Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Mac Pro

uploaded to replace :en::Image:moosa.Image via Wikipedia

My new Mac Pro is a real beauty, big sucker though. Almost too big to have on the desktop, I might have to do some rearranging.

It’s a 2.66 MHz Quad core Nehalem with 8 GB of ram. 640 GB hard drive and I added a 1 TB in a second slot. This thing is incredibly fast, apps open up instantly, everything is pretty much instantly.

But as it turns out it isn’t solving all my problems, apparently Adobe just can’t write software worth a damn. I still have their apps freeze up at times, but fortunately it is usually only for a few seconds. And instead of being down to almost no free ram as soon as I open Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop - as I was on the iMac - I still have 3.6 GB of free ram, what a joy.

But that isn’t the whole story. Even with this after about a day of use the free ram disappears and the entire mac starts screwing up and I have to restart because I’m getting the spinning beach ball on everything. Adobe still gobbles up 8 GB of ram, which is absurd. I think if I keep an eye on it and quit one of the apps before free ram is almost gone that will solve the problem for another day.

I thought this might be the case but everything is so fast up until that point it’s still a major time saver and I’m very happy with it.

My biggest problem right now is getting a second monitor. I’m only using one which I haven’t done in years and it has me climbing the wall. I’m off for Best Buy right this post to get me a cheap monitor to put my tools on.
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Tuesday, September 29, 2009

The Cats

Aki is healing nicely and her fur is growing back, but very slowly. What’s funny is her normal fur feels cool but the shaved area is hot. Cats must have a pretty high body heat and the fur traps it. Both cats haven’t been the least bit afraid to go outside but they keep a better watch for the evil cats now. Whenever I see them coming inside quickly I go outside and find one of the evil ones sitting in the yard. I chase them out every time and I think they are coming by less often.

The other night 2 of them showed up together in the yard and had a major cat fight with each other. Loud enough to wake me up at 1am. I actually ran downstairs and outside in my underwear to chase them off, I want them always afraid when they come here. The yard is pretty isolated so it wasn’t a big deal.

Since my yard is pretty enclosed with fences 7’ high I thought that might keep the cats in for a while, but no such luck. One time I’m calling Aki to come in and she comes flying over the 7’ tall fence like it was nothing.

Did I mention that the fence is 7 feet tall! And they are very small female kitties, which didn't slow them down at all.

They both love going outside but I still don’t let them out unless I’m here and never at night. And when I let them out I go out first to make sure the coast is clear. Caed will actually stop and look back at me, like waiting for me to chase off evil kitties, then follow me out. And if I’m outside with them each cat will make a point of walking over to me and rubbing my legs at least once to let me know they appreciate me letting them out.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Dancin' Tom Delay

This was on Countdown last night with Lawrence O‘Donnell as guest host. This is something that is so funny, yet so horrible at the same time I didn't know if I should laugh or throw up.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Socialist?

be Over at Pharyngula PZ Myers has a pledge to printed out and signed by all anti-socialists. Here is just a small sample of what the pledge says to stay away from if you hate socialism:

Social Security

Medicare/Medicaid

State Children's Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP)

Police, Fire, and Emergency Services

US Postal Service

Roads and Highways

Air Travel (regulated by the socialist FAA)

The US Railway System

Public Subways and Metro Systems

Public Bus and Lightrail Systems

Rest Areas on Highways

Sidewalks

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Wednesday, September 16, 2009

We're Number 37

That's our standing in the world as far as health care, yeah USA!! But the important thing is that the multimillionaire health care CEO's get their profits, even if you have to die to get them. We DEMAND to be #37 and to give huge profits to insurance companies! We are marching in the streets for that.




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Saturday, September 5, 2009

The Real Death Panels

Countdown has the story of where the real death panels are, and they already exist today. It's our insurance companies. Research shows that in California alone 22% of medical claims get rejected. How many of those 22% died or went bankrupt from medical expenses no one can afford? No way to know but I know a few people personally, so it happens. The irony is that what the righties are calling "Obama Care" will actually save the lives of those rejected by their own insurance companies. Most of what they say about Obama Care is already true with private insurance. You have an insurance company bureaucrat between you and your doctor and your care is rationed by them. Not based on medical reasons but based purely on trying to make millions of dollars for the insurance companies. Anywhere else if you did not receive the product you have been paying for it would be fraud.

Friday, September 4, 2009

The Story of Aetna

Aetna was your average billion dollar health insurance company, but they wanted more. So they brought in a guy named Ron Williams to be the new CEO in 2006. Let’s look at some numbers, shall we?

In 2005, the company had $1.1 billion in earnings.
Aetna's 2007 revenue, reported in 2008, was $27.6 billion.
Aetna's 2008 revenue, reported in 2009, was $31 billion.

Wow!! That was some leap, huh? Bet you wish you had bought Aetna stock back in 2005. How did Ron Williams achieve this phenomenal growth to increase revenue by $26.5 billion in a single year?


He looked at who they were insuring. Any individuals who were costing them a lot of money they got rid of any way they could. Now that’s the American way, isn’t it? Have someone pay lots of money for years, possibly decades, then when it’s time to give them the very thing they had been paying for all this time, cut them loose!! Business as usual or a massive fraud?


Groups were more difficult, they can’t just toss out individuals in groups, that’s kind of the point after all. So Ron looked at which groups were costing Aetna the most money and canceled entire groups. This means entire companies lost their health care because too many of them actually needed that health care the company had been paying for.


So when Ron had trimmed out all the expensive - i.e. sick - people and groups profits went up, so did the stock prices of the company and so did Ron’s bonus checks. He made many millions, all of it by denying health care to sick people. A lot of them probably have died, certainly all suffered some tough times but what the hell, that’s just business and that is what America is all about, right?


He also raised the premiums everyone was paying and cut back on what was covered. Sometimes they get sneaky, they cover drugs but only generics, you'd have to read carefully to catch that one. And they were very careful about only bringing in new people who were healthy. The big one is pre-existing conditions, keeps lots and lots of the very people who need health care the most from getting it, they are the ones forced to go to ER's when something serious could have been prevented by regular visits to their doctor, but they don't have doctors. They can't even pay for the ER visit but hospitals are required by law to treat people when it's an emergency. The hospitals make up the loses by charging more for insured people because that bill will be paid. So everyone's insurance keeps going up because costs keep going up. Don't want to pay for someone else? Guess what, you already are, at the highest possible rate because you are paying for the most expensive medical care there is, ER visits.


Certainly couldn’t be any worse than evil socialism like they have in Canada and Europe - right?


For the record people in those countries would be horrified by this story and it would make them even more thankful they don’t have an American-style health care plan than they already are. And believe me, they ARE already thankful.


In 1993 health insurance companies paid out $.95 in actual health care for every dollar they took in. In 2007 the average is now $.79 for every dollar. Have that go up by a penny and the company’s stock price will fall, have it go down by a penny and stocks will rise. A company’s only motivation today is to pay as little in actual health care as possible.


Nothing personal, just business. Perhaps health care shouldn’t be business as usual? Perhaps profit isn’t the most important thing in the world. I wonder how many people will call me socialist because of that one sentence?