It's funny you say that... I felt more welcomed in NZ [as an American] than anywhere I've ever been. The hospitality is phenominal, and the number of things to do is just amazing. Beach today glacier tomorrow? Done.
In one of my first trips to the country I found a house I loved on the Whangarei area, north of Auckland. I ended up purchasing the house after I returned to the US. Unfortunately, due to circumstances in my life, I was unable to move and had to sell the house. I still dream of moving there one day as it's the most beautiful place in the world (IMHO).
It seems as though Wellington is more of a Tech center now days, from what I hear. I noticed more big names on buildings in Auckland and was wondering if that's true. Really, I'd take living anywhere on either island, just so long as I could stay further north in the winter.
Not only that, the overall tax burden, which includes corporate taxes, is significantly less in Ireland than in the past... and is the lowest in all of the EU. This is often the reason cited for the tremendous job and income growth that's happened in Ireland recently, relative to the EU and US. With my red hair and freckles, I think I would consider Ireland among my top 2 [ with a forthcoming post on my #1 ]
I thought I would reply to this with a bit of info. The company I work for, when they make offers, will always share the total cost of your yearly employment, both in actual dollars and potential dollars. Actual being guaranteed cost on their end, potential being items like 401k matching, cell phone costs, etc. It's nice, because it helps the individual understand exactly what they're actually being offered. It's also a shock to some, who've commented they didn't know "shit cost that much".
A worker making 50,000 US a year will typically cost 40-50% more in additional expenses [not including things like capex (laptops, desk, etc)]. A worker making 100,000 US a year will typically cost 30-40% more. There are several fixed cost items that everyone gets, even the person making 25k a year. This has been the same, in my experience, almost everywhere I've been, though it's slightly more than 5-10 years ago.
Fortunately, at certain levels of income, you no longer have to pay some taxes... which means you bear almost zero additional cost to the company by your raise. The number is right around 90k, currently.... so every dollar above the SSI income cap costs much closer to one dollar to the company than the same dollar above 50k.
Technically, I'd consider benefits income that's taxed at 100%. It's a much larger dollar benefit to those making lower wages, but a much larger tax [on whole] as well.
Someone should build a true conversion tool that calculates the required salary for similar income in another nation, based on benefits, social programs, etc. I'd be more interested in knowing where I can retire sooner, and live comfortably.
Based on per-capita giving, America is almost dead last among first-world nations.
Without differing, can you cite any proof of this, beyond an article in the Boston Globe about the tsunami (only 5 days after it happened)?
I believe from things I've seen in the past, that as a percentage of our GDP, we're lower than most other nations... but as a percentage of income that goes to charity, we're in line with places like UK, France, etc. We just happen to currently be a more efficient nation, so GDP comparisons aren't all that fair.
Anyway, if there's some concrete evidence of this out there, I'd love to see it.... I know Turbo Tax has told me that 10-12% is what most people claim to give to the IRS. Considering the savings rate in this country, all that giving is fairly impressive.
I remember thinking, back in th eearly days of slashdot, that most people seemed highly conservative. I'm curious what the results of a pool done would conclude based on our ID#s and affiliations. More importantly, I think there are probably quite a bit more libertarians here than we suspect.... many of whom may seem one way or the other... but are probably just quietly laughing at all of the bickering on/.
... but, good luck getting shit changed with the teachers lobby pushing so much weight.
For what it's worth, most private schools, though possibly more advanced, still suffer from the same issues. I have done all 3... public, private and home schooling. I went to one of the best public school districts in the nation, which was efficient(ly boring). The relatively inexpensive private school I eventually attended far exceeded the capabilities of the public ones.... but nothing compared to homeschooling for both its ability to educate and ability to keep my interest.
The head of a local homeschool association is a surgeon. Learning anotomy, biology and chemistry first hand is excellent... Sadly, most of the surgeries I was able to witness were cancer removals, there was still a much greater desire on my part to learn. Obviously things like this aren't ideal; having hundreds of kids watching surgeries would be overwhelming. I'll be the first person to say, if they ever do surgery on me, I hope they invite any student who wants to learn.
Then again, I can just imagine all the immature giggles that would happen outside of a breast or colon cancer removal (the two most comon I attended).
College was far less boring than public or private schools... but then not as exciting as the real world.
If the federal government went on actual gallons collectively used in one mile of travel, instead of average miles per gallon, theyd end up with a more effective weighting toward getting the mileage up on a lower mileage vehicle.
By this I mean. All the vehicles travelling one mile, the collective gasoline used divided by the number of vehicles. So your 27.5 mpg would be 21.7. The math goes like this: 40mpg vehicles uses 0.025 gallons of gasoline to travel that one mile. 15mpg uses 0.067. The total number of gallons used is 0.092... total vehicles [same as total miles travelled] is 2.
2 / 0.092 = 21.7
If they increase the mpg of their 40mpg car to 50mpg, we end up with 0.087 gallons used or 23 mpg. The net gain of increasing the top end one by 40mpg has only given them 1.3 on the average.
However, increase the mpg on the 15mpg car to 25mpg and you see a more dramatic increase... using 0.065 gallons we get 30.7mpg average.
Using this formulation to determine a company's average would be more useful in focusing their energies on the more wasteful of vehicles. Right now two unique companies can both have 25mpg average, with one companies cars using far greater amounts of fuels, effected by the lower end.
My proposal... use the math that calculates total fuel used to propel each offered vehicle (and engine type) 1 mile, divided by the total miles travelled [== number of vehicles]. This will give a HUGE added incentive to spend time adding efficiency to their worst performers.
And let's completely forget that there is no identity check to verify that you are the person you say you are... so you can easily go vote for a recently deceased individual, or a co-worker with whom you disagree...
When Microsoft adds a feature to its product, everyone fears it's some sort of privacy concern... but when the largest storage manufacturers in the world have been doing it for well over 10 years (Network Applicance's snapshots? [EMC may even call it snapshots too])... it's an awesome administrative feature that provides massive ROI and ROE to disk administrators.
That's $0.80 per gig for Blu-Ray. If it helps, that's 16 times more expensive than DVDs.
As with DVD disks and their pricing, I imagine it will be 2 years before you see Blue-Ray media at the same cost as DVD (per GB). I'd say it'll be 3 to 4 years before you can buy a Blu-Ray burner for less than $120, which I would consier a reasonable price. I'd bet that within 12 months, you can nab a bunrer for half as much.
Just like with new drugs, the majority of the price of R&D gets offloaded onto the early adopters. And as those costs are recouped and production costs come down, due to production levels, you'll begin to see sharp declines in pricing. For those of us with HTPCs, it would be nice to see a much cheaper drive available, but they'll always be just a bit pricier than the stand-alone players.
DVD Players have become a commodity, selling for $12 in some places. I expect Blu-Ray to be the same in a shorter timeframe than DVD. Of course, it's taken DVD almost a decade to get to where we are, so if it takes 5 years for Blu-Ray, I consider myself lucky.
DVD:
720x480 (assuming progressive scan) for a total of 345,600 pixels per frame (usually 24 or 29 fps)
in reality, it's truely 720x240, but we'll pretend it's 480 for comparison sake.
HDDVD:
1920x1080 (already progressive scan) for a total of 2,073,600 pixels per frame (also 24 or 29 fps)
Yeah, I suppose I'll trade you my $345,600 for your $2,073,600
State Law already requires that income earned while living in WA must be reported. So online gambling generates income tax revenue (and by proxy, probably some sales tax rev as well, if their citizens are +EV). Of course, gambling losses also qualify, to a certain point, as a deduction.
Thermal Depolymerization... good stuff. The idea of taking true waste product, be it dead animal byproduct, human feces or recycled plastic and turning it back into something usable is wonderful.
In 20 years time maybe the entire nation's oil can come from our own waste... and the campaign slogan for the environmental candidate for POTUS can be "Stop using this shit".
FWIW, I believe these folks have done it in europe:
Changing World Tech
The vast majority of that vehicle appears to be the Ariel Atom... a car which, with engine, can be had for $30k US. I'm sure you could get it for $20k if you wanted to do your own engine... and I don't imagine it would take $80k to get numbers nearing these... though the gadjetry looks nifty.
I know the "sticker" price on almost all of the regular sized ones is over $800... but the local [read: Massive] furniture store carries them for @$680.
I got my first front-loading washer about 5 years ago, and it was the most amazing thing at the time... with how much cleaner my clothes were.
A white sweater covered in blood from a broken nose, that sat in a bag for 2 days came out perfectly clean with just one wash... not sure how I ever lived without.
Try a bi-turbo configuration on a v6 or i6 (i'd go i6 since it's more efficient in just about every way).. The idea being that a big turbo has tons of lag, while two smaller turbos would show almost none.
Audi's 2.7L V6 bi-turbo was a great example of a lagless turbo with good power output (@ 100hp/l)... but more importantly, it was extremely torquey in the low end (@280lbft at @2000rpm), with an amazingly flat torque curve, delivering super-smoothe power throughout all RPMs.
But then again, the mileage on your corvette is still better... I believe the Audi's were pushing 18 city and 24 highway.
FWIW.... the tax law surrounding the gas tax did, at least when I read about it years ago, require that a vast majority of revenue generated by it be put back into roads. I believe the federal highway budget exceeds the current amount of tax generated... but then, how many boondogle items get pushed in transportation bills?
Also, several studies have been done that show the weight of a non-commercial vehicle has virtually no bearing on road wear. In other words, the weight of your average consumer SUV [Chevy Trailblazer], 4552 lbs, does not cause 2x, or even 1.2x, the damage of something like a prius, at 2921 lbs.
I completely agree with that. Since I've verified that the sending email address is valid one of mine... and well, gmail could verify that its contents are sent to that same inbox if they wanted.... I would prefer to make the whole Sender: header... assuming the sender can prove they're the owner of that address.
The 3 major credit reporting agencies all have methods to prevent "promotional offers"... In other words, the agencies will release aboslutely no information about you without your consent. It cut the amount of credit card offers per month from somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 down to 0. However, the number of balance transfer things I get is crazy. How the hell do I transfer my $0 in CC debt?
I moved to Avast! at home. It's free for non-commercial use and was named the best Anti-Virus on the market by SC Magazine. All that marketing jazz aside... I like the program quite a bit, as it also adds a simple-to-use interface for recovering from problems. Trend Micro has slightly faster response times to viruses in the wild, but Avast is darn close... much better than McAf.
"The wikipedia article claims a return of 85% on available input energy for offal, i.e. the system uses more energy than it gets back."
You failed to read the article properly. 85% return means that if it produces 1 Megawatt, it uses approximately 150,000 kilowatts in it's effort... yielding a net positive of 850,000 kilowatts... or 85% efficiency. I believe it burns off most of the methane in generators to produce it's energy, similar to the sugar factories that produce ethanol in South America.
If you look at this in terms of ROI. 85 / 15 = 567%. A net positive return on input of over 500% is more than we get on Ethanol with corn. And the numbers are even greater with plastic waste vs bio-waste.
Since the bio-waste, human waste and plastic waste are all a part of what's already happening, any excess energy produced by the factory is a net gain. You're not likely to see people producing plastic to re-refine into oil like you are capable of seeing people producing corn or sugar for ethanol... (though they typically only use waste product, too).
In the end, this is more about finding ways to produce more energy from a barrel of oil. Most people call that efficiency or lessening demand... very good things, regardless of any situation mentioned in this story.
A little anecdotal evidence. Being a developer, myself, I have many friends who are as well... Picking up languages like Java and C#, for anyone familiar with almost any OO language (even OO style perl) can likely start coding in either language within 24 hours and typically be effective after less than a month. Speaking for myself and a few of those friends... both Java and C# were cake to learn. I agree, you learn more efficient methods of doing things as time passes. However, I've seen several people pretty much master java and/or C# in under a month.
When I accepted a job where I currently work, I had ~zero real experience with.NET or C#. I was primarily developing in perl at the time, with occasional use of java. This job required that I learn to be effective in C# in about 2 weeks. I can now look back at code I wrote almost when I started and see some minor modifications that could be made... but the structure and concepts wouldn't change.
I like to think that any talented developer can transition to most of the common languages with little downtime. I also like to see organizations hire developers for their ability to understand all of the concepts, to adapt and to learn... not soley on "years of experience".
On most of those fronts, we are in poorer shape than we were in 1970. Tolerance is a little better now. Health 'coverage' is up, but in 1970, you could afford routine care on just your wages.
However, what you forget is that we didn't have people going to their doctor every time they got the flu, or getting flu shots, or preventitive care, mental health care and the list goes on. People show up at the Emergency room now for severe heart burn, or a bad cold, even simple viruses...
My Grandfather went to the doctor less than once a year, and only when things were too terrible to manage with liquor and over the counter pain killers. Of course, he ended up dying of liver and throat cancer... for which he went to the doctor too late... There was no need for coverage in his younger years, because none of the miracle drugs existed... doctors didn't perscribe unnecessary treatements, etc etc.
Slashdot Mirror
It's funny you say that... I felt more welcomed in NZ [as an American] than anywhere I've ever been. The hospitality is phenominal, and the number of things to do is just amazing. Beach today glacier tomorrow? Done.
In one of my first trips to the country I found a house I loved on the Whangarei area, north of Auckland. I ended up purchasing the house after I returned to the US. Unfortunately, due to circumstances in my life, I was unable to move and had to sell the house. I still dream of moving there one day as it's the most beautiful place in the world (IMHO).
It seems as though Wellington is more of a Tech center now days, from what I hear. I noticed more big names on buildings in Auckland and was wondering if that's true. Really, I'd take living anywhere on either island, just so long as I could stay further north in the winter.
Not only that, the overall tax burden, which includes corporate taxes, is significantly less in Ireland than in the past... and is the lowest in all of the EU. This is often the reason cited for the tremendous job and income growth that's happened in Ireland recently, relative to the EU and US. With my red hair and freckles, I think I would consider Ireland among my top 2 [ with a forthcoming post on my #1 ]
I thought I would reply to this with a bit of info. The company I work for, when they make offers, will always share the total cost of your yearly employment, both in actual dollars and potential dollars. Actual being guaranteed cost on their end, potential being items like 401k matching, cell phone costs, etc. It's nice, because it helps the individual understand exactly what they're actually being offered. It's also a shock to some, who've commented they didn't know "shit cost that much".
A worker making 50,000 US a year will typically cost 40-50% more in additional expenses [not including things like capex (laptops, desk, etc)]. A worker making 100,000 US a year will typically cost 30-40% more. There are several fixed cost items that everyone gets, even the person making 25k a year. This has been the same, in my experience, almost everywhere I've been, though it's slightly more than 5-10 years ago.
Fortunately, at certain levels of income, you no longer have to pay some taxes... which means you bear almost zero additional cost to the company by your raise. The number is right around 90k, currently.... so every dollar above the SSI income cap costs much closer to one dollar to the company than the same dollar above 50k.
Technically, I'd consider benefits income that's taxed at 100%. It's a much larger dollar benefit to those making lower wages, but a much larger tax [on whole] as well.
Someone should build a true conversion tool that calculates the required salary for similar income in another nation, based on benefits, social programs, etc. I'd be more interested in knowing where I can retire sooner, and live comfortably.
Without differing, can you cite any proof of this, beyond an article in the Boston Globe about the tsunami (only 5 days after it happened)?
I believe from things I've seen in the past, that as a percentage of our GDP, we're lower than most other nations... but as a percentage of income that goes to charity, we're in line with places like UK, France, etc. We just happen to currently be a more efficient nation, so GDP comparisons aren't all that fair.
Anyway, if there's some concrete evidence of this out there, I'd love to see it.... I know Turbo Tax has told me that 10-12% is what most people claim to give to the IRS. Considering the savings rate in this country, all that giving is fairly impressive.
I remember thinking, back in th eearly days of slashdot, that most people seemed highly conservative. I'm curious what the results of a pool done would conclude based on our ID#s and affiliations. More importantly, I think there are probably quite a bit more libertarians here than we suspect.... many of whom may seem one way or the other... but are probably just quietly laughing at all of the bickering on /.
... but, good luck getting shit changed with the teachers lobby pushing so much weight.
For what it's worth, most private schools, though possibly more advanced, still suffer from the same issues. I have done all 3... public, private and home schooling. I went to one of the best public school districts in the nation, which was efficient(ly boring). The relatively inexpensive private school I eventually attended far exceeded the capabilities of the public ones.... but nothing compared to homeschooling for both its ability to educate and ability to keep my interest.
The head of a local homeschool association is a surgeon. Learning anotomy, biology and chemistry first hand is excellent... Sadly, most of the surgeries I was able to witness were cancer removals, there was still a much greater desire on my part to learn. Obviously things like this aren't ideal; having hundreds of kids watching surgeries would be overwhelming. I'll be the first person to say, if they ever do surgery on me, I hope they invite any student who wants to learn.
Then again, I can just imagine all the immature giggles that would happen outside of a breast or colon cancer removal (the two most comon I attended).
College was far less boring than public or private schools... but then not as exciting as the real world.
I'll redo this...
If the federal government went on actual gallons collectively used in one mile of travel, instead of average miles per gallon, theyd end up with a more effective weighting toward getting the mileage up on a lower mileage vehicle.
By this I mean. All the vehicles travelling one mile, the collective gasoline used divided by the number of vehicles. So your 27.5 mpg would be 21.7. The math goes like this: 40mpg vehicles uses 0.025 gallons of gasoline to travel that one mile. 15mpg uses 0.067. The total number of gallons used is 0.092... total vehicles [same as total miles travelled] is 2.
2 / 0.092 = 21.7
If they increase the mpg of their 40mpg car to 50mpg, we end up with 0.087 gallons used or 23 mpg. The net gain of increasing the top end one by 40mpg has only given them 1.3 on the average.
However, increase the mpg on the 15mpg car to 25mpg and you see a more dramatic increase... using 0.065 gallons we get 30.7mpg average.
Using this formulation to determine a company's average would be more useful in focusing their energies on the more wasteful of vehicles. Right now two unique companies can both have 25mpg average, with one companies cars using far greater amounts of fuels, effected by the lower end.
My proposal... use the math that calculates total fuel used to propel each offered vehicle (and engine type) 1 mile, divided by the total miles travelled [== number of vehicles]. This will give a HUGE added incentive to spend time adding efficiency to their worst performers.
Five. ???
Six. Profit!
And let's completely forget that there is no identity check to verify that you are the person you say you are... so you can easily go vote for a recently deceased individual, or a co-worker with whom you disagree...
When Microsoft adds a feature to its product, everyone fears it's some sort of privacy concern... but when the largest storage manufacturers in the world have been doing it for well over 10 years (Network Applicance's snapshots? [EMC may even call it snapshots too])... it's an awesome administrative feature that provides massive ROI and ROE to disk administrators.
That's $0.80 per gig for Blu-Ray. If it helps, that's 16 times more expensive than DVDs.
As with DVD disks and their pricing, I imagine it will be 2 years before you see Blue-Ray media at the same cost as DVD (per GB). I'd say it'll be 3 to 4 years before you can buy a Blu-Ray burner for less than $120, which I would consier a reasonable price. I'd bet that within 12 months, you can nab a bunrer for half as much.
Just like with new drugs, the majority of the price of R&D gets offloaded onto the early adopters. And as those costs are recouped and production costs come down, due to production levels, you'll begin to see sharp declines in pricing. For those of us with HTPCs, it would be nice to see a much cheaper drive available, but they'll always be just a bit pricier than the stand-alone players.
DVD Players have become a commodity, selling for $12 in some places. I expect Blu-Ray to be the same in a shorter timeframe than DVD. Of course, it's taken DVD almost a decade to get to where we are, so if it takes 5 years for Blu-Ray, I consider myself lucky.
DVD:
720x480 (assuming progressive scan) for a total of 345,600 pixels per frame (usually 24 or 29 fps)
in reality, it's truely 720x240, but we'll pretend it's 480 for comparison sake.
HDDVD:
1920x1080 (already progressive scan) for a total of 2,073,600 pixels per frame (also 24 or 29 fps)
Yeah, I suppose I'll trade you my $345,600 for your $2,073,600
State Law already requires that income earned while living in WA must be reported. So online gambling generates income tax revenue (and by proxy, probably some sales tax rev as well, if their citizens are +EV). Of course, gambling losses also qualify, to a certain point, as a deduction.
Thermal Depolymerization ... good stuff. The idea of taking true waste product, be it dead animal byproduct, human feces or recycled plastic and turning it back into something usable is wonderful.
In 20 years time maybe the entire nation's oil can come from our own waste... and the campaign slogan for the environmental candidate for POTUS can be "Stop using this shit".
FWIW, I believe these folks have done it in europe:
Changing World Tech
The vast majority of that vehicle appears to be the Ariel Atom... a car which, with engine, can be had for $30k US. I'm sure you could get it for $20k if you wanted to do your own engine... and I don't imagine it would take $80k to get numbers nearing these... though the gadjetry looks nifty.
I know the "sticker" price on almost all of the regular sized ones is over $800... but the local [read: Massive] furniture store carries them for @$680.
I got my first front-loading washer about 5 years ago, and it was the most amazing thing at the time... with how much cleaner my clothes were.
A white sweater covered in blood from a broken nose, that sat in a bag for 2 days came out perfectly clean with just one wash... not sure how I ever lived without.
Try a bi-turbo configuration on a v6 or i6 (i'd go i6 since it's more efficient in just about every way).. The idea being that a big turbo has tons of lag, while two smaller turbos would show almost none.
Audi's 2.7L V6 bi-turbo was a great example of a lagless turbo with good power output (@ 100hp/l)... but more importantly, it was extremely torquey in the low end (@280lbft at @2000rpm), with an amazingly flat torque curve, delivering super-smoothe power throughout all RPMs.
But then again, the mileage on your corvette is still better... I believe the Audi's were pushing 18 city and 24 highway.
FWIW.... the tax law surrounding the gas tax did, at least when I read about it years ago, require that a vast majority of revenue generated by it be put back into roads. I believe the federal highway budget exceeds the current amount of tax generated... but then, how many boondogle items get pushed in transportation bills?
Also, several studies have been done that show the weight of a non-commercial vehicle has virtually no bearing on road wear. In other words, the weight of your average consumer SUV [Chevy Trailblazer], 4552 lbs, does not cause 2x, or even 1.2x, the damage of something like a prius, at 2921 lbs.
I completely agree with that. Since I've verified that the sending email address is valid one of mine... and well, gmail could verify that its contents are sent to that same inbox if they wanted.... I would prefer to make the whole Sender: header... assuming the sender can prove they're the owner of that address.
The 3 major credit reporting agencies all have methods to prevent "promotional offers"... In other words, the agencies will release aboslutely no information about you without your consent. It cut the amount of credit card offers per month from somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 down to 0. However, the number of balance transfer things I get is crazy. How the hell do I transfer my $0 in CC debt?
I moved to Avast! at home. It's free for non-commercial use and was named the best Anti-Virus on the market by SC Magazine. All that marketing jazz aside... I like the program quite a bit, as it also adds a simple-to-use interface for recovering from problems. Trend Micro has slightly faster response times to viruses in the wild, but Avast is darn close... much better than McAf.
"The wikipedia article claims a return of 85% on available input energy for offal, i.e. the system uses more energy than it gets back." You failed to read the article properly. 85% return means that if it produces 1 Megawatt, it uses approximately 150,000 kilowatts in it's effort... yielding a net positive of 850,000 kilowatts... or 85% efficiency. I believe it burns off most of the methane in generators to produce it's energy, similar to the sugar factories that produce ethanol in South America. If you look at this in terms of ROI. 85 / 15 = 567%. A net positive return on input of over 500% is more than we get on Ethanol with corn. And the numbers are even greater with plastic waste vs bio-waste. Since the bio-waste, human waste and plastic waste are all a part of what's already happening, any excess energy produced by the factory is a net gain. You're not likely to see people producing plastic to re-refine into oil like you are capable of seeing people producing corn or sugar for ethanol... (though they typically only use waste product, too). In the end, this is more about finding ways to produce more energy from a barrel of oil. Most people call that efficiency or lessening demand... very good things, regardless of any situation mentioned in this story.
A little anecdotal evidence. Being a developer, myself, I have many friends who are as well... Picking up languages like Java and C#, for anyone familiar with almost any OO language (even OO style perl) can likely start coding in either language within 24 hours and typically be effective after less than a month. Speaking for myself and a few of those friends... both Java and C# were cake to learn. I agree, you learn more efficient methods of doing things as time passes. However, I've seen several people pretty much master java and/or C# in under a month.
.NET or C#. I was primarily developing in perl at the time, with occasional use of java. This job required that I learn to be effective in C# in about 2 weeks. I can now look back at code I wrote almost when I started and see some minor modifications that could be made... but the structure and concepts wouldn't change.
When I accepted a job where I currently work, I had ~zero real experience with
I like to think that any talented developer can transition to most of the common languages with little downtime. I also like to see organizations hire developers for their ability to understand all of the concepts, to adapt and to learn... not soley on "years of experience".
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/07/12
I believe Homer Simpson said it best: "It's funny 'cause it's true."
However, what you forget is that we didn't have people going to their doctor every time they got the flu, or getting flu shots, or preventitive care, mental health care and the list goes on. People show up at the Emergency room now for severe heart burn, or a bad cold, even simple viruses...
My Grandfather went to the doctor less than once a year, and only when things were too terrible to manage with liquor and over the counter pain killers. Of course, he ended up dying of liver and throat cancer... for which he went to the doctor too late... There was no need for coverage in his younger years, because none of the miracle drugs existed... doctors didn't perscribe unnecessary treatements, etc etc.