Having written a good sized piece of an auto insurance rating engine and poked around in the guts of one provided by another company, I can say that the parent is probably right (in general). I have never seen any signs of claim information being used to adjust rates. However, each company calculates things its own way (they are almost fanatical about that) and are highly protective of information about how their calculations are done, so there might well be some companies out there who have snuck this into the algorithm. I'd doubt it is widespread, but it could be happening in places.
However, I do contest the parents assertion that you should always file a claim. It probably won't raise your rates, but it may get you dropped by that insurer. They definitely do track whether you are a 'good'/'bad' customer based on how many claims they have to pay out (I've written code that relates to this), and not permitting customers to renew is the standard approach to dealing with bad risks. Think of it from this standpoint, they care about you as a risk to them for having to pay out a claim. From their standpoint they don't care so much about your driving record as they do about what you cost them. Sometimes these things correlate, sometimes they do not. You can have a driver with a pretty clean record who is 'claim happy' and files them left and right. You can also have a driver with a lousy record, who is afraid to make a claim, and costs them nothing. They still might get a little nervous over the latter, but the greater sinner in their eyes is still the former.
Further, I can tell you that if you have home and auto with the same insurer, filing a bunch of claims for one type, can put you at risk of getting your renewal refused for both. Again, you have pegged yourself as a bad financial risk to them because it actually seems to occurr to you to *use* your insurance instead of simply paying the premiums each month as if they were a tax.
Also, I have heard (but unlike the prior points this is only hearsay) that some companies are also tracking your benefit inquiries (i.e. when you call/mail in and ask them if you are covered for something) and that this also adds up against continuing to carry you. Again, it is a flag that you view insurance as something to be used rather than just paid for.
As with rating, claims processing and policy administration are pretty custom from company to company, so to what extent this stuff is happening in any given company really depends on how recently they updated their IT infrastructure. Some companies are really modern, others are varying shades of stone age. One thing is certain though, this and even scarier stuff will become more and more prevalent. Getting true value from insurance industry is like trying to beat the house in vegas. The big winners are the few really lucky ones, and even this is only permitted because it serves as advertisement.
Actually, not *all* games are like this, just nearly all of them. Galactic Civilizations plays an honest game no matter what, no AI cheating. It is one of the things I like about it. The new version is in the works, you might want to have a look.
Baen serves a very specific market, and in my opinion serves it quite well. I can't recall ever reading anything from them that I'd call 'highbrow' but then I can't recall them ever pretending that their material was. They produce some very satisfying pulp, for someone who wants some good fun material to relax with. David Weber, David Drake, John Ringo, etc. are all solid military scifi writers who turn out just that sort of thing and publish it through Baen. Baen is the M&M Mars of mind candy, it's comfort food.:-)
Sorry to nit pick, but I see a lot of people make this mistake, and it sometimes hampers discussion of the topic. Parent said:
"clearly China is an exception, in that it mixes a Communist government"
No country anywhere ever has had a Communist government. Communism (like Capitalism and Socialism) is an economic system, not a form of government. Democracy, Monarchy, Oligarchy, Dictatorship, etc. are forms of government. So you can have Socialist Oligarchies, Communist Monarchies, Capitalist Dictatorships, or any combination of economic/government system you like.
That being said, I think communism tends to promote systems where the power becomes intensely focused in the hands of a few (i.e. Dictatorship/Oligarchy) because it strips a form of power/control (economic) from the bulk of the population.
Indirectly, yes. Sun has lost its focus on a thin client platform and instead gone for the money--server side development. Open source could have forked Java as an applet platform before it got bloated and complex and focused on making it high quality for that purpose.
Just as a point of information, Java did essentially fork. That is why you have J2ME. I agree that J2SE could be more streamlined itself, but they didn't really try to force the server stuff off on it altogether, they made J2EE. No this forking was not an emergent phenomena as you'd see in pure Open Source, it was preplanned, but I can't say I view that as a negative thing.
You don't need to get all complicated and cut off fingers, you just need a few gummi bears....
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/05/16/gummi_be ar s_defeat_fingerprint_sensors/
And the upside is that once you've done all that hugry work of pirating the RIAA's rightfully stolen (from the artists) profits, you can have a yummy snack.:-)
But does putting the mass of 3 humans in suborbital flight really make a difference? This is akin to the Space Shuttle in the 1970s: It's designed to go somewhere, but there's nothing up there to go to.
Another angle on this is also whether or not the plants can be used for some non-consumption purpose before/after extraction. I think corn was mentioned as one the the plants used, perhaps it could be fermented and alcohol (for energy, not consumption) extracted before/after extracting the heavy metals. That could help to make the process financially practical.
Yes. I work as a developer in the Insurance Software industry and a good number of companies seem to be moving to Java. I can't speak for Claims Processing but things like Sales Illustration and Benefit Query systems are being built around browsers and servlets. I've also seen Rating Engines developed to be embedded in EJBs and provide rates as a service via XML. What I haven't seen is a lot of new client side stuff being developed. The old desktop VB apps are being replaced. Now, I'm certain that some of the shift is probably towards.Net and the MS centric approach, but even that is an improvement over Windows specific software. Insurance companies are conservative beasts and move slowly, but the shift is happening.
What has me curious is why there aren't any "hot swappable" batteries for these things. People complain about 8 hour recharge time. Why can't you just swap out the battery and put the old one in a recharger?
I'd guess it would be weight. If you've ever lifted a regular car battery, you know they are pretty heavy. An electric probably uses 4,6,8,(more?) of these. Ask yourself whether your grandmother would be able to transfer that out then an equal weight back in. You could make the individual units smaller to reduce the weight of each, but then you'd have more, which would be a lot of work for 8 hours drive time.
Actually it was 18 people, I counted a few times during the event.
There was one girl there, but she was the girlfriend of a Slashdot reader rather than a regular reader herself (she apparently reads the occasional story though).
The bar was nice but as the parent pointed out, it was *way* overpriced and really didn't have the right feel for a geek party. $6 for a bottle of Smirnoff Ice is a bit out of line. I could host the event at my place and buy all the alcohol for everyone and still come out ahead financially compared to what it would cost to get respectably wasted in that bar. We definitely need a new venue, hopefully chosen from the suggestions of people who were there last time.
The crowd was interesting and I'd definitely be up for doing it again sometime. It is a great thing to be able to say to a group of people "I read this story about:topic: on Slashdot and it got me thinking about:some idea:" and see heads nodding and murmers of "yeah I saw that story too" rather than the usual "Slashdot???". I also noted that the backgrounds of the people I talked to were more varied than I'd anticipated, at least half were not any sort of tech professional.
As far a what time it ended goes, I think it would have gone longer on a Friday or Saturday. I was there until about 10:15 and would have stayed out longer but for the fact that I am currently employed and want to stay that way.;-) C++ and lack of sleep don't mix well.
For the future, I suggest we swap e-mails and have some sort of introduction during the event as suggested above. The Meetup site really lacks any way to talk to one another and coordinate things, and the hosts seemed to be more observers than people who actually ran the event. It really had the feel of a bunch of people who showed up at the same place rather than an actual meeting.
If you couldn't make this one or weren't sure that you'd like it, consider coming to the next, it was worthwhile.
>They would degrade and die within a couple >thousand hours of use. Considering the fact >that normal CRTs last a lot longer than that, >I don't see LEPs becoming popular or practical >until this problem is overcome
This may not matter depending on the selling price of the display. A couple thousand hours of use translates to around a year of regular use. If the cost to produce something like this allows them to sell a unit comparable to a 19" CRT for less than say $75 I think they have a winner. Economically it works out. You replace a monitor every 4 years or so anyway. With something like this you would simply have more but cheaper upgrades, the total cash outlay would be the same. The difference being that you keep getting newer, better, and possibly cheaper versions each year, whereas with a CRT it just keeps getting more obsolete.
If you re-read what I wrote, you'll note that nowhere do I advocate only teaching coding. There is a school of thought which advocates that hands on, down and dirty, get it done (what do I need a CS degree for?), coding skills are all you need; I don't subscribe to this viewpoint and this is not what my post was about.
On the contrary, I feel that theory and exposure to others code is crucial to advancing beyond the most basic levels of development. What I was arguing against was that abstract theory be the first thing taught and that coding skills be taught as an afterthought.
Teach the students how to use a tool (language syntax), then once they are comfortable enough with it that it is not a source of confusion for them, teach them how to apply that tool wisely.
As for pianos, it is the same. There is a time for basics and a time for higher level abstract theory. Basics first, theory later (when it can be usefully applied). See here for more:
"Perhaps if the BSA cracks down on the government a little, they'll see the benefit in providing better guidance to those who make software purchases. Perhaps that will finally drive those purchases away from Microsoft's monopoly."
Interesting point. Perhaps now might be a good time for Open Source sympathetic government employees to report any 'piracy' they've seen in the government to the BSA....
I find it frustrating to see people like the original submitter trying to do something like this. It is a fine example of someone with lofty ideals and noble intentions who is determined to not let reality get in the way of how things *should* be. Because if we can just teach them the wisdom *first* we can save them the time and effort of having to achieve it themselves! As the parent of this post points out, it doesn't really work like that. It would be really nice if you could teach most people the abstract theory and concept behind good design and development practices, but the truth is that you really appreciate why something is right by having done, or seen it done, wrong yourself.
If you have never developed before, the conceptual underpinnings will be largely meaningless. Sure, students can and will learn what you're teaching by wrote, but the information is not *real* to them yet because they can't make the connection to anything within their experience. Further, they won't retain it long enough for it to be of value later when their development skills catch up enough to appreciate it. So it is all well and good to say 'teach the abstract stuff first' but you're just going to frustrate them and yourself. It's like trying to give the benefit of your life experience to a teen by lecturing them. It's just words to them until they come into that wisdom on their own someday and finally 'get' what you were trying to tell them.
"Some of the stockholders may not want any more money wasted and just liquidate what's left."
Speaking as one of those shareholders, I didn't liquidate my stock on the hopes that they would do this. MS isn't the only reason Be failed, but they might have made it without the monopolistic practices of MS. As a shareholder of several years, I want them to compensate me for what they illegally did to my company.
Did any other New Yorkers notice that Microsoft paid to have the giant picture of Tux & IBM near Port Authority painted over with an ad for XP? I found it kind of amusing myself.
I posted a comment related to this the other day on the X-Box story. Whether this rumor is true now or not, it is reasonably to believe it will be soon. Microsoft, whatever else you may say about them, has one thing they do better than all their competitors...Strategy. This makes a lot of strategic sense.
Slashdot Mirror
Having written a good sized piece of an auto insurance rating engine and poked around in the guts of one provided by another company, I can say that the parent is probably right (in general). I have never seen any signs of claim information being used to adjust rates. However, each company calculates things its own way (they are almost fanatical about that) and are highly protective of information about how their calculations are done, so there might well be some companies out there who have snuck this into the algorithm. I'd doubt it is widespread, but it could be happening in places.
However, I do contest the parents assertion that you should always file a claim. It probably won't raise your rates, but it may get you dropped by that insurer. They definitely do track whether you are a 'good'/'bad' customer based on how many claims they have to pay out (I've written code that relates to this), and not permitting customers to renew is the standard approach to dealing with bad risks. Think of it from this standpoint, they care about you as a risk to them for having to pay out a claim. From their standpoint they don't care so much about your driving record as they do about what you cost them. Sometimes these things correlate, sometimes they do not. You can have a driver with a pretty clean record who is 'claim happy' and files them left and right. You can also have a driver with a lousy record, who is afraid to make a claim, and costs them nothing. They still might get a little nervous over the latter, but the greater sinner in their eyes is still the former.
Further, I can tell you that if you have home and auto with the same insurer, filing a bunch of claims for one type, can put you at risk of getting your renewal refused for both. Again, you have pegged yourself as a bad financial risk to them because it actually seems to occurr to you to *use* your insurance instead of simply paying the premiums each month as if they were a tax.
Also, I have heard (but unlike the prior points this is only hearsay) that some companies are also tracking your benefit inquiries (i.e. when you call/mail in and ask them if you are covered for something) and that this also adds up against continuing to carry you. Again, it is a flag that you view insurance as something to be used rather than just paid for.
As with rating, claims processing and policy administration are pretty custom from company to company, so to what extent this stuff is happening in any given company really depends on how recently they updated their IT infrastructure. Some companies are really modern, others are varying shades of stone age. One thing is certain though, this and even scarier stuff will become more and more prevalent. Getting true value from insurance industry is like trying to beat the house in vegas. The big winners are the few really lucky ones, and even this is only permitted because it serves as advertisement.
Look up 'Cabin Fever'
Actually, not *all* games are like this, just nearly all of them. Galactic Civilizations plays an honest game no matter what, no AI cheating. It is one of the things I like about it. The new version is in the works, you might want to have a look.
http://galciv2.com/
Baen serves a very specific market, and in my opinion serves it quite well. I can't recall ever reading anything from them that I'd call 'highbrow' but then I can't recall them ever pretending that their material was. They produce some very satisfying pulp, for someone who wants some good fun material to relax with. David Weber, David Drake, John Ringo, etc. are all solid military scifi writers who turn out just that sort of thing and publish it through Baen. Baen is the M&M Mars of mind candy, it's comfort food. :-)
Sorry to nit pick, but I see a lot of people make this mistake, and it sometimes hampers discussion of the topic. Parent said:
"clearly China is an exception, in that it mixes a Communist government"
No country anywhere ever has had a Communist government. Communism (like Capitalism and Socialism) is an economic system, not a form of government. Democracy, Monarchy, Oligarchy, Dictatorship, etc. are forms of government. So you can have Socialist Oligarchies, Communist Monarchies, Capitalist Dictatorships, or any combination of economic/government system you like.
That being said, I think communism tends to promote systems where the power becomes intensely focused in the hands of a few (i.e. Dictatorship/Oligarchy) because it strips a form of power/control (economic) from the bulk of the population.
Good point, oral skills are important too...after all, I think everyone appreciates a cunning linguist.
Indirectly, yes. Sun has lost its focus on a thin client platform and instead gone for the money--server side development. Open source could have forked Java as an applet platform before it got bloated and complex and focused on making it high quality for that purpose.
Just as a point of information, Java did essentially fork. That is why you have J2ME. I agree that J2SE could be more streamlined itself, but they didn't really try to force the server stuff off on it altogether, they made J2EE. No this forking was not an emergent phenomena as you'd see in pure Open Source, it was preplanned, but I can't say I view that as a negative thing.
You don't need to get all complicated and cut off fingers, you just need a few gummi bears....
e ar s_defeat_fingerprint_sensors/
:-)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/05/16/gummi_b
And the upside is that once you've done all that hugry work of pirating the RIAA's rightfully stolen (from the artists) profits, you can have a yummy snack.
But does putting the mass of 3 humans in suborbital flight really make a difference? This is akin to the Space Shuttle in the 1970s: It's designed to go somewhere, but there's nothing up there to go to.
There may not be today, but there will be
From reading this, it looks like it is in fact a form of rigid structure.
http://www.techspheresystems.com/faqs.html
There seems to be an outer shell with a gasbag inside.
The poster said NYC not Manhattan. Keep in mind that there are 4 boros other than manhattan and some are cheaper than others.
Another angle on this is also whether or not the plants can be used for some non-consumption purpose before/after extraction. I think corn was mentioned as one the the plants used, perhaps it could be fermented and alcohol (for energy, not consumption) extracted before/after extracting the heavy metals. That could help to make the process financially practical.
Microvision does technology like this.
Yes. I work as a developer in the Insurance Software industry and a good number of companies seem to be moving to Java. I can't speak for Claims Processing but things like Sales Illustration and Benefit Query systems are being built around browsers and servlets. I've also seen Rating Engines developed to be embedded in EJBs and provide rates as a service via XML. What I haven't seen is a lot of new client side stuff being developed. The old desktop VB apps are being replaced. Now, I'm certain that some of the shift is probably towards .Net and the MS centric approach, but even that is an improvement over Windows specific software. Insurance companies are conservative beasts and move slowly, but the shift is happening.
What has me curious is why there aren't any "hot swappable" batteries for these things. People complain about 8 hour recharge time. Why can't you just swap out the battery and put the old one in a recharger?
I'd guess it would be weight. If you've ever lifted a regular car battery, you know they are pretty heavy. An electric probably uses 4,6,8,(more?) of these. Ask yourself whether your grandmother would be able to transfer that out then an equal weight back in. You could make the individual units smaller to reduce the weight of each, but then you'd have more, which would be a lot of work for 8 hours drive time.
You show me a man with the balls to keep an electric eel in his pocket and I'll show you a man who won't be having kids.
Actually it was 18 people, I counted a few times during the event.
:topic: on Slashdot and it got me thinking about :some idea:" and see heads nodding and murmers of "yeah I saw that story too" rather than the usual "Slashdot???". I also noted that the backgrounds of the people I talked to were more varied than I'd anticipated, at least half were not any sort of tech professional .
;-) C++ and lack of sleep don't mix well.
There was one girl there, but she was the girlfriend of a Slashdot reader rather than a regular reader herself (she apparently reads the occasional story though).
The bar was nice but as the parent pointed out, it was *way* overpriced and really didn't have the right feel for a geek party. $6 for a bottle of Smirnoff Ice is a bit out of line. I could host the event at my place and buy all the alcohol for everyone and still come out ahead financially compared to what it would cost to get respectably wasted in that bar. We definitely need a new venue, hopefully chosen from the suggestions of people who were there last time.
The crowd was interesting and I'd definitely be up for doing it again sometime. It is a great thing to be able to say to a group of people "I read this story about
As far a what time it ended goes, I think it would have gone longer on a Friday or Saturday. I was there until about 10:15 and would have stayed out longer but for the fact that I am currently employed and want to stay that way.
For the future, I suggest we swap e-mails and have some sort of introduction during the event as suggested above. The Meetup site really lacks any way to talk to one another and coordinate things, and the hosts seemed to be more observers than people who actually ran the event. It really had the feel of a bunch of people who showed up at the same place rather than an actual meeting.
If you couldn't make this one or weren't sure that you'd like it, consider coming to the next, it was worthwhile.
>They would degrade and die within a couple
>thousand hours of use. Considering the fact
>that normal CRTs last a lot longer than that,
>I don't see LEPs becoming popular or practical
>until this problem is overcome
This may not matter depending on the selling price of the display. A couple thousand hours of use translates to around a year of regular use. If the cost to produce something like this allows them to sell a unit comparable to a 19" CRT for less than say $75 I think they have a winner. Economically it works out. You replace a monitor every 4 years or so anyway. With something like this you would simply have more but cheaper upgrades, the total cash outlay would be the same. The difference being that you keep getting newer, better, and possibly cheaper versions each year, whereas with a CRT it just keeps getting more obsolete.
If you re-read what I wrote, you'll note that nowhere do I advocate only teaching coding. There is a school of thought which advocates that hands on, down and dirty, get it done (what do I need a CS degree for?), coding skills are all you need; I don't subscribe to this viewpoint and this is not what my post was about.
On the contrary, I feel that theory and exposure to others code is crucial to advancing beyond the most basic levels of development. What I was arguing against was that abstract theory be the first thing taught and that coding skills be taught as an afterthought.
Teach the students how to use a tool (language syntax), then once they are comfortable enough with it that it is not a source of confusion for them, teach them how to apply that tool wisely.
As for pianos, it is the same. There is a time for basics and a time for higher level abstract theory. Basics first, theory later (when it can be usefully applied). See here for more:
http://www.suzuki-piano.com/
"Perhaps if the BSA cracks down on the government a little, they'll see the benefit in providing better guidance to those who make software purchases. Perhaps that will finally drive those purchases away from Microsoft's monopoly."
Interesting point. Perhaps now might be a good time for Open Source sympathetic government employees to report any 'piracy' they've seen in the government to the BSA....
I find it frustrating to see people like the original submitter trying to do something like this. It is a fine example of someone with lofty ideals and noble intentions who is determined to not let reality get in the way of how things *should* be. Because if we can just teach them the wisdom *first* we can save them the time and effort of having to achieve it themselves! As the parent of this post points out, it doesn't really work like that. It would be really nice if you could teach most people the abstract theory and concept behind good design and development practices, but the truth is that you really appreciate why something is right by having done, or seen it done, wrong yourself.
If you have never developed before, the conceptual underpinnings will be largely meaningless. Sure, students can and will learn what you're teaching by wrote, but the information is not *real* to them yet because they can't make the connection to anything within their experience. Further, they won't retain it long enough for it to be of value later when their development skills catch up enough to appreciate it. So it is all well and good to say 'teach the abstract stuff first' but you're just going to frustrate them and yourself. It's like trying to give the benefit of your life experience to a teen by lecturing them. It's just words to them until they come into that wisdom on their own someday and finally 'get' what you were trying to tell them.
"Some of the stockholders may not want any more money wasted and just liquidate what's left."
Speaking as one of those shareholders, I didn't liquidate my stock on the hopes that they would do this. MS isn't the only reason Be failed, but they might have made it without the monopolistic practices of MS. As a shareholder of several years, I want them to compensate me for what they illegally did to my company.
Did any other New Yorkers notice that Microsoft paid to have the giant picture of Tux & IBM near Port Authority painted over with an ad for XP? I found it kind of amusing myself.
Here is how they looked in 1998, when hope was dawning. http://web.archive.org/web/19980101-19981231re_/ht tp://be.com
I posted a comment related to this the other day on the X-Box story. Whether this rumor is true now or not, it is reasonably to believe it will be soon. Microsoft, whatever else you may say about them, has one thing they do better than all their competitors...Strategy. This makes a lot of strategic sense.