30 March 1973
Dear Mr. Nadeau:
As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate
woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the
thing that is left to us, in a bad time. I shall get up on Sunday morning and
wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness.
Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say, the weather is a greate
bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society-things can look dark,
then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed, sometimes rather
suddenly. It is quite obvious that the human race has made a queer mess of life
on this planet. But as a people we probably harbor seeds of goodness that have
lain for a long time waiting to sprout when the conditions are right. Man’s
curiosity, his relentlessness, his inventiveness, his ingenuity have led him
into deep trouble. We can only hope that these same traits will enable him to
claw his way out.
Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is
another day.
Sincerely,
E. B. White
Turning 65
In a little over 2 months I’ll be turning 65. Setting aside any existential issues, there are some decisions and paperwork involved.
You need to enroll in Medicare, even if you aren’t going to start using it when you turn 65. The enrollment period is three months on either side of your birth month. I was born in May, so the seven month span is February-March-April, then May, followed by June-July-August.
This enrollment happens through the government Medicare site.
I received a letter from my employer about making a health insurance choice. I can keep my employment sponsored health insurance (for as long as I am employed), but I have to make that designation. What I’m really doing is saying that my work insurance will be the primary coverage, and Medicare will be the secondary coverage.
Medicare comes in multiple pieces. Part A, Part B, and Part D. Not to mention supplemental Medicare insurance. Part A is hospital, skilled nursing, and hospice. Part B is outpatient care and doctor visits. Part D is prescription drug coverage. While A is likely premium fee, Parts B and D will have a monthly premium.
Since my employer has more than 20 employees, I can delay signing up for Parts B and D, until my primary coverage goes away. I must enroll in Part A, which is usually premium free for most people.
This life event has triggered a flood of Medicare related postal mail. And, so far, two cold calls visits to our house. My turning 65 represents potential fees and income for insurance providers, so they come, unasked, to the house and want to talk to me.
I’ll enroll in Part A. And I’ll notify my employer that I am keeping my BC/BS insurance as primary. I plan on using the two years before I pull the retirement ripcord to research and understand how all the Medicare parts work, and where supplemental insurance might be necessary. And I’ll pick someone to work with to set everything up. Probably not someone who shows up at the front door unasked for.
And I may make a sign for the door that says unasked for Medicare advise in the guise of well meaning insurance salespeople will be met with a polite, but firm, “No thank you” followed by my closing the door.
Rob Pike S Five's Rules of Programming ⧁
I’m particularly partial to numbers 3 and 4. When in doubt, use brute force.
Charm Charm Down Quark ⧁
The fine folks at CERN are science-ing the shit out of this.
Right to Compute Act ⧁
Montana is going in the opposite direction as states like California and Virginia. They are protecting citizens not corporations. Good on them.
Ageless Linux ⧁
California has passed a law that requires operating system providers, as well as application providers, to verify a “users” age before allowing them to use the OS or application. Companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft already have an infrastructure in place to comply with this. The 600+ Linux distributions do not. Nor can they afford to implement one. Same for all the independent application developers.
Ageless Linux pointedly, and rather adroitly, shows that the true purpose of the law is not to protect children. The point is a law enforcement mechanism to be used as a cudgel at the sole discretion of the Attorney General.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends
upon his not understanding it.
~ Upton Sinclair, from I, Candidate for Governor: And How I got Licked (1935)
When I learned to program in COBOL I made the observation that you only write one program from scratch, all the subsequent ones are derivatives of the ones that came before it. To my way of thinking, using an large language model (LLM) is that first, plausible draft of the program. It gets the boilerplate out of the way, and fills in the broad strokes. Then you can do the rest.
Claude Cycles ⧁
Donald Knuth on Claude AI solving a problem he’d been working on. I am somewhat embarrassed to admit this paper was where I learned the Claude the LLM was name after Claude Shannon, the father of information theory.
