Categories
Travel

Where To

It’s been a quiet summer for travel, since I have not taken any trips since the end of May to Phoenix. And while there are several in the planning phase, nothing is on the horizon before September.

Truthfully, the hardest part now is due to the way I reorganized my finances. I’m now living on a fixed monthly budget, with all excess income heading straight to the savings account. Trying to stay within my means is proving to be more difficult than expected, at least when it comes to trip-planning. The recent cost increases due to the rebound in travel and reduction in capacity has only aggravated the wallet crunch.

Nonetheless, I’m still trying to decide between India and the United Arab Emirates for a post-Thanksgiving trip in November. While I would love to make the trip to India, it’s looking like an upgradeable ticket is running about $1000 more to India than the UAE. That’s partially making the decision for more.

The other factor? As one of my friends asked, “which are you more likely to make it back from unharmed?”

Categories
News

I Love NJ

The NJ papers never cease to amaze me. In all the coverage of the budget shutdown, the one aspect the papers have unceasingly failed to cover is the casino shutdown. It’s truly wonderful to know that the most visible and fundamental aspect of the whole budget nonsense is that people aren’t able to piss their money away at casinos and on the lottery.

In the meantime, every article I’ve read failed to give a proper accounting to why NJ ended up in the fiscal mess in the first place. Sure, they repeated so many times that the shutdown was a direct result of the failure to compromise on a sales tax increase between the Governor and the head of the Assembly. But the discussion beyond that failed to provide a proper context to the sales tax increase. I saw little to no answers to questions such as how many budget cuts were being proposed, and where; what spending increases were being proposed; what contractual obligations the state had to honor in its budget, etc. Perhaps this was all done prior to the shutdown, yet, even if it was, I somehow doubt many people have been paying that much attention before it became a reality.

I understand how writing about casinos may be more fun, and likely a lot easier, but it does a disservice to the community these papers supposedly support to not educate readers properly on the topic of the day.

Categories
News

Overzealous Copy Protection

I laughed out loud as I read this article on how to defeat the copy protection schemes in the current batch of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players built in to computers.

Computer magazine c’t has discovered that the first software players running on Windows XP allow screenshots of the movies to be created in full resolution. To do so, you only need to press the Print key on your keyboard while the movie is running. Such a screenshot function could then be automated to produce copies of HD movies both from Blu-ray Discs and from HD DVDs picture by picture. As c’t calculated, the performance of current PC systems is sufficient for a clean recording using this procedure. Once a pirate has all of the individual pictures, they can be put together to create a complete movie and mixed with the audio track that is grabbed separately.

I love when a low-tech option can circvumvent high-tech restrictions.

Categories
Personal

Did you ever watch Futurama? Even like it, perhaps? If so, you’ll be pleased to know new Futurama episodes will be on Comedy Central beginning in 2007.

Categories
News

Horse Racing Yesterday

A temporary stay allowed our day of OTB to go on up at my cousin’s house. It turned out to be a great time, though I did end up losing somewhere around $40 when all was said and done.

Categories
News

Heading to a Halt

So, the NJ state government begins the shutdown process. While this is disappointin(and ruins my plans for some quality OTB time with the family tomorrow) I have to respectfully disagree with this quote:

“It’s just unbelievable. It’s like communism,” said Marty Campagna of Rahway who was among the 2,400 people at the Meadowlands before it closed.

I doubt Marty has lived under communism, and I certainly know I haven’t. But if you consider for a moment that communism involves the state planning and allocation of resources in place of the private sector, then you could safely consider the shutdown the complete opposite.

Since so many of my fellow New Jerseyans can epitomize the definition of short-term memory less at times, I’m sure that they’ll continue to blame the long-term mess on the current bigwigin charge. However, the seeds of this mess were planted in the late 1990s, during the boom times, when the Republican governor at the time cut taxes too far while increasing spending. That’s what happens when you let Republicans in to power. They end up screwing you later while letting Democrats take the fall for it.

I’m not thrilled with the budget plans, nor the shutdown. But I am glad to see someone’s finally tackling the real problem here and trying to fix it once and for all (or at least until the next Republican fucks it all up again).

Categories
Work

More Vioxx

I am generally sympathetic to the concept of personal inury litigation as a way to correct wrongs, but reading crap like this makes it hard to stay that way.

Your father?s stroke may have been caused by his high blood pressure; however, the study that led to the recall of Vioxx from the marketplace showed that users of Vioxx had almost doubled chances of heart attack or stroke, so the chances that your father?s use of Vioxx contributed to his stroke are pretty high.

You should certainly consult with an experienced personal injury Vioxx attorney as soon as possible to discuss your father?s case. You should be able to bring an action against Merck Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer of Vioxx. Merck knew that Vioxx caused an increased risk of stroke, yet continued to market the drug. However, Merck will certainly point to your father?s high blood pressure as the cause of his stroke, and your damages may be lessened or even eliminated due to this fact.

A case against your father?s doctor, however, may be much easier to prove. As early as 2001, Merck was instructed by the FDA to send letters to healthcare professionals, warning them of the increased risk of heart attack and stroke. In 2002, the FDA forced Merck to relabel Vioxx, recommending that the drug not be prescribed to patients with heart conditions and pointing out the study showing that Vioxx caused heart attacks and strokes. Your father?s doctor clearly knew about your father?s high blood pressure as he was prescribing drugs for that condition. Therefore, he should also have known that it was dangerous for your father to use Vioxx. Prescribing Vioxx for your father was professionally unreasonable and negligent on the part of your father?s doctor. This case will probably be more lucrative to you in terms of damages for your father?s stroke.

I love how confident the writers are in their assertions.

Categories
Work

Vioxx

As I was trying to poke around the Internet on Vioxx, I stumbled on an interesting site.

In August of 2004, the FDA finally launched its own study, showing that the use of Vioxx was linked to more than 27,000 heart attacks or sudden cardiac deaths. The FDA stated, once and for all, that the use of Vioxx did not protect against heart problems. Merck responded by withdrawing the drug from the marketplace.

Talk about playing fast and loose with the facts. The drug was pulled from the market after the data was unblinded at the midpoint review of a double-blind study that Merck was conducting to determine the answer to the cardiovascular risk, in part at the request of the FDA. The FDA was not doing its own study, and Merck withdrew VIOXX from the market because of the results. It did so before the FDA had time to do anything, including forcing a label change or a withdrawl from the market.

In truth, Merck likely could have kept the drug on the market with a “black box” warning label, avoiding at least some of the appearance of impropriety. Because the company yanked it, it unfortunately gives the appearance of some deep secret that the company was hiding something.

At least, according to the same site, the statute of limitations on product liability cases is two years. Since the drug was yanked in early Fall 2005, anyone looking to cash in better hurry up and file.

Categories
Work

Silence of the Dymek

I’ve been away from my computer recently. A lot.

My work-life balance, consisting mainly of work, has been a primary driver for this. I’ve recently had two projects move in to production use, with a third coming up this week. Throw on top of that an additional three (or four, I’m not really sure) projects in motion and you might understand why I’ve been a little busy.

Coinciding with being given more project work than is reasonable, I’ve had a rash of family outings lately. About five of eight weekends in April/May/June were up in Sparta, at my cousins’ house, for a wedding, graduation party, the Kentucy Derby (Barbaro!), and miscellaneous other events.

Any downtime I managed to find in the midst of all this has been appreciated.

Categories
Travel

Thrill of the Chase

I sat down at my computer Monday night, checked my RSS feeds, and saw a curious posting about cheap airfare: TACA (Business), others:SFO-PTY, SJO, Other Central AM. <$250 All In.

Figuring what the hell, I sat down for a few minutes to play around with dates, to see what I could come up with. After a short while it became clear it was from more than just SFO, and to more than just PTY or SJO. In the end, I landed business class tickets from PHX – SAL for under $250 for a weekend in October.

It was only after I booked the ticket that I asked myself the two most important questions. Why did I book airfare from PHX? And why did I book airfare to El Salvador?