Now you can search the text of books on Amazon. It sorta works. I did a search for “deliverator” and Amazon failed to list Snow Crash in the search results. It did, however, find a reference to the book in another book.
Monthly Archives: October 2003
Health insurers’ deals get mixed reactions
Benefit consultants and others had mixed views on what the mergers may mean for consumers. Savings from merging back-office efforts and eliminating some jobs could slow increases in premiums, which are currently rising at their fastest clip in a decade. The Anthem-WellPoint deal particularly may increase competition among large insurers eager to attract the business of large, multistate employers.
If the merger of two large health care providers could save increases in premiums by merging some operations and laying off staff, then it follows that a single health care provider could also save money. Strip out the advertising budget and the savings will increase.
Combine this with policies that restrict drug company advertising, expedite the process of bringing generic versions of off-patent drugs to market, negotiate drug-price controls in other countries, and control the costs of catastrophic medical care, and we might be able to afford health care for everyone while reining in overall costs to an acceptable percentage of GDP.
Dawn among the ruins
At first glance it almost seems like an ash-covered survivor is surveying the ruins of her home. Then you realize it’s a silly statue put up by some bourgeois dumbass who decided to buy an expensive house in an area where forest fires are common. Still, it’s an interesting photo. The top half is very picturesque, with light streaming among the barren trunks of trees. It could almost be a winterscape. The bottom half of the photo shows a lot of crap the humans brought up.
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By the way, if you don’t know much about the fires beyond the fact that they’ve been out there, you might want to check in on the LA Times. They’ll tell you everything you want to know about where and how they started, where they’re burning now, and how the prospects for control look. They’ve also got some amazing photos, satellite shots, videos, and all sorts of other things, including a link to Sigalert.com. So far this looks like a nicer traffic map than TANN’s.
The return of Parsa
It suddenly struck me as I sat here tuning out that Sam guy who always goes on and on that he reminds me a hell of a lot of Parsa. Ugh. Die, bitch, die!
Space Age NSX-replacement
Something about it says Corvette to me. Maybe it’s because they’ve flipped the backside upside-down, with the spoiler inches off the ground. They’ll have to fix that.