Joe’s Blog

I’ve started using VoIP again - an eyebeam client with service from blueface.ie. It’s good for ringing landlines (1.3c) but it’s probably just as cheap to ring mobiles with my own mobile in the evening (19c)

Blueface rates - Check here for up-to-date rates

Now one of the problems is how the hell do I ring someone with VoIP - they could give me an 076 number provided by blueface, smart etc but now I’ve got to get a whole new set of numbers for all my contacts and I have to explain to them what an 076 number is. That’s when I came accross ENUM which allows your number to be looked up in a database, then someone can try to ring you using VoIP, the plain old telephone or whatever else, sounds neat but it could lead to spam and control over the databases would be an enormous responsibility. You could basically re-route someone’s phone calls and messages - not a pretty thought.

This and a lot more issues like it are discussed on this blog VoIP and ENUM with a refreshing honesty (and it’s Austrian ;-))

Amazon.com are actually giving away free music and there’s a few popular songs like The Strokes (Last Nite), The Hives (Hate to Say I Told You So) and for the softies out there Alisson Krauss (The Lucky One). They’re actually 3 of the top 4 so there mighn’t be much more good stuff - check it out here Amazon’s Top Free Downloads

I was listening to the radio the other night when a piece came on about health insurance. A Irishman from New York was pricing health insurance for his family - something like $2,000…. per month! Obviously this is for a family of 4 or so but thats what it does cost on average - see The Kaiser Family Foundation - referenced by CNN so I hope it’s true.

The point was - it may be bad here but it’s expensive there. Now we pay indirectly - via tax or directly via VHI/Bupa/Vivas so you may think that with the American system you get what you pay for - not quite, they too use community rating but people pay different amounts depending on who they work for. Generally the unemployed, self-employed and small organisations are screwed according to this article - The Birth of the “Blues”

I had taken a particular interest because unlike Life and Car Insurance everyone pays the same premium to a company based on a “community rating”. One question is - should VHI be compensated for having a higher risk group - probably under the current system but they could sooo easily abuse it.

A thought crossed my mind - should young people get cheaper health insurance? Well the short answer is no, unless I hear a good argument to the contrary. Unlike car insurance, health is not an option, young men are higher risk because of the actions taken by them at that age - the speed they drive, experience, drinks taken, attitude etc. Being old, inherited traits etc isn’t a choice. Smoking, excessive drinking and other habits may be factors that could be taken into account in theory but that’s probably difficult in practice.

Well - you might remember that over the summer I had a go at creating a SuDoku solver. The idea was simple enough - the puzzle can be solved with logic so it should be simple enough to write a program to do it. Doing a 9×9 puzzle is fun but 16×16 is really time-consuming, especially if you find a mistake.
Anyway, it was easy enough to write a solver which eliminated the possibilities for each square until there was 1 possibility left. But the more difficult puzzles are only partially solved by this method. At some stage every unsolved square has 2 or more possible solutions e.g. imagine three squares on a row that can be - {2,3,5}, {3,5},{3,5}. You can’t decide where 3 or 5 go yet but you can deduce that 3 and 5 must go into the last two squares and so the solution to the first square is 2. Now this can be written in software but it also has to be done for larger numbers e.g. {2,A,B,C,D},{A,B,C,D},{A,B,C,D},{A,B,C,D},{A,B,C,D} so it isn’t that simple.
It’s much easier to use the java applet on sourceforge - http://sudoku.sourceforge.net/ or download it as a shortcut with all the files - good if you’re browser crashes a lot! sudoku.zip. You may need to edit the shortcut depending on where your java.exe is

Happy new year one week back and all is well at the moment. One week back in UL and I think I’ve made some good progress on my literature review and background reading.

Went into Limerick at the weekend for some optibags - no luck, office closed but it was nice to have a walk through the market - it puts Tralee and Listowel to shame really.

Oh dear - I’ve started playing PGR3 - brilliant graphics, cars are quite nice to drive, tracks get a bit repetitive and I’ve suffered 1 Xbox crash after playing for a few hours. It’s cool the way you can play and chat online with friends - not the ones in the same house, rather the ones at the other side of the country.

Mmm, made some burgers today - easy and tasty, all that’s in them is mince, breadcrumbs, an egg and some onion.

Well what did I do over Christmas - we had a 16lb turkey between 4 boys. That was waaay too large - it works out at 1lb per person for 4 days, that’s just too much! It was recommended by someone else….The lads made a great hand at cooking the whole thing and the house was well stocked.
I sat around the kitchen/living room mostly doing the odd bit here and there,
read the new Ross O’Carroll Kelly book (enjoyed that a lot i must say),
watched TV (bog 1/2/3 & 4),
bought a nice new jacket,
went for a run on St. Stephens’s Day where I met the hunt and fell quite silly standing there in shorts,
went for the same run a few days later but it rained at the half-way stage,
Catherine & Joey brought 2 ducks for us and we had a georgous meal and an important lesson - ducks are tasty but mostly bone and horrendous amounts of fat.