Saturday, December 07, 2002

Justin asks about Caching. My personal experience has been that most applications have certain data that is less likely to change than other parts. That's the data I'd cache.  Personally I don't think it matters much what object type is being cached. Dataset, custom objects. Whats probably most important is the volatility of the data itself. 8:53:13 PM     Rambling Observations (in no particular order with little rhyme and reason)   I had a conversation with a 65 year old lady who happens to run a retail business. She mentioned that she works harder now than she did 20 or 30 years ago. A friend of mine told me his father at age 70 has taken a “Senior Citizen” job selling something or other in order to make ends meet. My wife, a Registered Nurse,  has repeatedly seen the entire life’s savings of older folks eaten up by medical bills. In an unrelated note, a male nurse was convicted in Monaco for arson, causing the death of his retired billionaire US employer in need of medical attention. On the way home from Hawaii I sat next to a gentleman who volunteers as State Ombudsman in charge of local retirement homes. He mentioned that close to 70% of the homes in the LA West Side  area have cases of elder abuse, theft and rape on record. Among them a couple of the nicer facilities in town. I watched one of my neighbors become an Emmy winning celebrity TV actress. Now she’s moved to a bigger house and spends considerably less time with her children in order to manage all that comes with having success in tinsel town. Should I be sad that her kids are taken by nannies to various functions that ordinarily require parental attention? Or should I be happy for her success? There is always a price for everything.  Have you ever found yourself adjusting your lifestyle to accommodate your increased income as you progress in your work? Bigger car, more dinners out more treats for yourself or your family. But on the flip side you end up trying to maintain or even increase this lifestyle by working harder. It is a personal opinion of mine that the statistic which reads “Americans favorite past time is shopping” holds very true. Just as McDonalds has increased the size of their meals, especially their drinks, over the past 30 years many other items in our daily life have become more and more feature laden and we have gotten used to ever more increases in our life styles. I few months ago I watched the original b/w 1963(?) release of “Flipper”. What struck me most was the stark furnishings of the little house in which the main character grew up. If Flipper was filmed today, even if it depicted a person at a similar income level, the house would have a considerable amount more amenities in it. By the way, it is very hard for people outside of the US to understand why we have an impoverished class that drives cars, has TV and Stereo, sometimes owns homes and generally appear to be much better off than their equivalent in whatever country the observer may live. Did you know that an average Norwegian Pensioner has free medical insurance, including pharmaceuticals, receives about $15,000 per year as a social security payment and probably spends about 11000 on Food, Housing and Transportation – although those numbers are for Oslo and for a younger group of people so in the end an older person living in a smaller city may actually have less expenses. I like a capitalistic society, but you know, watching the two examples at the top of this list I wouldn’t mind having my shopping curtailed by some taxes that would allow us to increase the social safety net in this country. A seventy year old retired person shouldn’t have to work to make ends meet. People shouldn’t have to go hungry to pay for the cost of their medications.   8:46:15 PM

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