How about taking the middleman out of healthcare and having people pay for it themselves like they do every other product?
Doctors have to keep multiple staff just to comply with insurance paperwork. Eliminate them all, and the cost of preventive care becomes an out of pocket expense. This has been proven to the point that the insurance companies inserted language into the ACA to block health savings accounts from being used at for-fee providers.
Yes. But, then you have to explain why you would buy a productive mine and just shut it down. Looks suspiciously like market manipulation, which leads to accusations of monopoly, which leads to cries of "screw you DeBeers."
There is a tremendous amount of work put in to making men think that this type of expensive adornment is vitally important.
Almost right.
There is a tremendous amount of work put in to making men think that this type of expensive adornment is vitally important to her.
We're told that she wants it. She has been watching the fairy tale romance proposals her ENTIRE LIFE! If the light is not sparkling off the water as the doves fly in the background while your proposing with a diamond large enough to blind the crowd, then you didn't really care about her to begin with and she will be heartbroken.
And you have to SUPRISE her with it. You can't talk about it beforehand. You have to read her friggin' mind, and if you make the SLIGHTEST mistake you will crush her childhood dreams. Are you going to be THAT guy. The cruel, heartless, stingy bastard. Or, are you going to let your hormones drive you forward? Just think of the great sex you'll have when she is so happy (this is only hinted at...never explicitly stated).
Of all the marketing tricks, it is the "keep it secret" part that, by raising uncertainty, coerces men to tow the line.
Myself, I was upfront that it wasn't a real stone. I told her that I was investing the money in having a unique design created. She was much happier.
The secret is not to tell that special one in your life when the lump of carbon came from. Instead, spend the money on a more luxurious mounting. She won't know, and she doesn't need to know, and if she is going to pitch a fit about it, you're better off without her.
I bought my wife a custom "puzzle" ring, two separable pieces that intertwine, that I designed. Made of a combination of white and yellow gold, the diamond is surrounded by beautiful sapphires. The fact that I designed something so unique for her means more to her than that actual ring (or at least that is the line she feeds me....and which I greedily gobble up).
Or, you know, someone like SpaceX will come in with a better plan, and undercut the competition by 10% (when their automation gives them a 50% benefit).
I must also be fun to think that there are not situations where multiple people that have interests that are irrevocably and diametrically opposed, where for either to win, one must lose.
Since you specifically brought up healthcare, I have to respond with the exact same thing I said above. It is to apropos not to.
I was hired on to write automated tests for a piece of software used to do cognitive testing (to see if people were suffering from dementia in this case). I went about the project as I would any other piece of software, making sure I covered all the API's, that the interface accepted proper values, and it correctly displayed results.
The "quality manager" (very different person from the development manager that had hired me) had no understanding or interest in understanding anything I did. His 'scripts' were literally printed out steps for 'QA engineers' to follow, which he expected them to mark up with comments in the margins to document what was happening as they typed in the prescribed values and read the programs responses. He was proud that he could produce a 6ft stack of paper for when the FDA auditors showed up. His stated goal was not to demonstrate quality or even compliance. His STATED goal was to befuddle the auditor with bullshit.
The incentive was not to produce quality software. It was to get through an audit. To his credit, the auditors didn't know a damn thing about software quality, either. They were not there to find problems with the software. They were there to verify that the stack of papers were in order. A typical finding being that a page is one of the 'scripts' was not signed or had an incorrectly formatted date.
This is what the 'value' that government oversight provides.
Actually, you're missing the largest piece of what makes government operations inefficient: the lack of incentives for efficiency.
The cost of misaligned incentives is much larger than the cost of a profit margin. There are a nearly infinite number of ways to organize and run an operation of any signficant size, even more so when the purpose of the operation is to accomplish highly-technical tasks. This means there are huge numbers of choices to be made, every one of which involves balancing of various concerns, so incentives are critically important. The OP mentioned on particularly nasty set of bad incentives that nearly always exist in politically-controlled processes, but there are lots of others.
I'd like to emphasize a this point with a very specific example.
I was hired on to write automated tests for a piece of software used to do cognitive testing (to see if people were suffering from dementia in this case). I went about the project as I would any other piece of software, making sure I covered all the API's, that the interface accepted proper values, and it correctly displayed results.
The "quality manager" (very different person from the development manager that had hired me) had no understanding or interest in understanding anything I did. His 'scripts' were literally printed out steps for 'QA engineers' to follow, which he expected them to mark up with comments in the margins to document what was happening as they typed in the prescribed values and read the programs responses. He was proud that he could produce a 6ft stack of paper for when the FDA auditors showed up. His stated goal was not to demonstrate quality or even compliance. His STATED goal was to befuddle the auditor with bullshit.
The incentive was not to produce quality software. It was to get through an audit. To his credit, the auditors didn't know a damn thing about software quality, either. They were not there to find problems with the software. They were there to verify that the stack of papers were in order. A typical finding being that a page is one of the 'scripts' was not signed or had an incorrectly formatted date.
This is what the 'value' that government oversight provides.
Go to http://www.aircraftspruce.com/ Look at the various choices for aircraft batteries. Be clear that all of these are various sizes of lead plates inside a plastic container and bathed in sulfuric acid. Look at the prices for "certified" or STC'd batteries, vs the "experimental" batteries.
How would you react to being called out to a site with and active shooter, where you will be asked to stand in the line of fire? Having been in front of an officer's drawn weapon in a "swatting" situation, I can tell you I had empathy for them. They were extremely nervous, and why shouldn't they be? Now, you want to second guess them from the safety of you computer keyboard, and condemn their actions.
I was at home in the garage with the door open. I was sandblasting some parts I was working on, so was incapacitated by having my hands stuck into the rubber gloves that are attached to the blasting box. With the air compressor rattling away, I couldn't really hear anything, and being deep into concentrating on what I was doing, I was not aware of my surroundings.
But, when the compressor reached pressure and shut itself down, I heard someone yell, "Don't move". Looking up, there were two policemen at the end of my driveway. One had a pistol drawn. The other had a rifle. Both were pointed at the ground, but ready to point a me. They moved closer, and I was very careful to explain what I was doing and made damn sure they understood how difficult it was for me to extract my hands before I moved an inch. They were very nervous and highly agitated, and I had no desire to do anything but diffuse the situation.
One of my son's middle school "friends" thought it was funny to play this "prank". The policemen allowed me to hear the message he left 911 where the little fucker claimed there was a shot out going on at my house, while he had a war game playing in the background. If I had not been in a VERY public place, in a VERY incapacitated predicament, the story could have been much different. I can't imagine how tense they would have been if the door had been closed. They would obviously been able to hear that something was going on inside, but I would not have been able to answer any knock or call to "come out with my hands up". As it was ( a peaceful summer afternoon), I got to show of my project and have a nice conversation, but I would have beat the snot out of that little shit if I could have gotten my hands on him.
There is a sandwich on the table. Just enough food to keep either you or I alive. Which one of us sucks for not being the one that gets to eat it?
We're trapped on a spaceship. Just enough air for one of us to live. Are you going to do the "right thing" and space yourself to save me?
Money is nothing more than an accounting method for tracking resources. We can either expend resources now, or maybe expend them in the distant future. In neither case this there a moral judgement for "doing the right thing."
Slashdot Mirror
How about taking the middleman out of healthcare and having people pay for it themselves like they do every other product?
Doctors have to keep multiple staff just to comply with insurance paperwork. Eliminate them all, and the cost of preventive care becomes an out of pocket expense. This has been proven to the point that the insurance companies inserted language into the ACA to block health savings accounts from being used at for-fee providers.
It's not real until is asks, "Are you done yet?"
Could you have it stream chic flics over the bluetooth 24/7?
Yes. But, then you have to explain why you would buy a productive mine and just shut it down. Looks suspiciously like market manipulation, which leads to accusations of monopoly, which leads to cries of "screw you DeBeers."
There is a tremendous amount of work put in to making men think that this type of expensive adornment is vitally important.
Almost right.
There is a tremendous amount of work put in to making men think that this type of expensive adornment is vitally important to her.
We're told that she wants it. She has been watching the fairy tale romance proposals her ENTIRE LIFE! If the light is not sparkling off the water as the doves fly in the background while your proposing with a diamond large enough to blind the crowd, then you didn't really care about her to begin with and she will be heartbroken.
And you have to SUPRISE her with it. You can't talk about it beforehand. You have to read her friggin' mind, and if you make the SLIGHTEST mistake you will crush her childhood dreams. Are you going to be THAT guy. The cruel, heartless, stingy bastard. Or, are you going to let your hormones drive you forward? Just think of the great sex you'll have when she is so happy (this is only hinted at...never explicitly stated).
Of all the marketing tricks, it is the "keep it secret" part that, by raising uncertainty, coerces men to tow the line.
Myself, I was upfront that it wasn't a real stone. I told her that I was investing the money in having a unique design created. She was much happier.
Then how do you tell a lab grown from a really high quality mined rock?
It's not the expensive trinket. It is the competition she is having with the other twits to show that she is "better" because she got a bigger ring.
The secret is not to tell that special one in your life when the lump of carbon came from. Instead, spend the money on a more luxurious mounting. She won't know, and she doesn't need to know, and if she is going to pitch a fit about it, you're better off without her.
I bought my wife a custom "puzzle" ring, two separable pieces that intertwine, that I designed. Made of a combination of white and yellow gold, the diamond is surrounded by beautiful sapphires. The fact that I designed something so unique for her means more to her than that actual ring (or at least that is the line she feeds me....and which I greedily gobble up).
Why is the gender pay gap so important, when the work mortality gap gets ignored?
I remember Rush Limbaugh saying years ago that women's liberation was nothing more than an attempt to give ugly woman access to power.
Why would anyone pay for that when pornhub is a click away?
When MS makes a product that doesn't suck...they'll have bought a vacuum cleaner manufacturer.
The whole point of AI categorization systems is to uncover bias. We want the thing to make a decision for us, after all.
This is basically saying that MS is trying to create tools to make AI that doesn't work. I give them an high probability of succeeding.
Seeing is the problem. There aren't enough of us Natives still around to be seen.
They sat down next to the thermometers they had calibrated to a tenth of a degree and ate some.
Or, you know, someone like SpaceX will come in with a better plan, and undercut the competition by 10% (when their automation gives them a 50% benefit).
I must also be fun to think that there are not situations where multiple people that have interests that are irrevocably and diametrically opposed, where for either to win, one must lose.
That is a bit controversial:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/21...
Everything!? Even cloth?
Since you specifically brought up healthcare, I have to respond with the exact same thing I said above. It is to apropos not to.
I was hired on to write automated tests for a piece of software used to do cognitive testing (to see if people were suffering from dementia in this case). I went about the project as I would any other piece of software, making sure I covered all the API's, that the interface accepted proper values, and it correctly displayed results.
The "quality manager" (very different person from the development manager that had hired me) had no understanding or interest in understanding anything I did. His 'scripts' were literally printed out steps for 'QA engineers' to follow, which he expected them to mark up with comments in the margins to document what was happening as they typed in the prescribed values and read the programs responses. He was proud that he could produce a 6ft stack of paper for when the FDA auditors showed up. His stated goal was not to demonstrate quality or even compliance. His STATED goal was to befuddle the auditor with bullshit.
The incentive was not to produce quality software. It was to get through an audit. To his credit, the auditors didn't know a damn thing about software quality, either. They were not there to find problems with the software. They were there to verify that the stack of papers were in order. A typical finding being that a page is one of the 'scripts' was not signed or had an incorrectly formatted date.
This is what the 'value' that government oversight provides.
Actually, you're missing the largest piece of what makes government operations inefficient: the lack of incentives for efficiency.
The cost of misaligned incentives is much larger than the cost of a profit margin. There are a nearly infinite number of ways to organize and run an operation of any signficant size, even more so when the purpose of the operation is to accomplish highly-technical tasks. This means there are huge numbers of choices to be made, every one of which involves balancing of various concerns, so incentives are critically important. The OP mentioned on particularly nasty set of bad incentives that nearly always exist in politically-controlled processes, but there are lots of others.
I'd like to emphasize a this point with a very specific example.
I was hired on to write automated tests for a piece of software used to do cognitive testing (to see if people were suffering from dementia in this case). I went about the project as I would any other piece of software, making sure I covered all the API's, that the interface accepted proper values, and it correctly displayed results.
The "quality manager" (very different person from the development manager that had hired me) had no understanding or interest in understanding anything I did. His 'scripts' were literally printed out steps for 'QA engineers' to follow, which he expected them to mark up with comments in the margins to document what was happening as they typed in the prescribed values and read the programs responses. He was proud that he could produce a 6ft stack of paper for when the FDA auditors showed up. His stated goal was not to demonstrate quality or even compliance. His STATED goal was to befuddle the auditor with bullshit.
The incentive was not to produce quality software. It was to get through an audit. To his credit, the auditors didn't know a damn thing about software quality, either. They were not there to find problems with the software. They were there to verify that the stack of papers were in order. A typical finding being that a page is one of the 'scripts' was not signed or had an incorrectly formatted date.
This is what the 'value' that government oversight provides.
Go to http://www.aircraftspruce.com/
Look at the various choices for aircraft batteries. Be clear that all of these are various sizes of lead plates inside a plastic container and bathed in sulfuric acid.
Look at the prices for "certified" or STC'd batteries, vs the "experimental" batteries.
That is the cost of your government paperwork.
(and it is approximately 2x)
I actually like that better than detonating the payload 3,00ft above ground to demonstrate how much damage can be done.
How would you react to being called out to a site with and active shooter, where you will be asked to stand in the line of fire? Having been in front of an officer's drawn weapon in a "swatting" situation, I can tell you I had empathy for them. They were extremely nervous, and why shouldn't they be? Now, you want to second guess them from the safety of you computer keyboard, and condemn their actions.
I was at home in the garage with the door open. I was sandblasting some parts I was working on, so was incapacitated by having my hands stuck into the rubber gloves that are attached to the blasting box. With the air compressor rattling away, I couldn't really hear anything, and being deep into concentrating on what I was doing, I was not aware of my surroundings.
But, when the compressor reached pressure and shut itself down, I heard someone yell, "Don't move". Looking up, there were two policemen at the end of my driveway. One had a pistol drawn. The other had a rifle. Both were pointed at the ground, but ready to point a me. They moved closer, and I was very careful to explain what I was doing and made damn sure they understood how difficult it was for me to extract my hands before I moved an inch. They were very nervous and highly agitated, and I had no desire to do anything but diffuse the situation.
One of my son's middle school "friends" thought it was funny to play this "prank". The policemen allowed me to hear the message he left 911 where the little fucker claimed there was a shot out going on at my house, while he had a war game playing in the background. If I had not been in a VERY public place, in a VERY incapacitated predicament, the story could have been much different. I can't imagine how tense they would have been if the door had been closed. They would obviously been able to hear that something was going on inside, but I would not have been able to answer any knock or call to "come out with my hands up". As it was ( a peaceful summer afternoon), I got to show of my project and have a nice conversation, but I would have beat the snot out of that little shit if I could have gotten my hands on him.
It must be fun to still be that naive.
There is a sandwich on the table. Just enough food to keep either you or I alive. Which one of us sucks for not being the one that gets to eat it?
We're trapped on a spaceship. Just enough air for one of us to live. Are you going to do the "right thing" and space yourself to save me?
Money is nothing more than an accounting method for tracking resources. We can either expend resources now, or maybe expend them in the distant future. In neither case this there a moral judgement for "doing the right thing."