CDC Statistics

Some more interesting stats from the CDC:

The total number of beds in hospitals has declined steadily from 1,465,828 in 1975 to 946,997 in 2005. Surprisingly, the occupancy rate has also declined from 76.7 to 69.3 in the same period.

Our national health expenditures went from 27.5 billion dollars in 1960 to 1,987.7 billion in 2005.

In 2005, our health expenditures as a percentage of our GDP was 15.3%. Canada’s was 9.9%. France’s was 10.5%. Germany’s was 10.6% Iceland’s was 10.2%. Correspondingly, our per capita health expenditure was higher than every other country listed.

Marijuana use by seniors in high school has declined from 33.7 percent in 1980 to 18.3 percent in 2006.

The number of people considered obese has gone from 13 percent in the 1960s to 34 percent in 2004. 67 percent fall into the overweight or obese category today.

Virtualization and Microsoft Deal

The Economist ran a good article entitled The rise of the hypervisor. It outlines Virtualization technology, the virtualization market and the power that VMware is accumulating in the market. It also explains how some of the other companies in the market are responding.

HP and Sun want to bring technologies developed for their high-end servers to the rest of the data centre. Microsoft, meanwhile, will integrate its own hypervisor, called Viridian, into the next version of its Windows operating system, essentially giving it away-and raising the spectre of yet another antitrust case.

Bill Gates and company made a misstep when they did not purchase VMware and allowed EMC to take control of it. The article also talks about Citrix’s acquisition of XenSource and drops some knowledge that I had not thought of.

Some people think that if Microsoft fails to catch up with VMware on its own, it will buy Citrix.

I’ve been trying to understand why Microsoft would have signed a deal with Novell. I’m beginning to think that the deal is sort of a “call option” or a legal hedge for a competing Virtualization technologies. If Viridian doesn’t prosper, Microsoft have a stake in another possible technology that allows them to continue milking their cash cow operating system. If they are slapped with an anti-trust suit by VMware, they can point to the availability of Xen as an option for the market.

WSJ Coverage

I just have to say that the WSJ coverage of the Société Générale story is possibly the worst I’ve ever seen. I don’t know if it is because of Rupert Murdoch. Unfortunately, I do not get a chance to read the paper daily. I don’t know if it is a problem that is endemic or systemic. I only grabbed the paper at the hotel so I could read the arts column by Terry Teachout.

The column, entitled “French Bank Hit by Rogue Trader”, was highly repetitive. It seems like they only had 5 pieces of fact and about 20 inches of column space. It was so repetitive, they used the same sentence twice – “His expertise was trading baskets of stocks such as the Euro Stoxx 50.”

Anyways, I’m hoping it is just an anomaly, and that the WSJ will continue to be fun to read.

Poverty

I came across some interesting figures while doing some research for a Healthcare-related project.

As of 2005, 12.6 percent of the population had a family income under the poverty level. 17.6 percent of kids under 18 years old belonged to a family below the poverty level.

Shockingly, 34.5 percent of Black or African American kids under 18 years old were under the poverty level. This compares to 10.0 percent of White kids for the same statistical category.

On a semi-related note, John Edwards has little hope of actually winning the Democratic nomination. However, he is gathering delegates by consistently placing third in the Democratic caucuses. There is some speculation that he may act as a kingmaker when the Democratic convention comes around.

You may be wondering how this is related. Presumably, he will provide his delegates to the candidate that is willing to make fighting poverty a plank in their Presidential platform.

*The stats above are from the CDC’s Chartbook on the Trends in the Health of Americans, which is compiled from a variety of sources.

Dopplr

I started using Dopplr recently. I never would have considered using Dopplr, except that a few of my friends travel about as much as I do, and I am constantly trying to figure out how to catch up with them.

The biggest bonus is that Dopplr integrates well with Facebook. I only have four friends on it right now, but I am pretty sure that as friends join either Dopplr or Facebook it will act as a natural crossover.

I am beginning to think that online Social Networks are critical for roadwarriors in a Globally Integrated Enterprise. [.PDF] It is pretty much the only way you can have a life outside of work if you spend a lot of time away from home.

Abali Yogurt Soda

I really like Chass, and mix some up for myself on occasion. My parents say that you should only drink Chass in the summertime, but I think it tastes pretty good all the time. I was in a local Mid-East Mart with Tracey the other day and I found this Abali Yogurt Soda. I thought I’d try it out. In retrospect, I wish I had taken the time to read this review and this review before putting the bottle to my lips.

I would not recommend Abali Yogurt Soda to anyone. It is sour, acidic-tasting and leaves a terrible aftertaste. Maybe the mint-flavored one is better, but you won’t get me to try it.

The ingredients, in order, are: milk, yogurt culture, carbonated water and salt.

Yuck.

Economic Stimulus Plans

Both Clinton and Obama unveiled economic plans (here and here) in the last week. It seems a little bit ridiculous, but I guess that is what election-year politics are all about. Too much cheap money sloshing around the world is why we are in this situation now. Providing fiscal stimulus is likely to make the situation worse and prolong the pain.

Paul Krugman writes that the stimulus plans are a good gauge of what the different candidates would do. He points out that Hillary is much more to the left of Obama when it comes to the economy. I’m pretty sure that is a good thing, and not a bad thing. If we are going to start stimulating the economy, I’d much rather do it Obama’s way than Hillary’s way.

Clinton and Obama tied in NH

I know that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in New Hampshire. However, they are splitting the total number of delegates from NH, so technically they actually tied with nine delegates apiece.

One of the political pundits on Newshour with Jim Lehrer suggested that the Bush Administration released news stories of the Iranian boats and images of Bush going to the Middle East on the day of the NH primary to bring National Security back in the spotlight. Somebody else retorted that the Bush Administration was neither that smart or calculating to do something like that. It makes for an fascinating conspiracy theory though.

As my former classmate pointed out to me, less than 2% of the total population has voted so far. With John Kerry endorsing Obama, it could be an extremely close race with lots of in-fighting between the Democrats. The next few weeks are going to be very interesting.

Since the Superbowl is only a few days before Super Tuesday, there is going to be a lot of news fighting for mindshare.

ATI Catalyst, Mobility FireGL T2 and OpenSUSE 10.3

Apparently, the new ATI driver made for OpenSUSE 10.3 does not enable composite. When I grep through my Xorg.0.log I find the following error.

(**) Extension “Composite” is enabled
(II) Loading extension XVideo-MotionCompensation
(II) fglrx(0): RENDER and Composite disabled when OpenGL Overlay enabled

This error has been reported on the Phoronix forums. This is the reason why my icons and cursors looked like crap.

I ended up installing the 8.40 version of the ATI proprietary driver instead, which seems to work for now.

Japanese Bug Fights

My friend Terry, who is a whacko, showed me a very gruesome but interesting website. It is japanesebugfights.com. If you want to kill a few hours watching bugs fight each other with Iron Chef-style animations, this is the place for you. It isn’t exactly a happy ending for the bugs though, so you are forewarned.