The Short Names

The most obvious change is the (temporary) change of logo to Tuz, the Tasmanian Devil. But there’s a number of driver updates and some m68k header updates (fixing headers_install after the merge of non-MMU/MMU) that end up being pretty noticeable in the diffs. The List Entry

The new features include the inclusion of Kernel Modesetting, Btrfs, Squashfs, Support of 4096 CPUs, “Tree RCU”: scalable classic RCU, WiMAX, Wireless Access Point mode support, eCryptfs filename encryption, Filesystem freeze Memory controller swap management and other improvements, Ext4 no journal mode, OCFS2 metadata checksums,Staging drivers, and other features. Kernal Newbies.

Tags: Linux 2.6.29, Tux, Tuz, Kernel Modesetting, Btrfs, Squashfs, Support of 4096 CPUs, “Tree RCU”: scalable classic RCU, WiMAX, Wireless Access Point mode support, eCryptfs filename encryption, Filesystem freeze Memory controller, swap management

Ever since the phone became common among us, people have been harassed by annoying callers, be it telemarketers, prank callers or debt collectors. And although there are laws against them, they become pretty useless unless you know who’s calling.

That’s why I was very pleased to find a rather new website called Who Called my Phone? This website is a community effort to identify these annoying (and often intrusive) callers by identifying them and sharing the information with the rest of the site’s users. Their growing database is accessible using a search form, making it very easy to find out who’s calling and from there, be able to defend yourself against them.

According to a report from Thomson Reuters, U.S. hospitals maintained their operating margins through the third quarter of 2008. But steep investment losses pushed 50 percent of them into the red for 2008, resulting in a “near-zero” median margin for the industry. The bottom quartile of hospitals posted average losses of 7 percent or more for the year.

Meanwhile, the recession-fueled increase in the numbers of uninsured and Medicaid patients is making hospitals’ financial position worse this year. The rout has been compounded by a drop in the number of surgeries, which have affected 44 percent of the hospitals in the survey.

What are you seeing with hospitals in your marketplace? How will this impact home health care?

One trend we observe is that when hospital census is down, home health referrals drop off as well. Are you seeing a decline in your hospital referrals?

Another trend we have seen in the past is that when financial performance lags, hospital executives decide to exit the home health business. With many hospital based home health agencies losing money anyway, look for some executives to cut their losses and get out of the business. If so, this will be a great time to pick up some market share. It will also be a time for strategic buyers to move into your marketplace, acquire the hospital based agency, and become your new competitor.

What are you seeing? Give us your comments below.

If you enjoyed games like Mario Brothers and Sonic, you’ll love this side-scrolling platform game from Dayterium. Alex Gordon, cool cat and treasure hunter, finds a mysterious amulet as he explores an island cave. The gems from the amulet disappear, and so does his sister as she is carried off by minions of the evil monkey king. Alex must now find the jewels and rescue his sister.

Your task is to guide Alex through each level, collecting coins, gems and stars while facing different foes in the form of turtles, pandas and sharp-toothed fish. But just to keep Alex from feeling too overwhelmed, he’s got his own feline pep squad in the form of a pom-pom waving cheerleader who appears along the way to raise his spirits. To dispatch the baddies you jump on their heads and they promptly turn into coins to reward you. You have a choice of either mouse or keyboard controls and there are lots of helpful arrows and messages along the way to guide you. Between levels you can visit Alex’s retirement island and use the money you’ve collected to outfit it for retirement in style. It’s a nice addition to the game and provides a pleasant diversion.

The graphics are colorful and appealing. The different levels each have their own background and increasingly difficult maze you must negotiate to find the stars and gems. The numbers of monsters that hamper your progress increase, but their distinctive colors and detail help to distinguish them from friendlier passersby.

Alex has a very small repertoire of vocalizations, the extent of which is to make an exclamation of physical effort while jumping. I would have liked more. The music which starts off as a pleasant and relaxing island melody may get irritating after a long period of play. It’s not intrusive, but it would be nice if the music changed from level to level.

Although there’s nothing terribly innovative about this game, it’s a solid concept with challenges enough to keep you playing long past the 60 minute trial period. The 50 game and 15 bonus levels guarantee you will not get bored quickly. Like all side-scrollers, you learn the tricks of finding the most treasure in each level as you play, so you won’t mind playing again even if you do manage to finish the game. The challenge and playability of this game make it one to purchase for yourself or the whole family to enjoy over and over again.

Overall Rating: 4/5

Health care stocks dragged down the stock market yesterday after the White House proposed cutting payments to private insurance plans. The Obama administration’s $3.55 trillion budget plan for 2010 includes cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Private insurance plans serving Medicare seniors would take the biggest hit, but hospitals, drug manufacturers and home health agencies also face cuts.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 88.81, or 1.22 percent, to 7,182.08.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 12.07, or 1.58 percent, to 752.83.

The Nasdaq composite index fell 33.96, or 2.38 percent, to 1,425.43.

What do you think will happen to home health agencies if this new budget proposal is passed into law by Congress? How can we communicate the importance of home health care in saving money by keeping patients out of hospitals?

Give us your comments below.