Linkee-poo pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name

And Kameron Hurley's installment on fear and writing.

The seven signs (actually goals) that you're not ready to publish. Mostly it's research, research, research. Oh, and edit that puppy. (Grokked from Jason Sandford)

Jim Hines talks about bad con behavior. Blowing off people is so totally wrong, however I've done it, but not because I was looking for someone better but that I just didn't understand what the heck I was doing and what I should be doing at cons. But here's something I learned, say hi to everybody. Talk with everybody you're introduced to. When I met a BNA, within a few minutes he had introduced me to another 12 people, 10 of which I had no idea who they were. All ten of those people have turned out to be fascinating individuals who are also somewhat important people right at this moment. When Dave Klecha introduced me to Mer Haskel I had no idea who she was. Since then she's been one of the more important people in my writing career. And did I mention Dave's recent success as well, not to mention his connections within the writing industry. When I see them at cons I always say hello. Not because Mer and Dave are now important people, but because they're fun people. BTW, Jim Hines was one of those ten people John Scalzi introduced me to. And I also love catching up with Jim when I see him at cons.

Neurocysticercosis, one of the less common but growing complications involving tape worms. Did you know that in the US they once sold tape worm eggs as a weight loss solution? And not all that long ago. (Grokked from Matt Staggs)

"I was almost in the position of having wasted an enormous amount of time and money trying to buy myself an extra year or two of life with outside experts… because (one hospital) could not fax a set of documents to (another hospital). Neither entity was capable of performing simple, proven error detection at the functional telecommunications layer… Resolving this situation required well over a dozen intervening phone calls from me personally, at a time when I am already very, very stressed…" The anti-regulation person would say it's all HIPAA's fault, but that's bullshit. Jay gave explicit permission for the transfer which eliminates any HIPAA and Patient Confidentiality concerns. When I went in to a recent appointment I was happily surprised that the doctor I was meeting could read all the doctor's notes of my other doctors on his laptop. At other times I've had one doctor unable to read lab results which another doctor (in the same system) had ordered 6 months previous. You know that stimulus money included to help push hospitals/doctors to electronic records? Yeah, this is why that's so important. Also, it is federal law that your medical record must be released to you on request. All of it. So when Jay requested it be sent to him and the hospital refused that not only violated the hospital's policy, Oregon State law, it was also in violation of federal law.

And in other news, it's estimated the healthcare industry wastes $750b a year. Fortunately, none of that is on fax machines or technicians to maintain and watch them. "More than 18 months in the making, the report identified six major areas of waste: unnecessary services ($210 billion annually); inefficient delivery of care ($130 billion); excess administrative costs ($190 billion); inflated prices ($105 billion); prevention failures ($55 billion), and fraud ($75 billion). Adjusting for some overlap among the categories, the panel settled on an estimate of $750 billion." Note that fraud is second to last, but normally gets the lion share of blame for "cutting healthcare costs" (although that low number may be because it's been such a focus for the past three decades). There's some stuff I disagree with in there, for my own reasons, but there it is. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

Ten questions to determine if your religious liberty is being threatened. Yes, that. (Grokked from Cherie Priest)

Apparently, not only does Mitt Romney feel we solved the Cold Fusion problem but he also hasn't heard of the Nissan Leaf or Honda's Fit EV or FCX, or Mitsubushi's i-MiEV, or… Usually a president has to be in office before we find out they're amazed by bar code technology. Of course, this could be another of the "$10,000 bet" blind spots. Tesla does, after all, make nice toys for millionaires.

Turns out one of those "breaking up with Obama ad" people is a RNC staffer who has worked on previous republican campaigns. "But let’s be clear, it is an ad." Let's make sure we all understand what the RNC official means by that; they're lying, you can't expect ads to tell the truth. Reminds me of when the republicans were looking for "real" WV miners who would appear in their ads during the 2010 election. Sigh. But is seems like the republicans are congenitally unable to tell the truth. Somehow they think we should trust them with political office. It's the reverse of people saying, "politicians always lie to us." Now the conservative politicians are saying, "Hey, you think we're going to lie, and so we will lie to you." It's like when your dog poops on the rug just because they're upset with you. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

Ron Elving is talking about the stories we tell ourselves. Or as he aptly names them, the myths of our lives. And how these competing myths are what is defining the election. So it all depends on how you see yourself, a rugged individualist or part of a larger community. (Grokked from Matt Staggs)