A perfect illustration- a fathom is SIX feet, 5280 feet are a statue mile, but a nautical mile actually 6076 feet- corresponding to one minute of arc of latitude. Even people who grew up with this system have trouble keeping it straight.
Working internationally in engineering, the potential for errors in unit conversions are astounding- just ask the Hubble designers.
I stubbed my toe on a pretty good sized (± 10 lb) meteorite hiking around in the desert in the early '60's. It ended up in the University of Arizona collections.
The cost is at best a disincentive to entrepreneurial risk taking- an added "tax" on those who want to go it alone. Except you have to pay it to a private company.
Yes, you can get health insurance independently- IF you don't have health issues, a sick child, a spouse with health problems, aren't too old.. You will pay far more than if you were part of a large group, because insurance companies don't want to deal with independent policy holders (assuming they are only getting insurance because they are sick), and you have NO leverage as a consumer.
I've been in independent business since 85, and the best deals I see available are high deductible heath savings account programs. Be very cautious about fake "group" programs that often have low caps or pay very little for serious illness. Pay ordinary expenses out of pocket, insure for major catastrophes and try to prevent them from happening.
Um, Canada is significantly MORE invested, at the federal government level, in "advancing social agendas" than the US has ever been. What Canada does not have is one major political party that sees demonizing government as their royal road to power. Canadians see value in using public resources for the public good- they may disagree about what that good should be, but the basic principle holds- as it did in the US until recently.
Before you wax too poetical about the glories of unfettered free markets and how government screws everything up, please reflect that there are many things we do through government exactly because it is the most efficient way to accomplish the task. Not perfect, surely, but most efficient. Police and fire protection, most emergency services, public works like water and sewer, roads and bridges, public safety agencies like the FAA, and the courts come to mind. Those are actually pretty good analogs to the heath care system because they are either not everyday needs of most people or exist in the background and are taken for granted, and most of us are not expert enough to chose from "free market" alternatives. So we collectively- through our government- provide for important public needs. Think having everyone hire their own private police would be more efficient?
Health insurance and health care are examples of markets that don't work well, because of fundamental problems of asymmetry of information, and because when consumers opt to save money on health care they often do so in ways that cost the overall system more and create worse outcomes (not getting that mole checked). On the flip side the push to consume excessive services it not that great ("think I'll just go have another colonoscopy, after all it's free"). Health care is just not the same sort of commodity as groceries or computer hardware. The health insurance market is a market that has failed to deliver what "free market" fundamentalists promised, because we don't consume health care the way we do other consumer goods.
I am a very "productive person", as you put it, but I am screwed by the health insurance system in the US. As an independent entrepreneur designing technology products that will employ many people in US manufacturing, I am acutely aware that the monolithic health insurance companies do not want my business, that as an individual I must pay far more than large companies pay and receive worse coverage, that I could be shut out altogether at any time, and that I have zero leverage as a consumer. That is a huge disincentive to the kind of risk taking entrepreneurship we need more of. The original poster is up against a real dilemma- probably solvable if he is young and healthy, but if he has a child or spouse with health problems, or is over 40, forget it.
In the real world public health insurance is a policy experiment that has been carried out many times. Other industrialized countries cover everyone, spend a fraction of what we do, and have, by any rational measure, better overall outcomes.
Even F.A. Hayek used health insurance as an example of an area where government should intervene- because it is genuine insurance against individual catastrophe, NOT managing an industry or determining outcomes:
“Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individuals in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision. Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance – where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks – the case for the state’s helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong Wherever communal action can mitigate disasters against which the individual can neither attempt to guard himself nor make the provision for the consequences, such communal action should undoubtedly be taken,” – The Road To Serfdom (Chapter 9).
As designers of a small volume specialty hand held device that is safety related and that we want to last a long time with high reliability I can tell you this sort of stuff keeps us awake at night. Those of us working in medical and safety related fields (read small volume markets) have to deal with the fact that components are being driven by the mass consumer market. As has been pointed out, even if your product class is exempt, available components are ROHS. And we're using several BGA chips with tiny clearances, and SMT connectors with.3mm pitch.
Does conformal coating solve the problem? I can say we have had bigger problems getting good assembly with lead-free processes.
We fought the AR program all through elementary school with my daughter, who was a very advanced reader. The school had unfortunately made it the foundation of their literacy program.They would not say that in so may words, but the fact that it was automated and therefore lightened the load for teachers virtually guaranteed it center stage. While AR may motivate some to read to get the "points", we saw huge problems:
1) The tests are essentially trivia tests designed to "prove" that the student read the book. The questions don't require that the student gasp the concepts or even understand the book, only that they recall, for instance, what Tom Sawyer got from the first boy to help him whitewash the fence (an apple core). Recall of trivia is placed ahead of understanding and thought.
2) The schools have to pay for the tests, consequently there are many excellent books that are not "on the AR list" and don't get read.
3) Like a lot of the "standards based" programs now, it leaves highly capable kids in the cold. They are required to read at or above their level (assessment is another story) to earn points. By the beginning of 4th grade our daughter had taken all the tests the school had at or above her tested level- except for the books by the Time-Life Editors with titles like "Franklin Pierce" or "Alabama". Yet her grades were based on "AR Points", which she could only get by reading the dullest of the dull reference materials. At that time she was devouring the entire "Lord of the Rings" series as well as Les Miserables, Chaucer, etc. etc. none of which she could get "points" for. And no, "Catch 22" was not on the AR list.
4) The worst of it was that the lack of discussion, analysis, or any focus on meaning reduced reading to another form of entertainment. Her entire time in elementary school she did not have to write a single book report, describe a theme or a character, or show that she had thought about what she had read in any way. Later on, when asked to do so, she had a lot of trouble catching up with kids from non "AR" schools.
This was a well to do suburban school that prided itself on technology. Several of the teachers were disturbed by what they saw, but the push to be "advanced" was quite strong.
CAD on the Mac depends a lot on what you are doing- for Architecture Vector Works is quite viable, for solid modeling it's very weak.
I've been using Ashlar's Cobalt http://www.ashlar.com/ under OSX and Windows for about 18 months, and for what I do, tending towards industrial Design, Injection molded plastic parts, prototyping, etc. I like it much more than SolidWorks. You get both Windows and Mac versions for one price, and the license allows you to switch back and forth, which I do frequently as in order to export Parasolid files for SolidWorks users you have to be under Windows. It runs at least as well on the Mac- better really. They offer a 2 week fully functional trial- after using it for about two hours I was scrounging up the $4000 for the full package. I only open SolidWorks now when I absolutely need to check an exported file for someone.
Pros: much better interface (Mac or Windows), more fun to use, better tools for creating complex organic shapes
Cons: fewer tools for very complex assemblies, less than fully realized parametric tools, lack of many of the tie ins to specialized software like FEA, etc. The Rutan / Scaled Composites/ Spaceship one supposedly group used Cobalt for the airframe design, SolidWorks for the landing gear- not sure if this is entirely true, but it does summarize the relative strengths of the systems).
There are persistent rumors of ProE coming over to the Mac platform- That would be a very good thing.
RonR
Slashdot Mirror
A perfect illustration- a fathom is SIX feet, 5280 feet are a statue mile, but a nautical mile actually 6076 feet- corresponding to one minute of arc of latitude. Even people who grew up with this system have trouble keeping it straight. Working internationally in engineering, the potential for errors in unit conversions are astounding- just ask the Hubble designers.
I stubbed my toe on a pretty good sized (± 10 lb) meteorite hiking around in the desert in the early '60's. It ended up in the University of Arizona collections.
Yes, you can get health insurance independently- IF you don't have health issues, a sick child, a spouse with health problems, aren't too old.. You will pay far more than if you were part of a large group, because insurance companies don't want to deal with independent policy holders (assuming they are only getting insurance because they are sick), and you have NO leverage as a consumer.
I've been in independent business since 85, and the best deals I see available are high deductible heath savings account programs. Be very cautious about fake "group" programs that often have low caps or pay very little for serious illness. Pay ordinary expenses out of pocket, insure for major catastrophes and try to prevent them from happening.
Um, Canada is significantly MORE invested, at the federal government level, in "advancing social agendas" than the US has ever been. What Canada does not have is one major political party that sees demonizing government as their royal road to power. Canadians see value in using public resources for the public good- they may disagree about what that good should be, but the basic principle holds- as it did in the US until recently.
Before you wax too poetical about the glories of unfettered free markets and how government screws everything up, please reflect that there are many things we do through government exactly because it is the most efficient way to accomplish the task. Not perfect, surely, but most efficient. Police and fire protection, most emergency services, public works like water and sewer, roads and bridges, public safety agencies like the FAA, and the courts come to mind. Those are actually pretty good analogs to the heath care system because they are either not everyday needs of most people or exist in the background and are taken for granted, and most of us are not expert enough to chose from "free market" alternatives. So we collectively- through our government- provide for important public needs. Think having everyone hire their own private police would be more efficient?
Health insurance and health care are examples of markets that don't work well, because of fundamental problems of asymmetry of information, and because when consumers opt to save money on health care they often do so in ways that cost the overall system more and create worse outcomes (not getting that mole checked). On the flip side the push to consume excessive services it not that great ("think I'll just go have another colonoscopy, after all it's free"). Health care is just not the same sort of commodity as groceries or computer hardware. The health insurance market is a market that has failed to deliver what "free market" fundamentalists promised, because we don't consume health care the way we do other consumer goods.
I am a very "productive person", as you put it, but I am screwed by the health insurance system in the US. As an independent entrepreneur designing technology products that will employ many people in US manufacturing, I am acutely aware that the monolithic health insurance companies do not want my business, that as an individual I must pay far more than large companies pay and receive worse coverage, that I could be shut out altogether at any time, and that I have zero leverage as a consumer. That is a huge disincentive to the kind of risk taking entrepreneurship we need more of. The original poster is up against a real dilemma- probably solvable if he is young and healthy, but if he has a child or spouse with health problems, or is over 40, forget it.
In the real world public health insurance is a policy experiment that has been carried out many times. Other industrialized countries cover everyone, spend a fraction of what we do, and have, by any rational measure, better overall outcomes.
Even F.A. Hayek used health insurance as an example of an area where government should intervene- because it is genuine insurance against individual catastrophe, NOT managing an industry or determining outcomes: “Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individuals in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision. Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance – where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks – the case for the state’s helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong Wherever communal action can mitigate disasters against which the individual can neither attempt to guard himself nor make the provision for the consequences, such communal action should undoubtedly be taken,” – The Road To Serfdom (Chapter 9).
As designers of a small volume specialty hand held device that is safety related and that we want to last a long time with high reliability I can tell you this sort of stuff keeps us awake at night. Those of us working in medical and safety related fields (read small volume markets) have to deal with the fact that components are being driven by the mass consumer market. As has been pointed out, even if your product class is exempt, available components are ROHS. And we're using several BGA chips with tiny clearances, and SMT connectors with .3mm pitch.
Does conformal coating solve the problem? I can say we have had bigger problems getting good assembly with lead-free processes.
We fought the AR program all through elementary school with my daughter, who was a very advanced reader. The school had unfortunately made it the foundation of their literacy program.They would not say that in so may words, but the fact that it was automated and therefore lightened the load for teachers virtually guaranteed it center stage. While AR may motivate some to read to get the "points", we saw huge problems: 1) The tests are essentially trivia tests designed to "prove" that the student read the book. The questions don't require that the student gasp the concepts or even understand the book, only that they recall, for instance, what Tom Sawyer got from the first boy to help him whitewash the fence (an apple core). Recall of trivia is placed ahead of understanding and thought. 2) The schools have to pay for the tests, consequently there are many excellent books that are not "on the AR list" and don't get read. 3) Like a lot of the "standards based" programs now, it leaves highly capable kids in the cold. They are required to read at or above their level (assessment is another story) to earn points. By the beginning of 4th grade our daughter had taken all the tests the school had at or above her tested level- except for the books by the Time-Life Editors with titles like "Franklin Pierce" or "Alabama". Yet her grades were based on "AR Points", which she could only get by reading the dullest of the dull reference materials. At that time she was devouring the entire "Lord of the Rings" series as well as Les Miserables, Chaucer, etc. etc. none of which she could get "points" for. And no, "Catch 22" was not on the AR list. 4) The worst of it was that the lack of discussion, analysis, or any focus on meaning reduced reading to another form of entertainment. Her entire time in elementary school she did not have to write a single book report, describe a theme or a character, or show that she had thought about what she had read in any way. Later on, when asked to do so, she had a lot of trouble catching up with kids from non "AR" schools. This was a well to do suburban school that prided itself on technology. Several of the teachers were disturbed by what they saw, but the push to be "advanced" was quite strong.
CAD on the Mac depends a lot on what you are doing- for Architecture Vector Works is quite viable, for solid modeling it's very weak. I've been using Ashlar's Cobalt http://www.ashlar.com/ under OSX and Windows for about 18 months, and for what I do, tending towards industrial Design, Injection molded plastic parts, prototyping, etc. I like it much more than SolidWorks. You get both Windows and Mac versions for one price, and the license allows you to switch back and forth, which I do frequently as in order to export Parasolid files for SolidWorks users you have to be under Windows. It runs at least as well on the Mac- better really. They offer a 2 week fully functional trial- after using it for about two hours I was scrounging up the $4000 for the full package. I only open SolidWorks now when I absolutely need to check an exported file for someone. Pros: much better interface (Mac or Windows), more fun to use, better tools for creating complex organic shapes Cons: fewer tools for very complex assemblies, less than fully realized parametric tools, lack of many of the tie ins to specialized software like FEA, etc. The Rutan / Scaled Composites/ Spaceship one supposedly group used Cobalt for the airframe design, SolidWorks for the landing gear- not sure if this is entirely true, but it does summarize the relative strengths of the systems). There are persistent rumors of ProE coming over to the Mac platform- That would be a very good thing. RonR