My first cron job
Warren
the foot I'd like to submit this for your laughter and derision. What
I want to do is delete all files greater than two days old that are
in /home/user/vtigercrm_bak. I have confirmed with testing that this
command does it:
find /home/user/vtigercrm_bak/* -mtime +2 -delete
Fine. Now I want this command to run nightly. Poking around, I think
that saving the following as /etc/cron.daily/rm_old_foobar.cron, owner
root, will do this:
#!/bin/sh
find /home/user/vtigercrm_bak/* -mtime +2 -delete
done
...and I think that's all I have to do. Correct?
Jim A
Nearly ...
Try running the script from the command line. You'll find
"done" isn't relevant here and will error. You don't need any
specific command to end the script (although you will see
"exit" can be used sometimes, but not necessary here).
Take a look at the permissions:
ls -l /etc/cron.daily/
and make sure your script will be executable like the others
in this directory (use chmod to set permissions if necessary).
To check for errors from cron, look at the files under
/var/log/cron/
hth
des...@verizon.net
While you're at it, remove the "*" from the find
command. It doesn't belong there.
Eric
your find cmd should be (for completeness):
find /home/user/vtigercrm_bak/ -name "*" -type f -mtime +2 -delete
the -type f means find only files but not directories or other non-file items
BTW: you're smart to field the question, find can be tricky depending on
what you want to do
Warren Post
wrote:
> BTW: you're smart to field the question, find can be tricky depending on
> what you want to do
Heh... I'm just terrified of accidentally slipping in a "rm -rf /" in
there.
Bit Twister
> Heh... I'm just terrified of accidentally slipping in a "rm -rf /" in
> there.
That is why you test in a test account. :)
Moe Trin
<hce2ts$adn$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Eric wrote:
>Warren wrote:
>> I have confirmed with testing that this command does it:
>>
>> find /home/user/vtigercrm_bak/* -mtime +2 -delete
Do you want to start the search at /home/user/vtigercrm_bak or in any
sub-directories of /home/user/vtigercrm_bak/ ?
> your find cmd should be (for completeness):
>find /home/user/vtigercrm_bak/ -name "*" -type f -mtime +2 -delete
The -name option isn't needed. 'find' will find all files, so the
'-name [anything] is redundent unless you are trying to avoid finding
files that begin with a dot.
Old guy
Moe Trin
>Eric <apo...@ruler.of.the.night.org> wrote:
>> BTW: you're smart to field the question, find can be tricky depending on
>> what you want to do
>Heh... I'm just terrified of accidentally slipping in a "rm -rf /" in
>there.
That's why instead of running
find /home/user/vtigercrm_bak/* -mtime +2 -delete
you start with
find /home/user/vtigercrm_bak/* -mtime +2
and see what files are found.
Old guy
Chris F.A. Johnson
-name '*' matches dot files, too, so it accomplishes nothing.
--
Chris F.A. Johnson, author <http://cfajohnson.com>
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach, 2005, Apress
ProBash Programming: Scripting the GNU/Linux Shell, 2009, Apress
Warren
> -name '*' matches dot files, too, so it accomplishes nothing.
Corrected; thank you.
Next problem: I can't get it to run at the time desired. The now
corrected job runs as desired from the command line (as root, "/etc/
cron.daily/backup.cron"). It is saved as 755, owner root. I used
webmin to set the daily jobs to run at 3:00 pm (1500 hrs), and
confirmed this in /etc/crontab:
$ cat /etc/crontab | grep cron.daily
0 15 * * * root nice -n 19 run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily
But 3 pm came and went with nothing done. What am I doing wrong?
Chris F.A. Johnson
> On Oct 30, 2:09?pm, "Chris F.A. Johnson" <cfajohn...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> ? ?-name '*' matches dot files, too, so it accomplishes nothing.
>
> Corrected; thank you.
>
> Next problem: I can't get it to run at the time desired. The now
> corrected job runs as desired from the command line (as root, "/etc/
> cron.daily/backup.cron"). It is saved as 755, owner root. I used
> webmin to set the daily jobs to run at 3:00 pm (1500 hrs), and
> confirmed this in /etc/crontab:
>
> $ cat /etc/crontab | grep cron.daily
> 0 15 * * * root nice -n 19 run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily
>
> But 3 pm came and went with nothing done. What am I doing wrong?
Don't use the unnecessarily complicated cron-daily and its cohorts.
Leave that for system cron jobs. Put your crontab file in
/var/spool/cron
Create the file ~/crontab and install it with:
crontab ~/crontab
--
Chris F.A. Johnson, author | <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
Shell Scripting Recipes: | My code in this post, if any,
A Problem-Solution Approach | is released under the
2005, Apress | GNU General Public Licence
Warren
> Don't use the unnecessarily complicated cron-daily and its cohorts.
> Leave that for system cron jobs. Put your crontab file in
> /var/spool/cron
>
> Create the file ~/crontab and install it with:
>
> crontab ~/crontab
Let me make sure I've got this straight:
1. This job has to run as root, so I create the file /root/
crontab_daily, the contents of which is (lets say):
#!/bin/sh
# Remove vtiger backups older than 2 days
find /home/jorge/vtigercrm_bak/ -type f -mtime +2 -delete
2. I use the "crontab" command as root. I've read the manpage and I'm
not getting it. What do I do? I am sorely tempted to simply add the
line "0 15 * * * root nice -n 19 run-parts --report /root/
crontab_daily" to the already existing file /var/spool/cron/root, but
man crontab informs me that this file is not meant to be edited
directly.
Chris F.A. Johnson
> On Oct 30, 3:35?pm, "Chris F.A. Johnson" <cfajohn...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> ? ?Don't use the unnecessarily complicated cron-daily and its cohorts.
>> ? ?Leave that for system cron jobs. Put your crontab file in
>> ? ?/var/spool/cron
>>
>> ? ?Create the file ~/crontab and install it with:
>>
>> crontab ~/crontab
>
> Let me make sure I've got this straight:
>
> 1. This job has to run as root, so I create the file /root/
> crontab_daily, the contents of which is (lets say):
>
> #!/bin/sh
> # Remove vtiger backups older than 2 days
> find /home/jorge/vtigercrm_bak/ -type f -mtime +2 -delete
>
> 2. I use the "crontab" command as root. I've read the manpage and I'm
> not getting it. What do I do? I am sorely tempted to simply add the
> line "0 15 * * * root nice -n 19 run-parts --report /root/
> crontab_daily" to the already existing file /var/spool/cron/root, but
> man crontab informs me that this file is not meant to be edited
> directly.
# cat /root/crontab_daily
#!/bin/sh
# Remove vtiger backups older than 2 days
find /home/jorge/vtigercrm_bak/ -type f -mtime +2 -delete
# cat /root/crontab
0 15 * * * nice -n 19 /root/crontab_daily
# crontab /root/crontab
Eric
open a console and su - to root
runs this cmd: crontab -e
and add this line to it (it may be the first line in a blank file
if so, thats ok, just paste it in there and save it)
0 15 * * * find /home/jorge/vtigercrm_bak/ -type f -mtime +2 -delete
save it and you're done
I dont mess with /etc/cron.daily or copying files to /var/spool/cron
Eric
Warren Post
<cfajo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> # cat /root/crontab_daily
> #!/bin/sh
> # Remove vtiger backups older than 2 days
> find /home/jorge/vtigercrm_bak/ -type f -mtime +2 -delete
>
> # cat /root/crontab
> 0 15 * * * nice -n 19 /root/crontab_daily
>
> # crontab /root/crontab
I'll give this a try when I'm back at the computer in question; thanks.
Your point is taken that I should leave the system cron for system
cronjobs. But I am curious why what I was doing didn't work.
David W. Hodgins
> Your point is taken that I should leave the system cron for system
> cronjobs. But I am curious why what I was doing didn't work.
Is the cron daemon running?
$ ps -A|grep crond
Regdards, Dave Hodgins
--
Change nomail.afraid.org to ody.ca to reply by email.
(nomail.afraid.org has been set up specifically for
use in usenet. Feel free to use it yourself.)
Bit Twister
> On Oct 30, 2:09 pm, "Chris F.A. Johnson" <cfajohn...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> -name '*' matches dot files, too, so it accomplishes nothing.
>
> Corrected; thank you.
>
> Next problem: I can't get it to run at the time desired.
Not to cut your cron job submission/execution learning experience short, but
have you considered putting the backup deletion code in
the script creating the backups. :)
> $ cat /etc/crontab | grep cron.daily
Sorry if someone already pointed this out.
Do keep in mind when using cat and grep, you can use grep directly. Example:
$ grep cron.daily /etc/crontab
02 4 * * * root nice -n 19 run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily
Jerry Heyman
Is there a specific reason to run this as root?
*nix allows you to create user specific crontab entries, so you could
log in as user jorge and then do:
$ cat bin/delete_backups
#!/bin/sh
# Remove vtiger backups older than 2 days
find vtigercrm_bak -type f -mtime +2 -delete
$ cat bin/crontab
0 15 * * * nice -n 19 /home/jorge/bin/delete_backups
$ crontab bin/crontab
By keeping the entries out of the root crontab, you only have things there
are specific to root (or the whole system) and not specific to a user.
jerry
--
// Jerry Heyman | "It's not a 'right' if someone else
// Amiga Forever :-) | has to pay for it" - Ayn Rand
\\ // heymanj at acm dot org |
\X/ http://www.hobbeshollow.com
Adam
> Don't use the unnecessarily complicated cron-daily and its cohorts.
> Leave that for system cron jobs. Put your crontab file in
> /var/spool/cron
I've been writing scripts (knowing they'll be run as root) and just been
putting them in /etc/cron.daily (or .weekly or .hourly), knowing they'll
be run at the appropriate times. Things like logging hddtemp and
sensors, backup to external HD and DVD, etc. What are the advantages of
using your method instead? It sounds more complicated to me. Thanks!
Adam, currently running Mdv 2008.1 if that matters
Warren
> Not to cut your cron job submission/execution learning experience short, but
> have you considered putting the backup deletion code in
> the script creating the backups. :)
You are right, of course. In this particular case it is a web app that
creates the backups. I could hack the backup creation code -- it's
open source -- but my preference is to leave the web app stock, or as
much stock as possible. That minimizes confusion when I request help
from the web app developers and makes updating or reinstalling the web
app easier. Still, your point is well taken and I agree with the
general case.
Warren
wrote:
> On Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:31:48 -0400, Warren Post <warrenp...@hotpop.com> wrote:
> > Your point is taken that I should leave the system cron for system
> > cronjobs. But I am curious why what I was doing didn't work.
>
> Is the cron daemon running?
Yes. Further, I checked in MCC to insure that it is set to run at boot.
Warren
> Is there a specific reason to run this as root?
>
> *nix allows you to create user specific crontab entries
To answer your specific question, no. But let me explain:
This thread has been educating me greatly as to cron, and so with my
growing understanding I have been likewise expanding my plans.
Originally all I sought was a way to delete certain files in a user
directory. But now I have a whole script's worth of things I'd like
done once daily, some of which need to be done as root. I suppose the
right way to do it is to run each item as only the user strictly
needed, some of which would be as root and some as user. But given
that I am just starting out I'd like to keep this as conceptually
simple as possible even if I sacrifice rightness and some safety to
begin with.
Indeed, that was my original thinking in simply dropping a new job
into /etc/cron.daily and making sure I could see it in Webmin: it
wasn't a system job, but I was trying to keep things simple, and
indeed I still don't know why that didn't work. But given that I don't
entirely know what I'm doing, then I suppose I shouldn't be mucking
about in /etc/cron.* anyway.
Hence my current thinking: do it as a user specific job as root. As
root I can do great damage, but at least I'm not risking the system
cron. So, with special thanks to Chris Johnson, here's what I'm
thinking now:
1. Save the following as /root/crontab_daily:
#!/bin/sh
# Performs regular backup and cleanup functions
# Warren Post, 31 Octber 2009
#
# Back up hard disk to DVD using dkopp
dkopp -script /root/.dkopp/jobfile_script
#
# Remove dkopp history older than 14 days
find /root/.dkopp/ -name "dkopp-hist-*" -type f -mtime +14 -delete
#
# Remove vtiger backups older than 2 days
find /home/jorge/vtigercrm_bak/ -name "backup_*" -type f -mtime +2 -
delete
#
# Remove user .xauth files older than 2 days
find /home/jorge/ -name ".xauth*" -type f -mtime +2 -delete
2. Save the following as /root/crontab to run it at lunchtime daily:
30 12 * * * nice -n 19 /root/crontab_daily
3. Then, make it so: "crontab /root/crontab"
Comments and corrections welcome as always.
Warren
> 1. Save the following as /root/crontab_daily:
>
> #!/bin/sh
> # Performs regular backup and cleanup functions
> # Warren Post, 31 Octber 2009
> #
> # Back up hard disk to DVD using dkopp
> dkopp -script /root/.dkopp/jobfile_script
> #
> # Remove dkopp history older than 14 days
> find /root/.dkopp/ -name "dkopp-hist-*" -type f -mtime +14 -delete
> #
> # Remove vtiger backups older than 2 days
> find /home/jorge/vtigercrm_bak/ -name "backup_*" -type f -mtime +2 -
> delete
> #
> # Remove user .xauth files older than 2 days
> find /home/jorge/ -name ".xauth*" -type f -mtime +2 -delete
>
> 2. Save the following as /root/crontab to run it at lunchtime daily:
>
> 30 12 * * * nice -n 19 /root/crontab_daily
>
> 3. Then, make it so: "crontab /root/crontab"
I'm quoting myself to clarify that I have done the above, "crontab -l"
confirms all is well, and crond is running, yet at 12:30 nothing
happened. What am I doing wrong?
Unruh
>On Oct 31, 8:03 am, Jerry Heyman <heym...@acm.org> wrote:
>> Is there a specific reason to run this as root?
>>
>> *nix allows you to create user specific crontab entries
>To answer your specific question, no. But let me explain:
>This thread has been educating me greatly as to cron, and so with my
>growing understanding I have been likewise expanding my plans.
>Originally all I sought was a way to delete certain files in a user
>directory. But now I have a whole script's worth of things I'd like
>done once daily, some of which need to be done as root. I suppose the
>right way to do it is to run each item as only the user strictly
>needed, some of which would be as root and some as user. But given
>that I am just starting out I'd like to keep this as conceptually
>simple as possible even if I sacrifice rightness and some safety to
>begin wit.
crontab -e will allow you to edit the specific cron jobs of the user you are
logged in as ( stored in /var/spool/cron)
This way each user carries out the jobs appropriate to that user.
This also works for root.
The cron.daily etc files are run as a root cron job daily/weekly/... as set by
/etc/crontab which is read by the system. I am not sure when /etc/crontab is
actually read by the system ( the indivicual cron jobs are reread each time they
are edited.)
>Indeed, that was my original thinking in simply dropping a new job
>into /etc/cron.daily and making sure I could see it in Webmin: it
>wasn't a system job, but I was trying to keep things simple, and
>indeed I still don't know why that didn't work. But given that I don't
>entirely know what I'm doing, then I suppose I shouldn't be mucking
>about in /etc/cron.* anyway.
>Hence my current thinking: do it as a user specific job as root. As
>root I can do great damage, but at least I'm not risking the system
>cron. So, with special thanks to Chris Johnson, here's what I'm
>thinking now:
>1. Save the following as /root/crontab_daily:
I do not know what this file is.
>#!/bin/sh
># Performs regular backup and cleanup functions
># Warren Post, 31 Octber 2009
>#
># Back up hard disk to DVD using dkopp
>dkopp -script /root/.dkopp/jobfile_script
>#
># Remove dkopp history older than 14 days
>find /root/.dkopp/ -name "dkopp-hist-*" -type f -mtime +14 -delete
>#
># Remove vtiger backups older than 2 days
>find /home/jorge/vtigercrm_bak/ -name "backup_*" -type f -mtime +2 -
>delete
>#
># Remove user .xauth files older than 2 days
>find /home/jorge/ -name ".xauth*" -type f -mtime +2 -delete
>2. Save the following as /root/crontab to run it at lunchtime daily:
>30 12 * * * nice -n 19 /root/crontab_daily
>3. Then, make it so: "crontab /root/crontab"
I have no idea what "crontab /root/crontab" actually does. The man page seems
silent on it. I would instead just put that line directly into root's crontab by
crontab -e
and edit root's crontab.
David W. Hodgins
>> 30 12 * * * nice -n 19 /root/crontab_daily
>> 3. Then, make it so: "crontab /root/crontab"
> I'm quoting myself to clarify that I have done the above, "crontab -l"
> confirms all is well, and crond is running, yet at 12:30 nothing
> happened. What am I doing wrong?
Is the permission for /root/crontab_daily set to executable?
Check /var/log/cron/* for messages.
Regards, Dave Hodgins
Unruh
"nothing happened" means what? For example the job /root/crontab_daily may not be
working. Have you tried running it on its own? Have you looked into
/var/log/messages to see if there are any messages regarding the crontab job?
Replace root/crontab_daily by a file
#!/bin/bash
date>>/tmp/crontest
and then set it up to run every minute ( instead of having to wait 24 hours after
every change to see if things work). Go through all the steps and see if that
works. If it does, you know that everything except your particular script is
working. If it does not, you can test things every minute instead of every day.
Warren
wrote:
> Is the permission for /root/crontab_daily set to executable?
Yes:
[root@fw ~]# pwd
/root
[root@fw ~]# ls -la crontab_daily
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 505 2009-10-31 11:52 crontab_daily*
> Check /var/log/cron/* for messages.
[root@fw ~]# tail /var/log/cron/errors.log | grep crontab_daily
[root@fw ~]# cat /var/log/cron/info.log | grep crontab_daily
Oct 31 12:30:01 fw CROND[17572]: (root) CMD (nice -n 19 /root/
crontab_daily)
[root@fw ~]# cat /var/log/cron/warnings.log | grep crontab_daily
[root@fw ~]#
So I get no errors, no warnings, and -- if I'm reading the info.log
entry right -- it supposedly ran properly and without errors at the
designated time. But, darn it, in fact it did not run. Just to make
sure the script is not broken, I'm running /root/crontab_daily from
the terminal now -- it runs fine.
Warren
> I have no idea what "crontab /root/crontab" actually does. The man page seems
> silent on it. I would instead just put that line directly into root's crontab by
> crontab -e
> and edit root's cront
"crontab /root/crontab" as root adds the contents of /root/crontab to
root's crontab. Thus:
[root@fw jorge]# cat /root/crontab
30 12 * * * nice -n 19 /root/crontab_daily
[root@fw jorge]# crontab /root/crontab
[root@fw jorge]# crontab -l
30 12 * * * nice -n 19 /root/crontab_daily
When I did "crontab -e" as root I saw that "30 12 * * * nice -n 19 /
root/crontab_daily" was already in root's crontab (confirming the
above).
David W. Hodgins
> [root@fw ~]# cat /var/log/cron/info.log | grep crontab_daily
> Oct 31 12:30:01 fw CROND[17572]: (root) CMD (nice -n 19 /root/
> crontab_daily)
It's running. Is dkopp installed some place like /usr/local/bin
that isn't in the path for a cron job?
Warren
wrote:
> It's running. Is dkopp installed some place like /usr/local/bin
> that isn't in the path for a cron job?
I hadn't thought of that, so I edited the script to provide the full
path to /usr/local/bin/dkopp, and ran the script manually to make sure
I didn't break anything. Then I set crontab to run at 2 pm, which came
and went with no sign of running -- yet /var/log/cron/info.log once
again shows it ran:
Oct 31 14:00:01 fw CROND[9457]: (root) CMD (nice -n 19 /root/
crontab_daily)
David W. Hodgins
> I didn't break anything. Then I set crontab to run at 2 pm, which came
> and went with no sign of running -- yet /var/log/cron/info.log once
> again shows it ran:
Add "set -x -v" as the first line after the shebang, so that there
will be a trace in the output, which will be mailed to root. Make
sure you have postfix installed, and the alias for root set to your
id in /etc/postfix/aliases.
Jerry Heyman
Any script being run by cron gets a minimal environment, so if you are
counting on any environment variables that are set in your .bash_profile,
.bashrc, or .profile - none will be set.
Along with David's suggestion of
#!/bin/sh -x -v
As the first line of your script, I would also recommend that you
add the 'env' command before the line starting with 'dkopp'. This
will show you what environment variables are available to you and
something might ring a bell.
Warren Post
> I've been writing scripts (knowing they'll be run as root) and just been
> putting them in /etc/cron.daily (or .weekly or .hourly), knowing they'll
> be run at the appropriate times.
That's what I first tried doing. No idea why it didn't work for me.
David W. Hodgins
Most likely it ran, but produced no output due to the command not
being found in the path.
Warren Post
<dwho...@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
> Most likely it ran, but produced no output due to the command not
> being found in the path.
Actually, the script has the full path to the executable.
Chris F.A. Johnson
> Chris F.A. Johnson wrote:
>> Don't use the unnecessarily complicated cron-daily and its cohorts.
>> Leave that for system cron jobs. Put your crontab file in
>> /var/spool/cron
>
> I've been writing scripts (knowing they'll be run as root) and just been
> putting them in /etc/cron.daily (or .weekly or .hourly), knowing they'll
> be run at the appropriate times.
That's OK if you want them to run when the system wants them to
run. If you want more control, usr /var/spool/cron.
> Things like logging hddtemp and sensors, backup to external HD and
> DVD, etc. What are the advantages of using your method instead? It
> sounds more complicated to me.
Why is running 'crontab /path/to/crontabfile' more complicated than
'mv /path/to/script /etc/cron.daily'?
Adam
> On 2009-10-31, Adam wrote:
>> I've been writing scripts (knowing they'll be run as root) and just been
>> putting them in /etc/cron.daily (or .weekly or .hourly), knowing they'll
>> be run at the appropriate times.
>
> That's OK if you want them to run when the system wants them to
> run. If you want more control, usr /var/spool/cron.
It's one of those things I just never thought of -- I never realized
things could be run at any other time, because nothing I've done has had
to be done at any specific time. And all the jobs I've added won't
cause problems if they're run more often.
I suppose that in my case, the system's use of cron and anacron was the
better way for me, at least in September. I was recuperating elsewhere
and only had access to my system for a few hours every few days.
Normally my daily and weekly tasks get run in the middle of the night,
but anacron ran them soon after each powerup. Of course that was an
unusual situation.
>> Things like logging hddtemp and sensors, backup to external HD and
>> DVD, etc. What are the advantages of using your method instead? It
>> sounds more complicated to me.
>
> Why is running 'crontab /path/to/crontabfile' more complicated than
> 'mv /path/to/script /etc/cron.daily'?
I had to think about that one... the reason that 'crontab' seems more
complicated to me than 'mv' is because I'm familiar with 'mv' and
'/etc/cron.daily', but 'crontab' is something new to me.
BTW just for everyone's reference, I discovered that 'cron' handles the
change to/from DST properly. In a few hours, I suppose my system clock
will go from 01:59:59 to 01:00:00, but cron does not redo jobs scheduled
between 1 and 2 AM that it just did.
Adam
Robert Riches
Wait until spring. Any job set to run between 2am and 3am won't
run at all. Some years ago, I stumbled on that quirk and had to
move my automated backup script to another time.
--
Robert Riches
spamt...@verizon.net
(Yes, that is one of my email addresses.)
Adam
>> BTW just for everyone's reference, I discovered that 'cron' handles the
>> change to/from DST properly. In a few hours, I suppose my system clock
>> will go from 01:59:59 to 01:00:00, but cron does not redo jobs scheduled
>> between 1 and 2 AM that it just did.
>>
>> Adam
>
> Wait until spring. Any job set to run between 2am and 3am won't
> run at all. Some years ago, I stumbled on that quirk and had to
> move my automated backup script to another time.
By golly, you're right! I have a script in /etc/cron.hourly that just
appends current system info (date, uptime, free, hddtemp, sensors) to a
file, and here's how it looked soon after the change from DST to
standard time:
Sun Nov 1 01:07:37 EDT 2009
01:07:37 up 3 days, 14:50, 1 user, load average: 5.20, 4.06, 2.38
[system info snipped]
Sun Nov 1 01:05:37 EST 2009
01:05:38 up 3 days, 15:48, 1 user, load average: 4.98, 4.27, 5.78
[updated system info snipped]
So it DID run the cron.hourly scripts twice.
And I dug into my backups from this past March, and, lo and behold:
Sun Mar 8 01:01:13 EST 2009
01:01:13 up 3:56, 1 user, load average: 1.22, 1.38, 1.57
[system info snipped again]
Sun Mar 8 03:01:43 EDT 2009
03:01:43 up 4:57, 1 user, load average: 2.35, 1.42, 1.19
[and so on]
So, despite what the man page for 'cron' says, cron does NOT handle the
time change (even though 'uptime' correctly increases by one hour).
That was Mandriva 2008.1 for both examples. Is this behavior fixed (or
at least documented correctly) in newer versions? If not, has anyone
reported it as a bug?
Adam, learning more all the time
Moe Trin
<hcjadb$359$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Adam wrote:
>So, despite what the man page for 'cron' says, cron does NOT handle
>the time change (even though 'uptime' correctly increases by one hour).
Daylight Saving Time and other time changes
Local time changes of less than three hours, such as those caused by
the start or end of Daylight Saving Time, are handled
specially. This only applies to jobs that run at a specific
time and jobs that are run with a granularity greater than one
hour. Jobs that run more frequently are scheduled normally.
'greater than' not 'greater than or equal'
>Adam, learning more all the time
There are other cron daemons (fcron and ucron - both found in
ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/system/daemons/cron/ but not up to date)
that are slightly better, but there are four solutions:
1. Set TZ to UTC in the script that _starts_ cron (and make all
crontab entries in UTC)
2. Set the TZ to an entry like EST or America/Jamaica that doesn't
honor DST
3. Move to someplace that doesn't have DST - like Phoenix or Hawaii ;-)
4. Don't schedule jobs between 01:00 and 03:00
The last solution is slightly more common.
Old guy
Warren
wrote:
> Add "set -x -v" as the first line after the shebang, so that there
> will be a trace in the output, which will be mailed to root. Make
> sure you have postfix installed, and the alias for root set to your
> id in /etc/postfix/aliases.
Thank you; now we're on to something. Here's the relevant portion of
what I am mailed:
(snip)
Auto-Submitted: auto-generated
X-Cron-Env: <SHELL=/bin/sh>
X-Cron-Env: <HOME=/root>
X-Cron-Env: <PATH=/usr/bin:/bin>
X-Cron-Env: <LOGNAME=root>
X-Cron-Env: <USER=root>
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 10:00:01 -0600 (CST)
Status: R
# Back up hard disk to DVD using dkopp
/usr/local/bin/dkopp -script /root/.dkopp/jobfile_script
+ /usr/local/bin/dkopp -script /root/.dkopp/jobfile_script
(dkopp:15622): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:
(snip)
As best I understand the above, the command fails because the GUI is
unable to launch when run as a cron job. Speculating, I'd guess this
is an env problem, because the same command given as root works. Any
thoughts on what to change in my env?
A better solution is to not have a GUI launched as a cron job. I've
already asked the software author about running it without the GUI and
am told this is not currently an option. For the medium term then I
will look for a backup solution more appropriate for a cron job. But
is there a quick env fix to make this work in the meantime? I don't
want to go even one more day without automatic backups, even if it
takes me a while to find the ideal solution.
Bit Twister
> On Oct 31, 2:34 pm, "David W. Hodgins" <dwhodg...@nomail.afraid.org>
> wrote:
>> Add "set -x -v" as the first line after the shebang, so that there
>> will be a trace in the output, which will be mailed to root. Make
>> sure you have postfix installed, and the alias for root set to your
>> id in /etc/postfix/aliases.
>
> Thank you; now we're on to something. Here's the relevant portion of
> what I am mailed:
>
> (snip)
You might try adding a line like
export DISPLAY=:0
Of course, that assumes you will be logged in at the time of the cron
run for the opening of display. That will not help if app wants you to
enter something into the "display"
Warren
> You might try adding a line like
> export DISPLAY=:0
>
> Of course, that assumes you will be logged in at the time of the cron
> run for the opening of display. That will not help if app wants you to
> enter something into the "display"
Done, then I let the cron job run as root. I am calling the app with a
script, so it will not need manual input from me. The trace now reads
in part:
(snip)
Auto-Submitted: auto-generated
X-Cron-Env: <SHELL=/bin/sh>
X-Cron-Env: <HOME=/root>
X-Cron-Env: <PATH=/usr/bin:/bin>
X-Cron-Env: <LOGNAME=root>
X-Cron-Env: <USER=root>
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 11:10:01 -0600 (CST)
Status: R
# Try to fix dkopp "cannot open display" issue per
# http://groups.google.com/group/alt.os.linux.mandriva/msg/22424a443e5ee1cc
export DISPLAY=:0
+ export DISPLAY=:0
+ DISPLAY=:0
# Back up hard disk to DVD using dkopp
/usr/local/bin/dkopp -script /root/.dkopp/jobfile_script
+ /usr/local/bin/dkopp -script /root/.dkopp/jobfile_script
No protocol specified
(dkopp:30804): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display: :0
(snip)
Bit Twister
> On Nov 2, 10:56 am, Bit Twister <BitTwis...@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
>> You might try adding a line like
>> export DISPLAY=:0
>>
>
> script, so it will not need manual input from me. The trace now reads
> in part:
> # Try to fix dkopp "cannot open display" issue per
> # http://groups.google.com/group/alt.os.linux.mandriva/msg/22424a443e5ee1cc
> export DISPLAY=:0
> + export DISPLAY=:0
> + DISPLAY=:0
> # Back up hard disk to DVD using dkopp
> /usr/local/bin/dkopp -script /root/.dkopp/jobfile_script
> + /usr/local/bin/dkopp -script /root/.dkopp/jobfile_script
> No protocol specified
> (dkopp:30804): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display: :0
I am out of suggestions. I am normally logged in as bittwister desktop
started with startx.
I have cron jobs which use xmessage to popup messages on bittwister's
desktop. Those jobs are running of /etc/cron.daily.
Jerry Heyman
The implication here is that user root has to be logged in and running an X
server. As Bit Twister mentioned, he logs in as a specific user, I log in
as my user 'jerry' and stay logged in all the time.
Since root isn't logged in all the time, is the user jorge (IIRC) logged in?
If so, then you're back to using the user's crontab rather than root's.
Warren Post
> The implication here is that user root has to be logged in and running
> an X
> server. As Bit Twister mentioned, he logs in as a specific user, I log
> in
> as my user 'jerry' and stay logged in all the time.
>
> Since root isn't logged in all the time, is the user jorge (IIRC) logged
> in?
> If so, then you're back to using the user's crontab rather than root's.
Sounds like this particular software just isn't going to do what I want,
then. It needs to run as root to have access to the non-user files it is
backing up, and it doesn't run with sudo. I'll look for another backup
solution. Thanks everyone for your help: even though I can't do what I
wanted, I did finally learn about cron jobs.
Anticipating this, I had a friend over for pizza and beer and to teach me
bacula last night. After two hours I felt like I was trying to use a
hammer to swat a fly. Oh well, at least the pizza and beer were good.
Jerry Heyman
> On Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:44:08 -0600, Jerry Heyman <hey...@acm.org> wrote:
>
>> The implication here is that user root has to be logged in and running
>> an X
>> server. As Bit Twister mentioned, he logs in as a specific user, I log
>> in
>> as my user 'jerry' and stay logged in all the time.
>>
>> Since root isn't logged in all the time, is the user jorge (IIRC) logged
>> in?
>> If so, then you're back to using the user's crontab rather than root's.
>
> Sounds like this particular software just isn't going to do what I want,
> then. It needs to run as root to have access to the non-user files it is
> backing up, and it doesn't run with sudo. I'll look for another backup
> solution. Thanks everyone for your help: even though I can't do what I
> wanted, I did finally learn about cron jobs.
doesn't work with 'sudo'? You can set sudo to not prompt you for a passwd.
> Anticipating this, I had a friend over for pizza and beer and to teach me
> bacula last night. After two hours I felt like I was trying to use a
> hammer to swat a fly. Oh well, at least the pizza and beer were good.
I have a Travan TR4 tape drive attached to my machine (8GB compressed)
and just use the 'tar' command to create a weekly backup. I could do it
incrementally, but I don't have enough data to save off now that I've
finished my dissertation.
Warren Post
> doesn't work with 'sudo'? You can set sudo to not prompt you for a
> passwd.
Even running it manually from a terminal, it chokes. dkopp itself runs
fine with sudo, but it is a wrapper for some other stuff, one of which
doesn't like to run sudo. I don't remembe what exactly -- I'm at home at
the moment, not on my friend's machine -- but I do recall sudo was a show
stopper when I was trying to run it as a user cron job.
Taking a step back, I believe the ideal solution would be something that
doesn't require an X session to run. Thus my looking into command line
alternatives like bacula. Or convince him to buy two USB sticks and we do
A/B rsyncing to them.
> I don't have enough data to save off now that I've
> finished my dissertation.
Well, congratulations are in order: lots of people start dissertations
they never finish. What are you studying?
Warren Post
> Point I was making is that I don't back up often enough anymore
That happens to everyone I know, myself included. I've concluded that the
best solution -- for psycological reasons, not technical ones -- is
scheduled automatic backups. Otherwise even people who know better get
complacent or forgetful or busy.
> Unfortunately, that attitude bit me in the
> butt a few months ago as I was beta testing Opera 10 and it ate my
> bookmarks
> file. I hadn't backed up in almost a year, so recovering it wasn't of
> much
> use.
It doesn't do you any good now, nor does it minimize your broader point of
the necesity of backups, but Opera since verion 9 has a syncronization
service. Set it up and your bookmarks and notes are saved to an Opera
server. I use it to have web based access to my bookmarks when I'm away
from my computer, but you could also use it to recover from the next time
you forget to back up.
Firefox users can get an addon that does something similar.
Adam
>> So, despite what the man page for 'cron' says, cron does NOT handle
>> the time change (even though 'uptime' correctly increases by one hour).
>
> Daylight Saving Time and other time changes
> Local time changes of less than three hours, such as those caused by
> the start or end of Daylight Saving Time, are handled
> specially. This only applies to jobs that run at a specific
> time and jobs that are run with a granularity greater than one
> hour. Jobs that run more frequently are scheduled normally.
>
> 'greater than' not 'greater than or equal'
I hadn't noticed that. Actually in this case cron did what I wanted,
which was to measure and log the data at intervals of one hour. Maybe
when DST starts in March I could experiment with this.
> There are other cron daemons (fcron and ucron - both found in
> ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/system/daemons/cron/ but not up to date)
> that are slightly better
In my case, cron plus anacron handle my simple needs.
> there are four solutions:
[snip]
> 3. Move to someplace that doesn't have DST - like Phoenix or Hawaii ;-)
Only /some/ of AZ, of course, and I don't even remember what Indiana's
doing now.
> 4. Don't schedule jobs between 01:00 and 03:00
>
> The last solution is slightly more common.
I think the Mandriva default is 4 AM, though I moved it back to just
after 3 AM. Time to restore that comment about avoiding 0100 to 0259.
Adam
Moe Trin
<hd22uv$n88$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Adam wrote:
Moe Trin wrote:
>> 'greater than' not 'greater than or equal'
>I hadn't noticed that. Actually in this case cron did what I wanted,
>which was to measure and log the data at intervals of one hour.
>Maybe when DST starts in March I could experiment with this.
I'm not sure it would be worth the extra effort. My sister in
Connecticut runs her servers on UTC (setting the system config file
to 'UTC' rather than 'America/New_York'), but the rest of the systems
are on local time because she does a bit of stuff out of cron that
makes most sense to be wall clock time.
>> There are other cron daemons (fcron and ucron - both found in
>> ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/system/daemons/cron/ but not up to date)
>> that are slightly better
>In my case, cron plus anacron handle my simple needs.
Both fcron and ucron operate both ways. I've used fcron for a couple
of systems that were only on part time, but it's a bit more work to
set up.
>> there are four solutions:
[snip]
>> 3. Move to someplace that doesn't have DST - like Phoenix or
>> Hawaii ;-)
>Only /some/ of AZ, of course,
Yeah, but I'm not in the Navajo nation.
>and I don't even remember what Indiana's doing now.
[compton ~]$ grep Indiana time.2009q/Time.zone.names | awk ' { print
$1" "$NF } '
America/Indiana/Indianapolis EST/EDT
America/Indiana/Knox CST/CDT
America/Indiana/Marengo EST/EDT
America/Indiana/Petersburg EST/EDT
America/Indiana/Tell_City CST/CDT
America/Indiana/Vevay EST/EDT
America/Indiana/Vincennes EST/EDT
America/Indiana/Winamac EST/EDT
[compton ~]$ grep USA time.2009q/Time.zone.names | grep -w n | cut
-f1 | column
America/Phoenix MST Pacific/Midway
EST Pacific/Honolulu Pacific/Wake
HST Pacific/Johnston
[compton ~]$
Indiana isn't going to help you. The last change in the contiguous 48
was in May 2007, where a couple of counties in Indiana, Idaho and
Oregon changed time zones. Like I said - Phoenix or Hawaii ;-)
>> 4. Don't schedule jobs between 01:00 and 03:00
>> The last solution is slightly more common.
>I think the Mandriva default is 4 AM, though I moved it back to just
>after 3 AM. Time to restore that comment about avoiding 0100 to 0259.
I think a lot of systems are set that way, even though the 02:00
switch-over rule isn't even consistent here in North America
(Newfoundland switches at 00:01, and Cuba switches at 00:00:00), never
mind Europe (00:00, 01:00 or 02:00 depending on time zone) and
elsewhere about the best you can say is "nighttime". The time zone
source files (ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzdata*gz) has lots of
interesting tidbits.
Old guy
Adam
>> Actually in this case [change from DST] cron did what I wanted,
>> which was to measure and log the data at intervals of one hour.
>> Maybe when DST starts in March I could experiment with this.
>
> I'm not sure it would be worth the extra effort.
You're probably right. I just think I'll reinstate that comment about
not scheduling jobs between 0100 and 0259.
>>> 3. Move to someplace that doesn't have DST - like Phoenix or
>>> Hawaii ;-)
>
>> Only /some/ of AZ, of course,
>
> Yeah, but I'm not in the Navajo nation.
Years ago I was in a chat room with some guy from Yuma, whose girlfriend
worked (but didn't live) on a reservation. She had to get up an hour
earlier (later?) during part of the year to get to work on time.
> Indiana isn't going to help you. The last change in the contiguous 48
> was in May 2007, where a couple of counties in Indiana, Idaho and
> Oregon changed time zones.
So it looks like Indiana is in two time zones, but both parts now
observe DST.
>> Time to restore that comment about avoiding 0100 to 0259.
>
> I think a lot of systems are set that way, even though the 02:00
> switch-over rule isn't even consistent here in North America
Not to mention the inconsistencies about the day DST starts or ends
worldwide, although it seems to be called "summer time" in many other
countries. (In the US it's now the 2nd or 3rd Sunday in March through
the first Sunday in November. Readers in other countries may want to
compare that.) DST was one of the many ideas proposed by Benjamin
Franklin, although it took almost two centuries to become official.
Adam
Moe Trin
<hdcpqg$jjk$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Adam wrote:
>Moe Trin wrote:
>> Yeah, but I'm not in the Navajo nation.
>Years ago I was in a chat room with some guy from Yuma, whose
>girlfriend worked (but didn't live) on a reservation. She had to
>get up an hour earlier (later?) during part of the year to get to
>work on time.
The Navajo are the only tribe (of twenty in Arizona) to observe DST,
but Yuma is at the other diagonal end of the state. Curious.
>>> Time to restore that comment about avoiding 0100 to 0259.
>>
>> I think a lot of systems are set that way, even though the 02:00
>> switch-over rule isn't even consistent here in North America
[compton ~]$ grep -h '^Rule.*max' time.2009r/[aens]*[ae] | tr '\t' ' '
| sed -n 's/^[^:]* \([0-9]*:[0-9us]*\).*/\1/p' | sort -n | uniq -c |
column
17 0:00 2 1:00s 22 2:00s 1 4:00 1 23:00s
4 0:00s 4 1:00u 2 2:45s 2 4:00u 1 24:00
2 0:01 21 2:00 2 3:00u 1 5:00
[compton ~]$
23:00 standard time to 05:00 local. Wheeeeee!!! (Before you go nuts
over that command - it's not as bad as it seems. The key is to know
what the data you are manipulating looks like.) There is one item
of interest - the time 24:00:00 never exists even when adding a leap
second (which is 23:59:60). It's 00:00:00 of the following day.
>Not to mention the inconsistencies about the day DST starts or ends
>worldwide, although it seems to be called "summer time" in many other
>countries. (In the US it's now the 2nd or 3rd Sunday in March through
>the first Sunday in November.
[compton ~]$ grep 'Rule.*US.*max' time.2009r/northamerica
Rule US 2007 max - Mar Sun>=8 2:00 1:00 D
Rule US 2007 max - Nov Sun>=1 2:00 0 S
[compton ~]$
>Readers in other countries may want to compare that.)
[compton ~]$ grep -h '^Rule.*max' time.2009r/[aens]*[ae] | tr '\t' ' '
| sed -n 's/^.*max - //p' | cut -d' ' -f1-2 | sort | uniq -c | column
1 Apr 15 12 Mar lastSun 2 Oct lastFri
10 Apr Sun>=1 1 Mar lastThu 14 Oct lastSun
1 Apr Sun>=15 1 Nov 1 1 Sep Fri>=1
1 Apr lastFri 6 Nov Sun>=1 2 Sep Sun>=1
1 Feb Sun>=15 6 Oct Sun>=1 3 Sep lastSun
10 Mar Sun>=8 2 Oct Sun>=15 1 Sep lastThu
2 Mar Sun>=9 1 Oct Sun>=8
2 Mar lastFri 2 Oct Sun>=9
[compton ~]$
Gotta love the politicians. "tzdata2009r.tar.gz is the 19th change
in the timezone data source file this year. Most are irrelevant
except to a limited group of victims.
-rw-r--r-- 1 8800 0 184143 Nov 9 15:10 tzdata2009r.tar.gz
>DST was one of the many ideas proposed by Benjamin Franklin, although
>it took almost two centuries to become official.
Again - have a look at the 'northamerica' source file in the tzdata
tarball (ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzdata2009r.tar.gz):
# Daylight Saving Time was first suggested as a joke by Benjamin Franklin
# in his whimsical essay ``An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost
# of Light'' published in the Journal de Paris (1784-04-26).
as well as the 'europe' source file:
# Summer Time was first seriously proposed by William Willett (1857-1915),
# a London builder and member of the Royal Astronomical Society who
# circulated a pamphlet ``The Waste of Daylight'' (1907) that proposed
# advancing clocks 20 minutes on each of four Sundays in April, and
# retarding them by the same amount on four Sundays in September. A bill
# was drafted in 1909 and introduced in Parliament several times, but it
# met with ridicule and opposition, especially from farming interests.
# Later editions of the pamphlet proposed one-hour summer time, and
# it was eventually adopted as a wartime measure in 1916.
Urban legends can be funny. http://www.snopes.com/science/daylight.asp
Old guy
Adam
>> Years ago I was in a chat room with some guy from Yuma, whose
>> girlfriend worked (but didn't live) on a reservation.
>
> but Yuma is at the other diagonal end of the state. Curious.
Maybe his gf lived elsewhere in the state? I remember taking a flight
from Detroit to Indianapolis (summer '86) that took off at 1305 and
landed at 1256. And they say there's no such thing as time travel! :-)
> [compton ~]$ grep -h '^Rule.*max' time.2009r/[aens]*[ae] | tr '\t' ' '
> | sed -n 's/^[^:]* \([0-9]*:[0-9us]*\).*/\1/p' | sort -n | uniq -c |
> column
> 17 0:00 2 1:00s 22 2:00s 1 4:00 1 23:00s
> 4 0:00s 4 1:00u 2 2:45s 2 4:00u 1 24:00
> 2 0:01 21 2:00 2 3:00u 1 5:00
> [compton ~]$
>
> 23:00 standard time to 05:00 local. Wheeeeee!!!
IIRC, 0200 in the US was chosen because that would cause the least
disruption. Just imagine how much bigger the mess would be if it were,
say, 1200.
>> Not to mention the inconsistencies about the day DST starts or ends
>> worldwide, although it seems to be called "summer time" in many other
>> countries. (In the US it's now the 2nd or 3rd Sunday in March through
>> the first Sunday in November.
>
> [compton ~]$ grep -h '^Rule.*max' time.2009r/[aens]*[ae] | tr '\t' ' '
> | sed -n 's/^.*max - //p' | cut -d' ' -f1-2 | sort | uniq -c | column
> 1 Apr 15 12 Mar lastSun 2 Oct lastFri
> 10 Apr Sun>=1 1 Mar lastThu 14 Oct lastSun
> 1 Apr Sun>=15 1 Nov 1 1 Sep Fri>=1
> 1 Apr lastFri 6 Nov Sun>=1 2 Sep Sun>=1
> 1 Feb Sun>=15 6 Oct Sun>=1 3 Sep lastSun
> 10 Mar Sun>=8 2 Oct Sun>=15 1 Sep lastThu
> 2 Mar Sun>=9 1 Oct Sun>=8
> 2 Mar lastFri 2 Oct Sun>=9
> [compton ~]$
>
> Gotta love the politicians. "tzdata2009r.tar.gz is the 19th change
> in the timezone data source file this year. Most are irrelevant
> except to a limited group of victims.
Yes -- but I'd be somewhat upset if wherever I lived wasn't correct in
the DST database. Also, I suppose some of those times in your list are
for the southern hemisphere, which would go forward around November and
back around April.
> Urban legends can be funny. http://www.snopes.com/science/daylight.asp
That page also perpetuates the urban legend that roosters crow at
sunrise. I remember being repeatedly awakened by one that would crow at
random times throughout the day and night.
Adam
Moe Trin
<hdl14m$38v$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Adam wrote:
Moe Trin wrote:
>> [compton ~]$ grep -h '^Rule.*max' time.2009r/[aens]*[ae] | tr '\t' ' '
>> | sed -n 's/^[^:]* \([0-9]*:[0-9us]*\).*/\1/p' | sort -n | uniq -c |
>> column
>> 17 0:00 2 1:00s 22 2:00s 1 4:00 1 23:00s
>> 4 0:00s 4 1:00u 2 2:45s 2 4:00u 1 24:00
>> 2 0:01 21 2:00 2 3:00u 1 5:00
>> [compton ~]$
>> 23:00 standard time to 05:00 local. Wheeeeee!!!
>IIRC, 0200 in the US was chosen because that would cause the least
>disruption. Just imagine how much bigger the mess would be if it
>were, say, 1200.
Given the amount of effort it took to get DST through legislation,
I suspect that would have caused gross unhappiness.
[22 different switch-dates]
>> Gotta love the politicians. "tzdata2009r.tar.gz is the 19th change
>> in the timezone data source file this year. Most are irrelevant
>> except to a limited group of victims.
>Yes -- but I'd be somewhat upset if wherever I lived wasn't correct
>in the DST database.
Reading through some of the change notices, there are/were places
where the actual times are confused at best. The most recent one I
recall was a border village between South and Western Australia.
Adelaide is 9:30/10:30 (Central time), Perth is 8:00/9:00 (Western
time), and Australia/Eucla said to heck with that (8:45/9:45).
Closer to home, there is a place called Phenix City, Alabama (just
across the river from Columbus, Georgia - Fort Benning) where most
people use Eastern time rather than Central, because so many work
in Columbus/Fort Benning. Bedroom communities are not that uncommon,
but it gets messy when time zones intervene.
Many of the changes in 2009 have been the result of locales jiggering
with the change date _this_ year, or even if they're going to observe
Savings/Summer time. Some just can't seem to make up their minds.
The latest (2009r) change on the other hand, has three research
stations in East Antarctica changing zone time. I suppose it gives
the politicians something less harmful to do.
>Also, I suppose some of those times in your list are for the southern
>hemisphere, which would go forward around November and back around
>April.
Yup - just as the difference in the definition of the week-end in
Arab countries or Israel influences which day of the week is least
inconvenient for them to change the clock.
>> http://www.snopes.com/science/daylight.asp
>That page also perpetuates the urban legend that roosters crow at
>sunrise.
No, it merely says that only milkmen and roosters are awake at sunrise
(an obvious false statement - when was the last time you remember even
seeing a milkman? - in my case, about 1965).
>I remember being repeatedly awakened by one that would crow at
>random times throughout the day and night.
Only crows when he just got a .... nah, we'll pass on that one. ;-)
Old guy
Adam
>> I'd be somewhat upset if wherever I lived wasn't correct
>> in the DST database.
>
> Reading through some of the change notices, there are/were places
> where the actual times are confused at best. The most recent one I
> recall was a border village between South and Western Australia.
> Adelaide is 9:30/10:30 (Central time), Perth is 8:00/9:00 (Western
> time), and Australia/Eucla said to heck with that (8:45/9:45).
And I recall hearing of one Asian country where the time is 40 minutes
ahead of what one would expect for its longitude.
> Closer to home, there is a place called Phenix City, Alabama
I've heard of (but not seen) the movie "The Phenix City Story," where
apparently it was portrayed as a wild, decadent place.
> (just across the river from Columbus, Georgia
I learned that Columbus, Georgia is the largest US city that's not
included in the interstate highway system.
> Bedroom communities are not that uncommon,
> but it gets messy when time zones intervene.
Which I think is why the part of Indiana that's basically Chicago
suburbs is on Central Time, while the rest is Eastern Time.
> The latest (2009r) change on the other hand, has three research
> stations in East Antarctica changing zone time.
I thought most of Antarctica was in the same time zone as Lima, Peru
because that was where most of their supplies came from. Of course, as
you get close to the pole, the time zones technically are quite close
together.
> No, it merely says that only milkmen and roosters are awake at sunrise
> (an obvious false statement - when was the last time you remember even
> seeing a milkman? - in my case, about 1965).
About 1969, and he was there by mistake as we'd cancelled service
several years before. I still remember the insulated box just outside
the front door. Of course that makes the "milkman joke" unintelligible
to the current generation.
Adam
Moe Trin
<hdvt0l$vcf$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Adam wrote:
>Moe Trin wrote:
>> Reading through some of the change notices, there are/were places
>> where the actual times are confused at best.
>And I recall hearing of one Asian country where the time is 40
>minutes ahead of what one would expect for its longitude.
Do you mean against local mean time (time based on the overhead sun)
or the time based on a standard meridian? There are quite a number of
examples of both - such as Indian/Chagos (1:10:20 ahead of LMT),
Asia/Kashgar (2:56:04 ahead of LMT), Asia/Aqtau (1:38:56 ahead of LMT)
and similar, or the mere existence of really out-of-standard-meridian
stuff like the times in the nation of Kiribati (Pacific/Tarawa is
+12:00, Pacific/Enderbury is +13:00 and Pacific/Kiritimati is +14:00)
which is close enough to LMT, but a day ahead.
>> Closer to home, there is a place called Phenix City, Alabama
>I've heard of (but not seen) the movie "The Phenix City Story," where
>apparently it was portrayed as a wild, decadent place.
This is me being Politically Correct and keeping my mouth shut. I did
visit that place several times, and was usually happy to get back to
civilization, which meant taking a Southern Airways bird back to
Atlanta. (Southern borged several times and the successor is it's
former direct competitor Delta - but you also remember Mohawk - or
SloHawk as many used to call it, now part of USelessAir.)
>> (just across the river from Columbus, Georgia
>I learned that Columbus, Georgia is the largest US city that's not
>included in the interstate highway system.
It's not? What is I-185 then? (Yes, it wasn't completed until the
mid-80s.)
>> Bedroom communities are not that uncommon, but it gets messy when
>> time zones intervene.
>Which I think is why the part of Indiana that's basically Chicago
>suburbs is on Central Time, while the rest is Eastern Time.
http://www.mccsc.edu/time.html The 'northamerica' file in the tzdata
file more or less throws up it's hands on Indiana. They quote an
otherwise reputable source as writing "Even newspaper reports present
contradictory information." though that's mainly referring to historic
data. None the less, Pike county (SW Indiana) switched to EST in 1966,
back to CST/CDT in 1977, back to EST in 2006, and back to CST/CDT in
2007, while Vincennes less than 20 miles NW switched to EST in 1964,
to EST/EDT in 1969, back to EST in 1971, and CST/CDT in 2007. Tell
City (50 miles SE) isn't much better. Who is confused?
>I thought most of Antarctica was in the same time zone as Lima, Peru
>because that was where most of their supplies came from.
Oz and New Zealand are equally important as supply points - but it's
just as confused as elsewhere
[compton ~]$ grep Antarc time.2009s/Time.zone.names | cut -f1,4-5
Antarctica/Casey n 11:00
Antarctica/Davis n 5:00
Antarctica/DumontDUrville n 10:00
Antarctica/Mawson n 5:00
Antarctica/McMurdo y 12:00
Antarctica/Palmer y -4:00
Antarctica/Rothera n -3:00
Antarctica/South_Pole y 12:00
Antarctica/Syowa n 3:00
Antarctica/Vostok n 6:00
[compton ~]$
By the way - did you notice the directory change above? Fiji seems to
be introducing DST for one year only... again. Idiot politicians!
>> when was the last time you remember even seeing a milkman? - in my
>> case, about 1965).
>About 1969, and he was there by mistake as we'd cancelled service
>several years before. I still remember the insulated box just
>outside the front door.
They were quite rare even in the 60's. Only one of the places I lived
in had the service (until 1954), although my sister living "out in the
country" (a town of 700 next to a town of 100k+) had milkman delivery
until 1963. Don't know what happened to the milk box.
>Of course that makes the "milkman joke" unintelligible to the current
>generation.
_the_ "milkman joke"? Some of the comedians could ramble on for ten
minutes and only telling the ones that were acceptable in mixed
company. But then you probably heard the one about the traveling
salesman who...
Old guy
Adam
with backups nor cron jobs.
> really out-of-standard-meridian
> stuff like the times in the nation of Kiribati
I once read a book by a guy who spent a year in Kiribati, which is
basically on the equator. He said there was no need for DST, since
sunrise was 6 AM and sunset was 6 PM, year round.
>> I learned that Columbus, Georgia is the largest US city that's not
>> included in the interstate highway system.
>
> It's not? What is I-185 then? (Yes, it wasn't completed until the
> mid-80s.)
The book I learned that from came out in 1979. It was a biography of
screenwriter Nunnally Johnson, who was born in Columbus, GA. (He was
once asked about the characters in "Tobacco Road," and said that where
he came from, they were known as the country club set.)
>> Of course that makes the "milkman joke" unintelligible to the current
>> generation.
>
> _the_ "milkman joke"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milkman_joke
>> Well, in my case I had /no/ symptoms of CRF. It's only the lab work
>> that showed it,
>
> That's true of many diseases - even something as simple as the spot on
> the lungs on an X-ray isn't going to be detectable hands on.
Which explains all the chest x-rays before surgery or other medical
procedures. They don't want TB spreading around.
In fact, that relates to an unexpected side effect of center dialysis.
Since basically we had to show up unless actually in a hospital, that
meant some of the patients often had various communicable diseases.
> I've often run into situations where the new distribution/release has
> a new version of an application, and the user configurations are not
> compatible.
Oh, I expect that by now. When I migrate to 2010.0 (unless 2010.1, or
2080.1, is out by then), I expect to have to revise a lot of
configuration files and scripts. I plan for that, which is why I keep
the old OS usable for actual work until I'm satisfied the new one is set
up the way I want it.
BTW the 1 GB RAM limitation on this box (since I wrecked the other RAM
slot) is noticeable when I use GIMP. Next time I'm going to try it with
all other GUI apps shut down.
> Apparently, many users have a filter
> in their eyes that blocks the words CHANGELOG, README or WHATS_NEW.
Along with instruction manuals, and any papers labelled "Read Me First."
>> There were certain things I used to save to do during dialysis, and
>> now I have to make time to do them. I'm still working out a new
>> routine.
>
> Eventually, the number of doctor visits will come down to a more
> reasonable number, but it seems that I spend a lot of time in the
> waiting room.
I did on dialysis, but not much now. I'm now getting blood drawn
2x/week and that usually takes less than 10 minutes, at a local hospital
15 minutes from my home. The only pain is the (now monthly) visits to
the transplant clinic 80 miles away, which means getting up at 4:30 AM.
Even with that, I'm minimizing waiting by being one of the first ones
there. I'm told the people with 9:00 appointments often don't get seen
till 11:00. Last time, by 11 AM I was back home already!
> The standard joke was sitting there trying to pass the
> time reading two year old issues of some obscure magazines
The only places that seem to have a good selection to read while waiting
are barber shops.
> I always wonder about the circulation of "Golf Instructor",
> "Professional Fly Fishing" or "Quarterly Journal of The Competitive
> Bungee Jumpers Association" never mind the normal subscribers of
> those publications.
Their annual statement to the postal service can be interesting -- some
pubs have almost no subscriptions, while others have no newsstand sales.
Possibly the most unusual publication I ever subscribed to was
"Quarterly Review of Doublespeak" which is exactly what the title says.
I may have been the only reader who ever subscribed to that in person,
but I was in that area anyway -- they're in Urbana, IL, right by the
interstate. I'd been checking out U of I at Urbana-Champaign, as the
people in my prospective grad school called it. Engineering students
called it Champaign-Urbana. Oddly, since I suppose the domain name was
chosen by people at the computer center, their address is uiuc.edu.
Adam
Moe Trin
<hec9t0$hho$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Adam wrote:
>> really out-of-standard-meridian stuff like the times in the nation
>> of Kiribati
>I once read a book by a guy who spent a year in Kiribati, which is
>basically on the equator.
Roughly 5 North to 5 South - but yeah.
>He said there was no need for DST, since sunrise was 6 AM and sunset
>was 6 PM, year round.
My sunrise/sunset charts step in 10 degree increments, but it looks
as if it's plus/minus 10 minutes - so the day varies from 11:40 to
12:20 of daylight. But even if you are at 20 degrees North or South,
the difference is only about plus/minus 30 minutes, which is to say
11/13 hours extreme. The observed time of sunset/sunrise also varies
with respect to the longitude verses the time zone reference, but
that's an offset rather than a variable.
Somewhere in one (or more) of my reference books, I've got the
formula for sunrise/sunset, but for the most part it's easier to look
at a chart or table. The Bowditch (American Practical Navigator - DMA
HO Publication 9) basically warns not to assume an accuracy closer
than a minute - due to variations in the refraction index, height of
eye (above the geoid), and height of terrain on the horizon.
Timezones are more complicated because they involve political issues
in addition to the physical location on the earth. While there are 24
"standard zones" every 15 degrees (nominal) around the world, at any
given moment clocks may be showing 39 different times (ignoring clock
errors) because there are 415 different zones defined in 'tzdata'
(which shows up in /usr/share/zoneinfo/ and below), not all of which
are exact hour increments apart.
>> That's true of many diseases - even something as simple as the spot
>> on the lungs on an X-ray isn't going to be detectable hands on.
>Which explains all the chest x-rays before surgery or other medical
>procedures. They don't want TB spreading around.
That may be not always be the case. The last two stays I had there
were no chest X-ray, although there was a LOT of other testing.
(Admittedly, I've got enough relatively current pics, including CAT
and PET scans and MRIs - kind of hard to hide now.)
>In fact, that relates to an unexpected side effect of center
>dialysis. Since basically we had to show up unless actually in a
>hospital, that meant some of the patients often had various
>communicable diseases.
My sister (retired floor nurse) mentioned this as one of the things
that make it interesting. This is also the reason health care staff
are the ones getting priority on H1N1 shots. She's often told some
interesting tales of fun things happening in the hospital, but in
reality it's like any other job - lots of boring un-interesting stuff
happening, with a few random points where it's interesting/exciting.
Nobody wants to listen to the boring stuff.
>Oh, I expect that by now. When I migrate to 2010.0 (unless 2010.1,
>or 2080.1, is out by then)
I dunno - I really don't expect to see 2080.1 any time soon.
>I expect to have to revise a lot of configuration files and scripts.
>I plan for that, which is why I keep the old OS usable for actual
>work until I'm satisfied the new one is set up the way I want it.
Part of this is the accelerating change in the applications. A
dozen years ago, I think we used to average a blanket upgrade every
18 months, and it was possible that some systems stuck around
even longer than that. It used to take about 12-15 weeks for a
distribution to be adopted as our "standard" - 2-4 weeks watching
what others were saying about a new release, nominally 2 weeks of
testing to decide what we'd actually install, and then 8 weeks of
running in parallel to our existing version. If nothing went wrong
during that testing, there'd be a weekend circus as a crew installed
on most systems. Thing is, the old application configurations
_tended_ to still work (which is good, as it's not nice being on the
hell-desk with a thousand users screaming that the new release b0rked
their systems, whine, whine, whine, and when are you going to fix
everything - and I also want a pony). We also seem to have chosen
releases that wound up being long term supported (though they weren't
announced as such).
>BTW the 1 GB RAM limitation on this box (since I wrecked the other
>RAM slot) is noticeable when I use GIMP. Next time I'm going to try
>it with all other GUI apps shut down.
How dependent are you on the KDE desktop - there are others that are
a LOT less fattening.
>> Apparently, many users have a filter in their eyes that blocks the
>> words CHANGELOG, README or WHATS_NEW.
>Along with instruction manuals, and any papers labelled "Read Me
>First."
I don't know which came first - chicken/egg. A lot of people don't
read that stuff because it's meaningless CYA stuff (no, I'm not
planning on washing the computer in the shower while I'm using it),
and the _helpful_ stuff is missing. Now, is that because the users
aren't reading it and it's not worth putting it in the manual, or
what?
>> Eventually, the number of doctor visits will come down to a more
>> reasonable number, but it seems that I spend a lot of time in the
>> waiting room.
>I did on dialysis, but not much now. I'm now getting blood drawn
>2x/week and that usually takes less than 10 minutes, at a local
>hospital 15 minutes from my home.
LUXURY! Two of the vampire services here do take appointments
(which take precedence over walk-ins), even those typically aren't
taken until 5-10 minutes late. Walk-ins can figure a normal 15-30
minute waits, and the 7:30 to 10:00 AM period are more commonly a 30
to 45 minute wait.
>The only pain is the (now monthly) visits to the transplant clinic
>80 miles away, which means getting up at 4:30 AM. Even with that,
>I'm minimizing waiting by being one of the first ones there.
I've got two doctors who are 30 miles away. The problem I have with
them is that they are doing hospital rounds until 9+, and their
on-time performance varies wildly. I've got another a bit closer,
and he's a weirdo who seems to pride himself on being on schedule (if
the AMA only knew - they'd fix THAT problem). Come to think of it,
he also spends less time making rounds but doesn't have that many
patients in the hospital at any given time.
>I'm told the people with 9:00 appointments often don't get seen
>till 11:00. Last time, by 11 AM I was back home already!
Don't I wish - earlier this month, I had an 8:15 at one place, a
10:30 at another, and a 1:30 at a third (16 and 20 miles between each
appointment). The 8:15 was ten minutes late, the 10:30 was running
over 90 minutes late (I managed to reschedule to 4:00 and he was only
30 minutes late) and the 1:30 was 15 minutes late - but then I didn't
get out of there until nearly 3 because a patient behind me started
displaying major problems while I'm waiting for a script and trying to
determine when he wants to see me again (fainting - blood pressure was
40 over something, with a heart rate in the mid 40s - I stayed the
heck out of the way till the ambulance arrived).
>> The standard joke was sitting there trying to pass the time
>> reading two year old issues of some obscure magazines
>The only places that seem to have a good selection to read while
>waiting are barber shops.
And the wait there tends to be much less.
>I'd been checking out U of I at Urbana-Champaign, as the people in my
>prospective grad school called it. Engineering students called it
>Champaign-Urbana. Oddly, since I suppose the domain name was chosen
>by people at the computer center, their address is uiuc.edu.
On the map, it looks to be more in Champaign, but all of the reference
material I have agree that the official name is Urbana-Champaign.
Old guy
Adam
>> When I migrate to 2010.0 (unless 2010.1, or 2080.1, is out by then)
>
> I dunno - I really don't expect to see 2080.1 any time soon.
I thought someone in this NG mentioned 2080.1 (a typo), and someone else
picked up on it. A few of the teenagers here might be around in 2080,
but I don't expect them to be using Linux then. They will probably be
complaining about how much simpler things were back in the 2060's.
> Part of this is the accelerating change in the applications.
As I've gotten older, "reliable" has become more important than having
the latest version. OTOH I was given a "toy" digital camera, and the
gphoto2 2.4.0 that's part of Mandriva 2008.1 doesn't work with it.
According to the gphoto2 website, support for that model (based on a
Jeilin JL2005A chipset) was only added in 2.4.7, so I ended up
downloading gphoto2 2.4.7 (and then libgphoto 2.4.7) and compiling from
source. Now I still can't get it working under Linux, but I think I'm
closer to that goal. OTOH I got it running under WinXP (in VirtualBox),
but based on the one photo I was able to get out of it (a noisy 320x240
JPEG), I may not want to do much more with it.
> My sunrise/sunset charts step in 10 degree increments, but it looks
> as if it's plus/minus 10 minutes - so the day varies from 11:40 to
> 12:20 of daylight. But even if you are at 20 degrees North or South,
> the difference is only about plus/minus 30 minutes, which is to say
> 11/13 hours extreme.
I'm at roughly 41-42 N, and it gets dark anywhere from 5 PM EST to 9 PM
EDT (8 PM EST). That's a change of about 180 minutes over 180 days, so
I figure that's about one minute per day.
> Timezones are more complicated because they involve political issues
> in addition to the physical location on the earth.
Of course. For example, I believe India would straddle two time zones,
except they decided to split the difference and have the entire country
on one standard halfway inbetween, which does make things a lot easier.
>> I'm now getting blood drawn
>> 2x/week and that usually takes less than 10 minutes, at a local
>> hospital 15 minutes from my home.
>
> LUXURY!
Yeah, except the blood drawing, and the visits to the transplant clinic
80 miles away, will continue the rest of my life, although not as often.
Also taking the immunosuppressants, and the necessary precautions when
being on immunosuppressants.
Like the Thanksgiving dinner I'm going to today, where there will be
household pets and possibly some people with coughs or mild contagious
illnesses. Also, whatever I'm wearing will come out of there smelling
like cigarette smoke.
>> The only places that seem to have a good selection to read while
>> waiting are barber shops.
>
> And the wait there tends to be much less.
Well, that's a competitive business. If the wait gets too long, or the
quality of reading matter gets too low, customers are free to go
elsewhere. I've seldom heard of people switching doctors for those reasons.
>> I'd been checking out U of I at Urbana-Champaign, as the people in my
>> prospective grad school called it. Engineering students called it
>> Champaign-Urbana. Oddly, since I suppose the domain name was chosen
>> by people at the computer center, their address is uiuc.edu.
>
> On the map, it looks to be more in Champaign, but all of the reference
> material I have agree that the official name is Urbana-Champaign.
I remember staying at the Illini Union in Urbana, but getting breakfast
at the McDonalds across the street in Champaign. My guess is that
either it started out entirely in Urbana, or else that's where the
administration is. Any UIUC alums care to comment?
Happy Thanksgiving to all in the USA reading this, and thanks to
everyone in this newsgroup for their help. Even if you've never
interacted with me directly, you may have helped me by answering (or
even asking) a question before I got around to asking it.
Adam
Moe Trin
<hemlsb$76a$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Adam wrote:
>Moe Trin wrote:
>>> When I migrate to 2010.0 (unless 2010.1, or 2080.1, is out by then)
>> I dunno - I really don't expect to see 2080.1 any time soon.
>I thought someone in this NG mentioned 2080.1 (a typo), and someone
>else picked up on it. A few of the teenagers here might be around in
>2080, but I don't expect them to be using Linux then.
Although my mother made it to 93 (my father died from a heart attack
at 51), I'm not even sure I'm going to make it to the end of 32-bit
time_t in January 2038, or the end of the current NTP era in February
2036. But waitaminute! The world is supposed to end on December 21st,
2012 according to the Mayan calendar... unless that's when you're
supposed to buy a new one for the next circle. Wonder where I can
find those - they're not at my stationary store... yet ;-)
>They will probably be complaining about how much simpler things were
>back in the 2060's.
never mind the better quality music.
>As I've gotten older, "reliable" has become more important than
>having the latest version.
No issue there
>OTOH I was given a "toy" digital camera, and the gphoto2 2.4.0 that's
>part of Mandriva 2008.1 doesn't work with it.
But what's in 2080.1?
>According to the gphoto2 website, support for that model (based on a
>Jeilin JL2005A chipset) was only added in 2.4.7, so I ended up
>downloading gphoto2 2.4.7 (and then libgphoto 2.4.7) and compiling
>from source.
That's always been a valid reason. If the current version doesn't do
something you need, and the newer versions does (assuming it's not on
the bleeding edge), then go for it! Some people are always chasing
version numbers (or release dates) under the premise that newer or
higher version numbers must be better.
-rw-r--r-- 1 root linux 7550924 Feb 8 2004 linux-2.0.40.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root linux 19530258 Feb 24 2004 linux-2.2.26.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root linux 38081864 Feb 18 2004 linux-2.4.25.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root linux 42509912 Feb 4 2004 linux-2.6.2.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root linux 42923505 Feb 18 2004 linux-2.6.3.tar.gz
>Now I still can't get it working under Linux, but I think I'm closer
>to that goal. OTOH I got it running under WinXP (in VirtualBox),
>but based on the one photo I was able to get out of it (a noisy
>320x240 JPEG), I may not want to do much more with it.
"GIGO" - there is only so much you can do (not withstanding the
``enhancements'' used on those crime scene investigation shows on TV).
>> My sunrise/sunset charts step in 10 degree increments, but it looks
>> as if it's plus/minus 10 minutes - so the day varies from 11:40 to
>> 12:20 of daylight. But even if you are at 20 degrees North or
>> South, the difference is only about plus/minus 30 minutes, which is
>> to say 11/13 hours extreme.
>I'm at roughly 41-42 N, and it gets dark anywhere from 5 PM EST to
>9 PM EDT (8 PM EST).
That's pretty close I think... lessee, for standard time at 75 degrees
West (you're about 73 degrees 50 minutes as I recall - about five
minutes earlier) and 41.6 degrees North, it is approximately
Date Twilight Sunrise Sunset Twilight
1 Jan 06:56 07:27 16:40 17:11
22 Mar 05:33 06:01 18:14 18:41
20 Jun 03:51 04:25 19:38 20:12
28 Sep 05:26 05:53 17:48 18:15
17 Dec 06:50 07:21 16:31 17:03
The 'twilight' figures are "Civil Twilight" which is commonly taken
as being light enough that you can see, even without moonlight.
"Nautical Twilight" is a bit closer to sunrise/sunset, as it's
taken as that point where you can still see the horizon (for taking
sextant readings).
>That's a change of about 180 minutes over 180 days, so I figure
>that's about one minute per day.
except it isn't a zig-zag (straight lines), but follows a sine
wave - most rapid change at Spring and Fall, least rapid at the
Summer and Winter. Note the difference between the December and
January figures above. Here, you are far enough North that
"summer" time may make some sense.
>> Timezones are more complicated because they involve political
>> issues in addition to the physical location on the earth.
>Of course. For example, I believe India would straddle two time
>zones, except they decided to split the difference and have the
>entire country on one standard halfway inbetween, which does make
>things a lot easier.
India stretches from 68 to 97 degrees East, which should put it
into the 5th (67.5 to 82.5), and 6th (82.5 to 97.5) zones. It's
actually about 116 minutes different in LMT (sun time at the equator).
But it's also located a bit to the North (8 to 35.5 North - ignoring
small islands to the South of the mainland), so things are more
likely to be messed up by the seasons. They don't bother with summer
time.
On the other hand, Venezuela decided to revert to -4:30 (had been on
-4:00 AST) on 9 December 2007 - the LMT in Caracas is -4:27:44. That
managed to screw up airline schedules in many other nations.
>>> I'm now getting blood drawn 2x/week and that usually takes less
>>> than 10 minutes, at a local hospital 15 minutes from my home.
>> LUXURY!
>Yeah, except the blood drawing, and the visits to the transplant
>clinic 80 miles away, will continue the rest of my life, although not
>as often.
I'm aware. But look at the good side - you could be wasting 30-45
minutes a draw, rather than 10 minutes. Or compared to the time you
were spending on dialysis. I don't think that would stop soon either.
>Also taking the immunosuppressants, and the necessary precautions when
>being on immunosuppressants.
Yup.
>Like the Thanksgiving dinner I'm going to today, where there will be
>household pets and possibly some people with coughs or mild
>contagious illnesses.
Aware of the problem - I'm immunodeficient (a side effect of one of
the things I'm seeing the oncologist for) and worry about the same
problems, though to a far lesser extent. By the way, belated Happy
Thanksgiving.
>Also, whatever I'm wearing will come out of there smelling like
>cigarette smoke.
Now that I don't have to worry about. While smoking is permitted in
homes (state law prohibits it at work places, and most retail
businesses), I don't have that many friends who are still smokers. The
few that do are aware of the social aspects and will step outside to
light up. That's less of a problem here, although it can be rough in
high summer. Many businesses have designated smoking areas outside
that are shaded - some even have misters (hose systems that produce a
very fine mist - which evaporates causing local cooling). Having to
go outside is actually a minor benefit, as it gives you a break which
may reduce the need to take the broad sword off the wall and start
cleaving a few heads. It says here us non-smokers don't get those
smoke breaks, although I don't think it's been tried in court yet.
>If the wait gets too long, or the quality of reading matter gets too
>low, customers are free to go elsewhere. I've seldom heard of people
>switching doctors for those reasons.
[raises hand] Switched primary care about 7 years ago for long waits.
The vampire and picture services are also competitive, such that I
don't use two of the three vampires authorized by my insurance, nor
one of three picture services. I have given recommendations for
several providers (which might be a bad idea if by doing so, I'm
increasing the scheduling load) that are prompt.
Old guy
Adam
>> I'm at roughly 41-42 N, and it gets dark anywhere from 5 PM EST to
>> 9 PM EDT (8 PM EST).
>> That's a change of about 180 minutes over 180 days, so I figure
>> that's about one minute per day.
>
> except it isn't a zig-zag (straight lines), but follows a sine
> wave - most rapid change at Spring and Fall, least rapid at the
> Summer and Winter.
I'd never really thought about that, but it makes sense, given that the
angle of a sphere is involved.
> On the other hand, Venezuela decided to revert to -4:30 (had been on
> -4:00 AST) on 9 December 2007 - the LMT in Caracas is -4:27:44. That
> managed to screw up airline schedules in many other nations.
Not as badly as train travel before the adoption of time zones, I'd guess.
>> Yeah, except the blood drawing, and the visits to the transplant
>> clinic 80 miles away, will continue the rest of my life, although not
>> as often.
>
> I'm aware. But look at the good side - you could be wasting 30-45
> minutes a draw, rather than 10 minutes. Or compared to the time you
> were spending on dialysis. I don't think that would stop soon either.
Nope, most of the time (/chronic/ renal failure), dialysis continues
until either the patient dies or gets a transplant. One nurse told me
that the biggest cause of dialysis-related death is actually a heart
attack, because of the relatively sudden change in blood volume during
dialysis, repeatedly.
> Having to go outside [to smoke]
> is actually a minor benefit, as it gives you a break which
> may reduce the need to take the broad sword off the wall and start
> cleaving a few heads. It says here us non-smokers don't get those
> smoke breaks, although I don't think it's been tried in court yet.
I mainly smoked to procrastinate. It was a breakthroughs for me when I
realized I didn't have to give that up, just smoking while I did it. A
hand-held game was a major part of my quit ("just 100 more points...
well, just another hundred points...")
>> If the wait gets too long, or the quality of reading matter gets too
>> low, customers are free to go elsewhere. I've seldom heard of people
>> switching doctors for those reasons.
>
> [raises hand] Switched primary care about 7 years ago for long waits.
Well, you probably have a lot more choices than I do.
> I have given recommendations for
> several providers (which might be a bad idea if by doing so, I'm
> increasing the scheduling load) that are prompt.
That contradiction happens for a lot of things.
[Toy digital camera discussion moved to other thread, since it /is/
Linux-related]
Adam
Moe Trin
<hev947$te7$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Adam wrote:
>Moe Trin wrote:
>> On the other hand, Venezuela decided to revert to -4:30 (had been
>> on -4:00 AST) on 9 December 2007 - the LMT in Caracas is -4:27:44.
>> That managed to screw up airline schedules in many other nations.
>Not as badly as train travel before the adoption of time zones, I'd
>guess.
Well, yes and no. Before the adoption of timezones, people were
_generally_ using local apparent noon as the reference (noon being
defined as the time the sun is at the zenith), and that meant you had
eighty zillion local times. But those times didn't change at the drop
of a politician's shorts, and this was also before the era of summer
time. Thus, the creation of those schedules was a bear, but the
changes were due to running at a different speed, or adding/removing
stops.
>Nope, most of the time (/chronic/ renal failure), dialysis continues
>until either the patient dies or gets a transplant. One nurse told
>me that the biggest cause of dialysis-related death is actually a
>heart attack, because of the relatively sudden change in blood
>volume during dialysis, repeatedly.
Was not aware of that, but I can see the concept.
>> Having to go outside [to smoke] is actually a minor benefit, as it
>> gives you a break which may reduce the need to take the broad
>> sword off the wall and start cleaving a few heads. It says here
>> us non-smokers don't get those smoke breaks, although I don't think
>> it's been tried in court yet.
>I mainly smoked to procrastinate.
For my wife and I, it was stress relief. The last facility I worked
at in California was a campus of six buildings. They were all
non-smoking, and the building I was in was about 100 x 1000 feet. It
had an external walk-way on each floor level, and invariably I'd have
to walk from one end (where my office was) to the other, and this was
several times a day. As long as it wasn't raining, the usual tactic
was to head to the walk-way, rather than staying indoors. This was
the perfect way to get a quick smoke, and get some exercise.
>It was a breakthroughs for me when I realized I didn't have to give
>that up, just smoking while I did it.
We were getting beaten about it by the medical profession every time
we saw them, but what finally did it was a friend who went down with
lung cancer, followed by her husband. About the same time, we started
hearing rumors (untrue as it turned out) that the premiums for the
company health insurance program were going to have a smokers penalty
and the numbers mooted about were quite high.
>A hand-held game was a major part of my quit ("just 100 more
>points... well, just another hundred points...")
We used a nicotine patch for a week for my wife and three weeks for
me. Several people in my department quit the same week I did, and
the mutual peer pressure made a substantial contribution to being
able to stay quit.
>> [raises hand] Switched primary care about 7 years ago for long waits.
>Well, you probably have a lot more choices than I do.
It's November, and 'tis the season for switching Medicare plans and/or
providers. When you reach mid-60s, you'll find your mailbox overflowing
with junk mail offers from providers and the AARP this time of year.
Some of the HMO plans look attractive until you realize that the
nearest doctor is a dozen miles away and the specialty services are on
the other side of South Duckpoop. The PPO and PFS plans are often
more accessible, but cost more in basic cost, co-pays, and fees. The
2010 "Medicare & You" guide for Arizona lists what appears to be 16
HMOs, 7 PFS (Private Fee-for-Service) and 5 PPO (Preferred Provider
Orgs) for Part B (doctors). Some plans include drugs, some not. There
are also at least 20 organizations offering Part D (drugs) at several
tier levels/costs. Almost as bad as trying to choose a Linux distro.
Old guy
Adam
> Before the adoption of timezones, people were
> _generally_ using local apparent noon as the reference (noon being
> defined as the time the sun is at the zenith), and that meant you had
> eighty zillion local times.
I gather my local apparent noon could be calculated by observing the
sun, or by some simple formula involving my longitude. Let's see, 360
degrees divided by 24 hours... I'm about one degree east of my time
zone's meridian, so I suppose "local noon" would be about 11:56 AM by
the clock during standard time.
> Several people in my department quit [smoking] the same week I did, and
> the mutual peer pressure made a substantial contribution to being
> able to stay quit.
I didn't have that option, but I found lots of online support. I used
the newsgroup alt.support.stop-smoking, plus a "quit group," which was a
bunch of us who all quit the same month and kept emailing each other for
months. It was interesting to see how we had similar struggles and
experiences in the months afterward.
> It's November, and 'tis the season for switching Medicare plans and/or
> providers.
I'm a dual-eligible, so last I heard I can change my plan and provider
at any time. I chose it by seeing who covered all the meds I was on at
the switchover, and think I'll stay with them because they've covered
almost everything since, without much hassle. They do insist on
switching to a generic as soon as one's available, but the last time I
had any problems with a generic not working as well was about '01. One
of the immunosuppressants has just gone generic, but the doctors aren't
sure about the consistency of the generic, so they've switched everybody
to another med where only the brand name is available. One helpful
thing I've found is to bring my plan's formulary to doctor visits.
> When you reach mid-60s, you'll find your mailbox overflowing
> with junk mail offers from providers and the AARP this time of year.
Which comes right after all the junk mail from candidates and just
before the holiday season junk mail. I get junk mail from car insurance
companies/agents and from cable/DTV providers year round. (Not all that
much, actually.) And occasional mail from AARP, even though I'm not old
enough to join yet.
> The 2010 "Medicare & You" guide for Arizona lists what appears to be
> 16 HMOs, 7 PFS (Private Fee-for-Service) and 5 PPO (Preferred Provider
> Orgs) for Part B (doctors). Some plans include drugs, some not. There
> are also at least 20 organizations offering Part D (drugs) at several
> tier levels/costs.
My "Upstate New York" version (apparently anything north of NYC is
"upstate", even Westchester) has pages 119 through 119t (21 pages) for
health plans, and 122 through 122e (6 pages) for prescription plans. I
never chose a health plan -- I don't even think I'm allowed to in my
situation.
> Almost as bad as trying to choose a Linux distro.
Well, I don't know of any case where choosing the "wrong" distro was
literally fatal. I picked Mandrake because several people had
recommended it. If "retread" were working, I'd be running four distros
on it, just out of curiosity.
Oh, and I learned "you can't fight city hall" the hard way, by
sideswiping one of the pillars in City Hall's underground garage. The
pillar didn't move; my car door did. Oh well.
Adam
David W. Hodgins
> I gather my local apparent noon could be calculated by observing the
> sun, or by some simple formula involving my longitude. Let's see, 360
Take a look at
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=1185
Regards, Dave Hodgins
--
Change nomail.afraid.org to ody.ca to reply by email.
(nomail.afraid.org has been set up specifically for
use in usenet. Feel free to use it yourself.)
Moe Trin
<hfc684$9l9$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Adam wrote:
>Moe Trin wrote:
>> Before the adoption of timezones, people were _generally_ using
>> local apparent noon as the reference (noon being defined as the
>> time the sun is at the zenith), and that meant you had eighty
>> zillion local times.
>I gather my local apparent noon could be calculated by observing
>the sun,
Boy Scout handbook? The various military survival guides such as
FM 21-76 ("Survival, Evasion and Escape")? You take this stick and
poke it into the ground, and then start marking the location of the
shadow of the tip. Or consult the nearest sundial. The shortest
shadow is local apparent noon, and the point on the ground is true
North or South (depending on the hemisphere) from the tip that
caused the shadow.
>or by some simple formula involving my longitude. Let's see, 360
>degrees divided by 24 hours... I'm about one degree east of my time
>zone's meridian, so I suppose "local noon" would be about 11:56 AM
>by the clock during standard time.
Yup. The zenith is relatively error free, being mainly influenced
by the local gravity vector (down is towards the local center of
mass, and this is affected by - for example - a mountain range next
to a sea) with the vector deflected towards the greater mass. Sunrise
and sunset are much more subject to error, even at sea (no blockage
of the horizon) because of refraction errors caused by air density
(pressure, temperature, humidity, pollution) differences.
>> Several people in my department quit [smoking] the same week I did,
>> and the mutual peer pressure made a substantial contribution to
>> being able to stay quit.
>I didn't have that option, but I found lots of online support.
I'm sure you've quit dozens of times in the past (I sure did), and
the biggest contribution to failure was those other people around you
who _hadn't_ quit, and continued to smoke while you were suffering...
>It was interesting to see how we had similar struggles and
>experiences in the months afterward.
Those who have tried and failed all seem to assume that the struggles
they have are unique. Many are also not aware how addictive smoking
is, and that it's not a "walk in the park" to quit. That's why there
is this great market in aids and devices to help.
>> It's November, and 'tis the season for switching Medicare plans
>> and/or providers.
>I'm a dual-eligible, so last I heard I can change my plan and provider
>at any time. I chose it by seeing who covered all the meds I was on at
>the switchover, and think I'll stay with them because they've covered
>almost everything since, without much hassle.
There is such a difference in availability - almost as much as in the
costs. One plan here covers just 500 different drugs (at a low cost),
while another has well over 3000.
>They do insist on switching to a generic as soon as one's available,
>but the last time I had any problems with a generic not working as
>well was about '01.
I think every plan prefers you to be using generics. It's all about
minimizing their costs which maximizes their profits. One plan I had
wanted you to have your doctor prescribe a double dose at half the
rate, and the plan gave you a bill cutter. Getting the drugs through a
mail-order 90 days at a time was always cheaper than buying them at
the local pharmacy, but I'm sure you've seen the large chain food and
drug stores offering a month's supply for a nominal ($4-5) cost. Some
are even offering a 90 day supply for ~$10. They're only generics,
but it's worth looking at. In my case, two of my eight drugs are
marginally cheaper that way.
>One of the immunosuppressants has just gone generic, but the doctors
>aren't sure about the consistency of the generic, so they've switched
>everybody to another med where only the brand name is available.
It says here that the generics _should_ be identical (and it's the job
of the FDA to see that this is so), but I can see their concern. The
consequences are a bit more difficult.
>One helpful thing I've found is to bring my plan's formulary to
>doctor visits.
Yes. Still, about two years ago, one idiot I was seeing decided to
see if a brand new drug (a combo of two drugs that each were going to
be available as generics soon) was more effective, and gave me a months
supply of samples. I took one of the samples to two local pharmacies,
neither of which carried it yet. A third did, at ~$220 a month. Lucky
for me, the new drug was marginally less successful than the $9/month
generic I had been using. No, I don't think it's worth changing.
>> When you reach mid-60s, you'll find your mailbox overflowing with
>> junk mail offers from providers and the AARP this time of year.
>Which comes right after all the junk mail from candidates and just
>before the holiday season junk mail.
In my case, it's continuing and thus overlapping the holiday season
stuff.
>I get junk mail from car insurance companies/agents and from
>cable/DTV providers year round. (Not all that much, actually.)
Makes a significant contribution to the recycling dumpster.
>And occasional mail from AARP, even though I'm not old enough to
>join yet.
That will ramp up. Once you join, you'll be getting substantially
more, including life/car/home-owners insurance, cellular, personal
alarm systems ("I've fallen and I can't get up") and so on. This is
in addition to the financial and funeral planning, trusts, annuities
and travel offers. Just means I had to get a larger shredder.
["Medicare & You" guide]
>My "Upstate New York" version (apparently anything north of NYC is
>"upstate", even Westchester) has pages 119 through 119t (21 pages)
>for health plans, and 122 through 122e (6 pages) for prescription
>plans. I never chose a health plan -- I don't even think I'm allowed
>to in my situation.
Only 11 and 5 here, as Arizona is a less populous state. While the
prescription plans are state-wide, look at the first column of the
list of health plans, and you're likely to find many are for areas
outside of Dutchess county.
>> Almost as bad as trying to choose a Linux distro.
>Well, I don't know of any case where choosing the "wrong" distro was
>literally fatal.
I haven't seen choice of heath plan (between "A" or "B" or what-ever,
not between yes or no) being fatal. A pain in the butt? Sure. Some
people have chosen distributions (no, I won't name them) that are
absolute disasters, and this effectively kills them as prospective
Linux users.
>I picked Mandrake because several people had recommended it. If
>"retread" were working, I'd be running four distros on it, just out
>of curiosity.
Nothing wrong with that. I'm using the distribution I'm using because
it's the one the company is using. When we started, there wasn't the
great choice, and switching wasn't as easy - compiling was the rule
rather than the exception. But most of the distributions from "then"
are long gone, and time moves on.
>Oh, and I learned "you can't fight city hall" the hard way, by
>sideswiping one of the pillars in City Hall's underground garage.
>The pillar didn't move; my car door did. Oh well.
It's good that you are learning, but don't try that again. Hope you
don't get a bill from the city for damage to the paint on the pillar,
or a ticket (the English road rules have this offense "Driving without
due care and attention" which is a blanket they can throw anywhere).
Old guy
unruh
> On Fri, 04 Dec 2009, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandriva, in article
><hfc684$9l9$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Adam wrote:
>
>>Moe Trin wrote:
>
>>> Before the adoption of timezones, people were _generally_ using
>>> local apparent noon as the reference (noon being defined as the
>>> time the sun is at the zenith), and that meant you had eighty
>>> zillion local times.
>
>>I gather my local apparent noon could be calculated by observing
>>the sun,
>
> Boy Scout handbook? The various military survival guides such as
> FM 21-76 ("Survival, Evasion and Escape")? You take this stick and
> poke it into the ground, and then start marking the location of the
> shadow of the tip. Or consult the nearest sundial. The shortest
> shadow is local apparent noon, and the point on the ground is true
> North or South (depending on the hemisphere) from the tip that
> caused the shadow.
>
>>or by some simple formula involving my longitude. Let's see, 360
>>degrees divided by 24 hours... I'm about one degree east of my time
>>zone's meridian, so I suppose "local noon" would be about 11:56 AM
>>by the clock during standard time.
Well, no. It would be 5 min by mean sun time, but that is not the actual
sun which retreats and advances twice per year around mean sun time by
about 15min either way. (That is the analema on those globes you may
have seen-- the figure 8 -- which designates the difference between mean
sun time and true sun time.)
>
> Yup. The zenith is relatively error free, being mainly influenced
But due to both the ellipticity of the earth's orbit and the tilt of the
earth, when the sun is at the zenith is not "error free" if you wnat the
day to always have ecactly 86400 equal sized seconds.
> by the local gravity vector (down is towards the local center of
> mass, and this is affected by - for example - a mountain range next
> to a sea) with the vector deflected towards the greater mass. Sunrise
> and sunset are much more subject to error, even at sea (no blockage
> of the horizon) because of refraction errors caused by air density
> (pressure, temperature, humidity, pollution) differences.
<medical discussions removed>
Adam
>> I gather my local apparent noon could be calculated by observing the
>> sun, or by some simple formula involving my longitude. Let's see, 360
>
> Take a look at
> http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=1185
Thanks, Dave! That looks like a useful site when I need to know the
details. Unfortunately I have to interpolate for my location, but that
should be "close enough" for anything might I need to do.
Adam
Adam
>> I gather my local apparent noon could be calculated by observing
>> the sun,
>
> Boy Scout handbook? The various military survival guides such as
> FM 21-76 ("Survival, Evasion and Escape")?
It's confusing enough as it is. I mean, the river here has tide tables
and currents, which rivers aren't supposed to have.
Actually my biggest gripe regarding time (or the biggest one I could do
anything about) involves mis-set clocks, like clocks at appointments
that are five or ten minutes off. Or houses where you go to the next
room and the clocks are several minutes' different. At the changes
to/from DST, I go to the USNO's web page, set my best digital wristwatch
exactly to that, then set everything to that watch.
> Those who have tried and failed all seem to assume that the struggles
> they have are unique. Many are also not aware how addictive smoking
> is, and that it's not a "walk in the park" to quit. That's why there
> is this great market in aids and devices to help.
I used about three or four methods simultaneously, so I'm not sure which
one should get the credit. That's one thing I like about the newsgroup
I mentioned: someone there has probably been through the same thing
before, and also they aren't selling anything (except for the spammers)
-- there's no one "right way", except for not trying.
> One plan I had
> wanted you to have your doctor prescribe a double dose at half the
> rate, and the plan gave you a bill cutter.
Did they want that done for "extended release" pills and for capsules too?
>> One of the immunosuppressants has just gone generic, but the doctors
>> aren't sure about the consistency of the generic, so they've switched
>> everybody to another med where only the brand name is available.
>
> It says here that the generics _should_ be identical (and it's the job
> of the FDA to see that this is so), but I can see their concern. The
> consequences are a bit more difficult.
I had problems once with the generic not having any effect at all on me,
and it took me a while to figure out that was what was going on. I've
heard of a case where the generic is more effective for that person, and
the script says "Must fill generically." I have a friend who's found
out that the generics of one pill carried by one pharmacy chain are more
effective than the generics carried by another local chain, and both are
reputable national chains.
>> One helpful thing I've found is to bring my plan's formulary to
>> doctor visits.
Which I should do Thursday, when I have to go to the clinic in Albany
again. I'm hoping they reduce (or discontinue) something, ANYthing. I
think I'm still on more meds to handle the side effects than the ones
that cause the side effects. And I hate having to get up at 4:30 AM to
get there early, but at least it's getting less frequent.
>> I get junk mail from car insurance companies/agents and from
>> cable/DTV providers year round. (Not all that much, actually.)
>
> Makes a significant contribution to the recycling dumpster.
No recycling dumpster here, strangely enough. I gather that if we're
really ambitious, we can package them ourselves and take them to the
town recycling center, which charges for anything dropped off there.
> ["Medicare & You" guide]
>
>> My "Upstate New York" version (apparently anything north of NYC is
>> "upstate", even Westchester) has pages 119 through 119t (21 pages)
>> for health plans, and 122 through 122e (6 pages) for prescription
>> plans.
>
> Only 11 and 5 here, as Arizona is a less populous state.
And that's one for the whole state. Apparently there's a NYC/Long
Island version as well, since I was sent the "upstate" one.
> While the
> prescription plans are state-wide, look at the first column of the
> list of health plans, and you're likely to find many are for areas
> outside of Dutchess county.
Yeah, some are only around Buffalo, which is 350 miles from here. As
mentioned, I don't even think I'm eligible for any of those, just a
prescription plan, but I have no major complaints.
>>> Almost as bad as trying to choose a Linux distro.
>
>> Well, I don't know of any case where choosing the "wrong" distro was
>> literally fatal.
>
> I haven't seen choice of heath plan (between "A" or "B" or what-ever,
> not between yes or no) being fatal.
I can see where it could be, if one plan didn't cover a certain kind of
treatment.
>> Oh, and I learned "you can't fight city hall" the hard way, by
>> sideswiping one of the pillars in City Hall's underground garage.
>> The pillar didn't move; my car door did. Oh well.
>
> It's good that you are learning, but don't try that again. Hope you
> don't get a bill from the city for damage to the paint on the pillar,
> or a ticket (the English road rules have this offense "Driving without
> due care and attention" which is a blanket they can throw anywhere).
Well, at least my car is still drivable. I have to call back a local
body shop, but their guess at the cost was less than I expected. I
don't think I could have gotten a ticket for it, because I wasn't on a
public road. Just like those "stop" signs within malls, where they're
not "real" stop signs because it's private property.
Adam
Moe Trin
<hfn2q0$bko$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Adam wrote:
>Moe Trin wrote:
>It's confusing enough as it is. I mean, the river here has tide tables
>and currents, which rivers aren't supposed to have.
Up to Hudson - about 120 miles up from The Narrows? It's not all that
unusual, as Philadelphia and Baltimore are tidal, as is Sacramento and
Stockton, CA and Portland, OR. I'm not sure how far up the Saint
Lawrence the tide reaches - looks like 'Trois-Rivi�res', about 70
miles above Quebec (city).
>Actually my biggest gripe regarding time (or the biggest one I could
>do anything about) involves mis-set clocks, like clocks at appointments
>that are five or ten minutes off. Or houses where you go to the next
>room and the clocks are several minutes' different.
Oh, you mean like the difference between the clock on my side of the
bed compared to the clock on my wife's side? They're only the same
for a short time after I reset them following a power outage. ;-)
>At the changes to/from DST, I go to the USNO's web page, set my best
>digital wristwatch exactly to that, then set everything to that watch.
Aren't using NTP? Most distributions (and even recent versions of
windoze) are using some application to grab the time from one of the
network time servers. Just use the 'date' command, and you should have
time accurate to a second or less.
>> One plan I had wanted you to have your doctor prescribe a double
>> dose at half the rate, and the plan gave you a bill cutter.
>Did they want that done for "extended release" pills and for capsules
>too?
;-) I dunno - that was a while ago, and at the time I was using
only one extended release pill, and it wasn't available in a dose
twice as large as what I was taking.
[generics]
>I had problems once with the generic not having any effect at all on
>me, and it took me a while to figure out that was what was going on.
>I've heard of a case where the generic is more effective for that
>person, and the script says "Must fill generically." I have a friend
>who's found out that the generics of one pill carried by one pharmacy
>chain are more effective than the generics carried by another local
>chain, and both are reputable national chains.
I've heard of generics not being as effective - my wife had problems
with one of the ACE Inhibitors that way. Within generics, I haven't
encountered that many differences. While there are three pharmacies
within a mile of the house, we tend to stick with one mainly because
it's easier to get in/out of their parking lot. Such a reason?
>Which I should do Thursday, when I have to go to the clinic in
>Albany again. I'm hoping they reduce (or discontinue) something,
>ANYthing. I think I'm still on more meds to handle the side effects
>than the ones that cause the side effects.
That may be all to true, but outside of reducing the later, there may
not be an easy way to reduce the former.
>And I hate having to get up at 4:30 AM to get there early, but at
>least it's getting less frequent.
#include <std.security.lecture.h>
I know you're used to the snow, but the storm that came through here
on Tuesday (dropping 1.35 inches of rain which brings me to 6.04
inches YTD) is headed your way.
>> Makes a significant contribution to the recycling dumpster.
>No recycling dumpster here, strangely enough.
Strange indeed. California had a recycling law in place over 25 years
ago because of concerns about running out of land-fill. We had
separate containers (milk crate size) for glass, metals, plastics and
paper and you were to put yard waste in a garbage bag away from the
garbage container. Phoenix has had a curb-side recycling program for
about twenty years (not as extensive as California), and the program
is expanding so that they (finally) take shredded paper (as long as
it is in clear plastic bags). They aren't doing yard waste yet, but
California used to shred/chip such waste for compost (as Phoenix does
for Christmas trees).
>I gather that if we're really ambitious, we can package them
>ourselves and take them to the town recycling center, which charges
>for anything dropped off there.
Arizona doesn't charge for recycling drops, and California would even
pay you for metal cans (partly funded by the bottle/can deposit on
carbonated beverages) at the recycling center (but not at the curb).
["Medicare & You" guide]
>> Only 11 and 5 here, as Arizona is a less populous state.
>And that's one for the whole state. Apparently there's a NYC/Long
>Island version as well, since I was sent the "upstate" one.
Arizona only has a population of 5.5e6, which is ~2/3 the population
of New York City.
>> While the prescription plans are state-wide, look at the first
>> column of the list of health plans, and you're likely to find many
>> are for areas outside of Dutchess county.
>Yeah, some are only around Buffalo, which is 350 miles from here.
They're generally by counties around here.
>As mentioned, I don't even think I'm eligible for any of those, just
>a prescription plan, but I have no major complaints.
Given how well your ``pusher'' has got you into drugs, that's
understandable. But then, my wife and I have a total of 14 regular
prescriptions, never mind the occasional special needs. I see in the
December AARP Bulletin (monthly newspaper) that Part D premiums are
going to increase in 2010 (bit over 10% average), and some plans are
switching from a fixed (but tiered) co-pay to a percentage of the cost
of the drug - may or may not have an effect. I think my wife and I
have three drugs that cost less than the tiered co-pay (which means we
pay "full" price for the drug), but at least at this time, our plans
haven't made that change.
>Well, at least my car is still drivable. I have to call back a local
>body shop, but their guess at the cost was less than I expected.
I'm sure you have better things to spend the money on. I certainly do.
>I don't think I could have gotten a ticket for it, because I wasn't
>on a public road. Just like those "stop" signs within malls, where
>they're not "real" stop signs because it's private property.
IANAL - wonder how they would consider city hall? As for the signs
on private property, yes they normally are not legally enforceable,
but violate one while having an accident and see what happens. :-(
Old guy
Adam
>> Actually my biggest gripe regarding time (or the biggest one I could
>> do anything about) involves mis-set clocks
>
> bed compared to the clock on my wife's side? They're only the same
> for a short time after I reset them following a power outage. ;-)
Since they both are line-powered, aren't both using the 60 Hz as a
reference?
I think we got started on time zones by discussing how cron handled the
change to/from DST. I forgot there's another minor annoyance -- if I
reboot my system after midnight but before the cron jobs are scheduled,
it does all the cron jobs right away (since they hadn't been done yet
that day), and again when crontab says to. Not a big problem, it just
slows things down when it happens.
> I've heard of generics not being as effective
Yeah, one of mine recently went generic, and I was worried it wouldn't
be as effective, but I didn't notice any difference. My local pharmacy
stocks the generic from at least two manufacturers (I can tell by the
shape), but both are as effective as the brand. Occasionally they fill
it with a mixture of both. Once I think they filled one prescription
"generically" with the brand itself, though. I still worry every time
I'm switched from the brand to the generic, though.
> While there are three pharmacies
> within a mile of the house, we tend to stick with one mainly because
> it's easier to get in/out of their parking lot. Such a reason?
Well, most pharmacies seem to be adequate. When I moved four years ago,
I asked a friend of mine who was a pharmacist for advice, and went with
it. It's a local business that stocks almost everything else too,
hardware, kitchenware, toys, clothing, and so on. They opened their
first "branch" right in the hospital I get my bloodwork done at, so now
I get my local meds right there. They also stock a few other items, OTC
meds, pens, notebooks, etc., but nothing that competes with the hospital
gift shop. And they don't carry the one thing that every other pharmacy
seems to carry -- contraceptives. My guess is because it's in St.
Francis Hospital.
The transplant meds have an incredible amount of paperwork involved,
sometimes triple billing, so the transplant center suggested a pharmacy
near them that's used to handling all of that and will ship, so I now
get my transplant meds through them.
>> Which I should do Thursday, when I have to go to the clinic in
>> Albany again. I'm hoping they reduce (or discontinue) something,
>> ANYthing. I think I'm still on more meds to handle the side effects
>> than the ones that cause the side effects.
>
> That may be all too true, but outside of reducing the later, there may
> not be an easy way to reduce the former.
They only made one trivial change when I was there, but then most of the
changes are made between visits, over the phone, from monitoring the
bloodwork. I think quite a few meds will be discontinued when I hit six
months post-tx, which will be late February.
>> And I hate having to get up at 4:30 AM to get there early, but at
>> least it's getting less frequent.
>
> #include<std.security.lecture.h>
Which lecture is that?
> I know you're used to the snow, but the storm that came through here
> on Tuesday (dropping 1.35 inches of rain which brings me to 6.04
> inches YTD) is headed your way.
Around here, of course, everybody is used to the snow and has standard
procedures for dealing with it. Fortunately the roads to Albany were
clear that day. I'm told that places in the southwest, where they're
not used to snow, practically panic at a half-inch, because they don't
have the equipment to deal with it.
>> No recycling dumpster here, strangely enough.
>
> Strange indeed. California had a recycling law in place over 25 years
> ago because of concerns about running out of land-fill.
My previous apartment was in the City of Poughkeepsie (as opposed to the
Town of Poughkeepsie), and next to each dumpster were two recycling
bins, one for paper, one for mixed glass, plastic and metal.
> California would even
> pay you for metal cans (partly funded by the bottle/can deposit on
> carbonated beverages)
It wasn't until I went to California that I learned what "CA Redemption
Value" actually meant.
>> Well, at least my car is still drivable. I have to call back a local
>> body shop, but their guess at the cost was less than I expected.
>
> I'm sure you have better things to spend the money on. I certainly do.
I'm bringing it in Monday -- fortunately it's within walking distance
from my home. I think my "buy a new computer" idea is on hold for now,
since this one does almost everything I need, and I've got other
projects to keep me out of trouble.
>> Just like those "stop" signs within malls, where
>> they're not "real" stop signs because it's private property.
>
> IANAL - wonder how they would consider city hall? As for the signs
> on private property, yes they normally are not legally enforceable,
> but violate one while having an accident and see what happens. :-(
Even without an accident, the owner could ban you from the mall. Too
bad if you happen to work there.
Adam
unruh
> Moe Trin wrote:
>>> Actually my biggest gripe regarding time (or the biggest one I could
>>> do anything about) involves mis-set clocks
>>
>> Oh, you mean like the difference between the clock on my side of the
>> bed compared to the clock on my wife's side? They're only the same
>> for a short time after I reset them following a power outage. ;-)
>
> Since they both are line-powered, aren't both using the 60 Hz as a
> reference?
>
> I think we got started on time zones by discussing how cron handled the
> change to/from DST. I forgot there's another minor annoyance -- if I
> reboot my system after midnight but before the cron jobs are scheduled,
> it does all the cron jobs right away (since they hadn't been done yet
> that day), and again when crontab says to. Not a big problem, it just
> slows things down when it happens.
It depends on the version of cron that you use. anacron operates
differently from traditional cron.
Moe Trin
<hfusmt$aha$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Adam wrote:
>Moe Trin wrote:
>> Oh, you mean like the difference between the clock on my side of the
>> bed compared to the clock on my wife's side? They're only the same
>> for a short time after I reset them following a power outage. ;-)
>Since they both are line-powered, aren't both using the 60 Hz as a
>reference?
Yup - but you should know about Wife Standard Time.
>I think we got started on time zones by discussing how cron handled
>the change to/from DST. I forgot there's another minor annoyance --
>if I reboot my system after midnight but before the cron jobs are
>scheduled, it does all the cron jobs right away (since they hadn't
>been done yet that day), and again when crontab says to. Not a big
>problem, it just slows things down when it happens.
That's the asynchronous cron daemon complication. I've seen people
put a modification in the regular (Vixie) cron scripts that checks
the anacron time hacks file to avoid the duplication. I vaguely recall
that the 'fcron' and 'ucron' daemons combine the features of the two
types of cron daemon in a single package, and have built in hoops to
avoid the problem. Unfortunately, last I looked neither package is
being maintained.
[generic drugs]
>Yeah, one of mine recently went generic, and I was worried it
>wouldn't be as effective, but I didn't notice any difference. My
>local pharmacy stocks the generic from at least two manufacturers
>(I can tell by the shape), but both are as effective as the brand.
They "should" be functionally identical. Yes, I know. I believe the
label on the pill container should have manufacturer and "good until"
dates, and I think they should have lot numbers. Mine do.
>Occasionally they fill it with a mixture of both.
Never had that happen. The visible difference may scare the patient.
>Once I think they filled one prescription "generically" with the
>brand itself, though.
I have that that happen. It's a customer satisfaction issue. For
that matter, I've also had cases where one pharmacy is out of
stock and will actually send a pharmacy tech as a runner to the
pharmacy across the street to "borrow" enough to fill a prescription.
They're competitors, but cooperative for their customers.
>I still worry every time I'm switched from the brand to the generic,
>though.
Not so here. Maybe because we've had so little trouble.
>Well, most pharmacies seem to be adequate. When I moved four years
>ago, I asked a friend of mine who was a pharmacist for advice, and
>went with it. It's a local business that stocks almost everything
>else too, hardware, kitchenware, toys, clothing, and so on.
I don't know if it's because I'm not looking hard enough or what, but
most of the pharmacies here are either major chains, or are part of a
grocery chain. I can't think of any Mom/Pops around here.
>They opened their first "branch" right in the hospital I get my
>bloodwork done at, so now I get my local meds right there. They also
>stock a few other items, OTC meds, pens, notebooks, etc., but nothing
>that competes with the hospital gift shop.
That surprises me. Again, I haven't paid that close attention, but I
don't recall seeing "outside" pharmacies within the hospital. The two
that come to mind are operated by the hospital itself.
>And they don't carry the one thing that every other pharmacy seems to
>carry -- contraceptives. My guess is because it's in St. Francis
>Hospital.
While I've seen non-Catholic hospitals using saints names, I'll make
a guess here...
>The transplant meds have an incredible amount of paperwork involved,
>sometimes triple billing, so the transplant center suggested a
>pharmacy near them that's used to handling all of that and will ship,
>so I now get my transplant meds through them.
Wouldn't the mail-order pharmacy service associated with the insurance
carrier be less of a hassle?
>They only made one trivial change when I was there, but then most of
>the changes are made between visits, over the phone, from monitoring
>the bloodwork
I've no experience in this. All of the changes I've had have been
made while I'm at the facility.
>I think quite a few meds will be discontinued when I hit six months
>post-tx, which will be late February.
That will be nice. Keep working at this.
>> #include<std.security.lecture.h>
>Which lecture is that?
Those are normally in /lib/ or in /usr/lib/ ;-)
>> I know you're used to the snow, but the storm that came through
>> here on Tuesday (dropping 1.35 inches of rain which brings me to
>> 6.04 inches YTD) is headed your way.
>Around here, of course, everybody is used to the snow and has
>standard procedures for dealing with it.
I know that, but there is still the significant;y increased risk.
>Fortunately the roads to Albany were clear that day. I'm told that
>places in the southwest, where they're not used to snow, practically
>panic at a half-inch, because they don't have the equipment to deal
>with it.
The Coconino county (Flagstaff area) sheriff had some fun rescuing
hunters and campers trapped as much as thirty miles into the back
country last week. But you don't have to come here to find the panic
at a half inch mode. Our nation's capital does that every time. Lest
those elsewhere snicker about this, I remember snow falls in the early
1960s in Southeast England (London to Cambridge) where they had to
call out the Royal Army to shovel snow off the railroad tracks to keep
the trains running.
>My previous apartment was in the City of Poughkeepsie (as opposed to
>the Town of Poughkeepsie), and next to each dumpster were two
>recycling bins, one for paper, one for mixed glass, plastic and metal.
Given the "green" movement, I'm surprised this isn't virtually
universal.
>It wasn't until I went to California that I learned what "CA
>Redemption Value" actually meant.
Hmmm, I just looked at a beer can, and see it listing OK, MI, and "CA
CRV" (I think that's the legally required wording) at ten cents, ME,
VT, MA, NY, HI, IA and/or CT as five cents. A carbonated soft drink
can has near identical markings. We don't have a deposit/refund in
AZ, but we can take aluminum cans in to a commercial recycler at
some-odd cents a pound. (But then, some of the older readers may
remember scrounging Coke/Pepsi bottles for the 2 cent deposit, and
5 cents for the quart size to supplement our allowance.)
Old guy
Aragorn
identifying as Moe Trin wrote...
> On Fri, 11 Dec 2009, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandriva, in
> article <hfusmt$aha$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Adam wrote:
>
>> Moe Trin wrote:
>
>>> Oh, you mean like the difference between the clock on my side of the
>>> bed compared to the clock on my wife's side? They're only the same
>>> for a short time after I reset them following a power outage. ;-)
>
>> Since they both are line-powered, aren't both using the 60 Hz as a
>> reference?
>
> Yup - but you should know about Wife Standard Time.
I find Wife Standard Time to be very unreliable. There is an absolute
reliability on the occurrence of Mood Swings, but not on their
periodicity. :p
> [generic drugs]
>
>> Yeah, one of mine recently went generic, and I was worried it
>> wouldn't be as effective, but I didn't notice any difference. My
>> local pharmacy stocks the generic from at least two manufacturers
>> (I can tell by the shape), but both are as effective as the brand.
>
> They "should" be functionally identical. Yes, I know. I believe the
> label on the pill container should have manufacturer and "good until"
> dates, and I think they should have lot numbers. Mine do.
>
>> Occasionally they fill it with a mixture of both.
>
> Never had that happen. The visible difference may scare the patient.
Over here, generic drugs are strongly promoted by the government. The
main reason is of course financial. Prescribed drugs cost less than
their actual price because your health fund intervenes in the cost and
the cost for buying medicine is automatically relayed onto the health
fund via your social security card. This in contrast to a doctor's
visit, where you must first pay up the full amount and then submit the
receipt from the doctor at your health fund, after which they deposit
some 72% of that amount back into your bank account, generally within
the same week.
It's different for hospitalization, though. In that case, the hospital
directly sends the larger bill to the health fund and sends you the
smaller bill after about three months. Another thing with
hospitalization is that if you opt for a single-person room as opposed
to a shared room, the treating doctor may (and usually does) charge
you "honorary fees". They may however not do that if you are assigned
a single-person room due to no shared rooms being available.
As for these health funds, every non-self-employed person is by law
obliged to subscribe to a health fund - self-employed people have to
make different arrangements, but I don't know how that works exactly.
This is not a real full-cost health insurance, although health funds
generally do offer this for an extra fee. Although an Independent
Health Fund has arisen in the last 5 or 6 years or so - and it is
literally called that - traditionally the health funds in Belgium are
linked to political orientations - e.g. there is socialist health fund,
a catholic health fund and a liberal health fund; other political
parties have no such affiliations - and the same is true for the worker
unions. Often, the union and health fund offices of the same
political "family" are in the same building. It does facilitate some
of the administration though - e.g. when you have to go on sickleave
while you're unemployed - since the unions have now for a number of
years also been doubling as unemployment fee distributors, i.e. the
government pays out the unemployment fees to the unions and they make
sure it ends up in your bank account, minus a fee for
their "administrative role", of course. Contrary to the mandatory
membership of a health fund (of your own choosing), one is not mandated
by law to be a member of a union, regardless of whether one is employed
or unemployed. Unemployed people who are not affiliated with a union
get their unemployment fees via another agency.
Personally I think this whole political orientation thing of unions and
health funds is stupid. In my opinion, neither health funds nor unions
should have a political "color", and the fact that it is as such in
Belgium doesn't mean that this is legally so arranged. The law doesn't
say anything about political colors in any of that - on the contrary,
the political color is totally discarded - but it simply grew to be
like this over time, if you know the history of our country.
(Note: As I understand it, and if I may be so frank - well, I am and
have always been /Frank/ :p - I have construed from your prior
conversations that the both of you seem to have met and/or become
friends through a common affliction of the kidneys - I believe to have
noted the word "dialysis" a few times in your conversations.
I myself also have chronic kidney problems, albeit that they are not as
serious as the one you both appear to have suffered from or are still
suffering from - and by "serious" in this context, I do
mean "life-threatening if not treated properly". In my case, it's just
a chronic affliction with kidney stones and all the inconveniences and
pain that this entails. Not quite lifethreatening, but quite
unpleasant nevertheless - I've got quite a history of being carried out
on a stretcher and into an ambulance due to kidney crisises, and of
having to ring a general physician in the middle of the night to come
over and give me a few shots[1]. And in addition to the
aforementioned, I also happen to come from a paramedical background,
and as such I often notice some of the stuff the two of you are talking
about. ;-)
So, I hope I'm not butting in, but after all, you are both conducting
these long off-topic conversations on Usenet, which means that it's
public. And well, I am well-known to drift off-topic myself on
occasion... <cough cough> :p)
[1] General physicians do still make housecalls over here - although
most discourage it and request that you come to their practice,
which lately also means that you have to book an appointment first
- and there is a "watch" for urgencies outside of the 08h00-17h00
period and on holidays and weekends. Housecalls are of course
much more expensive, especially at night or on weekends/holidays.
>> Once I think they filled one prescription "generically" with the
>> brand itself, though.
>
> I have that that happen. It's a customer satisfaction issue. For
> that matter, I've also had cases where one pharmacy is out of
> stock and will actually send a pharmacy tech as a runner to the
> pharmacy across the street to "borrow" enough to fill a prescription.
> They're competitors, but cooperative for their customers.
Over here, policy now is to prescribe generic drugs - at least, at the
level of general physicians; I'm not sure on hospitals - and only
prescribe brandname drugs if there is a legitimate reason for that, and
if no generic equivalent is available, then I think they normally give
you the brandname drugs at the cost of the generic ones. After all, it
is not your fault as a patient that they have run out of stock on their
generic drugs.
>> I still worry every time I'm switched from the brand to the generic,
>> though.
>
> Not so here. Maybe because we've had so little trouble.
The generic ones are supposed to be functionally identical to the brands
over here. There will of course always be certain circumstances under
which a particular brand - or inversely, a generic drug - is to be
preferred due to certain undesired effects in certain patients, but in
general, the generic ones work pretty well.
>> Well, most pharmacies seem to be adequate. When I moved four years
>> ago, I asked a friend of mine who was a pharmacist for advice, and
>> went with it. It's a local business that stocks almost everything
>> else too, hardware, kitchenware, toys, clothing, and so on.
>
> I don't know if it's because I'm not looking hard enough or what, but
> most of the pharmacies here are either major chains, or are part of a
> grocery chain. I can't think of any Mom/Pops around here.
I haven't exactly kept track of the evolution, but there was a proposal
for a new law or decree over here in Belgium that would allow
supermarkets to offer (non-prescription) medication as well, since this
is already allowed in The Netherlands. This was of course much more a
proposal out of economic concerns, i.e. the liberalization of the
market, rather than a convenience for the people.
Pharmacies themselves are generally independently ran shops over here,
not affiliated to any chains.
> [...] Lest those elsewhere snicker about this, I remember snow falls
> in the early 1960s in Southeast England (London to Cambridge) where
> they had to call out the Royal Army to shovel snow off the railroad
> tracks to keep the trains running.
Well, back when I was young - and according to my parents and
grandparents, even more so long before I was born - winters were so
harsh over here that we actually had winter fairs - you know, with the
caroussels and kiosks - on the ice on the river. As a young boy - mid
1960s - I used to play outside in thick packs of snow, and I even
remember that we were playing "Star Trek" and we sculpted our phasers
and communicators out of snow and ice. :p
It's been a while since there has been that much snow over here, or that
the river has frozen over, although I believe that it did freeze over
again for a while last winter. There were certainly a lot of ponds
that had frozen over as well, and then people are so eager to pull out
the skates and go on the ice that there are bound to be a lot of
accidents due to the ice not being thick enough yet.
But the river, that's different, of course. That's streaming water, and
it has lots of traffic from small cargo ships and a few occasional
touring boats.
>> My previous apartment was in the City of Poughkeepsie (as opposed to
>> the Town of Poughkeepsie), and next to each dumpster were two
>> recycling bins, one for paper, one for mixed glass, plastic and
>> metal.
>
> Given the "green" movement, I'm surprised this isn't virtually
> universal.
Over here, we've had mandatory waste separation for years already. The
exact mechanisms may differ per municipality/township, but here in
town, you have to have blue plastic trashbags for milk cartons, cans,
PET bottles, spray cans and aluminum foil, green plastic trashbags of
gardening waste and vegetables, a green plastic box - which almost
nobody manages to open, including the cabinet minister who introduced
them :p - for chemical waste, and grey plastic trashbags
for "everything else", except for glass.
The trashbags carry the name of the town on them, so you cannot use
generic plastic bags, or use the bags for another town - the garbage
collectors will simply leave them standing on the sidewalk if you do.
You can buy the grey, blue and green bags at the local supermarkets, at
certain other convenience stores and at Town Hall itself, and it's all
friggin' expensive too!
The green plastic chemical waste box does not stay with you when you
move to a different residence but rather stays with the house or
apartment, although I haven't received one yet for this appartment
here, which was built in 2000-2001 - I don't think any of us here in
this building have received one. The idea is that you put them up
front on specified dates - once per month - and then the town/city
workers come by with a truck and empty them.
Glass must be deposited at a designated glass container, which has
compartments for colored and non-colored glass. It used to be really
stupid, because they had compartments for non-colored glass, green
glass and brown glass. So what did you have to do with blue glass? :p
(Note: You may not dispose of oven-resistent glass via these containers
as this kind of glass cannot be recycled in the same way. You have to
instead put it in the grey trashbags.)
Next to the glass containers, there are usually also oil containers, but
these are to be used only for the kind of oils used in nutrition - e.g.
vegetable oils - and not for machine/engine oils or anything of that
sort; those would instead have to go in the green "chemicals box" that
you put out up front every month. Yet, it often does happen that
people pour engine oil into those containers, and that of course leads
to problems, because - as I understand it - the collected vegetable
oils and such are normally recycled into nutrition products for farm
animals. (Note: A lot more goes into that, and it actually becomes
quite perverse, because they will also mix animal waste in there - e.g.
grinded bones from slaughtered animals - and then this is fed to
animals that are by nature herbivorous, like fowel or cows. Very
perverse. :-/)
Then there are also two other "collection" dates per month, i.e. one for
cardboard and paper, and one for "large household waste". Electric and
electronics devices have to be recycled via other channels, i.e. either
you have to ask the electrician to take your old/broken devices with
them when they deliver the new one that you purchased, or you have to
take those devices to the municipal recycling container park yourself.
There is also a distinction made between "generic electronics" and what
they call "whiteware" - i.e. refrigerators and freezers - because they
may contain hazardous chemicals.
Oh, and then there are the batteries. Batteries must also be recycled.
They are collected at special stores - typically supermarkets and
electronics stores - and often companies themselves will have a
centralized collection point so that employees can bring in their used
batteries. Car batteries and the likes are of course a different
matter. You generally drop them off at the container park or have your
local garage store them, as there is a separate waste collection system
for the industry.
Another thing which has emerged here over the past decade or so and
which is typically distributed over all municipalities/townships are
so-called recycling stores. That's where you can drop off[1] old
furniture, old but wearable clothes[2] and old but still functioning
TVs, computers and stereos and stuff. This stuff then gets checked and
if need be, repaired - if it's not too much of a cost - and then
offered for re-sale.
[1] They will also pick it up at your doorstep if you cannot deliver it
yourself, but it has to be outside and up front. They will not help
you move it down from an apartment or anything, no matter how heavy
it is.
[2] There are also containers for damaged/non-wearable clothing and
other textiles near the glass containers.
>> It wasn't until I went to California that I learned what "CA
>> Redemption Value" actually meant.
>
> Hmmm, I just looked at a beer can, and see it listing OK, MI, and "CA
> CRV" (I think that's the legally required wording) at ten cents, ME,
> VT, MA, NY, HI, IA and/or CT as five cents. A carbonated soft drink
> can has near identical markings. We don't have a deposit/refund in
> AZ, but we can take aluminum cans in to a commercial recycler at
> some-odd cents a pound. (But then, some of the older readers may
> remember scrounging Coke/Pepsi bottles for the 2 cent deposit, and
> 5 cents for the quart size to supplement our allowance.)
There still is a refund in place over here for certain glass bottles -
e.g. milk, water, Coke/Pepsi (and the likes) and small beer bottles -
because they can all be re-used, and the government encourages this.
This is why cafés and restaurants will typically serve their sodas out
of large glass bottles, or in small 25 cc bottles directly. However,
much of what is being sold via supermarkets comes in plastic disposable
bottles and cans, which of course have to be recycled via the blue
trashbags.
Another thing that's new here now is that the government has placed a
sort of ban on the use of disposable plastic bags, so if you go to
supermarket and you need a plastic bag, then you have to pay for that -
not all shops do this, fortunately. Supermarkets usually leave you an
alternative though, i.e. they put their cardboard boxes from unpacking
their stocks near the entrance, and so you can easily pick up a
cardboard box from there on your way in. I do that a lot myself.
Keeps your groceries more securely in place when you put them in your
car and drive home. ;-)
--
*Aragorn*
(registered GNU/Linux user #223157)
Moe Trin
<hg2pbc$ein$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Aragorn wrote:
>Moe Trin wrote...
>> Adam wrote:
>>> Since they both are line-powered, aren't both using the 60 Hz as
>>> a reference?
>> Yup - but you should know about Wife Standard Time.
>I find Wife Standard Time to be very unreliable. There is an
>absolute reliability on the occurrence of Mood Swings, but not on
>their periodicity. :p
Yeah, I've never figured out how to install/configure NTP on a wife,
and that's as far as I'm going to say about that!
[generic drugs]
>Over here, generic drugs are strongly promoted by the government.
>The main reason is of course financial.
For the most part, it's the insurance carriers and consumer advocate
groups here, but the blank prescription forms (which are following
some federal standard for layout and contents) have two places for
the authorizing signature: One is for "fill as written", while the
other is "substitutes OK" (which means the pharmacist can fill using
the generic or identical product under another brand name). Most
doctors will write a trade name of a drug, rather than the generic
name - simply because the trade name is easier to remember. Many
drugs that are available as generics may have multiple trade names
from the different manufacturers as well.
On the other hand, I've seen advertisements from pharmaceutical
manufacturers pushing their trade named drug as opposed to generics.
Pfizer has been advertising Lipitor quite heavily: "If your doctor
prescribed $FOO, there is no generic and to get an generic your doctor
would have to prescribe something else, so, why switch?" Well, the
extortionist cost might be one reason, and there are other drugs that
cost a tenth as much, though working differently. But I'm not a
doctor or pharmacist, and don't play one on TV.
[differences in Belgian health programs]
You may be aware that the US legislative branch is currently hacking
through a major set of changes to health insurance for the public.
Some day, we may have a ``new'' plan. Right now, we run the gamut of
no coverage to everything is included - and seemingly every step in
between.
>I have construed from your prior conversations that the both of you
>seem to have met and/or become friends through a common affliction
>of the kidneys - I believe to have noted the word "dialysis" a few
>times in your conversations.
Adam has kidney problems, and received a transplant in August. I was
aware of the problem through much earlier discussions, one item of
which was his worrying about wireless phone coverage as he did NOT
want to miss the call that a candidate donor had been found. I've
got very different problems unrelated, but have enough hospital
stays and doctor visits to be attuned to the problems.
>In my case, it's just a chronic affliction with kidney stones and all
>the inconveniences and pain that this entails. Not quite
>lifethreatening, but quite unpleasant nevertheless - I've got quite a
>history of being carried out on a stretcher and into an ambulance due
>to kidney crisises, and of having to ring a general physician in the
>middle of the night to come over and give me a few shots[1].
You _really_ have my sympathy - not that it would help much.
>And in addition to the aforementioned, I also happen to come from a
>paramedical background, and as such I often notice some of the stuff
>the two of you are talking about. ;-)
I've no training, but like you notice some things.
Old guy
Aragorn
identifying as Moe Trin wrote...
> On Sun, 13 Dec 2009, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandriva, in
> article <hg2pbc$ein$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Aragorn wrote:
>
>> Moe Trin wrote...
>
>>> Adam wrote:
>
>>>> Since they both are line-powered, aren't both using the 60 Hz as
>>>> a reference?
>
>>> Yup - but you should know about Wife Standard Time.
>
>> I find Wife Standard Time to be very unreliable. There is an
>> absolute reliability on the occurrence of Mood Swings, but not on
>> their periodicity. :p
>
> Yeah, I've never figured out how to install/configure NTP on a wife,
> and that's as far as I'm going to say about that!
At least you came up with the idea for that. :p I just kept looking for
the correct key combination to make her reboot. :p
> [generic drugs]
>
>> Over here, generic drugs are strongly promoted by the government.
>> The main reason is of course financial.
>
> For the most part, it's the insurance carriers and consumer advocate
> groups here, but the blank prescription forms (which are following
> some federal standard for layout and contents) have two places for
> the authorizing signature: One is for "fill as written", while the
> other is "substitutes OK" (which means the pharmacist can fill using
> the generic or identical product under another brand name). Most
> doctors will write a trade name of a drug, rather than the generic
> name - simply because the trade name is easier to remember. Many
> drugs that are available as generics may have multiple trade names
> from the different manufacturers as well.
Well, I guess it's exactly the other way around over here then, i.e. the
health funds are putting pressure on their political affiliates to
lower the costs of social security and health care all the time, and so
pushing the general physicians to prescribe generic drugs instead of
brandname drugs is part of that picture.
We also do have consumer advocate groups, but they are not being paid
much attention to - which is unfortunate. That's what you get when the
government favors the industry more than the customers, and this is
actually more of a problem at the European Parliament level than at the
national level - not that our own idio... I mean, politicians are off
the hook. ;-)
> On the other hand, I've seen advertisements from pharmaceutical
> manufacturers pushing their trade named drug as opposed to generics.
> Pfizer has been advertising Lipitor quite heavily: "If your doctor
> prescribed $FOO, there is no generic and to get an generic your doctor
> would have to prescribe something else, so, why switch?" Well, the
> extortionist cost might be one reason, and there are other drugs that
> cost a tenth as much, though working differently. But I'm not a
> doctor or pharmacist, and don't play one on TV.
Yeah, we get Dr. Phil here too. :p
> [differences in Belgian health programs]
>
> You may be aware that the US legislative branch is currently hacking
> through a major set of changes to health insurance for the public.
Yes, I am aware of all the debating going on, but the status of that
whole thing is now very unclear to me - kind of like not being able to
see the forest through the threes - and to tell you the truth, I
haven't been watching any TV at all in maybe over six months, so my
news all comes from occasional things I come across on the internet,
e.g. Google News.
The thing is that I've become highly cynical about how the media are
feeding us with whatever they want to feed us, as long as it isn't the
truth. It's not just an American phenomenon or anything, in case you
might think so; it's really worldwide. The more one reads the papers
or watches the news, the less one knows about what's going on.
> Some day, we may have a ``new'' plan.
"Some day" seems like a very good estimate. :p
> Right now, we run the gamut of no coverage to everything is included -
> and seemingly every step in between.
Yeah, that's probably why it's so confusing. If even you guys can't
figure it out, then we "East of the pond"-ers sure won't figure it out
either. ;-)
>> I have construed from your prior conversations that the both of you
>> seem to have met and/or become friends through a common affliction
>> of the kidneys - I believe to have noted the word "dialysis" a few
>> times in your conversations.
>
> Adam has kidney problems, and received a transplant in August.
Ah yes, I now remember that he mentioned something to that effect.
> I was aware of the problem through much earlier discussions, one item
> of which was his worrying about wireless phone coverage as he did NOT
> want to miss the call that a candidate donor had been found. I've
> got very different problems unrelated, but have enough hospital
> stays and doctor visits to be attuned to the problems.
Oh, I see. From the way you two were communicating, I was under the
impression that you two had actually met in real life and under a
shared burden.
Well, it all goes to show that people can become friends even over the
internet. ;-)
>> In my case, it's just a chronic affliction with kidney stones and all
>> the inconveniences and pain that this entails. Not quite
>> lifethreatening, but quite unpleasant nevertheless - I've got quite a
>> history of being carried out on a stretcher and into an ambulance due
>> to kidney crisises, and of having to ring a general physician in the
>> middle of the night to come over and give me a few shots[1].
>
> You _really_ have my sympathy - not that it would help much.
Well, it is surely appreciated. :-)
As the matter of fact, I am having the same problem again right now,
albeit that I'm not having any crisises at the moment - I did about a
month ago, and I had to call a doctor late at night twice to come and
give me shots; it also coincided with a gastro-intestinal infection, so
I couldn't even take any oral medication or painkillers, or even drink
water.
At this stage, I've got at least one or two in my kidneys and they are
mildly bugging me, but the most severe pain now comes from the ones
that have descended into my bladder and are scratching around there,
damaging the tissue. I think I've already gotten rid of one or two
earlier today, but there's obviously still one waiting.
And the painkillers I have to take for that - Voltaren, perhaps you've
heard of it? - are so heavy that they completely mess up your stomach
if you take them without a proper meal. Gives you a nasty acid reflux
and all that. :-/
>> And in addition to the aforementioned, I also happen to come from a
>> paramedical background, and as such I often notice some of the stuff
>> the two of you are talking about. ;-)
>
> I've no training, but like you notice some things.
Oh, I've had a wandering interest myself. ;-) Started off in the
direction of physics and biology, then took on the direction of social
sciences, then ended up in the paramedical sector and then - at a
fairly late age - ended up in computers, and partially back into
physics and general science. :p And all in between I've always been a
musician too, albeit that this has now largely subsided because I'm
into too many things and it's hard to devote my time to everything. ;-)
Adam
>> I think we got started on time zones by discussing how cron handled the
>> change to/from DST. I forgot there's another minor annoyance -- if I
>> reboot my system after midnight but before the cron jobs are scheduled,
>> it does all the cron jobs right away (since they hadn't been done yet
>> that day), and again when crontab says to. Not a big problem, it just
>> slows things down when it happens.
>
> It depends on the version of cron that you use. anacron operates
> differently from traditional cron.
I know; maybe one day I'll look for a solution or an alternative.
Meanwhile I've decided it's not a problem to worry about, as all my cron
jobs are designed so they won't cause any problems if they're run
multiple times.
Adam
Adam
>> if I reboot my system after midnight but before the cron jobs are
>> scheduled, it does all the cron jobs right away (since they hadn't
>> been done yet that day), and again when crontab says to.
>
> put a modification in the regular (Vixie) cron scripts that checks
> the anacron time hacks file to avoid the duplication. I vaguely recall
> that the 'fcron' and 'ucron' daemons combine the features of the two
> types of cron daemon in a single package, and have built in hoops to
> avoid the problem. Unfortunately, last I looked neither package is
> being maintained.
I've decided it's not worth doing anything about just yet, because all
my cron jobs are designed so there are no problems if they're run
multiple times. The only change in migrating to Mandriva 2010.0 was
that I added cron.yearly and its one trivial task:
echo "Happy New Year!" | mail -s "/etc/cron.yearly" root
[generic drugs]
>> Occasionally they fill it with a mixture of both.
>
> Never had that happen. The visible difference may scare the patient.
At first my pharmacy would write something like "one drug, two brands"
on the receipt. Now I'm familiar enough with the appearance of both
brands of generics to be used to finding a combination of both.
>> Well, most pharmacies seem to be adequate. When I moved four years
>> ago, I asked a friend of mine who was a pharmacist for advice, and
>> went with it. It's a local business that stocks almost everything
>> else too, hardware, kitchenware, toys, clothing, and so on.
>
> I don't know if it's because I'm not looking hard enough or what, but
> most of the pharmacies here are either major chains, or are part of a
> grocery chain. I can't think of any Mom/Pops around here.
http://www.molloypharmacy.com/ although the original owner sold it to
the head pharmacist decades ago. There was another independent around
here, but (predictably) it closed after a Rite-Aid opened a mile away.
All the rest are either chains, or occasionally independents located
within a supermarket.
>> They opened their first "branch" right in the hospital I get my
>> bloodwork done at, so now I get my local meds right there.
>
> That surprises me. Again, I haven't paid that close attention, but I
> don't recall seeing "outside" pharmacies within the hospital. The two
> that come to mind are operated by the hospital itself.
I think it's a very practical idea. Anyone who needs a prescription can
get it filled without even making a separate stop for it. Of course the
hospital has its own pharmacy, but that's not for the public -- it's
only for the inpatients.
>> The transplant meds have an incredible amount of paperwork involved,
>> sometimes triple billing, so the transplant center suggested a
>> pharmacy near them that's used to handling all of that and will ship,
>> so I now get my transplant meds through them.
>
> Wouldn't the mail-order pharmacy service associated with the insurance
> carrier be less of a hassle?
My Medicare Part D provider doesn't have its own pharmacy, mail order or
otherwise. They sent me a list of existing pharmacies that accept their
plan, which happen to be almost every pharmacy around.
>> They only made one trivial change when I was there, but then most of
>> the changes are made between visits, over the phone, from monitoring
>> the bloodwork
>
> I've no experience in this. All of the changes I've had have been
> made while I'm at the facility.
They don't really do much when I'm there in person. Most of what they
can tell is from the much more frequent bloodwork.
>> My previous apartment was in the City of Poughkeepsie
[snip]
>> next to each dumpster were two
>> recycling bins, one for paper, one for mixed glass, plastic and metal.
>
> Given the "green" movement, I'm surprised this isn't virtually
> universal.
I was surprised too, when I moved here. Since there are two shared
dumpsters for the whole complex, people toss in pretty much anything.
> Hmmm, I just looked at a beer can, and see it listing OK, MI, and "CA
> CRV" (I think that's the legally required wording) at ten cents, ME,
> VT, MA, NY, HI, IA and/or CT as five cents. A carbonated soft drink
I thought CRV was an amount that changed whenever Sacramento felt like
it. Every other state has a fixed price for the deposit. Somebody
could make some money by paying 6 or 7 cents a can/bottle where the
deposit is 5 cents, then bringing the empties to a state where the
deposit is ten cents.
> A carbonated soft drink can has near identical markings.
What is really confusing is what's subject to state sales tax around
here. "Juice drinks" are taxable but juice is not.
Adam
Adam
> For the most part, it's the insurance carriers and consumer advocate
> groups here, but the blank prescription forms (which are following
> some federal standard for layout and contents) have two places for
> the authorizing signature: One is for "fill as written", while the
> other is "substitutes OK" (which means the pharmacist can fill using
> the generic or identical product under another brand name). Most
> doctors will write a trade name of a drug, rather than the generic
> name - simply because the trade name is easier to remember.
I believe federal (U.S.) law will soon require all prescriptions to be
written on tamper-proof paper. My state has had this requirement for a
while already. The only option is a box at the bottom where the
prescriber can write "DAW" (dispense as written, meaning no generic).
If that's not written, state law requires it be filled generically if
possible.
> Pfizer has been advertising Lipitor quite heavily
That is one of the very few meds my plan wouldn't cover! I showed the
list to my doctor, and he prescribed something else that's covered and
works about as well.
> Adam has kidney problems, and received a transplant in August. I was
> aware of the problem through much earlier discussions, one item of
> which was his worrying about wireless phone coverage as he did NOT
> want to miss the call that a candidate donor had been found.
And as it turned out, when the call did come, I was on dialysis and my
wireless phone didn't ring. The transplant center called around and
eventually got word to me. BTW cell phones do work within the dialysis
center, so I don't know what happened but I don't worry about it.
Adam
Adam
> Over here, generic drugs are strongly promoted by the government. The
> main reason is of course financial.
As I mentioned elsewhere, in New York State (and probably elsewhere),
pharmacies are required to fill prescriptions using generics (if
available), unless the prescriber has explicitly stated otherwise.
> (Note: As I understand it, and if I may be so frank - well, I am and
> have always been /Frank/ :p - I have construed from your prior
> conversations that the both of you seem to have met and/or become
> friends through a common affliction of the kidneys - I believe to have
> noted the word "dialysis" a few times in your conversations.
Nope -- only place we've "met" has been in this newsgroup, because of
our common interest in Linux.
My kidney problems, to summarize briefly, are: chronic renal failure
diagnosed early 2005, consequence of long-term use of one medication
insufficiently monitored (IOW, iatrogenic or completely preventable).
Progressed to end-stage renal disease September 2006, started dialysis
(hemodialysis at center) then. Added to transplant waiting list July
2007. Kidney transplant August 2009. Anybody interested in discussing
any of this is welcome to contact me off-list; my email address is at
the bottom.
> I haven't exactly kept track of the evolution, but there was a proposal
> for a new law or decree over here in Belgium that would allow
> supermarkets to offer (non-prescription) medication as well, since this
> is already allowed in The Netherlands.
That's been allowed in the U.S. for as long as I can remember. Every
supermarket carries a lot of OTC (over-the-counter or non-prescription)
medications, often store brand as well as name brand. Even the little
convenience store on the corner carries a few of them.
> Another thing which has emerged here over the past decade or so and
> which is typically distributed over all municipalities/townships are
> so-called recycling stores. That's where you can drop off[1] old
> furniture, old but wearable clothes[2] and old but still functioning
> TVs, computers and stereos and stuff. This stuff then gets checked and
> if need be, repaired - if it's not too much of a cost - and then
> offered for re-sale.
There have been places like that in the U.S. for years -- best known are
the Salvation Army and Goodwill, which use the income for charitable
works. Most of the clothing I outgrew went to the Salvation Army.
> This is why cafés and restaurants will typically serve their sodas out
> of large glass bottles, or in small 25 cc bottles directly.
I /hope/ you meant 250 cc! In the U.S for some strange reason, small
cans and bottles of soda are measured in fluid ounces, but larger ones
(1L or more) in liters.
Adam
--
Email: adam seven zero seven AT verizon DOT net
Aragorn
identifying as Adam wrote...
> Aragorn wrote:
>
>> Over here, generic drugs are strongly promoted by the government.
>> The main reason is of course financial.
>
> As I mentioned elsewhere, in New York State (and probably elsewhere),
> pharmacies are required to fill prescriptions using generics (if
> available), unless the prescriber has explicitly stated otherwise.
Well yes, that's more or less how it works over here as well now, or at
least, at the level of prescriptions by a general physician. I don't
know how it works with regard to hospitalization and the drugs you get
administered there from their local pharmacy, though.
>> (Note: As I understand it, and if I may be so frank - well, I am and
>> have always been /Frank/ :p - I have construed from your prior
>> conversations that the both of you seem to have met and/or become
>> friends through a common affliction of the kidneys - I believe to
>> have noted the word "dialysis" a few times in your conversations.
>
> Nope -- only place we've "met" has been in this newsgroup, because of
> our common interest in Linux.
Oh okay, I gathered that much already from Moe's last reply. ;-) Still,
the two of you seem to have developed a very longstanding friendship,
which is kind of unusual to me, in the sense that I haven't really seen
this in any other newsgroup before, other than the Belgian politics
newsgroup that I frequented for a while during the course of last year.
I myself have developed a friendship with a few people I had come to
meet on Usenet as well, but our conversations would then be conducted
out of the newsgroups - primarily because one then also talks about
stuff which is less suitable for submitting to the Google archives. :p
Some of those people I've grown to be friends with were from this
newsgroup, actually, albeit that the private e-mail conversations have
now largely faded, and due to some issues with either their or my
internet service provider I've lost contact with a few others.
For instance, there was a guy here on A.O.L.M. who didn't post all too
often, and who turned out to be an author, and so he let me proof-read
his newest novel, and I discussed the plans for my own novel with him,
including a full description of the story, the characters, the events,
etc., but then my ISP screwed up during one of their updates and
without that I knew about it, one of the aliases to my e-mail account -
the address at which my friend would write to me - had become blocked
and remained that way for possibly many months before I accidentally
found out about it myself and then contacted my ISP about it. And
likewise, my friend was using a Yahoo e-mail address, which when I
finally attempted to contact him again appeared to no longer be valid.
I also had his ISP e-mail address but that too is no longer valid, and
I believe he was thinking of switching ISP at the time because he had
to move around a lot for work - he was a freelance software developer.
Of course, with most of my Usenet friends living on the opposite side of
the Big Pond, getting to actually meet them in person is not
evident. ;-) With regard to the Belgian political group, that was a
lot easier, of course, and I did get to meet a very sympathetic poster
whom I had become friends with - he's a hospital doctor but not too
active anymore as he's already way past retirement age - when I drove
to the coast last summer to revisit the place where I had had the best
times of my life, which coincidentally was very close to where he
lives. I had sent him an e-mail that I'd be there that day, and so we
met up for a couple of drinks. ;-)
I was almost going to say "for a couple of beers" but I normally don't
drink any alcohol, and especially not when I'm driving. I live at
about 110 km from the coast, which is - if there are no serious traffic
problems and you stick to the speed limits everywhere - about an hour
to an hour and ten minutes of driving.
It's quite a nice drive too, although the whole atmosphere of enjoying a
long drive has been completely ruined in the last decade and a half or
so by the enormous increase in the amounts of heavy trucks on our
roads. Over here, trucks are not allowed to go faster than 90 km/h on
the highways, which typically have three lanes in either direction.
Trucks may also not move onto the left lane.
However, the problem is this: most trucks have cruise control, and
although there is a 90 km/h speed limit, there is of course a
discrepancy between what one truck considers to be 90 km/h versus
another truck. And so, as the truck drivers just use cruise control,
if one truck does 0.5 km/h faster than the one before him, he'll
overtake that one, and so that means that you've got two trucks driving
side by side for several kilometers/miles, because of the second truck
overtaking the first truck which drives only a barely noticeable amount
slower. So imagine, with the speed limit for regular automobiles
limited to 120 km/h that you - driving on the right hand lane as a good
driver should and as the law states, or perhaps driving on the middle
lane - are suddenly facing a wall of two trucks side by side going 30
km/h slower than you. And these truck drivers solely rely on their
cruise control. They will *not* step on their brakes, and so they will
suddenly put on their turn signal and swing out to the middle lane just
to overtake the truck before them which is only marginally slower...
And then there's the whole SUV craze. People buy SUVs and other 4x4s
just to stroke their egos, because they never take those vehicles
off-road - with a dense road network like the one over here in Belgium,
there's barely even a need or a chance to go off-road - and then you
see the approaching you at high speed - way above the speed limit - in
your rear view mirror, and almost driving bumper to bumper at high
speed in the left lane, as if they're trying to tell you "Hey, get the
hell out of my way, loser". Almost everyone of those SUVs will drive
much faster than allowed, and if you see a giant like that racing
towards the rear end of your car in your rear view mirror, there's a
sense of terror washing over you.
It's pure arrogance and pure bullying, actually. And if you don't get
out of the way fast enough, you can expect anything from flashing
headlights and blowing horns all the way to bullying maneuvers - e.g. a
sudden swing to the right right( in front of your car as soon as
they've overtaken you - that could run you off the road and get you
killed. In other words, it's sheer road rage, mixed with ego
manifestation.
Yeah, driving sure isn't as pleasant anymore over here these days as it
used to be... It's a little better on the weekends due to the smaller
amount of trucks then, but you'll still get the speeding bullies in
their SUVs, and other maniacs, not to mention inexperienced drivers who
only come out *during* the weekend.
From what I've seen on TV, it's quite different in the US due to the
very wide and open landscape. Belgium is like one big rural area now,
and with an economically liberal government both at the national and
the European level, you can basically not touch upon economical
transport, which mainly occurs via trucks. Some stuff is transported
via trains and some other stuff via the rivers, but the bulk of it goes
via trucks, and most of the trucks you see on our highways are
international transports: Germans, Italians, Norwegians, Serbians,
Spanyards, you name it.
"Isn't the European Union great?" No, it isn't, Mister Politician, but
you don't care about our opinion anyway so why bother asking? <cynical
grin>
(Most of us Europeans have the impression that the European Union was
created just so as to provide aging politicians and bureaucrats with a
graceful ending to their career before they retire. I also don't know
how things are in the US, but over here, a politician who either
retires or resigns still gets a full salary paid out for another year,
of which half is taxfree, and all at the expense of the taxpayer. And
then they complain about the state of the economy. My heart bleeds for
them... Not! :p)
> My kidney problems, to summarize briefly, are: chronic renal failure
> diagnosed early 2005, consequence of long-term use of one medication
> insufficiently monitored (IOW, iatrogenic or completely preventable).
Well, I suppose that one could sue the treating physicians in such an
event, but at the same time, that won't repair the damage, of course,
and in the end, that's what counts. :-/
> Progressed to end-stage renal disease September 2006, started dialysis
> (hemodialysis at center) then. Added to transplant waiting list July
> 2007. Kidney transplant August 2009. Anybody interested in
> discussing any of this is welcome to contact me off-list; my email
> address is at the bottom.
Well, that will not really be necessary, but I do hope that everything
goes well now, in the sense that your body has accepted the transplant
and that the new kidney is functioning properly... :-/
>> I haven't exactly kept track of the evolution, but there was a
>> proposal for a new law or decree over here in Belgium that would
>> allow supermarkets to offer (non-prescription) medication as well,
>> since this is already allowed in The Netherlands.
>
> That's been allowed in the U.S. for as long as I can remember. Every
> supermarket carries a lot of OTC (over-the-counter or
> non-prescription) medications, often store brand as well as name
> brand. Even the little convenience store on the corner carries a few
> of them.
Well, I don't think that store-brand medication would be allowed over
here anytime soon, but the distribution of non-prescription drugs via
supermarkets is probably not too far off from being implemented at this
stage.
There are of course also shops that offer certain products which you
could normally buy at a pharmacy as well but which are not necessarily
drugs, e.g. certain care products, band-aids and stuff like that.
>> Another thing which has emerged here over the past decade or so and
>> which is typically distributed over all municipalities/townships are
>> so-called recycling stores. That's where you can drop off[1] old
>> furniture, old but wearable clothes[2] and old but still functioning
>> TVs, computers and stereos and stuff. This stuff then gets checked
>> and if need be, repaired - if it's not too much of a cost - and then
>> offered for re-sale.
>
> There have been places like that in the U.S. for years -- best known
> are the Salvation Army and Goodwill, which use the income for
> charitable works. Most of the clothing I outgrew went to the
> Salvation Army.
Oh yes, I hadn't mentioned that in my previous post, but indeed, charity
also regularly collects old clothing, although I must say that I
haven't heard or seen anything about that anymore since I've moved to
this apartment here, which is only about 500 meters away from where I
lived up until late 2001.
When I was still living in my old apartment, I regularly got a plastic
bag for old clothing dropped in my mailbox - like once a month - for a
specific charity. Sometimes it was for the homeless people, but quite
often it would also be for centers for disabled or intellectually
challenged people, where they would then recycle the textiles as part
of their ergotherapy, e.g. making stuffed dolls and all that.
>> This is why cafés and restaurants will typically serve their sodas
>> out of large glass bottles, or in small 25 cc bottles directly.
>
> I /hope/ you meant 250 cc!
No, 25 cc, a.k.a. 25 cl. Small Coke bottles for instance, only
containing enough fluid to fill a glass. It used to be so - and some
café's still do it this way - that if you simply order a glass of Coke,
then they'll pour you one from a 1 liter bottle, but if you ask for a
long drink - say rum & coke - they will pour you the rum, add the ice
and a straw, and serve you the coke in a 25 cc bottle so you can mix it
yourself.
Plastic Coke bottles over here which you can buy at the supermarket come
in three variants: 0.5 liter, 1.5 liter and 2.0 liter. On occasion you
will also find smaller 33 cc plastic bottles, but they are fatter and
lower in shape. 33 cc is also the standard content over here for
drinks in cans, although there are a few exceptions, with very narrow
25 cc cans, e.g. Redbull and certain canned fruit juices.
> In the U.S for some strange reason, small cans and bottles of soda are
> measured in fluid ounces, but larger ones (1L or more) in liters.
Well, with all due respect for the US and the UK, but you guys really
ought to move over to the metric system. :p It just makes much more
sense than the imperial system, in my humble opinion, and likewise for
a 24-hour time index than a 12-hour AM/PM time index. ;-) (There's a
reason why all militaries of the world use a 24-hour time index. :p)
Moe Trin
<hg3sgu$1lj$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Aragorn wrote:
>Moe Trin wrote...
>> Yeah, I've never figured out how to install/configure NTP on a wife,
>> and that's as far as I'm going to say about that!
>At least you came up with the idea for that. :p I just kept looking
>for the correct key combination to make her reboot. :p
Check /etc/inittab - it may have clues. But be VERY VERY Careful!
>>> Over here, generic drugs are strongly promoted by the government.
>>> The main reason is of course financial.
>> For the most part, it's the insurance carriers and consumer
>> advocate groups here, [...] Most doctors will write a trade name
>> of a drug, rather than the generic name - simply because the trade
>> name is easier to remember.
>Well, I guess it's exactly the other way around over here then, i.e.
>the health funds are putting pressure on their political affiliates
>to lower the costs of social security and health care all the time,
>and so pushing the general physicians to prescribe generic drugs
>instead of brandname drugs is part of that picture.
I'm only seeing a few doctors which doesn't make for good statistical
evidence, but it appears common that the normal situation is to fill
out the prescription for a brand name, but to allow substitution of
the generic or identical other brand as possible. The pharmacies are
used to this, and fill with a generic if possible. They will often
ask the customer if they have a preference.
I get semi-regular mail from my health insurance carrier telling me
that I can save hundreds of dollars a year by having my doctor
prescribe generics. I call their customer service line, and suggest
they could save thousands of dollars a month if they fixed their
software and noted that they were only paying generic prices for the
drugs and therefore stop wasting money and time by mailing these
useless notices. It hasn't penetrated their solid stone heads yet,
but I have faith.
>That's what you get when the government favors the industry more than
>the customers, and this is actually more of a problem at the European
>Parliament level than at the national level - not that our own idio...
>I mean, politicians are off the hook. ;-)
They are politicians - why are you expecting them to behave any other
way?
>> You may be aware that the US legislative branch is currently hacking
>> through a major set of changes to health insurance for the public.
>Yes, I am aware of all the debating going on, but the status of that
>whole thing is now very unclear to me
Repeat after me: "politicians"
>kind of like not being able to see the forest through the threes -
>and to tell you the truth, I haven't been watching any TV at all in
>maybe over six months,
I don't think you are missing much
>so my news all comes from occasional things I come across on the
>internet, e.g. Google News.
The news tends to be colo[u]red by the source and delivery agent. It
helps to be able to get your news from more than one source, so that
the slant taken by each can be observed.
>> Some day, we may have a ``new'' plan.
>"Some day" seems like a very good estimate. :p
Before the next national election - ``this time, for sure''.
>> Right now, we run the gamut of no coverage to everything is
>> included - and seemingly every step in between.
>Yeah, that's probably why it's so confusing. If even you guys can't
>figure it out, then we "East of the pond"-ers sure won't figure it
>out either. ;-)
It's called 'choice' and it can be very confusing. We have no national
health care, so everyone is forced to choose. In the latter have of the
last century, many received insurance coverage as part of their job,
with the employer picking up the tab. Those that didn't have this were
able to afford buying insurance coverage on their own. But the costs
have been increasing over the years. Part of this is the extra tools
that are available to the trade - CAT or PET scans, diagnostic tests,
and all of the spiffy new hardware (apparently LASERs can be used to
cure everything except the common cold). When all was said and done,
my last hospital stay listed out at around US$40000 _a_day_ (although
as is common, the insurance company and medical providers have
agreements/contracts such that they receive discounts knocking the
actual bill down to perhaps a third of that). The husband of a friend
of my wife was riding an off-road vehicle, and for unknown reason the
gas tank exploded, resulting in major burns over ~75% of his body. He
was taken to a burn center, where he... existed[1]... for six months
before succumbing to complications. The hospital bill ALONE was over
six million dollars, never mind the doctor bills. Are the doctors
or hospital going to see any of that paid? Hah! His life insurance
policy paid one million, and the widow has zero chance of paying more
than a few thousand of the rest. The hospitals aren't going broke
(neither are the insurance companies), but they're also not carting
away profits by the truckload.
>> I've got very different problems unrelated, but have enough hospital
>> stays and doctor visits to be attuned to the problems.
>Oh, I see. From the way you two were communicating, I was under the
>impression that you two had actually met in real life and under a
>shared burden.
Pure and simple friendship.
>Well, it all goes to show that people can become friends even over
>the internet. ;-)
I don't find it unusual at all.
>> You _really_ have my sympathy - not that it would help much.
>Well, it is surely appreciated. :-)
Another example. Has your doctor tried any medication to reduce
the tendency of forming stones in the first place?
>And the painkillers I have to take for that - Voltaren, perhaps you've
>heard of it?
diclofenac sodium - but it's not in my formulary.
>are so heavy that they completely mess up your stomach if you take
>them without a proper meal. Gives you a nasty acid reflux and all
>that. :-/
The Physicians' Desk Reference includes a "Special Warning about this
medication" warning about peptic ulcers and internal bleeding.
Old guy
[1] He never regained consciousness, so I can't call it "living". They
had hopes of effecting a recovery, but the odds were poor.
Moe Trin
>Moe Trin wrote:
>> blank prescription forms (which are following some federal standard
>> for layout and contents) have two places for the authorizing
>> signature: One is for "fill as written", while the other is
>> "substitutes OK" (which means the pharmacist can fill using the
>> generic or identical product under another brand name). Most
>> doctors will write a trade name of a drug, rather than the generic
>> name - simply because the trade name is easier to remember.
>I believe federal (U.S.) law will soon require all prescriptions to be
>written on tamper-proof paper. My state has had this requirement for a
while already.
The scripts I've received for the past - maybe five years - have been
on such paper, and even the computer printed versions that are becoming
common seem to be on something similar.
>The only option is a box at the bottom where the prescriber can write
>"DAW" (dispense as written, meaning no generic). If that's not
>written, state law requires it be filled generically if possible.
Mentioned above - we have two places for the authorizing signature.
We don't have that state law regarding generics (how the hell did that
get through the legislature without massive counter attacks by the
drug industry?), but I don't think I've received a prescription in
several years that wasn't allowing generics, and the pharmacies are
happy to fill it that way.
> Pfizer has been advertising Lipitor quite heavily
>That is one of the very few meds my plan wouldn't cover! I showed
>the list to my doctor, and he prescribed something else that's
>covered and works about as well.
The PDR lists over a dozen alternatives. Lipitor will be loosing it's
patent protection in June 2011, but it has several 'Special Warnings"
in the PDR, and I doubt your endocrinologist would approve.
>> I was aware of the problem through much earlier discussions, one
>> item of which was his worrying about wireless phone coverage as he
>> did NOT want to miss the call that a candidate donor had been found.
>And as it turned out, when the call did come, I was on dialysis and my
>wireless phone didn't ring.
So much for all of our concerns ;-)
>The transplant center called around and eventually got word to me.
Natalie Cole (daughter of Nat King Cole) was in a hospital in Tarzana
watching her cousin/adopted sister die of lung cancer - her cell kept
ringing, but she was to distraught to answer it. Her son who was with
her finally got a call on his cell... from LAX Cedar Sinai - they had
a kidney that might be a match for Natalie. [AARP Magazine, Nov/Dec
2009 pg 48].
>BTW cell phones do work within the dialysis center, so I don't know
>what happened but I don't worry about it.
The guy in the next room had a jammer. Quite happy that the word did
get through.
Old guy
Moe Trin
<hg3vcd$e4i$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Adam wrote:
>Moe Trin wrote:
>> That's the asynchronous cron daemon complication. I've seen people
>> put a modification in the regular (Vixie) cron scripts that checks
>> the anacron time hacks file to avoid the duplication.
>I've decided it's not worth doing anything about just yet, because
>all my cron jobs are designed so there are no problems if they're
>run multiple times.
I'd hate to say how many cron jobs my systems have. About half of
them are inhaling data off various sites on the Internet at various
times of the day/night.
[generic drugs]
>>> Occasionally they fill it with a mixture of both.
>> Never had that happen. The visible difference may scare the patient.
>At first my pharmacy would write something like "one drug, two brands"
>on the receipt. Now I'm familiar enough with the appearance of both
>brands of generics to be used to finding a combination of both.
I asked a pharmacist about this, and while there is no law about it,
most schools teach (and most company policies require) not mixing.
>http://www.molloypharmacy.com/ although the original owner sold it
>to the head pharmacist decades ago. There was another independent
>around here, but (predictably) it closed after a Rite-Aid opened a
>mile away.
I'd guess that's what has happened in many places. We're not
saturated with pharmacies, but a five mile radius and I can't think
of any non-chains.
>All the rest are either chains, or occasionally independents
>located within a supermarket.
The supermarkets, and large chain stores like Target an Walmart
and so on. They all seem to be part of the chain rather than an
independent/contractor.
>I think it's a very practical idea. Anyone who needs a prescription
>can get it filled without even making a separate stop for it. Of
>course the hospital has its own pharmacy, but that's not for the
>public -- it's only for the inpatients.
The two that I can think of in hospitals are open to the general
public, but are part of the hospital itself (but separate from the
inpatient pharmacy). I know what you are saying about convenience,
and note that most of the medical colonies (for lack of a better word)
have a pharmacy and vampire service, and about half also have a
radiology service for minimalist X-rays and the like.
>> Wouldn't the mail-order pharmacy service associated with the
>> insurance carrier be less of a hassle?
>My Medicare Part D provider doesn't have its own pharmacy, mail
>order or otherwise. They sent me a list of existing pharmacies that
>accept their plan, which happen to be almost every pharmacy around.
The wife and I have had 6-7 providers in the past 14 years, and each
one has an associated mail-order pharmacy in addition to being
accepted by most of the chains. At least at this years plan, the
mail-order service is better priced for non-generics, and at the
very least competitive for the rest.
>I was surprised too, when I moved here. Since there are two shared
>dumpsters for the whole complex, people toss in pretty much anything.
It's been thirty years since I lived in a complex, but the larger
ones I've seen locally have separate recycling bins (here in Arizona,
everything recyclable goes in one bin, while in the Bay area it was
segregated to clear/colored glass, metals, paper/cardboard). How
well they residents follow through is another guess entirely.
>I thought CRV was an amount that changed whenever Sacramento felt
>like it.
I don't think so - maybe Bobbie can comment.
>Every other state has a fixed price for the deposit. Somebody
>could make some money by paying 6 or 7 cents a can/bottle where the
>deposit is 5 cents, then bringing the empties to a state where the
>deposit is ten cents.
No, the various states are wise to that trick, and the transportation
costs would eat you alive.
>What is really confusing is what's subject to state sales tax around
>here. "Juice drinks" are taxable but juice is not.
What little I know about sales taxes are limited to Arizona and
California (and each state varies quite extensively - ammunition is
not taxable in AK, because residents take game for food), but the
juice verses juice drinks may be the addition of a sweetener. As
mentioned, it is a huge mess of red tape - food isn't taxable unless
it's served warm - food to go verses food served on premises, even
the presence/absence of seating may affect taxability. Is firewood
taxable? ``that depends''.
Old guy
Aragorn
identifying as Moe Trin wrote...
> On Mon, 14 Dec 2009, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandriva, in
> article <hg3sgu$1lj$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Aragorn wrote:
>
>> Moe Trin wrote...
>
>>> Yeah, I've never figured out how to install/configure NTP on a wife,
>>> and that's as far as I'm going to say about that!
>
>> At least you came up with the idea for that. :p I just kept looking
>> for the correct key combination to make her reboot. :p
>
> Check /etc/inittab - it may have clues. But be VERY VERY Careful!
# Trap CTRL-ALT-DELETE
ca::ctrlaltdel:/bin/echo "No, you're not getting away with that!"
# Single user mode
~~:S:wait:/bin/echo "Not now, I have a headache!"
Hmm... <frown> Okay, let's try this then...
$ man wife
This man page is a stub. The complete man page for wife
is 2.4 GB in .bz2 format with over 45'000'000 pages,
so we as distribution vendors feel it is inappropriate to
install this on your hard disk by default without your
explicit consent. You can download this extensive man page
yourself from The Female Documentation Project yourself at
http://www.tfdp.org/desperateusers/wife.html
Meanwhile, please also consult the following man pages:
girlfriend(8) fiancée(5) weddingnight(2) honymoondestinations(10)
motherinlaw(7) fatherinlaw(7) annualsalary(4) takingouttrash(3)
shoppingmalls(4) divorce(3) divorceattorneys(2) ex-girlfriends(20)
thingsnottosaytoawoman-like-ever(109) bankaccount(3) lawnmowing(2)
and playingpoolwithbuddies(5)
Further advice can be found at:
/usr/share/doc/HowTo/HTML/StayingSingleHOWTO.html
This documentation was released under the Duped Idiots License (DPL).
We encourage you to duplicate and redistribute this documentation
to as many of your male friends as possible.
:q
Hmm... :p
$ man bureaucrats
This man page is still under development due to the
ever-changing specifications, which makes it very hard to
compile a comprehensible manual.
:q
:p
>> That's what you get when the government favors the industry more than
>> the customers, and this is actually more of a problem at the European
>> Parliament level than at the national level - not that our own
>> idio... I mean, politicians are off the hook. ;-)
>
> They are politicians - why are you expecting them to behave any other
> way?
Well, to be honest, for a while I still had some faith in some
politicians, which is why, earlier this year, I decided to join the SLP
(Social-Liberal Party) over here. Contrary to what the name might
suggest for American readers, this is not a socialist party but a
rather new approach.
Unfortunately however, I have come to realize quite recently that the
party suffers from the same afflictions as all the others, i.e. it is a
traditional party that proposes a strong and elaborate government and
that compromises on its ideals. At present, they are even
contemplating a merger, or rather, an assimilation by the green party.
I find that, in the last couple of months, my political ideas have
evolved and shifted a lot. I still see myself as leftwinged, in the
sense that I have progressive ideas and that I propose an egalitarian,
multicultural society, but I have evolved beyond the traditional system
of a traditional government, either centralized or distributed. I find
myself more attracted to the holographic society model, in which there
are no castes and in which every citizen *is* the government. Yet I
also realize that in these times, this is an impossible goal to
achieve, with the current levels of ethics, a financial-economical
system that is worshiped as if it were a deity, and the current state
of education of the global population.
In other words, my political views are utopian, and as such - with the
addition of a few other, more actual considerations, I have decided to
distance myself from the SLP again.
I know I'm naive with regard to my faith in people, but I have finally
come to realize - yes, finally! - that those who go into politics are
never there to better the world, but only so as to serve their egos.
Well, for a large part I knew that, of course, but I still believed
there were exceptions to the rule.
I realize now that if any change for the better is to come, then it'll
have to come from a grassroots movement. After all, governments are
all about the few controlling the many, but if the many stand up and
refuse to comply, then the governments (or whatever other power
structures) are without power. They can't possibly lock up the
population of an entire country for "civil disobedience".
Another thing that has changed recently is that I've come to discover
that nothing is ever what it seems. Both the politicians and the media
are constantly and deliberately putting a spin on things, not telling
what needs to be told, and simply trying to manipulate the "sheeple".
Global warming is such a thing. I know that I have in the past reacted
strongly on the topics of global warming and the environment, and I
still do feel that we should move towards clean and renewable energy
sources, but it has in the meantime leaked out that the whole global
warming thing is a deliberate hype and that the figures were falsified
so as to be able to cap, tax and trade carbondioxide emissions.
Earth is indeed warming up, but by far not at the pace that those idiots
are trying to convince us of - in fact, earth has been cooling down
again since 1998! - and on top of that, the cause is not human activity
but that bright, orange thing up there in the sky. All planets of our
solar system, and even the moons of all those planets, are warming up.
It's all the result of a massive object in space of which the existence
has only recently and carefully been confirmed by Australian
astronomers - NASA has known about it for a long time already but has
kept a lid on it so as not to avoid a panic - and of which it is
believed to be a brown dwarf, on a very wide and elongated elliptical
orbit around our sun, on a slanted plane with regard to the orbit of
all other planets.
At present, this object is approaching its perihelion and due to a
convergence - a lining up of all the planets just when this object is
also closest to the sun and intersecting with the plane of rotation of
the other planets - its gravitational effects on the sun are generating
more solar flares.
The reason why NASA has kept a lid on it so far is that some scientists
believe that when the convergence happens, the sun might shed off its
corona and the resulting EMP - which could last for days and possibly
weeks - would totally knock out all power and communication across the
globe, resulting in a major panic and chaos.
Yet, that is a worst case scenario. It need not go down that way. All
we know so far is that it's periodic - I think the object's orbit takes
about 6000 years - and as such, that it has happened before.
>>> You may be aware that the US legislative branch is currently hacking
>>> through a major set of changes to health insurance for the public.
>
>> Yes, I am aware of all the debating going on, but the status of that
>> whole thing is now very unclear to me
>
> Repeat after me: "politicians"
Yeah, I've finally awoken to that now... :-/
>> kind of like not being able to see the forest through the threes -
>> and to tell you the truth, I haven't been watching any TV at all in
>> maybe over six months,
>
> I don't think you are missing much
At present, no. My not having watched the TV at all is actually the
result of my digital decoder breaking down and I just haven't bothered
to buy another one yet. I still have analog cable TV, but then I don't
have any of the movie channels. The TV series which I find most
interesting - e.g. I'm a big fan of the "Lost" series - are at a halt
right now anyway, but they're scheduled to start again early in 2010,
so I suppose I should be another decoder soon. Either way I'm still
paying for those subscription channels, so I'm actually wasting money
right now.
Still, such series and a few movies are all that I watch. I'm totally
disgusted by what I got to see on the news every day, and I'm not just
talking of the events and stupidities at the (national and
international) political levels, but also by the sheer viewer
manipulation through spin and political correctness, which isn't *real*
political correctness - i.e. showing respect - but rather thought
police and indoctrination. And that's just the public television
network, which doesn't show (too many) commercial ads. I'm not even
going to get started on commercial networks.
>> so my news all comes from occasional things I come across on the
>> internet, e.g. Google News.
>
> The news tends to be colo[u]red by the source and delivery agent. It
> helps to be able to get your news from more than one source, so that
> the slant taken by each can be observed.
I absolutely agree on that, although I would even go further than that
and say that the truth is in what they're *not* telling you, rather
than in what they *are* telling you.
>>> Some day, we may have a ``new'' plan.
>
>> "Some day" seems like a very good estimate. :p
>
> Before the next national election - ``this time, for sure''.
Well, I don't know whether you are familiar with David Icke - he's
actually on my Facebook friends list. In his presentations, he has
this one slide of a street protest somewhere - I think it was in the
UK - where a guy is carrying a sign that has the faces of Bush and
Blair on it, reading "Same shit, different asshole". But the same is
true for Bush versus Obama, and just about every other political
dichotomy in the Western world.
All politicians in the major nations of the Western world - and likewise
for Russia, China or whatever other industrialized nation - are funded
and controlled by the same group of people. They fund both the left
and the right, and everything in between. Ultimately, it's those
people who are in control, and whether the elected president or prime
minister or party is leftwinged or rightwinged doesn't matter, because
they're just different roads towards the same objective, and the only
differences lie[1] in the steps taken by the elected administration to
get there.
[1] A word that, conveniently in this context, has more than one
meaning... <grin>
>>> Right now, we run the gamut of no coverage to everything is
>>> included - and seemingly every step in between.
>
>> Yeah, that's probably why it's so confusing. If even you guys can't
>> figure it out, then we "East of the pond"-ers sure won't figure it
>> out either. ;-)
>
> It's called 'choice' and it can be very confusing. We have no
> national health care, so everyone is forced to choose.
Well, that is more or less what it's like here, as I've explained in my
previous reply. Non-selfemployed people must choose a health fund, and
these health funds are partially sponsored by the membership fees and
partly by the government's social security system. Health /insurance/
on the other hand is optional. Social security in turn is funded by
contributions from employers and a (fairly large) percentage of the
employee's wages, which is deducted automatically before the wages are
deposited to your account.
In some conditions, the social security contributions can be up to 40%
of your wages. My first job, right after I had ended my military draft,
was as an intern labor worker at the General Motors plant in Antwerp,
in the assembly line. I have always loved cars, and coming from a
working class family, my parents felt that "any job is a job".
GM paid quite well in those days - even interns got the full pay if they
worked in the assembly line - and back then it was a two-shift thing,
so you got additional fees for working in shifts, plus a great deal of
benefits on car parts and if you were to buy a car there yourself -
which I did, for my first car. On top of that, if you as an employee
bought a car there - and you were also entitled to do that for a family
member, but you could only order one car a year via the factory - then
the car would be marked "special" and would be followed up closely all
along its assembly, from the spraypaint cabin all the way until it left
the plant, and everyone would do their very best at giving it "that
little extra", e.g. a very thick rubber coating all across the bottom
of the chassis to protect against stones and rust, whereas this would
normally only be applied inside the wheel compartments and on the
sidestrips of the chassis bottom.
Labor workers are paid per hour over here but salaries are generally
expressed in how much you make a month, rather than a year, and back
then, as a 21-year old and on my first job - we're talking 1984-1985
here - I had a gross salary of - converted to Euros, because we didn't
have the Euro yet back then - some 1312 Euro per month, varying of
course by the amount of workdays per month, and I remember that during
that one year of internship, my wages went up at least three times.
Now, those 1300+ Euro per month was my gross monthly income, but only
some 600-625 Euro of that actually made it into my bank account every
month, because I was still living at my parents' place and so my income
was considered an extra income for my dad.
Of course, after that one year - and by that time, I had already moved
out - I got a tax refund of some 1200 Euro because I had paid too much
on social security contributions off my salary in the year before.
> In the latter have of the last century, many received insurance
> coverage as part of their job, with the employer picking up the tab.
> Those that didn't have this were able to afford buying insurance
> coverage on their own. But the costs have been increasing over the
> years. Part of this is the extra tools that are available to the
> trade - CAT or PET scans, diagnostic tests, and all of the spiffy new
> hardware (apparently LASERs can be used to cure everything except the
> common cold).
Oh yeah... I live about a physiotherapy and their sign outside says
that they offer laser therapy as well, so I keep on asking myself what
the hell they're using that for. :p
> When all was said and done, my last hospital stay listed out at around
> US$40000 _a_day_ [...
Holy cow!
> ...] (although as is common, the insurance company and medical
> providers have agreements/contracts such that they receive discounts
> knocking the actual bill down to perhaps a third of that). The
> husband of a friend of my wife was riding an off-road vehicle, and for
> unknown reason the gas tank exploded, resulting in major burns over
> ~75% of his body. He was taken to a burn center, where he...
> existed[1]... for six months before succumbing to complications. The
> hospital bill ALONE was over six million dollars, [...]
A whole farm of holy cows! Six million dollars??? Sheesh... :-/
>> Well, it all goes to show that people can become friends even over
>> the internet. ;-)
>
> I don't find it unusual at all.
Not unusual whereas the internet is concerned, no - I have more friends
over the internet than I do in real life, and my very best and closest
friends are not even from Europe. ;-)
Yet, it's a bit uncommon to see this in GNU/Linux newsgroups, though. I
suppose it's because of the technical nature of the topic. ;-)
>>> You _really_ have my sympathy - not that it would help much.
>
>> Well, it is surely appreciated. :-)
>
> Another example. Has your doctor tried any medication to reduce
> the tendency of forming stones in the first place?
Well, it's somewhat of a puzzling thing. I used to get the impression -
especially with my own paramedical background knowledge - that what
caused stones to form in my kidneys was vitamin C - it always happened
when I took vitamin C tablets to boost my immunity system when I felt a
flu coming up, and by drinking rather acidic beverages, e.g. anything
with lemon juice in it.
Like most autistic people, I have loads of allergies, and I have
discussed this kidneystone problem once "off the record" with a
urologist, and he stated that it must be a chemical reaction in my
kidneys to acids, causing sediment to occur, and this sediment then
clogs together and forms stones.
Yet, while this may be what's going on in my body, I am also having the
impression that prolonged or intense emotional stress leads me to
generate kidneystones.
It's a bit of a mystery, though, but I suppose the allergic reaction
thing might be a catalyst in it all. I must honestly admit that I
don't have a healthy diet either, but it's not like I really do eat
loads of citrus fruits.
In the end, I've just stopped wondering about the cause and accepted
that I am chronically afflicted with this thing. I do drink a lot - in
the sense of ingesting fluids, not in the sense of alcohol ;-) - so as
to regularly flush my kidneys, but at least once or twice a year I'm
still developing kidney stones, and when I do, it can take anything
from two weeks to three months before they've all exited my body. And
by the time that has happened, I'm probably already developing new
ones.
With regard to any doctors - both in terms of my general physicians and
in terms of hospital doctors - I must however say that none of them has
ever really investigated the cause. All they do is tell me to drink
loads of water, but that's about it.
>> And the painkillers I have to take for that - Voltaren, perhaps
>> you've heard of it? - are so heavy that they completely mess up your
>> stomach if you take them without a proper meal. Gives you a nasty
>> acid reflux and all that. :-/
>
> The Physicians' Desk Reference includes a "Special Warning about this
> medication" warning about peptic ulcers and internal bleeding.
Oh yeah, and I have a very sensitive stomach as well. I've already had
quite a few ulcers in my time... :-/
Moe Trin
<hg7u4d$59e$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Aragorn wrote:
>Moe Trin wrote...
>> Check /etc/inittab - it may have clues. But be VERY VERY Careful!
># Trap CTRL-ALT-DELETE
>ca::ctrlaltdel:/bin/echo "No, you're not getting away with that!"
># Single user mode
>~~:S:wait:/bin/echo "Not now, I have a headache!"
>
>Hmm... <frown> Okay, let's try this then...
>
>$ man wife
[ibuprofin ~]$ core dump
[ibuprofin ~]$
> /usr/share/doc/HowTo/HTML/StayingSingleHOWTO.html
Many years (several decades) to late for me.
>Unfortunately however, I have come to realize quite recently that the
>party suffers from the same afflictions as all the others, i.e. it is
>a traditional party that proposes
programs to keep the party in power. People keep forgetting that the
sole purpose most politicians have in life it to feather their own
nest, and get re-elected.
>>> Yes, I am aware of all the debating going on, but the status of
>>> that whole thing is now very unclear to me
>>
>> Repeat after me: "politicians"
>Yeah, I've finally awoken to that now... :-/
Cynical? Moi?
>> (apparently LASERs can be used to cure everything except the common
>> cold).
>Oh yeah... I live about a physiotherapy and their sign outside says
>that they offer laser therapy as well, so I keep on asking myself
>what the hell they're using that for. :p
I haven't heard the ads lately, but there was one for laser therapy
"to zap gum disease", and another to relieve back pain.
>> When all was said and done, my last hospital stay listed out at
>> around US$40000 _a_day_ [...
>Holy cow!
You notice that? Three surgeons, two CAT scan and MRIs, no idea how
long I was in surgery, but was in Intensive Care for 30 hours before
being released to a less rigorous care for another two days and then
released to home care for two weeks (which was billed separately).
>> He was taken to a burn center, where he... existed[1]... for six
>> months before succumbing to complications. The hospital bill ALONE
>> was over six million dollars, [...]
>A whole farm of holy cows! Six million dollars??? Sheesh... :-/
If you do the math, that's "only" $33.3K/day, and a burn care unit
is not the cheapest place in town, _especially_ when we're talking
about patients in that bad condition (generally unconscious 24/7).
You may be starting to understand some of the reason for our high
health care insurance costs. You've got "room and board" to pay,
the costs of having nurses available 24/7 (even if they are watching
over just two patients as in intensive care, or ten as in regular
floor duty), the doctors popping in regularly, the cost of those
electronic monitoring devices and so on. Labor costs aren't cheap
and there is a pretty large "tail" (of support) behind the care
givers. On top of that, you've got the insurance costs of the
hospital and care-givers for mal-practice ("my surgery didn't turn
out perfect - I'll sue"), and so on. I'm not making excuses for
the system (my sister is a retired RN who was a floor nurse), but am
just saying "that's the way it is".
>> Has your doctor tried any medication to reduce the tendency of
>> forming stones in the first place?
>I used to get the impression - especially with my own paramedical
>background knowledge - that what caused stones to form in my kidneys
>was vitamin C - it always happened when I took vitamin C tablets to
>boost my immunity system when I felt a flu coming up, and by drinking
>rather acidic beverages, e.g. anything with lemon juice in it.
I don't believe that's the best thing you could be doing.
>With regard to any doctors - both in terms of my general physicians
>and in terms of hospital doctors - I must however say that none of
>them has ever really investigated the cause. All they do is tell me
>to drink loads of water, but that's about it.
<BOGGLE!>
As mentioned, I'm not a doctor, yada, yada, yada - but I would have
expected them to do some simple "chemical" diagnostics. The PDR
mentions two generic drugs commonly used in this situation (but
medications available or approved for certain uses in one country may
not be so in another).
Old guy
Adam
>> As I mentioned elsewhere, in New York State (and probably elsewhere),
>> pharmacies are required to fill prescriptions using generics (if
>> available), unless the prescriber has explicitly stated otherwise.
>
> Well yes, that's more or less how it works over here as well now, or at
> least, at the level of prescriptions by a general physician. I don't
> know how it works with regard to hospitalization and the drugs you get
> administered there from their local pharmacy, though.
I *think* the last time I was in the hospital, some of the meds they
gave me there were generics.
>> only place we've "met" has been in this newsgroup, because of
>> our common interest in Linux.
>
> Oh okay, I gathered that much already from Moe's last reply. ;-) Still,
> the two of you seem to have developed a very longstanding friendship,
[snip]
> I myself have developed a friendship with a few people I had come to
> meet on Usenet as well, but our conversations would then be conducted
> out of the newsgroups - primarily because one then also talks about
> stuff which is less suitable for submitting to the Google archives. :p
I would've moved the non-Linux stuff off the newsgroup if possible.
Instead, I'm trying to keep Linux and non-Linux things in separate
threads. I /want/ the Linux stuff public and archived, because I know
that for nearly every question asked by anybody, there are several
people who had, or will have, the same question. The other stuff, well,
there is a limit as to how personal I'll get in a public newsgroup, and
it varies between newsgroups. What I think we often forget is that most
of the people in any NG have other interests besides the group's topic.
Of course, there are probably other NGs for those interests! :-)
> Of course, with most of my Usenet friends living on the opposite side of
> the Big Pond, getting to actually meet them in person is not
> evident. ;-)
I'm already in the USA, but remember this country is almost 5000 km
across. That's three days driving at 24 hours/day!
> I live at about 110 km from the coast
I forget -- what large city are you nearest to?
> It's quite a nice drive too, although the whole atmosphere of enjoying a
> long drive has been completely ruined in the last decade and a half or
> so by the enormous increase in the amounts of heavy trucks on our
> roads.
I've heard about Belgian drivers! I know that for a long time, the
country didn't even require drivers' licenses. ;-)
> with the speed limit for regular automobiles limited to 120 km/h
Maximum here is now 65 mph (104 km/h) and that's only on the largest
highways. Of course, any driver who sticks to the speed limit gets
passed by almost everyone on a multilane highway.
> From what I've seen on TV, it's quite different in the US due to the
> very wide and open landscape.
Depends on where you are -- it's more like that out west. Westerners
are amazed at how closely together the east coast cities are, but then
those were created back when travel was a lot slower.
What was really interesting was the time I drove (okay, mostly rode)
cross-country, and got to see the landscape change gradually over the
3000 miles. And the distance between places. I remember being in what
seemed like the middle of nowhere -- no houses, no buildings of any kind
-- then half an hour later we were in downtown Amarillo, Texas, then a
half-hour after that we were back in the middle of nowhere again.
> Well, I don't think that store-brand medication would be allowed over
> here anytime soon, but the distribution of non-prescription drugs via
> supermarkets is probably not too far off from being implemented at this
> stage.
What's sort of interesting is that liquor is regulated at the state
level, so in some states it can only be sold at state-run liquor stores,
while in other states anything can be sold in the supermarket. My state
is in-between -- anything stronger than beer can only be sold by a
(privately owned) liquor store.
>>> This is why cafés and restaurants will typically serve their sodas
>>> out of large glass bottles, or in small 25 cc bottles directly.
>>
>> I /hope/ you meant 250 cc!
>
> No, 25 cc, a.k.a. 25 cl. Small Coke bottles for instance, only
> containing enough fluid to fill a glass.
I thought 1 cc was 1 ml. 25 cc looks like just enough to cover the
bottom of the glass! (That's less than 1/8 cup US measure, I think.)
The smallest cans/botles of soda I've seen (6 fl oz) are about 175 ml.
> Well, with all due respect for the US and the UK, but you guys really
> ought to move over to the metric system. :p
The UK is more converted to it than the US. The metric system makes
more sense to me too, but there was a big attempt to convert the country
in the 1970s and it failed almost completely. The medical field uses
the metric system, except for temperatures, which always seem to be
Fahrenheit (normal=98.6 degrees).
And I'm sure you know about France's attempt to convert dates and times
to a decimal system, and how that didn't succeed either.
Adam
Adam
>> I believe federal (U.S.) law will soon require all prescriptions to be
>> written on tamper-proof paper.
>
> on such paper, and even the computer printed versions that are becoming
> common seem to be on something similar.
I don't think I've seen a computer-printed prescription yet.
> Natalie Cole (daughter of Nat King Cole) was in a hospital in Tarzana
> watching her cousin/adopted sister die of lung cancer - her cell kept
> ringing, but she was to distraught to answer it. Her son who was with
> her finally got a call on his cell... from LAX Cedar Sinai - they had
> a kidney that might be a match for Natalie. [AARP Magazine, Nov/Dec
> 2009 pg 48].
Pre-transplant, I rushed to answer every phone call, POTS or cell,
because it could be _the_ call. Now I can go back to screening home
calls when I feel like it again. I'm still carrying my cell phone
everywhere with me, though, and making sure it stays charged.
Adam
Adam
[independent pharmacies]
>> All the rest are either chains, or occasionally independents
>> located within a supermarket.
>
> The supermarkets, and large chain stores like Target and Walmart
> and so on. They all seem to be part of the chain rather than an
> independent/contractor.
In one case around here, the pharmacy from an independent drugstore
moved to become the pharmacy at a nearby supermarket.
BTW there aren't any 24-hour pharmacies around here AFAIK. I think
having one would be nice, though.
> The wife and I have had 6-7 providers in the past 14 years, and each
> one has an associated mail-order pharmacy in addition to being
> accepted by most of the chains. At least at this years plan, the
> mail-order service is better priced for non-generics, and at the
> very least competitive for the rest.
All I have for what's covered is a small co-pay, and I don't think that
would be any different at any other pharmacy.
> It's been thirty years since I lived in a complex, but the larger
> ones I've seen locally have separate recycling bins
My previous complex had them, but that was a city requirement.
> What little I know about sales taxes are limited to Arizona and
> California (and each state varies quite extensively - ammunition is
> not taxable in AK, because residents take game for food), but the
> juice verses juice drinks may be the addition of a sweetener. As
> mentioned, it is a huge mess of red tape - food isn't taxable unless
> it's served warm - food to go verses food served on premises, even
> the presence/absence of seating may affect taxability. Is firewood
> taxable? ``that depends''.
Here, most food is non-taxable, but a "meal" is. And local sales tax is
8.125% (IIRC 4% state, 3.5% county, 0.75% for the transportation
authority). Going to another county or state sometimes is worth the
extra expense. There's an exemption for items of clothing or footwear
that are under $110 each, but there's talk of ending that. That's per
item, not the total. I think that started because too many people were
going out-of-state for apparel, because in some neighboring states it's
not taxable.
Adam
Aragorn
identifying as Adam wrote...
> Aragorn wrote:
>
>> I myself have developed a friendship with a few people I had come to
>> meet on Usenet as well, but our conversations would then be conducted
>> out of the newsgroups - primarily because one then also talks about
>> stuff which is less suitable for submitting to the Google archives.
>> :p
>
> I would've moved the non-Linux stuff off the newsgroup if possible.
> Instead, I'm trying to keep Linux and non-Linux things in separate
> threads. I /want/ the Linux stuff public and archived, because I know
> that for nearly every question asked by anybody, there are several
> people who had, or will have, the same question. The other stuff,
> well, there is a limit as to how personal I'll get in a public
> newsgroup, and it varies between newsgroups.
Yeah, that applies for myself as well.
> What I think we often forget is that most of the people in any NG have
> other interests besides the group's topic. Of course, there are
> probably other NGs for those interests! :-)
True, but in my humble opinion it's not just about interests, but rather
about allowing yourself to be human. ;-)
>> Of course, with most of my Usenet friends living on the opposite side
>> of the Big Pond, getting to actually meet them in person is not
>> evident. ;-)
>
> I'm already in the USA, but remember this country is almost 5000 km
> across. That's three days driving at 24 hours/day!
Well, I was speaking in a rather generalized manner. I don't even know
where you're from, but I gather you live at the East coast then? ;-)
>> I live at about 110 km from the coast
>
> I forget -- what large city are you nearest to?
Well, the nearest-by city, right next to my town, is the city of
Sint-Niklaas, or in English, "Saint Nicholas", after the Hungarian
bishop who, or so the legend goes, saved two children that had been
chopped into peaces by an evil innkeeper. That's where the Anglosaxon
world got the term "Santa Claus" from, although the character usually
depicted for Santa in the US is a guy in a red fisherman-like suit with
a beard, who lives at the North Pole. We have both "Sinterklaas"
(Saint Nicholas) and your Santa, but over here he is called "Kerstman"
(Christmas Man). In the UK, they call him Father
Christmas. "Sinterklaas" day is December 6th in Belgium, or December
5th in the Netherlands.
However, as I think you won't know the city Sint-Niklaas, I am actually
geographically smack in between Ghent and Antwerp - well, some 5 km
closer to Antwerp, actually. Ghent is about 40 km (via the highway)
from where I live, and downtown Antwerp is about 30 km (also via the
highway).
>> It's quite a nice drive too, although the whole atmosphere of
>> enjoying a long drive has been completely ruined in the last decade
>> and a half or so by the enormous increase in the amounts of heavy
>> trucks on our roads.
>
> I've heard about Belgian drivers! I know that for a long time, the
> country didn't even require drivers' licenses. ;-)
Hmm... That is to say, in my dad's days, you did already need a
driver's license but you could pick one up from town hall without
needing to take a driver's test. The time that you didn't need a
driver's license was before World War II, I think, or possibly still
the late fourties.
My dad got his driver's license in the army (and for a truck), but I
don't think a military driver's license is valid in civilian life
anymore. A civilian driver's license sure isn't valid in the military,
as I learned when I was putting in my draft myself. The base where I
was stationed only had one vehicle - a Renault R4, which was a small
kind of delivery car, not even a van - and only one of us privates was
allowed to drive it, because he had a military license for a truck.
I myself got my driver's license - civilian - in 1981 and I sure needed
to take tests; a theoretical one and a practical one. However, my
driver's license covers regular cars and all types of motorcycles,
which changed later on. My brother for instance took the same tests
and his license only allowed regular cars and very light motorcycles.
Meanwhile he's also obtained a truck license. I myself can drive
trucks - my dad taught me when I was nine years old - but I don't have
a license for them.
>> with the speed limit for regular automobiles limited to 120 km/h
>
> Maximum here is now 65 mph (104 km/h) and that's only on the largest
> highways. Of course, any driver who sticks to the speed limit gets
> passed by almost everyone on a multilane highway.
Yeah, same thing here.
>> From what I've seen on TV, it's quite different in the US due to the
>> very wide and open landscape.
>
> Depends on where you are -- it's more like that out west. Westerners
> are amazed at how closely together the east coast cities are, but then
> those were created back when travel was a lot slower.
>
> What was really interesting was the time I drove (okay, mostly rode)
> cross-country, and got to see the landscape change gradually over the
> 3000 miles. And the distance between places. I remember being in
> what seemed like the middle of nowhere -- no houses, no buildings of
> any kind -- then half an hour later we were in downtown Amarillo,
> Texas, then a half-hour after that we were back in the middle of
> nowhere again.
Well, geologically you've got one fine country. I really like that
spatiousness - logistically it's not so good of course, since you have
to have a full tank and some extra jerrycans of fuel before driving
from one city to the next ;-) - and the incredible diversity of nature
you guys have. I mean, you guys have it all in one single country:
mountains, dense forests, metropolitans, deserts, sandy beaches,
swamps... ;-)
>> Well, I don't think that store-brand medication would be allowed over
>> here anytime soon, but the distribution of non-prescription drugs via
>> supermarkets is probably not too far off from being implemented at
>> this stage.
>
> What's sort of interesting is that liquor is regulated at the state
> level, so in some states it can only be sold at state-run liquor
> stores, while in other states anything can be sold in the supermarket.
> My state is in-between -- anything stronger than beer can only be sold
> by a (privately owned) liquor store.
Ah, over here liquor can be sold virtually everywhere, and the minimum
age is 16 - likewise for tobacco. Minimum age for driving a car is 18.
Minimum age for driving a farmer's tractor is 14, and you don't need a
drivers license for that, but then you're only allowed to drive it on
the roads in between the farm and the field, not anywhere else.
>>>> This is why cafés and restaurants will typically serve their sodas
>>>> out of large glass bottles, or in small 25 cc bottles directly.
>>>
>>> I /hope/ you meant 250 cc!
>>
>> No, 25 cc, a.k.a. 25 cl. Small Coke bottles for instance, only
>> containing enough fluid to fill a glass.
>
> I thought 1 cc was 1 ml. 25 cc looks like just enough to cover the
> bottom of the glass!
No, that would be 25 ml, or 2.5 cc. ;-)
> (That's less than 1/8 cup US measure, I think.)
> The smallest cans/botles of soda I've seen (6 fl oz) are about 175 ml.
Over here it's 25 cl, or 250 ml, if you like.
>> Well, with all due respect for the US and the UK, but you guys really
>> ought to move over to the metric system. :p
>
> The UK is more converted to it than the US.
Yeah, but not entirely yet. They still express weight in pounds and
ounces. Australia uses the metric system, but people's lengths are
still measured in feet and inches.
> The metric system makes more sense to me too, but there was a big
> attempt to convert the country in the 1970s and it failed almost
> completely.
I didn't know that. Perhaps it wasn't organized well-enough, or rushed
too much. People need time to adjust, and that's something politicians
tend to forget. But then again, they only think of themselves anyway,
so... ;-)
> The medical field uses the metric system, except for temperatures,
> which always seem to be Fahrenheit (normal=98.6 degrees).
Fahrenheit is hopelessly outdated, actually. Zero is the freezing point
of alcohol and 100°F is about human body temperature. Centigrade makes
much more sense, and scientifically, Kelvin of course. (Note: One does
not speak of "degrees Kelvin", but just of "Kelvin", unlike with
Fahrenheit or Centigrade/Celcius.)
> And I'm sure you know about France's attempt to convert dates and
> times to a decimal system, and how that didn't succeed either.
Hmm... I remember something about that but it's quite vague. But then
again, France has always been a bit selfrighteous about everything.
The word "chauvinism" comes from French, you know. ;-)
Moe Trin
<hgbkvt$hs2$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Adam wrote:
>Moe Trin wrote:
>> even the computer printed versions that are becoming common seem
>> to be on something similar.
>I don't think I've seen a computer-printed prescription yet.
I'm not sure how much this is due to trying to improve efficiency
in the doctor's office, or reduce the number of mistakes, but the
pharmacists absolutely love them because they reduce the biggest
problem - trying to deduce WTF the doctor wrote on the form. All
but one of my doctors have switched.
>Pre-transplant, I rushed to answer every phone call, POTS or cell,
>because it could be _the_ call.
Aragorn wondered last Sunday about how/why we were discussing this,
and I pointed to the cell phone reception problem - that use of the
underlined '_the_ call' was a strong hint.
>Now I can go back to screening home calls when I feel like it again.
>I'm still carrying my cell phone everywhere with me, though, and
>making sure it stays charged.
Having worn a pager for several decades, I've gotten into the mode
of calling them (and cell phones) a leash. The cell tends to get
turned off pretty often. I don't get that much junk calls on it,
but that's mainly because I make a point of not giving out the
number. I've also got all of the phone numbers on the national and
state "no-call" lists (though I still get un-wanted calls on the
regular phones - mainly from the politicians who are exempt from
the law, and a limited number of begging calls from 501-C3s) which
tends to keep the noise level down.
Old guy
Moe Trin
<hgbllr$nti$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Adam wrote:
>Moe Trin wrote:
[independent pharmacies]
>In one case around here, the pharmacy from an independent drugstore
>moved to become the pharmacy at a nearby supermarket.
I can't say that I've seem that. A quick scan through the Phoenix
phone book shows just 43 "independents" in the metro area, while four
chains (two pharmacies, two supermarkets) each have more than that,
and three additional chains each have at least half that many.
>BTW there aren't any 24-hour pharmacies around here AFAIK. I think
>having one would be nice, though.
Walgreens alone has 25 here, CVS adds 13 more, and one of the grocery
chains has two more. That gives me four between the house and the four
nearest hospitals (within 8 miles). We've nearly got as many 24-hour
locations as we have independents. One of those hospitals also has a
public pharmacy but I think it's only open 06:00 - 24:00.
>All I have for what's covered is a small co-pay, and I don't think
>that would be any different at any other pharmacy.
We have a tiered co-pay of 10/25/50 (I think) for a 30 day supply for
generics/preferred/others, but if the total cost is less than the
co-pay, you pay only the total cost. The mail-in co-pay are
25/62.50/125 for a 90 day supply (again if total cost is less...) so
it is more economical for us to use the mail-in, but that is
plan-dependent. Mentioned, several of the local chains are offering
a limited number of generics (~300) at $4 or $5 a month, and one is
also offering a 90 day supply for $10. It sometimes pays to shop
around. ;-)
[Sales tax]
>Here, most food is non-taxable, but a "meal" is.
The meal is prepared - may or may not be hot, may or may not have
seating where you can eat, may or may not be "here, or to go".
>And local sales tax is 8.125% (IIRC 4% state, 3.5% county, 0.75% for
>the transportation authority). Going to another county or state
>sometimes is worth the extra expense
I did a consluting job for a person who was in the sales tax racket in
California. There was state, county, a few cities, and what they called
special tax districts - which could be as small as a precinct, or as
large as several counties (such as the BART district that took in
San Francisco, Santa Clara, Alameda and Contra Costa [but not San Mateo]
counties). Bewildering is probably the best description.
>Going to another county or state sometimes is worth the extra expense.
Can of worms - giant economy size. The law basically says that if you
are resident in "A", and shop in "B" you need to submit tax documents
to pay/receive credit for the difference. For some strange reason,
the 'receive credit' end of things almost never works.
>There's an exemption for items of clothing or footwear that are under
>$110 each, but there's talk of ending that. That's per item, not the
>total.
That's better off than we are - the current news is that Arizona may
increase the sales tax by one percent to make up for the enormous
budget shortfall. That's not going to be an easy sell.
>I think that started because too many people were going out-of-state
>for apparel, because in some neighboring states it's not taxable.
So they want to _end_ the exemption??? Driving to the neighboring
state isn't that big a deal for you, but it certainly is here. CA has
higher taxes, NM and NV are the same, UT is marginally lower, and CO
is half what we pay. Problem with UT and CO is that the nearest places
with decent shops in those states are over a tank of gas each way
distant. It's usually cheaper to go to Mexico, but then you run into
US customs - never mind the distance factor.
Old guy
Moe Trin
<hgbnls$28b$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Aragorn wrote:
>Adam wrote...
>> I'm already in the USA, but remember this country is almost 5000 km
>> across. That's three days driving at 24 hours/day!
>Well, I was speaking in a rather generalized manner. I don't even know
>where you're from, but I gather you live at the East coast then? ;-)
Adam's about 100 KM up the Hudson River from New York City, about 66
KM West of where my family lives. I'm on the other side of the
continent, essentially in Phoenix (600 KM East of Los Angeles). It's
about 6 hours non-stop by airline. I wouldn't think of driving it, as
it's 4800 KM by the recommended routes.
>> I forget -- what large city are you nearest to?
>Well, the nearest-by city, right next to my town, is the city of
>Sint-Niklaas,
Oh, Belsele, Elversele, Puivelde or St.-Pauwels?
>However, as I think you won't know the city Sint-Niklaas,
I may not know it, but I certainly know where it is. Don't forget
that maps are available on the Internet, even if you don't have
dead tree maps from Michelin, Hema, or Halwag ;-)
>>> with the speed limit for regular automobiles limited to 120 km/h
>> Maximum here is now 65 mph (104 km/h) and that's only on the largest
>> highways. Of course, any driver who sticks to the speed limit gets
>> passed by almost everyone on a multilane highway.
>Yeah, same thing here.
We've got several stretches away from the towns with 70 mph (112 km/h)
>I mean, you guys have it all in one single country: mountains, dense
>forests, metropolitans, deserts, sandy beaches, swamps... ;-)
Yup - all in the state of California. ;-)
Old guy
Aragorn
identifying as Moe Trin wrote...
> On Wed, 16 Dec 2009, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandriva, in
> article <hgbnls$28b$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Aragorn wrote:
>
>> Adam wrote...
>
>>> I'm already in the USA, but remember this country is almost 5000 km
>>> across. That's three days driving at 24 hours/day!
>
>> Well, I was speaking in a rather generalized manner. I don't even
>> know where you're from, but I gather you live at the East coast then?
>> ;-)
>
> Adam's about 100 KM up the Hudson River from New York City, about 66
> KM West of where my family lives. I'm on the other side of the
> continent, essentially in Phoenix (600 KM East of Los Angeles). It's
> about 6 hours non-stop by airline. I wouldn't think of driving it, as
> it's 4800 KM by the recommended routes.
That is a huge distance indeed. But of course, it's still a more
realistic distance for occasional visits than anything requiring
transcontintental flights. ;-)
My closest[1] friends are actually in South Africa (14 to 17 hours of
flying, using two or three different flights; there are no direct
flights), Australia (22 hours of flying, two or three flights) or in
the USA and Canada. ;-)
[1] "Closest" in the sense of dearest and most trusted, of course. ;-)
>>> I forget -- what large city are you nearest to?
>
>> Well, the nearest-by city, right next to my town, is the city of
>> Sint-Niklaas,
>
> Oh, Belsele, Elversele, Puivelde or St.-Pauwels?
<LOL> Very good! But no, neither of those. ;-) I live in Temse.
Elversele is part of the township of Temse - and it's extremely small -
but I live downtown in Temse itself - actually, on one of the busiest
streets even.
Belsele is a suburb of Sint-Niklaas, and so is Puivelde. St.-Pauwels is
a suburb of Stekene. I had a girlfriend in Belselse once - more than
two decades ago - and one in St.-Pauwels too; not at the same time,
mind you. :p
The one in St.-Pauwels dumped me on my birthday, under pressure of her
mother, who was afraid that if her daughter was to move in with me,
she'd lose her free maid. (This mother had a habit of destroying every
relationship either of her daughters would get into.)
The one in Belsele dumped me - also under pressure of her mother, but
over a different reason, i.e. her mother wanted her to marry a
financialy "upper class" guy - in favor of a doctor. She married him
and they have twin girls, but she's not happy.
Incidentally, both of these girls were blondes... :p
>> However, as I think you won't know the city Sint-Niklaas,
>
> I may not know it, but I certainly know where it is. Don't forget
> that maps are available on the Internet, even if you don't have
> dead tree maps from Michelin, Hema, or Halwag ;-)
Well, it's nice that you checked in on the geography of my "charming"
little country anyway. ;-)
>>>> with the speed limit for regular automobiles limited to 120 km/h
>
>>> Maximum here is now 65 mph (104 km/h) and that's only on the largest
>>> highways. Of course, any driver who sticks to the speed limit gets
>>> passed by almost everyone on a multilane highway.
>
>> Yeah, same thing here.
>
> We've got several stretches away from the towns with 70 mph (112 km/h)
Well, the "same thing here" applied to getting overtaken by everyone if
you stick to the speed limits.
Our current speed limit regulations are:
° 120 km/h on the highway for passenger cars and small vans; trucks may
only do 90 km/h - they are electronically limited - and tour buses
can do 100 km/h. Trucks may not enter the lefmost lane except when it
is needed to take an exit. (These are not regular exits but more like
points where one highway intersects with another one, and so while it
is an exit on the first highway it's also the entry lane to the
other.)
° 90 km/h on intercity roads that have traffic lights on them. At some
points - usually in the vicinity of traffic lights, but sometimes at
different points - the speed is limited to 70 km/h, but the
implementation of this is at the discretion of the individual
townships. (Intercity roads usually have four lanes, two in each
direction, and - as on highways - there is a safety zone with rails
and vegetation separating the two directions.)
° 70 km/h on two-lane roads in between smaller towns or municipalities.
Basically, this falls under the "outside of city limits" regulation.
° 50 km/ inside the populated areas of cities, towns and municipalities,
with a few 30 km/h zones around schools. Sometimes these 30 km/h
limitations don't apply 24/7, when electronic signs are used, but most
towns simply use fixed speed limit signs and so the 30 km/h limitation
in those zones applies around the clock.
° 30 km/h in what the Dutch call a "woonerf". Basically it's the kind
of suburban residential area which you also often find in the USA, but
over here not every house stands free of the others. And of course,
European houses are entirely built of stone. Wooden houses are very
rare here, but they do exist, albeit that they don't appear as "solid"
as the typical American wooden house, and that they'd have only a
ground floor. They're called "chalets" over here - it's a French
word - although that term is again used much more for small bungalow-
style holiday stays, not as main residences. The law forbids use of
such residences as the main residence even because they are typically
built on land that has lower taxes - they call it "recreational land".
People can actually live there, but on the condition that they have
their official residence at a different address outside of the
"recreational land zone" and that they spend at least one day per year
at their official residence.
>> I mean, you guys have it all in one single country: mountains, dense
>> forests, metropolitans, deserts, sandy beaches, swamps... ;-)
>
> Yup - all in the state of California. ;-)
<LOL>
Aragorn
identifying as Moe Trin wrote...
> On Wed, 16 Dec 2009, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandriva, in
> article <hgbllr$nti$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Adam wrote:
>
>> BTW there aren't any 24-hour pharmacies around here AFAIK. I think
>> having one would be nice, though.
>
> Walgreens alone has 25 here, CVS adds 13 more, and one of the grocery
> chains has two more. That gives me four between the house and the
> four nearest hospitals (within 8 miles). We've nearly got as many
> 24-hour locations as we have independents. One of those hospitals also
> has a public pharmacy but I think it's only open 06:00 - 24:00.
We don't have 24/7 pharmacies over here. Pharmacies are open only from
around 8h00 or 9h00 until 17h30 or 18h30, and only on weekdays -
excluding official holidays, of course. There is a "watch system" for
after hours or the weekends (or holidays), but then you are required to
phone the local police office first, and they will in turn notify the
pharmacy. It's a security precaution because lots of pharmacies got
robbed over the weekends by "someone needing urgent medication".
>> Going to another county or state sometimes is worth the extra
>> expense.
>
> Can of worms - giant economy size. The law basically says that if you
> are resident in "A", and shop in "B" you need to submit tax documents
> to pay/receive credit for the difference. For some strange reason,
> the 'receive credit' end of things almost never works.
Due to the institution of the European Union, one can now shop in any
European country without having to submit any tax/customs forms. The
differences in price are quite large sometimes, but of course,
sometimes you lose all that you would gain from shopping in another
country just because of the cost of fuel.
I filled up my gas tank again last week, with high octane unleaded
gasoline. It was rated at 1.3 Euro per liter - there are mild
variances per gas station. An imperial gallon is about 3.7 liters, so
that's 4.81 Euro per gallon, which at current exchange rates is about
6.93 US Dollar per gallon.
Dieselfuel is slightly more affordable, although the old difference in
price with gasoline has now largely vanished. Still, most personal
vehicles over here - about 85% of them - are now dieselpowered, despite
that diesels typically have larger engines (and thus higher road tax)
and that they are also much more expensive at vehicle purchase time.
It's also far more polluting because of the cancer-causing particles in
diesel exhaust fumes.
But then again, people don't really think. Diesel is hip and hype, and
so are SUVs, so they buy a diesel. And then they drive their
SUVs "with the pedal to the metal". So much for diesel cars being more
economic.
And then they go and instate a total smoking ban in all cafés,
restaurants and hotels - there was already a total smoking ban on
public buildings and "on the (indoor) job" - but with the density of
our road networks, and especially in the cities, a stroll on foot or a
short bicycle ride along a single long street puts more carcinogenous
particles in your lungs than smoking a whole pack of cigarettes.
But of course, you can't say anything about that, because traffic is
important, especially truck traffic. It's all for the Mighty Economy
of course, to which we owe our immortal souls and our undying
allegiance forever.
People are idiots. <shakes head>
>> There's an exemption for items of clothing or footwear that are under
>> $110 each, but there's talk of ending that. That's per item, not the
>> total.
>
> That's better off than we are - the current news is that Arizona may
> increase the sales tax by one percent to make up for the enormous
> budget shortfall. That's not going to be an easy sell.
Belgium has simplified that sales tax thing a great deal in comparison
to other European countries. We simply have the highest possible sales
tax (21% VAT) on *everything* - whether it's food, clothing, a car, a
house or whatever. <evil grin>
There is however an exception, i.e. disabled people only owe a 6% sales
tax, but you have to apply for that yourself, and it's often required
to renew that application every year for things like utility bills.
Belgium is one of the three countries with the highest tax rates in
Europe, and with the lowest social security fees - which are about 300
Euro below the European poverty limit - and still those idiots in
Brussels are several billions short on their national budget planning
for the next year. I suppose it couldn't possibly have anything to do
with their gross expenses accounts with their tax-deductable Audi A8s
and BMW 7s plus chauffeur, their gross wages of which half is taxfree
and their nepotism, or could it? <another evil grin>
(And I'm not even going to get into the dotations for the royal family,
half of which should not even be receiving any taxpayer money,
according to the constitution...)
FP
> On Friday 18 December 2009 04:51 in alt.os.linux.mandriva, somebody
> identifying as Moe Trin wrote...
>
>
>>On Wed, 16 Dec 2009, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandriva, in
>>article <hgbnls$28b$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Aragorn wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Adam wrote...
...
>>>>Maximum here is now 65 mph (104 km/h) and that's only on the largest
>>>>highways. Of course, any driver who sticks to the speed limit gets
>>>>passed by almost everyone on a multilane highway.
>>
>>>Yeah, same thing here.
>>
>>We've got several stretches away from the towns with 70 mph (112 km/h)
>
>
> Well, the "same thing here" applied to getting overtaken by everyone if
> you stick to the speed limits.
I know someone who lives in New York, he refers to the speed limit signs
as "guidelines" rather than "limits".
Me, sometimes I keep to the speed limit just to annoy people. Other
times because my wee motor won't go any faster :)
Frank
Moe Trin
<hgg0k8$ui2$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Aragorn wrote:
>Moe Trin wrote...
>> Adam's about 100 KM up the Hudson River from New York City, about
>> 66 KM West of where my family lives. I'm on the other side of the
>> continent, essentially in Phoenix (600 KM East of Los Angeles).
>> It's about 6 hours non-stop by airline. I wouldn't think of driving
>> it, as it's 4800 KM by the recommended routes.
>That is a huge distance indeed. But of course, it's still a more
>realistic distance for occasional visits than anything requiring
>transcontintental flights. ;-)
Even so, I only get back to my family once a year, but then, my
wife's family is in the San Francisco area, a mere 1200 KM by road
(100 minutes scheduled air time, allow 4 hours by commercial plane)
and we get back there equally infrequently.
>>> Well, the nearest-by city, right next to my town, is the city of
>>> Sint-Niklaas,
>> Oh, Belsele, Elversele, Puivelde or St.-Pauwels?
><LOL> Very good! But no, neither of those. ;-) I live in Temse.
;-) Thinking about it more, I probably passed through Sint-Niklaas
several times on the train, but that was back in the early 1960s.
>> We've got several stretches away from the towns with 70 mph (112
>> km/h)
>Well, the "same thing here" applied to getting overtaken by everyone
>if you stick to the speed limits.
"same thing here". The speed limits vary by local conditions, but
the "ring road" around Phoenix (AZ-101) is a 2-6 lanes (each way)
divided highway with limited access (entry/exits nominally on one
mile / 1.6 km grid), and it's not unknown for speeders to exceed
140 mph (bit over twice the posted limits), though in MOST cases
they can't outrun the helicopters used by the police.
>Our current speed limit regulations are:
We have few _non_posted_ limits (residential and "remote" areas) as
with few exceptions the speed limits are posted - often as close
as every 328 meters. Still, some drivers claim not to be aware of
the speed limits where they get pulled over.
>>> I mean, you guys have it all in one single country: mountains,
>>> dense forests, metropolitans, deserts, sandy beaches, swamps... ;-)
>> Yup - all in the state of California. ;-)
><LOL>
That was meant in jest, but it's actually true, and it also true or
nearly so in several other states (Hawaii, Texas, Maine come to mind,
though in some cases the mountains are lower and/or deserts smaller).
Old guy
Moe Trin
<hgg350$rq3$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Aragorn wrote:
>Moe Trin wrote...
>> Adam wrote:
>>> BTW there aren't any 24-hour pharmacies around here AFAIK. I think
>>> having one would be nice, though.
>> Walgreens alone has 25 here, CVS adds 13 more, and one of the
>> grocery chains has two more. That gives me four between the house
>> and the four nearest hospitals (within 8 miles).
>We don't have 24/7 pharmacies over here. Pharmacies are open only
>from around 8h00 or 9h00 until 17h30 or 18h30, and only on weekdays -
>excluding official holidays, of course.
As suggested above, things are not consistent everywhere, but I'm
not aware of any pharmacies in this are that _aren't_ open at least
12 hours per weekday and 10 hours on Saturday and Sunday. Holidays
make no difference.
>It's a security precaution because lots of pharmacies got robbed
>over the weekends by "someone needing urgent medication".
Not saying it doesn't happen here, but it's not common. Those
"urgently needed medications" are sold by different "retailers" who
tend to be open virtually around the clock.
>Due to the institution of the European Union, one can now shop in
>any European country without having to submit any tax/customs forms.
>The differences in price are quite large sometimes, but of course,
>sometimes you lose all that you would gain from shopping in another
>country just because of the cost of fuel.
It's that transportation cost that people forget - and the "cost" of
their own time.
>An imperial gallon is about 3.7 liters
#include <stdarg/metric_vs_imperial.h>
[compton ~]$ units
2438 units, 71 prefixes, 32 nonlinear units
You have: liter
You want: usgallon
* 0.26417205
/ 3.7854118
You have: liter
You want: brgallon
* 0.21996925
/ 4.54609
'units' is a very handy application.
>Dieselfuel is slightly more affordable, although the old difference
>in price with gasoline has now largely vanished.
Here, the price of retail diesel is significantly above the cost of
un-leaded gasoline. However the prices vary substantially even within
a single state, never mind across the country.
>And then they go and instate a total smoking ban in all caf<C3><A9>s,
>restaurants and hotels - there was already a total smoking ban on
>public buildings and "on the (indoor) job"
Varies by city, let alone state.
>but with the density of our road networks, and especially in the
>cities, a stroll on foot or a short bicycle ride along a single long
>street puts more carcinogenous particles in your lungs than smoking
>a whole pack of cigarettes.
Remember why you are buying _un-leaded_ gasoline now?
Old guy
Aragorn
identifying as Moe Trin wrote...
> On Fri, 18 Dec 2009, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandriva, in
> article <hgg0k8$ui2$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Aragorn wrote:
>
>>>> Well, the nearest-by city, right next to my town, is the city of
>>>> Sint-Niklaas,
>
>>> Oh, Belsele, Elversele, Puivelde or St.-Pauwels?
>
>><LOL> Very good! But no, neither of those. ;-) I live in Temse.
>
> ;-) Thinking about it more, I probably passed through Sint-Niklaas
> several times on the train, but that was back in the early 1960s.
Well, Sint-Niklaas has an important train station - it's even been
expanded some 5 years ago - but Temse has a train station too, albeit a
smaller one.
What trajectory did you take back then?
>>> We've got several stretches away from the towns with 70 mph (112
>>> km/h)
>
>> Well, the "same thing here" applied to getting overtaken by everyone
>> if you stick to the speed limits.
>
> "same thing here". The speed limits vary by local conditions, but
> the "ring road" around Phoenix (AZ-101) is a 2-6 lanes (each way)
> divided highway with limited access (entry/exits nominally on one
> mile / 1.6 km grid), and it's not unknown for speeders to exceed
> 140 mph (bit over twice the posted limits), though in MOST cases
> they can't outrun the helicopters used by the police.
Well, the most spectacular event I remember was in 1985. A guy was
spotted speeding in - I believe - a BMW, coming in from Holland. The
cops got on his trail with the Porsche 911 - still a conventional 2.7
liter boxer engine back then, no turbo - but they couldn't catch up
with him and by the time they passed Ghent, they blew up the engine on
the Porsche. Then the Ghent division took over immediately in their
Saab 900 Turbo, but they couldn't catch the guy before he crossed the
French border. ;-)
>> Our current speed limit regulations are:
>
> We have few _non_posted_ limits (residential and "remote" areas) as
> with few exceptions the speed limits are posted - often as close
> as every 328 meters. Still, some drivers claim not to be aware of
> the speed limits where they get pulled over.
Speed limits are usually posted here, but this is not really a
requirement for certain environment. For instance, you are supposed to
know that inside the city limits there is a speed limit of 50 km/h, and
at the highways there are no speed limit signs, except when the maximum
allowed speed is lower than the normal speed limit for highways. For
instance, the ring around Antwerp has a speed limit for 100 km/h.
(Although usually there's a traffic jam there anyway and then there are
electronic signs which typically give you a speed limit slower than you
can drive there, which contributes to the traffic congestion, as
everyone then slows down. It's ridiculous.)
>>>> I mean, you guys have it all in one single country: mountains,
>>>> dense forests, metropolitans, deserts, sandy beaches, swamps... ;-)
>
>>> Yup - all in the state of California. ;-)
>
>> <LOL>
>
> That was meant in jest, but it's actually true, and it also true or
> nearly so in several other states (Hawaii, Texas, Maine come to mind,
> though in some cases the mountains are lower and/or deserts smaller).
Well, Belgium has quite a bit of diversity too. The coastal area is
very flat - something you also see deeper inland in The Netherlands -
and it's also a little below sealevel, so that's why we have the dunes
and the dykes[1]. More inland, you get more of a varied landscape, and
more South-East there are the Ardens, which is more of a mountainous,
rocky and forested landscape. There's far more uninhabited area there,
because down here in the Flanders, they build industry zones everywhere
these days.
I was even shocked when I drove to the coast again this summer to find
that what used to be a wide open landscape with lots of grass plains
had also succumbed to the building frenzy, albeit that it's usually
apartment buildings there, hoping to capitalize on the upper class
seeking to retire at the coast. And the joke of it is that those
apartments don't even get sold, unless to people who rent them out as
holiday residences, and then some. They did manage to ruin the
landscape, though, but when there's money to be made... Oh well...
[1] On my trip to the coast, I couldn't go without visiting the beach,
of course, and I noticed that they had raised the beach by quite a
bit in the meantime, with regard to the expected rise of the
sealevels due to global warming - insofar that global warming can
be taken seriously, of course, because - as I wrote earlier - the
numbers have been falsified.
Aragorn
identifying as Moe Trin wrote...
> On Fri, 18 Dec 2009, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandriva, in
> article <hgg350$rq3$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, Aragorn wrote:
>
>> Due to the institution of the European Union, one can now shop in
>> any European country without having to submit any tax/customs forms.
>> The differences in price are quite large sometimes, but of course,
>> sometimes you lose all that you would gain from shopping in another
>> country just because of the cost of fuel.
>
> It's that transportation cost that people forget - and the "cost" of
> their own time.
True. Although on the other hand, I live not too far off from the Dutch
border and many people from here don't mind the drive over there to buy
certain things.
It mostly gravitates around regular groceries, though. Computer stuff
for instance is actually cheaper when bought in Germany.
>> An imperial gallon is about 3.7 liters
>
> #include <stdarg/metric_vs_imperial.h>
>
> [compton ~]$ units
> 2438 units, 71 prefixes, 32 nonlinear units
>
> You have: liter
> You want: usgallon
> * 0.26417205
> / 3.7854118
> You have: liter
> You want: brgallon
> * 0.21996925
> / 4.54609
>
> 'units' is a very handy application.
Oh yes, I know "units". But I was just rounding off to the first digit.
It wasn't intended to be an accurate calculation. ;-)
>> Dieselfuel is slightly more affordable, although the old difference
>> in price with gasoline has now largely vanished.
>
> Here, the price of retail diesel is significantly above the cost of
> un-leaded gasoline.
Hmmm, that's interesting...
> However the prices vary substantially even within a single state,
> never mind across the country.
Gasoline used to be a lot cheaper in the Netherlands too, but these days
the gain isn't worth the drive. There are maximum prices for fuel,
including the profits for the gas stations, and the gas stations then
must decide how much of their profit they give to the customer.
Smaller gas stations tend to be cheaper than the bigger ones.
>> And then they go and instate a total smoking ban in all caf<C3><A9>s,
>> restaurants and hotels - there was already a total smoking ban on
>> public buildings and "on the (indoor) job"
>
> Varies by city, let alone state.
Oh, they're quite pedantic on that over here. I think it started in
Canada and Ireland, and then the UK, and now it's here. It's even
already considered taboo to smoke on television.
>> but with the density of our road networks, and especially in the
>> cities, a stroll on foot or a short bicycle ride along a single long
>> street puts more carcinogenous particles in your lungs than smoking
>> a whole pack of cigarettes.
>
> Remember why you are buying _un-leaded_ gasoline now?
Well, unleaded gasoline is better for our health than leaded gasoline,
that goes without saying, although the political propaganda in favor of
unleaded gasoline - which used to be more expensive than leaded
gasoline at first - was rather about acid rain. And that story worked
pretty well, because not everyone knows enough about chemistry to know
that gasoline doesn't contain sulfur, and that sulfur is an essential
component of acid rain - it's either the unstable H2SO3 or the stable
H2SO4. And guess what? Dieselfuel contains sulfur...
Yet, like I said, gasoline-powered cars are extremely rare over here
right now, and have been already since the mid-1990s. SUVs and people
movers are almost never bought with a gasoline engine, and cars like
mine are normally bought with a diesel engine as well - typically the
1.7 or 1.9 liter turbodiesel variant in my make and model of car.
(Mine has a 2.0 liter turbocharged gasoline engine.)
Trucks, pickups - which are rare - and vans are all diesels too, and of
course, anything industrial, like steamrollers, cranes, power
generators and the likes. Only true sports cars - Porsche, Ferrari et
al - and older cars from the 1980s or earlier[2] would still be
gas-powered, and a few smaller city cars with very small engines,
although even that is beginning to change.
[2] There's also quite a market over here for American oldtimers. I had
a friend who, together with his brother, used to restore such cars,
and they had even built a hot rod - a '34 Model A Ford. Such cars
are of course also gasoline-powered, but those are not cars one
would use for day to day driving, even if only because of the
special insurance and tax regulations. Such cars have very big
engines and would thus impart heavy road taxing, and so those cars
are normally registered as oldtimers, which means that you can only
drive 60 km/h and only within a 25 km radius around your home,
unless you're driving the car to an oldtimer meeting. Tax is then
limited to only 125 Euro per year, regardless of the size of the
engine. I pay about 400 Euro per year for my 2.0 liter, so you can
imagine what that would be like for someone owning a V8 through
regular registration. (Unless he's Guy Verhofstadt, of course,
because then it's a service car and it's tax deductable... <grin>)