If you really want to see something corrupt it's a government contractor. Private corporation working for the government. There are so many levels of "I just don't care" going on there with so little accountability, all mixed in with a big profit motive to. And all these small-government types are all for outsourcing important government jobs to private contractors so that there is actually higher cost, more corruption, worse outcomes.
Congress has essentially granted more power because they don't push back against the executive when they could. For instance, they allow the president to essentially start military actions without a formal declaration of war. and those inevitably end up being full blown wars as the escalate. Congress is granted power in the constitution to impose tariffs and make foreign trade deals, yet they passed some laws that allowed the executive to do that starting around the great depression era. That was generally a good thing in that it improved free trade, but it's sort of backfiring now that Trump wants to put tariffs back in place and undo trade agreements. Presidents have also declared which parts of laws they will or will not obey (signing statements), and as well executive orders are often treated as having force of law, meaning that the executive is effectively enacting legislation. While I like the effects of DACA, it certainly was a side stepping around the duty of congress to enact that as legislation; but Obama didn't decide he could do this all on his own, instead he built upon a precedent from past presidents.
Congress seems to forget that there's a revolving door in the White House, so that they love giving a president from their own party more power but then are dismayed when someone they disagree with inevitably gets into office.
I think they write up the coding guidelines for third party developers after they've already finished their own software. I am amazed at how all of their sample code is complete shit and breaks most of their own guidelines.
Equal power is fine. Right now the executive holds more than congress. I didn't mean congress should have all the power but it should be at least equal the presidency.
Overcoming this is possible, but it's not going to be solved by a teacher saying "come to the class now or you'll get an F!" When getting an F is the lesser of the fears then guess what the result will be. Also they don't call this anxiety or phobia "crippling" because it's a minor case of stage fright.
I know exactly how the other side thinks. Anyone can do it, it's simple, stop being a crybaby, etc. I know because that's exactly what I tell myself when I find myself unable to get past my phobia. Nobody can beat me up over this more than I can beat myself up.
It's also something to overcome gradually instead of just shoving the child into the deep end. When you've got teachers with an attitude that this is all just made up or merely shyness and stage fright, they're not going to realize that additional help is needed, possibly by a specialist.
That's somewhat bullshit. It's neurological for some people, than can do everything internal to tell their feet to move but they'll still be stuck immobile if they've hit a phobia. You don't change that just by telling yourself to do better, and you're probably not going to change that by having a teacher yell at you. You're probably going to need special help in that situation.
I have a certain phobia which has gotten worse as I get older, and when it happens there is no logic involved it's all autonomous reponses. Heightened awareness, sweating, faster heartbeat, and you just want to stop and freeze. Then afterwards there's the internal voice telling you what an idiot you are. On rare occasions you just have to deal with it, but generally you do whatever you can to avoid it. So I can empathize with people who have real anxiety.
On the other hand, it's like swimming lessons. It's important, so jump in the pool, get it over with, maybe it'll save your life someday. But it's never that simple. The problem is that if you do have anxiety all the encouragement in the world probably won't help. Starting in the shallow end helps, and maybe you never get beyond that point, but teachers need to be responsive that some students are going to have major difficulties that require extra assistance.
I had to present my grad school research to a smallish group of people once. So I got up there and did all the typical smooth talker thing, the opposite of how I really am, hand waving, always sounding confident, etc. Afterwards they shook my hand and said it was a good talk. When they left I then told my prof that I was nervous since I hadn't prepared as much as I should have and was winging most of it. She blew up and told me I wasn't being professional, yada yada yada. But it worked. I can still pull out that character and put on a good handwaving show when I need to, or even when listening remember to ask relevant questions to make up for the fact that I wasn't paying as much attention as I should. It's a useful skill.
(Later the prof was upset I hadn't signed up for a local conference, and she said "it doesn't matter if you're interested in the topic or not, you need to get out there and schmooze!" Good advice that's better to learn earlier than later.)
Do they have to do this in math? I don't remember much of when I had to speak in front of the classroom, things like science fair presentation and the like. The most I did in math though was to solve a problem on the board.
Well, it's real life. If you can't stand in front of your own class and talk, then how do you expect to get through the rest of life? There aren't that many jobs where you can just hide in a corner and not interact with others.
I am not very social around strangers. I can be but it takes some effort. When I was job hunting once I was having trouble. One manager eventually said "we liked you, but you didn't seem interested in the job". First feedback I ever got from an interview. At that point I changed tactics. At the next interview I acted like a different person. When they asked "do you have any questions for us" then instead of saying "no I think I'm good" instead I gave them some questions I came up with beforehand. Things got better at that point and I got a job not long after (not great but it was getting me in the door). After awhile, that way of acting became natural so that it's not really an act anymore. Being engaged with the person you're talking to really makes a huge difference.
In the past when I had DirecTV I used to store up some pay-per-view on the TiVo side to watch later. After a time the content owners got pissy (their natural state of being) and decided that pay-per-view was only for 24 hours and after that the content would be removed. This meant that they did reach out and delete movies from my local storage! DRM is the mechanism that allows this. DRM is not "copy protection" it's about control of what you can do.
You can rent for one day, or rent for an indeterminate period of time, there is no more "owning" of the media anymore it seems. If you want a right to watch a movie that can't be taken away then you have to buy physical media or find some method of storing the stream (legally dubious but morally ok).
Some people do push back on that figure and the statistics behind them. However I think that why they may have good points that they are also overreaching.
The number of bankruptcies is not always solely due to the medical bills alone. However the medical bills certainly do occur as a major factor even if not the only factor. In many bankruptcies you cannot point to a single cause. So a family may be on the edge and already deep in dept, and then the medical bills go and exacerbate the problems to unmanageable levels; or it could be the other way around so that the medical bill caused the initial debt which was compounded by predatory interest rates.
But because this statistic showed up as support for Obamacare, it means those opposed to Obamacare wanted to attack the evidence (despite the irony of the same people probably bitching about rising healthcare costs before Obamacare. since literally no one thought healthcare costs were reasonable).
But the market doesn't operate as the advertised when the preconditions don't apply. This is a medicine that some people need, it's a matter of life and death. And they're not paying for it out of pocket most of the time, hopefully insurance covers most of the cost. So there's no incentive to just stop using the medicine. Also there's not a clear and open market because the customer has limited information - doctors often do not provide a choice to the patient of a cheap versus expensive drug that do the same thing, and thus the patient does not know that there are alternatives.
There are no real market forces at work in this situation. This is not like seeing a loaf of bread priced at $100 and deciding to go to another store or just not eat bread at all.
Capitalism certainly allows for regulation, that's not a socialist thing it's a necessity for any system of government. Even the patron saint of free market economics, Adam Smith, believed that regulation was necessary. The political factor at work here is how much the government is beholden to corporate interests versus interests of the citizens.
However if government gets too small that capitalism will quickly break down. People who advocate for smaller government need to specify how small it should be. I suspect many of them would prefer no government.
For me, it's not the size of the government that matters as much as the quality. In other words, do you get a return on investment from your taxes? In America, despite have low taxes we certainly gripe loudly about them, and I think that's because we just don't see much benefit coming back the other way.
I spent two days in a small Alabama MRI clinic while working on some other machine. Maybe 10 years ago. During that time the place was not hopping, and they could easily have doubled the number of patients that came in and still have time for a long lunch. So if there was a backlog of patients waiting then I'd have concluded that something fishy was going on. Maybe some hospital system just want to keep everything in-house rather than send out to unaffiliated clinics?
Quality wise, the US has some awesome hospitals and clinics - but not many of them. Sure the Mayo Clinic may be really good, but you won't be getting in there and will probably get your care at a regional county hospital that has budget problems.
And in the US the emergency rooms are crowded. Too many people who can't afford insurance treat the emergency room as their primary care. So you will see people with the flu hanging out in the waiting room making sure everyone else gets a chance to catch it.
I want the insurance company that tries to prevent the high expense problems in the first case. That's rare in the US. Though I'm with a plan that does this, it's not your typical PPO or HMO. Free classes at the clinics, no cost flu shots, low co-pay so as to not discourage doctor visits, etc.
I'd like the see the insurance company kick in some dough to get people to the gym as well, kick in dough for kicking smoking, cover 100% of the cost of medicine for chronic conditions (blood presure, diabetes), etc. It makes financial sense too for the insurers.
Before Obamacare you often could not switch insurers if you had a preexisting condition. Also those other insurance plans can often be more than you can afford. And paying out of pocket is a fantasy affordable only to the wealthy. You can't even afford the drugs out of pocket.
The top factor in personal bankruptcies in the US come from unexpected medical expenses, either as a primary cause or a contributing factor. Medical care in the US is expensive (both before and after Obamacare). When you're living paycheck to paycheck, the deductible you have to pay on a medical bill before insurance kicks in is too much.
US healthcare is essentially about fixing problems instead of preventing them. The insurance companies promote this based on what they cover and don't cover. It's a great country for healthcare if you're wealthy, though it's not very impressive if you're not. The first thing you hear at the reception desk for most doctors is "let's see what your insurance covers". An amazing number of people use the emergency room as their primary care because they can't afford insurance.
In Finland one of my coworkers (American) had a child there, all the neonatal checkups, birth, and followup visits all free and top quality. In America, you may be told that you've already had the alloted number of doctor visits and the insurance won't pay for more, and if your baby isn't premature then you're told to move out of the room as fast as you can.
Back in school we worked for over a year to get health insurance for grad students. The first year a baby was born with some complications and the insurer dropped ALL of us, claiming we were a bad risk. So we were left without insurance, which was a very common thing. When you make less than $20K a year a lot of students just didn't bother with health insurance and rolled the dice.
Slashdot Mirror
If you really want to see something corrupt it's a government contractor. Private corporation working for the government. There are so many levels of "I just don't care" going on there with so little accountability, all mixed in with a big profit motive to. And all these small-government types are all for outsourcing important government jobs to private contractors so that there is actually higher cost, more corruption, worse outcomes.
Congress has essentially granted more power because they don't push back against the executive when they could. For instance, they allow the president to essentially start military actions without a formal declaration of war. and those inevitably end up being full blown wars as the escalate. Congress is granted power in the constitution to impose tariffs and make foreign trade deals, yet they passed some laws that allowed the executive to do that starting around the great depression era. That was generally a good thing in that it improved free trade, but it's sort of backfiring now that Trump wants to put tariffs back in place and undo trade agreements. Presidents have also declared which parts of laws they will or will not obey (signing statements), and as well executive orders are often treated as having force of law, meaning that the executive is effectively enacting legislation. While I like the effects of DACA, it certainly was a side stepping around the duty of congress to enact that as legislation; but Obama didn't decide he could do this all on his own, instead he built upon a precedent from past presidents.
Congress seems to forget that there's a revolving door in the White House, so that they love giving a president from their own party more power but then are dismayed when someone they disagree with inevitably gets into office.
Macbook Pro is pretty light, and Macbook Air is only slightly less powerful and you're not going to find much smaller than that.
I think they write up the coding guidelines for third party developers after they've already finished their own software. I am amazed at how all of their sample code is complete shit and breaks most of their own guidelines.
Equal power is fine. Right now the executive holds more than congress. I didn't mean congress should have all the power but it should be at least equal the presidency.
Overcoming this is possible, but it's not going to be solved by a teacher saying "come to the class now or you'll get an F!" When getting an F is the lesser of the fears then guess what the result will be. Also they don't call this anxiety or phobia "crippling" because it's a minor case of stage fright.
I know exactly how the other side thinks. Anyone can do it, it's simple, stop being a crybaby, etc. I know because that's exactly what I tell myself when I find myself unable to get past my phobia. Nobody can beat me up over this more than I can beat myself up.
It's also something to overcome gradually instead of just shoving the child into the deep end. When you've got teachers with an attitude that this is all just made up or merely shyness and stage fright, they're not going to realize that additional help is needed, possibly by a specialist.
That's somewhat bullshit. It's neurological for some people, than can do everything internal to tell their feet to move but they'll still be stuck immobile if they've hit a phobia. You don't change that just by telling yourself to do better, and you're probably not going to change that by having a teacher yell at you. You're probably going to need special help in that situation.
I have a certain phobia which has gotten worse as I get older, and when it happens there is no logic involved it's all autonomous reponses. Heightened awareness, sweating, faster heartbeat, and you just want to stop and freeze. Then afterwards there's the internal voice telling you what an idiot you are. On rare occasions you just have to deal with it, but generally you do whatever you can to avoid it. So I can empathize with people who have real anxiety.
On the other hand, it's like swimming lessons. It's important, so jump in the pool, get it over with, maybe it'll save your life someday. But it's never that simple. The problem is that if you do have anxiety all the encouragement in the world probably won't help. Starting in the shallow end helps, and maybe you never get beyond that point, but teachers need to be responsive that some students are going to have major difficulties that require extra assistance.
I had to present my grad school research to a smallish group of people once. So I got up there and did all the typical smooth talker thing, the opposite of how I really am, hand waving, always sounding confident, etc. Afterwards they shook my hand and said it was a good talk. When they left I then told my prof that I was nervous since I hadn't prepared as much as I should have and was winging most of it. She blew up and told me I wasn't being professional, yada yada yada. But it worked. I can still pull out that character and put on a good handwaving show when I need to, or even when listening remember to ask relevant questions to make up for the fact that I wasn't paying as much attention as I should. It's a useful skill.
(Later the prof was upset I hadn't signed up for a local conference, and she said "it doesn't matter if you're interested in the topic or not, you need to get out there and schmooze!" Good advice that's better to learn earlier than later.)
But it did get him a great job in the IT back office!
Do they have to do this in math? I don't remember much of when I had to speak in front of the classroom, things like science fair presentation and the like. The most I did in math though was to solve a problem on the board.
Well, it's real life. If you can't stand in front of your own class and talk, then how do you expect to get through the rest of life? There aren't that many jobs where you can just hide in a corner and not interact with others.
I am not very social around strangers. I can be but it takes some effort. When I was job hunting once I was having trouble. One manager eventually said "we liked you, but you didn't seem interested in the job". First feedback I ever got from an interview. At that point I changed tactics. At the next interview I acted like a different person. When they asked "do you have any questions for us" then instead of saying "no I think I'm good" instead I gave them some questions I came up with beforehand. Things got better at that point and I got a job not long after (not great but it was getting me in the door). After awhile, that way of acting became natural so that it's not really an act anymore. Being engaged with the person you're talking to really makes a huge difference.
Nook used to be DRM free, did they change that?
In the past when I had DirecTV I used to store up some pay-per-view on the TiVo side to watch later. After a time the content owners got pissy (their natural state of being) and decided that pay-per-view was only for 24 hours and after that the content would be removed. This meant that they did reach out and delete movies from my local storage! DRM is the mechanism that allows this. DRM is not "copy protection" it's about control of what you can do.
You can rent for one day, or rent for an indeterminate period of time, there is no more "owning" of the media anymore it seems. If you want a right to watch a movie that can't be taken away then you have to buy physical media or find some method of storing the stream (legally dubious but morally ok).
Some people do push back on that figure and the statistics behind them. However I think that why they may have good points that they are also overreaching.
The number of bankruptcies is not always solely due to the medical bills alone. However the medical bills certainly do occur as a major factor even if not the only factor. In many bankruptcies you cannot point to a single cause. So a family may be on the edge and already deep in dept, and then the medical bills go and exacerbate the problems to unmanageable levels; or it could be the other way around so that the medical bill caused the initial debt which was compounded by predatory interest rates.
But because this statistic showed up as support for Obamacare, it means those opposed to Obamacare wanted to attack the evidence (despite the irony of the same people probably bitching about rising healthcare costs before Obamacare. since literally no one thought healthcare costs were reasonable).
But the market doesn't operate as the advertised when the preconditions don't apply. This is a medicine that some people need, it's a matter of life and death. And they're not paying for it out of pocket most of the time, hopefully insurance covers most of the cost. So there's no incentive to just stop using the medicine. Also there's not a clear and open market because the customer has limited information - doctors often do not provide a choice to the patient of a cheap versus expensive drug that do the same thing, and thus the patient does not know that there are alternatives.
There are no real market forces at work in this situation. This is not like seeing a loaf of bread priced at $100 and deciding to go to another store or just not eat bread at all.
Capitalism certainly allows for regulation, that's not a socialist thing it's a necessity for any system of government. Even the patron saint of free market economics, Adam Smith, believed that regulation was necessary. The political factor at work here is how much the government is beholden to corporate interests versus interests of the citizens.
However if government gets too small that capitalism will quickly break down. People who advocate for smaller government need to specify how small it should be. I suspect many of them would prefer no government.
For me, it's not the size of the government that matters as much as the quality. In other words, do you get a return on investment from your taxes? In America, despite have low taxes we certainly gripe loudly about them, and I think that's because we just don't see much benefit coming back the other way.
I spent two days in a small Alabama MRI clinic while working on some other machine. Maybe 10 years ago. During that time the place was not hopping, and they could easily have doubled the number of patients that came in and still have time for a long lunch. So if there was a backlog of patients waiting then I'd have concluded that something fishy was going on. Maybe some hospital system just want to keep everything in-house rather than send out to unaffiliated clinics?
Quality wise, the US has some awesome hospitals and clinics - but not many of them. Sure the Mayo Clinic may be really good, but you won't be getting in there and will probably get your care at a regional county hospital that has budget problems.
And in the US the emergency rooms are crowded. Too many people who can't afford insurance treat the emergency room as their primary care. So you will see people with the flu hanging out in the waiting room making sure everyone else gets a chance to catch it.
I want the insurance company that tries to prevent the high expense problems in the first case. That's rare in the US. Though I'm with a plan that does this, it's not your typical PPO or HMO. Free classes at the clinics, no cost flu shots, low co-pay so as to not discourage doctor visits, etc.
I'd like the see the insurance company kick in some dough to get people to the gym as well, kick in dough for kicking smoking, cover 100% of the cost of medicine for chronic conditions (blood presure, diabetes), etc. It makes financial sense too for the insurers.
Before Obamacare you often could not switch insurers if you had a preexisting condition. Also those other insurance plans can often be more than you can afford. And paying out of pocket is a fantasy affordable only to the wealthy. You can't even afford the drugs out of pocket.
The top factor in personal bankruptcies in the US come from unexpected medical expenses, either as a primary cause or a contributing factor. Medical care in the US is expensive (both before and after Obamacare). When you're living paycheck to paycheck, the deductible you have to pay on a medical bill before insurance kicks in is too much.
US healthcare is essentially about fixing problems instead of preventing them. The insurance companies promote this based on what they cover and don't cover. It's a great country for healthcare if you're wealthy, though it's not very impressive if you're not. The first thing you hear at the reception desk for most doctors is "let's see what your insurance covers". An amazing number of people use the emergency room as their primary care because they can't afford insurance.
In Finland one of my coworkers (American) had a child there, all the neonatal checkups, birth, and followup visits all free and top quality. In America, you may be told that you've already had the alloted number of doctor visits and the insurance won't pay for more, and if your baby isn't premature then you're told to move out of the room as fast as you can.
Back in school we worked for over a year to get health insurance for grad students. The first year a baby was born with some complications and the insurer dropped ALL of us, claiming we were a bad risk. So we were left without insurance, which was a very common thing. When you make less than $20K a year a lot of students just didn't bother with health insurance and rolled the dice.