Well, it wasn't as good as the Fox debate last month. The Donald survived the evening without taking a serious hit, despite the fact that everyone on stage was gunning for him and the "moderators" were egging them on with "Trump said this about you, what do you think" questions. Carly came on strong, very convincing, eloquent, substantive. Marco Rubio looked and sounded good. JEB Bush showed more spunk than I've seen from him in the past.
For us voters, we should be looking for a good winning candidate, who could govern effectively. There is Trump. I got big reservations about him. I fear his blunt, rude manner would anger everyone in the country, and overseas. It's hard to get anything done if everyone is trying to get even with you. I also wonder about Trump's motives, what does he really want to do? I'm thinking about the incumbent who campaigned as a liberal democrat, but once elected he revealed his Communist agenda. What is Trump's agenda, really?
If we are not going Trump, then who is our best bet? Carly looks good to me. She has experience, she speaks plainly and well, she could get it done. Marco Rubio looks and sounds good. Ben Carson is polite and soft spoken, so soft spoken I wonder about his resolve in the clutch.
I don't like Rand Paul, he is an isolationist. He wants to pull back to North America and let the rest of the world burn down.
Chris Christy came on strong and feisty, and he was the strongest defender of / warrior for the drug war, which doesn't excite me. Far as I am concerned, pot should be a states issue, decided by votes in the state legislature, not by judicial dictators. It is no business of the Feds.
The questions mostly sucked. Way to go CNN.
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
US Healthcare is too damn expensive
The US puts 19% of GNP into health care. That's incredible. Nearly one dollar in five is spent on health care. US made products are 19% more expensive than they ought to be, just to pay the worker's healthcare. No other country in the world spends (wastes?) this much money on healthcare. Other first world industrial countries pay one half what we do, and their health is every bit as good, in some cases a little better than in the US. And their products bear only an 8 % healthcare markup compared the 19% in the US. No wonder manufacturing is moving over seas. Relocate and cut your healthcare costs in half. Such a deal. Who can resist?
The media offers no information about where the lavish US health spending goes. They don't know, and don't have a clue.
I can tell one story, the rise of the fetal heartrate monitor. I designed one of these goodies back when I worked at Analogic. At this time, every single delivery room in the US is equipped with one of these $10,000 dollar devices. Analogic made quite a bit of money selling them. Today, to lack a fetal heart rate monitor is to invite a malpractice law suit. Any hospital would far rather buy some $10K gizmos than face a million dollar lawsuit.
Unfortunately, all this high price high tech did absolutely nothing to reduce infant mortality. Several studies published in the medical journals showed that infant mortality rates did not change at all after the introduction of fetal heart rate monitors. The only effect of the new tech was a solid increase in the rate of C-sections. Everytime the monitor trace looked a little funny some one would cry "Fetal Distress" and zap, off to the operating room.
In short, a good deal of money was spent but results did not improve. I wonder how many other expensive things get charged to the health insurance that look nice but don't actually do anything.
The rest of the world enjoys good health care while spending half as much. Why cannot we learn how to do it too?
Some one ought to ask the two doctors in the race what they think and what might be done.
The media offers no information about where the lavish US health spending goes. They don't know, and don't have a clue.
I can tell one story, the rise of the fetal heartrate monitor. I designed one of these goodies back when I worked at Analogic. At this time, every single delivery room in the US is equipped with one of these $10,000 dollar devices. Analogic made quite a bit of money selling them. Today, to lack a fetal heart rate monitor is to invite a malpractice law suit. Any hospital would far rather buy some $10K gizmos than face a million dollar lawsuit.
Unfortunately, all this high price high tech did absolutely nothing to reduce infant mortality. Several studies published in the medical journals showed that infant mortality rates did not change at all after the introduction of fetal heart rate monitors. The only effect of the new tech was a solid increase in the rate of C-sections. Everytime the monitor trace looked a little funny some one would cry "Fetal Distress" and zap, off to the operating room.
In short, a good deal of money was spent but results did not improve. I wonder how many other expensive things get charged to the health insurance that look nice but don't actually do anything.
The rest of the world enjoys good health care while spending half as much. Why cannot we learn how to do it too?
Some one ought to ask the two doctors in the race what they think and what might be done.
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
And after three antivirus passes, they are still out there
Just for grins, I used Explorer to search my hard drive for the oddly named program (80454612.exe) I saw running in task manager yesterday. Surprise, surprise, it was still hiding out on my hard drive, two copies in two obscure locations. This after running three different anti virus programs. Naturally I deleted both copies on general principles.
Take away, if you have the name of a piece of malware, Explorer can find it and zap it.
Being on a roll, I then ran regedit and searched for the same name in the registry. And, sure enough, on the "Run" key were three program names, one of them odd name. The other two programs I recognized as my wireless card driver and my calendar program. So I zapped the odd name just to make sure it was dead.
Take away, if you want to make sure something is gone, search the registry for it and delete any keys containing the name.
Be careful with regedit. It will do anything you tell it to. Some of the stuff in the registry is essential to Windows and if you damage it, Windows will fail to boot up next time.
There is a place in the registry called "MUIcache" which often contains the names of programs run in the past. The purpose of MUIcache is not documented by Micro$oft. Net rumor has it that MUIcache records stuff from the file header of every program ever run. On my machine, MUIcache had the odd program name that I had been zapping. I left the MUIcache registry leaf alone on the majority of advice from the net. I'm told that popular disk cleaner CCleaner zaps MUIcache, and there was a lively discussion as to whether this was a good idea or not. I decided not to mess.
Take away, if you have the name of a piece of malware, Explorer can find it and zap it.
Being on a roll, I then ran regedit and searched for the same name in the registry. And, sure enough, on the "Run" key were three program names, one of them odd name. The other two programs I recognized as my wireless card driver and my calendar program. So I zapped the odd name just to make sure it was dead.
Take away, if you want to make sure something is gone, search the registry for it and delete any keys containing the name.
Be careful with regedit. It will do anything you tell it to. Some of the stuff in the registry is essential to Windows and if you damage it, Windows will fail to boot up next time.
There is a place in the registry called "MUIcache" which often contains the names of programs run in the past. The purpose of MUIcache is not documented by Micro$oft. Net rumor has it that MUIcache records stuff from the file header of every program ever run. On my machine, MUIcache had the odd program name that I had been zapping. I left the MUIcache registry leaf alone on the majority of advice from the net. I'm told that popular disk cleaner CCleaner zaps MUIcache, and there was a lively discussion as to whether this was a good idea or not. I decided not to mess.
Monday, September 14, 2015
Trashing Trump ain't gonna work
Trump is out there, trashing everyone in sight. The Republican competition is beginning to trash back. About time actually. But I don't think it will work. Trump appeals to the voters as a man who will go to Washington, take names, kick ass, and clean house. To these voters, trashtalk is action, they like it, they want more of it. And, hearing other's trashing The Donald, just makes them get up and cheer The Donald on. Counterproductive that is.
What to do? I suggest the competition take some stands on issues. I haven't heard any of them saying much of substance. They are all foursquare for motherhood and apple pie, but that ain't enough. They have to take a stand on immigration, Obamacare, taxes, and other stuff. Bush did have an Op Ed piece on tax reforms he wants in last Saturday's Wall St Journal, but that is about it. And Bush's op ed was pretty tame stuff, Did not list the loopholes he would close, did not call for everyone to pay income tax.
Whereas Trump was out denouncing high CEO pay the next day. That's a real issue that people relate to. Much more interesting than a tepid tax reform.
What to do? I suggest the competition take some stands on issues. I haven't heard any of them saying much of substance. They are all foursquare for motherhood and apple pie, but that ain't enough. They have to take a stand on immigration, Obamacare, taxes, and other stuff. Bush did have an Op Ed piece on tax reforms he wants in last Saturday's Wall St Journal, but that is about it. And Bush's op ed was pretty tame stuff, Did not list the loopholes he would close, did not call for everyone to pay income tax.
Whereas Trump was out denouncing high CEO pay the next day. That's a real issue that people relate to. Much more interesting than a tepid tax reform.
Sunday, September 13, 2015
They are still out there, computer virii that is.
Trusty Desktop started getting slow and then flaky. After something killed off Firefox in the midst of making a post, I decided to get on it. I did the three finger salute and up came Task Manager. The Applications Window only showed Task Manager running, but the Process Window showed something called 80454612.exe was active. Never heard of that fellow before, and he is probably malware. That and I had three instances of regsrv32.exe running. Regsrv32 is a real Micro$oft program but I never saw him running before, and having three copies of him running is a bad sign.
So, I run the Micro$oft Malicious Software Removal tool, a full scan. Took 2 1/2 hours but it reported 11 hits. All connected with something called win32/miuref.f. So I told the tool to zap them all. Then thinking that Micro$oft doesn't know as much as they think they know, I downloaded a fresh copy of the freeware Malwarebytes. The freeware is still available, although they try real hard to sell you a payware version and it takes some snooping around to find the freeware. Malwarebytes found 33 hits. A lot of 'em connected with something called Trojan.Miuref.THD, which sounds like the same thing the Malicious Software Removal Tool found, and apparently failed to clean up all the way.
Guess I ought to try a couple of more anti virus programs, what one misses another may find. But two runs getting hits is enough for today. Trusty Desktop feels more lively.
So, I run the Micro$oft Malicious Software Removal tool, a full scan. Took 2 1/2 hours but it reported 11 hits. All connected with something called win32/miuref.f. So I told the tool to zap them all. Then thinking that Micro$oft doesn't know as much as they think they know, I downloaded a fresh copy of the freeware Malwarebytes. The freeware is still available, although they try real hard to sell you a payware version and it takes some snooping around to find the freeware. Malwarebytes found 33 hits. A lot of 'em connected with something called Trojan.Miuref.THD, which sounds like the same thing the Malicious Software Removal Tool found, and apparently failed to clean up all the way.
Guess I ought to try a couple of more anti virus programs, what one misses another may find. But two runs getting hits is enough for today. Trusty Desktop feels more lively.
Whining vs Substance.
Bernie Sanders was on Meet the Press this morning. He came out strongly against "income inequality". Sounds good Bernie, but whatcha gonna DO about it? Far as I can see, Bernie is just whining about a problem, he does even bother to quantifiy it, like just how bad is it right now? Unless you can put numbers on the problem, you don't know squat about it.
And, whatcha gonna DO about it? Hike my taxes? Increase federal regulation? Howza about cutting the cost of US health care? We are putting 19% of GNP into health care. Our international competitors, places like Germany and Japan, and Britain, first world industrial countries, only put 8% of GNP into health care. For spending (wasting) twice as much money on health care, the US health is no better, in fact slightly worse than many first world countries.
Howsabout killing the war on coal? Howzabout doing oil exploration leases off shore and on federal land? Howsabout doing Keystone XL?
Bernie, until you say what you want to do about "income inequality" you ain't speaking to me.
And, whatcha gonna DO about it? Hike my taxes? Increase federal regulation? Howza about cutting the cost of US health care? We are putting 19% of GNP into health care. Our international competitors, places like Germany and Japan, and Britain, first world industrial countries, only put 8% of GNP into health care. For spending (wasting) twice as much money on health care, the US health is no better, in fact slightly worse than many first world countries.
Howsabout killing the war on coal? Howzabout doing oil exploration leases off shore and on federal land? Howsabout doing Keystone XL?
Bernie, until you say what you want to do about "income inequality" you ain't speaking to me.
Saturday, September 12, 2015
The Lore of the Battery
Car battery that is. It's a fairly dependable gizmo, except in winter when your car fails to crank. They last four winters on average. A battery works like a bank account, you put juice in, and later you can take juice out. If you fail to put enough juice back in after a hard winter start, the battery may not be there next time. In winter you need to run the car engine for as much as a half hour after a cold weather start.
Batteries are temperature dependent, they work much better when at room temperature than they do at - 40 F. A cold winter morning might have the entire car chilled down to -40 F. Wait until early afternoon and things might have warmed up to a mere 0 F. This might not help if you gotta get to work at 8 AM, but if you just need to go the store, wait til things get warmer. Brush the snow off the car and it will soak up sunshine and get surprisingly warm. Keeping the car in even an unheated garage will keep it 20-30F warmer than parking it outdoors. Starting is a lot easier at 0 F than at -40 F. And after getting her started, be sure to run her long enough to charge the battery up.
Lotta new cars now come with a battery voltage gauge or indicator. A new fully charged battery might show 13.2 volts. This "sulfation charge" will go away, dropping the battery voltage down to say 12.5 volts after just a whisper of discharge, say running the head lamps for 10 minutes. Call 12.5 volts normal full charge. As the battery discharges, the voltage drops. By 11 volts, you have trouble, your car may not start next time. At 10 volts it surely won't start.
When the engine is running, the alternator will maintain 14-15 volts on the electrical system, it has too, the battery won't accept charge unless the alternator voltage is a volt or two greater than battery voltage. If you don't have 14-15 volts with the engine running, you have alternator trouble, and shortly you will have a discharged (flat) battery and the car won't start. If the alternator has been doing it's job, and the car won't crank, you have battery trouble. They only last four winters, and maybe yours is just shot and needs replacement. Last new battery I bought set me back $50.
Naturally, you need the engine off, to see the battery voltage. With the engine running, you are seeing alternator voltage.
Batteries are temperature dependent, they work much better when at room temperature than they do at - 40 F. A cold winter morning might have the entire car chilled down to -40 F. Wait until early afternoon and things might have warmed up to a mere 0 F. This might not help if you gotta get to work at 8 AM, but if you just need to go the store, wait til things get warmer. Brush the snow off the car and it will soak up sunshine and get surprisingly warm. Keeping the car in even an unheated garage will keep it 20-30F warmer than parking it outdoors. Starting is a lot easier at 0 F than at -40 F. And after getting her started, be sure to run her long enough to charge the battery up.
Lotta new cars now come with a battery voltage gauge or indicator. A new fully charged battery might show 13.2 volts. This "sulfation charge" will go away, dropping the battery voltage down to say 12.5 volts after just a whisper of discharge, say running the head lamps for 10 minutes. Call 12.5 volts normal full charge. As the battery discharges, the voltage drops. By 11 volts, you have trouble, your car may not start next time. At 10 volts it surely won't start.
When the engine is running, the alternator will maintain 14-15 volts on the electrical system, it has too, the battery won't accept charge unless the alternator voltage is a volt or two greater than battery voltage. If you don't have 14-15 volts with the engine running, you have alternator trouble, and shortly you will have a discharged (flat) battery and the car won't start. If the alternator has been doing it's job, and the car won't crank, you have battery trouble. They only last four winters, and maybe yours is just shot and needs replacement. Last new battery I bought set me back $50.
Naturally, you need the engine off, to see the battery voltage. With the engine running, you are seeing alternator voltage.
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