More coming.....Last modified 04/08/2003.
New type of discrimination needed!
I feel it's time for insurance companies to punish for poor fitness. We discriminate against smokers, bad drivers, substance abusers, cancer survivors, but not the millions of Americans who raise the cost of health care and insurance by a lack of exercise and poor eating habits. I feel it's time to require people wanting insurance to have coverage and rates qualified by having a reasonable body mass index. I know some are more prone to weight problems than others, but feel this can be addressed just like we address mental health and substance abuse issues. Just like you show up for your drug test and get a negative result you pass or get the better insurance rate, you'll have to show improved fitness or consistent working at it for the better health insurance rate.
Politics
It must be for the rice pilaf. A recent channel surfing session yielded government leaders repeating that our nation is not in Iraq for oil, and a cooking channel show said that rice pilaf is from Baghdad.
Technology
WJL's personal computing rant. I use and administer Windows and Linux so I guess I'm a bitechual.
I've tired of the poor security, reliability and powerful hardware required by the most popular desktop and server operating systems even though most of my income comes from supporting Windows domains and in spite of my our holding stock in Microsoft and Intel. It is especially frustrating when I see most people use little more than an email client, web browser, and basic elements of an office suite or when I install a UNIX like system and see it requires little care and attention compared to a Windows server.
On operating systems: It is possible to compute without Microsoft Windows and the Macintosh operating system. UNIX and UNIX like computer operating systems have become user friendly, and the popular ones are free or less than $100 depending on how you wish to get it and whether or not you would like some books and support included. The $80 package SuSE sells includes software equivalents that would cost you many thousands of dollars if you bought the same from Microsoft and more installation support than you get from a Microsoft package costing more than twice as much. I've also noticed that my Linux computers with .5 to .75 the power of my Windows computers are often faster at the same tasks.
On office suites: The price of computers has come down and their power has increased dramatically, but the popular Microsoft office suite has remained expensive and few people even use the features added over the years. There are office suites that are a small fraction of the price of the Microsoft offering that are robust, reliable and have perfect interoperability between products and languages, and there's even a great office suite that's totally free. Think about this the next time you hear people whine about budget cutting and issues like government, insurance and health care reform. Basically hundreds of dollars could be saved for every person sitting at a computer.
On compatibility: My wife is not a technical person and she did her university classes with the free Open Office suite and all work was to be emailed in the Microsoft Office formats.
If you use Windows and Mac OS: Many of the great open source software programs exist for the non-UNIX like operating systems too. Mozilla (remember Netscape) publishes a web browser and browser engine used by other that eliminate pop up adds, and the Mozilla-based products are typically faster and more secure. The Gimp is a pixel image manipulation program with power much like Photoshop and it's free. Ethereal is a network protocol application available for a few operating systems and it's as good or better than commercial products.
On security: More coming.....
Open Source, Linux and UNIX links:
Madison
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