Jamcleat

I do not claim any understanding of Nelder-Mead or anything like it, also called a downhill method of finding a minimum for a system of equations, which, if you keep up with these things, may be old news. But consider the possibility of the inverse, nearing the summit realizing that whatever your strategy and method, the climb has led you up the wrong peak. Or more to the point, in the valley, you cannot realize or see that the adjacent (or some very distant) valley is lower but not chosen because the initial solution set off in the wrong direction. The desired goal is now distant. Maybe in Step n, there could be a global check for other minima. Or maybe this accomplishes that trick.

Tomorrow night you will be [nodding | shaking | scratching] your head at President Obama’s State of the Union Address. As a politician, Obama (or his speech writers) will make sure that all of the right buttons are pushed. As a citizen, you will be shaking your head at all of the unfulfilled promises of the campaign trail. And as a real live person, you will be scratching your head as to [where are we now? | what should we do? | long range plans?]. Yes, Barack Obama is the ultimate enigma. Perhaps, recent election results will energize him to new ideas and directions. Hopefully the face-to-face with the massed Congress will be a wake up call to both the Congress and the President. I suspect that despite the applause, most of the 435+100+9+1 will sleep through class. Do not blame the professor (at least I expect him to show on time, the Secret Service will see to that), I suspect insufficient pre-class preparation by the occupants of the lecture hall is the main problem.

The previous post started my mind wandering and when it sat down to rest it was thinking of this folk singer. Stan Kelly-Bootle is a favorite of mine, not as a folk singer, but rather for his commentary on the state of computing. I first found his writing in the Unix Review, still worth seeking, old SODA, never flat. And contemporary as the Curmudgeon in the ACM Queue on-line magazine.

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.

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.

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.

Saturday, my son and I were cutting up the accumulated brush and fallen limbs from 3 years of dry weather. I try to keep the pile small so it is not unsightly. But with the drought that we have had, I did not feel it was safe to burn. I had started on it a year or so ago when my old McCulloch chainsaw went bust.

Bad news: New Homelite chainsaw in hand, we were cutting off small lengths and burning to make a pile of coals to grill some hot dogs.  We had got about 20% of the pile done, and actually about all that we could do in that afternoon, the exhaust note changed from a motor sound to a sharper, harder sound.  I thought at the moment that it sounded like a large model airplane.  My son pointed to an object on the ground where I was cutting.  I quickly stopped the saw.  It seems the screws had come out of the muffler and the muffler had fallen off.  No wonder it sounded like a model airplane.  It was just like a 2-stroke model airplane engine with no muffler.  As in a model airplane engine the combustion chamber is open to the world when the piston clears exhaust port.  Big noise.  And the screws were nowhere to be found in the rubble and stubble under the brush pile.

That was on Saturday.  I was busy Sunday and Monday but had Tuesday off.  I called the Homelite toll-free help number.  The menu options had changed to better serve the customers.  The number one option on the first menu was “…to get the correct fuel-to-oil ratio for your power tool”. Option 2 was anything else.  The second menu was “Order parts or supplies press 1″ and “Talk to a representative press 2″.

There was a hold as all representatives were “serving another customer”.  But that hold was less than a minute.  Shana was very helpful.  I gave the model and serial number.  She responded that “If it has been less than 30 days, you can take it back to Home Depot.  If more than that, you will need to take to an authorized service location”.  Now that is some information system.  That indicates that that lot of tools was sold through Home Depot.  She further suggested that she get my zip code and gave a choice of two locations for Authorized Service, both about 10 miles away.

Next to find the receipt.  My wife went through a pile of recent receipts.  Not Found.  Then she remembered that that receipt was on a magnet on the side of the refrigerator.  It turns out that I had bought the saw 32 days before.  Receipt and map to 5 Points Mower Repair, I headed out.

Home Depot is about 2 1/2 miles away.  I took the saw in to the returns desk, setting off the loss prevention alarm on the way.  A young woman named Meg listened to my story and asked what I wanted to do.  I suggested exchanging just the saw since I had used the oil and written in the book.  She suggested that I just get a similar saw off the shelf and exchange the whole thing.  So that is what I did.  She typed in the return reason in the register and gave me back the old receipt. About 3 minutes elapsed time. Homelite customer service and Home Depot return experience are pretty Good News!