The Value of a Job

Ever think about the jobs that are really important to society? Ever consider that they are usually the lowest paying jobs?

Do you want to be a sanitation worker? Bus or cab driver? Security guard? Cashier? Probably not, but what would society do without them? Given, most people probably don't even want to take their own trash from the house to the curb if they don't have to, let alone pick up everyone else's.

The BBC recently published an interesting article where they assessed the value to society of some high-paying jobs and low-paying jobs.

At least in the United States, you could almost extend the thought to illegal immigrants. The common argument made to deport them is that they are here illegally and are taking up jobs that Americans would otherwise have. Well...is that really true? Yes, they are here illegally. But why would an employer hire an illegal resident and risk consequences if they could hire a legal resident? If you were an employer and couldn't find a legal resident, and now your business is suffering financially, are you more likely to want to shut down your business or perhaps be willing to overlook a potential hire's legal residency status? I'm not trying to be political here, just thought-provoking.

Articles on Medicine (Feb 2010)

A commentary on the influence of Western medicine in understanding mental health in the international community.

The human side of being a doctor: here and here.

There may be some cases of physician malpractice, but sometimes you need to let go. RIP stands for Rest in PEACE. And that doesn't mean cause trouble for those left behind.

Be careful with analysis of cost-effectiveness. You can't easily reduce everything to numbers, in this case relating to end-of-life care.

Updating DST on Windows CE

In a post coming soon I'll talk about Handheld PCs more, but essentially, I recently rediscovered a 10-year old piece of technology that is a Jornada Handheld PC. Unfortunately, it still has the old United States Daylight Savings Time definitions and apparently no simple way to update them automatically. HPC:Factor has an installable update for Windows CE 4.2 and Microsoft has official updates out for newer versions of Windows CE/Windows Mobile, but I could not find anything for Windows CE 3.0 and older. Eventually, by comparing all the hexadecimal values of the registry modifications made by the HPC:Factor update and the current built-in time zone settings, I was able to come up with an appropriate workaround. While it's a little cumbersome to apply and isn't as permanent (if you change your home city, the time zone definition will be reloaded from built-in settings), it certainly works and I think is sufficient for my needs. Note that this fix assumes your location has always and still does observe DST, but springs forward in March instead of April and falls back in November instead of October now.

To update the rules for the new DST rules:

1. Control Panel -> World Clock -> Home City -> pick one and stick with it!


2. Open a registry editor (you will need to install one on your own, Microsoft supplies a PowerToy download if you have trouble finding an editor)


3. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Time


4. There should be one binary value, "TimeZoneInformation", at that location. Edit the long sequence so where there was a segment reading "0A 00 00 00 05 00 02" it now reads "0B 00 00 00 01 00 02" and where there was a "03 00 00 00 02 00 02" it now reads "04 00 00 00 01 00 02"


5. If you want to go back to the old DST settings, just go back to the World Clock Control Panel and change your city. Similarly, you'll need to redo these steps if you change your city.

Keywords: DST, Daylight Savings Time, Windows CE, HPC2000, HPC, HPC/Pro, Jornada