As if I didn’t register my dislike of Vista two years before it arrived, MicroSoft has already announced it is working on a replacement for that abortion. Details are scanty but I believe it will be called a very Apple-sounding System 7. Their naming system has always been designed to cover up their legion mistakes. Watch for more strange “security features” and incompatibilities with non-MS products as their grip on the marketplace is slowly pried open by Google.
Not that I’m praising Google. It is just that I dislike MS and Yahoo! even more. Google keeps records of your searches and 73% of all their daily traffic is still spam. Scumbags. These records are potentially evil—the Constitution says you don’t have to incriminate yourself but what other purpose have such records? Certainly not to serve you better, and it is now well known that the government has recently granted the phone companies immunity from prosecution for all those zillions of illegal wire taps they assisted with over the past fifty years. You know, the Germans fought World War II never suspecting how the British found every one of their Malta convoys. They thought the British had 400 reconnaissance airplanes. The British had 3. Think about that the next time you get pulled over for no apparent reason.
And a good place to do that thinking is in the shitter at the Corkscrew Bird Sanctuary. There are no birds left, but there is this excellent green sewage system. Follow a diagram of how the annual 100,000 flushes flow through a series of septic tanks and bacteriological filters to be reused. This photo shows just half the unit which overall is surprisingly small. The other half, cut off the right side of the photo, is under maintenance. You may notice the entire area is covered with screens, either to keep people out or because Nature needs a little protecting from the environment herself. I was so impressed, I paused to make it 100,001.
Speaking of revelations, I must repeat my prediction about pent up inflation in the food sector. Thailand just announced the production costs of rice soared from $300 per ton to $1,000 per ton and is still climbing. No doubt their adoption of Western management practices will assure not a penny of it reaches the production workers. No joke, seriously, a lot of people subscribe to that Brit foolery than a manager who looks after a stack of $100 bills should be paid more than a another who looks after the same amount in $20’s. Dammit, Minty, put your hand down.
Today, I was investigating methods to counter the Google records. Remember that a lot of you laughed when I warned about identity theft fifteen years before it became a problem (the largest single financial problem in the country today). Well, I’m also warning against Google. I ran across a product called “Haystack”. I have no details and it may not even be on the market. What it does, is during any time you have Google active, it continually performs a huge number of random searches, thus burying your real searches like a needle in a haystack. You get more if I find out more.
Also, the fateful phone call for Pudding-Tat has been made. She will have to become a bit of an outdoor cat as I cannot expect others keep her isolated. I was informed adult cats could not be spayed, but the expert, Marion, tells me otherwise.
Unlike Memorial, I was in to a truly decent clinic today. None of the intense grilling about my financial background because the doctor understood I was paying cash. If I didn’t mention it, I had a wart develop right under my eye. It was gone in half a second, along with a few other blemishes and my $350. I spent a lot of time in the sun when younger, bud id din bodder me none. What an utterly pleasant and respectable practice, unfortunately I cannot use real names. But they are on Sheridan and have nothing to do with Memorial.
With permission, I have a true tale from one of their staff. When younger, each of their children had a cigar box where they kept their money. One day the husband needed bus fare and placed an I.O.U. in the box. When the youngster returned from school (Grade 1), they asked him to open the box and asked him if he knew what the I.O.U. was. He said, “Sure. Those are vowels. But where’s my money?”
For the record, most independent clinics (I’ve spoken with) are fully aware of Memorial’s reputation for lack of respect for patient’s rights and abuse of personal information for marketing and insurance purposes.
In celebration, I’m going to the movies. Return tomorrow for the review.
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