The U.S. is the only major country on earth that doesn't regulate prescription drug prices and the results have been a disaster.
El Capitan, Apple’s latest version of the operating system for the Mac, goes live tomorrow. You can download iOS 10.11 on September 30.
For me the best news is that Photos will now support extensions. That makes editing photos in Photos much more powerful. You can use (some of?) your photo editing extensions like Intensify and Snapheal that I use and are from Macphun. I haven’t heard what the status of some of my older Topaz Labs extensions will be. Some those have been in my Aperture bag of tricks since the early days of Macworld. Here’s hoping that Topaz will make their (my) extensions compatible with Photos.
Jim Hightower, a former elected Texas Agriculture Commissioner, has been writing some of the best political commentary for years–about 40. I have been a subscriber to his Hightower Lowdown for a number of years–but not 40.
One of his recent postings is about the "new darling" in the Republican clown car. Wouldn't you just like to slap that smarmy look off her lying face? Read this piece by Hightower to get the straight scoop about her recent attack on Planned Parenthood: A flagrant liar for President?
Last night I spent some time trying to determine what were the best camera settings to take a picture of the moon, a full moon that appeared larger than usual. So here it is, one of about 100 shots I took while checking the best f-stop, ISO speed setting and exposure length. The details: f/8, 1/800 sec, ISO 200.
A new "report jointly sponsored by Carleton University and Public Citizen has concluded that Medicare Part D pays needlessly high brand-name drug prices compared with other developed countries and U.S. government programs.
The report states:
- After including rebates, brand-name drugs cost Medicare Part D 198% of the median costs for the same brand-name drugs in the 31 countries that belong to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD).
- Medicare Part D pays on average 73% more than Medicaid and 80% more than the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) for brand-name drugs. Medicare Part D would save from $15.2 billion to $16 billion a year if it could secure the same prices that Medicaid or VHA receives on the same brand-name drugs.
- While Medicaid and VHA often are used as benchmarks because of the rebates or discounts they secure, even these organizations pay higher prices than many OECD countries.
- Under current Medicare Part D pricing, non-innovative "me-too" drugs are priced as much or more than older, equally effective versions. This artificially increases the incentives for developing non-innovative "me-too" drugs rather than innovative medicines for unmet needs.
- Reducing brand-name drug prices would reduce the high level of cost-related non-adherence (people not filling their prescription for financial reasons) and reduce taxpayers' contribution to Medicare Part D would decrease by at least $11 billion every year. "
We won't see changes to Medicare because Big Pharma spends part of these oversized profits on buying members of Congress so they will vote against any meaningful reform of Medicare Part D.
Time to get money out of politics.
Say hello to Pluto, the first spacecraft to reach Pluto on the outer edge of the Solar System will swing by tomorrow at about 45,000 km/hr.
The New Horizons spacecraft will be carrying cameras, 5 experiments, and the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of Pluti, and the only American to have discovered a planet.
In the 80s, while I was the science consultant at the Los Angeles County of Education, I organized a symposium for teachers on space science. Our keynote speaker was Clyde Tombaugh.
It was a grand night in the presence of such a science notable. Sail on Mr Tombaugh … sail on.
https://www.flickr.com/gp/ariek/T933a5
Fouquieria splendens, Vista del Malpais, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, San Diego County, California
Jeb Bush, when asked by right-wing "journalist" and National Review editor Rich Lowry, what he liked to read the Jebster responded books by Charles Murray. Murray is the author of The Bell Curve, a book that discussed racial differences in intelligence as being genetic. The book was soundly thrashed by most members of the scientific community, notably Stephen Jay Gould, paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and science historian.
Swell, a presumed-presidential candidate relying on a discredited book from more than 20 years ago for its views on race. I predict that Jeb will "walk this back" when responsible journalists get wind of Jeb's odious remarks.
You can read about it here: http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/jeb-bush-praises-book-notorious-race-theorist-charles-murray-says-his-views-were
Here’s one of my favorite things from my childhood. Mom's soft boiled eggs eaten right from the shell. No Norwegian egg cup here but just as tasty:
I signed into my Pac-12 Network account on my television in Borrego Springs. I fired up my iPad to stream the USC spring game here in Whittier. I streamed my iPad to my Apple TV and watched it on my HDTV in Whittier.
I love this technology stuff. When it works.
