Hi All,
Its been awhile, as most of you know by now I have been cleared for surgery! So my gastric bypass will happen, baring me smoking or drinking a bunch of water the night before on November 18, 2013. After that it will be 6 months to a year of recovery. The good news is if all goes well I will be working again by week 2.
The Plan is back on, delayed by a month, and this delay has wreaked havoc on my finances. But enough about that, this post is about my proclivities as a consumer.
While I don't particularly want to argue about the nature of consumerism, I do want to expound on my distaste for used items.
The problem is the illusion of a good deal.
For certain items, purchase of a used item is a completely decidable problem, does the item work or not? This goes for things like various media, books, etc. However after the items whose operational modes are working or not working things get a little tricky.
I don't like used text books because inevitably they come marked up resulting in information being highlighted that I don't necessarily need, the result is a book that is less useful to me than a new one. For personal items, like clothing or dishes, I cannot get beyond the question of who wore this item before me, maybe that is a little OCD but the result is that used clothes, pots and pans, and mattresses are a no go for me.
Then we come to my personal favorites, complex items, cars, computers, telescopes, mounts. These items can be purchased used, but only after careful inspection, typically this only applies to cars. The issue is not just who used it before but how well did they maintain the item. Refurbished electronic items are a no go for me since they have a higher probability of failure maybe even a lower Mean Time Between Failures. Unless I can inspect the item, I am not going to purchase it, simple as that.
For telescopes they problem is that there are mechanical mechanisms that need to be properly used an maintained otherwise they must be replaced. As far as I can tell almost no one in our society is mechanically inclined anymore hence I do not trust used mechanisms. If I buy a scope on the cheap and have to immediately replace the focuser what is the point, I probably am not coming out ahead. Now if I know the person I am buying from that is another matter entirely but buying something off ebay or astromart, fuggetaboutit.
Mounts are a no go period. The issue is that the guts of the mount are usually garbage at the time of sale. This is because there are many more people who don't know how to maintain there mounts than do know how to maintain there mounts. The result is usually stripped worm gears, bad firmwares and all around terrible tracking from used mounts.
Some may say that I am too picky about what I am willing to buy, but hey to each his own, I am just never going to put anything on my skin that I don't know has come from a factory or further purchase something where the previous owner/manufacturer messed it up.
Friday, October 18, 2013
Monday, October 7, 2013
Denials and Delays
Hi all,
I know I promised a post on cross platform IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) but unfortunately life has intervened. A couple of weeks ago I got word that my insurance company was denying my pre-approval for the surgery on the basis that the surgery was not a covered benefit.
The irony of course is that there are still documents available on the website or my insurer referring to bariatric procedures as a covered benefit. This, along with the fact that the weight-loss center was told that the procedure was covered are the basis of my appeal. I mailed it about a week ago. This is my next immediate move.
As for the move after that its unclear. I need to get insurance that will cover the procedure, thus I may end up attempting to cancel my current coverage and go to an insurance policy which is on the newly set up exchange in Arizona. However, I think this will be costly as I have several pre-existing conditions. Another option is to sue my insurance company, which I really do not want to do since it will be costly. The other options available are to appeal to the insurance regulator in Arizona or go on Access.
All of this has delayed my plans, including The Plan. My goal was to have the surgery in mid to late October so that I would be recovering over the course of the end of fall beginning of winter. Then I would hit the ground running, putting the plan into motion. Now it appears that I am not going to have the surgery until mid to late November at the earliest. This delays my plan, and to be honest, I it has put me in a sort of purgatory, as my body continues to betray me.
I know I promised a post on cross platform IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) but unfortunately life has intervened. A couple of weeks ago I got word that my insurance company was denying my pre-approval for the surgery on the basis that the surgery was not a covered benefit.
The irony of course is that there are still documents available on the website or my insurer referring to bariatric procedures as a covered benefit. This, along with the fact that the weight-loss center was told that the procedure was covered are the basis of my appeal. I mailed it about a week ago. This is my next immediate move.
As for the move after that its unclear. I need to get insurance that will cover the procedure, thus I may end up attempting to cancel my current coverage and go to an insurance policy which is on the newly set up exchange in Arizona. However, I think this will be costly as I have several pre-existing conditions. Another option is to sue my insurance company, which I really do not want to do since it will be costly. The other options available are to appeal to the insurance regulator in Arizona or go on Access.
All of this has delayed my plans, including The Plan. My goal was to have the surgery in mid to late October so that I would be recovering over the course of the end of fall beginning of winter. Then I would hit the ground running, putting the plan into motion. Now it appears that I am not going to have the surgery until mid to late November at the earliest. This delays my plan, and to be honest, I it has put me in a sort of purgatory, as my body continues to betray me.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Successful Failure
Hi all,
Writing this post has been on my todo list all week. On Monday I tried to go on an all liquid diet, the result was a disaster. Mostly it was due to the amount of insulin I injected the night before. I went from a diet with plenty of glucose to one with not much glucose at all and the result was the worst sugar crash I have ever experienced.
This was a good thing, mainly because now I know that for my liquid diet, especially the night before I start, I need to adjust my insulin intake. I am going to see my doctor next week and talk to him about how I should proceed. While it was not fun I needed to try it once before I started just to get all of the kinks out of it. I found the liquid part of it to be miserable, mainly due to the fact that I wanted food so badly, but I think I would have made it were it not for the insulin issue.
I guess the main thing is that this is why we do experiments, even with ourselves as guinea pigs, it is to gain experience we can use later when the time comes.
As an update my paperwork was submitted to insurance last Friday, so I should know in the next week or so if I am approved for surgery, after that is a surgery date. I know this is two posts in a row about my health, but well that's just how it turned out. Next post will be about me trying to change my oil for the first time or my unending quest for a decent cross platform IDE. (Integrated Development Environment)
Writing this post has been on my todo list all week. On Monday I tried to go on an all liquid diet, the result was a disaster. Mostly it was due to the amount of insulin I injected the night before. I went from a diet with plenty of glucose to one with not much glucose at all and the result was the worst sugar crash I have ever experienced.
This was a good thing, mainly because now I know that for my liquid diet, especially the night before I start, I need to adjust my insulin intake. I am going to see my doctor next week and talk to him about how I should proceed. While it was not fun I needed to try it once before I started just to get all of the kinks out of it. I found the liquid part of it to be miserable, mainly due to the fact that I wanted food so badly, but I think I would have made it were it not for the insulin issue.
I guess the main thing is that this is why we do experiments, even with ourselves as guinea pigs, it is to gain experience we can use later when the time comes.
As an update my paperwork was submitted to insurance last Friday, so I should know in the next week or so if I am approved for surgery, after that is a surgery date. I know this is two posts in a row about my health, but well that's just how it turned out. Next post will be about me trying to change my oil for the first time or my unending quest for a decent cross platform IDE. (Integrated Development Environment)
Friday, September 13, 2013
When is a clearance not a clearance?
Hi all,
As my last update on the surgery stated I have obtained all of the clearances to go into surgery, my paperwork will be submitted to the insurance company on Monday. (hopefully) Between my announcement that I was cleared for surgery and my current post, is that while I had been told I had the clearance, there was not a formal written clearance from my psychologist. The result being me waiting around for nearly a week while we tried to get it.
This has happened before, and its the reason I could not be a doctor. The problem I would have with being a doctor is that I have a general understanding that what I do affects other people. This makes me a better person in the long run because it means I try to be deferential to them. However, the issue with a doctor is that you have a lot of work to do, and if you were to consider other peoples point of view it would make your job impossible. Why? because from your patients perspective everything you do is massively important.
The problem I have had is waiting on doctors, the worst of which was my CPAP. I had an acute illness and there was a common treatment for it. However, I could not be treated immediately due to the vagaries of our health care system. First the doctor needed to complete his notes so that the order could be placed to the durable medical equipment company, so that my insurance would pay for some of the cost of the machine. The problem came when the Doctor did not finish his notes until 3 work days after he gave me my diagnosis.
To him this was a small thing, to me it was everything. One of the worst feelings in the world is knowing your ill and not being able to do anything about it. It was no sweat of his back, and he probably had a ton of work. But there was a bit of torture that resulted. This was to a lesser degree with my Psych clearance. Its still painful though, to be trying very hard to remake yourself only to be held up by a few key strokes and the stroke of a pin by someone else.
As my last update on the surgery stated I have obtained all of the clearances to go into surgery, my paperwork will be submitted to the insurance company on Monday. (hopefully) Between my announcement that I was cleared for surgery and my current post, is that while I had been told I had the clearance, there was not a formal written clearance from my psychologist. The result being me waiting around for nearly a week while we tried to get it.
This has happened before, and its the reason I could not be a doctor. The problem I would have with being a doctor is that I have a general understanding that what I do affects other people. This makes me a better person in the long run because it means I try to be deferential to them. However, the issue with a doctor is that you have a lot of work to do, and if you were to consider other peoples point of view it would make your job impossible. Why? because from your patients perspective everything you do is massively important.
The problem I have had is waiting on doctors, the worst of which was my CPAP. I had an acute illness and there was a common treatment for it. However, I could not be treated immediately due to the vagaries of our health care system. First the doctor needed to complete his notes so that the order could be placed to the durable medical equipment company, so that my insurance would pay for some of the cost of the machine. The problem came when the Doctor did not finish his notes until 3 work days after he gave me my diagnosis.
To him this was a small thing, to me it was everything. One of the worst feelings in the world is knowing your ill and not being able to do anything about it. It was no sweat of his back, and he probably had a ton of work. But there was a bit of torture that resulted. This was to a lesser degree with my Psych clearance. Its still painful though, to be trying very hard to remake yourself only to be held up by a few key strokes and the stroke of a pin by someone else.
Monday, September 9, 2013
FFTW for fun (and maybe profit)
Hi all,
As many of you may know, for many years I have wanted to create an open source image processing suite. The core of which is a modular image processing engine. The problem with this is of course that I usually start work on it a week before the semester then all development time is swallowed whole. The first kernel of any image processing engine is the ability to identify a star on the image plane, a process known as centroiding. In order to centroid you need something like a Fourier Transform of the image (in order to compute the point spread function of the star), I say something like because there is too much noise associated with the Fourier Transform to help with very faint objects. So my first baby step was to be able to take an image from disk and get its Fourier Transform.
To do this I needed FFTW, and cfitsio. Oddly cfitsio does not compile well for 64-bit windows so a year or so ago I spent a whole night fucking around getting it to compile in VS 2010. (If you are interested in that source code it is in my git hub.) Once that was done it was a matter of figuring out how to do a real to real 2D Fourier transform using FFTW. So here we are, the image is a few seconds of noise buildup taken from my Meade DSI II:
As many of you may know, for many years I have wanted to create an open source image processing suite. The core of which is a modular image processing engine. The problem with this is of course that I usually start work on it a week before the semester then all development time is swallowed whole. The first kernel of any image processing engine is the ability to identify a star on the image plane, a process known as centroiding. In order to centroid you need something like a Fourier Transform of the image (in order to compute the point spread function of the star), I say something like because there is too much noise associated with the Fourier Transform to help with very faint objects. So my first baby step was to be able to take an image from disk and get its Fourier Transform.
To do this I needed FFTW, and cfitsio. Oddly cfitsio does not compile well for 64-bit windows so a year or so ago I spent a whole night fucking around getting it to compile in VS 2010. (If you are interested in that source code it is in my git hub.) Once that was done it was a matter of figuring out how to do a real to real 2D Fourier transform using FFTW. So here we are, the image is a few seconds of noise buildup taken from my Meade DSI II:
And now its Fourier Transform:
Most students usually do this in Matlab before trying it in C++, I guess I just like to learn things the hard way.
Friday, September 6, 2013
CLEARED!
Hello all,
This is a quick update, I have received all the clearances I need for surgery, psychological, cardiac, pulmonary. Now we submit to insurance and I may be able to get a surgery date in the next couple of weeks!
This is a quick update, I have received all the clearances I need for surgery, psychological, cardiac, pulmonary. Now we submit to insurance and I may be able to get a surgery date in the next couple of weeks!
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
The Software Problem.
A few posts ago I stated my intention to purchase a MacBook air. The good news is that the first facets of "The Plan" are months away from being implemented hence the plan is still in flux. The MacBook is probably the nicest single piece of hardware currently available, however MacOS X is not suitable for amateur astronomy in my opinion. Several Apple fanboi's heads just exploded, but hear me out. When you have a hammer everything looks like a nail.
The problem is that the primary purpose of my next laptop will be the control of the telescope and focuser for acquisition of images. While there are plenty of applications that work with OSX which will do data acquisition there are serious gaps in the hardware support. The drivers for these objects simply do not exist for OSX.
Now the gap between OSX and Windows is nothing compared to the gap between OSX and Linux. People simply do not make decent acquisition programs for Linux. Now the thing about the hammer and nail is that since OSX is a UNIX you might just say, "Aaron your a competent programmer, why don't you just write the drivers." To which my answer would be "F$#@ YOU!" because writing drivers for hardware you don't manufacture yourself is about the most arduous task one can set oneself.
The root of the problem is the fact that this hobby is small and populated mainly by a generation of people for whom modern digital technology didn't exist. The result is that most of them are windows users as a result of some anti-competitive shenanigans in the 90's. Hence everyone who makes hardware to interface instruments to computers makes drivers for windows. I would argue that any off the shelf components are best plugged into a windows computer, since Murphy's Law goes double for Astronomy.
The solution of course is to make interfaces to mobile devices, tablets and the like for controlling instruments at the observing site, Bluetooth is more than capable of wirelessly controlling a telescope. However unless wireless USB matures and becomes a standard we would be stuck with Wi-Fi for carying image data. This is a problem I am interested in working on since wires and darkness tend to be a witches brew for ruining expensive equipment. Any thoughts readers?
The problem is that the primary purpose of my next laptop will be the control of the telescope and focuser for acquisition of images. While there are plenty of applications that work with OSX which will do data acquisition there are serious gaps in the hardware support. The drivers for these objects simply do not exist for OSX.
Now the gap between OSX and Windows is nothing compared to the gap between OSX and Linux. People simply do not make decent acquisition programs for Linux. Now the thing about the hammer and nail is that since OSX is a UNIX you might just say, "Aaron your a competent programmer, why don't you just write the drivers." To which my answer would be "F$#@ YOU!" because writing drivers for hardware you don't manufacture yourself is about the most arduous task one can set oneself.
The root of the problem is the fact that this hobby is small and populated mainly by a generation of people for whom modern digital technology didn't exist. The result is that most of them are windows users as a result of some anti-competitive shenanigans in the 90's. Hence everyone who makes hardware to interface instruments to computers makes drivers for windows. I would argue that any off the shelf components are best plugged into a windows computer, since Murphy's Law goes double for Astronomy.
The solution of course is to make interfaces to mobile devices, tablets and the like for controlling instruments at the observing site, Bluetooth is more than capable of wirelessly controlling a telescope. However unless wireless USB matures and becomes a standard we would be stuck with Wi-Fi for carying image data. This is a problem I am interested in working on since wires and darkness tend to be a witches brew for ruining expensive equipment. Any thoughts readers?
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