide funds to upgrade roads to the site.

American music companies have often accused China of pirating American CD’s etc.  Will American apathy allow China to pirate Neverland too?  I see no harm in China providing a duplicate for Michael’s Asian fans who cannot afford to come to the United States.  Americans shouldn’t have to travel to China to visit Neverland.

China’s Neverland won’t be ready for a year.  The original  already exists and could be opened at any time.

1 comment | posted in TV/Film