PUBLICATIONS THAT I REFUSE TO MOVE TO A NEW HOUSE EVEN ONE MORE TIME, AND HAVE GONE SO FAR AS TO ACTIVELY DIG OUT OF STILL-PACKED BOXES JUST TO THROW AWAY:
FURTHER BULLETINS AS EVENTS WARRANT.
In 2000, I had a small contract to review some file system code for some company. I don’t remember who, what or why, exactly, only that I saved this comment. It’s still just as true today:
/****************************************************************
* charon_linux_end_io
*
* 1st name: gay_ass_linux_io_i_dont_want_to_submit_another_small_patch_that_will_
definately_get_rejected_god_damnit_so_i_will_just_copy_hans_reisers_hack_t
* 2nd name: god_damnit_i_hate_this_fucking_os_and_the_god_damn_mailing_list_with_
300_useless_posts_a_day_to_drown_you_out_t
* 3rd name: fuck_and_slashdot_sucks_too_just_for_the_hell_of_it_t
* 4th name: natalie_portman_with_hot_grits_in_her_pants_t
*
* all of these were rejected because they were too long
*
* 5th name: linux_fucking_sucks_t
*
* not descriptive enough
****************************************************************/
[ We didn't add this comment, we found it already in the code. We apologize for any misunderstanding. --ed. ]
A middle eastern man came to my house today, and wreaked horrible destruction. Terrorism? Revenge? No, no.
I had neither the time nor the inclination to properly frame this shot, or deal with that blinding light, but you get the idea.
I had meant to write several days ago about the terrifying health care bill making its way through the Massachusetts legislature at an alarming speed.
Fortunately — of all papers! — the USA Today has given it a good start (link).
Although the goal of universal access to health care is laudable, this bill only entrenches a misguided, 60-year-old employer insurance system, in which medical consumers are almost completely shielded from the real costs of their treatment — especially the taxpayer-subsidized plans, with zero deductible. There are few or no direct incentives for people to control their usage of the medical system. It’s a market with infinite demand and finite supply, and the only people who feel direct price pressure are the taxpayers and the uninsured.
In theory, consumers eventually feel the pain of rising health care costs via their insurance premiums (and taxes) but in practice of course most don’t. Just as mandatory income tax withholding has made high tax rates more palatable by preventing employees from ever seeing the money in the first place, employer health care insurance has had the same insulating effect. In 2005, the average premiums for family health coverage eclipsed the gross earnings for a full-time, minimum-wage worker. Did your employer ask how you wanted to spend that $10,800 per year? How many of you actually know how much your health insurance costs? Now that you know, do you still feel that it’s a good value? Do you know what your alternatives are?
And many people, when faced with the realization that they’re paying almost $11,000 this year for insurance, see no reason not to take full advantage of any available services, whether they need them or not. For virtually no incremental cost, one can order an $1800 suite of diagnostic tests. In this perverse market, neither doctors nor patients ration themselves. Hospitals are incentivized to do — and charge — as much as the insurer will allow. Patients, given the option of more thorough or expansive care at no extra cost, would be foolish not to make use. The system is designed to fail.
The Massachusetts bill does nothing to control costs. The politicians hope to add millions of people — even those of us who don’t believe in this system — to the rolls of state-approved insurance plans. Now free from financial responsibility, those people can make unbounded demands on an already overloaded system. After all, they’re not paying for it.
Some current projections point to national health care spending reaching 20% of GDP by 2015 (link). I wonder how high that has to rise before people abandon the idea that all citizens can have their wildest health care fantasies come true.
I was hoping that Jacob would write a piece of insightful social commentary about the abandoned French labour reform law, but he refused to help a brother out. I don’t really know roc, so I didn’t bother asking him. I’m using the headline anyway.
The Stanley Cup playoffs are my favourite time of year, but brutal. Two games a day, three on the weekends, all of which matter — that’s great. But these late games going to double OT are really screwing with my efforts to remain an early riser, which were previously very successful.
We discovered this morning just how much almost everyone I know depends on off.net, and the sand-filled foundation upon which it all rests.
Jacob woke me up to let me know that off.net had expired. But that’s impossible! Surely I’d have received some notice, and besides, it’s set up to auto-renew. We take no chances with that one.
It turns out that I did, as expected, have auto-renew turned on. But the credit card on file expired 4 months ago. And my registrar had dutifully been sending emails, which — no doubt because they also send so much crap — ended up in my spam folder.
sigh. The credit card was really the killer tile.
It was fixed quickly, but the caches were long polluted with negative and/or “parked domain”. So if you sent any email on Thursday night or Friday to deb, shaver, beltzner, jacob, joe, tyla, coop, madhava, george, nat, vlad, or anyone else we know, and you expected a response but didn’t receive one… well… now you know.
