We were insured by Blue Shield when my wife was diagnosed with lung cancer. Every month they would deny some claims, once almost all of them. I filed grievances of course, but didn't see any payments on the denied claims I contested during the six months before she died. Then after she died they tried to say they owed nothing because she wasn't insured with them anymore. It was like climbing Everest without oxygen - a constant struggle to keep going after them, spending hours on the phone every month with no results.

During that time the doctors and hospitals had to be paid for her treatments and two surgeries. Essentially it was costing us an average of $20,000+ a month in unpaid claims. A few more months and we would be in trouble financially. Fortunately, a friend pf ours is a journalist with a national news company. She contacted Blue Shield asking some pointed questions on our behalf and that had some effect. I didn't get all the money I felt the insurance company owed but I did get about 60% eventually, in dribs and drabs over the months later.

I switched to Kaiser and I've had zero problems so far.

You're on crack. Inded there is a Categories listing and there are a short (about three lines) descriptions of each item. I'm looking at it now. Maybe it's different if you are looking at the listings on a Mac (as I am) or something else, but that would make no sense.

Apple TV is much more than Ted Lasso. With TV shows like The Silo, Slow Horses, Shrinking, Foundation, Severance, plus movies like Killers of the Flower Moon, Argylle, Sharper, The Instigators, and Wolfs (just to name some each category that come to mind immediately) it really is a top notch channel.

Of all the channels we have, Apple TV is likely the last I would cancel.

People have been saying that Nvidia will crash for about two years. But they haven't yet. They are sold out for 2024 and well on the way to being sold out for 2025 if you believe the analytical companies whose job is to forecast company performance for the market.

It's very possible they will crash, but I'm not selling until there's an indication that the competition is killing them or if companies stop buying their AI stuff. Until then I'm holding the 2k shares I bought at $4 (actually 200 bought at $40 way before the 10 for 1 split). Best $8k I have invested, I wish I had bought more.

Every time you write an API you are making an implicit statement about the API to others. The reason to write an API is to allow other pieces of code access to some feature or information, and when you change it you are liable to be breaking every piece of code that uses the API you created.

You should think carefully before creating an API about why you are writing it, and as far as possible future proof it from changes. Ts'o is saying that he expects to change to the API, and when he does he will not be responsible for fixing code that accesses his API. NOBODY is asking him to do that. All APIs should be fully documented, and when they change the docs should be updated and the fact that it changed should be noted in a release note somewhere.

Ts'o just doesn't want to document his APIs or be responsible for documenting changes. He may be a great coder, but he's a poor team member.

I've been programming in C/C++ for over 30 years and about a year ago I started learning Rust. Now I'm fluent in the language and idioms I feel that programming in C like languages is like watching a black & white TV while a color TV is available. Rust is definitely different enough to require a non-trivial learning curve, but it's an investment that I am happy that I made.

Languages are just tools, and I think Rust is a tool that is often superior to my C tool. No doubt C gets the job done, but the memory management in Rust is superior and is done at compile time so there's no run-time overhead. Depending on what you are coding that could be a non-issue or a huge improvement. But given a language choice, I will reach for my Rust compiler over my C compiler every time. Of course, all my legacy C code is still running and I would never think of rewriting working code just to change the language.

I think I understand why other people are less impressed. Rust offers nothing to an experienced, top notch C programmer who understands memory management well and is certain that he would never, ever access a piece of memory that another thread has already released. But it's nice that you don't have to worry about that and other memory issues. Many people dislike change and I understand that also, but I don't understand why people are so averse to another language to the point where they actively attempt to prevent its adoption.

The problem is that ZLUDA merely makes AMD hardware appear to CUDA as Nvidia hardware. CUDA is only licensed to run with Nvidia hardware, and any company that tries to ship ZLUDA or a similar product will get sued into the ground. That's why nobody will touch it commercially. I guess some low level manager at AMD funded it because he didn't understand and AMD Legal shut it down as soon as they found out.

Check out what happened to Psystar Corporation when they tried an end-around run on their Mac clones in 2008/2009 - they created Rebel EFI to make their products look to Mac OS X like Apple hardware, and quickly ended up bankrupt.

Over the last four years we have interviewed half a dozen Intel software people for a job in my group. Not one has lasted to the last interview of the day (that's me as hiring manager.) Every one of the candidates has been rejected early because lack of knowledge/understanding of their professed area of expertise, generally UEFI or low level drivers/Linux internals. Post interview comment forms completed by interviewers have generally been withering.

It's possible that only the less competent software engineers are trying to leave Intel. Or maybe that's why Intel isn't exactly considered a software powerhouse. Whatever the reason, having Intel on your resume isn't considered a plus if you're looking for a job in my group.

Nvidia is known as one of the companies at the top of the pay scale for new grads. Despite the fact that they are working in areas at the cutting edge where they will not be contributing a great deal to the company until they have learned a great deal.

It is also known for being one the hardest companies to get into and to succeed. They claim that Google (who claims only to accept Grade A candidates) often accepts their rejects.

Remember Psystar? Back in 2008 they started manufacturing an Intel based system with Max OS X preinstalled. Apple sued them into the ground.

The recent announcement was simply a piece of code that allows AMD hardware to be compatible with CUDA. It doesn't replace CUDA, which is still required. Any company including that code is likely to go the way of Psystar.

Don't get Medicare Advantage or let your aging relatives buy it. There are cost advantages but they come with major disadvantages.

The biggest issue (by far) is that once you sign up with a Medicare Advantage plan you no longer access standard Medicare. You are completely dependent on the company you selected which gets a flat fee from Medicare to take care of your coverage, medications and how long you get to spend in the hospital. This means that they have a large incentive to minimize your care, and they do.

The companies have no problem refusing to cover beyond their estimate, regardless of what your doctor says you need. Just ask my dad who signed up with a large nationally known company. He had surgery for cancer and the insurance company determined he should be in the hospital for four days. There were complications and the surgeon recommended two more days. The insurance company would not pay more than their estimate. Even worse, they had a limit on a how much they would pay for pain medication so my dad ended up paying the difference on both the hospital stay and the additional pain medication. No amount of talking to agents or filing grievances with the company would budge them from their very firm estimates. From what I've read, this seems this is the norm for MA plans.

Medicare Advantage is less expensive than traditional Medicare coverage, but the cost savings will easily be lost if you actually need care. The insurance companies spend very heavily on advertising these plans because they make a crap ton from them.

It's true that global warming causes some places to cool down. For example, warming in the polar regions causes more icebergs which results in short term cooler temperatures in the waters surrounding some countries. In the long term these effects will dissipate.

If it's cooler where you live, just wait until the temporary effects taper off. Of course it could still be cool but the days of 40 degrees below zero might well be numbered.

I agree that cities surrounding Seattle are great places. I visited during the Seattle rain festival, which apparently runs from January to December annually.

Yup. California is the 18th state in the list of per capita violent crime. 15 of the states with higher crime rates than California are predominantly Republican.

I'm happy when people leave. It's overcrowded. For example Los Angeles county has 9.3 million people - that's more people in just one of the 58 California counties than in 42 states. Several other counties could qualify as states based on their population being larger than the average population of all other US states.

As more people leave California other states become more democratic - maybe that's why Republicans cry foul when they lose states they have traditional won.