Category Archives: One-link-ers

These are posts that consist of a link out to an article, with perhaps a line or two of commentary, but not much else.

It’s interesting to see the view from the other side.

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This is rambling and I don’t guarantee it properly summarizes my point, but I have 2 minutes so here goes.

An article from UK website The Telegraph: Don’t treat the old and unhealthy, say doctors.

Among the survey of 870 family and hospital doctors, almost 60 per cent said the NHS could not provide full healthcare to everyone and that some individuals should pay for services.

I work hard every day to make sure that Nighthawk and I have adequate healthcare, and we’re still paying much more than I’d like to ideally, but we’re also the problem: the long-term expensive treatment for a degenerative condition.

In the States, it’s dog-eat-dog but easy — either you have a job or the money to pay for your healthcare, or you don’t. I don’t like deciding between medication and, say, electricity (though in my case it’s more like medication and extra video games) and I really don’t like the yearly rigamarole of determining which plan to choose and what it’s going to cost this year. On the other hand, there’s no question of who gets treated. Either you have the money or you don’t. It’s not a right, it’s a product you purchase.

This article (like so many others) reveals one of the little twists behind national healthcare: it’s a right — we think — maybe — if the taxes are high enough…. And when someone says, “wait, the government can’t afford all this either”, some moron comes along and says, “then we’ll cut treatment for the elderly and the smokers and the drinkers who are dying from age and cigarette damage and cirrhosis.” And believe you me, that’s a dangerous road to walk.

It’s a product. If the government can’t afford to buy it for everyone, they’ll decide who really has the “right” to free healthcare anyway.

I happen to have some spies over the pond who’ve mentioned that you can get insurance in England, and the purpose is to bump you to the front of the line. In the States, since generally health care is based on “we treat those who can pay and the rest we don’t”, then you usually have surgery, etc. in order of need. It’s a product. And your insurer actually becomes your advocate at that point, because whose company is going to buy a spot at the back of the line? No insurance company can afford that kind of treatment for their patients. Can you see the war that would break out here of Aetna found out BCBS’s patients were getting preferential treatment?

Despite the bashing insurance companies get and the instinctual hatred that comes with wading through red tape, I’ve had insurance companies bend over backwards to fix billing issues, provide services, and do everything possible to keep Nighthawk and I healthy. That’s the goal, right?

For now I think I’ll keep our products over the UK’s rights. Thanks.

Beyond DOCTYPE: Web Standards, Forward Compatibility, and IE8

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I’m a bad geek. I read an article about what could be a great solution for browser compatibility issues and my first though is OMG the browser bloat.

I’m sorry — I don’t want my browser to render a webpage the way it was written ten years ago, I want people to go back and cull their code of garbage. If the page is still valuable, then there’s value in keeping it up to date. Clean out all those spoiled electrons, update their pages to match the current standards, and maybe just maybe take invalid/non-useful/non-relevant/garbage content down off the web.

Just because we can save everything doesn’t mean we should. Especially if it means Internet Explorer, which seriously needs to go on a diet as it is, now has to maintain its blubber from one generation to the next.

MacBook Air Haters: Get A Grip

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I am the kind of computer gearhead who’s not afraid to gut her Pismo to replace a broken screen, or gut her iBook to put in a bigger drive…. and believe you me, it’s a gutting. When there are more parts on the table than still attached to the machine, then you’ve successfully gutted the laptop.

But I also regularly troubleshoot computers for friends, family, co-workers, clients, just about anyone who finds out I have a Mac. And I don’t want these people, who obviously aren’t computer gearheads, worrying about how to replace their hard drive. And I sure as hell don’t want them asking me to do it, because if I mess it up, it costs everyone money. Let Apple take that chance, or their authorized tech people.

In the meantime, the Macbook Air, for the people interested in a computer for doing work looks like a very capable machine. The whole lack of an optical drive is still kind of weird, but on the other hand, so was the lack of a floppy drive when the iMac came out, and we all got over it. I’m willing to bet it’ll work out… and if it doesn’t work out for you, you gearhead you, don’t buy it.