What has happened as real incomes have become ten times as large over the last 140 years is that we've become more educated. When Americans spent their days farming with a horse, they were doing a job that required a fourth grade education and earned $4K/year.
Later, they earned $20K running a partially automated tractor and used their high school education to plot out crop patterns. Today, Americans average $40K and farmers have a bachelor's degree from Texas A&M. They operate $2 million combines with GPS and laser range finders to be more productive and earn more.
That's simply and quite clearly false. For example, automation of the phone system replaced operators moving plugs with voip techs. The new technology always makes the people more productive, and therefore more valuable. Any technology that doesn't increase productivity get implemented. That's one of several simple logical proofs.
It's also clear that machines are suited for extremely low skill, repetitive tasks - the very lowest paying jobs. That leaves the humans to do less mundane and therefore higher paying jobs.
Lastly, we've actually done it, so we know what happens. In 1870, real per capita income in the US was around $4000. In 1900, $6k. In 1940, $8k, 1970 $20k, 2000 $40k. (All figures adjusted for inflation to 1995 dollars).
As society has become more automated, incomes have gone from $4,000 to $40,000. That's historical fact.
Do you happen to have any real world comparisons between these newer and some other options. The 512 MB of battery backed RAM in my 3ware 95xx SHOULD be awesome for some workloads where it's not. It's better than turning off the cache, but it's not what I was hoping for.
Since mdadm software raid is much faster than the 3ware for my raid 5, I'm hesitant to spend $$$ on a high end raid card that likely will be slower and less compatible than modern software raid. When bcache is in the vendor kernels THAT looks like a giant win with some PCIe flash.
For READS, yes it's mainly about boot time and the first time you open a frequently used program. WRITES on the other hand can't be cached to RAM, not for more than a few seconds (and some not at all). Persistent cache makes all the difference for random writes.
The benchmarks understate the improvement because they generally lack locality and frequent rewrites. Benchmarks typically spread writes all over a 2 TB drive. In actual use, random writes aren't truly random. A database will write to the same xx MBs thousands of times, as will an email client and many other applications. Having the 500 MB that is your database on the flash cache is a huge improvement for these types of workloads. For some other workloads, the improvement is minimal.
with actual real world write speeds of around 20 MB/s, that capacitor would need to spin the drive for three minutes. That would be one hell of a capacitor. Flash chips use less power and are faster, so they could run long enough on capacitors that actually exist.
I looked at buying one of these. Writes don't really go to flash. Selected blocks are asynchronously copied to flash.
There's cool way to avoid the cash over use you mention that I wish someone would make in an under $500 drive. Have 4GB of flash, 4GB of DRAM, and a capacitor. Random writes go to DRAM, making random io a thousand times faster. On power failure, the capacitor flashes the contents of the DRAM to the flash. You get the speed of DRAM, crash safety, and 3TB of capacity from the underlying spindle.
Hmm "legal to possess and trade". It's not a controlled drug, a machine gun, or a bomb. Therefore it's legal in the US. Was there some confusion about that? (Actually even bombs are often legal on private property, transporting them on the public roads involves DOT regulations.) Anything not prohibited is legal, and the list of prohibited items is pretty short.
If you had any doubt that the standard principle applies , for several months now Senator Tom Coburn has been soliciting input on workable, common sense ways to apply consumer protection and money laundering regulations in the context of virtual exchange systems like bitcoin. The questionbbeing discussed is "how should rules designed to protect bank deposits etc. be adapted to work well for bitcoin 'banks'?". Noone is questioning whether it's legal to have a number.
There is a question of how, lacking FDIC insurance, regulatory oversight, etc. you can be assured that your bitcoin service providers won't take your money and vanish. If you can put together some thoughtful comments on how to balance the freedom of users and service providers with existing laws on ie doing business with Iran, Senator Coburn's office would love to hear your ideas.
> So if they exchange Btc for USD, they are legitimizing Bitcoin as a currency.
Law enforcement routinely sells bicycles that have been abandoned or stolen. Does that make bicycles currency? Selling bitcoins == selling bicycles. Selling something doesn't turn it into currency. Accepting it as payment would be using it for currency. As soon as you can pay fines and government fees in bitcoin, that's when the government will be treating bitcoin as currency.
I've been told the "non-essential employees" that are affected make up 25% of the federal payroll, most publicly visible customer-service type jobs. All the bureaucrats are "essential" and won't be going anywhere.
Dude I hardly said anything about the US system, much less pumped my fist. I just provided the numbers for the Canadian system, which was being presented as "free" and some kind of paradise.
The US spends a LOT on healthcare, and changes are needed. When you're making major changes to a system that important and that complex, it's wise to CAREFULLY consider different options. Almost any change that helps solve some problems will also create new problems. Anything that has an effect also has a side effect.
In general, cheaper = lower quality, but we need to cut costs. That means we need to be careful. One way to reduce costs without reducing quality is to allow Texas consumers to ditch a crappy Texas insurance company and get a much better company from Arkansas. Right now, that's illegal. You can only buy insurance from a few companies in your home state. What do you think would happen if Maryland residents were only allowed to buy TVs made in Maryland, if it were illegal to buy from Samsung, Sony, LG, or any other major manufacturer? The reason Samsung keeps making their TBs better and cheaper is to compete with LG. Why not let insurance companies compete, have them try to EARN your business?
70% / 30% is the Canada number. In the US, government pays about 46%. Of course that's about to change.
Can't choose faster service? In my city of 160,000 people, there are three hospitals and at least one of them has a billboard advertising their average ER wait time for the month. At clinic I go to I can normally get in the same day. If I can't, I can choose to go to the walk in clinic near where I work.
As I said, the US system certainly isn't perfect. Compared to waiting weeks for an appointment in Canada, the US system certainly has some advantages. Some Canadians I know come to the US to get better care. Some Americans go to Canada to but cheaper prescriptions. Each has strengths and weaknesses. The wise thing to do is to try to combine the best of both. For example, if Canadian clinics could compete for patients by either being "zero cost" by charging the government rate or trying to offer better, speedier care to attract patients willing to pay an extra $25, that might work well. As is, Canadian clinics have no incentive to do the best they can. They get paid the same whether their doctors are awesome or if they're drunk.
The government figures say a married couple with no children pay on average $11,381 in government healthcare premiums, and pay $3,414 for medication and other expenses.
Adding those two official numbers, that's $14,795 per year, or $1,232.94 per month for two people.
A married couple with no children pay, on average, $11,381 in government healthcare premiums. Those premiums cover 70% of healthcare costs. The other 30% of costs are paid out of pocket.
89% of the time, the time for an appointment is less than 90 days. 11%of the time, you have to wait more than 3 months.
For any doctor other than a GP, the average wait time is longer than 30 days.
Patients are not permitted to pay for faster service. Patients are not permitted to pay for higher quality care. Patients may pay for services not covered by the government program.
In the US, costs are similar, but slightly higher. Wait times are measured in hours, not weeks. If you're not satisfied with one doctor, you can get a second opinion from another doctor.
The US system is of course not perfect. It does have (had?) a lot of advantages over the Canadian system.
It DOES reflect the majority of voters. The majority voted for Feinstein and all the rest. I've spoken to several people who think the NSA thing isn't a problem. They grow more concerned when I provide them some information about what the NSA has been doing.
It's not that the majority wants to be spied on, it's that the majority is watching Dancing With the Stars. In some surveys, most people didn't know who the vice president was. Of those who DID know the vice president's name, around 40% say they get their news from Comedy Central.
So about 15% of Americans read or watch news programs (South Park and Daily Show aren't news).
The majority doesn't know what NSA stands for, and the nature of that majority is reflected in the government's actions.
Preschoolers can start learning 90% of programming - thinking clearly, being specific about what you mean, looking at HOW things work. I was actually coding BASIC around third grade I guess, but code is a small part of programming.
Pre-setting a macro in a toy truck is programming, and develops the skills - breaking down a desired outcome into specific steps, trying it and then making refinements, etc.
That could work. I could see some reasonably tough restrictions on patent suits for the next 5-10 years , long enough for the crooks to get out of that business.
I laugh at the "ban patents" or "ban patents that can involve software" people because by their logic, they would have banned medicine in the 1880s because there were snake oil salesman.
Also worth noting, the cost of the food stamp program has doubled since Obama took office.
In 2001, it cost us $15 billion. This year, $75 billion. So yeah, it's getting out of control and it's time to go back to common sense ideas that worked when Clinton agreed with the Republicans that unlimited taxpayer money for able bodied adults is silly.
That bill, which won't pass the senate, largely reinstates the requirements Clinton signed. The biggest one is that if you're 18-50 and have no kids, but want food stamps, you eventually have to do some job training so there's a chance you'll eventually get off food stamps.
> I voted for change in 2008. So did millions of other Americans
Millions of Americans voted for "hope and change". My mother-in-law was one of those millions. The problem is, "hope and change" was a _slogan_. She voted for a slogan. That's entirely understandable, most people are not political scientists, and they have several other things in their life that they care more about than economics, foreign affairs, etc. They aren't researching the candidates voting records because they are busy making dinner for their kids, changing a tire, or enjoying some hobby.
When I ask my mother-in-law opinion on any issue, she's most often against the position Senator Obama voted for. She actually disagrees with him on most things. She doesn't know that because she works 50 hours a week and has a life, so she doesn't spend time studying the issues. Instead, she votes a slogan. Completely understandable.
While it's completely understandable, it creates big problems. Ideally, everyone would spend 100 hours every four years studying the candidates, after spending 100 hours in each of the off years studying economics, foreign policy, etc. That's not going to happen. Most people are to busy / not interested enough to make a truly informed choice. If you're willing to study from impartial sources, great. If not, please do waste your vote on a third party, or stay home. Uninformed votes based on slogans are not helpful.
If you don't know what the capital of Iran is AND you don't know what the two major branches of economics are AND you don't know how many trillion the national debt is, you don't know who to vote for. That's okay. If you know two of the three, great, go vote.
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What has happened as real incomes have become ten times as large over the last 140 years is that we've become more educated. When Americans spent their days farming with a horse, they were doing a job that required a fourth grade education and earned $4K/year.
Later, they earned $20K running a partially automated tractor and used their high school education to plot out crop patterns. Today, Americans average $40K and farmers have a bachelor's degree from Texas A&M. They operate $2 million combines with GPS and laser range finders to be more productive and earn more.
That's simply and quite clearly false. For example, automation of the phone system replaced operators moving plugs with voip techs. The new technology always makes the people more productive, and therefore more valuable. Any technology that doesn't increase productivity get implemented. That's one of several simple logical proofs.
It's also clear that machines are suited for extremely low skill, repetitive tasks - the very lowest paying jobs. That leaves the humans to do less mundane and therefore higher paying jobs.
Lastly, we've actually done it, so we know what happens. In 1870, real per capita income in the US was around $4000. In 1900, $6k. In 1940, $8k, 1970 $20k, 2000 $40k. (All figures adjusted for inflation to 1995 dollars).
As society has become more automated, incomes have gone from $4,000 to $40,000. That's historical fact.
Power loss is the reason for the capacitor to copy the RAM to flash, to basically make persistent DRAM cache.
PCIe is very "close to the processor", and PCIe flash cards are available. They are awesome, but require software such as bcache.
Do you happen to have any real world comparisons between these newer and some other options. The 512 MB of battery backed RAM in my 3ware 95xx SHOULD be awesome for some workloads where it's not. It's better than turning off the cache, but it's not what I was hoping for.
Since mdadm software raid is much faster than the 3ware for my raid 5, I'm hesitant to spend $$$ on a high end raid card that likely will be slower and less compatible than modern software raid. When bcache is in the vendor kernels THAT looks like a giant win with some PCIe flash.
For READS, yes it's mainly about boot time and the first time you open a frequently used program. WRITES on the other hand can't be cached to RAM, not for more than a few seconds (and some not at all). Persistent cache makes all the difference for random writes.
The benchmarks understate the improvement because they generally lack locality and frequent rewrites. Benchmarks typically spread writes all over a 2 TB drive. In actual use, random writes aren't truly random. A database will write to the same xx MBs thousands of times, as will an email client and many other applications. Having the 500 MB that is your database on the flash cache is a huge improvement for these types of workloads. For some other workloads, the improvement is minimal.
with actual real world write speeds of around 20 MB/s, that capacitor would need to spin the drive for three minutes. That would be one hell of a capacitor. Flash chips use less power and are faster, so they could run long enough on capacitors that actually exist.
.
After reading TFA, I was wrong, that was the previous model. This model does cache some writes in an area of the flash operated as SLC.
I looked at buying one of these. Writes don't really go to flash. Selected blocks are asynchronously copied to flash.
There's cool way to avoid the cash over use you mention that I wish someone would make in an under $500 drive. Have 4GB of flash, 4GB of DRAM, and a capacitor. Random writes go to DRAM, making random io a thousand times faster. On power failure, the capacitor flashes the contents of the DRAM to the flash. You get the speed of DRAM, crash safety, and 3TB of capacity from the underlying spindle.
Hmm "legal to possess and trade". It's not a controlled drug, a machine gun, or a bomb. Therefore it's legal in the US. Was there some confusion about that? (Actually even bombs are often legal on private property, transporting them on the public roads involves DOT regulations.) Anything not prohibited is legal, and the list of prohibited items is pretty short.
If you had any doubt that the standard principle applies , for several months now Senator Tom Coburn has been soliciting input on workable, common sense ways to apply consumer protection and money laundering regulations in the context of virtual exchange systems like bitcoin. The questionbbeing discussed is "how should rules designed to protect bank deposits etc. be adapted to work well for bitcoin 'banks'?". Noone is questioning whether it's legal to have a number.
There is a question of how, lacking FDIC insurance, regulatory oversight, etc. you can be assured that your bitcoin service providers won't take your money and vanish. If you can put together some thoughtful comments on how to balance the freedom of users and service providers with existing laws on ie doing business with Iran, Senator Coburn's office would love to hear your ideas.
> So if they exchange Btc for USD, they are legitimizing Bitcoin as a currency.
Law enforcement routinely sells bicycles that have been abandoned or stolen. Does that make bicycles currency?
Selling bitcoins == selling bicycles. Selling something doesn't turn it into currency. Accepting it as payment would be using it for currency.
As soon as you can pay fines and government fees in bitcoin, that's when the government will be treating bitcoin as currency.
Every cloud has a silver lining I suppose.
Where you wrote "the white house" my eyes read "the white noise". Poor vision or insightful pupils?
I've been told the "non-essential employees" that are affected make up 25% of the federal payroll, most publicly visible customer-service type jobs. All the bureaucrats are "essential" and won't be going anywhere.
Never mind two decades, the friggin air force has bombers in active service that were built in the 1950s.
An airplane doesn't need to play the newest version of angry birds, it needs to avoid injesting large birds.
It's not like they run Windows, so they're overrun with viruses if they aren't updated weekly. Oh shit.
Dude I hardly said anything about the US system, much less pumped my fist. I just provided the numbers for the Canadian system, which was being presented as "free" and some kind of paradise.
The US spends a LOT on healthcare, and changes are needed. When you're making major changes to a system that important and that complex, it's wise to CAREFULLY consider different options. Almost any change that helps solve some problems will also create new problems. Anything that has an effect also has a side effect.
In general, cheaper = lower quality, but we need to cut costs. That means we need to be careful. One way to reduce costs without reducing quality is to allow Texas consumers to ditch a crappy Texas insurance company and get a much better company from Arkansas. Right now, that's illegal. You can only buy insurance from a few companies in your home state. What do you think would happen if Maryland residents were only allowed to buy TVs made in Maryland, if it were illegal to buy from Samsung, Sony, LG, or any other major manufacturer? The reason Samsung keeps making their TBs better and cheaper is to compete with LG. Why not let insurance companies compete, have them try to EARN your business?
70% / 30% is the Canada number. In the US, government pays about 46%. Of course that's about to change.
Can't choose faster service? In my city of 160,000 people, there are three hospitals and at least one of them has a billboard advertising their average ER wait time for the month. At clinic I go to I can normally get in the same day. If I can't, I can choose to go to the walk in clinic near where I work.
As I said, the US system certainly isn't perfect. Compared to waiting weeks for an appointment in Canada, the US system certainly has some advantages. Some Canadians I know come to the US to get better care. Some Americans go to Canada to but cheaper prescriptions. Each has strengths and weaknesses. The wise thing to do is to try to combine the best of both. For example, if Canadian clinics could compete for patients by either being "zero cost" by charging the government rate or trying to offer better, speedier care to attract patients willing to pay an extra $25, that might work well. As is, Canadian clinics have no incentive to do the best they can. They get paid the same whether their doctors are awesome or if they're drunk.
The government figures say a married couple with no children pay on average $11,381 in government healthcare premiums, and pay $3,414 for medication and other expenses.
Adding those two official numbers, that's $14,795 per year, or $1,232.94 per month for two people.
In Canada:
A married couple with no children pay, on average, $11,381 in government healthcare premiums.
Those premiums cover 70% of healthcare costs.
The other 30% of costs are paid out of pocket.
89% of the time, the time for an appointment is less than 90 days.
11%of the time, you have to wait more than 3 months.
For any doctor other than a GP, the average wait time is longer than 30 days.
Patients are not permitted to pay for faster service.
Patients are not permitted to pay for higher quality care.
Patients may pay for services not covered by the government program.
In the US, costs are similar, but slightly higher. Wait times are measured in hours, not weeks. If you're not satisfied with one doctor, you can get a second opinion from another doctor.
The US system is of course not perfect. It does have (had?) a lot of advantages over the Canadian system.
It DOES reflect the majority of voters. The majority voted for Feinstein and all the rest. I've spoken to several people who think the NSA thing isn't a problem. They grow more concerned when I provide them some information about what the NSA has been doing.
It's not that the majority wants to be spied on, it's that the majority is watching Dancing With the Stars. In some surveys, most people didn't know who the vice president was. Of those who DID know the vice president's name, around 40% say they get their news from Comedy Central.
So about 15% of Americans read or watch news programs (South Park and Daily Show aren't news).
The majority doesn't know what NSA stands for, and the nature of that majority is reflected in the government's actions.
Preschoolers can start learning 90% of programming - thinking clearly, being specific about what you mean, looking at HOW things work. I was actually coding BASIC around third grade I guess, but code is a small part of programming.
Pre-setting a macro in a toy truck is programming, and develops the skills - breaking down a desired outcome into specific steps, trying it and then making refinements, etc.
That could work. I could see some reasonably tough restrictions on patent suits for the next 5-10 years , long enough for the crooks to get out of that business.
I laugh at the "ban patents" or "ban patents that can involve software" people because by their logic, they would have banned medicine in the 1880s because there were snake oil salesman.
Also worth noting, the cost of the food stamp program has doubled since Obama took office.
In 2001, it cost us $15 billion. This year, $75 billion.
So yeah, it's getting out of control and it's time to go back to common sense ideas that worked when Clinton agreed with the Republicans that unlimited taxpayer money for able bodied adults is silly.
That bill, which won't pass the senate, largely reinstates the requirements Clinton signed. The biggest one is that if you're 18-50 and have no kids, but want food stamps, you eventually have to do some job training so there's a chance you'll eventually get off food stamps.
> I voted for change in 2008. So did millions of other Americans
Millions of Americans voted for "hope and change". My mother-in-law was one of those millions. The problem is, "hope and change" was a _slogan_. She voted for a slogan. That's entirely understandable, most people are not political scientists, and they have several other things in their life that they care more about than economics, foreign affairs, etc. They aren't researching the candidates voting records because they are busy making dinner for their kids, changing a tire, or enjoying some hobby.
When I ask my mother-in-law opinion on any issue, she's most often against the position Senator Obama voted for. She actually disagrees with him on most things. She doesn't know that because she works 50 hours a week and has a life, so she doesn't spend time studying the issues. Instead, she votes a slogan. Completely understandable.
While it's completely understandable, it creates big problems. Ideally, everyone would spend 100 hours every four years studying the candidates, after spending 100 hours in each of the off years studying economics, foreign policy, etc. That's not going to happen. Most people are to busy / not interested enough to make a truly informed choice. If you're willing to study from impartial sources, great. If not, please do waste your vote on a third party, or stay home. Uninformed votes based on slogans are not helpful.
If you don't know what the capital of Iran is AND you don't know what the two major branches of economics are AND you don't know how many trillion the national debt is, you don't know who to vote for. That's okay. If you know two of the three, great, go vote.