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The often-wonderful This American Life show covered this topic quite recently. They tried to find out what the deal was with Intellectual Ventures and their ilk, and made some surprising discoveries. (I don't want to give away any spoilers.)

You can listen to a podcast of the show here:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack

>Is there any way for me to be sure that using this code is safe from any patent troll attacks if I choose to use it?

Short answer: No Long answer: There are duplicate patents of everything out there. This was explained in the This American Life episode 441. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack

If you look up the patents they're referring to, one is a continuation of the other. They're not duplicates - an inventor is allowed to file a patent application, and then later file a continuation application claiming priority to the first. The first one is not "prior" art for the second one, because they have the same effective filing date.

This American Life simply got it wrong.

Solution:

Stop looking at patents, you idiot. Actively looking at patents and then violating someone's patent means that you "knew or should have known" of the other patent, infringed on it deliberately, and are now liable for triple damages. This is in contrast to "incidental" infringement of someone's patent.

This is also not correct. The author looked at a patent and reasonably believes it has expired. Accordingly, the author has a reasonable belief that the claimed subject matter is no longer subject to an active patent. Thus, performing the patented method would not knowingly be infringing a valid patent.

Disclaimer: I'm not your lawyer, this is not legal advice, and should not be relied on.
Further disclaimer: You're not a lawyer either, BMO, and so you shouldn't be giving incorrect legal advice without a disclaimer.

I may have tossed around the TAL episode about failed cryogenic life extension months ago in a response about a modern cryogenics life extension article on /.

I believe the episode was entitled "Mistakes were made"

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/354/mistakes-were-made/

TAL is the best show on radio or TV.

--
BMO

>Is there any way for me to be sure that using this code is safe from any patent troll attacks if I choose to use it?

Short answer: No
Long answer: There are duplicate patents of everything out there. This was explained in the This American Life episode 441. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack

Solution:

Stop looking at patents, you idiot. Actively looking at patents and then violating someone's patent means that you "knew or should have known" of the other patent, infringed on it deliberately, and are now liable for triple damages. This is in contrast to "incidental" infringement of someone's patent.

--
BMO

Remember: whether there exists a real patent that actually does predate whatever Google is doing with WebM has no bearing on whether lawsuits will be filed. See also http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack.

Hopefully things like this: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack will help.

Patent hoards as protection works between companies that actually make something because of the concept of mutually assured destruction.

Patent hoards do not protect against the true patent troll because the PT has no product, no business, no customers -- just an empty office in the Eastern District of TX and a lawyer in NY City. If the patent troll loses the case, they lose the money invested in that case, but their business (suing innovators) is unharmed and unhindered.

This American Life has a really nice show on the Patent Troll: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack

This also applies to Fracking

(universities being the objective, independent source of research results)

Oh, Rly? See This American Life from July 8th this year for an example of the opposite.
It seems like many universities (in this case Penn State) are more or less dependent on continuing economic support from "benefactors" in the gas industry and are stifling dissenters.

A better introduction is This American Life episode 441.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack

The best show on radio, ever.

--
BMO

NPR just aired a great story about the problems with some patents including software patents. It is nice to hear this stuff in mainstream media because it means more people are getting informed. That will hopefully result in more action to clean up this mess. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack Check it out.

Do any of the simulations let you decide how to rip apart the township where you're mining?

You know like send out two different letters to townspeople in order to play them against the local township that's seeking to put regulations on your drilling? Maybe imply that if the people who hold mineral rights don't get a huge chunk of cash from your business they can sue the township board?

Maybe refuse to meet with the township and just turn their own people against each other just so you can drill without local permission?

Because after reading about Mount Pleasant in Pennsylvania, I really have to wonder where someone gets that particular skill to be such a ruthless asshole.

You aren't entirely correct there. The fact that you pay for goods and services with money is what gives it value. You got that part right.

But currency is not linked to 'sum of goods and services'. If it was linked, then money could be printed and the amount of goods/services available would increase. Sadly this is not the case, as post WWI Germany found. Money only has value because we think it has value. Furthermore the value a dollar has is equal to what we collectively think it is worth. This is as true for government issued currency as it is for bitcoins.

Take a look at either of these articles if you are still clinging to the notion that your money has real value
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-fake-money-saved-brazil
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/423/the-invention-of-money

Pot smoke contains most of the same carcinogens as regular tobacco smoke. Likewise, THC does have some CNS depressant characteristics.

Yet pot doesn't cause lung cancer.
Pot certainly isn't for everyone, but it is about as dangerous as nutmeg or sage oil with all their scary myristicin and thujone. I mean Coka Cola is still made using coca leaves for crying out loud... But don't worry, they remove all the dangerous alkaloids!
Imagine if pot were a legal drug, advertised on weekday-afternoon TV between personal injury attorneys and diet pills. Would it have scarier disclaimers then your average pharmaceutical?

PS I get your point that making overly broad claims about the safety of MJ can make the pro-legalization position more difficult to defend, but honestly "100% safe" is pretty defensible compared to other consumables that are widely considered benign.

If you're inclined, go listen to this for some insight into the incredibly poisonous management-labor relationships at GM. I'll also note that there were a couple of stories in this book that detailed how workers intentionally screwed cars up as a fuck-you to the company.

Yes, cheap parts mattered, but shoddy work is shoddy work.

I agree all currencies' value is imaginary, especially in an economy based on exchange rates between a particular currency and the actual goods and services. This American Life had one of the best explanations I've ever heard, even better than Econ 101.

> "Build a better mousetrap and world will beat a path to your door."
Ironically, that statement isn't true because there's already a lot of good, cheap mousetraps available on the market. (A while back, This American Life did an short clip on building a better mousetrap - and how people keep trying to build better ones, even though there isn't really a need for better ones. "The world actually does not need a better mousetrap. The world will not beat a path to that person's door." http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/311/a-better-mousetrap )

The idea is really a good one because, as the embedded videos in the article point out, not everyone has the same needs for a flashlight. The product allows customization through your computer. I really like the idea that you can charge the light over USB and program it too.
Sounds good when you're talking in generalizations. But, more concretely, do you have specific ideas? Because, I can't think of one single reason why I'd want to use this new flashlight instead of a "dumb" LED flashlight like the one I already have (and is probably a lot less expensive). Is this just a case of nerds getting seduced by vague ideas about being able to program a flashlight, while the reality will be much, much more boring?

The non-profit, online-only journalism model is being tested out across the country to some notable success.

You are right, and Pro Publica is a great exemplar of investigative journalism done right in the service of its audience.They collaborated with This American Life to do an audio episode based on the stories that won them the Pulitzer and it was fantastic - you can download the podcast version here.

However, before the Slashbot crowd comes out to cite this as proof positive that nobody should have to pay for news, information wants to be free, the establishment is keeping them down, skateboarding is not a crime, etc. - it should be noted that Pro Publica was created specifically to do a certain kind of investigative reporting and relies on donations and grants from organizations that think the commercial media don't do enough of those stories. i.e., there is something that the commercial press doesn't do, and people are willing to donate in order to fill that particular need.

Unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily mean that there is a sustainable model in which foundations will give out grants or individuals will donate to have someone cover your local city council meeting, write up the police blotter, ask questions at White House press conferences or report on the scene from the Zimbabwean elections - the kind of thing that the Associated Press and individual for-profit media (TV or newspaper/online) outlets do. So while Pro Publica is a wonderful resource and a great example of how non-profit journalism can work, it is not necessarily a replacement for the existing commercial media industry.

The non-profit, online-only journalism model is being tested out across the country to some notable success.

You are right, and Pro Publica is a great exemplar of investigative journalism done right in the service of its audience.They collaborated with This American Life to do an audio episode based on the stories that won them the Pulitzer and it was fantastic - you can download the podcast version here.

However, before the Slashbot crowd comes out to cite this as proof positive that nobody should have to pay for news, information wants to be free, the establishment is keeping them down, skateboarding is not a crime, etc. - it should be noted that Pro Publica was created specifically to do a certain kind of investigative reporting and relies on donations and grants from organizations that think the commercial media don't do enough of those stories. i.e., there is something that the commercial press doesn't do, and people are willing to donate in order to fill that particular need.

Unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily mean that there is a sustainable model in which foundations will give out grants or individuals will donate to have someone cover your local city council meeting, write up the police blotter, ask questions at White House press conferences or report on the scene from the Zimbabwean elections - the kind of thing that the Associated Press and individual for-profit media (TV or newspaper/online) outlets do. So while Pro Publica is a wonderful resource and a great example of how non-profit journalism can work, it is not necessarily a replacement for the existing commercial media industry.

Law enforcement seems to get more and more antagonistic to the people they supposedly "serve" year over year. There is a severe conflict of interest arising as law enforcement has grown into a revenue stream for government as its primary function, to the point where major crimes are sidelined. (Listen to the second part of This American Life episode about Adrian Schoolcraft. It is sickening.)

The prison population can and should be drastically reduced with the elimination of jail time for many non-violent offenses. There are a number of ways to financially and logistically punish non-violent offenders without locking them up. That should be a last resort, not a first, but the bail bonds industry is actually the main opponent of this sort of reform because it would cut their revenue stream drastically.

However there is nothing that can be done about the financial nature of speech in democracy. Print costs money, TV and radio cost money, rallies cost money, signs cost money, even web hosting and bandwidth cost money. And that money pays for the candidate to be able to speak and be heard, so the SCotUS is wholly correct in ruling as they have over and over that money is speech and protected as such. The best we can do is make sure that the accounting is as public and open as is feasible.

And as for unemployment/food/housing, your article focuses on the aftermath of the financial crisis and recession. That's like moaning that a house is ruined after a tornado hit it. Yeah, duh, things are bad right now, but performance over the long term has been historically much better. When you look at each American decade as an aggregate, it's always positive. We're already up from the bottom of the crisis, the question is how far can we go in a few years and what policies will enable growth? Growth sure as hell won't come from more taxes and regulations.

Speaking of that and health insurance, current law is very likely preventing job growth, as small companies have to stay below 50 employees or be forced to provide health care. That's an effective hiring freeze for all businesses of that size. Congratulations, no jobs and no health care, all courtesy of bullshit legislative micromanagement.

Further, the UNCRC, while a largely well-intentioned accord, is critically deficient in some areas. The 'best interests of the child' might sound great, but its not a legitimate legal test, rather a fill in the blank to justify anything a government wishes to do with respect to children. So long as a government claims their actions are in the 'best interests' the courts are likely to agree because there is no standard for the test. Additionally there are provisions for children's 'right to privacy' which is antithetical to the parents' responsibility of protecting their children. There is a reason why children do not have the same privacy as adults, adults have earned through experience the right to not have their mail read or calls monitored, as it is assumed that they can deal with potential threats themselves, but it is a parent's responsibility to make sure, through monitoring communications if necessary, that their children are not naively walking into the trap of a predator.

Lastly the UNCRC insidiously with one hand promotes freedom of expression while with the other hand denies freedom of information (literally requiring states to "protect" children from "harmful information"). What use is expression when the promotion of ignorance is the price? Tiered knowledge is nonsense promoted by an echo chamber of moralists hiding behind academic credentials. There are more flaws to the UNCRC, but I am not going to go through it line by line, suffice to say the Senate has done its job in not ratifying it.

You want to sell short. It works like this:

A) Borrow assets (stock in a company) at the current price.
B) Wait a period of time.
C) Return those assets to the original owner at the new current price.
D) Keep the difference (or lose money).

Now, if you are shady, you can do what is called "Naked Short Selling", in which you perform this trick with assets that don't actually exist. This American Life did a great episode called Enforcers - the second half deals with Naked Short Selling and describes the process in detail. TAL has done several fantastic episodes on the financial crisis, well worth the time to give them a listen.

You want to sell short. It works like this:

A) Borrow assets (stock in a company) at the current price.
B) Wait a period of time.
C) Return those assets to the original owner at the new current price.
D) Keep the difference (or lose money).

Now, if you are shady, you can do what is called "Naked Short Selling", in which you perform this trick with assets that don't actually exist. This American Life did a great episode called Enforcers - the second half deals with Naked Short Selling and describes the process in detail. TAL has done several fantastic episodes on the financial crisis, well worth the time to give them a listen.

Here's a summary: "Back in the 1980s Michael Larson made the most money ever on the game show Press Your Luck. And it was no accident--Larson had a plan to get rich that surprised everyone: The home viewers, the show's producers and mostly Larson himself." http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/412/million-dollar-idea

ACT THREE. AS THE WORM TURNS. Another story about parasites. When Jasper Lawrence learned that hookworms might lessen the effects of his allergies, he set out on a unique mission: To travel to West Africa and purposefully become infected with the parasite. What he did next is even more surprising. Patrick Walters reported this story for Radiolab, a production of WNYC and NPR. (14 minutes)

Or you can threaten to blow up Apple after having a bad day...

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/414/right-to-remain-silent
http://www.joelipari.com/

Careful quoting movies... you could end up charged with felonies like Joe Lipari.

For anyone who missed it: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/414/right-to-remain-silent

The book will still be publicly available after things like specific names and other sensitive bits of information get sanitized. By not doing so, lives and missions are placed in jeopardy with little real benefit for society.

Our current state secrets regime is based on a Supreme Court case, United States v. Reynolds, which protected Boeing from revealing information regarding the deaths of three engineers in a plane crash because it would endanger national security. From the blurb for Claim of Privilege:

But the Air Force, at the dawn of the Cold War, refused to hand over the accident reports and witness statements, claiming the documents contained classified information that would threaten national security. The case made its way up to the Supreme Court, which in 1953 sided with the Air Force in United States v. Reynolds. This landmark decision formally recognized the "state secrets" privilege, a legal precedent that has since been used to conceal conduct, withhold documents, block troublesome litigation, and, most recently, detain terror suspects without due-process protections.

Even with the case closed, the families of those who died in the crash never stopped wondering what had happened in that B-29. They finally had their answer a half century later: In 2000 they learned that the government was now making available the top-secret information the families had sought long ago, in vain. The documents, it turned out, contained no national security secrets but rather a shocking chronicle of negligence.

In other words, the very case that gave us the state secrets BS that Obama is latching on to harder than Bush II, was based on a COVERUP of NEGLIGENCE, not for any actual national security reasons. Boeing and the Air Force killed these smart geeks, and then LIED to protect their ass. That's what the state secrets doctrine is about -- it isn't about protecting anyone but the fuckwads ruining our country. Wake up already.

You can also listen to the TAL report, it is the second story.

You remind me of another relevant story called Thinking Inside the Box, which is Act I (@9:00) of this episode: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/283/Remember-Me It is also about a dying mother leaving a (video) letter to her daughter, but it has a much different effect (read: no effect) because the daughter is incapable of remembering . . . for better or for worse.

Check out Act One of this episode of This American Life.

Act One. Letter Day Saint.

Rebecca was 16 years old when her mother Elizabeth died of cancer. But before she died, she wrote letters to Rebecca, to be given to her on her birthday each year for thirteen years. At first the letters were comforting, but as time went on, they had much more complicated effects. David Segal tells the story. David is a reporter for The New York Times. (14 minutes.)

I definitely agree with the AC here. Before I say anymore, I'll preface the rest of my comments with extending my sympathies for the situation you find yourselves in, as well as to suggest I have no real experience with anything remotely similar, so my advice is meant in good faith.

That being said, I recommend taking a few minutes to listen to the "This American Life" episode where a mother dying of a terminal disease left letters for her young daughter to be read annually. From the story's description, "At first the letters were comforting, but as time went on, they had much more complicated effects."

You can stream the episode from http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/401/parent-trap (I'm recommending the "Letter Day Saint" act 1 story).

Indeed. There's at least one radio station that has a regular program which is used to broadcast messages from family to their captive loved ones. Fascinating radio show here:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/409/held-hostage
Listen to act one. There's an industry for kidnapping insurance (rule #1: don't tell anyone you have it).

I'm actually a little disheartened by the lack of legal torrent distribution. It's a great medium for getting your content out there, people!

A while back the absolutely fantastic NPR show This American Life would precede every podcast/mp3-edition with a plea for money to pay for their relatively gynormous bandwidth costs. I wrote to them suggesting they try out bittorrent and to Bram Cohen's company suggesting they use TAL to showcase the commercial benefits of bittorrent for legitimate distribution - win/win for everybody.

Alas nobody paid any attention to this joe random emailer, not even a cursory "thank you for your email."

Many doctors will tell you that many tests are either unnecessary, or even harmful. There was a story just yesterday on /. about the radiation exposure from medical imaging. Other tests are invasive, some have false positives and cause treatments, even surgery, for non-existent conditions, and they all cost a lot.

There was a This American Life program last year (listen to it here: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/391/More-Is-Less) about health care costs and they quoted a doctor who tried to convince an attorney/father of an injured girl not to give her an CAT scan when a simple test based on a rule of thumb would suffice and avoid radiation exposure. He had to weigh the cost of the time it would take to convince the dad/att'y. He admitted, he could just give the CAT scan to save himself the time and avoid a complaint. No one would ever blame a cancer she got twenty years later on the CAT scan, he'd get paid more, etc. Many reasons to give the CAT scan. But, in this case, he decided to push the issue saying it was not in the patients interest to do the CAT scan. The dad relented.
Another example given: PSA test for prostate cancer.

I remember hearing about a guy allowing himself to be infected with hookworms to cure an allergic reaction.

He tried to market his, ah, passengers. Modern Western health law won't permit that, of course, so he does it rather illicitly... I think.

Yes, let's see your citations. The fact that 50% of studies find a significant genetic factor and 50% do not says nothing about their validity. The references to psychology in your signature and alias do not inspire confidence. The field of psychology in general has a pretty atrocious record in addressing the subject of homosexuality scientifically. And I wouldn't expect most psychological studies to have much insight on anything related to genetics.

Moreover, there is evidence that homosexuality may not be genetic, but still not a choice as you suggest. Research indicates that hormones or chemicals in the mother's womb play a significant role in determining sexuality and among men born to mothers who already have had boy (i.e. men with older brothers), there is a greater incidence of homosexuality. This comes up off the top of google: http://www.seattlepi.com/national/275425_gay27.html In short, I would give much greater weight to more recent neuroscientific studies than most strictly psychological studies.

Finally, talk with almost any man who is openly gay (emphasis on openly) and he'll convincingly disabuse you of the notion that it's "choices they made".

For a fascinating account of the tumultuous history of homosexuality and the DSM (a textbook case of the politicization of science for both bad and good), I highly recommend this This American Life broadcast:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/204/81-Words

A large number of the parts ARE shipped halfway around the world and the cost to ship a complete vehicle likely isn't much more if more expensive. The reason Toyota has a large number of factories in the US (which employ UAW union workers) is because it was a lot cheaper to produce vehicles in the US and Canada and not pay huge tariffs. There is a lot of information on this decision by Toyota in Episode 403 of This American Life.

There were a pair of shows on This American Life last fall about the health industry clusterfuck. The first one was called "More is Less", the second "Someone Else's Money".

Wealthy americans get much more medical care, but the outcomes are the same or worse. The problem is, essentially, that American medicine is philosophically bankrupt.

American doctors don't care about nutrition, or psycho-somatic medicine, etc. American doctors are trained in how to pick a drug or surgery to perform. ... But at the same time, some of the "Alternative Health" practitioners in the U.S. are the very best in the world.

There were a pair of shows on This American Life last fall about the health industry clusterfuck. The first one was called "More is Less", the second "Someone Else's Money".

Wealthy americans get much more medical care, but the outcomes are the same or worse. The problem is, essentially, that American medicine is philosophically bankrupt.

American doctors don't care about nutrition, or psycho-somatic medicine, etc. American doctors are trained in how to pick a drug or surgery to perform. ... But at the same time, some of the "Alternative Health" practitioners in the U.S. are the very best in the world.

That's the only one in that episode I caught, and it was definitely interesting. It's this one, Act Three.

For another, better show focusing often on psychology and science, check out Radiolab. They have a huge backlog by now, and you can listen for free at that site. I spent a month listening to Radiolab instead of music in my car...

This is taken directly from this episode of This American Life with Ira Glass.

-l

The root of our problem is the insurance industry.

That's an awfully simplistic explanation. I am very much against the current health care legislation for a number of reasons including the one you mentioned, but the truth is that the problem has many roots; including the insurance industry, hospitals, government, and patients themselves. NPR's This American Life did a show on it that highlights the complexity of the issues. There's plenty of blame to go around and IMO the insurance companies deserve less blame than government, which through wage freezes essentially kicked the insurance companies from a primary market of individuals to a market of corporations. Hospitals vary their charges (sometimes by a factor of 10) for identical procedures depending on how many patients use that insurance company. Doctors are afraid of liability if they don't run a requested test even if it's in the patient's best interest to remain untested.

The health insurance industry doesn't get off easy--there's a second show devoted entirely to it. It's a huge mess. But here's the thing: they're not really like the financial industry. They seek profits, like everyone else, but they have been demonized. Their hands are tied by hospitals, and they are left with the choice of raising premiums for everyone or dropping the policies of people in areas where they have little clout with hospitals. IMO their biggest failing is that they don't care about the patient: they approve lots of unnecessary procedures because much of their profit lies in the volume of claims they process.

"Clusterfuck" is an appropriate term, because it's a whole lot of things gone wrong all at once. Without having a clear understanding of the problem, you can be sold a bill of goods like the current legislation. You've seen through this bill, but enough people haven't that it's still creeping along. It's important to get the shape of the problem so that if we get rid of this bill it won't be replaced by something equally awful.

Before you decide to put yourself on ice, listen to the "This American Life" podcast.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1291

Right.

Let me decompose into wormfood quietly, please.

Here in Texas we passed tort reform. The actual effect of that is that doctors and health practitioners are moving into the state from other states that don't have tort reform. That's the hard facts, not some study from some group.

First, can you point to hard evidence of that alleged fact? Second, the fact you're claiming is that more medical professionals are moving to the state. The question we're asking is whether the policy change on a national level will reduce national healthcare costs. So, the first question to ask is whether more medical professionals will mean lower healthcare costs. You might think that it would, from the normal rules of supply and demand. However, healthcare doesn't work at all like that sort of idealized market. Some experts on a radio program I recently listened to suggested that more medical care professionals leads to higher healthcare costs* (within certain limits, of course). You don't have to necessarily believe that, but you should appreciate that the economics of this are actually complex and sometimes bizarre, so you need to actually establish factually what the change in healthcare costs was. Finally, even if it did lower the cost on the state level due to this migration, it doesn't follow that it would lower costs on the national level, because people are not free to immigrate to the US in the same way they can between states.

See, that's the thing. The facts alone tell you certain things about a certain case. When you want to talk about what will happen when you do something similar in a different case, when you want to generalize, you have to use theory (sure, educated guesses essentially). There's no getting around it. The only way you'll know what will happen for a fact is after you've already done it.

Having lived under socialized medicine, I can tell you that things will not improve under this plan. I don't have any educated guesses to back that up, just personal experience.

I don't really know what you mean by "socialized medicine" because people tend to throw the term around so carelessly. Are we talking medicare, the VA, a foreign country (and if so, which, because they have widely differing healthcare systems). What I can say that by any objective measure I've seen, pretty much all other developed democratic nations have healthcare of comparable or better quality, and they pay a lot less for it (1/2 to 2/3 of what we do, as a % of GDP). Moreover, people in those countries are on average very satisfied with the care they get. So I have to weigh the personal experience of those hundreds of millions of people against yours.

* I think that the reason for this is as follows: A patient can choose between many doctors who participate in their plan. The patient does not pay the majority of the cost of most procedures and does not negotiate on price; all that happens between the plan and the doctor. So the patient makes a choice based on perceived quality of care. Most people think more care = better care (even when in actuality more care can be harmful), so they will tend to choose doctors who perform more services. Thus, when there's a lot of competition between doctors this expresses itself not as a lowering of costs but as an increase in the number of procedures performed, raising healthcare costs.

Interesting that you're voted Offtopic while the post that went offtopic was your parent. You are spreading misinformation, but it ought to be corrected instead of simply modded down.

The NPR program This American Life recently had two episodes (391 and 392, found here) on the health care system, and the problems with it are just not as simple as the Democrats or the Republicans are making them out to be.

For one thing, the hospitals are most certainly *not* fine. A big part of the insurance problem is that companies who serve a large area population use that influence to negotiate really low service rates with hospitals in their area. The hospitals want that customer base, so rather than standing firm at a reasonably profitable price, they lower prices for the big insurance company and jack up prices for the same procedures when dealing with smaller companies. The example given in the show was of one hospital in CA which charged one company $1600 for a procedure, and charged another $11,000.

There's a lot more where that came from in the shows. I highly recommend them to everyone who wants to open his mouth to talk about health care. Everyone knows it's broken, but too many people are looking solely at the broken parts their party claims will fix the whole thing.

Take a listen to This American Life's podcast this week (Show #168) titled "The Fix Is In". Most of the episode is about Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), and a single instance of price fixing and collusion for a single farm product/food additive. I wouldn't call it "one" company controlling everything, but there is a definite oligarchy.

That said, I'd be extremely interested to see a similar study that takes sexual preference into account. Even more interesting would be to study transsexuals whose mind and body disagree on sex; as you might find that straight FTMs exhibit the same behavior as the heterosexual males, despite having female bodies themselves.

First, kudos for your good job on the terminology. Meanwhile, I know, I know, anecdote != data, but thought two things might be relevant.

First, the This American Life episode Testosterone. Act Two is about an FTM man, who talks about his experiences on testosterone and how it's changed his views on behavior. Specifically, he describes how difficult he's found it to not ogle women even though he knows how inappropriate and potentially hurtful it can be. Obviously, it's only one trans man, so it's not exactly a scientific study. Likewise, I've heard from some trans men I know that their experiences don't match the This American Life story and they're not thrilled with it being mentioned as a representative experience. (As, I guess, I'm doing right now. Whoops.)

Second, as a trans woman who is attracted to women, I've had an interesting experience with perceiving other women since I've gone on hormones. (Right now there are a number of /.ers wondering whether they're supposed to be fantasizing about some hot lesbian action or disgusted because one of the women still has a penis...)

I've heard estrogen described as something which lowers filters, and I think that's a pretty accurate way of putting it. My emotions have been cranked up a notch since going on estrogen. Now, the expected/obvious part of that has been that I cry easier, but the opposite is true as well - I laugh easier. Relate that to sex and sexuality, and I've definitely felt like I've had just as much trouble keeping eye contact now as when I was flooded with testosterone when I was in my early teens.

I'd be curious as well to see a more broad study comparing responses of different populations: every combination of transsexual and cissexual (that is, not transsexual), straight, bi, and gay. Does a hormonally-female transsexual such as my self have different responses than a cissexual lesbian? Or a straight woman? Or a transsexual man? How do gender identity and sexuality (no to mention hormones) change the effects of focusing on a desirable sex partner?

-Trillian

You absolutely can learn marriage skills. Really useful and fascinating is a "This American Life" radio show about marriage and people who study success and failure in marriage empirically - episode 261 - First Act, about 23 minutes. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=261 More at: http://www.smartmarriages.com/index.html Lots of advice in books works like a Myers-Brigg type thing: A useful model to understand communication/frame of mind of the other person. Understanding is a HUGE part of success in relationships. One book, super cheesy and a bit religious, BUT a genuinely useful model is "The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate" by Gary Chapman. Recommended to me (not religious) by another (not religious) friend when I had relationship woes. It's like "Blink" or "Tipping Point" or "The World is Flat" in the sense that once you get the thesis and the central points you really don't need to read the rest.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/19/begala.health.care/index.html
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=386 (about 33 minutes into the episode)

So we have a private insurance industry that will take your money and provide nothing in return. Even at the horrible DMV, you will eventually get your license, and they certainly don't try to murder you on a technicality. The notion that the free market is doing a good job at healthcare is simply not well founded in reality, and in fact it is doing SO badly, I think even the government would struggle to fail as epically as the private insurance industry.

In the end, if I can get the same crappy coverage I have now, for less cost and without the worry that I forgot to say I had the measles when I was 6 thus causing my entire policy to be canceled as a result (this is just robbery of premiums), I'd go for it. I just don't expect Congress to actually deliver something like that. They'll just force me to get robbed.

from here [act 1, part way through].

You made a bad purchase. Now, do the right thing, and pay what you owe.

Aren't these the guys who ruined the economy?

It's easy to drop the blame on MBAs. And being a software developer I don't think much of them. I would urge you to refrain from placing all the blame on them ... it would be similar to saying "Isn't it software developers fault that copyright law is violated at large today?" Listen to this recent This American Life episode on the situation that was created by rating agencies. By the way, the first two parts of that are amazing and I feel more informed just listening to those three episodes than I do listening to any news outlet.

Your blame would be more appropriately placed on the rating agencies like Standard and Poors or Moody's and Fitch. There's probably a few MBAs working there. Or maybe the people who were playing those rating agencies off each other to get their securities rated higher? Or maybe the people who knew these securities were not AAA but bought them anyways and treated them as such (and that was a worldwide problem). It was an entire environment that created a problem for the world economy.

I'm not fan of Cuban but I don't think he was a part of any link in this chain of failure.

Scott Carrier made a very interesting argument that humans are exceptional distance runners a decade or so ago on This American Life.

This episode which you are referring to is here.