November 30, 2010
Unanticipated Expenses
The odds of one's monitor and computer failing within 24 hours of each other are probably rather slim. Nevertheless, I managed to get beat over the head with those odds over the weekend. The monitor failed Sunday, so I went out the next day to buy a new one. After I brought it home, I discovered that my computer wouldn't power on. That necessitated a trip to the local repair shop to get the power supply replaced. Of course, these events transpired after I had already spent a significant amount on upgrade parts that are due to arrive later this week. I may have to get a seasonal job as a department store elf just to pay off my credit card bill. I'm sure Santa could use a little diversity on his staff and perhaps I can help the kids explain away their past bad behavior when Santa makes his standard annual inquiry.
I guess I can take some consolation in the fact that my new monitor looks pretty spectacular. The fishnets practically leap off the screen.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:39 PM | Comments (2)
November 26, 2010
Good Little Consumer
I've managed to go most of the day without spending any money on web-based Black Friday sales, but that may not last much longer if I stay here at my computer. Time to step away and come up with airtight rationalizations for what will likely be my eventual purchases. I'm pretty certain I'm up to the task.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 06:16 PM | Comments (0)
November 25, 2010
Obrigado
Happy Thanksgiving to my readers. I hope the turkey isn't too dry and the mashed potatoes aren't too lumpy. As always, thanks for continuing to read and respond to my digital ramblings. Given all the other diversions available on the Web, it's gratifying to know that people still find this site worthy of their time.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 04:02 PM | Comments (0)
November 24, 2010
Fascinating, Captain
Do you like Star Trek? Got lots of free time over the holiday weekend? Then you might want to check out WatchTrek, which offers every episode of every Trek series that ever aired. I'm watching "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and the quality seems decent enough. I might even subject myself to a few Voyager episodes just to see if Seven of Nine still gets me all hot and bothered. The site itself has a fly-by-night feel and it probably won't be long before the lawyers start circling, so get your fill while you can. If only Netflix would get its act together and make these episodes available legitimately so that I wouldn't have to feel so dirty.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 05:23 PM | Comments (1)
Fascinating, Captain
Do you like Star Trek? Gots lots of free time over the holiday weekend? Then you might want to check out WatchTrek, which offers every episode of every Trek series that ever aired. I'm watching "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and the quality seems decent enough. I might even subject myself to a few Voyager episodes just to see if Seven of Nine still gets me all hot and bothered. The site itself has a fly-by-night feel and it probably won't be long before the lawyers start circling, so get your fill while you can. If only Netflix would get its act together and make these episodes available legitimately so that I wouldn't have to feel so dirty.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 05:22 PM | Comments (0)
November 23, 2010
Fuzzy Outlook
I broke my glasses over the weekend and I'm temporarily using an older pair with a slightly different prescription. The difference is significant enough to slightly blur everything on my computer screen. It's tolerable, but certainly not ideal. My broken pair is being held together with tape and a Q-Tiip, which might be okay for wearing around the house over the holiday weekend. But it's not the kind of thing I can wear in public without attracting more stares than usual.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:32 PM | Comments (0)
November 22, 2010
That Was Fast
The Minnesota Supreme Court just denied a petition from Minnesota GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer to delay the recount by forcing counties to use an alternate method of reconciling votes cast with registered voters. Dayton, the Democrat, continues to hold a lead of nearly 9,000 votes and that number is unlikely to change significantly after the recount is complete. This decision (which the court delivered less than two hours after hearing oral arguments) should signal to Team Emmer that little can be gained by continued litigation. Minnesotans don't have much patience for displays of naked political gamesmanship and I'm not sure Emmer will have the funds necessary to keep fighting. The odds are now slightly better that Dayton will take office as scheduled on January 3rd and Pawlenty will be free to get on with his next job as an also-ran presidential candidate.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:12 PM | Comments (0)
November 19, 2010
Ring, Ring
I finally got around to purchasing a USB headset for my computer so that I can place calls via Google Voice. Based on the few calls I've placed, it seems to work pretty well. Call quality is decent on both ends and it's easy enough to place and receive calls from within the Gmail interface. Best of all, it doesn't cost me anything as calls placed within the U.S. are free (at least for now). It won't replace my cell phone, but it will come in handy when I want to make a call while I'm at my computer.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:02 PM | Comments (0)
November 18, 2010
Hazardous Nostalgia
The zany ideas on Medicaid cost-cutting just keep coming. State officials in Idaho are suggesting that volunteers could deliver services to people with disabilities and other Medicaid recipients. Need someone to help you get dressed every morning? Find a volunteer. Need help taking your meditations? Find a volunteer. Those volunteers may not be even minimally qualified, but they're doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. And when you're forced to rely on the charity of others, you can't afford to be too picky about things like qualifications.
State officials went on to say that it would be just like the good old days of the '50s and '60s when people with disabilities relied on volunteers for assistance with their most basic needs. And everyone remembers how those throngs of volunteers worked tirelessly to keep people with disabilities out of institutions and in their own homes. It was a veritable golden age for us gimps. So yes, please, let's bring back those old-timey solutions that worked so well. I'm sure Idahoans with disabilities were getting tired of their independence anyway.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:18 PM | Comments (1)
November 17, 2010
Move It
The latest hotness in gaming is the Kinect, an add-on device for the Xbox 360 that allows you to play games using your entire body instead of a handheld controller. A small camera measures your body movements and translates them into in-game actions. I initially thought that this device didn't have much potential for people with disabilities, but that was before I saw this video of a guy without the use of one arm playing Kinect. He probably be able to play with a standard controller, but this interface is perfect for him. Kinect still won't work for most people with mobility limitations, but perhaps future versions can include a "Twitchy Eyebrows" mode so that everyone can get in on the fun.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:03 PM | Comments (0)
November 16, 2010
Ideology In Action
Newly elected Republicans are already coming up with new and innovative ways to screw the poor, elderly, and people with disabilities. Texas Republicans, who now enjoy a supermajority in the state legislature, have become enamored with the idea of withdrawing from the Medicaid program. Republicans seem to think that private insurers can do a much better job of providing care to a high-cost population for a much lower sticker price. To call the idea insane is being too kind to the fanatic ideologues who thought this up. No state has the resources to provide adequate health care to this population. Any effort to shoehorn them into the private market without adequate funding would be disastrous, resulting in worse health care for the poor and disabled while raising the cost of health care for everyone else.
States have legitimate gripes about the amount of resources they must devote to Medicaid, but the solution isn't to punish the people served by the program. Saner voices will probably prevail in this debate, but the fact that such draconian measures are already being openly discussed by lawmakers should be very worrying to health care advocates.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:10 PM | Comments (0)
November 15, 2010
Out With The Old
The computer upgrade itch is becoming more difficult to ignore and I spent an inordinate amount of time over the weekend comparing various components. My current rig is certainly no slouch, but it is beginning to stutter just a bit when I'm doing several things at once. Additional power and speed are luxuries rather than necessities, but I'm in the mood to spoil myself. I'll do my best to future-proof the new system as much as possible so that it's ready for the forthcoming brain interface that will allow me to take over the world.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:51 PM | Comments (0)
November 12, 2010
Coming Attraction
The new trailer for alien-invasion movie Battle: Los Angeles is intriguingly awesome. A proper alien invasion movie should have plenty of military hardware and explosive mayhem; both of which are well-represented in the trailer. Of course, a corollary law of alien-invasion movie trailers is that their ultimate suck factor is inversely proportional to the trailer's awesomeness quotient. Skyline had a great trailer, but the reviews for the actual film have been brutal. We science fiction geeks have learned to keep this corollary in mind when Hollywood dangles its latest bauble in front of our eyes.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 06:45 PM | Comments (0)
November 11, 2010
Forgotten Soldiers
Since today is Veterans Day, here's news that work is beginning in on a memorial for veterans with disabilities in Washington, D.C. More information on plans for the memorial is here. Thousands of vets are coping with physical and mental disabilities acquired during their service and they often receive little support when they return home. This memorial could serve as a good reminder that our obligation to returning veterans doesn't end when they are discharged. But construction of the memorial should also be accompanied by better access to health care and other supports that will help them succeed as civilians.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 03:56 PM | Comments (0)
November 10, 2010
Mellow
If you're feeling stressed and harried, you might want to consider a move to the Twin Cities. Forbes selected our fair cities as the nation's most relaxed metropolitan area based on factors like commute times, unemployment, and the rate of physical exercise among residents. While the rest of you spend your days stuck in traffic and working late, we're up here eating hot dish and taking a stroll around one of our lovely lakes. Except in the winters, when we pretty much just eat hot dish. Many of us muse with our friends about how great it would be to live somewhere like Chicago or L.A. and we might even temporarily decamp for such distant parts, but we usually end up returning because the living is pretty good here.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:15 PM | Comments (0)
November 09, 2010
Aging Into Captivity
NPR ran an excellent story yesterday about kids with severe disabilities who may be forced into institutions when they turn 21. The story profiles a young Illinois woman who is ventilator-dependent who recently turned 21 and is now facing the possibility of losing her nursing care. Like many other states, Illinois' Medicaid program doesn't cover in-home services for kids with severe disabilities after they turn 21. Some of you may recall that Nick Dupree, a disability rights activist, faced a similar threat a few years ago in his home state of Alabama. Nick successfully lobbied the Alabama legislature to change its Medicaid laws. But Illinois, which has a $15 billiion deficit on its ledger, is reluctant to do the same. The family is currently suing the state in federal court under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
A related story profiles Katie Beckett, a pioneer of sorts in the home care movement. In the early 80s, Beckett was a little girl living in a hospital because of a severe brain infection. She couldn't go home because Medicaid refused to pay for services in the home. Her story caught the attention of President Reagan, who signed a law creating a Medicaid waiver program that would pay for home and community-based services for kids like Beckett. Beckett is now in her early thirties and living independently in Iowa. This story is particularly fascinating to me because a "Katie Beckett" program in Wisconsin enabled me to stay at home after I became vent-dependent.
The main article points out that Medicaid policymakers didn't anticipate that kids with such severe disabilities would reach adulthood. To punish them with institutionalization for simply outliving antiquated actuarial expectations is deeply cruel and an absurd policy. States are justified in claiming that a tough economy is tying their hands, but the current Medicaid financing model is fundamentally flawed. Even larger states don't have the tax base needed to pay for long-term for an aging population and people with disabilities. The federal government could pick up a greater share of these costs, but the rightward lurch of Congress makes that scenario...unlikely. For now, people with disabilities and their families will have to fight these lonely fights themselves. There's always hope that the economy will recover and states will be more flush with cash, but that's little comfort to anyone who is being forced from their home and into a prison.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:43 PM | Comments (2)
November 08, 2010
It's A Living
Unemployed attorneys who are looking for work might want to start offering their services to adult film studios. In recent weeks, enterprising attorneys have filed thousands of copyright infringement suits against Bittorrent users suspected of downloading titles like Batman XXX: A Porn Parody and (forgive me) Teen Anal Nightmare 2. The attorneys earn their fees by identifying individuals via their IP addresses and sending them menacing letters demanding settlement payments of a few thousand dollars each in exchange for avoiding costly litigation and public humiliation. It doesn't sound like the most intellectually challenging legal work, but those letters are probably sufficient to scare plenty of people into paying the money.
Paying clients are difficult to find in this economy and those student loans aren't going to pay themselves. However, I wouldn't be bragging about being the porn industry's lackey to my alumni magazine, no matter how lucrative such lackeydom might be.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 06:36 PM | Comments (1)
November 05, 2010
Brrraaaiiinnnsss!
All the pre- and post-election Sturm und Drang, along with a hectic workweek, was enough to make me temporarily forget that I still haven't watched the first episode of The Walking Dead. That situation must be remedied. Off I go. See you on the other side of the weekend.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:24 PM | Comments (1)
November 04, 2010
Cover Artist
Election results got you down? Looking for something to get your mind off the clusterfuck that will be American politics for the next two years? I've got your remedy: William Shatner doing a sweaty and heartfelt rendition of Cee-Lo's popular single "Fuck You". For at least a few minutes, you may completely forget that a contingent of bullies and fearmongers have taken over half of Congress. I know I did.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:51 PM | Comments (0)
November 03, 2010
Way Off
My election projections left a lot to be desired. I lowballed the number of seats that Republicans would take in both the U.S. House and the Minnesota Legislature by a lot. But I can take some comfort in the fact that the takeover of the Legislature also shocked the professional pundits. It should make for an interesting legislative session. It will be doubly interesting because our next governor may not be sworn in until the session is nearly over, depending on the length of the recount process. Pawlenty has already offered to stay on as governor until the matter of his succession has been resolved. That assurance was enough to make state Republicans swoon with adoration.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 10:46 PM | Comments (0)
November 02, 2010
Satisfied Customer...For Now
I'm obsessively checking my Twitter feed for election updates, but I wanted to point to this Times article about Owen, a young boy with spinal muscular atrophy who has had some success using an iPad after other assistive technology devices proved unworkable. It's great that he's able to access the device, but I'm a little worried that Apple and other tablet manufacturers will use articles like this to claim their products are accessible out of the box. The touch interface simply doesn't work for people with visual impairments and severe mobility impairments. Developers still have a long way to go before tablets are as adaptable as traditional computers. Owen's physical capabilities are likely to change over time and it would be a shame if the iPad's interface is incapable of making the necessary accommodations.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 06:09 PM | Comments (0)
November 01, 2010
The Day After Tomorrow
My predictions for tomorrow's elections are based on little more than gut feeling and a cursory review of FiveThirtyEight, but here they are nonetheless:
Minnesota Governor: Dayton by 3%. I don't think Dayton's lead is as big as some polls indicate, but his campaign's unapologetic "tax the rich" message (combined with his name recognition) should be enough to carry the day. It may be the one bright spot in an otherwise dismal evening.
Minnesota House and Senate: These races don't get much attention and are difficult to predict, but the DFL has substantial majorities in both houses. That seems likely to continue, although those majorities will probably shrink by a few seats.
U.S. House: No surprises in the Minnesota races. The Republicans will win the House, but fall short of capturing 50 seats. Let's say +46, which is still plenty. John Boehner is probably already shopping for a tanning bed that will fit in his new digs.
U.S. Senate: The Democrats will build a firewall around California, Washington, West Virginia, and (because I'm feeling lucky) Colorado. All the other major contested races will be Republican wins. At least Sharron Angle will be good for a few laughs.
After tomorrow night, the afterglow of the 2006 and 2008 elections will seem like distant memories. But it also won't be the end of the world. The road to the future is a rocky one and we will travel it in fits and starts. While Republicans will spend the next two years making currency of fear and greed, I'm confident that better days await.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:21 PM | Comments (0)