Jamcleat

With the secret House-Senate committee sorting out the differences between the House and Senate versions of the so-called Health Care bills, it may be the time to say that what was needed was a lot less and way more than what is being discussed.
What is needed less is government imposed price controls ala Medicare and Medicaid. Price controls lead to shortages. But you are probably too young to remember Jimmy Carter’s government induced gasoline shortage.
What is needed more is supply. So end the government supported insurance oligopoly. Reduce state regulation to fiduciary oversight. No imposed benefits. Allow companies to sell insurance in other states. Just make sure that the insurance companies deliver what they contracted to deliver. The rest will take care of itself.

My long-time friend Bob sent me news to help understand Windrows 7. Hay-Hay-Hay.
Fortunately I only have to use Window at work. The company I work for can afford to pay lots of smart people to protect me from folks who would do bad things to my computer. At home, I use Ubuntu, a Linux based system. Much less worry about invasive software problems.

It seems that the court has found that the recording industry has been may have been screwing you in regard to music downloads.

While looking for information on “splines”, I stumbled over an interesting article in the Community Resources section of the Resources Tab for the Geology Department of Portland State University. The pdf file is a Self-guided tour of Portland, Oregon’s geology. This field trip provides an introduction to the geology of the Portland, Oregon, area. Five field trip stops, all accessible by public transportation and walks of easy to moderate difficulty, provide opportunities to see outcrops of Columbia River Basalt, Troutdale Formation, Boring volcanic field flow and vents, Portland Hills Silt, and a small landslide. I have never had a chance to visit the Northwest but might like to some day. This paper is an exciting chance to visit the neighborhood of Mt. St. Helens vicariously. And a way to spend a day or two out and about in the Portland area.

Also exciting is the description of the floods in the Portland area on 20-15 thousand years ago. Water levels 150m higher than current sea level! What short memories humans have. Maybe the geologists should buy the climatologists a cup of coffee and fill them in on life on earth.

We have one of those Carrier combination air conditioner and furnace units. This sort of makes sense since they share the same duct work. We had some trouble with the air conditioning side a few years ago and last year began having intermittent trouble with the furnace.

The symptom for the furnace trouble is that when the thermostat calls for heat, the inducer blower runs but there is no flame. At least no flame when you realize that you hear it running but there is no heat coming from the register. This has always occurred when there was precipitation and falling temperature. Around here that means fog forming or ice storm, usually at night. Not the best time to lose heat or work on the system. So far we have been lucky. If you smell gas, turn the gas off, turn the power off, and call a repairman. Otherwise Quick Fix: Turn the circuit breaker off. Wait 20 seconds. Turn circuit breaker on. The system seems to restart ok. This might be the best solution to get the heat back on. But it does not fix the problem.

This unit (Model number starts with 48SS. The next 3 digits are a capacity of the A/C unit) has an electronic circuit board that performs the starting and safety logic. When it detects an error, it displays an error code as a sequence of flashes of a red LED. It may display more than one code so count pulses and pauses until you get the same count twice. For example it could do flash-flash-pause-flash-flash-flash-pause-flash-flash-pause-flash-flash-flash-pause…. This would indicate errors 2 and 3 (if this were a possible condition). Understanding the error code is essential to pin-pointing the problem. But the errors are reset if you turn the power off. So if you can, leave the power on. If you smell gas, turn the gas off, turn the power off, and call a repairman.

In order to see the circuit board and the indicator LED you will need a 5/16″ socket to remove 2 screws at the bottom edge of the panel marked “Burner Control” on right hand side. If the label is gone, this is to the left of and around the corner from where the exhaust and gas line come out of the unit. After removing the screws, bring the bottom of panel toward you and allow it to slide down, out from under the lip at the top. The left side of the panel sits in a groove to provide a seal so there may be a bit of friction getting it loose.

The control board will be at the top left of the open compartment. Look for a red LED. If it is on solid, no error is indicated. If it is off, there is no power to the unit or the control board has failed. Call a repairman. If it is flashing, count the flashes and write them down. Replace the cover by inserting the left edge in the groove and the upper edge under the lip. Press the panel against the unit and start the screws. Tighten the screws. Reset the unit by turning the circuit breaker off. Wait 20 seconds. Turn circuit breaker on. Verify that the thermostat is calling for heat. If the unit does not start, you will need to call a repairman.

Longer term fix: The error code we saw was an 8. This indicates an “internal controller fault”. A web search for related problems suggest several things:

1. Check the circuit board above the 2 white squares. There are two resistors there. Charing may indicate that the circuit board has overheated.
2. Check for corrosion. This may affect the ground connection of the circuits. If there is evidence corrosion, you may need to clean it off to get a good connection. Examine the inside of the firebox (heat exchanger) with flashlight. If excessively corroded, you will need replacement. Call a repairman.
3. Remove debris from the control box. The burner(s) are located in the bottom of the box. While the circuit breaker is off, vacuum cob webs, wasp nests, leaves, etc. out of the control box.
4. Some units may have a “sail switch” to detect air flow. If one exists, check for free operation.
5. Other units have a Hall Effect sensor to detect rotation on the inducer fan motor. Google for or check this thread (scroll down to djken post) or themanual for instructions on how to test the Hall Effect sensor.
6. When you turn the circuit breaker back on and the unit restarts, check to make sure that the flame from the burner is induced completely into the hole in the heat exchanger before you replace the cover and tighten the screws.  Oversize flame or insufficient draft require adjustment.

Error codes for Carrier 48SS series

N.B.:

1. There is a 3-second pause between error code displays.
2. If more than one error code exists, all applicable error codes will be displayed in numerical sequence.
3. This chart is on the wiring diagram located inside the burner access panel.

America will likely wake up Christmas morning with a terrible hangover.
The Senate seems hell-bent-for-leather to get some sort of health reform bill passed. Or maybe that is slip one past. The vote set for Christmas eve will give Americans no health, no reform, no care, and a huge bill.
Nominally the bill is to reduce cost by reforming the health care industry and the way that insurance against illness is paid. But because of concessions to special interest groups, the tax payers will end up footing the bill for universal insurance for the indigent while the “Cadillac” health plan covered folk escape paying the proposed fees due to carve-outs and special exceptions.
Medicare pays so little for many procedures that many caregivers will not accept new patients if their only insurance is Medicare. If all patients fees are regulated at the same rate, the level of care will decline, if only because doctors and other personnel leave the system to find something they can afford to do. No there will not be death committees, but you may have to wait so long for care that you do die or wish you could.
This is not reform. This is more of the same nonsense that caused the problem in first place.
My recommendation:
End the deductibility of payroll health insurance. This should be taxable income to the recipient. This gets non-health care business out of the health care business.
End the limits that states can put on health plans sold in state. This would open the markets to all comers and give consumers price and coverage choices that are not available today. Existing consumer protection laws could be used to prevent fraud and abuse.
Have individuals pay for all medicine and procedures. Have insurance companies reimburse the individuals if they are insured. This will ensure that, where possible, families will shop for value, achieving a balance between level of care and affordability.
Publish the secret codes that describe medical procedures. This would allow consumers to ensure that they are billed for the care actually administered. Today the codes can only be used by those who have purchased the copyright license to the code book. As a result, it is impossible to determine what was billed for, insure accuracy in billing, or negotiate for a better price. Insurance companies pay more, consumers cannot assist in reducing cost. The code monopoly needs to end.
Allow purchasing insurance for all coverage with an exclusion for an existing condition. A phase in of coverage for a controlled existing condition could be an option.
The best outcome for the existing bill is that it will self-destruct in conference committee. The likely outcome is that it will get even more expensive.

Comments received on my earlier blog relative to global warming indicate that some politcos took offense.  While I think they should be wearing stripes ala prison garb, the stripes I had in mind at the time were those worn by family Mephitis mephitis.

The RIAA’s sister organization in Canada, the CRIA has been called to account for $6 billion in royalties due to artists that have not been paid. Apparently this may have some effect on the juries that are deciding cases in their parallel anti-piracy cases. I wonder how much the U.S. RIAA has failed to pay.

My brother sent me a story about Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana is going geothermal for their heating and cooling requirements. This is one of the more practical ideas available to reduce the use of fossil fuels.

A year ago last September, my wife found some Halloween decorations at a closeout table at Dollar Store.  They were wire sculpture cat profiles.  I used them to make a mobile.

But with the stormy whether that we have been having, the fishing swivel that I had used let go so Tuesday I replaced it with a new heavier #1 swivel.

Cat Mobile