More about Windows announcements...and the latest ebola stuff

Windows 8.1 Update 1 and some more Windows 9 stuff.

Microsoft post-Ballmer is doing pretty well. Microsoft needs to make a big splash and next week they are likely to do just that. Microsoft has much more to worry about from the Google camp than from Apple. Everyone that is not Google and is in the consumer electronics business has much to be concerned about from the Mountain View group.

I am not certain that 8.1 Update 1 is going to happen. No one is other than those inside the working group. Given the way too slow uptake of Windows 8.1, I would not be greatly surprised if Microsoft dropped the 8.1 update, and offered Win 8 users Windows 9 for free or for a token sum. I had the opportunity to buy Windows 7 Pro DVDs all wrapped up in official Microsoft packaging for $29.99 earlier this week. Even retail there was vendor offering Win 7 64 bit Home for approximately the same price after mail-in rebate but it was kind of a sticky situation. Still, $30 for a full Win OS at retail is not commonly found these days.

I expect Microsoft to do most things correctly when Windows 9 is released.

Ebola, you are up!

MSNBC is now reporting that West African ebola is now an "exponential crisis". The reporter cites the 1.4 million cases as evidence. But it is not evidence. It is the current worst case scenario. Be careful about opeing the link. It is direct to an autoplay video that is very slow to load. I am on a 105mbps connection, and it was still slow to load.

The WHO has released new confirmed ebola fatality numbers, and as of this moment that number is 3,133 confirmed. The report also notes that in excess of 6,500 people have been, or are currently, infected. I will wait until Sep. 30 to update my chart. I am going to use graphing software to make it appear that I know just how to plot things along an x and y axis.

Meanwhile, at the UN....

Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete told the general assembly some obvious things. Here is a bit:

"Help Africa, so that the stigma that is developing against the continent because of Ebola is stopped. Reports that people from other parts of the world are shying from visiting Africa will kill the tourism industry, trade and investment to Africa," he said. Amid applause, he observed: "Many people are now shying away from Africa.

Let the UN help tell the world that Africa is a continent of 54 countries and not provinces," he said. He noted that the affected countries are closer to Europe than they are to countries in East Africa such as Tanzania or Kenya. "To cancel travel to Africa because of this is gross injustice," he said.

This is going to be lost on the American public for two reasons. The first is that Joe Average has no real sense of the geographic spans involved, and the second is that when Josephine Average hears the word "ebola" she freezes from fear. It is hoped that the reader of this blog has a much keener sense of the size of Africa, and reasons through the ebola issue rather than experience paralysis due to a reflexive emotional response.

A report from Russia stating that conspiracy "theories" are aiding ebola's spread. Africans are not seeking medical help because of talk that those that enter clinics are being killed by doctors. As a person living in the what is likely the fear ridden Western country, I can easily see how occurs.

The Muslim Hajj is even being affected due to pilgrims from the ebola region of West Africa and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome(MERS). In what might prove fascinating to my fellow US citizens, the Arabs are taking direct cues from the WHO and the CDC. Yes, this is Saudi Arabia that is following the guidelines suggested by the two health organizations. People are people first. A notion that many of my fellow citizens should take to heart.

Until the various vaccines are sorted out, and post-infection drugs are approved this is likely to be the best bet for the ebola infected. A bit:

Technical guidance for experts

Early next week, WHO is issuing new interim guidance on Use of convalescent whole blood or plasma collected from patients recovered from Ebola virus disease for transfusion during outbreaks.

The document is addressed to national health authorities and blood transfusion services.

I am certainly no expert, but I can post bits of pieces found in my RSS feed. Next week should prove interesting on many a front.

WhyPhone 6 "Sringboard edition" gets some love...Windows 9, and ebola.

Apple iPhone 6 ‘Bendgate’ Debate: Consumer Reports Test Finds New iPhones ‘Tougher’ Than Believed. Hey, no one has said that the whyPhone 6 is scrapworthy. The issue is not one a single stress test. It is an issue endemic to most malleable materials. Repeated stressors over time are what kills aluminum cases. If Consumer Reports had really done a good test of the various phones case performance over lower load, repeated stressors, the outcome would most certainly have been different. Apple seems to want to live or die by the aluminum case. This not-real-world test only illustrates that in a single incidence of stress, the whyPhone 6 comes out looking better than the tech press would have one believe. Set the load at 50 lbs of force(whatever that really means) and cycle it ten thousand times. Then you can separate the various phones likelihood od surviving over the longer term. No doubt, someone is performing a test very like the one just described as I type.

There is too much smoke and mirrors surrounding Windows 9 to make any firm statements other than the return of the real Start Menu. Will Cortana be included in the desktop version? If so, all versions, or just some? I am betting that by the end of next week much more will be known. People that write tech articles for mass consumption are all scrambling to discern what Windows 9 will be named. This seems to be missing the point badly. It is all about features that users want, and some that users did not yet know that they wanted. I think Cortana DT is a good example of a possibility.

Everyone that has bashed Windows 8 and/or Windows 8.1 has seemingly done so for strange reasons. I have two PCs with Win 8.1. One I really wanted control over so I installed Classic Shell on that box. Oddly, neither box has ever crashed or even hung on something. One is an i3-2130 based box, so it is no speed demon. The other is an overclocked i5 Ivy Bridge, and that box is really fast. Oh, I put SSDs in both boxes so that is a big reason for the great performance. I bought the i3 machine from Lenovo outlet, and it was absurdly inexpensive. $223.00 with 6 GB of RAM and all the other stuff. I popped in a $50 DX 11 video card, and grabbed an MX100 Crucial drive. All told I have $373 into the machine, and it is plenty fast enough for lots of tasks.

I have to run. Ebola later

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Home Repairs/Improvements..never leave 'em to a contractor..if you are certain that you can do them properly yourself

This is really far off my beat. I have spent the last few hours installing a storm door. I do this kind of work as it is far removed from how I earn my keep. I do not enjoy repairs/upgrades/replacements nearly as much as gardening, but I do enjoy a job well done. The storm door was a kit of sorts. I had a brand new fiberglass door and that was all. Everything else I sourced from my former life as a hoarder, and I even scored 17 matching windows from the fabulous Joseph. I helped him wire up a house a while back, and he gave me a glass greenhouse kit. Nary a broken pane! Before you run off half-cocked and try your hand at commercial plumbing or some such, you do need to both know lots of different hings, and have the skill sets and tools to properly do the job.

I have a roofing contractor only. Next spring/summer I am going to hire a contractor to do some site work. I am getting a new garage.

I will build it out of a kit I will compile. I know a junk guy that collects pallet racking beams and uprights. I will simply do the CAD work and talk the town officials into rubber stamping my building project.

I really need food and some drink.

I am not anti-contractor. I just feel that anyone that owns properties should be able to do a good amount of the work to maintain said properties themselves.

food. Now.

iWatch watch and your daily ebola update.

A whole bunch of stories here.

One would think that the tech press would simply get over any Apple releases. But no. Given Apple's market capitalization that is not likely to happen anytime soon.

I rarely look for new, shiny stuffs as they appear. I do not want to be an alpha or beta tester for the latest consumer tech junk.

What I am intrigued by are Android L and Windows 9. Both promise to have real benefits rather than simply fancy new clothes.

Just to get a peek into the world of tech wonks this joker states that "Apple is a good monopoly." Seriously. Apple has no monopoly in any product line. There were smartphones before the whyPhone, and tablets before the whyPad. Apple's market share is shrinking in both of these categories as Android outsells the Apple products globally by roughly 10 to 1 in both categories and Android's uptake increases daily. Sure Apple is trying to break into the enterprise market with their partnership with IBM, but IBM's market share is shrinking as well. Google is quite nearly a monopoly. Google is throwing new gadgets out all the time. Android L looks to be killer. Apple has no monopoly in the USA, much less the rest of the planet. The other 6.7 billions of humans are what Google is playing to....betting against Google has not proven to be very smart. Android will be everywhere in five years. Everywhere.

On the ebola frontlines...

The US DoD is to blame for the current outbreak? Ermm, I do not trust any government, but this is just nonsense without extraordinary evidence. The claimant offers up Richard Preston's book The Hot Zone as evidence. West Africans are fearful enough about ebola without wholly unsubstantiated claims being cast about.

More ebola quick hits sans comment:

Ghana Cancels 2014 African Cashew Alliance Expo Over Ebola Concerns

Experimental Ebola vaccines could be ready next year: WHO

WHO advocates blood therapies in search of Ebola treatment

Fujifilm says French Ebola patient is taking its Avigan drug

Ebola is winning

Health worker claims world 'turned a blind eye' on Ebola

and finally.....

Susan Rice: Prepare to fight tomorrow's Ebola(Susan Rice is Obama's national security advisor)

Okay, one more just hit my RSS feed..

Computational model: Ebola could infect more than 1.4 million people by end of January 2015. This isn't especially new, but in case you may have missed it over the past few days..well, there it is.

I am off to toil

I may update later today.

A bite is being taken out of Apple, and weird ebola commentary.

WhyPhone 6 woes continue to grow. Some tech wonk stated that with the whyPhone 6 issues, and assorted ills, Apple is becoming like Microsoft. Not today's Microsoft. M$ products seem to be the least buggy things out there. With a new round of fear over a HUGE Unix vulnerability that is not yet really fixed in any way, Apple's woes continue to mount. Mac OS is essentially a bunch of APIs atop a Unix shell. Sorry about the geek speak. In other words, the pretty Mac OS is not an operating system. The Mac OS is all the pretty and fun stuff riding atop the operating system. All flavors of Unix are vulnerable. That means Macs, Linux, and Apache flavors of Unix are wide open. Uncut Unix is, of course, affected as well. At least 500 million computers worldwide are vulnerable.

I have a little Unix story to share. When I was in grad school, I coded a really simple UI for Unix. All it needed to become the forerunner(alternative?) to Linux was more prettier packaging. If I had known that Linus Torvalds was going to come along and REALLY do the job, I could have been first. I'm 1/4 Finn as well. Oh well. This is no BS story. One of the people I shared my secret project with is now an astrophysics professor at Columbia.

I could get into the POSIX stuff, but that set of protocols wasn't officially cast into IEEE stone until 1988.

So, other than a few papers and some patent royalties, I toil in relative anonymity. I do have that dish of a business as well.

Onward to ebola today....

I believe that this must be an opinion piece, as the business press typically gets hard news conveyed more accurately than mass media. At any rate, here 'tis: Ebola Shot Turned Down by WHO Is Best Hope as Virus Rages

I think it must be a rush job. That headline is dreadful.

This bit is particularly specious:

The sudden sense of urgency for an Ebola vaccine was an about face from a few months earlier when Glaxo contacted the WHO, asking whether its vaccine could help with the outbreak. At that time, the company was told the focus was on containment and the WHO didn’t have a policy for using vaccines in this type of situation. “We’ll get back to you” was the message, said Ripley Ballou, head of Glaxo’s Ebola vaccine program.

No one from the WHO was quoted directly from March of this year. However, an official offered this:

When Glaxo contacted the WHO in March, the vaccine was seen as a “diversion of energy” at a time when it was widely believed the outbreak would be controlled with traditional measures such as contact tracing and safe burials that have helped contain every previous outbreak, said Marie-Paule Kieny, the WHO’s assistant director-general for health systems and innovation.

“We were in a situation where GSK had a vaccine which had been tested in animals, and that was it,” Kieny said in a telephone interview. “It was only then when the situation started to be quite worse, and people understood that we’re not going to make it, that the effort came to a higher level.”

If you read the piece the pharmaceutical companies GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Johnson & Johnson claim that they reached out to the WHO in March of this year. The WHO, in addition to the statement in the blockquote above, claims that the WHO has no process in place for using vaccine prophylaxis. No, the WHO does has the protocols in place for known to be effective in humans vaccines. That is precisely how the scourge of Smallpox was eradicated from nature. What the WHO lacks--and I think that this is prudent--is that the WHO has no procedures in place for jabbing needles into people with drugs that have not undergone human trials.

If you think that the timing of these statements is all too convenient you are not alone. Once the US has offered up nearly a billion dollars to assist in the fight against ebola, the finger pointing starts. Now that the pharma giants have a place to deposit the bill, there is not a moment to spare.

My cynicism here is borne out my personal medical history. I have a partial retinal vein occlusion. The vision in my right eye flatly sucks. I had to almost threaten to kill my medical insurance provider to get the off-label use of an anti-tumor drug(Avastin) approved to treat the blocked vein. I buy health insurance as part of a group of small business owners, and my premiums at the time were roughly $920/mo. I NEVER used the insurance for anything but routine work. My death-by-poorly-wielded-machete worked, and after two weeks I had the first of six injections. Just the 1/30th dose needed for my right eye cost $1,200.00/shot. My retinal specialist called it "surgery" so each shot cost roughly $4,000. I paid 10 percent.

I am not going to state unequivocally that the pharma giants squeezed the WHO for guaranteed payment for their vaccine(s), but pharma's history in this area is not really great.

For a fabulous treatment of this very subject that is refreshingly devoid of hyperbole and tin hattedness, Siddhartha Mukherjee's instant classic: The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer is a must read. It is a must read for any thinking person. The book is the best on medicine I have ever read, and perhaps one of the top ten non-fiction books I have read. Ir would definitely make the top twenty.

Speaking of tin hats, at least one member of the GOP is donning one again today.

"Unless it is controlled, this will be one of the most explosive, dangerous, deadly epidemics in modern times." - Lamar Alexander(R-TN) Oy! Okay granted, if ebola gains the transmissibility of pandemic influenze, then sure. Until then, this WILL NOT be any of those adjectives unless you are in West Africa. I feel kinship with West Africa--and West Africans--as I have been to The Gambia, Guinea, and Mali. I have had hand drumming teachers from all over the region. I am glad that we are finally getting off our hands and moving towards doing something. I met Lamar Alexander when he ran for the GOP presidential nomination in 1996. The man did not strike me as shriekingly hyperbolic, but neither did he strike me as a deep thinker.

This state is very weird. We only have a bit over a million residents, yet because of our first in the nation presidential primary, every four years we see the very strange group of individuals narcissistic enough to believe that they can lead this country. It remains ever the show.

On Non Edit: The first part of this post is a rambling mess. For that I am sorry. I would tidy it up, but I am not so inclined. I am tired(worked until 3 AM this morning, and was at breakfast at 6 AM), cold, and hungry. Really..I'm flagging.

Ebola..update.

The WHO and others missed the obvious. This bit from the article is just weird: "...Even as the bodies piled up, health officials were unable to identify the killer as Ebola, a virus never before seen in west Africa."

Health officials did not get tainted blood and/or organs tested is more accurate. Futhermore, in The Ivory Coast in 1994 a new strain of ebola(Tai Forest) infected one, was isolated, and the victim survived. This lack of geographical distribution excuse simply does not hold water.

Why did so many die before ebolavirus was isolated as the causative agent? All of the symptoms were there starting with patient zero. This is huge smokescreen..or CYA to some.

I should state presumably patient zero, as USAMRIID notes the following:

According to the publication’s authors, between 500 and 700 samples are submitted each year to the KGH Lassa Diagnostic Laboratory in Sierra Leone. Generally, only 30 to 40 percent of the samples test positive for Lassa fever, so the aim of this study was to determine which other viruses had been causing serious illnesses in the region.

Using assays developed at USAMRIID that detect the presence of IgM, an early protein produced by the body to ward off infection, the research team found evidence of dengue fever, West Nile, yellow fever, Rift Valley fever, chikungunya, Ebola, and Marburg viruses in the samples collected between 2006 and 2008.

There is an elephant in this room. Here is more detail. Sorry, but I have never bought the story of "no one could have known." USAMRIID knew, and even mentions the Tai Forest case in the liked to piece. When will people stop making the same mistakes regarding infectious diseases with animal vectors? From ticks to fruit bats, critters simply do not respect national boundaries. While I am on a pseudo-rant, ticks are not necessarily as slow moving as their own powers of ambulation permit. Ticks are after a blood meal. Many species will gladly take a meal from a migratory bird potentially spreading pathogens far outside of the disease's natural reservoir area. One need not even mention that bats are somewhat more mobile sans any hitchhiking than the evil tick.

I still do not understand today's GOP...fighting, fighting ebola....

GOP senator holding up Ebola money. Fucking James Inhofe..*sigh* This is good:

A top Senate Republican is holding up the White House's request for roughly $1 billion to fight Ebola in West Africa, according to a Wednesday report.

Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member James Inhofe (Okla.) allegedly wants more detail from the administration on how the request would impact the defense budget.

The funds are set to be "reprogrammed" from an account that would have been spent on the war in Afghanistan, according to The Associated Press, which first reported the hold.

Inhofe asked the Obama administration for more detail on how it would protect military personnel who come in contact with Ebola as part of the response effort, the AP says.

If true, the hold throws a wrench in the White House's plan to dramatically ramp up the fight against Ebola. Officials have warned that, without immediate "speed and scale," any efforts to curb the disease's spread will be quickly overtaken.

Unless the AP has gotten EVERYTHING about this wrong, Inhofe is indeed blocking moving forward. The saddest thing is that Inhofe is worried about diverting a whole billion dollars from the five hundred twenty-seven billion pentagon budget for 2014. Ya knows Jimmy, I think we can afford to send 1/527th of the official DoD budget to do some good in the world without any posturing. Duh-fuh? I really do not understand what has passed for conservatism since the days of Nixon. Nixon was a fatally flawed human being, but I could follow most of what he did. Reagan scared the Hell out of sane people, and the recycled Reaganites since then have been just plain obtuse.

I need pizza or something.

whyPhone 6 bends..and breaks!

I still don't understand the whyPhone phenonemon. Only days after putting the device in the hands of users, users are complaining about bending phones. Engadget gets downright surly linking to a Youtube vid that a user put their test model to the point of failure, but aluminum being aluminum, repeated stressors will achieve the same effect. Of course Apple is likely to offer a "Gusset and Rollcage" package for only $199.00 to keep your new phone from warping.

In all fairness, I am certain that I could break most any mobile, but I treat the things as truly utilitarian devices.

Apple has not promoted this as a "feature" as some users have twisted their week old devices into broken screen chic neckwear. Yep. If you flex the phone enough, the super duper 6 Plus screen--corundum and all--will break. Apple's cure? Screen repairs cost $109 for an iPhone 6 and $129 for the iPhone 6 Plus, in addition to a $6.95 shipping fee. If, however, you were smart enough to anticipate shattering your screen and paid the extra $99 AppleCare+ warranty fee, Apple will replace your screen for $79. I can see that this is going to be a huge issue. Apple should give out a free reinforcing device, or take the phones back at the customer's request.

AppleCare+ costs $75 more than I paid for my semi-unlocked LG l34C. Yes, I know it is listed as a StraightTalk only phone, but I was able to go with my preferred carrier without jailbreaking the little phone. My phone cannot do as much as much as an iPhone, but KitKat is pretty danged close. I have no NFC!!! But I paid $24.88 on a super duper deal.

Ebola contained in Nigeria and Senegal, WHO almost claims..and the oddity of the mid-term elections.

"Pretty much contained" in those two countries where there was but a single case in Senegal that traveled in form Guinea, and in Nigeria patient zero flew into the country via the usual route; in an airplane of some type.

So, the situation in Nigeria--which was really troubling--may have been extinguished, but in the three countries where the 2013-2014 ebola outbreak is still raging--Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia--things are still getting worse from all available reports.

Being cognizant of West African geography does have value for all peoples everywhere.

I have NO idea if the three day lockdown in Sierra Leone will have lasting benefits, but hopefully the education and outreach that has been claimed will help to de-stigmatize the disease. The lockdown did increase the confirmed ebola case rate by 130 persons, with 39 suspected cases awaiting lab results.

Meanwhile in the DRC, the outbreak appears to be well controlled. Let us all hope that this is so.

I really need to say something political. I have no idea what the GOP platform is..it doesn't appear to be FOR anything. Does the GOP really sill believe that deregulation is the answer to anything? Well, anything that these people running for office claim deregulation will fix? Ideology is much like religion. Both philosophies stop the critical thinking process.

The Red States benefitthe most from governmental handouts, yet these are the very states least likely to vote in their best interests. I have always been baffled by my fellow Americans.

In the "all politics are local" theme, the GOP candidate for US senator(Scott Brown) moved to NH solely to run for another senate seat as he lost to Elizabeth Warren in his real state--the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Polls ahow the race a toss up. This would not be possible with a fully functional, informed electorate. One does not reward failure to retain a job by handing them the same job.

I vote, but I am not represented by any political party in the US.

A Sunday Yuck!

Cop suffers minor injuries after colliding with a vehicle in a Dunkin Donuts parking lot then crashing his police SUV through the storefront.

I adore self-writing jokes.

You have to hand it to the cop. He could have stopped after smashing into another vehicle, but to nail the comic effect, he bashes through the storefront and suffers minor injuries. Bravo!

I just hope he was able to get his beloved doughnut fix.