Just upgraded to Movable Type 3.15. from 3.12. Apparently 3.14 alleviated some server load problems caused by comment spam and 3.15 fixes a vulnerability in the mail sending packages. Looks like there was no 3.13.

Brief tutorial on hospital charges: Probably pretty obvious stuff, but since I often collect on medical bills, this article in the Palladium-Item was of some interest. Basically, in response to a reader question, the author explains that:

1. Hospital charges $1,000 for a procedure;

2. Medicare has a contract with the Hospital so its members only pay a total of $600, including Medicare pays and patient pays.

3. Private insurance has a contract where it only pays $900 for the procedure.

4. Uninsured are charged full price and have little negotiating power to reduce it. Who knows how much Hospital will actually collect.

The Journal & Courier has an article on flooding in today’s edition. The Wabash is expected to crest at 25 feet in the area on Friday which is apparently a couple of feet higher than the floods of July ’03 which were pretty bad. Flood stage is 11 feet. Here is a pic of a submerged car off of State Road 28 near Clark’s Hill:

Wired Reviews Jared Diamond’s “Collapse” — This caught my eye because I very much enjoyed Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel. In Collapse,

[Diamond’s] subject . . . is the demise of whole societies, especially where collapse is sudden and total, contrasted with the ingenious survival of other societies that faced the same dangers.
. . .
Diamond identifies five major causes of societal collapse: environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbors, loss of trade partners, and stupidity. Any one or two plus stupidity will do.

(Guns, Germs, & Steel identified geographic reasons for certain societies dominating the world while others never progressed. If I recall correctly, societies had a much easier time where they were located on a continent with an east-west access and had loads of domesticable animals.)

Rushville couple claim $15.7 million jackpot

Ryan and Mary Beth Emerson, of Rushville, on Monday claimed the $15.7 million prize from the Dec. 29 Hoosier Lotto drawing. Ryan Emerson bought the ticket Dec. 28 at a Rushville Speedway station but didn’t check the ticket until last week.

PunchTheBag commented on this story earlier.

Boing Boing: More Googleable unsecured webcams Mostly I’m just blogging this to give myself a record when I feel like noodling around. Shows how to use google to access unsecured webcams.

Kemplog Trackback I’m just excited to see my first TrackBack since I installed Movable Type. The kind of interactivity offered by more advanced blogging software amazes me. Maybe we’re creating the kind of neural net that’ll make us all smarter, or dumber, or something. Probably something that could be mapped out by complexity theorists. (As if I understand what that means.) I guess my only point is that it’s pretty cool what we can do nowadays.

You know you’re in bad shape when you have simultaneous flood and ice storm warnings. Obviously it’s no tsunami, but weather has a way of shutting you down and keeping you humble.

The National Weather Service in Indianapolis in has issued an ice storm warning until 6 a.m. Thursday, and a flood warning until 6 a.m. Thursday.

Ice Storm Rain will develop this evening and change to freezing rain late tonight. Freezing rain will continue Wednesday and most of Wednesday night. Serious icing is possible on trees and power lines. The weather service says ice accumulations in excess of three quarter inches are possible in Howard and Carroll counties. Ice accumulations of one quarter to one half inch will occur elsewhere.

Source: http://www.wlfi.com/index.cfm?action=dsp_story&storyid=54884

I installed MT-Blacklist. Comments are back on. We’ll see if I have it configured properly to stop comment spam.

Wired 13.01: The Shadow Internet I really enjoyed this article by Jeff Howe for Wired Magazine. It takes a look at how the bootleg networks work. From insider to ripper to top seed networks down the food chain to the P2P networks.

I caught a glimpse of some of this long, long ago in the mid-80s on the dial up BBSs. Upload a game to the BBS for credits and download a new game. I was never much good at it, and, at 300 baud on your C-64, it was easier to just go over to a friend’s house and make a copy. I imagine a lot of the infrastructure can trace its roots back to the old BBS warez networks.