Who needs 38 special design cargo planes?

The Air Force is buying 38 C27J cargo planes. It's a nice looking twin engine turboprop military transport. This is a new aircraft going into the inventory. That means we will pay the one time costs, "non recurring engineering costs", buy the tooling, set up the production line, write all the unit test procedures, write all the technical orders, buy spare parts, develop training for air and ground crewmen, and then train said crewmen. That's a lot of money. And we only get 38 airplanes for spending all that money.
What do we get in the C27 that we don't get in the tried and true C130? We get half the cargo capacity and half the range. Whereas the already in the inventory C130 can haul twice as much stuff, twice as far, and land and takeoff on just as small, maybe even smaller airfields than the smaller C27. Take off distance is a little bit variable, depends upon load and willingness of the aircrew to take risks, but the specified take off roll of a C130J is 1950 feet, loaded. The C27 takeoff roll is 1903 feet. Plus, the C-130 can do considerable better than specified. Back in the 1960s a C-130 made repeated takeoff's from, and landings on, a Navy aircraft carrier, and those things are only 1000 feet long.
So we are spending serious money to buy a few, new, cute little airlifters that aren't any better than the C-130. Serious waste of taxpayer dollars in the estimation of this taxpayer and Air Force veteran.

How many people die of flu? Swine or ordinary?

Good question. Today's WSJ shows the Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimating 36,000 flu deaths per year. But, only 849 death certificates list "influenza" as the cause of death in 2006. CDC's estimates are way way over reported influenza deaths. CDC clearly thinks that doctors all over the country cannot diagnose properly. On the other hand, who do you believe, front line doctors or research guys on a sunny campus in Atlanta?
So how dangerous is this month's media darling disease, swine flu? Compared to regular flu? If you believe CDC's estimate of 36,000 ordinary flu deaths a year then the handful of swine flu deaths is lost in the noise. If you go with reported flu deaths of only 849 the handful of swine flu deaths becomes a bit more meaningful, although still not much.
Every death is a tragedy, each human life is precious. But life is full of risks, and if the risk is small, we shouldn't get too bent out of shape.

New Star Trek Movie

Just got back from seeing it. Pretty good. whole new crew of actors, most of them pretty good. Lots of action, explosions, starships ramming each other, car chases, etc No real love interest. We have Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Chekhov, and Scotty from classic Trek. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are plausible as younger versions of the classic Trek characters. Uhura, Chekhov and Scotty are less convincing. The over all plot is the standard save the universe one. If you are any kind of Trekkie or have children, you (and they) will enjoy it.

Health Care is expensive 'cause of crooked bills

Last year I was buying my prescription drugs at Walmart. Cost $48 for three months. This year they added a prescription drug benefit to my medicare advantage plan. According to the plan my prescriptions had an Average Retail price of $1002.50 for three months. Plan discounts brought that down to $119.31, which the plan paid.
In short, the plan claims an astronomical average retail price, twenty times the actual retail price. Then they claim to have achieved discounts (kickbacks) bringing the drug cost down to $119.31, only twice retail price, and then "paid" for it all. Right.
Imagine the billing scams possible under Obama's yet to be announced, health care plan.

Weep for the Chevy Impala SS

Rumor has it that Chevy is going to drop the "SS" trim level on the Impala sedan for 2010. Currently Chevy offers the Impala in 4 different trim levels (LS, LT, LTZ and SS) There is little to no difference between the 4 trim levels, they all have same standard equipment, same engine, same transmission. The top of the line models get a few frills like leather seats and a fancier radio, excuse me "audio system". Cruising the Chevy website shows no visible external differences, no extra chrome strips, no two tone paint, no bigger grill, nada, zip.
Chevy marketing asks $24K for the bottom of the line LS and $32K for the top of the line SS.
And marketing expects customers to pay up to $8K more for just a badge on the trunk lid? I don't think so. In actual fact, customers are going to pay the same price for all four trim levels, cause they all look the same. Customers will walk into the dealer and ask for the bottom of the line LS cause it's cheapest. If the dealer doesn't have one, he is going to sell them the "higher priced" LT, LTZ, or SS models at bottom of the line LS prices. Especially this year when the dealers are so desparate they will do anything to make a sale.
What any sensible marketing department ought to do is simplify things for production. An Impala is an Impala, with one list price. Deal with the frills as options.
Unfortunately Chevy marketing is stuck in a time warp going back to the 1950's. Back then they offered Chevy's as 110, 210, and Bel Air. 110 was the plainest model, sold to fleets, 210 got some extra chrome trim, and Bel Air got a lot of extra chrome trim. In those days you could tell the difference between the cheap body 110 and the flossy Bel Air from 200 feet away. Not any longer, the 2009 Impala's four trim levels look exactly the same from 200 inches away. But marketing still wants to charge extra for invisible non-differences.
Well, the enthusiasts are all crying 'cause Chevy is dropping the SS trim level for 2010. Somehow I don't think those enthusiasts have ever tried to sell a real car to a real customer.

Torture IAW written legal opinions?

I don't think so. The CIA agents were interrogating important sources in accordance with written legal opinions. That's not torture, that's legal. Now that Obama foolishly published John Yoo's memos, the CIA agents are off the hook. Can't prosecute a man for complying with written policy.
The author, John Yoo, was trying to be a useful lawyer at the time. He provided a readable and understandable guide to what was legal and what was not. He answered the question "How far can we go?" (Useless lawyers, of which there are many, furnish bafflegab that can be read both ways) They are after John Yoo, but probably can't get to him 'cause his superiors OK'd it (at least they didn't trash can it). Plus there is a small matter of statute of limitations. John Yoo apparently doesn't think it's illegal torture unless blood is drawn, marks are left, or the subject's health is impared by the interrogation.
Personally, I have no problems with making Al Quada terrorists hurt a little bit.
Some NPR talking head kept raving on and on about "Torture is illegal." So it is. But CIA wasn't torturing, they were interrogating terrorists in accordance with written legal advice.

HP Boot Optimizer HPBootOp, Infests HP Computers

Those of you with HP or Compaq computers may find a curious piece of software with the name HPBootOp living happily in your RAM. What is this fellow and what does he do? Well, he loads various services and drivers at boot time. He makes the computer boot appear faster by waiting until after the login screen appears. Most of us measure boot time from pressing the power on button until the login screen appears. Sluggishness after the login screen doesn't count.
Why do we care? Simple, hpbootop was loading a couple of drivers/ram_eaters that I didn't want loaded. In particular it was loading ctfmon, a plump Microsoft slower-downer that supports voice entry, Braille, and pareplegics tapping on the keyboard with a stick taped to their foreheads. And it eats up megs and megs of scarce RAM. There is a Microsoft documented procedure to prevent ctfmon from loading. I executed the procedure a couple of times with no luck. Ctfmon popped right back into RAM. That was a while ago, and I let the matter drop.
Yesterday, on the track of something else, I stumbled across an HPBootOp key in the registry. It had subkeys Delay1 and Delay2. Those subkeys had names of programs, including my old buddy ctfmon. Ah hah.
A bit of web surfing turned up this and this from HP explaining how to get rid of HPBootOp and how to restore him if you might want him back.
HPBootOp is persistant, and when you kill him he plants keys in the registry to start all the things he used to start. I used the StartManager program to turn off all the ones I didn't want, starting with ctfmon. This time ctfmon stayed dead.
Did HPBootOp speed up my boot? Not much, if at all. Timing with a plain wrist watch, boot time with the optomizer was 46-48 seconds. Without it I get 49-51 seconds. And without Ctfmon and his other sluggish friends, the computer runs faster.