Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Some Links to Others

I didn't set out to 'collect' links today but it seemed like they kept coming my way. First of all, those damn "activist" judges are at it again, this time (gasp) ruling that Microsoft cannot sell Word 2007. Seriously. Read about it here.


Moving on, Rock Gone Wild in Algona, IA, had been moved from Algona and now, officially, it is cancelled. People that have bought tickets are having difficulty, supposedly, getting their money back. There is a press release on their website about it.


I have tried to stay out of the whole national health care debate. However, I happen to have found my voice through Dave Nathanson:







-----Original Message-----

From: Dave Nathanson [mailto:Dave.lists@Nathanson.org]

Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2009 1:52 PM

To: web405@lists.southland.net

Subject: Re: [Web405] [OT] free medical and/or dental health care

(stepping onto the soapbox in the frying pan)

This is why I firmly believe that Health Care (HC) reform should NOT
be about providing insurance for all. The insurance is part of the
problem. "Standard" allowed payout prices (big insurance co, medicare,
etc) is a big part of what raised prices. The insurance companies,
even if they are the almost bankrupt govt, are at cross-purposes to
the consumer. The better HC you get, the more it costs them, the more
they want to withhold services to reduce costs. A better way would
align the payor with the benefit. Think about it. If YOU got a bonus
every time you chose a cheaper service for people you didn't know nor
care much about... What would you do? That's the situation when any
insurance company or government program is in charge of your
healthcare spending.

For these reasons I feel it is important for the customer to have
control over, and for a disinterested 3rd party (insurance company)
not to have control over how your healthcare dollar is spent.


IMHO Healthcare reform should be about making it possible for
customers to price-shop. That is impossible now. Prices for common
procedures need to be clearly posted. That will let people choose how/
where to spend their money; so they can choose any provider they want,
and choose to go cheap, or full service. This will also enable medical
providers to compete based on price, which will drive prices down more
effectively than any govt insurance plan ever could... And without
stifling innovation, nor crushing competition. Some HC providers could
compete on cheapness, others on quality. Just like in every other
normal American business.

I really don't understand why all the HC reforms I hear about are all
about bigger insurance, reducing competition & reducing available
choices when a better solution seems so simple. Just make all HC
providers post their real prices, enabling cost/service comparisons.
Costs will come down as real competition increases. The consumers
benefit.

Dave Nathanson

Mac Medix



On Aug 12, 2009, at 10:22 AM, Gail Parker wrote:

Looking back over his long career, Potter sees an industry corrupted
by Wall Street expectations and greed. According to Potter, insurers
have every incentive to deny coverage - every dollar they don't pay
out to a claim is a dollar they can add to their profits, and Wall
Street investors demand they pay out less every year. Under these
conditions, Potter says, "You don't think about individual people.
You think about the numbers, and whether or not you're going to meet
Wall Street's expectations."

(snip)




Why shouldn't I know ahead of time how much something is going to cost? You go to have your car worked on, you get an estimate. Then you get other estimates. You make an informed decision. Easy. Someone responded to Dave, saying 'what if you are on the way to the hospital, how can you comparison shop?' You can't. There needs to be a separation in the health care debate because there are two issues:

  1. Emergency care - I am dying. I need help 10 minutes ago.

  2. Non-Emergency care - I am not dying but I need help soon. This also includes regular routine physicals and other appointments. Non-Emergency care should allow the consumer to shop around.

Think of it this way. You need a non-emergent procedure. There are two local doctors, in the same building, that do this procedure. Doctor Joe is charging $50 for a procedure and Doctor Frank is charging $100 for the same procedure. Both doctors will do the same thing to you. Why would you go to Doctor Frank? It'd be stupid to do so!

Moving along, I don't need this macro now, but someday I might.



-----Original Message-----

From: Word-Pc List

On Behalf Of Marta Cepek

Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2009 2:27 PM

To: WORD-PC@liverpool.ac.uk

Subject: Re: Need VB Help with Looping


Here you go, as a standalone, or copy the whole with/end with into your
existing macro:

Sub Spaces2Tabs()


'5 spaces = 1 tab

With Selection.Find

.Text = " "

.Replacement.Text = "^t"

.Forward = True

.Wrap = wdFindContinue

.Execute

While .Found

.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll

.Execute

Wend



'tab+space = 1 tab

.Text = "^t "

.Replacement.Text = "^t"

.Forward = True

.Wrap = wdFindContinue

.Execute

While .Found

.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll

.Execute

Wend



' 2 tabs = 1 tab

.Text = "^t^t"

.Replacement.Text = "^t"

.Forward = True

.Wrap = wdFindContinue

.Execute

While .Found

.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll

.Execute

Wend



End With



End Sub



Cheers!


Marta


-----Original Message-----

From: Word-Pc List [mailto:WORD-PC@liverpool.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Brown, Donald

Sent: August 12, 2009 2:17 PM

To: WORD-PC@liverpool.ac.uk

Subject: Need VB Help with Looping


I import text documents and convert to tables. I have been able to do
the conversion, but now looking for some way to make it more efficient
and basically clean up the macro. Since I am converting this to a table
I am separating text by tabs. The problem is that I have set up to
replace all spaces to tab. That is, I start with 40 spaces and repeat
this over and over to get down to 2 spaces.

What is the syntax to set a loop and replace spaces (starting at 40)
with a tab until there is 2 spaces left?

Don


Also, good news! The recession should end this quarter, per PC Magazine. That's fine by me! My only concern is this: I cannot stay afloat at work. It seems to hit me every so often that I have way too much to do and not nearly enough time to do it. I put some numbers together today regarding my latest new project.



The amount of work I have in front of me is staggering. There are 2021 topics to evaluate, 1810 graphics, and 3730 places to replace the name of their company with my company and no, it's not a simple find and replace because their name is used in the navigation to their program on the Windows Start menu and, frankly, we may not follow their exact path. There is, probably, 6 weeks of work. If I started on this on Monday, 8/17, and only worked on this for the next 6 weeks, I would have 3 days until 10/1/09. That would be my goal - to plow through this project as quickly and as forcefully as I can. However:

  1. There are still 5 "other" hot projects that are going to take at least 40 hours each.
  2. There are going to be UI changes I need to develop.
  3. There are going to be CDs of our next release to assemble and burn.
  4. There are going to be other projects that I know Development is working on but haven't arrived in my department yet that will require my attention.

So "if you can't do it all" is what I am told, who is going to do it? I can tell you that aside from the cow-orkers that were talking about bird shit a few weeks ago, there is not a single bored sole in my employer's building. Everyone is busy - everyone has hot projects.

On a related note, I was in a session at our client conference today - each August, our clients come to town to hear about what we've accomplished and what we plan to do soon - that included our CEO talking about our corporate direction. Without revealing specifics, there is a HUGE project that we, as a company, need to complete. We have talked about it and talked about it and FINALLY have the pieces of the puzzle in the same building - all we need to do is to figure out the frame of the puzzle so its innards become clear. That's when it became very clear to me that we, as a company, need a corporate vision as to what we want to do. We need 100% buy-in. We need to set priorities on projects so that we are focused on our highest priority #1. We need to plan to dedicate resources to the projects that need to be done and, where we fail sometimes, not pull people to Hot Project #2 when Hot Project #1 also needs to be completed. We need to budget our time and not require each other to put in 40 hours in 2 days in order to meet an insane deadline. We need to have more parties - like $1 bowling @ Westdale - and to enjoy life. My friend Phil said he had too much work to do so he didn't go to our banquet last night. We need to find a way to not put each other in that situation.

And, on the subject of last night's banquet... I was hypnotized. People tell me that the following happened:

1) I was told I would win a car and when I did, I was supposed to say what kind of car I won. I said a Lambourgini. I was asked what accessory I wanted with my car and I said, "My wife." Then I was pulled over from speeding. When asked why I was speeding, I said that I was late for work. "Where do you work?" "At the best company on Earth."

2) When someone said our city, Person A stood up and asked, "Who's your Daddy?" I then stood up and said, "I am." And each time I stood up, I was more and more agitated. I told the hypnotist, "You need to tell him to shut up."

3) I played a balloon as a guitar for an Elvis song and a Shania Twain song.

That was about it. There is a DVD and I'd like to see it.

Anything else?

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