Is this why my interns were trying to make dry ice bombs this morning!? The stupidity of people never stops amazing me; the interns were holding a capped tube with dryice and water front of their face with no safety glasses on giggling.
While I agree with the thesis you propose, your argument that the only feasible rating system would need to be "functionally equivalent to a government" seems flawed. Further, some sort official rating system on medical efficacy does not on it's own mandate insurance coverage, unless you were envisioning a single-payer system (which itself has flaws with dealing with innovation and varying desires of coverage). Moreover, you admit with political posturing or willful ignorance this won't work, but this is the current reality of our government.
While it's great to dream about health-care reform from the provider side, the change really needs to happen on the insurance side. I agree, as you eluded, that mandated minimum coverage for all would help lower provider costs. Implementing such a system, however, is still up for debate.
In contast, to lower insurers costs, one would need to define a minimum set of preemptive care, so that patients can easily float from one policy to another, without insurers having to worry about their previous lack of coverage.
The most sensible way I can think of to do both would be provide vouchers that only work with mutual insurers. As the money would be pre-alloted for you, you wouldn't need to pay as high of a fee (like choosing to pay your car insurance all at once, instead of throughout the year) or be limited by your employers coverage options. Further, since your voucher will be with a mutual insurer, you'll potentially receive dividend pay back at the end of the year by choosing the most efficient plan for you. This would create a self regulating public, and provide insurance companies as well as patients incentives to access efficacy of care. On the flip side one would need to provide a finical penalty for not going to your preventative appointments (much like one would have a penalty for not changing the oil on a car under lease) in order to allow the public to easily upgrade or downgrade their level of coverage.
I didn't have 1hr 40 min to watch the video, but I checked the science article that the speaker wrote. It's an interesting hypothesis, but really could use some more evidence to back its claims. I could just as easily hypothesis that it's BPA or some of the other dirty dozen / toxic 21 that's causing the effect. Moreover, if carbs are so bad, than you would see profound effects in Italians or, would have seen them previously in Irish or Asians that sustained them selves on mainly potatoes / rice. While I'm not arguing that carbs are good for you, I am arguing caution befpre subscribing to Gary Taubes hypothesis.
You must live in a different area of the country; I haven't seen a separate truck limit in years. Moreover, your concern that I will T-bone grandma on a 50 mi/hr road seems a bit ridiculous. What the fuck is grandma doing in the middle of the highway anyway? I will fell bad if I hit her, but likely won't loose much sleep over it.
Let me be clear, I find the orange 'suggested' speed signs are very consistent, and therefore have never had a problem obeying them; it's the highway signs in white that I have an issue with. They number on them is almost always decided by something other than safety. I find if I have to follow them for more than 1 hr, I am extremely likely to to zone out, not pay attention, and have an accident. Further as the median speed on these roads is 10 - 15 mi/hr over the limit, it would be unsafe for me to follow them. Nothing makes me different or special, all of my rational applies to everyone else as well. What's gained by ignoring the speed limit is better alertness, and more uniform traffic flow, hence a safer road.
I know this response was coming, hence, I revised the comparison to make it illegal for someone to serve anyone else butter and salt as they would be harming them to do so.
That may or nay not be the case, but the problem is that when there IS a posted limit, people expect other drivers to follow that posted limit. By exceeding it, you're causing a danger just by acting contrary to others' expectations.
Where I live, most people expect you to speed, how much so depends on the road / the amount of enforcement.
If everyone who speeds on a "revenue generating" street strictly drove the limit on places where the limit was set rationally, that would be one thing, but people aren't usually that discerning... and they often don't even notice the danger they put others in. There are ways to fix bad speed limits. But there's no way to fix your conscience when you develop the habit of speeding and then maim or kill someone because you thought the "Speed Limit 45" sign was just another "revenue generating" sign.
How many people who have killed someone else due to their recklessness thought they could handle it? I'm guessing the answer is pretty close to 100%.
The problem with your assertion is that because limits are currently so arbitrary, there is no real way to tell when a limit is rational anymore, and thereby hard to judge how people would react if limits were set more rationally.
Further complicating things is the fact that the speed limit should really vary from vehicle to vehicle as a corvette's speed limit shouldn't be limited by a Mac truck.
Yes, sugars and starches make you fat, but fat on it's own isn't as risky as high cholesterol or high blood pressure. My grandfather was always quite the rail but had 2 separat quadrupple bi-passes during his life.
If the speed limit is 50, it was set there for a reason.
My grandmother was nearly killed by a driver going 70 in a 55 zone. Sure "everyone" drives that fast on that mountain highway, but that means that "everyone" is also running the very real risk of running in to someone turning left in an area with rather limited visibility.
The problem is this "reason" has more do to with revenue generation than your protecting your grandmother.
You are wrong, you took the parents quote out of context. The parent clearly stated driving stupidly causes accidents and fatalities, not the act speeding it self. It's a modification of 'guns don't kill people, people kill people' argument. And while it may be hard for you to digest, the argument is technically sound.
...and to your last point more research was done 5 years later and seemed to show evidence that raising speed limits can actually reduce injury and fatalities.
...and to your last point more research was done 5 years later and seemed to show evidence that raising speed limits can actually reduce injury and fatalities.
With some googling I found out that in the year 2000 15,517 people were murdered while 41,611 died in car accidents. That means that if we could prevent all car accidents the benefit in human lives would be almost three times greater.
You might only be driving 55 on a 50 mph zone, but a lot of people are driving much faster and statistics show it is fairly dangerous.
Where are these stastics that say ignoring the speed limit and driving the road for what it was built for is "fairly dangerous"? I seem to have found some statistics that claim quite the opposite(pdf warning).
Moreover, by your rationale, I shouldn't be allowed to eat butter or salt as more people die from heart attacks than from car accidents or murders combined. Or to flip it, since you'll likely try to spin this as something I'm doing to you; no one should be allowed to serve things containing cholesterol or salt.
Wow, that was a troll, but somehow you've been modded insightful, so I guesss I'll bite:
Only the most naive users and apple fanboi's would believe that apples smart-phone deign was truly innovative and first of it's kind. HTC had them beat for years: the MDA II, MDAII, MDA vairo, MDA Amino, vairo II, wing, kiaser, magician, touch diamond; and Palm pretty much defined the screen size for smart devices.
slightly off topic: the keyboard IS the Droid's killer app (well that and free satellite GPS turn by turn directions with Google 'voice search' destination lookup). I just wish they'd revive the G1 keyboard on another Android phone as it's by far the best I've ever used.
but the shots of pictures taken with the 3G model vs the new 4G model show that there's been a huge jump in quality.
It's all in the shot....
Not true, my HTC Kaiser (AT&T tilt) took amazing pictures not matter what the lighting. My newer / higher resolution HTC dream (T-mobile G1) rarely produces a satisfactory photo, unless conditions are near perfect.
You're right! It's good for Android that Apple is around.:D
How true, if not for the locked down, user screwing, this is the crapple iphone, Android quirks would likely annoy me a great deal more. Now I just consider my self lucky to have the ability to actually run the quirky software, instead of having to go without it or pay an insane price for the feature as is true for most iPhone users.
It goes like this: Although the story has nothing at all to do with Apple, one of the Slashdot editors decided it would get more page views from both Apple fanboys and haters if it was posted as if it did.
It's all about page hits, my friend, all about page hits.
...or maybe because AT&T, though some sort of anti-trust loophole, is the exclusive carrier for many Apple products. Therefore, if either company farts, they both get to smell it.
T-mobile seems fine in the north-east.
Though if you live in the south you can just get a flash a Motorola Droid and switch metro pcs for the cheapest monthly rates.
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” - Buddha
Lets not get a head of our selves here, they've only re-programmed a cell, not created artificial life. If you are looking for a fully artificial cell you should focus on what's going on in George Church's lab.
Slashdot Mirror
Is this why my interns were trying to make dry ice bombs this morning!? The stupidity of people never stops amazing me; the interns were holding a capped tube with dryice and water front of their face with no safety glasses on giggling.
While I agree with the thesis you propose, your argument that the only feasible rating system would need to be "functionally equivalent to a government" seems flawed. Further, some sort official rating system on medical efficacy does not on it's own mandate insurance coverage, unless you were envisioning a single-payer system (which itself has flaws with dealing with innovation and varying desires of coverage). Moreover, you admit with political posturing or willful ignorance this won't work, but this is the current reality of our government.
While it's great to dream about health-care reform from the provider side, the change really needs to happen on the insurance side. I agree, as you eluded, that mandated minimum coverage for all would help lower provider costs. Implementing such a system, however, is still up for debate.
In contast, to lower insurers costs, one would need to define a minimum set of preemptive care, so that patients can easily float from one policy to another, without insurers having to worry about their previous lack of coverage. The most sensible way I can think of to do both would be provide vouchers that only work with mutual insurers. As the money would be pre-alloted for you, you wouldn't need to pay as high of a fee (like choosing to pay your car insurance all at once, instead of throughout the year) or be limited by your employers coverage options. Further, since your voucher will be with a mutual insurer, you'll potentially receive dividend pay back at the end of the year by choosing the most efficient plan for you. This would create a self regulating public, and provide insurance companies as well as patients incentives to access efficacy of care. On the flip side one would need to provide a finical penalty for not going to your preventative appointments (much like one would have a penalty for not changing the oil on a car under lease) in order to allow the public to easily upgrade or downgrade their level of coverage.
Doh! more than double the price! Probably worth it though; I'll at least put it on my wish-list.
Agreed about Etymotic products. I love my pair of ER-6i's; just wish they came with an inline mic.
I didn't have 1hr 40 min to watch the video, but I checked the science article that the speaker wrote. It's an interesting hypothesis, but really could use some more evidence to back its claims. I could just as easily hypothesis that it's BPA or some of the other dirty dozen / toxic 21 that's causing the effect. Moreover, if carbs are so bad, than you would see profound effects in Italians or, would have seen them previously in Irish or Asians that sustained them selves on mainly potatoes / rice. While I'm not arguing that carbs are good for you, I am arguing caution befpre subscribing to Gary Taubes hypothesis.
You must live in a different area of the country; I haven't seen a separate truck limit in years. Moreover, your concern that I will T-bone grandma on a 50 mi/hr road seems a bit ridiculous. What the fuck is grandma doing in the middle of the highway anyway? I will fell bad if I hit her, but likely won't loose much sleep over it.
Let me be clear, I find the orange 'suggested' speed signs are very consistent, and therefore have never had a problem obeying them; it's the highway signs in white that I have an issue with. They number on them is almost always decided by something other than safety. I find if I have to follow them for more than 1 hr, I am extremely likely to to zone out, not pay attention, and have an accident. Further as the median speed on these roads is 10 - 15 mi/hr over the limit, it would be unsafe for me to follow them. Nothing makes me different or special, all of my rational applies to everyone else as well. What's gained by ignoring the speed limit is better alertness, and more uniform traffic flow, hence a safer road.
I know this response was coming, hence, I revised the comparison to make it illegal for someone to serve anyone else butter and salt as they would be harming them to do so.
That may or nay not be the case, but the problem is that when there IS a posted limit, people expect other drivers to follow that posted limit. By exceeding it, you're causing a danger just by acting contrary to others' expectations.
Where I live, most people expect you to speed, how much so depends on the road / the amount of enforcement.
If everyone who speeds on a "revenue generating" street strictly drove the limit on places where the limit was set rationally, that would be one thing, but people aren't usually that discerning... and they often don't even notice the danger they put others in. There are ways to fix bad speed limits. But there's no way to fix your conscience when you develop the habit of speeding and then maim or kill someone because you thought the "Speed Limit 45" sign was just another "revenue generating" sign.
How many people who have killed someone else due to their recklessness thought they could handle it? I'm guessing the answer is pretty close to 100%.
The problem with your assertion is that because limits are currently so arbitrary, there is no real way to tell when a limit is rational anymore, and thereby hard to judge how people would react if limits were set more rationally. Further complicating things is the fact that the speed limit should really vary from vehicle to vehicle as a corvette's speed limit shouldn't be limited by a Mac truck.
Yes, sugars and starches make you fat, but fat on it's own isn't as risky as high cholesterol or high blood pressure. My grandfather was always quite the rail but had 2 separat quadrupple bi-passes during his life.
If the speed limit is 50, it was set there for a reason.
My grandmother was nearly killed by a driver going 70 in a 55 zone. Sure "everyone" drives that fast on that mountain highway, but that means that "everyone" is also running the very real risk of running in to someone turning left in an area with rather limited visibility.
The problem is this "reason" has more do to with revenue generation than your protecting your grandmother.
You are wrong, you took the parents quote out of context. The parent clearly stated driving stupidly causes accidents and fatalities, not the act speeding it self. It's a modification of 'guns don't kill people, people kill people' argument. And while it may be hard for you to digest, the argument is technically sound.
...and to your last point more research was done 5 years later and seemed to show evidence that raising speed limits can actually reduce injury and fatalities.
doh: I fcked the link (pdf warning).
...and to your last point more research was done 5 years later and seemed to show evidence that raising speed limits can actually reduce injury and fatalities.
With some googling I found out that in the year 2000 15,517 people were murdered while 41,611 died in car accidents. That means that if we could prevent all car accidents the benefit in human lives would be almost three times greater.
You might only be driving 55 on a 50 mph zone, but a lot of people are driving much faster and statistics show it is fairly dangerous.
Where are these stastics that say ignoring the speed limit and driving the road for what it was built for is "fairly dangerous"? I seem to have found some statistics that claim quite the opposite(pdf warning).
Moreover, by your rationale, I shouldn't be allowed to eat butter or salt as more people die from heart attacks than from car accidents or murders combined. Or to flip it, since you'll likely try to spin this as something I'm doing to you; no one should be allowed to serve things containing cholesterol or salt.
-- ...only life can kill you
Wow, that was a troll, but somehow you've been modded insightful, so I guesss I'll bite:
Only the most naive users and apple fanboi's would believe that apples smart-phone deign was truly innovative and first of it's kind. HTC had them beat for years: the MDA II, MDAII, MDA vairo, MDA Amino, vairo II, wing, kiaser, magician, touch diamond; and Palm pretty much defined the screen size for smart devices.
slightly off topic: the keyboard IS the Droid's killer app (well that and free satellite GPS turn by turn directions with Google 'voice search' destination lookup). I just wish they'd revive the G1 keyboard on another Android phone as it's by far the best I've ever used.
It's all in the shot....
Not true, my HTC Kaiser (AT&T tilt) took amazing pictures not matter what the lighting. My newer / higher resolution HTC dream (T-mobile G1) rarely produces a satisfactory photo, unless conditions are near perfect.
You're right! It's good for Android that Apple is around. :D
How true, if not for the locked down, user screwing, this is the crapple iphone, Android quirks would likely annoy me a great deal more. Now I just consider my self lucky to have the ability to actually run the quirky software, instead of having to go without it or pay an insane price for the feature as is true for most iPhone users.
Yes, and that it works on metro pcs shocked me too.
Why is this filed under Apple?
It goes like this: Although the story has nothing at all to do with Apple, one of the Slashdot editors decided it would get more page views from both Apple fanboys and haters if it was posted as if it did.
It's all about page hits, my friend, all about page hits.
...or maybe because AT&T, though some sort of anti-trust loophole, is the exclusive carrier for many Apple products. Therefore, if either company farts, they both get to smell it.
T-mobile seems fine in the north-east. Though if you live in the south you can just get a flash a Motorola Droid and switch metro pcs for the cheapest monthly rates.
Yes, but one doesn't need an ID to use VOIP, so there is still no difference between it and a unverified prepaid phone.
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” - Buddha
... seems to me religion isn't the real cause.
This will likely make enforcement harder by forceing criminals to move to encrypted VOIP.
Lets not get a head of our selves here, they've only re-programmed a cell, not created artificial life. If you are looking for a fully artificial cell you should focus on what's going on in George Church's lab.