I can't always get what I want in Utah so I shop online and it wasn't until hubby had lunch with a security expert from Zions bank that I took a good long look at how much of my credit card information was dotted around the web. Being proactive - I set about removing it, if I'm shopping on a new site I shop as a guest but it seems that more and more sites let you put your credit card information in and then won't let you proceed with the order until you register with them. Drugstore.com is one such example, I suppose the reasoning is - oh I got all this way - all my information is there I'll be able to go back next time and just one click everything. These aren't websites there are on-line store fronts.
Can you imagine walking into a bricks and mortar store and getting all the way to the checkout before they tell you 'sorry you can't buy this item until you hand over all your personal data to us for us to keep'. Oh and for future reference CVS.com lets you shop as a guest, I'll be using them again.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
Am I wanted by the health police?
I'm all for a healthy life style, but there is a rising trend especially in the US to force employees into becoming fitter more productive individuals by making them get fit. Trouble is that extends to their families so once a year I get poked and prodded in the name of corporate health - and I don't like it.
There will be no mention of which companies I am referring to because this post comes from personal experience and I don't want to get hubby into trouble but their mo goes something like this. They take your blood, analyse it and they compare the numbers with the results you gave them last year. Last year I had a fairly structured argument with the person who gave me my test results. He told me my cholesterol numbers were up from last year and I responded that the numbers hadn't moved but the guidelines had been lowered to make more people take cholesterol reducing medication. I've seen for myself how being on statins dries up your skin and takes the lubrication away from your joints. He didn't know how to argue that one and it goes further than that. To get the carrot of money off your health insurance you have to complete three programmes on their website which last year actually made me put on weight.
Its a one size fits all approach, which doesn't target the couch potato or the guy eating all the wrong things who most of the time opt out of the programme because they can afford not to make the effort. Lets face facts here - we could opt out - but its a very expensive carrot and we need that extra money. I just think that the whole thing is intrusive and way too ra ra for me.
Update - Goalposts have been moved again but wider this time. So our friend who weighed himself before he went in for the screening actually lost 14lbs between home and work - must ask where I can get a set of those scales.. My numbers are a lot lower than last year so we both qualified.
There will be no mention of which companies I am referring to because this post comes from personal experience and I don't want to get hubby into trouble but their mo goes something like this. They take your blood, analyse it and they compare the numbers with the results you gave them last year. Last year I had a fairly structured argument with the person who gave me my test results. He told me my cholesterol numbers were up from last year and I responded that the numbers hadn't moved but the guidelines had been lowered to make more people take cholesterol reducing medication. I've seen for myself how being on statins dries up your skin and takes the lubrication away from your joints. He didn't know how to argue that one and it goes further than that. To get the carrot of money off your health insurance you have to complete three programmes on their website which last year actually made me put on weight.
Its a one size fits all approach, which doesn't target the couch potato or the guy eating all the wrong things who most of the time opt out of the programme because they can afford not to make the effort. Lets face facts here - we could opt out - but its a very expensive carrot and we need that extra money. I just think that the whole thing is intrusive and way too ra ra for me.
Update - Goalposts have been moved again but wider this time. So our friend who weighed himself before he went in for the screening actually lost 14lbs between home and work - must ask where I can get a set of those scales.. My numbers are a lot lower than last year so we both qualified.
Why is no-frills news in such short supply?
The rise and rise of on air personalities. In the UK we have newsreaders their main job is to read the news, if they have a talent for interviewing they'll do the odd pre-recorded and occasionally live interview. Some present other shows for the BBC. If you go to their webpage it takes a bit of digging to get to say a profile of news reader and presenter Fiona Bruce the bio is simple and there is a picture, no twitter feed, no facebook page.
We have news shows, like Panorama that focus on one topic and they don't always get the balance right and we have British bulldog Jeremy Paxman who presents Newsnight for those who want no-nonsense reporting.
Compare that to Fox News in the US -our local Utah station is Fox 13 - although I prefer KUTV 2. Go to their national webpage and right up front is the list of on-air personalities - it says it up in the top right hand corner. Go to Shannon Bream for instance and up pops a glossy bio, no facebook but you can follow her on twitter and our local stations pound it into us that we can get them on facebook and twitter, you can even win prizes for liking them on facebook.
The reason for this post is the throwaway comment made by one of our local news 'anchors' last night
'if you care'
she threw in after an entertainment story. She obviously didn't give a damn about that story she'd just read but her job is to report not emote and its her job to do that about every story that the people who put the bulletins together include that day. Until news organisations give us the news not opinion, I'll still be sticking to comedy central and bbc america for news with the occasional bout of NPR.
We have news shows, like Panorama that focus on one topic and they don't always get the balance right and we have British bulldog Jeremy Paxman who presents Newsnight for those who want no-nonsense reporting.
Compare that to Fox News in the US -our local Utah station is Fox 13 - although I prefer KUTV 2. Go to their national webpage and right up front is the list of on-air personalities - it says it up in the top right hand corner. Go to Shannon Bream for instance and up pops a glossy bio, no facebook but you can follow her on twitter and our local stations pound it into us that we can get them on facebook and twitter, you can even win prizes for liking them on facebook.
The reason for this post is the throwaway comment made by one of our local news 'anchors' last night
'if you care'
she threw in after an entertainment story. She obviously didn't give a damn about that story she'd just read but her job is to report not emote and its her job to do that about every story that the people who put the bulletins together include that day. Until news organisations give us the news not opinion, I'll still be sticking to comedy central and bbc america for news with the occasional bout of NPR.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Cherry picking
This is not a fruit related post.
For the past couple of weeks our visitors have come home with a USA today, so I have been catching verbal crossword clues and reading USAT's articles and one in particular intrigued me - an editorial on best practices that America could adopt by looking at the way other countries tackle problems that the US has. The article can be found by google-ing lessons america can learn from other countries (I don't want to get sued by USA today for copyright infringement as this is such a new article) USAT did one article US and World Report News did the other. Both articles were fascinating eg Finland values teachers more highly, subsidizes their education trains them better before they even step into the classroom. Germany has apprenticeship schemes, which teach basic skills things like plumbing, carpentry, brick laying etc and Canada didn't have a housing crisis because it didn't allow the practices that caused the one in the US to flourish. That's the basics of the article and the US WRN is more of the same but the thing that floored me was the comments section.
There is something about anonymous online posting that brings out the worst in people and in those fifteen pages of mostly nasty comment you could literally put a label on the poster. The TPs - no one does it better than us, our country is in a mess because of weak liberal policies. The Republicans - Ah but Finland are communist/socialists (two completely different ideologies) Canada pah! and if you challenge me I'm right and you're wrong and why don't you move to Finland/Germany/Canada if you like their ideas so much. Ds We need to look for new ideas but who is going to pay for them - we're not. And last but not least the Normals (2%?) who advocated the ideas and suggested that adapting them to fit the US was the way to go - and raising taxes to pay for them.
Each side cherry picked facts that supported their position. Lets face it the US has problems and they need to be solved and looking outward rather than looking inward might help and for starters how about cutting government salaries and getting back in touch with the people. Here is a classic example from the ap news wires
But Republican Boehner said that tax increases are a nonstarter: "The American people will not accept — and the House cannot pass — a bill that raises taxes on job creators."
Boner (hey that's how its spelt) says he is speaking for the American people. Maybe he should ask the American people what they want. Some will of course not want their taxes raised. Some will quote the trickle down that tax cuts for the rich brings for the rest of us - which isn't really trickling anywhere except into the rich man's pocket. Some - like me - will ask how the Clinton administration left the federal government coffers overflowing with cash. He raised taxes - as this 1993 Washington Post article shows. Some will also ask why if it worked then it wouldn't work now. Say what you like about Clinton but he left office with the highest approval rating of any serving President since WWII (most Presidents have some kind of skeleton in their closet he had a whole graveyard full. One thing Clinton wasn't was dull)
Comments welcome here, by e-mail or at the shop but don't hide behind anonymous screen names. I don't choose my friends by which party they support.
For the past couple of weeks our visitors have come home with a USA today, so I have been catching verbal crossword clues and reading USAT's articles and one in particular intrigued me - an editorial on best practices that America could adopt by looking at the way other countries tackle problems that the US has. The article can be found by google-ing lessons america can learn from other countries (I don't want to get sued by USA today for copyright infringement as this is such a new article) USAT did one article US and World Report News did the other. Both articles were fascinating eg Finland values teachers more highly, subsidizes their education trains them better before they even step into the classroom. Germany has apprenticeship schemes, which teach basic skills things like plumbing, carpentry, brick laying etc and Canada didn't have a housing crisis because it didn't allow the practices that caused the one in the US to flourish. That's the basics of the article and the US WRN is more of the same but the thing that floored me was the comments section.
There is something about anonymous online posting that brings out the worst in people and in those fifteen pages of mostly nasty comment you could literally put a label on the poster. The TPs - no one does it better than us, our country is in a mess because of weak liberal policies. The Republicans - Ah but Finland are communist/socialists (two completely different ideologies) Canada pah! and if you challenge me I'm right and you're wrong and why don't you move to Finland/Germany/Canada if you like their ideas so much. Ds We need to look for new ideas but who is going to pay for them - we're not. And last but not least the Normals (2%?) who advocated the ideas and suggested that adapting them to fit the US was the way to go - and raising taxes to pay for them.
Each side cherry picked facts that supported their position. Lets face it the US has problems and they need to be solved and looking outward rather than looking inward might help and for starters how about cutting government salaries and getting back in touch with the people. Here is a classic example from the ap news wires
But Republican Boehner said that tax increases are a nonstarter: "The American people will not accept — and the House cannot pass — a bill that raises taxes on job creators."
Boner (hey that's how its spelt) says he is speaking for the American people. Maybe he should ask the American people what they want. Some will of course not want their taxes raised. Some will quote the trickle down that tax cuts for the rich brings for the rest of us - which isn't really trickling anywhere except into the rich man's pocket. Some - like me - will ask how the Clinton administration left the federal government coffers overflowing with cash. He raised taxes - as this 1993 Washington Post article shows. Some will also ask why if it worked then it wouldn't work now. Say what you like about Clinton but he left office with the highest approval rating of any serving President since WWII (most Presidents have some kind of skeleton in their closet he had a whole graveyard full. One thing Clinton wasn't was dull)
Comments welcome here, by e-mail or at the shop but don't hide behind anonymous screen names. I don't choose my friends by which party they support.
Why Netflix? Why?
If you watch Jon Stewart this is a 'meet me at camera three' moment. If you don't we'll just call it an open letter.
Netflix, you were a company I respected. I liked your business model, it was simple, streamlined and straightforward. We made a list and BluRay movies appeared in the post, we sent them back in the could've been designed by apple return envelope. Life was good - then life got better - you added instant streaming. All for $11 dollars a month. Yesterday under the misleading banner of more choice (ie more profits) you split the two services. Now if we want both movies in the mail and streaming it will cost us just under $20 (starting in September)
Hubby thinks this is a prelude to ditching your original model (the one that made you into a household name and a verb) and going to streaming only. When I asked why that was a bad idea he started spouting words and numbers like 1080p and impossible and not enough bandwidth so I stopped him before he blew up. In layman's terms you can't stream BluRays because there isn't enough bandwidth (think how annoying it is when you try and watch a you tube clip (buffering, buffering) imagine that while trying to watch a movie)
So Netflix here's the bottom line, in a time when money is tight you jack up the price for both services. Genius. As of today we no longer stream and I kind of hate you a little right now.
Netflix, you were a company I respected. I liked your business model, it was simple, streamlined and straightforward. We made a list and BluRay movies appeared in the post, we sent them back in the could've been designed by apple return envelope. Life was good - then life got better - you added instant streaming. All for $11 dollars a month. Yesterday under the misleading banner of more choice (ie more profits) you split the two services. Now if we want both movies in the mail and streaming it will cost us just under $20 (starting in September)
Hubby thinks this is a prelude to ditching your original model (the one that made you into a household name and a verb) and going to streaming only. When I asked why that was a bad idea he started spouting words and numbers like 1080p and impossible and not enough bandwidth so I stopped him before he blew up. In layman's terms you can't stream BluRays because there isn't enough bandwidth (think how annoying it is when you try and watch a you tube clip (buffering, buffering) imagine that while trying to watch a movie)
So Netflix here's the bottom line, in a time when money is tight you jack up the price for both services. Genius. As of today we no longer stream and I kind of hate you a little right now.
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