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compare and contrast: slash and burn agriculture vs whatever you call the other kind, where you tend the same land and treat it as if it were worth preserving/improving.
Category: the value of X
Unintended consequences
When my daughter (5 or 6 at the time) had a really deep chest cough that was giving a lot of trouble, we dropped the scrip but he found that he didn’t have the right ingredients. By looking at the scrip he knew it was important, so he called on his own to find a pharmacy that had the stuff and transferred the prescription to them.
Question: What would you get if the pharmacy business all of a sudden had to charge the same price everywhere for an item?
Answer: Better service. The current Medicare Part D system will require just that.
Tonight I saw a Walgreen’s ad on the TV and if it is to be believed, the only differentiator of significance between pharmacies will become the service they offer.
A very interesting unintended consequence of forcing them to standardize prices.
[From Unintended consequences]
I have the opportunity to use mail-order pharmacies for Rx meds we use here, but I don’t. My local pharmacy has my business for life, or as long as their head pharmacist is there. When my daughter (5 or 6 at the time) had a really deep chest cough that was giving a lot of trouble, we dropped off the scrip but he found that he didn’t have the right ingredients. By looking at the scrip he knew it was important, so he called on his own to find a pharmacy that had the stuff and transferred the prescription to them. He called me to tell me where it was waiting without being worried about the loss of the sale.
That’s service.
links for 2007-07-19
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If I read this right, we’re due to see the end of large nation states with the end of the fossil-fuel age., everything will be local, and human civilization will once again be tribal or provincial, with no far-flung political entities. best set your roots
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This looks really cool. Anyone wanna send me one?
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sounds like a great piece of work. for some reason, I can’t watch the video, though. Aha, they’re serving an ad through Doubleclick and I block those servers. The vidavee server just hangs. Hope Huffington got paid for this.
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For the record, I hate and see no earthly reason for the word “signage.” What’s wrong with “signs?” If the word added something to the concept of signs or communications, that would be fine. But it doesn’t. It’ll be “foodage” and “drinkage” next: there se
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something else to shop for parts for.(tags: diy photography)
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With Commentary and an Essay on Books and Reading
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seen a few places, worth bookmarking. Some clever tips here (use a free GMail account as book list and a reading log).
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Dude has fly larvae living under his scalp: bad enough, but his wife is identified in the article as “Midge.” is there more to this story?
links for 2007-07-13
stat of the day
“The United States has invested $19 billion to train and equip nearly 350,000 Iraqi soldiers and police since toppling Saddam Hussein,
$54,285.71 per soldier/cop? Do we spend that much on our own?
links for 2007-04-21
hybrid vigor
yuck
Modem speeds of late.
links for 2007-03-24
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A list of 16 things it takes most of us 50 years to learn. “There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about you
vignetted sun
Test photo from a camera I have been working on. The vignetting is from a shutter I tried to add to it. The angle of view is so wide that you can see the edges of the aperture, even though it’s an inch across and 1/4 inch deep. So that came off today, to be replaced by a simpler one.
I think the exposure is pretty good, the development (1:100 Rodinal for an hour) yielded a good negative: all in all, I’m pleased with it. The camera is a cigar box, about f/80, and exposures are in the 15-30 second range for this time of day. Click through to Flickr to see another image from the same outing.