OK, let me try one more time. I knew what I wanted to say in my fevered brain, but it came out badly. The key word I wanted to use was CLEANLINESS.
I mentally compared my wife's experience in this small operating room to surgery that she had many years ago at a large hospital in Birmingham, AL. The large hospital was an assembly line. Literally. The next patient was rolled into the operating room as the previous one was being rolled out. They cleaned between procedures, but it wasn't hard to imagine people getting tired and "missing a spot."
In that environment, no wonder they need prophylactic antibiotics... and no wonder the bacteria eventually develop resistance.
Likewise in agriculture. When you're cramming chickens and cattle into cages and allowing them to live in their own filth, they WILL get sick. So, once again: tons of antibiotics, and no wonder the bacteria become resistant.
The doctor that I mentioned who ran his own operating room did NOT use prophylactic antibiotics unless he thought it was a high-risk case. He controlled infection with tons of chlorine bleach and autoclaves. He and his staff checked each other during wash-up before and between procedures.
Ergo: with a few simple, common-sense procedures, he is able to use a fraction of the antibiotics as the big hospitals, with a very low post-operative infection rate.
I should have been more specific; I think you missed my point. The use of Polysporin (or Neosporin, or similar over the counter antibacterials) isn't comparable to the prophylactic use of oral or injected antibiotics. Polysporing is a topical antibacterial/antibiotic that isn't taken internally. It's comparable to using Betadine or the old Mercurichrome(sp?) that we used to use as kids.
> If this is a threat that "should be ranked alongside terrorism" then I'm not even going to waste my time reading about it.
I agree. We have Godwin's Law to invoke on those who make comparisons to Nazis, it's time to craft a law or people who invoke terrorism.
Look: antibiotic resistance is a serious problem. I've argued for years against the prophylactic use of these drugs in agriculture. No disagreement there.
But my wife has had surgery now -- twice -- and both times she remained infection free, even though she was not prescribed antibiotics. How? She had the surgery in a private clinic, not a public hospital. This particular doctor runs his own operating theater and personally ensures that everything is sterilized between procedures. It's squeaky-clean. (And actually, it cost LESS than going to a big-brick hospital.)
To keep infection off of the wound after the surgery, we were simply told to keep it clean, to change the bandages, and to at most use Polysporin. If we saw signs of infection, THEN the doctor would prescribe antibiotics.
Again: yes, it's a serious problem. We need to work on it. But this pandemic, "worse than terrorism" stuff is a little over the top.
> You will save far more by actually understanding the tax law, and restructuring your financial life to take advantage of that knowledge.
I agree, but to be fair to the parent poster, a good tax accountant and/or financial counselor will offer advice specifically targeted to you and your needs.
We have a guy on one of our talk stations here in Birmingham who shares all sorts of tips to save money like that, things I never would have thought of. For example:
1. Buy a stock that you expect to decrease in value in the short term, but to make money in the long term. You pay, say, $10,000.
2. It drops to $5,000. Sell, you can mark off the $5,000 loss on your taxes.
3. Wait 30 days, then take that $5,000 and buy the same stock again. You can still take the $5,000 loss, but if (when) the stock finally appreciates, you make money there, too.:)
He calls it "tax harvesting." I'd never heard of such a thing, but then, I ain't that sophisticated.:)
I've been using OpenSuSE since the 9.0 era. I had tried it prior to that and found it unusable on my system simply because it defaulted to some gosh-awful resolution. The icons were the size of fly specs. I didn't have time to figure out how to fix it, so I went back to my old OS. They fixed this in the 9.0 release and I've used it ever since.
One of SuSE's key features, whether you're using the community version or the paid/enterprise release, is the configuration tool (YAST, "Yet Another Setup Tool"). That thing is worth its weight in gold. It presents the same configuration options whether you're logged into a GUI or text-based via SSH. Sure, the latter is NCurses-based, but everything is where I expect it. I have been absolutely spoiled by that thing. It's the # 1 thing that I miss when I go to something else.
Red Hat, for example, while excellent and rock-stable, leaves me using command line tools for configuration when I'm in a secure shell. They've been reducing the utility of those tools (or eliminating them entirely) with each successive release, too. Plus, I don't completely trust ANY "easy-to-use" tools, but insofar as I've been able to confirm, SuSE wins.
(Example: the 5.x releases from CentOS -- I'm told that this was true with RHEL as well, of course -- would automatically open some ports in the firewall without telling you... most notably, CUPS. I hate to dump their "system-config-securitylevel-tui" tool and do it myself. Good thing I always run an "iptables --list" before I expose something to the Internet at large...)
YAST, YAST, YAST for me. Love it. I realize that a lot of this is just what you get used to, but I'm used to it, and I love it.:)
> I'd really like to find a place I could get pure gasoline.
Ask around, do some Web searches. Here in central Alabama, there are a few stations that offer it at a higher price (about 10-20c per gallon). There's a Valero station at my Interstate exit that sells pure gas, no alcohol.
I don't program for a living anymore, and I've always been more of a system-level, hardware driver kind of guy, so C/C++ work fine for me.
But especially coming from that background, my need isn't for another programming language, it's for better documentation of available libraries. For any common task that I want to do, somebody has probably written a great library that I can just strap in and use.
The problem is when I start trying to use it. The documentation has blank "TBD" pages, or really helpful comments like, "init_lib() -- initializes the library. You can specify the # of flickers per bleem..."
Or... and this is my 2nd favorite... the documentation is out of date. "Hey, I tried to do this the way your tutorial said and it didn't work?" "Oh, yeah, that tutorial is out of date; we've changed some stuff..."
My very most #1 favorite is automatically generated documentation that looks at (for example) a C++ class and then creates an HTML page. I might as well just look at the source code... hoping, of course, that the people who wrote that source actually inserted more than a few, "does what it says" comments. Or that I don't have to play the Spaghetti Trace(tm) game, bouncing from one.c file to another.h file and back to a third.c (and this is after repeated greps in the "src" directory) to try to figure out what's happening to my poor variable while it's inside a function.
Not criticizing FOSS, per se; I understand that it's written by volunteers (for whom I'm very grateful). But this, rather than needing a new way to "PRINT" or "SORT" in a programming language, is the far bigger problem, in my book.
Yep. Part of that "sheer luck" thing was catching the Japanese carriers while they were refueling the planes. Our terrible planes and ordinance wouldn't have done nearly as much damage otherwise.
> It tends to sent off my I know I read otherwise flag and my must reeducate style rants:)
Hah. Me as well.:)
Actually, if we're honoring heroes, here's one bunch that rarely gets a mention nowadays: the submariners who served in the Allied Navies in WWII. I'm going from memory, but at the end of the war, Nimitz chose to do his change-of-command ceremony on the deck of a submarine. He wanted to honor the fact that (here's the memory part, don't hold me to this) something like only ONE IN TEN (or was it one in twenty???) of those who served on submarines in the Pacific survived the war.
The losses were staggering. Being in the sub service was tantamount to a death sentence in WWII, but they did it anyway.
You beat me to it (my more long-winded post can be found below), but precisely. PRECISELY. The Japanese military knew that the raid was just that -- a raid, and no more -- but they still felt compelled to respond. And Yamamoto won his argument for Midway as a DIRECT result of that raid.
> Doolittle's raid had little/no actual strategic value.
I may be a little older than you, but I'm surprised at the number of people nowadays who don't know what actually happened in WWII. It has been over half a century now, so at most it gets a chapter in the history books, highly condensed. I had the great pleasure of reading (among other things) Admiral Nimitz's history of that war, very detailed, with a look at every decision -- juggling horribly short assets against needs everywhere.
In fact, the Doolittle Raid had a significant strategic impact -- it caused the Japanese to redistribute their forces. In particular, they strongly weakened their carrier forces in the Indian Ocean. It also strengthened Yamamoto's position in favor of the Battle of Midway, which was the turning point of the entire Pacific war. (Some revisionist historians now want to argue with that, but their heads are filled with revisionist cheese. Losing several aircraft carriers in a single battle meant that Japan would never again be able to take the initiative.):)
I hate war. As Sherman said, "War is hell." But if you attack me, or threaten those I love, I'm a typical American: I gitterdone, the entire time wishing that you'd just kept your mind right and left me alone. I'm not saying that everyone feels that way, but I am typical.
Only those who've seen the suffering can begin to imagine how awful war is. My Veteran's Day story comes from Sandy's grandfather, who was in a foxhole in St. Vith when the Germans kicked off the Battle of the Bulge. In my eyes, he was a freakin' hero, and I begged him to talk about it.
All he would say was, "I lost a lot of friends that day." Nothing more. I felt ashamed for bringing it up, and we changed the topic.
Yes, you can argue about Korea, Vietnam, et. al. But go back and read histories written by Nimitz and others who were there. No, there wasn't a great deal of fear that Germany or Japan could actually occupy the United States, but there was still a very real possibility that Japan and Germany would win. We've gotten cocky nowadays, but back then, what with bad torpedoes, ossified admirals who didn't want to use that "newfangled" radar, planes that couldn't keep up with the Mitsubishi Zero, it was anything but a guaranteed thing.
As for the results of an Axis victory, I suggest a good dose of Turtledove or other alternative history. It wouldn't have been pretty. At all.
The problem is ensuring that it's truly competitive. What has been happening is that corporations are merging to *eliminate* competition and ensure a continued revenue stream, even though the technology might be old and "unclean" (as far as emissions).
Corporations are also allowed to buy up patents which might clean up energy, but which are then tabled and never put into production. The only reason the corporation bought that patent is to (once again) *prevent* competition and to maintain the status quo.
Both problems are quite solvable: on the one hand, here in the United States, start rigorously enforcing the anti-trust laws. For patents, if someone doesn't make a good faith effort to produce that technology within, say, a few years, the patent becomes invalid and the innovation falls into the public domain.
Do note, by the way, that I'm writing as a conservative/libertarian in philosophy. But I'm not a fool, either. From my point of view, this is precisely one of those things that government could and SHOULD be doing, but isn't.:)
> As for forgetting how to compromise, the problem is that there's no actual moderates left. Everybody's on a side.
So let's compromise. I'm a conservative: after realizing that we have (for example) HUNDREDS of freakin' destroyers in our Navy, not to mention that we're building planes that are being put in storage because we don't need them, and on and on... I'd be willing to accept substantial and severe cuts in military spending. Stop being the world's policeman. Don't touch military pay and benefits, because those folks have earned it. But there's plenty that could be trimmed, billions and billions of dollars.
OK... so what are my liberal friends willing to surrender in return? It's got to be something near and dear to their hearts.:)
That's how compromise works. It's not rocket science.
> My favored solution would be to adopt something like the Canadian or British system...
You seem like a bright fellow, so you probably know this -- but the reason we set things up this way was to give equal representation to each state (the Senate), and then equal representation by population (the House). Further, Senators were originally chosen by the State legislatures. Some argue that we need to go back to that.
The Founders were unable to get the smaller states to sign on to the Constitution without the Senate. Likewise, the populous states wouldn't sign on without the House. Ergo: compromise.:)
> "Checks and balances" is a fancy way of saying "if all y'all motherfuckers can't agree on shit, shit don't happen."
Remove the profane language and actually, that's pretty much what James Madison said. Our system was designed that way on purpose. Of course, then you say...
> bring the entire Legislature to a halt for six days per bill voted on... force three days of debate... another three days of debate on the actual vote
These are simply the (admittedly dumb) rules which the Senate has decided to impose upon itself. Those rules could be changed at any time. That's why I view Washington as a slapstick comedy: they keep shooting themselves in the foot, the whine and wail about how bad it hurts.:)
Actually, what scares me more than anything is the slow move in this country toward "rule by elites." Whether Republican or Democrat is irrelevant to me. One other thing that the Founder Fathers specifically tried to prevent was the appointment of "special masters" -- especially Caesars (or to use the more modern form of that word, "Czar") -- with broad power and the ability to act *WITHOUT* a consensus on the part of the governed.
That might seem like a good idea to you NOW, as long as a "special master" is in place making changes that you like. But change masters, and you might not think it's such a great idea.
This, in a nutshell, is why our Constitutional system of government was set up the way it was. No one person (or small group of people) was to have power to rule by "dictat" and decree.
Finally, what troubles me the most about this country is that we've forgotten how to compromise. Political compromise basically boils down to, "we hammer out an agreement that no one really likes, but that everyone can live with." Instead, we have people on both Left and Right screaming that it MUST be all done their way, no compromise... and that's the REAL reason why nothing gets done.
Just my opinion, and worth precisely what you paid for it.:)
> I am not American but I cannot think how can he know about everything.
No, but as an effective politician, he should hire people, and surround himself with people, of demonstrated competence and who will inform him when they think it's important.
Not with ideologues (or worse) who color the truth. And before anyone here raises the usual "but... but.. BUSH" objection, I'll freely admit (nay, assert) that Bush was guilty of the same thing. He surrounded himself with ideological Neocons and people who wanted to profit off of war.
Those who were hoping Obama would be a breath of fresh air are very disappointed, and all the handwaving in the world won't obscure that fact.
In this particular case: if he was, in fact, informed in 2010 of the Merkel spying, he could (and should have) right then, right there, said: NO. I don't approve of this. We still don't know all the facts (or even if this story is true), but if that is indeed the case, the buck stops at the desk in the Oval Office. Period, ending DOT.
I'm willing to pay a little more for a better seat, but flying from a smaller airport (Birmingham, AL), there aren't that many choices. You're gonna be stuck on a CRJ most of the time. You don't fly in those things, you wear them.:)
My wife and I have driven 2-1/2 hrs to the Nashville airport in the past just to get a better plane. Of course, the security is lot more of a hassle at a larger airport. It's a beautiful thing. Compensation: getting to watch all the musician wannabes walking around with their instruments, trying desperately to Look Cool. "Hey, I'm in Nashville, someone notice me!":)
Look: you know what's gonna happen (and is already happening): most of Coach will be cheap, itty-bitty seats all smished together, but for a small upcharge, you can sit in the "extended coach" or "Real Seats(tm)" or "Slightly Wider" sections. I can't justify paying the hilariously higher price for First, but I'm willing to pop an extra $50 for that.
> If the person in front of me in a flight pushes their seat back...
You get an extra inch, and you also win one (1) free head right in front of your face. If you're lucky, this person doesn't wear overpowering cologne or use some kind of hair gel that makes your eyes water. Or have a high-voltage hairdo that tickles your nose.
What I love, when a plane gets full, is that the rear of the plane tends to "drag down" a bit. SO, when you go to the lavatory, you get to run downhill on the way, then climb uphill on the way back.
Exactly. I work in the media (radio), and you'd better believe it. But it doesn't only happen with "rich guys." (Or "gals.)
The classic example is that of a small local newspaper. The largest advertiser's son is arrested for drunk driving. The advertiser calls the paper and says, "please don't run that story." What does the paper do? If it agrees, it has compromised. If it doesn't, though, it loses its largest advertiser and (this example is based on a true story, can't remember the details now) goes out of business.
In this particular case, who knows? Maybe the rich guy could *afford* to tell the advertiser, "sorry, but it's news, we're gonna print it."
My only other strong disagreement with some of the other posts here is the idea that government could somehow do a better (or at least more "unbiased") job. That's ludicrous. Politiclowns are the LEAST informed and the most swayed by public opinion. Now add in the fact that they earnestly want to *shape* public opinion, and you'll see what I don't believe anything emitted by a government organ.
Exactly... well, perhaps not exactly equally, but that's part of the problem. People think that because their particular politicritters are fractionally better on some things, that makes the other party a true Crowd of Hoodlums.
Both parties may have different policies and beliefs and different strategies for firing up their base(s) and winning elections, but anyone who thinks that either party is for the "common guy," they are delusional. Simply delusional.
The attempt by both parties to blame this current shutdown on the other would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
> Most of the sequester cuts were planned... to have a negative impact.
My wife works for the federal government, so I think I know a bit about what's going on.:)
You are absolutely right. The fact is, during a "shutdown," the government can decide which employees are "essential" and which can be furloughed. My wife is considered "essential," so she WILL go to work. She just may not get paid on time if this thing drags on.
Both parties are guilty of this: when there's a shutdown, they decide whom to send home, and they will inevitably play to their base(s) and try to get the public angry at the other party. It's all political theater. They ought to wear makeup and costumes. And really: is there any geek here who doesn't know how to leave a Web server running overnight or on weekends?:)
Hey, it's not like they didn't know this has been coming MONTHS in advance, is it? And to REALLY cheer you up, remember that we have a debt ceiling debate coming up in a couple of weeks. How much you wanna bet this wink, wink "shutdown" will continue past THAT debate?:)
> you are lying. Stop it. That not how it works. They only have to be sure you aren't dying right at that moment.
As someone else said here, please name your hospital so I'll know where NOT to go.
Look: I'm not going to give the details of my friends. If you choose not to believe it, so be it. Both were in the Fayetteville area of NC, where I used to live. One I went to church with, the other was a very good friend. Both were as I stated: they received full courses of treatment. The one with cancer even received free drugs. Her doctor helped arrange that for her.
Sure, there details that I omitted. For example, if you go to a "doc in the box" (i.e., one of those "urgent care" joints) and don't have insurance or can't afford to pay, they can refuse treatment unless it's a true emergency. They'll send you elsewhere -- and they can do so legally.
But friend, I assure you: if someone dies because your hospital didn't treat them, unless there were alternatives close by that could have handled that treatment, your hospital will be sued. Period. And the plaintiffs will win. Big.
That's not a lie. If you don't know that, I wouldn't want you working for me, not if I was in health care. You'd get me tied up in a $$$$ lawsuit due to your failure to understand the law.:)
That simply doesn't wash. While I certainly want everyone to have coverage and to get the best treatment, the fact is, BY LAW in the United States, no hospital can refuse to provide essential care. I have a friend who had breast cancer, and who went through the entire course of treatment without paying a penny. I have another who suffered kidney failure and went through years of dialysis -- without paying a dime.
The real killer is *being*out*of*work. You're so sick, you can't work, so you have no income. For that, health insurance (whether Obamacare or something else) doesn't do a thing. You need coverage to pay the bills while you're out of work.
THAT'S why people go bankrupt.
Not taking sides either way, I'm just pointing that out. The fact is, also under the law, even if you have assets, as long as you pay the hospital what you can afford (even if it's only $5 a week), they can't do anything to you. If they take you to court, you can tell the judge: I was out of work for a year, I can afford to pay them $25 a month and that's it. The judge will almost always agree.
I've been in court and have watched it happen.
Again: you can make an argument for universal health care. But I just wanted to set the record straight about that.
> phase out one type of antibiotic for a decade...
Nice idea in theory, but remember that infection types aren't monolithic. In your region, a given bacterium might have developed a strong resistance to amoxicillin, while in the next city over, they've become resistant to something else. Now add travel to the mix: a guy with methicillin-resistant germs flies across country, then shares his infection with the folks in that region.
NOW add in the fact that these things are most commonly spread in hospitals by overworked staff not washing their hands each and every time they visit a patient's room. One study I read several years ago found that the keyboards on the computers were loaded with MRSA, for example -- which could easily have been controlled with a puff of Lysol and a bottle of hand sanitizer.
At any rate, the article's premise makes sense to me. My doctor told me a few years ago that these things seemed to move in cycles: bacteria would became resistant to one antibiotic, then another... but it might eventually go full circle. He said he was having a lot of success treating some patients with plain ol' penicillin and doxycycline again.
> he fact remains that the US chose to two densely populated civilian targets, with the intent to massacre as many civilians as possible...
Umm... yes and no. I don't question your beliefs -- the images of people dying from radiation poisoning haunt me as well -- but in your zeal, you're ignoring some historical facts.
For the record, Hiroshima was an army headquarters, very much involved in the planning for the final defense of the Japanese Islands. Nagasaki was the home of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and an key port for the Imperial Japanese Navy. Neither were strictly "civilian" targets.... certainly not nearly as much so as Dresden in Germany.
Tokyo was more of a civilian target, and was firebombed extensively prior to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You can decide if suddenly killing 100,000 with an atomic weapon is worse than repeatedly fire-bombing many other cities in Japan. I'm not going to defend it either way, I'm just pointing out the historically inaccurate (or even revisionist) claims that you're parroting.
Germany killed millions simply because they were of the wrong ethnic group. Russia killed millions prior to the war for no better reason. War is a nasty business any way you cut it, and politics makes for reprehensible bedfellows sometimes. If you want to start pointing fingers, and if you're going to be fair about it, you'll need about three extra hands.:)
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OK, let me try one more time. I knew what I wanted to say in my fevered brain, but it came out badly. The key word I wanted to use was CLEANLINESS.
I mentally compared my wife's experience in this small operating room to surgery that she had many years ago at a large hospital in Birmingham, AL. The large hospital was an assembly line. Literally. The next patient was rolled into the operating room as the previous one was being rolled out. They cleaned between procedures, but it wasn't hard to imagine people getting tired and "missing a spot."
In that environment, no wonder they need prophylactic antibiotics ... and no wonder the bacteria eventually develop resistance.
Likewise in agriculture. When you're cramming chickens and cattle into cages and allowing them to live in their own filth, they WILL get sick. So, once again: tons of antibiotics, and no wonder the bacteria become resistant.
The doctor that I mentioned who ran his own operating room did NOT use prophylactic antibiotics unless he thought it was a high-risk case. He controlled infection with tons of chlorine bleach and autoclaves. He and his staff checked each other during wash-up before and between procedures.
Ergo: with a few simple, common-sense procedures, he is able to use a fraction of the antibiotics as the big hospitals, with a very low post-operative infection rate.
There. Now I'm off to work again. :)
> Polysporin contains antibiotics ...
Of course, I know that. But thanks, anyway. :)
I should have been more specific; I think you missed my point. The use of Polysporin (or Neosporin, or similar over the counter antibacterials) isn't comparable to the prophylactic use of oral or injected antibiotics. Polysporing is a topical antibacterial/antibiotic that isn't taken internally. It's comparable to using Betadine or the old Mercurichrome(sp?) that we used to use as kids.
> If this is a threat that "should be ranked alongside terrorism" then I'm not even going to waste my time reading about it.
I agree. We have Godwin's Law to invoke on those who make comparisons to Nazis, it's time to craft a law or people who invoke terrorism.
Look: antibiotic resistance is a serious problem. I've argued for years against the prophylactic use of these drugs in agriculture. No disagreement there.
But my wife has had surgery now -- twice -- and both times she remained infection free, even though she was not prescribed antibiotics. How? She had the surgery in a private clinic, not a public hospital. This particular doctor runs his own operating theater and personally ensures that everything is sterilized between procedures. It's squeaky-clean. (And actually, it cost LESS than going to a big-brick hospital.)
To keep infection off of the wound after the surgery, we were simply told to keep it clean, to change the bandages, and to at most use Polysporin. If we saw signs of infection, THEN the doctor would prescribe antibiotics.
Again: yes, it's a serious problem. We need to work on it. But this pandemic, "worse than terrorism" stuff is a little over the top.
> You will save far more by actually understanding the tax law, and restructuring your financial life to take advantage of that knowledge.
I agree, but to be fair to the parent poster, a good tax accountant and/or financial counselor will offer advice specifically targeted to you and your needs.
We have a guy on one of our talk stations here in Birmingham who shares all sorts of tips to save money like that, things I never would have thought of. For example:
1. Buy a stock that you expect to decrease in value in the short term, but to make money in the long term. You pay, say, $10,000.
2. It drops to $5,000. Sell, you can mark off the $5,000 loss on your taxes.
3. Wait 30 days, then take that $5,000 and buy the same stock again. You can still take the $5,000 loss, but if (when) the stock finally appreciates, you make money there, too. :)
He calls it "tax harvesting." I'd never heard of such a thing, but then, I ain't that sophisticated. :)
I've been using OpenSuSE since the 9.0 era. I had tried it prior to that and found it unusable on my system simply because it defaulted to some gosh-awful resolution. The icons were the size of fly specs. I didn't have time to figure out how to fix it, so I went back to my old OS. They fixed this in the 9.0 release and I've used it ever since.
One of SuSE's key features, whether you're using the community version or the paid/enterprise release, is the configuration tool (YAST, "Yet Another Setup Tool"). That thing is worth its weight in gold. It presents the same configuration options whether you're logged into a GUI or text-based via SSH. Sure, the latter is NCurses-based, but everything is where I expect it. I have been absolutely spoiled by that thing. It's the # 1 thing that I miss when I go to something else.
Red Hat, for example, while excellent and rock-stable, leaves me using command line tools for configuration when I'm in a secure shell. They've been reducing the utility of those tools (or eliminating them entirely) with each successive release, too. Plus, I don't completely trust ANY "easy-to-use" tools, but insofar as I've been able to confirm, SuSE wins.
(Example: the 5.x releases from CentOS -- I'm told that this was true with RHEL as well, of course -- would automatically open some ports in the firewall without telling you ... most notably, CUPS. I hate to dump their "system-config-securitylevel-tui" tool and do it myself. Good thing I always run an "iptables --list" before I expose something to the Internet at large ...)
YAST, YAST, YAST for me. Love it. I realize that a lot of this is just what you get used to, but I'm used to it, and I love it. :)
> I'd really like to find a place I could get pure gasoline.
Ask around, do some Web searches. Here in central Alabama, there are a few stations that offer it at a higher price (about 10-20c per gallon). There's a Valero station at my Interstate exit that sells pure gas, no alcohol.
I don't program for a living anymore, and I've always been more of a system-level, hardware driver kind of guy, so C/C++ work fine for me.
But especially coming from that background, my need isn't for another programming language, it's for better documentation of available libraries. For any common task that I want to do, somebody has probably written a great library that I can just strap in and use.
The problem is when I start trying to use it. The documentation has blank "TBD" pages, or really helpful comments like, "init_lib() -- initializes the library. You can specify the # of flickers per bleem ..."
Or ... and this is my 2nd favorite ... the documentation is out of date. "Hey, I tried to do this the way your tutorial said and it didn't work?" "Oh, yeah, that tutorial is out of date; we've changed some stuff ..."
My very most #1 favorite is automatically generated documentation that looks at (for example) a C++ class and then creates an HTML page. I might as well just look at the source code ... hoping, of course, that the people who wrote that source actually inserted more than a few, "does what it says" comments. Or that I don't have to play the Spaghetti Trace(tm) game, bouncing from one .c file to another .h file and back to a third .c (and this is after repeated greps in the "src" directory) to try to figure out what's happening to my poor variable while it's inside a function.
Not criticizing FOSS, per se; I understand that it's written by volunteers (for whom I'm very grateful). But this, rather than needing a new way to "PRINT" or "SORT" in a programming language, is the far bigger problem, in my book.
> But without incredible sheer luck ...
Yep. Part of that "sheer luck" thing was catching the Japanese carriers while they were refueling the planes. Our terrible planes and ordinance wouldn't have done nearly as much damage otherwise.
> It tends to sent off my I know I read otherwise flag and my must reeducate style rants :)
Hah. Me as well. :)
Actually, if we're honoring heroes, here's one bunch that rarely gets a mention nowadays: the submariners who served in the Allied Navies in WWII. I'm going from memory, but at the end of the war, Nimitz chose to do his change-of-command ceremony on the deck of a submarine. He wanted to honor the fact that (here's the memory part, don't hold me to this) something like only ONE IN TEN (or was it one in twenty???) of those who served on submarines in the Pacific survived the war.
The losses were staggering. Being in the sub service was tantamount to a death sentence in WWII, but they did it anyway.
You beat me to it (my more long-winded post can be found below), but precisely. PRECISELY. The Japanese military knew that the raid was just that -- a raid, and no more -- but they still felt compelled to respond. And Yamamoto won his argument for Midway as a DIRECT result of that raid.
> Doolittle's raid had little/no actual strategic value.
I may be a little older than you, but I'm surprised at the number of people nowadays who don't know what actually happened in WWII. It has been over half a century now, so at most it gets a chapter in the history books, highly condensed. I had the great pleasure of reading (among other things) Admiral Nimitz's history of that war, very detailed, with a look at every decision -- juggling horribly short assets against needs everywhere.
In fact, the Doolittle Raid had a significant strategic impact -- it caused the Japanese to redistribute their forces. In particular, they strongly weakened their carrier forces in the Indian Ocean. It also strengthened Yamamoto's position in favor of the Battle of Midway, which was the turning point of the entire Pacific war. (Some revisionist historians now want to argue with that, but their heads are filled with revisionist cheese. Losing several aircraft carriers in a single battle meant that Japan would never again be able to take the initiative.) :)
I hate war. As Sherman said, "War is hell." But if you attack me, or threaten those I love, I'm a typical American: I gitterdone, the entire time wishing that you'd just kept your mind right and left me alone. I'm not saying that everyone feels that way, but I am typical.
Only those who've seen the suffering can begin to imagine how awful war is. My Veteran's Day story comes from Sandy's grandfather, who was in a foxhole in St. Vith when the Germans kicked off the Battle of the Bulge. In my eyes, he was a freakin' hero, and I begged him to talk about it.
All he would say was, "I lost a lot of friends that day." Nothing more. I felt ashamed for bringing it up, and we changed the topic.
Yes, you can argue about Korea, Vietnam, et. al. But go back and read histories written by Nimitz and others who were there. No, there wasn't a great deal of fear that Germany or Japan could actually occupy the United States, but there was still a very real possibility that Japan and Germany would win. We've gotten cocky nowadays, but back then, what with bad torpedoes, ossified admirals who didn't want to use that "newfangled" radar, planes that couldn't keep up with the Mitsubishi Zero, it was anything but a guaranteed thing.
As for the results of an Axis victory, I suggest a good dose of Turtledove or other alternative history. It wouldn't have been pretty. At all.
> in a properly competitive market
The problem is ensuring that it's truly competitive. What has been happening is that corporations are merging to *eliminate* competition and ensure a continued revenue stream, even though the technology might be old and "unclean" (as far as emissions).
Corporations are also allowed to buy up patents which might clean up energy, but which are then tabled and never put into production. The only reason the corporation bought that patent is to (once again) *prevent* competition and to maintain the status quo.
Both problems are quite solvable: on the one hand, here in the United States, start rigorously enforcing the anti-trust laws. For patents, if someone doesn't make a good faith effort to produce that technology within, say, a few years, the patent becomes invalid and the innovation falls into the public domain.
Do note, by the way, that I'm writing as a conservative/libertarian in philosophy. But I'm not a fool, either. From my point of view, this is precisely one of those things that government could and SHOULD be doing, but isn't. :)
> As for forgetting how to compromise, the problem is that there's no actual moderates left. Everybody's on a side.
So let's compromise. I'm a conservative: after realizing that we have (for example) HUNDREDS of freakin' destroyers in our Navy, not to mention that we're building planes that are being put in storage because we don't need them, and on and on ... I'd be willing to accept substantial and severe cuts in military spending. Stop being the world's policeman. Don't touch military pay and benefits, because those folks have earned it. But there's plenty that could be trimmed, billions and billions of dollars.
OK ... so what are my liberal friends willing to surrender in return? It's got to be something near and dear to their hearts. :)
That's how compromise works. It's not rocket science.
> My favored solution would be to adopt something like the Canadian or British system ...
You seem like a bright fellow, so you probably know this -- but the reason we set things up this way was to give equal representation to each state (the Senate), and then equal representation by population (the House). Further, Senators were originally chosen by the State legislatures. Some argue that we need to go back to that.
The Founders were unable to get the smaller states to sign on to the Constitution without the Senate. Likewise, the populous states wouldn't sign on without the House. Ergo: compromise. :)
OK, I'll play.
> "Checks and balances" is a fancy way of saying "if all y'all motherfuckers can't agree on shit, shit don't happen."
Remove the profane language and actually, that's pretty much what James Madison said. Our system was designed that way on purpose. Of course, then you say ...
> bring the entire Legislature to a halt for six days per bill voted on ... force three days of debate ... another three days of debate on the actual vote
These are simply the (admittedly dumb) rules which the Senate has decided to impose upon itself. Those rules could be changed at any time. That's why I view Washington as a slapstick comedy: they keep shooting themselves in the foot, the whine and wail about how bad it hurts. :)
Actually, what scares me more than anything is the slow move in this country toward "rule by elites." Whether Republican or Democrat is irrelevant to me. One other thing that the Founder Fathers specifically tried to prevent was the appointment of "special masters" -- especially Caesars (or to use the more modern form of that word, "Czar") -- with broad power and the ability to act *WITHOUT* a consensus on the part of the governed.
That might seem like a good idea to you NOW, as long as a "special master" is in place making changes that you like. But change masters, and you might not think it's such a great idea.
This, in a nutshell, is why our Constitutional system of government was set up the way it was. No one person (or small group of people) was to have power to rule by "dictat" and decree.
Finally, what troubles me the most about this country is that we've forgotten how to compromise. Political compromise basically boils down to, "we hammer out an agreement that no one really likes, but that everyone can live with." Instead, we have people on both Left and Right screaming that it MUST be all done their way, no compromise ... and that's the REAL reason why nothing gets done.
Just my opinion, and worth precisely what you paid for it. :)
UN Official #1: "Sir! An asteroid on a direct collision course has been spotted! Impact in 5 days!"
UN Official #2: "Plenty of time. We've fired the missiles, each loaded with a STERNLY-WORDED letter ..."
> I am not American but I cannot think how can he know about everything.
No, but as an effective politician, he should hire people, and surround himself with people, of demonstrated competence and who will inform him when they think it's important.
Not with ideologues (or worse) who color the truth. And before anyone here raises the usual "but ... but .. BUSH" objection, I'll freely admit (nay, assert) that Bush was guilty of the same thing. He surrounded himself with ideological Neocons and people who wanted to profit off of war.
Those who were hoping Obama would be a breath of fresh air are very disappointed, and all the handwaving in the world won't obscure that fact.
In this particular case: if he was, in fact, informed in 2010 of the Merkel spying, he could (and should have) right then, right there, said: NO. I don't approve of this. We still don't know all the facts (or even if this story is true), but if that is indeed the case, the buck stops at the desk in the Oval Office. Period, ending DOT.
> sort flights by cost
I'm willing to pay a little more for a better seat, but flying from a smaller airport (Birmingham, AL), there aren't that many choices. You're gonna be stuck on a CRJ most of the time. You don't fly in those things, you wear them. :)
My wife and I have driven 2-1/2 hrs to the Nashville airport in the past just to get a better plane. Of course, the security is lot more of a hassle at a larger airport. It's a beautiful thing. Compensation: getting to watch all the musician wannabes walking around with their instruments, trying desperately to Look Cool. "Hey, I'm in Nashville, someone notice me!" :)
Look: you know what's gonna happen (and is already happening): most of Coach will be cheap, itty-bitty seats all smished together, but for a small upcharge, you can sit in the "extended coach" or "Real Seats(tm)" or "Slightly Wider" sections. I can't justify paying the hilariously higher price for First, but I'm willing to pop an extra $50 for that.
> If the person in front of me in a flight pushes their seat back ...
You get an extra inch, and you also win one (1) free head right in front of your face. If you're lucky, this person doesn't wear overpowering cologne or use some kind of hair gel that makes your eyes water. Or have a high-voltage hairdo that tickles your nose.
What I love, when a plane gets full, is that the rear of the plane tends to "drag down" a bit. SO, when you go to the lavatory, you get to run downhill on the way, then climb uphill on the way back.
Ah, modern technology. :)
> .. always bends to business or advertisers.
Exactly. I work in the media (radio), and you'd better believe it. But it doesn't only happen with "rich guys." (Or "gals.)
The classic example is that of a small local newspaper. The largest advertiser's son is arrested for drunk driving. The advertiser calls the paper and says, "please don't run that story." What does the paper do? If it agrees, it has compromised. If it doesn't, though, it loses its largest advertiser and (this example is based on a true story, can't remember the details now) goes out of business.
In this particular case, who knows? Maybe the rich guy could *afford* to tell the advertiser, "sorry, but it's news, we're gonna print it."
My only other strong disagreement with some of the other posts here is the idea that government could somehow do a better (or at least more "unbiased") job. That's ludicrous. Politiclowns are the LEAST informed and the most swayed by public opinion. Now add in the fact that they earnestly want to *shape* public opinion, and you'll see what I don't believe anything emitted by a government organ.
> Both, equally.
Exactly ... well, perhaps not exactly equally, but that's part of the problem. People think that because their particular politicritters are fractionally better on some things, that makes the other party a true Crowd of Hoodlums.
Both parties may have different policies and beliefs and different strategies for firing up their base(s) and winning elections, but anyone who thinks that either party is for the "common guy," they are delusional. Simply delusional.
The attempt by both parties to blame this current shutdown on the other would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
> Most of the sequester cuts were planned ... to have a negative impact.
My wife works for the federal government, so I think I know a bit about what's going on. :)
You are absolutely right. The fact is, during a "shutdown," the government can decide which employees are "essential" and which can be furloughed. My wife is considered "essential," so she WILL go to work. She just may not get paid on time if this thing drags on.
Both parties are guilty of this: when there's a shutdown, they decide whom to send home, and they will inevitably play to their base(s) and try to get the public angry at the other party. It's all political theater. They ought to wear makeup and costumes. And really: is there any geek here who doesn't know how to leave a Web server running overnight or on weekends? :)
Hey, it's not like they didn't know this has been coming MONTHS in advance, is it? And to REALLY cheer you up, remember that we have a debt ceiling debate coming up in a couple of weeks. How much you wanna bet this wink, wink "shutdown" will continue past THAT debate? :)
> you are lying. Stop it. That not how it works. They only have to be sure you aren't dying right at that moment.
As someone else said here, please name your hospital so I'll know where NOT to go.
Look: I'm not going to give the details of my friends. If you choose not to believe it, so be it. Both were in the Fayetteville area of NC, where I used to live. One I went to church with, the other was a very good friend. Both were as I stated: they received full courses of treatment. The one with cancer even received free drugs. Her doctor helped arrange that for her.
Sure, there details that I omitted. For example, if you go to a "doc in the box" (i.e., one of those "urgent care" joints) and don't have insurance or can't afford to pay, they can refuse treatment unless it's a true emergency. They'll send you elsewhere -- and they can do so legally.
But friend, I assure you: if someone dies because your hospital didn't treat them, unless there were alternatives close by that could have handled that treatment, your hospital will be sued. Period. And the plaintiffs will win. Big.
That's not a lie. If you don't know that, I wouldn't want you working for me, not if I was in health care. You'd get me tied up in a $$$$ lawsuit due to your failure to understand the law. :)
That simply doesn't wash. While I certainly want everyone to have coverage and to get the best treatment, the fact is, BY LAW in the United States, no hospital can refuse to provide essential care. I have a friend who had breast cancer, and who went through the entire course of treatment without paying a penny. I have another who suffered kidney failure and went through years of dialysis -- without paying a dime.
The real killer is *being*out*of*work. You're so sick, you can't work, so you have no income. For that, health insurance (whether Obamacare or something else) doesn't do a thing. You need coverage to pay the bills while you're out of work.
THAT'S why people go bankrupt.
Not taking sides either way, I'm just pointing that out. The fact is, also under the law, even if you have assets, as long as you pay the hospital what you can afford (even if it's only $5 a week), they can't do anything to you. If they take you to court, you can tell the judge: I was out of work for a year, I can afford to pay them $25 a month and that's it. The judge will almost always agree.
I've been in court and have watched it happen.
Again: you can make an argument for universal health care. But I just wanted to set the record straight about that.
> phase out one type of antibiotic for a decade ...
Nice idea in theory, but remember that infection types aren't monolithic. In your region, a given bacterium might have developed a strong resistance to amoxicillin, while in the next city over, they've become resistant to something else. Now add travel to the mix: a guy with methicillin-resistant germs flies across country, then shares his infection with the folks in that region.
NOW add in the fact that these things are most commonly spread in hospitals by overworked staff not washing their hands each and every time they visit a patient's room. One study I read several years ago found that the keyboards on the computers were loaded with MRSA, for example -- which could easily have been controlled with a puff of Lysol and a bottle of hand sanitizer.
At any rate, the article's premise makes sense to me. My doctor told me a few years ago that these things seemed to move in cycles: bacteria would became resistant to one antibiotic, then another ... but it might eventually go full circle. He said he was having a lot of success treating some patients with plain ol' penicillin and doxycycline again.
> he fact remains that the US chose to two densely populated civilian targets, with the intent to massacre as many civilians as possible ...
Umm ... yes and no. I don't question your beliefs -- the images of people dying from radiation poisoning haunt me as well -- but in your zeal, you're ignoring some historical facts.
For the record, Hiroshima was an army headquarters, very much involved in the planning for the final defense of the Japanese Islands. Nagasaki was the home of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and an key port for the Imperial Japanese Navy. Neither were strictly "civilian" targets .... certainly not nearly as much so as Dresden in Germany.
Tokyo was more of a civilian target, and was firebombed extensively prior to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You can decide if suddenly killing 100,000 with an atomic weapon is worse than repeatedly fire-bombing many other cities in Japan. I'm not going to defend it either way, I'm just pointing out the historically inaccurate (or even revisionist) claims that you're parroting.
Germany killed millions simply because they were of the wrong ethnic group. Russia killed millions prior to the war for no better reason. War is a nasty business any way you cut it, and politics makes for reprehensible bedfellows sometimes. If you want to start pointing fingers, and if you're going to be fair about it, you'll need about three extra hands. :)