Brain Basement

I installed Windows 7 RC1 and fell in love. Yea, I like it. This is not an in depth review as there are many out there, this is just how I found a solution to an issue. My built in Realtek Sound Card would not stop crackling or sputtering, no matter what drivers or configuration I tried. My solution? External USB Soundcard. Plugged it in, Windows detected it, sounds great.

I was watching the daily show on Hulu yesterday, nothing special there. It was the episode where Stewart was interviewing Newt Gingrich. Stewart made an interesting rebuttal about Government run health care, which Newt is against. Stewart asked that if we can trust the government to run our military, why can’t we trust them to run health care. At first this seemed to make a ton of sense. The military is huge, with so many intricate parts all working together. This probably dwarfs the health care system.

But the analogy starts to fall apart when you compare soldiers to Doctors. Is the government going to start paying for doctors to get the training they need? Are doctors going to willingly give up their salaries to become just a soldier? Being a soldier under command is much different then being a free enterprise doctor who is required to take the risks and make his own decisions.

If the government were to run our health care like it runs the military we would see a huge decrease in the level of health care provided. Remember, guaranteed health insurance does not mean guaranteed health care.

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.aspx?RelNum=5409

from Mish: http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/05/if-youre-not-petrified-of-obama-youre.html

“The fact that the Depression dragged on for years convinced generations of economists and policy-makers that capitalism could not be trusted to recover from depressions and that significant government intervention was required to achieve good outcomes,” Cole said. “Ironically, our work shows that the recovery would have been very rapid had the government not intervened.”

I was speaking with a friend about government intervention and regulation. One comment he made about health care got me thinking. He was defending that idea of the government taking over health care. The reason he gave was that everything would have a specific price and doctors couldn’t charge us up the ying-yang for anything they wanted to, like I guess they are doing under our insurance based system.

This got me thinking. How does the government know what the correct price of Medical Care is? How can the government price anything in a society and market that changes daily, with new technologies making everything cheaper and faster?

This is like the government coming in and saying that High Speed Internet is worth $15 a month and that is what I have to charge. What would I do? I would pack up and go home. Its not worth it for me to do all the work that goes into my service for that amount, besides the fact that I would be loosing money. So while this seems like a good idea, the government giving High Speed Internet to everyone for $15, it turns around to bite people in the arse. The government can’t provide High Speed Internet, companies or individuals do that, even if they are hired by the government. So what would happen is the people would get no High Speed Internet at all.

This is what is happening in the health care sector in Hawaii where I live. The government can provide health insurance, but they can not guarantee health care…

My motherboard crashed last week. Its was exhibiting some issues for a while but I was holding off on replacing it until it went belly up, just like my red jeep. If I replace the motherboard I have to reload the operating system, and I just don’t have time for that right now. I guess I have no choice now.

So like I usually do when I have to reload my OS I give the latest Ubuntu (8.10) another try. It loaded fine on my Quad Core with 4gigs of Ram. It actually used all 4G unlike XP. The install was clean, the OS is clean, everything ran good. Loaded the new ATI drivers and got dual monitors working perfect. This is a big step forward from my last venture with Ubunutu (7.something) where I had to open a text file to get dual monitors working.

So it works and is fast, but after a day, just like before, I am missing a lot of my familiar software that runs on windows. I would love to give up windows, but its hard to give up the software that I am so used to on Windows. These include industry specific software that communicates with the server software on my Access Point (although they run linux…)

Plus, I am in love with Google Chrome. I know that there are plans to release this on Linux, but that could be a while. Firefox is still a great browser, but it requires a lot of tweaking to behave like Chrome does out of the box.

My laser printer won’t work either, which I can’t have because I have to printer 300 invoices a month.

And I still have to find a replacement for my quickbooks!

I may give crossover office or wine a try. If I can get them running there, then perhaps I will be Windows free. Or I could do the VMware thing.

Currently I am booting Windows 7 to see how that compares.

But in the end I may just go back to XP. I am familiar with it, quirks and all. And really, at the end of the day, the OS is just a tool to get the job done. I have moved many of my daily apps to the cloud, trying to make the OS less important.

I love my Iphone, its great.
But why does Itunes suck so bad on my Xp machine (Quad core, 4GB Ram)?

Shopper Dies in Rush

This is just pathetic. The majority of humanity is so stupid it makes my skin crawl.

At times like this I turn to read something intelligent or listen to some beautiful music to realize that not all humanity is a waste of carbon…

If you want to know what the future depression will look like, just read this guy.

Look Ahead to What the Bear Market Portends

What the Bear Market Has in Store, Part 2

What the Bear Market Has in Store, Part 3

I discovered this great piece of code at php.net� and modified it into a function you can use for any loop.

<code>
function progressBar($num, $i, $l) {
global $d;
echo “</table>
</table>
</table>”;
$currentpercent = $i/$num * 100;
$currentpercent = sprintf(”%01.2f”,$currentpercent);
$p = $num * .05;
$l++;
//This div will show loading percents
echo ‘
<div class=”percents”>’ . $currentpercent . ‘% complete</div>
‘;
//This div will show progress bar
if ($l > $p) {

$l = ‘0′;
$d = $d + 11;
$left = $d + 290;
echo ‘
<div class=”blocks” style=”left: ‘. $left .’px”> </div>
‘;
}
flush();
ob_flush();
return $l;
}
</code>

I have heard all my life that we need fruits and veggies for essential vitamins and minerals. After studying the low carb diet I started to hear otherwise. I did a small study just using wikipedia as my source. It turns out that you can get all the vitamins you need through animals, specifically eggs and liver (offals). The only vitamin I could find that you don’t get is Vitamin E, which is only necessary for an antioxidant. My understaning so far is that you don’t need so many anitoxidants if you are on a paleo (high fat) diet.

So all the times your mom told you to eat your veggies to grow strong, she was wrong. Although making you eat those liver and onions was a good thing.

Here are my notes:

Vitamins and their function:
Vitamin A is found in animal fat. People that get too little calories from animals can suffer eye problems or night blindness.

B1(thiamine) = It is essential for neural function and carbohydrate metabolism. Found in Pork, Ham, Liver, Eggs

B2(Riboflavin) = it plays a key role in energy metabolism, and is required for themetabolism of fats, ketone bodies, carbohydrates, and proteins. Riboflavin is found naturally in asparagus, bananas, okra, chard, cottage cheese, milk, yogurt, meat, eggs and fish,

B3(Niacin) = Prevents Pellagra. Animal products:liver, heart and kidney, chicken, beef, fish: tuna, salmon,milk,eggs.

B5(Pantothenic) = is a water-soluble vitamin required to sustain life. and is critical in the metabolism and synthesis of carbohydrates,proteins, and fats .mall quantities of pantothenic acid are found in nearly every food, with high amounts in whole-grain cereals, legumes, eggs, meat, and royal jelly

B6 = PLP also is necessary for the enzymatic reaction governing the release of glucosefrom glycogen. is a cofactor in many reactions of amino acid metabolism. Good sources include meats, whole grain products, vegetables, and nuts.

B7 (Biotin) = Biotin is a cofactor in the metabolism of fatty acidsand leucine, and in gluconeogenesis. wiss chard, tomatoes, romaine lettuce, and carrots. Other great sources include almonds, eggs, onions, cabbage, cucumber, and cauliflower. And good sources includes goat’s milk, cow’s milk, raspberries, strawberries, halibut, oats, and walnuts.

Vit M (Folic Acid) = Liver and liver products also contain high amounts of folate, as doesbakers yeast. Leafy vegetables such as spinach, turnip greens, lettuces, dried beans and peas, fortified cereal products, sunflower seeds and certain other fruits and vegetables are rich sources of folate. Folate is necessary for the production and maintenance of new cells.[1] This is especially important during periods of rapid cell division and growth such as infancy and pregnancy. Folate is needed to synthesize DNA bases (most notably thymine, but also purine bases) needed for DNA replication.

b12 = is important for the normal functioning of the brain and nervous system, and for the formation of blood. It is normally involved in the metabolism of every cell of the body, especially affecting DNA synthesis and regulation, but also fatty acid synthesis and energy production. Vitamin B-12 is naturally found in meat (especially liver and shellfish), milk and eggs.

Vitamin C = ascorbate = the presence of ascorbate is required for a range of essential metabolic reactions in all animals and plants. Liver,

Vit D = Many uses. Made naturally from sun.

Vit E = Not really needed according to latest research. protect your cells against the effects of free radicals, which are potentially damaging by-products of energy metabolism. Not so many free radicals if you are on LC diet.

Vitamin K =needed for the posttranslational modification of certain proteins, is normally produced by bacteria in the intestines, and dietary deficiency is extremely rare unless the intestines are heavily damaged, are unable to absorb the molecule, or due to decreased production by normal flora, as seen in broad spectrum antibiotic use.