Who will pay?

March 28, 2005

Last week brought us several news stories of great sadness. In Red Lake a teenager committed a horrendous killing in his school. The week began with President Bush signing into law a piece of legislation allowing Federal Courts to intervene in the case of Terry Schiavo. And the Social Security Trustees' 2005 Report was released.

This may seem an odd pairing of events to contemplate. However, the report by the Social Security Trustees clearly shows America is coming to a crisis point. The need for action is immediate and the consequences of inaction are severe. The problem lies not with Social Security, but with Medicare. While several hundred hours were spent by politicians last week attempting to weaken the sanctity of marriage by inserting the government between a couple's wedding vows, little time was spent on the coming medicare calamity.

"The financial outlook for Social Security has improved marginally since 2000," wrote trustees Thomas Saving(R) and John Palmer(D). "In sharp contrast, Medicare's financial outlook has deteriorated dramatically over the past five years and is now much worse that Social Security's." What is missing from the current conversations about saving Social Security is this comparison. Social Security will reach the point where benefits exceed tax revenue by 2017. Medicare reached that point last year. The Social Security trust fund is projected to be exhausted by 2041 while projections place the date at 2019 for Medicare's trust fund.

Medicare is headed for a catastrophic situation with potentially devastating consequences for Americans and our government is more concerned with undoing marriage vows between a husband and wife.

DirecWAY and Ground Control Redux

March 27, 2005

I've written previously about the problem with DirecWAY which I purchase through their reseller Ground Control. DirecWAY has a problem with their web accelerator that breaks XML-RPC calls between this site and others. Today I found it breaks XML being sent to eBay through the eBay API as well.

The first response I get when I tried to approach them is that the application I'm using must be the problem. Since they don't know that XML-RPC is they figure it must be me. So, here's what I did. Setup a web-proxy that sends web-requests on a port other than port 80. XML-RPC calls work just fine when using the proxy. Switch to port 80 where DirecWAY has Web Accellerator running and see the web surfing speeds remain the same but now all your XML-RPC calls will be truncated.

Sometimes a VAR such as Ground Control can be very helpful in these situations. On the other hand they can do what Ground Control has done and say that well, they're not sure what to do. DirecWAY tells them everything is working correctly. So, of course it is. Neither Ground Control nor DirecWAY seem to understand networking well enough to appreciate the testing that I've done and accept the meaning of those results. I guess it is time to redouble the effort to get DSL out here.

DirecWAY and Ground Control Redux

March 27, 2005

I've written previously about the problem with DirecWAY which I purchase through their reseller Ground Control. DirecWAY has a problem with their web accelerator that breaks XML-RPC calls between this site and others. Today I found it breaks XML being sent to eBay through the eBay API as well.

The first response I get when I tried to approach them is that the application I'm using must be the problem. Since they don't know that XML-RPC is they figure it must be me. So, here's what I did. Setup a web-proxy that sends web-requests on a port other than port 80. XML-RPC calls work just fine when using the proxy. Switch to port 80 where DirecWAY has Web Accellerator running and see the web surfing speeds remain the same but now all your XML-RPC calls will be truncated.

Sometimes a VAR such as Ground Control can be very helpful in these situations. On the other hand they can do what Ground Control has done and say that well, they're not sure what to do. DirecWAY tells them everything is working correctly. So, of course it is. Neither Ground Control nor DirecWAY seem to understand networking well enough to appreciate the testing that I've done and accept the meaning of those results. I guess it is time to redouble the effort to get DSL out here.

DirecWAY, Ground Control & XML-RPC Redux

March 27, 2005

I've written previously about the problem with DirecWAY which I purchase through their reseller Ground Control. DirecWAY has a problem with their web accelerator that breaks XML-RPC calls between this site and others. Today I found it breaks XML being sent to eBay through the eBay API as well.

The first response I get when I tried to approach them is that the application I'm using must be the problem. Since they don't know that XML-RPC is they figure it must be me. So, here's what I did. Setup a web-proxy that sends web-requests on a port other than port 80. XML-RPC calls work just fine when using the proxy. Switch to port 80 where DirecWAY has Web Accellerator running and see the web surfing speeds remain the same but now all your XML-RPC calls will be truncated.

Sometimes a VAR such as Ground Control can be very helpful in these situations. On the other hand they can do what Ground Control has done and say that well, they're not sure what to do. DirecWAY tells them everything is working correctly. So, of course it is. Neither Ground Control nor DirecWAY seem to understand networking well enough to appreciate the testing that I've done and accept the meaning of those results. I guess it is time to redouble the effort to get DSL out here.

Rocky Mountain News Article on Ramline.com

March 25, 2005

Cyber-Rams - Cam the Ram has entered cyberspace.

Information about CSU football and other sports will be featured this fall on the Internet.

The new service - called Ramline - will offer play-by-play coverage updated every five minutes during CSU football games plus statistics, color photos, player biographies, team rosters and postgame commentary.

The Ramline site can be called on the World Wide Web at http: / / www. ramline.com. CSU students with Holly or Lamar electronic mail accounts also may use the service.

Information and schedules for other CSU athletic teams also will be available through the Ramline site.

Joshua Brauer, a CSU student, created Ramline after an Internet encounter last year with a frustrated fan in Australia eager for CSU sports information. ''I think players' families and Colorado State alumni who can't come to the games will find it very useful,'' Brauer said.

The service is offered by a private firm - World Wide Express Inc. - founded by Brauer that is independent of the university. CSU has cooperated with the service's creation. Information: (970) 962-1594.

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