Chargers sign Norv Turner to a 3 year contract extension

Someone really has it in for the new Animal Hospital

The Evil of the Left

Rush Limbaugh was rushed to the hospital today with chest pains while vacationing in Hawaii.  I learned about it while working when someone I follow mentioned it on twitter.  Twitter, and other new and social media is a terrific way to learn about news before other traditional sources have picked up the story… but since it’s a medium very close to the person telling the story, it also exposes a lot about the people behind the information.

While watching this story develop on Google’s realtime search, many tweets made their way through, most of which were extremely disturbing…

@randomscreenname: Dear Rush Limbaugh, please die. Sincerely, The People of America.

@billpalmer: come on God, I don’t ask you for much, and I very rarely ask you to smite anyone. but please kill Rush Limbaugh tonight.

@LONGBRDSK8R #RUSH LIMBAUGH IF IT COMES DOWN TO THE POWER OF PRAYER YOU AIN’T GOT A SNOWBALLS CHANCE OF GETTING THROUGH THE NIGHT GOOD RIDDANCE PIG

@epik_fail I’m not as good or decent of a person as the rest of you, so I’ll just say it outright: I hope Rush Limbaugh fucking dies.

@Skullbuggy Please let Rush Limbaugh die. Please let Rush Limbaugh die. Please let Rush Limbaugh die.

@billionbucks Rush Limbaugh in a hospital? Maybe our health care system will fail enough to remove him from this world he bitches about everyday. #byebye

These are joined with literally thousands of other vile hatred filled tweets. When Kennedy was nearing the end, I don’t recall the right ever expressing a death wish for the man.  Sure I disagreed with Kennedy and believed him to be bad for this country, but I never once tweeted wishing for his demise.

I do pray that Rush is ok and I really believe that we need to start praying for our country and our world.  When you surround yourself with mostly good, honest and moral people you tend to forget just how evil the rest of the world can be.

SQL Server Pricing

I find SQL Server pricing to be very disturbing.

SQL Server Express is free for databases up to 4GB in size.  That’s fine and all, but think about this…  If you have a database that will grow to 24GB in size, it is actually cheaper to split your data in 4GB chunks across 6 rackmount servers (including purchasing new hardware) than it is to upgrade to a version of SQL Server than can handle the data.

Hey Microsoft, how about a version of SQL Server that is within range of us small business and hobbyist coders out here?  And is database size really the differentiator that you should be using to force people to upgrade?

I understand limiting the amount of RAM in use by SQL Server and even the number of cores that will be used by the free version, but it’s pretty easy to pass 4GB of data. In fact, I think the limitation is darn near unreasonable.

I thought I had found a great solution to the problem.  Microsoft’s website explains a product called SQL Server Web Edition which is priced at $15 per proc per month.  Unfortunately, a call to Microsoft clarified that since I own the server, that price is not available to me.  It can only be purchased as part of a hosting plan from a qualified web hosting service.  Seriously Microsoft?  Seriously???

I’d be happy to pay something reasonable on a subscription plan if it removed the restrictions and provided some sort of SLA with it.  Unfortunately, MS doesn’t want my money unless they get a whole bunch of it.

Guess it’s time to upgrade to MySQL, PostgreSQL or Firebird.

The Lost Art of Critical Thinking

Does anyone else find it amazing that the exact group of hippies who started the “Question Authority” movement in the 70’s now follow their liberal leadership with blind lemming-like admiration?

Critical thinking is an art.  Some people are born critical thinkers, and others are born to believe anything said by someone who should know.  We all know someone from both of these extremes, but of course, most people fall somewhere in between.

This in-between group have some ability to think critically, but don’t have the energy or will to follow through on true intellectual honestly.  When they already have a predisposition to a certain topic, they generally tend to think critically of opposing viewpoints and blindly accept all conveniently agreeable viewpoints.

It is easy to accept what we are told.  It is much harder to seek out truth for ourselves, especially when we already agree with what is being said.

I know that not everyone will appreciate this, but it is my solid belief that we would be better served as a society if we could train ourselves to ask just one simple question…  Ask it of your politicians…  Ask it of your news media…  Ask it of your parents…  Ask it of your friends…  Ask it of people you despise… Most importantly, ask it of people you respect…

Who benefits if I believe what this person is asking me to believe?

If the answer to this question is self serving in any way, immediately discount the statement and seek out the truth for yourself.  Remembering to ask yourself this question will spur a thread of critical thinking in yourself that you have never thought possible.  You will be surprised and awakened at what you find.

Now back to your regularly scheduled drivel…

Fixing Health Care

Obama is planning to screw up our health care system.  I have a better idea…

All we have to do to fix the current health care system is to eliminate insurance for intangibles. You can insure a car, a house etc… but not intangibles such as health.

So just drop all health insurance. Make people shop for and pay for their own services. Implement an optional tax free savings vehicle for medical expenses with a special visa card that can be used only for medical related expenses. Any help for the less fortunate would come via contributions to those medical accounts and could be made by any individual, business or non-profit with all contributions tax deductible. If a state wishes to implement a health-care program for these people, then they can do so via funding the same account.

This would introduce competition into the medical services sector which would drive down prices and give individuals the maximum choice in who will provide their services. It also limits government intervention to providing tax breaks, though it does require one additional regulation limiting insurance to tangible items.

A very simple answer to a currently complex problem.

Lovin me a cupcake

Apparently, I’ve had cupcake available to install on my Android phone (TMobile G1) for a bit now.  I’ve been getting a bit frustrated because my wife has had hers for a week or so already and mine was nowhere to be found.

However, I decided to prompt the system to check for an update using the Settings | About Phone menu and guess what, there it was waiting for me to download.  Why hadn’t TMobile notified me?  I think I know the answer.

I hit the download button and up popped the progress bar… but nothing happened. Tried again… no luck.  It says the file is 32MB and I know I’m tight on app space, but they can’t honestly expect to download this into app space, could they?  They must use the SD card or the OS partition…  right?

Nope.  Apparently they use app space to store the downloaded update.  After I opened up 40MB of space in my app space and returned to check for updates, it downloaded on the second try. As soon as the update was downloaded, I received the standard update notification that you would receive had TMobile sent the file to me directly.

So, apparently, if you haven’t received your cupcake update, you might want to free up some app space memory.  About 40MB should do.  You can always reinstall your apps after the update.  And that’s what I’m off to do right now.

TMobile Hates Me

My wife has had the Cupcake release on her G1 for a few days now and still nothing for me…  I’m beginning to think that TMobile hates me.

Dear Capital One…

I understand your desire to protect us from fraud.  I really do.  But I’m getting seriously pissed off that every time I try to use my card it is declined for suspected fraudulent use.  Micro-payments at Amazon are a fact of life these days and a 1.20 storage fee for Amazon S3 does not indicate that someone has ripped me off.  Also, I like to travel.  A purchase from Orbitz and Amazon followed by an attempted purchase at a clothing store should not be enough disable my card for suspected fraud, yet that is exactly what seems to happen.  Last year at this time, soon after I purchased my tickets to Belize, I went to Bass Pro shops to get stocked up for my trip… just some clothing, repellent, etc.  Card was declined.  This year after buying my tickets to Belize I made a trip to Bass and guess what…  Yep…  Card was declined.

Dear Capital One…  Do you detect a pattern?  Perhaps I go to Belize every spring and every April visit Bass Pro Shops after buying a ticket to Belize???   For the love of God, that does not mean my card was compromised.

And to the idiots with whom you hire to answer the phones, please stop arguing with me about whether or not you called me to warn me that my card was being marked as fraudulent.  The number you have is my cellphone and it is on my person at all times.  There were no messages and there were no missed calls.  Not at least from anyone speaking in English… (why Spanish computers decide they need to call me, I’ll never know).  If you can’t tell me the date and time of your attempt to reach me, I don’t believe that you tried.  I’m sorry, I just don’t.  And even if you did try, don’t you think that more than one attempt would be appropriate if you are about to disable my card????

Since I’m a problem solver, I’m going to make a suggestion.

Capital One.  Please… if you try to call and can’t reach me, leave me a message.  And after leaving me a message, drop me an SMS and/or an email to let me know what’s up.  You already have my information and it’s not that hard to do.  If you really want to be cool, send me a direct message on Twitter.  A one eyed monkey with his no arms could code that feature into your software in an evening or two.  And as a bonus…  it would be great if I could authenticate the charges made over the website.  I see my recent activity already.  It’s simple enough to check them off and say…. YEP, It’s Me!!!!

That alone would have prevented the situation that arose yesterday and the irritation of having to talk to your middle school dropout minions who answer your phones… but if I absolutely have to call…  would it be too much trouble to fix your damn phone system?  When you press 0, it should take you to an actual person.  After 10 minutes of circular menu navigation and hearing my balance repeated 6 times, I finally gave up and repeatedly hit 0 until someone answered.  I counted about 60 zeros.  I guess 60 must be the magic Capital One secret number, but really, only one should suffice.

So please, dear Capital One…  live up to your no-hassle promises or I might have a different answer to, “what’s in your wallet”.