What about it is confusing? They ARE expensive, at least to anyone with some appreciation of the value of a dollar.
Fifteen years ago people paid $1,000 or more out of pocket just to connect a desktop to the Internet.
Just because things are cheaper than they used to be doesn't mean everyone can afford them. Nor does it mean that you are necessarily getting good value for money.
Furthermore, phone plans with plenty of (non-video, non-streaming) Internet access can be found for something like $25/month from places like Virgin Mobile.
$25/month to a lot of people can mean the difference between being able to pay rent or not. I think you have very little idea what it actually means to be poor.
It's a $30 phone without any subsidies and you're bitching that it lacks fancy features? You do realize that there are lots of people who don't actually need maps/navigation on their phone right? Hell I have a current generation iPhone and I very rarely use it for navigation since my car has a GPS built in.
There is a very sizeable market for basic phones with basic features at a low price. Nokia has been serving this market successfully for many years now.
i just hear this as "i don't have the patience for chess, the brains for go, or the balls for poker."
It's not that I think chess or serious poker are bad games. Rather that they take a level of dedication to play at the highest level that takes all the fun out of it for me. Playing poker for serious money is more like a job than a game. A casual game of speed chess is fun. Poker on a friday night with your buddies is a great time. Trying to win the World Cup of Poker is no longer a game but an obsession. Misses the whole point for me.
Sealed deck or not Magic is still a game of chance.
Nothing wrong with that. There is a high degree of skill in the game just like poker. Yes you can have a bad beat but on average the better player usually wins.
Here is the catch, they employ a smaller amount of people, much, much smaller than they used to.
This is correct to a point. Manufacturing in the US is largely capital intensive these days. It's not unlike what happened in farming 50-100 years ago. More productive with a smaller percent of the workforce. Used to be you could graduate from high school and go work on an assembly line with no training at all and make a decent wage. This had a lot to do with the US being the only major economy left standing after WWII. As Europe recovered and Japan and Asia came on line, the available global work force supply increased and US wages for labor intensive work got out of whack with prevailing wages elsewhere. US manufacturing wages are experiencing a reversion to the mean because now they have to compete against places like China and India with MUCH lower average wages and bigger populations in need of work. We've had close to a 1/3 of the global workforce sitting on the sidelines until the last 25 years or so.
I have a friend who is a machinist. He can make anything out of metal. He tells me it is hard to find people who have the ability to do what they need at his company. Surprising? Not really.
It's not hard to find people that do such work. I have to do it all the time for my job. They just may not be in the US for the wages his company can pay. Offer a high enough wage and I guarantee you'll find someone but that probably isn't possible. I have the same problem. I can get good people but they are hard to find for what I can pay them while remaining competitive. Skilled labor like the fellow you describe can be expensive and for labor intensive work those jobs have often migrated overseas. Many of those formerly employed in that line of work migrate to other work or retire. New workers train for other things because there are attractive alternatives and perceived competition.
High labor costs = labor intensive work moves where labor is cheap, i.e. frequently not in the US. People like that aren't hard to find not because they don't exist but rather because the wages they demand in the US are economically uncompetitive. I can find guys in China or India or Mexico who are just as skilled (or near as makes no difference) and cost 1/2 to 1/5 the price per hour. Why would companies train people to do that work when they can get it done overseas for far less money?
The problem is that the types of employment, the skill levels required, have vastly outpaced the American education systems ability to generate competent workers to work in those jobs
The american education (meaning schools) system NEVER really trained people for jobs like being a machinist. Virtually all of that training aside from a tiny bit of vocational training has been on-the-job training by companies. And that is fine - most real training for real jobs is on the job training. I've met very few programmers who were ready to go straight out of college in the real world. Same with engineers, nurses or any other profession. The reason we have trouble getting workers in those fields is because of cost and perceived opportunity, and less because of a deficient training system. (not to say the training system couldn't be greatly improved like you point out - it certainly could) Companies tend to outsource labor intensive jobs when they can so they aren't perceived (rightly or wrongly) as secure by incoming or displaced workers. Unfortunately jobs like machinsts also aren't considered glamorous in our culture. We tend to look down our noses at people who work with machines for a living. Sad and wrong but it happens.
Things I like in a board/card game: 1) Rules that are relatively easy to pick up in a short time even by casual players 2) A balanced game where proper play should provide a reasonable chance for all players to win 3) An element of randomness but one that demands calculation of odds ala poker (outcomes not pure chance) 4) Playable by groups of 2-4 people. 5) Easy to learn and play competently but hard to master completely 6) Can be played in a relatively short amount of time 7) Socially fun and with minimal frustration (though sneaky tactics are fine) 8) Some monetary investment is fine but should be playable without being a money pit 9) Replayable
Games I like: Carcassone, casual poker, sealed deck Magic:The Gathering, Battletech,
Games that are ok but overrated: Chess, Checkers, Go, Uno, serious poker, Trivial Pursuit
Haven't you heard? Manufacturing is coming back to America, bigtime. It's just coming back automated. Relatively few jobs are coming back with the manufacturing.
Hate to break it to you but manufacturing never left America. Ever. It's a popular meme to claim that the USA doesn't make anything anymore but it is not and never was ever true. The US manufacturing sector, by itself today if it were a country, would be one of the ten largest economies in the world by GDP. The only country with a manufacturing sector of similar size is China and by dollar value they are roughly the same size to within a percentage point or two. And China has only caught up in the last few years despite having 5X the population. China does a lot of the labor intensive manufacturing and the US does a lot of the capital intensive manufacturing. That proportion will change over time as wages change in both the US and China as well as in other places.
You are correct that the relatively proportion of jobs in certain types of manufacturing is going to fall similar to how it did for farming. But this is not a doomsday scenario. It means that labor pool is now available to do something else that previously was not possible. If we all still had to work on a farm then the internet would probably have never come about. If you use people to do what a robot can do, then you are necessarily wasting resources by not utilizing people to their fullest capability.
Hate to sound like a luddite, but what's a person to do for a job?
The exact same question has been asked at the start of every technology advancement and the answer is the same as it has always been. Something different. Probably something you are having a hard time even imagining right now. As an example you're complaining that we shouldn't have accounting software because it took labor and thus jobs out of accounting. Would you seriously argue that computers have eliminated jobs because we need fewer secretaries now? It's an absurd argument because it presumes that the amount of economically valuable work out there is fixed and not growing or growing too slowly.
Farming is automated, manufacturing is automated, even service industry jobs are becoming automated
Umm, there is PLENTY of valuable work that cannot be economically automated. I run a manufacturing company that does assembly work. There is NO automation that can economically replace what we do and none likely within my working lifetime. Not because the technology doesn't exist but because humans are more flexible and economic in plenty of circumstances. Automation is useful but the limits on it are economic rather than technical in most cases. If you need a small quantity of something produced, it is difficult or even impossible to economically automate that in most cases. Same with creative work. Same with complicated work. For automation to replace all people you will have to develop a robot or other automation that is as capable as a person AND less costly. We are no where close to that occurring.
Wages may not be inflated like they've gotten in the US in the last 50 years but that doesn't mean there won't be any work anymore. It just will be different than it was and some places (like the US) may experience a reversion to the mean on wages. I know that uncertainty is scary but the notion that automation is going to eliminate all jobs is just ridiculous.
So the iPod, iPhone and iPad were "nothing special", hardware-wise? I beg to differ.
Not really, no. Apple's iDevices are mostly good pieces of kit to be sure but there are competing products whose hardware is arguable equal and on occasion better. I have a current generation iPhone and also an Android phone from Samsung. The hardware is not meaningfully better on one or the other overall. Weight, battery life, responsiveness, features etc are for practical purposes barely different. Oh I could nitpick and say one is better than the other in this or that feature but the differences overall are very minor. Same with the tablets. Apple's hardware is nice but there are competitors that make kit of similar quality and features. Hell Apple sued Samsung because their kit was to a casual glance almost indistinguishable in some cases.
The things that really sets them apart is the software which is quite different. Apple doesn't make their own hardware but they do make their own software.
Apple is a platform company, and always has been. The user experience is driven by software running on applicable hardware. Apple started as a hardware company, and has always focused on having a reliable platform. A Jobs snippet taken out of context doesn't mean much.
"Platform company"? I could live with that except that pretty much the only thing Apple actually makes (not designs - makes) themselves is software and almost everything that actually makes their products meaningfully different is software. They outsource ALL production of hardware and the hardware they produce is for all practical purposes identical to their competitors. Sure they put their little spin on it and the hardware is nice but it doesn't truly set them apart. If Apple started selling Macs with Windows preloaded or iPhones with Android preloaded, their ability command the margins they do would evaporate faster than you could say "shareholder lawsuit". Anything you outsource 100% is not core to your business if you plan on remaining in business for long.
And the Jobs quote wasn't out of context. The video speaks entirely for itself and I've seen the entire interview where he made that statement. Steve Jobs himself said quite plainly and without equivocation that Apple at its core is a software company. And in this case I pretty much agree with him. Whether you like Jobs or not he very clearly understood what made Apple successful and what set them apart from their competition. And the core of that differentiation is software.
On this, just about everyone will disagree. Their hardware is different, performs within published specs, and lasts better and longer than any competitor.
So good of you to speak for everyone. Fact is that the hardware in any mac made since they moved to Intel chips is not meaningfully different from PCs. The CPUs, GPUs, chipsets, memory and the rest are almost identical to similarly spec'd PCs. The cases are pretty and they do a better than average job supporting them (for the limited time they do support them) but the hardware demonstrably is not different. Their iDevices are slightly more customized but realistically aren't much different than their competition either. ARM CPUs, same memory, same glass, etc. Hell Apple even sued Samsung because according to Apple the hardware on devices Samsung was selling were barely distinguishable. Even at it's most extreme Apple's hardware is at most marginally different from that of their competitors.
If you want to claim that Macs or iDevices "last longer" you'll have to provide some actual evidence to support that assertion. I've seen no credible evidence to support your position.
And you knew this, so why do you state they're a software company?
Because the software is what differentiates their products. Software is near-as-makes-no-difference the only thing that Apple themselves makes that they do not outsource. They design some hardware but they don't make it - they don't even assemble it. A company is what it does. Apple makes software and then designs some pretty boxes out of mostly commodity hardware to sell it in which someone else makes and distributes. Apple is at its core a software company because that is where they make their money.
The Swiss Franc is the currency of a relatively small country with a GDP around $350 billion. That is not big enough to protect itself against heavy currency speculation and certainly isn't big enough to be as safe as the dollar, yuan or euro. The Swiss economy is increasingly dependent on foreign investment and that should be worrisome if you think it is some sort of safe haven.
Euro, is very spendable, mostly stable
The Euro may not even exist in 10 years and it is anything but stable. Have you paid NO attention to the currency crises in Europe for the last 5 years?
US Dollar is not worth its weight in paper.
Really? Because the people who actually put their money where their mouth is completely disagree with you. If the dollar wasn't considered safe then interest rates should be going through the roof. Instead interest rates are near all time lows meaning that investors consider the dollar to be among the safest places to invest.
China holds vast amount of US Dollars and the moment they decide to sell some or all of these, the currency will start to look like the Zimbabwe Dollar.
Who do you think China is going to sell them to? Seriously, who? The answer is no one. There isn't another buyer that can buy or wants to buy $1 Trillion in US debt. China owns that US debt so that they can keep their currency cheap and thereby support their export driven economy. The moment they sell a substantial portion of their US debt holdings, the yuan will appreciate in value and every single export from China will immediately become more expensive overseas. There is NOTHING China can do to dump their US debt holdings that will not hurt China worse than it will hurt the US. China only holds about 8% of US debt. It's a nice sound bite but the notion that they somehow now "own" the US is absurd to anyone who isn't clueless.
I want shareholders to stuff it up their assholes. They do not RUN the company...
No, they OWN the company. It is their company and their property. It's entirely appropriate that they make their feelings known about how management is handling their property. It would be no different than you hiring a groundskeeper for your lawn. You have every right to tell the groundskeeper how you want things done because it is your property, not his.
and this bullshit law that forces companies to chase profits above all else has done nothing but ruin the world
Really? Tell you what. Go visit someplace like Somalia where there are essentially no companies "chasing profits" and then tell me that companies have "done nothing but ruin the world". Go see the poverty and lawlessness and desperation. The very fact you can read this and argue about it is due to those very same companies you seem to love to hate. The food you eat and the bed you sleep in so comfortably is thanks to those companies.
Ten years can be a long time if you've got the cash and a "core business" to eek out existence on
Exactly right. Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc all have huge cash hordes and aren't going to disappear in the next 25 years because they can simply buy their way into another line of business if needed.
Apple's market will shrink rather than grow, primarily due to their failure to really innovate.
I think you are making the common mistake that most people make about Apple's pace of innovation. Apple only produces about 1-2 big innovations per decade. Their last big product introduction (the iPad) has only been around since 2010 and the iPhone only came out in 2007 and the iPod/iTunes was in 2001. It's going to take some time but I think ApplePay has the potential to be a huge product for Apple. It's certainly the most interesting thing they've done lately and nobody (even Google) has something quite as slick. I think the Apple watch is going to be DOA but maybe not. I just don't think they got the use case right on that one - I don't see what itch it scratches. Anyway the point is that Apple introduces a big product every 5-10 years and always has. If they haven't done anything of note by 2020 then we should start to wonder about what's going on.
Facebook will still be around, and bigger than ever. They've made a couple of smart investments, and if those play out, they're going to grow their market substantially with them (especially on the VR front -- think virtual meetings, markets, and presentations.)
What smart investments? I think Facebook has been wildly overpaying for some pretty speculative stuff. I think their VR investments are going to wither and die. Nobody is going to use Occulus VR headsets for business meetings. Ever. I was doing work in VR 15 years ago and it is the very definition of a niche market. The use cases are gaming and then what? There is a modest market in games but geeks are hugely overestimating it and frankly Facebook hugely over paid for Occulus in my opinion. I just don't see the use cases to justify the investment. I don't mind being wrong in this case but I just don't see the ROI. MAYBE if they have a breakthrough in augmented reality but Occulus isn't even really working on that right now.
The real shock is going to be the death of the PC. With the advent of higher resolution virtual displays and augmented reality glasses, the need for a physical screen will finally wane and the PC will be replaced by a bluetooth keyboard and mouse talking to that virtual hardware.
Complete nonsense. The PC isn't going anywhere. Tablets will eat some but not all of the market. There is no way in hell VR displays are going to do away with monitors. Augmented reality is still science fiction for the time being and even should it become practical it isn't going to replace the PC. The potential use cases for augmented reality products are quite different than for PCs.
I away figured Microsoft had enough money to not die until the early 2020's.
Microsoft won't die. Unless they are weapons-grade stupid the worst case scenario for them is that they use their cash horde to buy their way into another line of business. They have an absurd amount of cash. They could buy majority stakes in both Ford and GM today with cash if they wanted to. Not saying that's a good idea but they can buy all but a handful of companies on the planet without even issuing a dime of debt or equity to do it.
No, Microsoft isn't going anywhere. They might not resemble their current form in 20 years but they're certainly going to be around for a long while.
And yet people point at iOS market share vs Android as some kind of evidence the iPhone is "over." They're making the same mistake pundits have always done with Apple: mistaken them for a software company.
Umm, Apple IS a software company. They don't give their software away, the just sell it attached to a piece of hardware. Their hardware is nothing particularly special. A Mac is barely different from a Dell hardware-wise and if you put Windows on the Mac you can't tell the difference. Nobody would pay a premium to Apple for a Mac with Windows on it so the difference MUST be in the software because that is all that is really different. The hardware is a commodity and Apple does not manufacture any of it themselves. The iPhone is nice but you could just as easily load Android on the hardware. Almost the entire reason people buy Apple products and pay a premium is due to the software. They are fundamentally a software company that just won't sell you the software without some commodity hardware attached.
They sell hardware.
They sell a vertically integrated platform which includes both software and hardware. Apple does not just sell hardware.
People would talk about the installed user base of Macs vs. Windows, when Apple does not compete with Microsoft (directly), they compete with Dell and Lenovo and HP and every other PC hardware company.
Incorrect. Apple competes with HP+Microsoft and Lenovo+Microsoft and Dell+Microsoft. Notice that Microsoft is there each time. They compete quite directly with Microsoft via OEM sales. A sale for Apple is explicitly not a sale for Microsoft + whatever hardware vendor their stuff comes bundled with. If that isn't the definition of competition I don't really know what is.
In the United States HIPAA explicitly 'gives' you this right
Apparently you didn't bother to read your link. It gives the right to request an amendment in 164.526 (a) (1) but immediately below in 164.526 (a) (2) it explicitly gives health care providers the right to deny the amendment for very broad reasons. Like I said, a health care provider would be insane to permit unrestricted control of health records to patients. They are NOT your records exclusively. They are health records but also business records, legal records and sometimes financial records. Do you have any idea of the amount of fraud that would occur if patients had unrestricted control of their medical record? You are not the only party with a protected interest in the handling of those documents and I wouldn't expect them to relinquish control of the documents without a court order.
Seriously, they're about me. They should give me full and complete access to them, I should have control over them.
They are NOT solely about you. They are about the actions taken to treat you. They are business records in addition to being health records and as such you should have some amount of of access but a practice would be insane to give you full control of them. You certainly should not have the right to modify medical records or delete them. You should not have the right to withhold the records from the practice in the event of the dispute. The practice is required by law to keep them stored safely for a number of years (in general) after you have been treated. You have no such legal requirement. In many countries the medical records are explicitly the property of the health service and not yours in any way.
Yet...it's like pulling teeth to get records of my tooth extraction.
It's generally not all that hard to get copies of medical records, particularly if you as at the time of service. Some places are more cooperative than others but it's doable.
Oh is that all there is to it? If those darn cancer patients would just "stay healthy" then they wouldn't have to deal with those pesky doctors. Why didn't anyone else think of that?
You have a small practice and you get the system meant for a large hospital.
That's typically because they work closely with a particular hospital and desire compatibility with the hospital's EMR system. Not always but often.
There are a lot of small EMR systems that are fast and easy to use, but doesn't cover everything under the sun.
And there are many that cannot exchange records with other systems which defeats 99% of the purpose of having an EMR system in the first place. Just because it is smaller doesn't make it necessarily a better fit. Granted, many of them don't really examine the options closely enough but it would be pretty easy to get siloed into a small package that doesn't really fit the practice.
They start shopping with a fixed price in their head... Often buying not on features but the one closest to the price.,
That's generally because they have a finite budget for the EMR system and they know they are probably going to take a bath on it financially for several years at best. EMR systems are VERY expensive. Just because a different system would fit their needs better doesn't mean they can necessarily afford it.
Once you get the data digital, there is so much more you can do with the data. Statistical Analysis on effectiveness of procedures. Being able to request and get back results electronically, getting alerts from the hospital. etc....
I think you greatly overestimate the amount of time available to a typical practice to do such things like statistical analysis. I think you also overestimate how compatible EMR systems are with each other. Unless you happen to use the same system from the same vendor as the place you are exchanging records with you probably are out of luck doing it electronically.
You deal in absolutes; in an age where even voluntary prayer is discouraged (if not banned) in public schools, "always" doesn't even come close to being true.
It's banned because the believers almost invariably attempt to force their prayers and other religious ceremonies on those who do not share their beliefs. They had to make a law because it too often isn't voluntary and frankly it has no place in getting an education. We shouldn't need laws like the 14th and 15th and 19th Amendments to the Constitution but we do because otherwise the rights of disadvantaged groups get abused.
I only mention that because it does go both ways, and has for quite awhile now.
Really? Maybe where you live but being an atheist in quite a few places in the US is regarded with little to no tact at all. There are other places where being an atheist can be a death sentence. I don't honestly see a lot of tact coming from the theists.
You do bring up a good point though - if you're in the minority, how best are you going to win converts - by showing kindness and tact, or by swinging superiority like a cudgel?
Depends on the circumstance. Both have their time and place unfortunately. I think the former is by far preferable but the later is sadly necessary now and then.
Tweeting on Christmas day and starting your tweet as "On this day long ago, a child was born who, by age 30, would transform the world." is an obvious attempt at misdirection where most people (non-Christians included) would assume is is talking about Jesus. Then to suddenly reveal you are really talking about Issac Newton is a way of playing a joke on the reader.
Sounds like a creative way to inform people of a fact to me. Pretty funny and clever actually.
But instead he drew obvious parallels to Jesus in an attempt to misdirect, and bring up the topic of Christmas while making a point of ignoring it. This joke he played on the reader is why people are upset. It was a dick thing to do, and he should not be surprised that this upset some people.
I'm sure Mr Tyson is not entirely surprised at the reaction but I strongly disagree that it was "a dick thing to do". Why should he have to walk on eggshells around their faith when they don't even pay attention to the teachings of they guy they are trying to protect? Didn't Jesus preach something about turning the other cheek?
It's funny, I can't think of ever meeting a person who doesn't understand that it's a celebration, not an anniversary.
I know quite a few people who think it is an actual birthday. A few get quite hostile if you suggest otherwise. These are not highly educated people but they believe what they are capable of understanding.
Are there any Christian denomination that has as dogma a fixed date of 12/25 (or any other date) as the birth day anniversary of Jesus? I can't think of any.
Probably but that kind of misses the point. I would suggest that a huge percentage (probably the majority) of the devout don't really understand a lot of the finer details of their faith. Much like math class, just because you sat in the lecture doesn't mean they comprehended what was said. I think a lot of people attend because of social pressure or due to personal insecurities rather than with the intent to really comprehend.
Yes it is. He is director of the Hayden Planetarium which is part of a museum devoted to the natural sciences. The purpose of a museum and by extension its administration is in part to educate the masses. So yes, it very much IS his job.
It's no more his job to explain things to me than it is for some guy to just barge into my home and begin telling me how I should redecorate. I didn't ask him to, I didn't hire him to, I didn't indicate any desire on my part for him to do so.
Nobody is forcing you to listen to him. He is teaching and providing information to those willing to listen. If you wish to remain willfully ignorant that is your choice. If you are just disliking him because he is a public figure then you have issues you should really work out.
We're allowed to find fault with the man.
You certainly seem determined to do so. Not really sure why. I would suggest you lighten up and try to understand that he is doing a public service since scientists in general are rather bad at public relations and explaining what it is they do and why it matters. If you already know what he is saying then move along because he's not speaking to you.
But he's a great reminder that one need not choose between being a great scientist and a devout follower of Jesus Christ.
That is technically true it typically means that the scientist is not applying the scientific method to all aspects of their life. A rational scientist would be expected to demand some tangible evidence supporting the assertions made in relation to Jesus. Since most of the "evidence" consists of claims in a book unsupported by credible historical evidence, observed laws of nature and logic, it shouldn't be surprising that scientists in general tend to not be theists. Blind faith and the scientific method are poorly compatible world views if you are disciplined about one or the other. While there are some scientists who are devout, it tends to be a willful blindness on their part.
Basically, just because Newton was smart and got some important stuff right, doesn't mean he was right about everything. You can figure out a lot of physics and still believe in myths and superstitions but it doesn't follow that doing so is rational behavior.
Why on earth people are so infatuated with Neil DeGrasse Tyson or Brian Cox (UK) is beyond me. What's next?
So we should aspire to be a snarky hipster like yourself?
He's doing important work explaining science in a comprehensible way to a lot of people who aren't scientists. People make important decisions based on whether they understand science. Most of these decision makers are not scientists themselves. The more they know the better the odds that they will avoid stupid decisions. Would you prefer your doctor treat you based on mythology instead of science? A lot of science gets funding because the public supports and trusts science. Scientists in general are terrible at public relations so having some guys like NDGT who are actually good at it is hugely beneficial to all of us.
If you want to get out there and explain science to the masses and can do so with reasonable eloquence then please do. But if all you want to do is be snarky and act cooler-than-thou then please go elsewhere.
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I don't get "smartphones are too expensive."
What about it is confusing? They ARE expensive, at least to anyone with some appreciation of the value of a dollar.
Fifteen years ago people paid $1,000 or more out of pocket just to connect a desktop to the Internet.
Just because things are cheaper than they used to be doesn't mean everyone can afford them. Nor does it mean that you are necessarily getting good value for money.
Furthermore, phone plans with plenty of (non-video, non-streaming) Internet access can be found for something like $25/month from places like Virgin Mobile.
$25/month to a lot of people can mean the difference between being able to pay rent or not. I think you have very little idea what it actually means to be poor.
It's a $30 phone without any subsidies and you're bitching that it lacks fancy features? You do realize that there are lots of people who don't actually need maps/navigation on their phone right? Hell I have a current generation iPhone and I very rarely use it for navigation since my car has a GPS built in.
There is a very sizeable market for basic phones with basic features at a low price. Nokia has been serving this market successfully for many years now.
i just hear this as "i don't have the patience for chess, the brains for go, or the balls for poker."
It's not that I think chess or serious poker are bad games. Rather that they take a level of dedication to play at the highest level that takes all the fun out of it for me. Playing poker for serious money is more like a job than a game. A casual game of speed chess is fun. Poker on a friday night with your buddies is a great time. Trying to win the World Cup of Poker is no longer a game but an obsession. Misses the whole point for me.
Your mileage may vary of course...
Sealed deck or not Magic is still a game of chance.
Nothing wrong with that. There is a high degree of skill in the game just like poker. Yes you can have a bad beat but on average the better player usually wins.
Here is the catch, they employ a smaller amount of people, much, much smaller than they used to.
This is correct to a point. Manufacturing in the US is largely capital intensive these days. It's not unlike what happened in farming 50-100 years ago. More productive with a smaller percent of the workforce. Used to be you could graduate from high school and go work on an assembly line with no training at all and make a decent wage. This had a lot to do with the US being the only major economy left standing after WWII. As Europe recovered and Japan and Asia came on line, the available global work force supply increased and US wages for labor intensive work got out of whack with prevailing wages elsewhere. US manufacturing wages are experiencing a reversion to the mean because now they have to compete against places like China and India with MUCH lower average wages and bigger populations in need of work. We've had close to a 1/3 of the global workforce sitting on the sidelines until the last 25 years or so.
I have a friend who is a machinist. He can make anything out of metal. He tells me it is hard to find people who have the ability to do what they need at his company. Surprising? Not really.
It's not hard to find people that do such work. I have to do it all the time for my job. They just may not be in the US for the wages his company can pay. Offer a high enough wage and I guarantee you'll find someone but that probably isn't possible. I have the same problem. I can get good people but they are hard to find for what I can pay them while remaining competitive. Skilled labor like the fellow you describe can be expensive and for labor intensive work those jobs have often migrated overseas. Many of those formerly employed in that line of work migrate to other work or retire. New workers train for other things because there are attractive alternatives and perceived competition.
High labor costs = labor intensive work moves where labor is cheap, i.e. frequently not in the US. People like that aren't hard to find not because they don't exist but rather because the wages they demand in the US are economically uncompetitive. I can find guys in China or India or Mexico who are just as skilled (or near as makes no difference) and cost 1/2 to 1/5 the price per hour. Why would companies train people to do that work when they can get it done overseas for far less money?
The problem is that the types of employment, the skill levels required, have vastly outpaced the American education systems ability to generate competent workers to work in those jobs
The american education (meaning schools) system NEVER really trained people for jobs like being a machinist. Virtually all of that training aside from a tiny bit of vocational training has been on-the-job training by companies. And that is fine - most real training for real jobs is on the job training. I've met very few programmers who were ready to go straight out of college in the real world. Same with engineers, nurses or any other profession. The reason we have trouble getting workers in those fields is because of cost and perceived opportunity, and less because of a deficient training system. (not to say the training system couldn't be greatly improved like you point out - it certainly could) Companies tend to outsource labor intensive jobs when they can so they aren't perceived (rightly or wrongly) as secure by incoming or displaced workers. Unfortunately jobs like machinsts also aren't considered glamorous in our culture. We tend to look down our noses at people who work with machines for a living. Sad and wrong but it happens.
Things I like in a board/card game:
1) Rules that are relatively easy to pick up in a short time even by casual players
2) A balanced game where proper play should provide a reasonable chance for all players to win
3) An element of randomness but one that demands calculation of odds ala poker (outcomes not pure chance)
4) Playable by groups of 2-4 people.
5) Easy to learn and play competently but hard to master completely
6) Can be played in a relatively short amount of time
7) Socially fun and with minimal frustration (though sneaky tactics are fine)
8) Some monetary investment is fine but should be playable without being a money pit
9) Replayable
Games I like: Carcassone, casual poker, sealed deck Magic:The Gathering, Battletech,
Games that are ok but overrated: Chess, Checkers, Go, Uno, serious poker, Trivial Pursuit
Games I loathe: Pictionary, Monopoly, Risk,
Haven't you heard? Manufacturing is coming back to America, bigtime. It's just coming back automated. Relatively few jobs are coming back with the manufacturing.
Hate to break it to you but manufacturing never left America. Ever. It's a popular meme to claim that the USA doesn't make anything anymore but it is not and never was ever true. The US manufacturing sector, by itself today if it were a country, would be one of the ten largest economies in the world by GDP. The only country with a manufacturing sector of similar size is China and by dollar value they are roughly the same size to within a percentage point or two. And China has only caught up in the last few years despite having 5X the population. China does a lot of the labor intensive manufacturing and the US does a lot of the capital intensive manufacturing. That proportion will change over time as wages change in both the US and China as well as in other places.
You are correct that the relatively proportion of jobs in certain types of manufacturing is going to fall similar to how it did for farming. But this is not a doomsday scenario. It means that labor pool is now available to do something else that previously was not possible. If we all still had to work on a farm then the internet would probably have never come about. If you use people to do what a robot can do, then you are necessarily wasting resources by not utilizing people to their fullest capability.
Hate to sound like a luddite, but what's a person to do for a job?
The exact same question has been asked at the start of every technology advancement and the answer is the same as it has always been. Something different. Probably something you are having a hard time even imagining right now. As an example you're complaining that we shouldn't have accounting software because it took labor and thus jobs out of accounting. Would you seriously argue that computers have eliminated jobs because we need fewer secretaries now? It's an absurd argument because it presumes that the amount of economically valuable work out there is fixed and not growing or growing too slowly.
Farming is automated, manufacturing is automated, even service industry jobs are becoming automated
Umm, there is PLENTY of valuable work that cannot be economically automated. I run a manufacturing company that does assembly work. There is NO automation that can economically replace what we do and none likely within my working lifetime. Not because the technology doesn't exist but because humans are more flexible and economic in plenty of circumstances. Automation is useful but the limits on it are economic rather than technical in most cases. If you need a small quantity of something produced, it is difficult or even impossible to economically automate that in most cases. Same with creative work. Same with complicated work. For automation to replace all people you will have to develop a robot or other automation that is as capable as a person AND less costly. We are no where close to that occurring.
Wages may not be inflated like they've gotten in the US in the last 50 years but that doesn't mean there won't be any work anymore. It just will be different than it was and some places (like the US) may experience a reversion to the mean on wages. I know that uncertainty is scary but the notion that automation is going to eliminate all jobs is just ridiculous.
So the iPod, iPhone and iPad were "nothing special", hardware-wise? I beg to differ.
Not really, no. Apple's iDevices are mostly good pieces of kit to be sure but there are competing products whose hardware is arguable equal and on occasion better. I have a current generation iPhone and also an Android phone from Samsung. The hardware is not meaningfully better on one or the other overall. Weight, battery life, responsiveness, features etc are for practical purposes barely different. Oh I could nitpick and say one is better than the other in this or that feature but the differences overall are very minor. Same with the tablets. Apple's hardware is nice but there are competitors that make kit of similar quality and features. Hell Apple sued Samsung because their kit was to a casual glance almost indistinguishable in some cases.
The things that really sets them apart is the software which is quite different. Apple doesn't make their own hardware but they do make their own software.
Apple is a platform company, and always has been. The user experience is driven by software running on applicable hardware. Apple started as a hardware company, and has always focused on having a reliable platform. A Jobs snippet taken out of context doesn't mean much.
"Platform company"? I could live with that except that pretty much the only thing Apple actually makes (not designs - makes) themselves is software and almost everything that actually makes their products meaningfully different is software. They outsource ALL production of hardware and the hardware they produce is for all practical purposes identical to their competitors. Sure they put their little spin on it and the hardware is nice but it doesn't truly set them apart. If Apple started selling Macs with Windows preloaded or iPhones with Android preloaded, their ability command the margins they do would evaporate faster than you could say "shareholder lawsuit". Anything you outsource 100% is not core to your business if you plan on remaining in business for long.
And the Jobs quote wasn't out of context. The video speaks entirely for itself and I've seen the entire interview where he made that statement. Steve Jobs himself said quite plainly and without equivocation that Apple at its core is a software company. And in this case I pretty much agree with him. Whether you like Jobs or not he very clearly understood what made Apple successful and what set them apart from their competition. And the core of that differentiation is software.
On this, just about everyone will disagree. Their hardware is different, performs within published specs, and lasts better and longer than any competitor.
So good of you to speak for everyone. Fact is that the hardware in any mac made since they moved to Intel chips is not meaningfully different from PCs. The CPUs, GPUs, chipsets, memory and the rest are almost identical to similarly spec'd PCs. The cases are pretty and they do a better than average job supporting them (for the limited time they do support them) but the hardware demonstrably is not different. Their iDevices are slightly more customized but realistically aren't much different than their competition either. ARM CPUs, same memory, same glass, etc. Hell Apple even sued Samsung because according to Apple the hardware on devices Samsung was selling were barely distinguishable. Even at it's most extreme Apple's hardware is at most marginally different from that of their competitors.
If you want to claim that Macs or iDevices "last longer" you'll have to provide some actual evidence to support that assertion. I've seen no credible evidence to support your position.
And you knew this, so why do you state they're a software company?
Because the software is what differentiates their products. Software is near-as-makes-no-difference the only thing that Apple themselves makes that they do not outsource. They design some hardware but they don't make it - they don't even assemble it. A company is what it does. Apple makes software and then designs some pretty boxes out of mostly commodity hardware to sell it in which someone else makes and distributes. Apple is at its core a software company because that is where they make their money.
Really? US dollar?
Absolutely.
Swiss Franc is much more stable.
The Swiss Franc is the currency of a relatively small country with a GDP around $350 billion. That is not big enough to protect itself against heavy currency speculation and certainly isn't big enough to be as safe as the dollar, yuan or euro. The Swiss economy is increasingly dependent on foreign investment and that should be worrisome if you think it is some sort of safe haven.
Euro, is very spendable, mostly stable
The Euro may not even exist in 10 years and it is anything but stable. Have you paid NO attention to the currency crises in Europe for the last 5 years?
US Dollar is not worth its weight in paper.
Really? Because the people who actually put their money where their mouth is completely disagree with you. If the dollar wasn't considered safe then interest rates should be going through the roof. Instead interest rates are near all time lows meaning that investors consider the dollar to be among the safest places to invest.
China holds vast amount of US Dollars and the moment they decide to sell some or all of these, the currency will start to look like the Zimbabwe Dollar.
Who do you think China is going to sell them to? Seriously, who? The answer is no one. There isn't another buyer that can buy or wants to buy $1 Trillion in US debt. China owns that US debt so that they can keep their currency cheap and thereby support their export driven economy. The moment they sell a substantial portion of their US debt holdings, the yuan will appreciate in value and every single export from China will immediately become more expensive overseas. There is NOTHING China can do to dump their US debt holdings that will not hurt China worse than it will hurt the US. China only holds about 8% of US debt. It's a nice sound bite but the notion that they somehow now "own" the US is absurd to anyone who isn't clueless.
I want shareholders to stuff it up their assholes. They do not RUN the company...
No, they OWN the company. It is their company and their property. It's entirely appropriate that they make their feelings known about how management is handling their property. It would be no different than you hiring a groundskeeper for your lawn. You have every right to tell the groundskeeper how you want things done because it is your property, not his.
and this bullshit law that forces companies to chase profits above all else has done nothing but ruin the world
Really? Tell you what. Go visit someplace like Somalia where there are essentially no companies "chasing profits" and then tell me that companies have "done nothing but ruin the world". Go see the poverty and lawlessness and desperation. The very fact you can read this and argue about it is due to those very same companies you seem to love to hate. The food you eat and the bed you sleep in so comfortably is thanks to those companies.
Ten years can be a long time if you've got the cash and a "core business" to eek out existence on
Exactly right. Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc all have huge cash hordes and aren't going to disappear in the next 25 years because they can simply buy their way into another line of business if needed.
Apple's market will shrink rather than grow, primarily due to their failure to really innovate.
I think you are making the common mistake that most people make about Apple's pace of innovation. Apple only produces about 1-2 big innovations per decade. Their last big product introduction (the iPad) has only been around since 2010 and the iPhone only came out in 2007 and the iPod/iTunes was in 2001. It's going to take some time but I think ApplePay has the potential to be a huge product for Apple. It's certainly the most interesting thing they've done lately and nobody (even Google) has something quite as slick. I think the Apple watch is going to be DOA but maybe not. I just don't think they got the use case right on that one - I don't see what itch it scratches. Anyway the point is that Apple introduces a big product every 5-10 years and always has. If they haven't done anything of note by 2020 then we should start to wonder about what's going on.
Facebook will still be around, and bigger than ever. They've made a couple of smart investments, and if those play out, they're going to grow their market substantially with them (especially on the VR front -- think virtual meetings, markets, and presentations.)
What smart investments? I think Facebook has been wildly overpaying for some pretty speculative stuff. I think their VR investments are going to wither and die. Nobody is going to use Occulus VR headsets for business meetings. Ever. I was doing work in VR 15 years ago and it is the very definition of a niche market. The use cases are gaming and then what? There is a modest market in games but geeks are hugely overestimating it and frankly Facebook hugely over paid for Occulus in my opinion. I just don't see the use cases to justify the investment. I don't mind being wrong in this case but I just don't see the ROI. MAYBE if they have a breakthrough in augmented reality but Occulus isn't even really working on that right now.
The real shock is going to be the death of the PC. With the advent of higher resolution virtual displays and augmented reality glasses, the need for a physical screen will finally wane and the PC will be replaced by a bluetooth keyboard and mouse talking to that virtual hardware.
Complete nonsense. The PC isn't going anywhere. Tablets will eat some but not all of the market. There is no way in hell VR displays are going to do away with monitors. Augmented reality is still science fiction for the time being and even should it become practical it isn't going to replace the PC. The potential use cases for augmented reality products are quite different than for PCs.
I away figured Microsoft had enough money to not die until the early 2020's.
Microsoft won't die. Unless they are weapons-grade stupid the worst case scenario for them is that they use their cash horde to buy their way into another line of business. They have an absurd amount of cash. They could buy majority stakes in both Ford and GM today with cash if they wanted to. Not saying that's a good idea but they can buy all but a handful of companies on the planet without even issuing a dime of debt or equity to do it.
No, Microsoft isn't going anywhere. They might not resemble their current form in 20 years but they're certainly going to be around for a long while.
And yet people point at iOS market share vs Android as some kind of evidence the iPhone is "over." They're making the same mistake pundits have always done with Apple: mistaken them for a software company.
Umm, Apple IS a software company. They don't give their software away, the just sell it attached to a piece of hardware. Their hardware is nothing particularly special. A Mac is barely different from a Dell hardware-wise and if you put Windows on the Mac you can't tell the difference. Nobody would pay a premium to Apple for a Mac with Windows on it so the difference MUST be in the software because that is all that is really different. The hardware is a commodity and Apple does not manufacture any of it themselves. The iPhone is nice but you could just as easily load Android on the hardware. Almost the entire reason people buy Apple products and pay a premium is due to the software. They are fundamentally a software company that just won't sell you the software without some commodity hardware attached.
They sell hardware.
They sell a vertically integrated platform which includes both software and hardware. Apple does not just sell hardware.
People would talk about the installed user base of Macs vs. Windows, when Apple does not compete with Microsoft (directly), they compete with Dell and Lenovo and HP and every other PC hardware company.
Incorrect. Apple competes with HP+Microsoft and Lenovo+Microsoft and Dell+Microsoft. Notice that Microsoft is there each time. They compete quite directly with Microsoft via OEM sales. A sale for Apple is explicitly not a sale for Microsoft + whatever hardware vendor their stuff comes bundled with. If that isn't the definition of competition I don't really know what is.
In the United States HIPAA explicitly 'gives' you this right
Apparently you didn't bother to read your link. It gives the right to request an amendment in 164.526 (a) (1) but immediately below in 164.526 (a) (2) it explicitly gives health care providers the right to deny the amendment for very broad reasons. Like I said, a health care provider would be insane to permit unrestricted control of health records to patients. They are NOT your records exclusively. They are health records but also business records, legal records and sometimes financial records. Do you have any idea of the amount of fraud that would occur if patients had unrestricted control of their medical record? You are not the only party with a protected interest in the handling of those documents and I wouldn't expect them to relinquish control of the documents without a court order.
Seriously, they're about me. They should give me full and complete access to them, I should have control over them.
They are NOT solely about you. They are about the actions taken to treat you. They are business records in addition to being health records and as such you should have some amount of of access but a practice would be insane to give you full control of them. You certainly should not have the right to modify medical records or delete them. You should not have the right to withhold the records from the practice in the event of the dispute. The practice is required by law to keep them stored safely for a number of years (in general) after you have been treated. You have no such legal requirement. In many countries the medical records are explicitly the property of the health service and not yours in any way.
Yet...it's like pulling teeth to get records of my tooth extraction.
It's generally not all that hard to get copies of medical records, particularly if you as at the time of service. Some places are more cooperative than others but it's doable.
I take the "stay healthy" route.
Oh is that all there is to it? If those darn cancer patients would just "stay healthy" then they wouldn't have to deal with those pesky doctors. Why didn't anyone else think of that?
You have a small practice and you get the system meant for a large hospital.
That's typically because they work closely with a particular hospital and desire compatibility with the hospital's EMR system. Not always but often.
There are a lot of small EMR systems that are fast and easy to use, but doesn't cover everything under the sun.
And there are many that cannot exchange records with other systems which defeats 99% of the purpose of having an EMR system in the first place. Just because it is smaller doesn't make it necessarily a better fit. Granted, many of them don't really examine the options closely enough but it would be pretty easy to get siloed into a small package that doesn't really fit the practice.
They start shopping with a fixed price in their head... Often buying not on features but the one closest to the price.,
That's generally because they have a finite budget for the EMR system and they know they are probably going to take a bath on it financially for several years at best. EMR systems are VERY expensive. Just because a different system would fit their needs better doesn't mean they can necessarily afford it.
Once you get the data digital, there is so much more you can do with the data. Statistical Analysis on effectiveness of procedures. Being able to request and get back results electronically, getting alerts from the hospital. etc....
I think you greatly overestimate the amount of time available to a typical practice to do such things like statistical analysis. I think you also overestimate how compatible EMR systems are with each other. Unless you happen to use the same system from the same vendor as the place you are exchanging records with you probably are out of luck doing it electronically.
You deal in absolutes; in an age where even voluntary prayer is discouraged (if not banned) in public schools, "always" doesn't even come close to being true.
It's banned because the believers almost invariably attempt to force their prayers and other religious ceremonies on those who do not share their beliefs. They had to make a law because it too often isn't voluntary and frankly it has no place in getting an education. We shouldn't need laws like the 14th and 15th and 19th Amendments to the Constitution but we do because otherwise the rights of disadvantaged groups get abused.
I only mention that because it does go both ways, and has for quite awhile now.
Really? Maybe where you live but being an atheist in quite a few places in the US is regarded with little to no tact at all. There are other places where being an atheist can be a death sentence. I don't honestly see a lot of tact coming from the theists.
You do bring up a good point though - if you're in the minority, how best are you going to win converts - by showing kindness and tact, or by swinging superiority like a cudgel?
Depends on the circumstance. Both have their time and place unfortunately. I think the former is by far preferable but the later is sadly necessary now and then.
Tweeting on Christmas day and starting your tweet as "On this day long ago, a child was born who, by age 30, would transform the world." is an obvious attempt at misdirection where most people (non-Christians included) would assume is is talking about Jesus. Then to suddenly reveal you are really talking about Issac Newton is a way of playing a joke on the reader.
Sounds like a creative way to inform people of a fact to me. Pretty funny and clever actually.
But instead he drew obvious parallels to Jesus in an attempt to misdirect, and bring up the topic of Christmas while making a point of ignoring it. This joke he played on the reader is why people are upset. It was a dick thing to do, and he should not be surprised that this upset some people.
I'm sure Mr Tyson is not entirely surprised at the reaction but I strongly disagree that it was "a dick thing to do". Why should he have to walk on eggshells around their faith when they don't even pay attention to the teachings of they guy they are trying to protect? Didn't Jesus preach something about turning the other cheek?
It's funny, I can't think of ever meeting a person who doesn't understand that it's a celebration, not an anniversary.
I know quite a few people who think it is an actual birthday. A few get quite hostile if you suggest otherwise. These are not highly educated people but they believe what they are capable of understanding.
Are there any Christian denomination that has as dogma a fixed date of 12/25 (or any other date) as the birth day anniversary of Jesus? I can't think of any.
Probably but that kind of misses the point. I would suggest that a huge percentage (probably the majority) of the devout don't really understand a lot of the finer details of their faith. Much like math class, just because you sat in the lecture doesn't mean they comprehended what was said. I think a lot of people attend because of social pressure or due to personal insecurities rather than with the intent to really comprehend.
No, it's not.
Yes it is. He is director of the Hayden Planetarium which is part of a museum devoted to the natural sciences. The purpose of a museum and by extension its administration is in part to educate the masses. So yes, it very much IS his job.
It's no more his job to explain things to me than it is for some guy to just barge into my home and begin telling me how I should redecorate. I didn't ask him to, I didn't hire him to, I didn't indicate any desire on my part for him to do so.
Nobody is forcing you to listen to him. He is teaching and providing information to those willing to listen. If you wish to remain willfully ignorant that is your choice. If you are just disliking him because he is a public figure then you have issues you should really work out.
We're allowed to find fault with the man.
You certainly seem determined to do so. Not really sure why. I would suggest you lighten up and try to understand that he is doing a public service since scientists in general are rather bad at public relations and explaining what it is they do and why it matters. If you already know what he is saying then move along because he's not speaking to you.
But he's a great reminder that one need not choose between being a great scientist and a devout follower of Jesus Christ.
That is technically true it typically means that the scientist is not applying the scientific method to all aspects of their life. A rational scientist would be expected to demand some tangible evidence supporting the assertions made in relation to Jesus. Since most of the "evidence" consists of claims in a book unsupported by credible historical evidence, observed laws of nature and logic, it shouldn't be surprising that scientists in general tend to not be theists. Blind faith and the scientific method are poorly compatible world views if you are disciplined about one or the other. While there are some scientists who are devout, it tends to be a willful blindness on their part.
Basically, just because Newton was smart and got some important stuff right, doesn't mean he was right about everything. You can figure out a lot of physics and still believe in myths and superstitions but it doesn't follow that doing so is rational behavior.
Why on earth people are so infatuated with Neil DeGrasse Tyson or Brian Cox (UK) is beyond me. What's next?
So we should aspire to be a snarky hipster like yourself?
He's doing important work explaining science in a comprehensible way to a lot of people who aren't scientists. People make important decisions based on whether they understand science. Most of these decision makers are not scientists themselves. The more they know the better the odds that they will avoid stupid decisions. Would you prefer your doctor treat you based on mythology instead of science? A lot of science gets funding because the public supports and trusts science. Scientists in general are terrible at public relations so having some guys like NDGT who are actually good at it is hugely beneficial to all of us.
If you want to get out there and explain science to the masses and can do so with reasonable eloquence then please do. But if all you want to do is be snarky and act cooler-than-thou then please go elsewhere.
Caffeine is already banned as a PED above certain quantities. (Or at least it was last time I checked)