Posts by Alan W. Rateliff, II

@Narg; @Bob18

First, the lack of a physical last mile does not necessarily mean cheaper to provide service. Comparing these two technologies is apples and oranges, anyway: DSLAMs vs RF equipment, copper and right-of-way vs RF spectrum, etc. Without first-hand knowledge of the costs of each, we cannot reasonably assume that air is less expensive than copper.

Second, I like the idea of daily throttling. Indeed, the daily reminder is a much more customer friendly way to handle "over-use" than the $600 additional bill at the end of the month. That changes from "oh, I need to be more careful tomorrow," to "WTF?!!! I need to find a new provider or I can kiss health insurance goodbye next month!!"

Or, how difficult would it be to send a text message warning to the 3% of their millions of customers who actually "abuse" the service when they reach a level which AT&T considers abusive? For that matter, is AT&T complaining because of bandwidth or usage? I download a 25MB radio show daily which takes about five minutes or so. Doing the math, that is 500MB per month, give or take, plus my other usage for web browsing, email, and so on. Do they care that in a month I probably use around 1GB of data, or do they care that I am maxing out my 3Mb/s for five, 10, or 20 minutes at a time?

Is data our technological opiate? The cellular "pushers" keep promising a Utopia of interconnectedness -- the World at Our Fingertips(tm) -- then mug you for the actual experience. "First hit's free, after that if you wanna fly you gotta buy." And then some!

This reminds me of the whole battle for cable Internet bandwidth and such, with the nasty-grams and over-use charges to "abusers," and the tiered pricing. As if no one learned from the backlashes from all that hub-bub. Sheesh.

I have to give a hand to AT&T nee Cingular for my experiences with their data network. In the past six years I have had only two major problems with it: the sudden and unannounced deterioration of the TDMA network in favor of GSM/EDGE, and the recent sudden and unannounced elimination of the ISP provisioning of my way-too-old unlimited data plan. Now my only issue is that I cannot stream in the south-east, but I can in the mid-west. And the final chronic annoyance is that their outbound WAP proxy does not reverse-resolve.

Now, get this network bandwidth issue resolved (hint, do not punish users, guide them) and we will be BFF again. I gave up the on point of unlocked phones a long time ago, which brings up another quick annoyance: AT&T could bring in a few more bucks from me if it would allow me to buy the games and applications I want on my unlocked phone(s,) which I know are compatible because I can get them from alternate sources. Instead, the AT&T MEdiaNet Mall tells me that my phone is not supported, so take my money elsewhere.

Okay, so that is two resolved problems, two annoyances, and one lost cause. Weigh that against the positives: I have unlimited data for cheap, pictures messages actually come right to my phone (instead of having to go to a web site to fetch them,) I can use voice and data simultaneously, I have coverage everywhere I travel, and it is the better of the two networks which support the phones I really really like (I am a SonyEricsson whore, sadly.) Yeah, I think I will cozy in for a while.

Paris, daily throttling to avoid back-lash hub-bub, plenty of annoyances, and maybe a show-stopper with several unresolved problems, for cheap.

Interesting location for the survey

In Minnesota. Where there is little else to do ten months out of the year. Where there are two seasons: winter and road construction. Although the fishing is good.

Paris, the fishing is... oh, to hell with it.

Rage overwhelms rational, reasonable, and eloquent response.

Eric Schmidt, go fuck yourself.

Normally, I would not even post something like this; it is crass and unsophisticated. I would wait to let the anger subside. But I am not ashamed of myself for thinking it, nor for posting it. And now you can Google it.

Paris, crass and unsophisticated.

Unless your provider does not allow "tethering."

I do not know why, but I abhor that term. Anyway, many providers in the US, like Sprint, do not allow tethering on certain handsets, disabling the ability altogether, while some, like AT&T, charge stupid amounts for the privilege of using an inherent capability. (I have found that not all providers allow simultaneous data and voice usage from the same handset, which could be a hindrance to many users.)

Of course, you can get around the tethering restriction with tools like PDAnet, which is currently available for just about every platform, or with an unlocked phone. I use my unlocked Sony Ericsson over Bluetooth and achieve upwards of 2Mb/s on a clean connection without the need for a $70/month PDA plan (realistically, I only use it for the same things I use the phone for directly: RDP and email.)

Bluetooth SIG has a tough row to hoe in this case, in that it will be going up directly against providers' revenue, a tough battleground indeed. I wish them all the best.

Paris, a tough hoe to row.

I see a pattern

Of ACs who spout the same techno-psycho-babble without signing a name to it, like anonymous shouts in a crowd of sheeple.

My ear feels warm when I hold my SonyEricsson K850i up to it for a period. And my friend's Treo 700wx, and my home phone, and my cat. The commonality: each produces its own heat.

Brilliant!

I like the progress point as well. Although, I do not suspect that phones will continue using the same signal strengths over time as towers and phones each become more sensitive, or we discover sub-space communications (feh.)

Paris,she produces heat, too, but she might cause cancer... ban her or tax her!

Hatred of Vista from people who didn't use it?

How about the hatred of Vista from people who DID use it?? I have had to roll back more than a few Vista installations to XP for customers (some angry) who either found the new Vista interface unusable and confusing or the performance of Vista far below tolerable. We ran into several issues which limited productivity or prevented users from doing work entirely, including stupid bugs, random crashes due to driver problems, slow performance over VPNs, poor performance over internal networks, and so on.

Windows 7 is no more a service pack to Vista than it is a service pack to Windows 98, or XP was a service pack to 2000. Internals aside, as are detailed in great nauseum by Russinovich and crew, it is more stable, performs better, and more compatible than Windows Vista.

I have run Windows 7 in various stages, and have been pleased with what I have seen. I abhor the Vista interface so I have not implemented it on the metal of any of my own machines, but instead run it virtualized in VirtualBox and VirtualPC. The results have been very pleasing. And for the experience with 7 on metal, compatibility with software and hardware has been more than acceptable. There may be issues with some old or obscure components, but IMNSHO these types of things should not be in use except in extreme cases -- you know, when you center and entire enterprise around a whiz-bang gadget from a company which went out of business in a couple of years. (Of course, ignoring operating system compatibility, if that gadget dies, what then??)

Paris, whiz-bang gadget.

ITT: Butthurt liberals

In many ways I have come to expect our elected officials to be none too technically or technologically savvy. If they were, we would not continue to have lacking process and procedure to deal with technology, nor the face-palm moments when yet another politician says something really out there regarding technology and especially the "series of tubes" that is the Internet. It is getting better, and many things only get better with experience.

Do I fault her, or anyone, for having bad passwords or easy-to-find information in reminders? No, because that is how we are guided, and that is how "the system" is set up. Passwords are hazardous, especially user-chosen passwords, and reminders are even worse. The more services are dumbed-down, the dumber users will become.

Do I fault her, or anyone, for using a web mail account? No, again because that it what we are shown to do. And for any dipstick who would give guff for using web mail for state business, did we forget that our administration wanted to move everything over to Google and GMail? But I suppose that would have been okay, and probably an historic move. And for that matter, I would bet that a large number of ElReg audience who do not run their own services use a web mail service.

And lastly, to throw my hat down in the political arena, I have to say that I have listened very carefully to both sides of this particular campaign from the beginning, and have drawn these conclusions: McCain is an honorable man lacking in some conservative common sense; Clinton is conniving yet somehow genuine in her goals; Obama is a serial liar, thuggish, and has nothing but power on his mind; Palin is a true conservative, down-to-earth and strong.

And for the twat who emailed me about why I would not answer his frothing post from another article, I do not answer (or most of the time even read) AC posts. Want to say something? Have the balls to put your name or pseudonym on it. Have an opinion? Claim it, punk.

Paris, she has the balls to put it on tape, fekker.

Minor US presence

Missed deadlines and limited stock availability for US phones. Amongst other things. Sad to see, I love my SE phones, even with their limitations. But my next phone will likely be a Nokia, since they seem to share many attributes with the SE that I like so much.

Damn shame. And why develop phones specifically for the US market? How much extra does it cost to produce a phone like the K850i, which works everywhere by supporting 850, 1900, and 2100 3G networks? If the C905i did such, I would buy the damned thing but, no, SE has this thing about 'a' models, and the only C905a is butchered by AT&T, aside from being butt ugly.

I feel sorry for the US employees. I had been in contact with one fella in corporate who was pleasant, knowledgeable, and helpful. I hope he can either stay with the company and be taken care of or find another job which allows him to flourish. (Really, I don't find people like that often; he'd be a great asset to any corporation.)

Anyway, enough of that. Back to being pissed that SE has effectively ignored us. Sure, only 300 million people, but I wonder what the purchase rate is for phones here. Bah. My heat hurts too much to contemplate on this right now.

Paris, bah.

They will come, and some will come back

The service is running again. And whether or not Microsoft/Danger/T-Mobile promises this will never happen again and offers tours of the data centers to prove it (whatever that would do,) they will come back. People who were affected will forget as all or most of their data is restored. People who still see the Sidekick as a status symbol will still want one because, face it, six weeks is forever ago in this fast-paced world.

And many of those who left to try a smart phone with a chunky-client approach to storage -- synchronized on the handset and somewhere in the cloud -- using Google and ActiveSync, will come back after finding that it is just too hard to manage connections themselves. They will want to return to the transparent interface that Just Works(tm).

My skepticism says that this will not kill the Sidekick, or T-Mobile. Though I would find it interesting if it did one or both.

Paris, she did one or both already and got the t-shirt, we got the video.

Exposing my dear father (not like that, pervs)

Breaking my vow of Interweb silence about mentioning those who are not me, I am compelled to wonder how many others can relate.

Of course, I am IT support for my family. My father, in particular. He is a curious soul, Bless him, but has plenty of distractions. He called me up one day to tell me that he believed his hard drive had crashed. Never, EVER, believing the assumptions of the end user -- which probably makes me Dell-like -- I ask him what drew him to that conclusion. It just would not boot, and he got a blank screen.

Fine. I had him send it to me. As an aside, UPS mangled the damned thing, and it was packed pretty well.

Opening the case (what remained of it, see previous sentence) I did not see anything really obvious at first glance, but a few seconds in I noticed the CPU fan on his AMD Athlon XP 1600+ was caked with so much dust and cat hair that it looked like a layer of paper-mâché between the fan and the heat sink. Obviously this was a problem. I figured it had suffered a massive thermal break-down and I would replace the CPU to see if that revived the system.

That was until I noticed that several surface-mounted components on the motherboard had slid out of position as the solder had heated up enough to allow gravity to work its magic on various inductors and voltage regulators. Then I noticed that the socket had also moved ever so slightly.

The CPU had nice brown crispy spots, and I decided to take photos for posterity. It is a good laugh now, and its replacement was the last computer I ever had to build for me dear-ol' pop.

Paris, nice brown crispy spots. Photos ONLY for posterity.

Hate the bloody things

I hate ring-back tones. I can never really tell what they are supposed to be, anyway, because of horrible distortion, either too loud or just a crappy recording.

Definitely not worth the money people spend. I have told more than one friend to not assign one to me.

Paris, not worth the money.

@nickrw

By default this is true. However, you can set a local security policy which activates this behavior.

Paris, non-default behavior.

As usual, US market gets the wet willy

Over the years I have been a proponent of Sony Ericsson. I have particularly enjoyed my K790a even with its flaws -- mostly a slow processor which has a difficult time keeping up with several applications and limited memory allotted to said applications, making it impossible to run MGmaps, the media player, and snap a picture at the same time. Then my K850i, which I purchased in lieu of the long-long-delayed C905a, which is only available in bastardized form from AT&T at this time. It suffers even more so in terms of application performance and memory, sluggish as hell when playing media.

According to SE, neither of these will see another firmware update to fix reproducible bugs and numerous crashes per day. Thanks, Sony Ericsson. Thanks.

And just where is the C905a? Delayed so long that nary a vendor over here is likely to carry it when, and if, it does become available. Thanks, Sony Ericsson. Thanks.

The new Satio does not have a 3G radio which will work in the US. So how long do we have to wait to use it over here, or will an 'a' version EVER be released, Sony Ericsson. I have enjoyed the functionality, sluggish though it may be, of the Java Platform-based SE phones, and understand that the Symbian-based phones offer similar functionality. But will I ever get a chance to try this out for myself? Probably not.

Is this because Americans generally do not buy quality phones at price-points of $500 and more? I tend to doubt that since I have seen people plonk down $500 and above for crappy phones that they absolutely "needed." Then, why does Sony Ericsson tend to snub the US market?

Whatever the reason, I will likely be forced away from Sony Ericsson phones because of this. It was fun while it lasted.

Paris, fool me three times and shame on someone.

@Andrew 6

Sorry, I forgot to specify that I was talking about the second angle. After she falls onto the track, it looks like her arm flops over and her hand briefly sparks. I guess that could have been her cigarette.

Paris, just because.

@David Edwards

I do not think that would work. If you then called someone a "God Denier" or "God Skeptic," it would give most of them too much satisfaction. But, yes, I agree that human arrogance has stepped out of bounds to think that we and we alone can effect the environment and climate of an entire planet, in the course of only a hundred years, no less!

Indeed.

Paris, indeed a denier skeptic.

Blanket solution will piss off administrators

I can easily see where providers like AT&T would, in an attempt to prevent this worm from spreading, block port 22. This will, of course, deny many system administrators access to a legitimate tool.

I just hope AT&T will be smarter about it. Maybe block port 22 INCOMING, if they are going to do anything at all. To a large degree, I am surprised they do not block incoming connections, anyway.

Paris, prefers open ports.

Side-mounted fast port

Yes, please kill this beast and return the port to the bottom where it belongs.

Paris, on the bottom where she belongs.

Did you try...

...calling them (Vonage) on their VoIP numbers??

"We tried to contact Vonage about the problems but the company hasn't responded to our enquiries. "

Paris, because she hates my sense of humor, too.

@Si 1, and @Mike the fellow Amigan

@Mike Gravgaard: I think you meant 256k, but we get the gist. I, too, enjoyed wild performance in almost all applications over Windows 95 machines at the time, until it came time to decode JPG pictures in IRC. Oh, my, how long fjpeg took to show me the supposed picture of the supposed girl on the other side! My 50Mhz 68060 with 144MB RAM and 1280x1024 SVGA video does much better, though I now salivate to the thought of the newly-unincumbered AmigaOS 4 running on a PPC MacMini -- please, Hyperion?!

@Si 1: Utter and complete rubbish. In virtual environments, VirtualPC and VirtualBox, I have run Vista and 7 and found Vista to be painfully sluggish while 7 almost literally flies. The installation was over an hour for Vista and right around 40 minutes for 7. To ensure that what I was seeing was not simply better support for one over the other in the virtualization software I put both on the bare metal to find identical results in performance. 7 is more than just a polished turd in terms of performance. Although it does maintain the horrid Vista user interface and methodology, both of which I absolutely despise.

Paris, more than just polished, possibly glazed.

Microsoft only does Windows?? Really!

While I am by no means a Microsoft apologist, your assessment of the company as a whole is incredibly narrow.

First off, if they wanted to kill Java, they would have to develop something to replace it and be fairly well compatible (note I said "fairly well,") and doing so requires that someone know Java thoroughly. Secondly, they certain do not and have not ever only done Office on the Mac outside of Windows. At the very least Microsoft has offered Unix integration kits for quite some time, having also developed their own flavor of Unix back when doing so was considered Tres.

And in the end, as we know better know, the Danger system, which is a subsidiary of Microsoft, was run on Sun Solaris machines with Oracle database back-ends. The failure is only minimally the fault of Microsoft, and I assure you that when Danger called Mama in to help, Mama had people on-hand more than capable of handling the situation

Paris, because she knows better than to feed the trolls.

Up to the customers to prevent synchronization?

"Customers were advised to switch their Sidekicks off to prevent synchronisation attempts."

A long time ago, almost in another life now, I worked for an ISP. We were investigating moving to a new mail server but knew that our system used an encryption on the POP3 passwords which had an unknown hash. (As an aside, I still monkey with this system, so if anyone knows where to find the hash algorithm for Post.Office, the Windows version of which has long since been done away with, I would appreciate a reference.) The solution of the new system was to capture the POP3 passwords used by customers' first session and store them.

Not the most secure method by any means, but it certainly seemed a viable option.

So when I read the line above, it hit me: why could Microsoft/Danger not have started a new database and captured data from the devices once authenticated? This would have saved data which still existed and given them cover time to work a recover solution for other data which could have been merged later.

If not, then a far-end block of synchronization, and maybe even a quick text message to these poor souls saying "ZOMB WTF BBQ don't turn off your Sidekick!!!11!"

Paris, a less-loss solution?

@Andy 70

Hey! I take offense to OH what's for breakfast?

Paris, NOT recommended a part of a complete breakfast.

@RTNavy

Happened in "Thundarr the Barbarian," too. Well, except that it was a runaway planet which caused the moon to split, and thus Man's civilization is cast in ruin, to give birth to a strange new world 2,000 years later, full of savagery, super-science, and sorcery.

Paris, full of savagery and super-science. Not so much sorcery, though.

@ iamapizza

I believe you need a Java VM to run Opera Mini on Windows Mobile (confirmed, as I see the downloads as jad/jar files.) However, IBM has pulled the free version of WebSphere Everywhere Mobile Edition, which is the Java VM for WM. v6.something can be found if you dig enough (I found it, thankfully.) Handango has a $25 version available, supposedly.

In short, Mini Opera is not much of an option for some WM users. Sadly. I run it on my SE K850i and K790a. I see Opera Mini 5beta is available, so I am about to give that a run.

Paris, available, so I might give her a run as well...

@Adam Azarchs

If the analogy is indeed accurate, then every house would have an Interstate exit to its driveway and there would be no dirt roads.

Paris, dirt road exit to her driveway.

A "me, too" on MVP status

I have to chime in as well on the MVP != evangelist comments. I have worked with two MVPs in the past which resulted in bug fixes for two different MIcrosoft products. When you get an MVP, you most often get hold of someone who knows their stuff and has been recognized by Microsoft for it.

Paris, she knows recognition.

Crippled add-ons just as much as IETab

Google Chrome Frame reduces the functionality of Internet Explorer's plug-ins, and most likely ActiveX controls like Terminal Services, just the same as one cannot use Firefox add-ons in an IETab. Sounds about right.

But is the difference the power level of the user? Most users who use IETab are rather savvy, but I dare to say that the majority of users who will use Chrome Frame will be a polar opposite, having been sucked in by the "Chrome is more secure than IE!" scare tactics which have already convinced many of my customers to use a browser which will not work with many of the services they need to use, or that damnedable Google Toolbar which blocks pop-ups of legitimate sites without notification which would allow the user to bypass the blocksa as necessary.

Maybe there are informational notifications along the way, but obvious the mass of users with which I deal have missed them. And in the end, do we not have to take our audience into account when presenting a product?

Paris, a difference in user power.

Was it necessary to kill the poor bloke?

Could Google just have simply removed the offending email from the account? Did we really have to nuke the whole damned thing?

Paris, remove when offensive.

What about outages?

Whilst reading about Google's Amazing Load-Shedding Data Centers (tm) I could not help but to think that maybe that is what has been happening with Google Apps, GMail, etc.: the data centers got too hot and they just shifted the load to vapor.

Sorry, I just find it interesting to read about all the technology going into keeping unreliable services running. Sure, 99.99% uptime or 99.99% users operating normally is a fantastic record, unless your business or other critical needs falls into that 0.01% of either. Yeah, nothing is 100%, but whom can you hold accountable when the G-Almighty falls?

Microsoft used to catch no end of hell when its services went down. Good for the goose...

Paris, sauce for the goose.

Just need x64 Flash...

Minefield, x64 Java, and the AWOL x64 Flash is all I need to browse in full 64-bit glory.

Paris, full 64-bit glory.

Stimulating

"Despite the obvious inadequacies of their network, they turned down stimulus funds offered by the Obama administration that could have helped them upgrade it."

And let the Obama administration thereby own it. Crappy though it may be in some areas (not in mine or any I have visited,) I do not blame AT&T for turning that blood money down. I do not blame ANY communications company for turning it down. What, they want to be like GM?

Paris, AT&T turned her down, too.

SE's slow release in the US will kill me

While I love my SonyEricsson phones, I have found, through my own experience and several vendors to the USA, that SE tends to delay the "a" models of their phones to the point of obsolescence. If the X2 is world-capable, then this may mitigate the issue.

The big "for instance" right now is the C905a. It was announced around this time last year. The 'i' edition, for the other side of the pond, has seen a second revision. However, the 'a' edition has yet to see the light of day over here, and may only just now be available through AT&T -- though locked and apparently lacking the built-in email client.

But the unlocked version? No where to be found. While I loved my K790a up until it suffered severe memory corruption, and I very much like my K850i (which plays a lot of games much more slowly than the 790, go figure,) I have been drooling over the C905a since it was announced. Oh, the agony.

I am losing my faith in SE-America. I love the phones, but SE does not seem to love me.

Paris, she does not seem to love me, either.

New Browser Refused By Users Too Stupid to Use "Private Browsing" Feature

News flash! Film at 11!

So, these pr0n purveyors who are afraid their habits will be discovered are incapable either of using Private Browsing or share their profile with someone else, choosing instead to implement security by obscurity.

Have no fear, Firefox will only lose these people until they have the ah-ha moment about Private Browsing, the uber-bar configuration options, or the first time they get infected by some IE ActiveX exploit and are soundly reprimanded by their techie/geek friend/family member and are forced to go back.

They always go back. Always.

Paris, yeah, that sounds about right.

Nationalized broadband failure early on

Back during the final years of the dot-com boom, if I recall correctly, Sprint invested a shytload of money in their ION service somewhere in the southwest US. It lost its ass on the service as, aside from implementation issues, the service was relatively unwanted.

In a poll not too very long ago, something like 75% of American households do not have broadband, and of that a vast majority were without by choice, not seeing any compelling reason to leave dial-up or have Internet at all.

Given how little attitudes to which I am exposed have changed, I see a national policy on this, well, as a national policy on failure. The United States is a very large and expansive country with too many sparse population centers to effectively doll out broadband to the extent that many believe it should be. Perhaps a TVA-style approach to broadband will push out the infrastructure, but the maintenance on the unused bits will most certainly push up the price for those who take advantage of it. At the very least, I do not see prices falling. (And unfortunately I absolutely do not see the quality of customer service getting any better.)

Another aspect to consider is whether we should build out land-line broadband or mobile broadband. Mobile broadband would be the choice of those on the go as it can follow you, but for many the 5GB caps would rule against its usefulness.

In short, I think the American People need to decide what they want before we start mucking about with policy and legislation. For that matter, forget anything more than just a national policy framework -- let the states push policy on broadband if they so desire. What is good Internet for those in California may not be good Internet for those in New York, or Montana, or Louisiana, etc.

National policy on consumables is great for countries in which you can TELL the people what to do and what they want, where a one-size-fits-all approach really is viable. That is not how we do things around here. At least, that is not the way we PREFER to do things around here.

Paris, having it her way, too.

Did I see Shin Chan on his desk?

Paris, that is all.

Windows x64 Plugins MIA (looking at you, Adobe)

I have used Minefield, the Windows x64 compilation of Firefox, and rather like it. Well, not that there's much NOT to like, it is Firefox, after all. With Java x64 installed, many and most sites work very well. With the exception of anything which requires Flash.

Really, Adobe needs to get off its ass and put forth. It is difficult to push towards 64-bit computing if software will not work, and Lord knows everyone needs Flash.

This should be a battle field for Adobe against Microsoft. Back in February, Microsoft said, stupidly, "Right now our plan is to run SL in 32-bit mode (and not have a 64-bit native version). This is mostly because other browser plug-ins (and most browsers) don't support 64-bit yet. We are looking at adding native 64-bit support in the future though." (Credit to NeoWin.)

Most browsers? Really, since when is Microsoft concerned with most browsers? Has Microsoft lost its teeth? Push x64 Windows, put in an x64 version of Silverlight, make IE x64 the default, thereby forcing the other plug-in makers to follow suit -- that is the Microsoft we all know and love. Not this whiny, pussy "no one else is doing it" rubbish. Time for an Adobe sucker-punch.

Or at the very least, how about a 64-bit wrapper for the 32-bit plug-in?

I have been using XP x64 now for a couple of years, been pushing Vista x64 when I have to push Vista, and will most likely push for 7 x64. Overall my experience has been great. I have had little to no problem with driver or software support, with the exception of really odd programs (or cheap ones, or the Cisco VPN Client) here and there. VirtualPC assists with overcoming that limitation, and while a cumbersome solution in XP and Vista, Windows 7 has the virtualization natively. What more could you want?

Paris, what more could you want?

The real problem, dear AC's

The primary problem with the health care debate, my dear AC's, is the lies. The lie upon lie upon lie trying to push the damned thing up our collective rectum. I have already gone over them in another post and will not waste the carbon footprint to do so again.

The bottom line is the elimination of our choice. I am self-employed, and I pay for my health care insurance myself. My premiums have just barely doubled in seven years and one age bracket. I have had two major medical events, as well as several MRIs and X-rays. I pay $50 co-pay for a few of my prescriptions, $30 for a couple others, and sometimes as little as $10 (depends upon name-brand, generic, and special "prefered" medication tiers.) I pay $10 to see a doctor. I pay nothing for my MRIs or X-Rays, blood work, tests, etc. My insurance provider reimburses me for health memberships, up to $150 per year for gym memberships, etc. I also get discounts from some memberships because of my insurance. I also have secondary coverage which pays me for my annual checkups, disability, hospital stays, emergency room visits, accidents and the subsequent doctor and physical therapy visits.

So what has that to do with anything? I made the choice for this plan over several others. Sadly, this insurer is taking no position on the whole mess, but it should if it wants to survive. It also employs a large number of people locally, which would be without a job if it folded.

Oh, but you can still choose after the new plan! Not true, and if you do not believe me, go back and read Obama's lips and hear his own words and the words of the people in charge of this health care reform.

Really, I fail to see the problem here. AC, if your wife is too fat (you did not state her weight, so I have to assume, sorry,) get her to lose weight or pick a new insurer.

Yes, there are approximately 12 million "chronically" insured, which include those who may be uninsurable for extreme conditions. Let us focus on taking care of them directly; do not touch my ability to choose.

Health insurance is not a right. In fact, I believe that preventative care should be paid out of pocket and insurance should only cover anything that is not routine. The whole Medicare and Medicare system has set up a perception of entitlement to health insurance, but not care itself -- we already have that. NO ONE AMERICAN IS REFUSED NECESSARY CARE IN AMERICA.

Read that again. Because it is not just true of American citizens, but non-citizens as well. You walk into an emergency room with a critical issue and you will get taken care of. If you cannot afford your medications, there are options. If you cannot afford surgery, there are options in the family, community, charitable organizations, and even some medical providers. If you cannot afford routine care, there are free clinics all over the place.

Frankly, we do not and should not give two shits about the quality, of lack of quality, health care in other countries. We should instead focus on the fact that once the government plan becomes law and we start getting the piss taxed out of us before it goes into swing in 2013, we will lose our private coverage and our choice -- that is what The People can understand. Why destroy what works (or mostly works?) It if is broken, fix it! Our health care cannot be approached with the Wal*Mart mentality of tossing something out and replacing it if has flaws.

For Christ's sake, people. Do not just buy into the words, look at what is backing up those words.

Paris, free to make her own choices.

I cannot understand...

I have been on AT&T/Cingular for seven years now, and have been sending and receiving MMS messages for at least five years of that period (after I obtained MMS-capable phones.)

I cannot understand how a modern, sophisticated, practical mobile device can be worth its salt without features offered by just about every other mobile phone on the market. If I am going to plonk down $300, $400, $500, whatever on a phone, the requirements are BASIC FEATURES + more features. Criteria at which the iPhone has apparently failed.

"ooohhh... touch screen, gestures, browser. But no fekkin' MMS?! Christ on a skateboard!"

May sound ridiculous, but a number of my friends and family supplement communications with MMS, and I would go well without if I did not have the capability as well. Much the same as why I had to bite the bullet and set up a Facebook account. (Peer pressure has nothing on familial pressure!)

Paris, plus more features.

@dgp

The gun is metaphoric. Taxation is allowed under the Constitution for what is permitted within the powers prescribed by the Constitution, which does not include punishment nor charity. The death penalty is a punishment for taking another life -- not for opposing political ideals (oh, that was Iraq, pre-liberation, right?) And the invasion of Iraq removed a blood-thirsty and power-hungry dictator who ruled his country with fear, propagandist techniques, and tortured and killed his own people.

Oh, but we allowed him to come to power? That would be 1963 under Lyndon Johnson when the US effectively allowed the Ba'ath party to come to power. After he assumed the presidency in 1979, he was an ally against Iran before violating world moral order and invading a neighboring country. Frankly, we should have dusted his ass in the Gulf War. He was already killing plenty of his own people by then, but we timidly supported a toothless UN resolution.

Our involvement in the Gulf War will always be transmuted to "blood for oil," but seriously: is it not in any country's interest to ensure the safety of its assets? If the economy of Britain was dependent largely upon a country invaded by an aggressor, should Britain not work to ensure the liberation of its asset country? We tried isolationism, and we got the shit bombed out of us for our effort -- not going to happen again, so long as those who have keen hind-sight have anything to do about it.

What would you have done, ignore Hussein? What would you do, capitulate with Ackmadenmahadjidad? Just like Europe ignored and tried to capitulate with Hitler?

Moving on.

Just because one country lets itself get fucked by sick foreigners does not mean that other countries should allow it. I know, we should be fair -- one country gets screwed, we should all let ourselves get screwed so you do not feel stupid, right? Sorry, no go here, mate.

Here is a thought: if you (any country) want to allow your people to come over here to get their medical treatment illegitimately, then we can stop providing you (said country) assistance. Back in the 80s we bitched and moaned about how much money we sent to other countries when we have so many people living in poverty in our own country. "Fix things at home first," they cried out. Where is that concern, now?

Paris, meh, indeed.

Interesting thought

This could have practical purposes for instances like home invasions where a phone call can reveal a person's hiding place. What I'm waiting for is for a crime to be committed using the modern equivalent of cutting the phone lines, that is, one of those cheap cell phone jammers -- or a home-made one for that matter.

Of course, this has the potential for being abused: spoofed text message sources, prank text messages, etc. But I do not think any more than traditional phone lines. I would imagine as well that text message sources could be determined using the same technology as call location. That would certainly cut down on the amount of interaction necessary to complete the call.

Paris, invading my home and cutting my cords (yipes!)