Wednesday, June 13, 2007

I'm not sure what Boing Boing means here by the title "Yahoo! blocks anti-censor, pro-human rghts move by sharehoders." It looks like the shareholders themselves simply voted against the measure. And, indeed, who is "Yahoo!" besides the shareholders?
I agree, although I feel this way about all social networking sites. Ultimately, I think they take too much time to maintain, and so unless one makes a career out of them, their attractiveness quickly pales the more of a time-suck that they become. I used LinkedIn, but primarily only to maintain contact with past coworkers--and, not even active contact, but just to know when they've switched jobs.
When I first saw the recent demos of the upcoming OS X upgrade from Apple, Leopard, I thought the same thing. Much of it just seems to be Vista with a little bit more development, and I'm sure that we'll see much of the same in future Vista updates. The Apple stuff is good, but it's not so far advanced over Vista that it offers a compelling reason to switch.

Of course, the fact that a Mac can run Windows (including Vista) has changed things considerably. My next PC will be a Mac, but I'll likely run OS X only as a novelty.
I've kept up with the healthcare industry for almost 20 years, since getting a job straight out of college where researching healthcare payment systems was a primary function. I noted then, and still believe, that government intervention is singularly responsible for the ever-increasing costs, and I remain amazed that our system continues to produce such quality care.

It started with the creation of Blue Cross/Blue Shield back in the 1930's, then continued with government-granted tax benefits for indemnity group health plans (which caused the disconnect we have today between the care that a person receives and how much he pays for it). Medicare has probably singled-handedly held back preventive medicine in this country, by spending hundreds of billions on highly interventionist care in the last few weeks of life, and the National Institutes of Health spends as much on basic research--without the cost-benefit justication that profits require--as the pharmaceutical industry. All of these governmental interventions, among others, have shaped the American healthcare system into the mess that it is today.

This essay by Dr. Onkar Gate of the Ayn Rand Institute just confirms my own beliefs. It's worth a read.
I'd probably do the same, if I had the money. Of course, I wouldn't have chosen an Airbus.
I've always found my Tablet PC to be a great tool, for a number of important functions. I've changed jobs recently, and so haven't had as many occasions to take handwritten notes, but that's the most obvious Tablet benefit. Other than that, there are times when even surfing the Web can be more comfortable on a Tablet in portrait mode.

Here's a story about a novelist who uses a Tablet PC in just about every meaningful way, it appears. If you have any interest whatsoever in the Tablet platform, this might tip you over the edge.
Notice the comments in this story about the WTC. The nutjobs are out in force.