Wet House

Minnesota has set up homes for alcoholics. This is the second time I have heard of this. Seattle set up an apartment building for them several years ago. Yes, it's expensive, but it's a lot less expensive than what it would cost otherwise. A dedicated, destitute alcoholic can cost the government and hospitals a $100,000 a year, and that cost is paid by the taxpayers. If you aren't paying any taxes, or you never pay a hospital bill, you may not care.

I am not sure these programs save any money, I mean you still have the same number of people staffing the emergency rooms and police stations, but at least they aren't wasting their time scraping drunks up off the sidewalk. And who knows when pointless errands like that have interfered with something serious?

The big benefit I see is the reduction in vomit on the sidewalk. As far as I am concerned, that is one of the big drawbacks of downtown areas. Maybe I'm just being prissy, but given a choice I'd rather not be exposed to it. I clean the cat's litter box once a day, and that's all the disgust I need in my life right now, thank you very much.

I realize that not everyone is as fussy as I am. Until someone puts a price tag on vomit, the bean counters will overlook these quality-of-life issues. In fact, what they will say is that if your emergency personnel are not working all the time, well then, you have too many people. You can cut back and save some money. On the other hand, isn't that what you want? Emergency personnel sitting around waiting, not having anything to do? If they are working it's because something has gone terribly wrong and someone's life has turned to shit. Better that they sit and enjoy their coffee and doughnuts.

The flip side is when things are too calm, emergency personnel don't get to practice their skills, which leads to things like giving an IV to someone who is getting a ride in an ambulance, not because they will die if they don't get one, but simply because the EMT needs to perform so many "sticks" in order to maintain his or her qualifications.

Friend of a friend is an EMT up in rural Washington and nothing ever happens. Spend a great deal of time and energy training and preparing for emergencies and the only call you get is some guy with a hangnail. Maybe we need to rotate EMT's through a war zone (like gangland in a big urban area), so they can get their fill of action, excitement, and maintain their qualifications.

Snow

Driving home on Highway 26 yesterday I saw a lot of snow in the Coast Range. There is usually some snow, but this was quite a bit more than usual. Those hills are about 20 to 25 miles away and are 2500, maybe 3000 feet tall. Couldn't see anything today, it was totally overcast.

Electrons Versus Ink

The one thing that keeps me from getting rid of paper entirely is the ballpoint pen. Computers don't have anything that can match it. The electronic signature screens at the cash register do a pretty good job of capturing your signature now, but they don't provide any tactile feedback. Typing letters and numbers on a keyboard is just not the same as writing them.

Newspaper Bites Subscriber

I subscribe to the local newspaper (The Oregonian). This weekend I got a note that their rates are going up. Sunday the paper was late. Monday it was late again. Today it was late for the third time in a row so I decided to say something. The note I got advertised that they now have a website where you can do things like REPORT PROBLEMS WITH DELIVERY. Cool, bring up the browser, so to the website, try and file a complaint. No go. Seems you have to register. Okay, fine, everybody wants you to register these days. Oops, seems my universal-use-for-all-these-websites-that-want-a-password-password won't work.

It's doesn't have any capital letters. It doesn't have any punctuation. It doesn't have three identical letters in a row. Who are these guys and why do they care? Frigging morons. I finally design a password that should meet their ridiculous requirements, very carefully type it twice, and they still reject it. Fine. Call 'em on the phone. Get a robo-cop answering machine. Press this button, press the other button, enter your secret code, enter your number, sorry, I can't help you, you will have to talk to a person. Oops, there aren't any people here. Call back later. Click.

Couple hours later the paper finally shows up and I call back, go through the same rigamarole again, get put on hold for a short eternity, and finally talk to someone who is very apologetic about the paper being late. I don't tell him about the all the grief I've gone through to get to this point. I save that up for this post.

You know, if they want me to cancel my subscription, why don't they just say so?

Linkage

Tiny Hippo and the tiny train. A fable for our times.

Snoring hummingbird.

How to turn a log into a pile of wood chips. Oh, and a lampshade.

Grace Hopper and the nanosecond.

The Mechanic - Jason Statham

Remake of the 1972 version that starred Charles Bronson. I remember the book, or at least I think I do. I remember the mechanic using chewing gum to make a little cup sitting on top of a gas line. There is a hole in the bottom of the cup where the bare metal of the gas line is exposed. He then filled the cup with acid. Over a period of hours, the acid slowly ate it's way through the metal wall of the gas line, which led to a leak, which filled the apartment with natural gas. The Mechanic then fired a bullet into the apartment that touched off the gas and killed the occupant. Or maybe he just let the pilot light on the stove touch it off, I'm not too sure about that. Anyway, bullets are not good at setting things on fire, at least not the way they show it in the movies. They used the same technique at the end of this movie, and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work, unless you used a tracer round, which is entirely possible, but they neglected to include that little detail. No matter, I've filled in the blank. There don't seem to be many copies of the book around anymore.

There isn't much to the story, just an assassin, his protege and their victims. If they did their job properly we would never hear about it. It would make a good thriller, but that's not how Hollywood makes movies. Things go wrong and we get lots of gunfights and explosions. Maybe it's better that way. If we were only seeing executions that look like accidents it might be just a little too scary.

Update April 2015: replaced the picture because the original web site replaced theirs.

Yes, we have no bananas

Post-Hip obscurity from Scott. A cell phone jammer is something I have often wanted, but this video won't help. Ladyada (also known as Limur Fried) started Adafruit Industries, which sells electronic bits to the hobbyist, but they don't list a cell phone jammer. Could it be they are illegal?