Agreed. I have worked in health insurance for 4 years, and I've posted on other threads that I am now a major 'consumer' of health care.
A couple things to consider.
- Shop for insurance looking for these items: Are my favorite doctors in net? Pharmacy? Are my drugs covered, must I buy a generic? Is Chiropractic covered? Mental Health?
- 'In Network' is golden. if you prefer to leave the network, you will pay that doctor's standard rate, often even after your 'Out of Network Max' has been exceeded, because Insurance company's set a 'Usual and Customary' (U&C) value for every procedure, and only pay that amount... MDs, since they are discounting services paid for by insurance companies, up their normal rates to cover the difference (if 20% are paying cash, and 80% are paying via insurance 80% of the 'real costs, the 20% are paying for their costs plus paying for the discount given to the 'network' patient)
- If you are young, healthy, good cash flow (real paying jobs) and have good investing habits... do a High deductible PLUS an HSA... and be disciplined to invest the difference in premiums between the low deductible/HMO and the HDHP in the HSA. Your HSA becomes both your rainy day health fund, but if you maintain good health, eventually it kicks into a retirement fund vehicle.
- Look for these perks
-- 100% coverage on annual exams
-- 100% coverage on immunizations for children
-- Nurse Line (avoid unnecessary trips to the doctor)
-- A good web site, that allows you to track your claim history, medical record, has a real procedure cost estimator and a good network physician lookup
Finally,
- Insurance buys you 'insurability', ie, your current insurance must provide you a certificate of coverage which is the chit that gets you into most group plans even if you have a chronic condition. So being continuously insured when you are diagnosed usually gaurantees you if you ever want to switch plans that you can get insurance (albeit maybe at a higher rate, but at that point coverage is important, not price).
Slow wireless. Less space than the Internet. Lame.
Re:The list is an insult to women
on
Top Ten Geek Girls
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
True.... even before I read the article I came up with 3 names I knew would not be on it
1) Ellen Hancock, First with IBM (hired as a programmer in the mid 60s, then led the network team [SNA, Token Ring under her watch] first woman Senior VP at IBM), then with Apple (as CTO, she killed Copland... and pushed for the NeXT buy out... in some respects, she may have saved Apple... and then fired by Steve)
2) Kim Polese: Product Manager of original java team, co-founder of Marimba, poster girl of the DotCom(bomb) era.
3) Kari Byron (MythBusters) would be better mass media geekdom icon than Paris or Lisa, at least she sometimes shoots things, ignites stuff, dabbles in ballistic trajectories, welds stuff, and dresses GyrlGeek;-).
YMMV, but those would be my Candidate Substitutions.
I have a dependant, who became afflicted with a rare conditon about a year ago, and we ran up 207,000 (and counting) of medical bills this year. Tomorrow is their last day of therapy... at which point 'we hope' we're done. Therapy costs $2000 a day.
The day they were discharged from the hospital for the inpatient, my employer also saw fit to lay me off, with 11 weeks of severence, and, of course, no extension of company paid benefits beyond the end of the termination month. COBRA cost me 1000/month for what was in the industry know as 'high deductible health care' [basically it's medicare part d for healthcare.. with a huge 'donut hole']. My plan has a 10,000 out of pocket max, and then the insurance pays 100%
Couple this with the getting the 'best doctors' to deal with this meant going out of network... when you go out of network, you see "oh, I'm only going to pay $10,000, as that is my Out of Pocket Max" Err, no.. see health insurance companies have this 'usual and customary' valuation of procedures, saying that if doctor charges $4500 for a MRI, and Medicare only reimburses that at $2000, well, the insurnance will only pay 100% of the '$2000', leaving the 'insured' paying the $2500 that is 'not covered'. You'll be surprised that an insurance company will pay $100 to an innetwork physician, for an office visit, but only pay $35 for an out of network physician, because medicare has deemed that 'usual and customary.'
So the bill yesterday said, after insurance paid "their share" of all claims that I still owe 97,000 (remember that 10,000 'out of pocket Max'. This after the privilege of paying $9000 this year for insurance coverage.
Note We have depleted 20,000 for living expenses while I was looking for a new job, and now that I have a job we have dedicated 500 a month to pay off the debt, and I am spending 2 hours a day appealing most of the 'usual and customary' valuations, which I will probably whittle off about 50K (I have no problem paying the difference between the common 'negotiated' rate with in network providers and Mayo's bill, but Medicare just doesn't cut it).
This is not a sob story, I'm actually been in the health industry most of my adult life... but If I were 20 years younger, and all this happened, I'm certain I'd be bankrupt.
Most pump/dump scams are now driven by identity thefted accounts. Steal identity, open an account, establish ACH-Out to a local bank, then an ACH-out to a foreign bank, buy 100 shares a day of the cheap stock for 3 months (multiplied by several accounts across several brokerages to stay under the radar), start the 'pump' hit your profit margin (less than 10,000 per account), then siphon the illicit accounts.
Last weeks press relating to Ameritrade and E*trade taking huge losses (22Million+ in writeoffs), points out that now pump/dumpers now can actually just 'steal' access to a bunch of legit accounts (HAXDOOR ID/password capture via a keystroker stealer), wait a couple weeks... then issue a bunch of BUY orders across the stolen accounts, use your pre-setup fake accounts to either SELL or SHORT the issue, ACH-OUT, and $$PROFIT$$, all in a matter of hours, and in fact, you don't even have to SPAM people (typically SPAM email doesn't work, but SPAMMING newsgroups and chatrooms does).
The press last week noted that it is _hard_ to catch these villians, as they typically launder their money through several layers of classic identity thefted accounts (online brokerages, then banks, maybe Ebay(buy/sell to 2 stolen identities) then PayPal, then foreign accounts. Once you're able to cross international jurisdictions and are not dealing with $millions (most scams like this net a couple hundred thousand USD per event, enough to make it worth setting up the one time network, let's say $10K of expenses in stealing accounts [fake ids, birth certs, SSNs, Drivers licenses] and setting up the seed cash for sales), the effort to catch a scammer is not worth it to the Feds, Interpol etc.
well, the parent article assumes Intel wants to maximize profit per chip sold to Apple. That seems counter to the argument that they don't care if Apple bought another chip from them, and given OS X's universal capability, AMD presence, and the fact that Apple actually has both HW and SW engineers under the same roof to speed conversion to a new chipset, and dropping volumes to zero, Intel hardly has leverage here renegotiate pricing upwards with their 4th largest customer (with a bullet).
Face it, it's a silly argument to say that Intel, suffering from deep discounts to HP and Dell, has to make up revenue by sticking to Apple, AND BECAUSE OF THIS, Apples profits will be squeezed, and Apple should get out of the Systems HW business now.
Dell strikes a sweet deal with Intel after opening up it's systems to the AMD line...
HP muscles in and says it will go to AMD (I assume) unless it gets the same deal as Dell.
Dell and HP are in a deathgrip to maintain market share for the corporate and household WinTel platform, and are being nipped at by Lenovo, BestBuy, Walmart, etc, for market share, house branding, and margins
Apple, which has the luxury of owning premium software that can run on multiple platforms, let alone on an x86 platform, and is probably already paying slightly more (due to volumes) than Dell or HP, Apple is the EVIL one here, and should be punished by Intel asking for a higher per unit cost for components, because Apple is more profitable?
I see this as ludicrous as Goodyear asking for Honda to pay [even] more for the same tire as GM and Ford, because Honda can afford to pay it... x86 is a freakin' commodity, like pork bellies, and batteries (SONY, pay attention!!!). It's an important commodity, but fundamentally, a chip is a chip, and it's just that.
Intel is not subsidizing Apple... Intel is subsidizing the big boy PC maker market in order to stave off AMD and maintain market their share. This article infers that Intel will soon ask Apple to help subsidize this partnership, and apple will be in no position to fight back....
I hope Apple says either "AMD called yesterday and built a proto system on the PLUON chip... It ran OSX without mods... doesn't need another Universal Binary... just plug and play" or "You know, you should come over sometime... the boys in the labs, They built a sweet OS X system that uses a CELL chip from IBM.... Obtw, here's our order for 6million Core 2 Duo and Quad CPUs... volume pricing hasn't changed... correct?"
my quick perusal of the hacker's diet finds it a bit simplistic to how the body burns food. In reality, to reduce adipose fat (the obesity fat), one must burn more fat as a percentage of calories. And in general, the body defends it's fat, as it's the 'survival' energy, and when you go into sudden bursts of energy and/or starvation, you tend to 'burn' muscle first, ending up with a higher fat percentage to body weight.
Gentle increases in metabolism, such as moderate biking for long periods of time (over 90 minutes), where you don't push the aerobic/anaerobic threshold (about 65% Max Heart Rate) is perfect to increase metabolism, but not so dramatically as to decrease the fat burning ratio (say, below 50% in terms of calories, or about 2:1 carbs:fat in weight). (in measurements, the maximum fat burning ratio is your sedentary metabolism, just sitting and/or sleeping, usually around 70% from fat [1:1 in terms of weight]... the problem is that you convert excess blood sugar to fat if you're not consuming enough aerobic calories). Gentle biking, for long periods of time, with a subtle change of diet (move to 'good fats [omega-3]', increase protein while reducing bad fats, and reduce simple sugars [such as fructose and sucrose... ie, white sugar, pop] and high glycemic foods [potatos, breads, rice] and replace with complex carbs [green veggies, fiber, whole unprocessed grains]) is the best way to change body composition.
So I see biking while hacking the perfect exercise component... you just need to change the chips to low-salt beef jerky (me... it's low salt roasted soybeans), the soda pop to low-carb energy drinks [monster low-carb!!!!], and the lo-mein to veggie stir-fry.
The process mentioned in the Hacker's diet is a good base, just needs some fine tuning.
AirForce and Navy (and CIA) Drones fly at high altitudes for theatre support. They are great for loitering in a large battle field or tailing a enemy force (or mobile command unit). However, they are expensive and require some level of complex ground support.
Marine and Army drones deployed at the platoon/company level are considered necessary to take the 'high ground' for reconnoitering a similarly sized agressor force in close quarters. Being able to pack in a drone with the unit, launch it relatively quietly in a small space, control it remotely, and be able look down from a couple hundred feet to get precise locations of individuals/squads in your team or your enemy within a couple minutes is better than engaging a force and waiting 15-30 minutes under fire for 'big drone' to be positioned to your coordinates.
I've seen other videos of what are basically balsa wood model airplanes with your basic model airplane motors (the demo showed the unit launched slingshot style with a long elastic cord), GPS, and miniturized look down and look ahead cameras that communicate to a laptop for both flight control and image capture. Obviously the 'buzz' of the engine, the slow speed, along with the static form make it pretty easy to take out with handheld weapons.
Using motion blurring to make it harder to aim at (ever try to aim at a moving deer in a scope... now add fore/background brush to 'blur it'... you get the picture) Keeping the thing 'alive' for a couple more minutes in a combat situation maybe all that is needed to get aggressor locations and form up tactical orders.
I and classmate built a robot based on the KIM-1 board... after weeks of hand entering our motion control system (complete with ultrasonic avoidance!), we first built a PDP 11/03 (w/RT-11... but the must have thing for us was the TECO editor, and a disk storage unit) to KIM-1 serial interface to download the operating code. "Breathing Life" into the beast was a lot easier
It's not really your first computer unless you used a soldering iron to assemble it;-)
Although targeted at financial data, legislation such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is precisely what is needed in such high-risk industries. It imposes strict information controls and audit requirements, and makes an effort at putting the responsibily where it belongs, namely at the Director and Executive levels.
Err, there is the congressionally mandated little outfit called the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and their code of federal regulations (21 CFR et al). No need for congress to rush out and write laws... the work is done.
A quick read (chuckle) would point out that officers of a Pharma that knowingly submit incomplete or falsified data, are subject to fine and/or imprisonment, and even it was unknowingly falsified... the company can be effectively barred from producing/selling any product until the revalidation of all quality processes are complete. Not the sort of thing stockholders like to hear about.
With a lot less capital and cash flow, NeXT maintained black (68040) and white (486) capabilties for several years. I can't see Steve jettisoning full support in less than 3 years, and partial support several years after that
As it is, I'm starting to feel the pinch of capabilities of older PPC technology... I have a G3/400 that I need to replace, because a lot of the iLife stuff (my wife loves iPhoto, and wants to start iMovie) as well as iChat. A G4/800 is off to school with my youngest son, to match the G4/887 going off with my older one to grad school.
So, the G3 is slated for retirement after 5 years of service. A Mac Mini would work just fine (I have 3 17" Mac Trini Screens), and with a student discount I'll get a free iPod too;-)
Release quickly Apple, School starts in 4 weeks.
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed. I have worked in health insurance for 4 years, and I've posted on other threads that I am now a major 'consumer' of health care.
A couple things to consider. - Shop for insurance looking for these items: Are my favorite doctors in net? Pharmacy? Are my drugs covered, must I buy a generic? Is Chiropractic covered? Mental Health?
- 'In Network' is golden. if you prefer to leave the network, you will pay that doctor's standard rate, often even after your 'Out of Network Max' has been exceeded, because Insurance company's set a 'Usual and Customary' (U&C) value for every procedure, and only pay that amount... MDs, since they are discounting services paid for by insurance companies, up their normal rates to cover the difference (if 20% are paying cash, and 80% are paying via insurance 80% of the 'real costs, the 20% are paying for their costs plus paying for the discount given to the 'network' patient)
- If you are young, healthy, good cash flow (real paying jobs) and have good investing habits... do a High deductible PLUS an HSA... and be disciplined to invest the difference in premiums between the low deductible/HMO and the HDHP in the HSA. Your HSA becomes both your rainy day health fund, but if you maintain good health, eventually it kicks into a retirement fund vehicle.
- Look for these perks
-- 100% coverage on annual exams
-- 100% coverage on immunizations for children
-- Nurse Line (avoid unnecessary trips to the doctor)
-- A good web site, that allows you to track your claim history, medical record, has a real procedure cost estimator and a good network physician lookup
Finally,
- Insurance buys you 'insurability', ie, your current insurance must provide you a certificate of coverage which is the chit that gets you into most group plans even if you have a chronic condition. So being continuously insured when you are diagnosed usually gaurantees you if you ever want to switch plans that you can get insurance (albeit maybe at a higher rate, but at that point coverage is important, not price).
I can see it now...
Slow wireless. Less space than the Internet. Lame.
1) Ellen Hancock, First with IBM (hired as a programmer in the mid 60s, then led the network team [SNA, Token Ring under her watch] first woman Senior VP at IBM), then with Apple (as CTO, she killed Copland... and pushed for the NeXT buy out... in some respects, she may have saved Apple... and then fired by Steve)
2) Kim Polese: Product Manager of original java team, co-founder of Marimba, poster girl of the DotCom(bomb) era.
3) Kari Byron (MythBusters) would be better mass media geekdom icon than Paris or Lisa, at least she sometimes shoots things, ignites stuff, dabbles in ballistic trajectories, welds stuff, and dresses GyrlGeek;-).
YMMV, but those would be my Candidate Substitutions.
A true life story
I have a dependant, who became afflicted with a rare conditon about a year ago, and we ran up 207,000 (and counting) of medical bills this year. Tomorrow is their last day of therapy... at which point 'we hope' we're done. Therapy costs $2000 a day.
The day they were discharged from the hospital for the inpatient, my employer also saw fit to lay me off, with 11 weeks of severence, and, of course, no extension of company paid benefits beyond the end of the termination month. COBRA cost me 1000/month for what was in the industry know as 'high deductible health care' [basically it's medicare part d for healthcare.. with a huge 'donut hole']. My plan has a 10,000 out of pocket max, and then the insurance pays 100%
Couple this with the getting the 'best doctors' to deal with this meant going out of network... when you go out of network, you see "oh, I'm only going to pay $10,000, as that is my Out of Pocket Max" Err, no.. see health insurance companies have this 'usual and customary' valuation of procedures, saying that if doctor charges $4500 for a MRI, and Medicare only reimburses that at $2000, well, the insurnance will only pay 100% of the '$2000', leaving the 'insured' paying the $2500 that is 'not covered'. You'll be surprised that an insurance company will pay $100 to an innetwork physician, for an office visit, but only pay $35 for an out of network physician, because medicare has deemed that 'usual and customary.'
So the bill yesterday said, after insurance paid "their share" of all claims that I still owe 97,000 (remember that 10,000 'out of pocket Max'. This after the privilege of paying $9000 this year for insurance coverage.
Note We have depleted 20,000 for living expenses while I was looking for a new job, and now that I have a job we have dedicated 500 a month to pay off the debt, and I am spending 2 hours a day appealing most of the 'usual and customary' valuations, which I will probably whittle off about 50K (I have no problem paying the difference between the common 'negotiated' rate with in network providers and Mayo's bill, but Medicare just doesn't cut it).
This is not a sob story, I'm actually been in the health industry most of my adult life... but If I were 20 years younger, and all this happened, I'm certain I'd be bankrupt.
Slashdot.
No threading. Less comments than Usenet. Lame
Most pump/dump scams are now driven by identity thefted accounts. Steal identity, open an account, establish ACH-Out to a local bank, then an ACH-out to a foreign bank, buy 100 shares a day of the cheap stock for 3 months (multiplied by several accounts across several brokerages to stay under the radar), start the 'pump' hit your profit margin (less than 10,000 per account), then siphon the illicit accounts.
Last weeks press relating to Ameritrade and E*trade taking huge losses (22Million+ in writeoffs), points out that now pump/dumpers now can actually just 'steal' access to a bunch of legit accounts (HAXDOOR ID/password capture via a keystroker stealer), wait a couple weeks... then issue a bunch of BUY orders across the stolen accounts, use your pre-setup fake accounts to either SELL or SHORT the issue, ACH-OUT, and $$PROFIT$$, all in a matter of hours, and in fact, you don't even have to SPAM people (typically SPAM email doesn't work, but SPAMMING newsgroups and chatrooms does).
The press last week noted that it is _hard_ to catch these villians, as they typically launder their money through several layers of classic identity thefted accounts (online brokerages, then banks, maybe Ebay(buy/sell to 2 stolen identities) then PayPal, then foreign accounts. Once you're able to cross international jurisdictions and are not dealing with $millions (most scams like this net a couple hundred thousand USD per event, enough to make it worth setting up the one time network, let's say $10K of expenses in stealing accounts [fake ids, birth certs, SSNs, Drivers licenses] and setting up the seed cash for sales), the effort to catch a scammer is not worth it to the Feds, Interpol etc.
well, the parent article assumes Intel wants to maximize profit per chip sold to Apple. That seems counter to the argument that they don't care if Apple bought another chip from them, and given OS X's universal capability, AMD presence, and the fact that Apple actually has both HW and SW engineers under the same roof to speed conversion to a new chipset, and dropping volumes to zero, Intel hardly has leverage here renegotiate pricing upwards with their 4th largest customer (with a bullet).
Face it, it's a silly argument to say that Intel, suffering from deep discounts to HP and Dell, has to make up revenue by sticking to Apple, AND BECAUSE OF THIS, Apples profits will be squeezed, and Apple should get out of the Systems HW business now.
So, let me get this straight,
Dell strikes a sweet deal with Intel after opening up it's systems to the AMD line...
HP muscles in and says it will go to AMD (I assume) unless it gets the same deal as Dell.
Dell and HP are in a deathgrip to maintain market share for the corporate and household WinTel platform, and are being nipped at by Lenovo, BestBuy, Walmart, etc, for market share, house branding, and margins
Apple, which has the luxury of owning premium software that can run on multiple platforms, let alone on an x86 platform, and is probably already paying slightly more (due to volumes) than Dell or HP, Apple is the EVIL one here, and should be punished by Intel asking for a higher per unit cost for components, because Apple is more profitable?
I see this as ludicrous as Goodyear asking for Honda to pay [even] more for the same tire as GM and Ford, because Honda can afford to pay it... x86 is a freakin' commodity, like pork bellies, and batteries (SONY, pay attention!!!). It's an important commodity, but fundamentally, a chip is a chip, and it's just that.
Intel is not subsidizing Apple... Intel is subsidizing the big boy PC maker market in order to stave off AMD and maintain market their share. This article infers that Intel will soon ask Apple to help subsidize this partnership, and apple will be in no position to fight back....
I hope Apple says either "AMD called yesterday and built a proto system on the PLUON chip... It ran OSX without mods... doesn't need another Universal Binary... just plug and play" or "You know, you should come over sometime... the boys in the labs, They built a sweet OS X system that uses a CELL chip from IBM.... Obtw, here's our order for 6million Core 2 Duo and Quad CPUs... volume pricing hasn't changed... correct?"
"Sorry Mac fans, Safari isn't that big yet" Real Mac fans use Camino.
my quick perusal of the hacker's diet finds it a bit simplistic to how the body burns food. In reality, to reduce adipose fat (the obesity fat), one must burn more fat as a percentage of calories. And in general, the body defends it's fat, as it's the 'survival' energy, and when you go into sudden bursts of energy and/or starvation, you tend to 'burn' muscle first, ending up with a higher fat percentage to body weight.
Gentle increases in metabolism, such as moderate biking for long periods of time (over 90 minutes), where you don't push the aerobic/anaerobic threshold (about 65% Max Heart Rate) is perfect to increase metabolism, but not so dramatically as to decrease the fat burning ratio (say, below 50% in terms of calories, or about 2:1 carbs:fat in weight). (in measurements, the maximum fat burning ratio is your sedentary metabolism, just sitting and/or sleeping, usually around 70% from fat [1:1 in terms of weight]... the problem is that you convert excess blood sugar to fat if you're not consuming enough aerobic calories). Gentle biking, for long periods of time, with a subtle change of diet (move to 'good fats [omega-3]', increase protein while reducing bad fats, and reduce simple sugars [such as fructose and sucrose... ie, white sugar, pop] and high glycemic foods [potatos, breads, rice] and replace with complex carbs [green veggies, fiber, whole unprocessed grains]) is the best way to change body composition.
So I see biking while hacking the perfect exercise component... you just need to change the chips to low-salt beef jerky (me... it's low salt roasted soybeans), the soda pop to low-carb energy drinks [monster low-carb!!!!], and the lo-mein to veggie stir-fry.
The process mentioned in the Hacker's diet is a good base, just needs some fine tuning.
AirForce and Navy (and CIA) Drones fly at high altitudes for theatre support. They are great for loitering in a large battle field or tailing a enemy force (or mobile command unit). However, they are expensive and require some level of complex ground support. Marine and Army drones deployed at the platoon/company level are considered necessary to take the 'high ground' for reconnoitering a similarly sized agressor force in close quarters. Being able to pack in a drone with the unit, launch it relatively quietly in a small space, control it remotely, and be able look down from a couple hundred feet to get precise locations of individuals/squads in your team or your enemy within a couple minutes is better than engaging a force and waiting 15-30 minutes under fire for 'big drone' to be positioned to your coordinates. I've seen other videos of what are basically balsa wood model airplanes with your basic model airplane motors (the demo showed the unit launched slingshot style with a long elastic cord), GPS, and miniturized look down and look ahead cameras that communicate to a laptop for both flight control and image capture. Obviously the 'buzz' of the engine, the slow speed, along with the static form make it pretty easy to take out with handheld weapons. Using motion blurring to make it harder to aim at (ever try to aim at a moving deer in a scope... now add fore/background brush to 'blur it'... you get the picture) Keeping the thing 'alive' for a couple more minutes in a combat situation maybe all that is needed to get aggressor locations and form up tactical orders.
1980.
I and classmate built a robot based on the KIM-1 board... after weeks of hand entering our motion control system (complete with ultrasonic avoidance!), we first built a PDP 11/03 (w/RT-11... but the must have thing for us was the TECO editor, and a disk storage unit) to KIM-1 serial interface to download the operating code. "Breathing Life" into the beast was a lot easier
It's not really your first computer unless you used a soldering iron to assemble it;-)
PodUtil will save your meta information. My son's use it all the time to share their music across their 2 ipods and 3 Macs.
Err, there is the congressionally mandated little outfit called the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and their code of federal regulations (21 CFR et al). No need for congress to rush out and write laws... the work is done.
A quick read (chuckle) would point out that officers of a Pharma that knowingly submit incomplete or falsified data, are subject to fine and/or imprisonment, and even it was unknowingly falsified... the company can be effectively barred from producing/selling any product until the revalidation of all quality processes are complete. Not the sort of thing stockholders like to hear about.
You obviously haven't seen japanese Pr0N. They love to tie up everything...
With a lot less capital and cash flow, NeXT maintained black (68040) and white (486) capabilties for several years. I can't see Steve jettisoning full support in less than 3 years, and partial support several years after that As it is, I'm starting to feel the pinch of capabilities of older PPC technology... I have a G3/400 that I need to replace, because a lot of the iLife stuff (my wife loves iPhoto, and wants to start iMovie) as well as iChat. A G4/800 is off to school with my youngest son, to match the G4/887 going off with my older one to grad school. So, the G3 is slated for retirement after 5 years of service. A Mac Mini would work just fine (I have 3 17" Mac Trini Screens), and with a student discount I'll get a free iPod too;-) Release quickly Apple, School starts in 4 weeks.