Rip Rowan

Antisocial Networking Redux

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:30:00 GMT

This is pretty much self-explanatory, right?

Which LinkedIn button should I click?

Tags: Social Networking
Category: Software & IT

Hackintoshed!!

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:21:00 GMT

So I'm writing this with my new $350 Hackintosh netbook.

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Tags: Hackintosh
Category: Software & IT

Antisocial Networking

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 18:50:00 GMT

In case there was any doubt that there can be too much of a good thing, here's a set of social networking buttons I recently stumbled upon (pun intended):

Besides the confusing layout of buttons, there's just way too much going on here.

Somehow, there must be a way of simplifying this stuff.

Tags: Social Networking
Category: Software & IT

Semantic Blogging Redux

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:52:00 GMT

A while back I posted something about WordPress’ taxonomy model. At the time I thought it was clever and thought we should use something like it for the DotNetNuke Blog module. Now, I’m less enamored with it.

Here’s why.

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Tags: Taxonomy,Semantic Web
Category: DotNetNuke

One Injury, Ten Countries

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:48:00 GMT

An interesting concept - author with a bad shoulder travels to 10 countries seeking various solutions, then writes about his experiences with various forms of health care in each country.

Something leapt out at me. Although the book treats this as tangential, I found it strikingly salient:

In an Ayurvedic hospital in India, a regimen of meditation, rice, lentils and massage paid for entirely out of pocket, $42.85 per night, led to “obvious improvement in my frozen joint,” Mr. Reid writes, adding, “To this day, I don’t know why it happened.”

Well there you go. Arrogant Western medicine does, in fact, have an awful lot to learn from Eastern. In most of the countries he visited, surgery and steroid injections are de rigeur. He had to practically travel to the Third World to learn that an inexpensive and risk-free solution was possible.

For over a decade I struggled with a variety of back problems, rejecting the expensive and very risky surgery for so-called "physical therapy" all based in the best Western science has to offer. A couple months of hatha yoga (Bikram yoga, to be exact) and my back and other joints are as healthy as they were at age 18.

Go figure. Maybe after a thousand years, those crafty Indians actually figured something out after all.

I think the author - and the NYT article - miss the whole point. The NYT writer comments that "the comparative merits of different orthopedic philosophies are secondary here." Not so fast, Abby. I don't think it's secondary at all.

Perhaps if Western medicine comprehended - and Western insurance covered - valid and often superior forms of treatment like hatha yoga, the United States wouldn't be in a health care "crisis".

Tags: Healthcare
Category: Current Affairs

The Angel of Death

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 05:01:00 GMT

So I decided last Wednesday to finally retire my aging desktop. It died a peaceful, natural death.

The rest were not so lucky....

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True Believer

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 23:42:00 GMT

Joel Spolsky is a big fan of SSDs. Even when he's wrong, I like reading his stuff. But when he's right, he's oh-so-right.

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Tags: SSD
Category: Software & IT

Music Appreciation

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:28:00 GMT

Welcome address to freshman parents at Boston Conservatory, given by Karl Paulnack, pianist and director of music division at Boston Conservatory:

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Tags: Music
Category: Current Affairs

It Even "Matches" the Website

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:02:00 GMT

Category: Humor

My Solution to the Health Care "Crisis"

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:10:00 GMT

I have a solution to the purported "crisis" in health care. Here goes:

We will select one insurance company which we will allow to gain a monopoly over the entire health care system.
We will give that insurance company the right to set whatever premiums it wishes.
We will entitle that insurance company with the power to collect premiums by force.
We will allow that insurance company to allocate health care resources however it sees fit, to whomever it deems most worthy of services.

Oh, wait. That's already been proposed.

Sorry, my bad.

Tags: Healthcare
Category: Current Affairs