Cheese Salt

Dan Hounshell's quickies. We call it "Cheese Salt" because that's what it is.

I don't get medical billing : In Valid Logic

I don't get how the medical industry can function.

Why can't they just do all inclusive billing? I would much rather know all my expenses up front than to get bills trickling in one after another 2 months after the fact.

via invalidlogic.com

Ken Robertson, the author of the blog post from which the above snippet was harvested, is a co-worker and friend. I completely agree with his sentiment and left a comment that I've been wishing for combined billing from healthcare providers for years.

In most things transparency is great. And transparency in medical charges is cool, too. But I'd prefer to not get 8 different bills from 8 different medical "providers" for one visit to the emergency room. Why can't I just get ONE bill from the hospital and have them work out all the details with their "sub-contractors". When your chosen home builder builds you a house you (normally) don't get a bill from them, a bill from the roofers, a bill from the electrician, a bill from the plumbers, a bill from the flooring installers, etc. You choose the home builder, give them money to build your selected style of home, they sub-contract out work to appropriate craftsmen and in the end everyone is happy.

Why can't it be like that for health care billing? It's not like you have a choice of anesthesiologist, x-ray tech, etc. You take whoever the hospital provides you - their sub-contractors!

One bill would be much nicer. I would pay it. The hospital would pay their sub-contractors. And everyone would be happy. Okay, maybe not happy, but much more content than I am today.

Lock N' Load with R. Lee Ermey and Army Toys

I was catching up on some episodes of Lock N' Load with R. Lee Ermey (http://www.history.com/video.do?name=LockNLoad) last night. I watched the one about AFVs / APCs (Armored fighting vehicles / Armored personnel carriers) and Helicopters (the Huey, Cobra, Blackhawk, Apache, Kiowa, etc). Those were a couple of shows that really brought back some memories.

What kind of memories? Hauling ass across the desert floor in an M113 for one. BTW, stripped down and running flat out on flat ground they'll go a "little bit" faster than the 42 mph that was quoted on the show :)

Another - hanging out the door of a Huey flying "nap of the earth" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nap-of-the-earth) where it seemed like my feet could almost touch the treetops. What a thrill-ride. I've never been on any amusement park ride that beat that one. And I cannot forget the ominous feeling of landing on the ground and running down the ramp of a Chinook in Panama during Operation Just Cause.

The cool thing about being a soldier, especially a grunt (Infantryman) or other combat arms, is the cool shit they let you play with while you're young. While I still think things like rappelling, explosives, and all that still sounds like fun I'm a little more hesitant these days to jump right in. Ah, those were some fun times. There's nothing much cooler than rappelling down the side of a building or down an elevator shaft, blowing holes in doors for quick entry with det cord, setting off claymore mines, shooting anti-tank rounds, oooh - shooting a stinger (that one was fun!), and on and on. Hmmm - I didn't remember being such an adrenaline junkie.

NFL will offer delayed online broadcasts of blacked-out games

NFL fans whose local teams’ games are blacked out will be able to watch replays online for free—though not until after midnight.

The recession has left several teams in danger of having games blacked out this season. The league announced Thursday that home fans will be able to view the delayed broadcasts on NFL.com for 72 hours, except during "Monday Night Football."

"We understand that the economy is limiting some families and corporations from buying as many game tickets as they had previously," commissioner Roger Goodell said in a release.

via sports.yahoo.com

Great news, especially for us Cincinnati Bengals fans who are endanger of seeing the opener vs. the Denver Broncos on Sunday blacked out.

Keep your butts to yourself

Reader feedback video about cigarette butts

via fox19.com

I saw this video clip on our local morning news this morning. Maybe it's just me and my sophomoric sense of humor, but I believe that the guy reading this had a hard time keeping from laughing. I couldn't have done it.

Highlights:
- "imagine going down the road and having a nice hot butt hit you in the chest"
- "what if it hit you in the neck and slid down your chest or back"
- "I've been hit by a butt at 55... it didn't burn me or cause me pain"
- "what about the ones that fall to the ground - is that not hideous?"
- "Keep it in your car - preferably with the windows up!!"

Not ready for Pumpkin Spice

I saw a lot of Autumn seasonal items displayed while shopping at a local grocery store today. Okay, you got me, while picking up a 12-pack sampler of Great Lakes beer at the store today. I don't know about you but I'm just not quite ready for the "Harvest" beer and the "Pumpkin Spice" latte. I'm still enjoying what's left of summer and not looking forward to cooler weather yet. I know I'm fighting a losing battle, but it seems like a little too soon yet. Watching the Labor Day weekend slip away, the unofficial end of Summer, isn't helping.

hi.im DanHounshell

Interesting concept:
http://hi.im/DanHounshell

A couple of years ago after seeing what a cool way Pownce had for adding your other sites/feeds, etc. I thought it would be a good idea to build a complete site around the concept. It would serve as one spot to be a pointer to everything/everyplace you are on the web.

I put together a mockup here http://syn.dicate.us/danhounshell/ and I started a proof of concept a couple of time, even as recently as a few weeks ago.

Alas, I was way too slow and someone beat me to it. And they did a good job, too. Really easy to create an account and add your links to Twitter, Facebook, etc. Cool stuff.

C# IMDb API + Amazon for Movie Info

Mymoviecollection

I'm working on a little personal/family project that needs to pull movie/DVD info from a service to show cover art, plot, actors, director(s), etc.

IMDb's web services are not open to the public, only for paying customers.

But with my amazing Googlefu powers I found useful, a C# IMDb "API" for pulling that information:
http://code.google.com/p/imdb-api/
I say "API" because all it really does is some screen scraping. It didn't work exactly like I wanted it to, but a couple of changes to the source code was all it needed to make me happy. And using it is a whole lot easier than writing all that screen scraping crap yourself.

I'm thinking that I should try to pull that info from Amazon first. It might be a little more "legal" to do that than screen scraping the IMDb site.