JawsBlog

Should this rumor be true, it would mark a huge change in commputer font usage.
Heck, I remeber using Times New Roman back on the good old Apple IIGS.

EU lawmakers consider taxing emails, SMS messages

Anyone familiar with Knoppix out there who can help me?

Sister has an external HDD which is formatted NTFS; but apparently Knoppix only can write on FAT32.

Must I create a new partition? Or is there a utility from the LiveCD I can use?

Who prefers instant coffee over regular?

Who prefers instant coffee over regular?

Sleeping Less Linked To Weight Gain

Sleeping more has previously been linked to weight loss in observations of patients who are/were properly treated for conditions like Obstructive sleep apnea. As a result of the treatment, patients get a full nights sleep, and many patients have been shown to lose weight following the beginning and complaince with treatment.

Okay, let me see if I understand this.

FBI raids the offices of (apparently) Congressman William Jefferson (D-La).

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (along with some Congressional counterparts) throws a hissy-fit claiming “seperation of powers”.

Bush decides to seal the papers

If I recall from Government classes, there are 3 branches of gov’t. I suppose that the FBI is considered under the “executive” branch (as it’s under the DoJ).

In order for the aforementioned raid needing to have taken place–a warrant needed issued.

Who issues warrants? The Judiciary Branch which serves as a check-and-balance on the other two branches, no? So if it was so blatently “unconstitutional” as Hastert claims, wouldn’t the court have declined the warrant?

But what do I know, I’m just an average citizen.

Tribe fielding offers to rename Jacobs Field

When Dick Jacobs sold the Indians to Larry Dolan, Jacobs retained naming rights through 2006 as part of the deal. Well, it’s 2006, and the Indians have been negotiating with several Cleveland businesses, including National City Bank, about putting their name on the ballpark at the corner of Ontario and Carnegie.

National City Bank Field/Park……nah; don’t like the sound of it

This one out of NYC…which has thankfully been dismissed.

NY Post: Suit Melts Away: Cremalita Case KO’d

Fat’s all, folks! A Manhattan judge has thrown out a proposed class-action lawsuit by an overweight man who blamed his physical condition on more caloric-than-advertised CremaLita ice cream.

CremaLita had countered that their lower-calorie ice cream wasn’t Stephen Brandt’s problem – it was his “heart attack diet.”

“What Brandt fails to mention,” the company’s lawyer said in court papers, “is that he regularly eats real ice cream, McDonald’s and Wendy’s cheeseburgers, french fries, pepperoni pizza, beer, corn chips, donuts, cookies, hard cheese, eggs, bagels, peanut butter, Chinese take-out meals and pasta, [and] that he never exercises.”

And, the filing says, “although he provided no useful information regarding his weight gain during the period that he ate CremaLita, his medical records . . . show that he managed to pack on an additional 16 pounds in the nine months after he stopped” eating the ice cream.

Did the lure of big money blind the Plantiff’s attourney to ignore the simple fact above?

A cheer for the judge who threw this case out.

It sounds somewhat reminicient of the “Pirate’s Booty” case from a few years back…which apparently is still being argued

Go to any medical office and ask the employees what they think about having to deal with Medical insurance companies. Watch the responses on their faces.

The NY Times has an article today on some of the issues that medicals providers have with Insurers:

The Check Is Not in the Mail

Now, the part about payments aside–the authorization/approval process and pre-certification processes discussed in the article ring very true:

some insurers’ telephone call centers limit claims-related issues to 10 per call. “That’s incredibly inefficient,” she said. “We see thousands of patients. Our people have to sit on phone 30 minutes to get a live person.”

First things first–the muzak on these lines is horrendous. Second off, the insurers who provide an internet based system for checking approval/membership and the like are so much easier to work with (in my and others opinion), so much so that we get excited when we find out about a new online portal.

We used to deal with an insurer (the plan folded, so it’s no longer around–but I won’t name it) who required authorization before procedures. Simple enough. Problem is that they’d only take two claims per call. So if you had more than two claims, you had to keep calling back in…and as luck would have it, you’d often wind up speaking to the exact employee you’d just been speaking with–so why redial in the first place?

All that being said, the methodology used in the survey that the article reports on is flawed; but some of the reports findings do bring to light the daily challenges of the medical industry.

Corruption is to Congress

as

?:?

(share your analogies in the comments)

Anyone know of any Wiki software program that runs on a Windows based system/network? It’s for an intranet project, and in terms of a RDBMS I’m likely looking at using MS SQL server.

Any help?

Oh wasn’t today a comedy of Errors at work. At least that’s the optomistic way of looking at things. One has to stay optomistic…or so they say

(Windows/Computer Help Bleg)

The sister called last night repeatedly during 24 (her mistake–I didn’t answer. Jack Bauer took priority).

Sister’s machine (a.k.a “Betty”) has been having issues as of late. Two weekeneds ago, I had to re-install Windows for her, to make up for the problems she’d caused on her machine.

So she’s calling last night to say that she can’t start Betty up. When Betty boots, it goes through the Windows (XP) thermometer screen, and then suddenly hits a BSOD and reboots, and it’s an infinite loop from there.

I traveled uptown and stopped by after work today to pay a visit (aren’t I just the best older brother?) Took a look at the BSOD, and saw an “PROCESS1_INITIALIZATION_FAILURE” stop error.

This naturally wasn’t good.

I then tried to run some quick diagnostics (the built in dell ones; I wasn’t patient enough to sit through the whole round of tests). Got an error about a failure of the “DST Short Stat Test; Error 1000-1042 Failure; 4 Drive self test”.

Some googling, turns up that this is likely a HW error, I’m guessing an HDD problem. Sister has an external HDD for Betty as well. Betty’s warranty is still active/valid.

Here’s my current thoughts as to a course of action:

1) Begin by backing up Betty’s HDD; I guess by using a Linux LiveCD. It seems like Knoppix is the popular distro for this type of thing–any suggestions anyone?
(I’ve also got a Ubuntu LiveCD sitting around here somewhere)

2) Perhaps burn an “ultimate boot CD” for diagnositcs?

3) [once things are backed up] give a last effort to salvage Betty’s HDD–chkdisk, and a few last command linej things.

4) Call Dell–deal w/ Tech Support/warranty for a replacement [probably going to be the hardest part--dealing with the phone menus]

Any other suggestions/advice are more than welcome!

Carter, Mondale Break Post-Term Record

(h/t to Steve Silver–whose comments on this topic are worth reading)

Apparently the Boston Globe ran an article this weekend on the controverial question–is Brandeis too Jewish. The most recent round of this question was kicked up by a recent opinion piece in the Justice (the school paper) arguing that the school is too Jewish.

My opinon?

Is the school too Jewish? It’s a difficult question. It’s worth taking into account the University’s roots and establishment in considering this discussion. At the same time, there are times when things do feel overly Jewish.

Like Steve says:

Then again, there were certainly various levels and cliques of Jews at the school, from Orthodox, to Reform, to Israeli expats, to secular Zionists, to unaffiliated.

It was my experience and observation that one could if they chose to really juts isolate themselves amongst fellow Jewish students or further isolate themselves by just being a part of one clique (such as some of the aforementioned ones).

My experience–sure I had a majority of Jewish friends, but they spanned the spectrum of Jewishness. Plus I had a lot of non-Jewish friends as well. They were (are) great group of people and were a great group of friends.

All in all–this question is one in the eye of the beholder. When you go to Brandeis, you sort of have to know what you’re getting into.

Day one in the new office–was well, what you’d probably expect from day one. The usual hiccups that occur when you open a new facility–employees trying to find their way around the new place (consensus opinion–it’s huge!) The expected headaches (phones, copiers and the sort), trying to find coffee (hooray for Dunkin Donuts!)

All in all, the first day at the new site went well. I’m optomistic that as more things fall into place, things will get even better!

Then we can proceed to other important relocation tasks–like finding a good neighborhood post-work bar, lunch spots and the like.

Add this to the list of books I’ve got no interest in reading:

Chuck Schumer’s got a book coming out….

How many press conferences will Schumer hold to promote his book? (Does not include appearances on the Sunday shows)

This week’s issue of Time Magazine arrived at the office today, and the Dixie Chicks “graced” the cover.

Question: Who really cares about the Dixie Chicks (save for their hardcore fans)? Besides the little “splash” they had in the news like three years ago? At that time the Chicks seem to have learned the hard way the effects of the market .

But is the news cycle really so slow that the Dixie Chicks are on the cover of Time?

It appears that Matt Drudge has been forced to retract another “exclusive” story of his.

Recently, I’ve been finding Drude to be less a source of relevant news, then his site had been in the past.

Anyone else noticed a similar trend?