Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics - and you'll get ten different answers. But there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on: whether it happens in a hundred years, or a thousand years, or a million years, eventually our sun will grow cold, and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us, it'll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-tsu, Einstein, Maruputo, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes - all of this. All of this was for nothing, unless we go to the stars. -JMS
And then, even if we are up for a lucky solar break, this does not mean that in the few decades (or years, no one can tell) the problem will not return with a vengeance.
Agreed. I expect that with the long term view (say, within 2 thousand years, for sure) it's as close to a guarantee as one can make. All I'm saying is that this has been expected for quite some time (with some scientific delirium thrown in as an exception during the 1970's).
My point is that it is unpredictable just how bad a call will be, and so it's hard to know when someone will really need the day off.
Right, but there's a non-zero chance each that there will be a call and the call will be hellish, and the physician will be un-rested, and the patient will suffer for it.
On the other hand, there's a chance of lost revenue.
BTW, the Little Ice Age appears to be more of a Northern Hemisphere thing, so the Maunder minimum was not likely the largest contributor.
As your link says, the variations appear to be driven by atmospheric circulation differences, but if the Northern Hemisphere was colder and the Southern Hemisphere temperatures stayed about the same, then globally there was less heat energy. If there were a heat spike in the Southern Hemisphere, then we might speculate that the heat was constant globally and merely the distribution changed. But I don't think anybody is suggesting that. So, the global temperature average was down during the marked period of decreased solar activity, no?
Totally agree with all that, but how does that contradict the assessment that on-call hours shouldn't be figured into the schedule for not overworking the physician? It sounds like it's the compensation scheme that needs adjustment.
Certainly, but a bad solution now is a bad solution. So my Mom doesn't have to spend $15 on a new proprietary charger, but she can't use the one that's mandated - that doesn't even rise to the level of 'mediocre'. Even the terrible Motorola charger plug design was easy to attach to the phone (until the connectors wore out after a couple years).
For someone that is pushing a very libertarian philosophy that sounds like some pretty strict regulation.
Like I said, interdependent. If there are more doctors, fewer responsibilities for doctors, and they work fewer hours, their salaries will go down. Supply and demand are sufficient forces here.
I don't know about you but I don't want someone slicing me open and operating on me based on a piece of paper from a degree mill.
Why would you go to a doctor that had a degree from a paper mill? There are already many 'rate your doctors' websites for post-graduation feedback.
8) get the States out of regulating insurance
Would you invest in a mutual fund without reading the prospectus? Why would you buy insurance from an insurance company with a bad credit rating?
Granted, some of these ancient regulatory laws may predate wide availability of the requisite information to make good decisions.
Some warming agreeable to the geological scale of what you are trying to suggest as happening, please. The current trend is out of all proportion to that, sadly.
It's less severe a variance than the Maunder or Dalton minima. Those were natural variations, no?
Streaming MP3 is not in teh list of requirements management have asked us to provide. They've asked us to block it.
They can either understand worker productivity or not. Understand how to deal with younger generations or not. The market will correct.
Some shitty cable modem connection into the LAN still needs to be secured, paid for, and maintained when people complain that it doesn't work.
It's not that hard, really, they're quite reliable. You put a low SLA on it anyway. Yeah, maybe every couple years you have to take some phone calls. I'm glad you dropped the pricing argument, though.
When its not even a business requirement.
Does the company buy coffee? Bottled water? Company picnics? 10-year service pins? It sounds like an awful place to work if that's the only consideration for how they deal with their humans.
Sorry, but gen Y really need to pull their heads out of their asses and realise why they're paid to go to work. The current/coming economic climate is sure going to shake things up.
I agree - companies that are forced to pay big salaries to older employees to avoid providing cheap comforts to younger employees are going to be priced out of the market.
I just can't see an advantage of micro USB over mini USB.
Some replies note advantages, and they're right, but the bigger problem is inserting the Micro-USB without precise visual study of connector alignment.
Mini-USB has enough tactile feedback to plug it in without looking at it. Our recent phones have Micro-USB and I've had to take a silver marker to the 'up' side of the cable so I can plug my phone in to the charger at night without turning on the bright lights. I can plug in all the connectors on the back of a standard computer from the front (without looking, just tactile feedback) no problem. My mother's phone has Micro-USB and she can't even get it to go in on some days.
Had the market been allowed to mature naturally, these problems would have been figured out by some annoyed and enterprising engineers or industrial designers. But now we have mandated mediocrity. That's the problem with mandates - not that there shouldn't be a common standard, but that we'll be forced to live with a poor one. Maybe in 10 years they'll mandate something that works well.
Bought a RAID setup with 1.5 TB drives about 1.5 years ago. The same drives are selling at the same retail for the same price last week.
You're getting some fuzz in your pricing because of the packaged-solution nature of what you're looking at. Bare 1.5TB drives have gone from about $129 a year ago to about $89 today. That's right on schedule, give or take inflation and exchange rates. The 2TB drives have replaced the 1.5's at about the same level.
The military has a culture that's designed to take ego out of the decision processes. Perhaps imperfect, but the danger is recognized and dealt with. Now, try working at a hospital...
Actually, it would be interesting to compare military hospitals with civilian and see how they rate on important measures.
There are several things that need to be done. They're mostly interdependent, so in no particular order:
1) stop the hazing culture in medicine 2) striate the practices. The concept of an Uber-doctor is antiquated. (LPN's and PA's are starting to help here). Cooperating teams is the smarter approach. 3) decrease doctors' hours 4) decrease doctors' salaries 5) get the government out of licensing doctors and medical schools (the chronic shortage is purposeful) 6) get the AMA out of dictating government policy for licensing doctors and medical schools (the chronic shortage is purposeful) 7) destroy the third-party payer system 8) get the States out of regulating insurance 9) privatize medical charities (the Shriners are a great example)
The current system is not designed to produce the best patient care, and that's all that needs to be said. In most industries we praise the "customer first" approach, even for ultimately stupid and inconsequential stuff. We know by experience that if the customer is placed first that the rest of the business succeeds, but somehow fear that approach when it comes to one of the most essential industries.
Should the surgeon give the patient the option of postponing the operation or requesting a different surgeon?
Both of these are problematic - in first case because the patient has scheduled a work vacation for the surgery and in the second case, because the primary surgeon is familar with the case and has spent time doing pre-operative planning. You don't just throw in another surgeon at the last minute unless it's an emergency.
The correct answer, as mentioned previously, is to consider on-call time as utilized and to not schedule the surgery after on-call hours. Truck drivers have more sensible rules.
Police don't have the right to stop you on the street, for example, and go through your wallet and ask you for a receipt from the bank for any cash you might have, to prove you're not a thief.
Actually, they'll call it drug money and they will seize it. It's called 'civil forfeiture' and they can go and spend it on whatever they want, no judge or jury required.
A Mexican family (in AZ?) recently had their life savings stolen this way, the Town spent the money, and has refused a Judge's order to repay it. The Institute for Justice does a lot of work in this area.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not at all surprising that it happened, and could easily happen again
They send letters now, in advance of the whips.
What, exactly, do you expect? Institute a trade embargo with China?
Ah, you've finally discovered the devious strategy by Microsoft to exact revenge on Apple.
They must pay a fortune in support costs if their IT folks can't look stuff up on blogs. Self-correcting in the end.
Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics - and you'll get ten different answers. But there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on: whether it happens in a hundred years, or a thousand years, or a million years, eventually our sun will grow cold, and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us, it'll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-tsu, Einstein, Maruputo, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes - all of this. All of this was for nothing, unless we go to the stars. -JMS
And then, even if we are up for a lucky solar break, this does not mean that in the few decades (or years, no one can tell) the problem will not return with a vengeance.
Agreed. I expect that with the long term view (say, within 2 thousand years, for sure) it's as close to a guarantee as one can make. All I'm saying is that this has been expected for quite some time (with some scientific delirium thrown in as an exception during the 1970's).
My point is that it is unpredictable just how bad a call will be, and so it's hard to know when someone will really need the day off.
Right, but there's a non-zero chance each that there will be a call and the call will be hellish, and the physician will be un-rested, and the patient will suffer for it.
On the other hand, there's a chance of lost revenue.
(Correct me if I err).
7 is dangerous. Never destroy something until you are sure something better will replace it. That is just common sense.
Look into health insurance before Medicare/Medicaid and the HMO Act of 1973. It was affordable.
It's before my lifetime, but constraining reality to my personal experience is a dangerous, if human, endeavor. All the data is available.
Yes, certainly mob rule can suppress individual rights; this is why the 9th Amendment, and the Constitution in general, were established.
BTW, the Little Ice Age appears to be more of a Northern Hemisphere thing, so the Maunder minimum was not likely the largest contributor.
As your link says, the variations appear to be driven by atmospheric circulation differences, but if the Northern Hemisphere was colder and the Southern Hemisphere temperatures stayed about the same, then globally there was less heat energy. If there were a heat spike in the Southern Hemisphere, then we might speculate that the heat was constant globally and merely the distribution changed. But I don't think anybody is suggesting that. So, the global temperature average was down during the marked period of decreased solar activity, no?
Totally agree with all that, but how does that contradict the assessment that on-call hours shouldn't be figured into the schedule for not overworking the physician? It sounds like it's the compensation scheme that needs adjustment.
Certainly, but a bad solution now is a bad solution. So my Mom doesn't have to spend $15 on a new proprietary charger, but she can't use the one that's mandated - that doesn't even rise to the level of 'mediocre'. Even the terrible Motorola charger plug design was easy to attach to the phone (until the connectors wore out after a couple years).
It's not a technicality that the people own the roads, it's the essential factor. The governments only work as servants to the people.
For someone that is pushing a very libertarian philosophy that sounds like some pretty strict regulation.
Like I said, interdependent. If there are more doctors, fewer responsibilities for doctors, and they work fewer hours, their salaries will go down. Supply and demand are sufficient forces here.
I don't know about you but I don't want someone slicing me open and operating on me based on a piece of paper from a degree mill.
Why would you go to a doctor that had a degree from a paper mill? There are already many 'rate your doctors' websites for post-graduation feedback.
8) get the States out of regulating insurance
Would you invest in a mutual fund without reading the prospectus? Why would you buy insurance from an insurance company with a bad credit rating?
Granted, some of these ancient regulatory laws may predate wide availability of the requisite information to make good decisions.
Some warming agreeable to the geological scale of what you are trying to suggest as happening, please.
The current trend is out of all proportion to that, sadly.
It's less severe a variance than the Maunder or Dalton minima. Those were natural variations, no?
And, ironically, the states all had regulations on how that travel would go. Just like they do now.
What do you mean by this? Around here most of the highways were privately owned and maintained. I have a book on the history of it.
Streaming MP3 is not in teh list of requirements management have asked us to provide. They've asked us to block it.
They can either understand worker productivity or not. Understand how to deal with younger generations or not. The market will correct.
Some shitty cable modem connection into the LAN still needs to be secured, paid for, and maintained when people complain that it doesn't work.
It's not that hard, really, they're quite reliable. You put a low SLA on it anyway. Yeah, maybe every couple years you have to take some phone calls. I'm glad you dropped the pricing argument, though.
When its not even a business requirement.
Does the company buy coffee? Bottled water? Company picnics? 10-year service pins? It sounds like an awful place to work if that's the only consideration for how they deal with their humans.
Sorry, but gen Y really need to pull their heads out of their asses and realise why they're paid to go to work. The current/coming economic climate is sure going to shake things up.
I agree - companies that are forced to pay big salaries to older employees to avoid providing cheap comforts to younger employees are going to be priced out of the market.
I just can't see an advantage of micro USB over mini USB.
Some replies note advantages, and they're right, but the bigger problem is inserting the Micro-USB without precise visual study of connector alignment.
Mini-USB has enough tactile feedback to plug it in without looking at it. Our recent phones have Micro-USB and I've had to take a silver marker to the 'up' side of the cable so I can plug my phone in to the charger at night without turning on the bright lights. I can plug in all the connectors on the back of a standard computer from the front (without looking, just tactile feedback) no problem. My mother's phone has Micro-USB and she can't even get it to go in on some days.
Had the market been allowed to mature naturally, these problems would have been figured out by some annoyed and enterprising engineers or industrial designers. But now we have mandated mediocrity. That's the problem with mandates - not that there shouldn't be a common standard, but that we'll be forced to live with a poor one. Maybe in 10 years they'll mandate something that works well.
Bought a RAID setup with 1.5 TB drives about 1.5 years ago. The same drives are selling at the same retail for the same price last week.
You're getting some fuzz in your pricing because of the packaged-solution nature of what you're looking at. Bare 1.5TB drives have gone from about $129 a year ago to about $89 today. That's right on schedule, give or take inflation and exchange rates. The 2TB drives have replaced the 1.5's at about the same level.
The military has a culture that's designed to take ego out of the decision processes. Perhaps imperfect, but the danger is recognized and dealt with. Now, try working at a hospital...
Actually, it would be interesting to compare military hospitals with civilian and see how they rate on important measures.
There are several things that need to be done. They're mostly interdependent, so in no particular order:
1) stop the hazing culture in medicine
2) striate the practices. The concept of an Uber-doctor is antiquated. (LPN's and PA's are starting to help here). Cooperating teams is the smarter approach.
3) decrease doctors' hours
4) decrease doctors' salaries
5) get the government out of licensing doctors and medical schools (the chronic shortage is purposeful)
6) get the AMA out of dictating government policy for licensing doctors and medical schools (the chronic shortage is purposeful)
7) destroy the third-party payer system
8) get the States out of regulating insurance
9) privatize medical charities (the Shriners are a great example)
The current system is not designed to produce the best patient care, and that's all that needs to be said. In most industries we praise the "customer first" approach, even for ultimately stupid and inconsequential stuff. We know by experience that if the customer is placed first that the rest of the business succeeds, but somehow fear that approach when it comes to one of the most essential industries.
Should the surgeon give the patient the option of postponing the operation or requesting a different surgeon?
Both of these are problematic - in first case because the patient has scheduled a work vacation for the surgery and in the second case, because the primary surgeon is familar with the case and has spent time doing pre-operative planning. You don't just throw in another surgeon at the last minute unless it's an emergency.
The correct answer, as mentioned previously, is to consider on-call time as utilized and to not schedule the surgery after on-call hours. Truck drivers have more sensible rules.
Thanks for clarifying - agreed.
Police don't have the right to stop you on the street, for example, and go through your wallet and ask you for a receipt from the bank for any cash you might have, to prove you're not a thief.
Actually, they'll call it drug money and they will seize it. It's called 'civil forfeiture' and they can go and spend it on whatever they want, no judge or jury required.
A Mexican family (in AZ?) recently had their life savings stolen this way, the Town spent the money, and has refused a Judge's order to repay it. The Institute for Justice does a lot of work in this area.
File a bug on that, would you? Severity CRITICAL.
OK, so $80M is accounted for, where's the rest?
WP says NYC employs a quarter million people - some fraction of those are hourly.
This project should be priced closer to $10/head, not $5000.