mojonixon
Joined 18 years ago
Karma
93
Submissions
52
Member since
May 13
Recent submissions
Comment · 17 years ago
Comment · 17 years ago
" I have no idea how insurance companies and employers ended up married like that"
I believe the short answer is WWII. Price controls meant employers needed to find a way other than higher wages to attract workers.
Comment · 17 years ago
If you're uninsured you get price gouged. A simple trip to the doctor with some basic tests can be a months rent. I have catastrophic health insurance; $5k deductible 20% copay to $50k. It won't pay for anything, but it will give me insurance group rates. Where is this magical free basic healthcare? Does not exist. Medicaid is only free if you've already become bankrupt.
Comment · 17 years ago
Wired had a long but interesting article about Xanadu back in 1995: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive//3.06/xanadu.html?person=...
In many ways the story of Xanadu is sad and depressing.
Of course, Xanadu is (or would be) a digital remake of Vannevar Bush's memex: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194507/bush Frankly, I'm not sure Ted Nelson has added much to the original concept with Xanadu.
You can download Xanadu(R) Space(TM), a user interface demo, from here: http://xanarama.net/ Windows only, but I got it to work in WINE. Ted Nelson really likes his trademarks, probably because it's as tangible as Xanadu has become after 40 years.
Comment · 17 years ago
Long term, higher education is screwed. There's no real way to improve the efficiency of 1prof:10-100 students. Most attempts just result in an inferior product. Increasing productivity in all other areas means that professor and the resulting education gets more and more expensive (everything else gets cheaper in comparison).
Comment · 17 years ago
If you're interested in how the pros do it, about 5 years ago I temped at a bulk mailer--mostly medicare checks to doctors--using pitney bowes(IIRC) equipment. The machine I was running was organized in an L shape 20'x20'. One side would strip the letter off the continuous paper stack, collate it, fold it, and seal it in an envelope. The second side would stamp it and stack it in postal bins. A bad day I would do about 20,000 but if I had everything calibrated and the guy on the shift before didn't muck things up too bad I could get close to 50000 in an 8 hour shift. The system I was using rather old and temperamental, so I wouldn't be surprised if modern equipment is an order of magnitude faster.
Once the machine was running I didn't have to do much besides put envelopes in the hopper, but the noise, paper cuts, and opportunity to lose a finger while clearing a jam made it a horrible job.
Comment · 17 years ago
Shakers? Quakers are the religious group that prefer the warm fuzzy feelings to dogma. Shakers were the celibate sect.
Comment · 17 years ago
The autocorrect is maddening. I've been researching Riak recently. It's new so there isn't a lot available. Paired with another search term I frequently get results only for "risk." Let me know if I might have made a typo, but don't assume I'm an idiot and do something different than what I told you to do.
Dropping keywords also annoys me. If the keywords don't exist then tell me that so I can adjust my search. Don't give me a long list of results that I have to click through before realizing you screwed up the search.
The only reason the google search bar is still my default is because I use it as a quick and easy calculator.
Comment · 17 years ago
He is not your employee, he is your son. If he doesn't want to play football, he shouldn't play football. It is not the obligation of our children to make us proud. Frankly, this is just fraked up.
Comment · 17 years ago
It's the Chronicle of Higher Education, written for academics. I suspect most faculty, Harvard faculty included, do not wish to be intellectual caddies for the rich kids at the country club.
Comment · 17 years ago
Kids have always needed instruction on how to play. "be nice!" "share!" "don't hit!" I find it encouraging that we're finding ways to impart these lessons in less coercive ways.
Comment · 17 years ago
Wyoming has oil, which probably pushes out investment in other industries (why invest in a startup when you can invest in an oil well?). It may have a localized version of the Dutch disease. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease
Comment · 17 years ago
god I hate PR flacks. "As the [pr] plan was constructed, Johnson & Johnson's top management put customer safety first, before they worried about their companies profit and other financial concerns." Do it for PR, not because its the right thing to do!
Comment · 17 years ago
Because UNESCO isn't thoroughly politicized.
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The University will not generally claim ownership of Intellectual Property created by students. (A “student” is a person enrolled in University courses for credit except when that person is an Employee.) However, the University does claim ownership of Intellectual Property created by students in their capacity as Employees. Such students shall be considered to be Employees for the purposes of this Policy. Students and others may, if agreeable to the student and OTT, assign their Intellectual Property rights to the University in consideration for being treated as an Employee Inventor under this Policy.
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