Mister D Says...

Not my night

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:01:58 -0500

Late night poker

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:56:19 -0500

@JohnAugust posts things that make me wish I was still writing

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:20:14 -0500

It’s easy to think of dozens of great movies that never really burn the house down. But the better exercise is to look at your own scripts and ask, (a) what could burn, and (b) why haven’t I lit it on fire?

- John August

Computer Nerd Quarterly is not a real magazine. :) This is an...

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:09:15 -0500

Computer Nerd Quarterly is not a real magazine. :) This is an exemplar project for a greenscreen unit in my digital photography class.

Why variance is a real bitch

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:12:56 -0500

Listen!

(Even) more on health care: pre-existing conditions

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:35:23 -0500

Earlier tonight, during a longish tweet-debate on health care, my buddy @airbeat wrote:

*And* insurance companies can’t turn people away for preexisting conditions, or cut off benefits when they get sick. Win/win

He and I disagree pretty consistently on political and philosophical issues and this remark underscores with remarkable clarity what one of those disagreements is… so I responded:

Why is is good to force insurance companies to insure pre-existing conditions? I can’t explain how silly that is in only 144 chars.

Here is my explanation, now that I have enough room.

For as long as he’s been pushing this reform, President Obama has said that he wants to do away with the ability of health insurance companies to deny coverage of pre-existing conditions. This seems silly to me… downright foolish, actually.

You see, health insurance is a bet. When you purchase it (or any insurance, really), youre betting the house (the insurance company) that something bad is going to happen to you. When you buy life insurance, you bet that you’re going to die. Auto insurance is a bet that you are going to require auto repair and/or protection from liability… and health insurance is a great big bet that you’re going to get so horribly sick that you won’t be able to pay for your care. If you lose (like most of us want to), then the house keeps your bet (the premiums you paid them). If you are lucky enough to get sick, have an accident or die prematurely, you win the jackpot and the payout is far more than you paid in premiums.

With that understanding, isn’t it obvious why health insurance companies don’t want to cover pre-existing conditions? If a bleeding man walked into United Healthcare’s offices and asked for a health insurance policy, they would insist that his current injuries not be covered by the bet they were agreeing to take. This is reasonable, right?

(It is if you see insurance companies through the lens of realpolitik, as companies interested in providing a reasonable service for a reasonable fee. If, however, you see them as evil entities out to ruin people’s lives, than this analogy isn’t going to get us anywhere closer to understanding one another.)

The new health care bill proposes to force insurance companies to sell insurance to anyone… presumably even a three-pack-a-day smoker with a death wish and high cholestorol. Under these circumstances, would you purchase health insurance before you felt sick?

Of course not. If the company had to sell you insurance no matter how ill you were, why would you buy insurance before you needed it? To return to our betting analogy, you would wait until just after the Yankees built up a five run lead and put Rivera on the mound before placing your bet on the outcome of the game!

But wait. The proposal has a solution for that. The plan requires everyone to buy health insurance. And if you don’t… -wait for it- you will be fined and/or imprisoned. It’s all spelled out in pages 297-299 (link) if you don’t believe me (look for Section 59B, called “TAX ON INDIVIDUALS WITHOUT ACCEPTABLE HEALTH CARE COVERAGE”).

In other words, the government is going to get into the insurance business, undercut private companies on price and then require every single citizen to purchase insurance, under threat of fine and imprisonment.

Does that sound like a really good idea to you?

Does that sound like a really American idea to you?

This is just one of the many, many problems I have with the Affordable Health Care for America Act.

I have said this before and I will say it again: I agree that our current health care system is broken. But this proposal is not the solution. It is a case of an activist, Leftist President taking advantage of an opportunity to to remake America into what he feels it should be. It’s foolhardy, it’s happening much too fast and it’s bad for all of us, in both the long and short terms.

More on health care

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:36:39 -0500

In a Twitter debate on this issue last night, I quoted a Rasmussen poll that showed that President Obama’s Health Care Plan has no clear support. In fact, it’s splitting the nation at the 50/50 mark with a tiny majority opposed.

A pal of mine objected to my use of Rasmussen (I guess he felt is was partisan) and pointed me to another site… which also supports my point! Check it out:

Succesful session

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:12:59 -0500

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Climbing back into the saddle

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:17:40 -0500

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Widescreen HDTV Woes

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:22:23 -0500

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What a crappy online business taught me about Health Care

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 13:13:56 -0500

An interesting confluence of events helped my crystallize some thoughts this morning. The first was last night’s passage of President Obama’s Health Care Reform Bill by the House of Representatives by a five-vote margin. The second was a phone conversation I had with a representative of DinoDirect.com, an online reseller of tech toys.

Background: Just over a month ago, I placed an order with DinoDirect for a pair of iPhone headphones, a dock and a case for my 3GS. I was amazed at the prices - the entire order was only $14.89 and shipping was free. I didn’t know what to expect in terms of quality but I figured that, even if the products were total crap, I was only out fifteen bucks.

After two weeks went by with no package, I contacted the company’s online customer service and they told me that things were slow because the products were coming from China. Nontheless, three days later, a package arrived with the headphones (which suck) and the dock (which does not). But not the case.

It has now been over a month and I called the company’s phone number this morning. Yes, it’s a Sunday, but I was pleasantly surprised that someone answered. Until I discovered that the person who answered the phone spoke almost no English and all she could tell me ws that the case was out of stock. When I asked when they expected to get it in stock, she told me they would issue a refund for the case.

I decided to take them at their word; we’ll see if the refund actually comes. That’s not the important part. The lesson here is that I’m not surprised to get lousy service since the prices this company charges are so low. I would be foolish to expect top-notch service at bargain-basement prices.

Robert Heinlein wrote about this idea in several books and used the term TANSTAAFL to describe it; the acronym stands for There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch and, while Heinlein didn’t invent it, his work is where I first encountered it.

What does this have to do with Obama’s Health Care plan, you ask? Simple.

Anyone who thinks the current state of affairs in US Health Care is acceptable is foolish. Things are too expensive, regulations stifle innovation, doctors are prohibited from giving good care and everyone is unhappy. However, the President’s proposal is not the answer.

Put simply, TANSTAAFL: you can’t just legislate your way to better care at lower prices. Something will suffer. The sort of Socialized Plan President Obama has proposed (and, yes that’s what it is) has been tried elsewhere in the world and, in every case, has led to a lower standard of care and longer wait times for treatment. Wealthy Canadians and Eurpoeans routinely come to the US for medical treatment since the rationing of care in their country makes the wait times unbearable.

In short, the plan is bad for many people in the short term and bad for everyone in the long term.

—

But that’s not all. Here’s what really worries me: the majority of President Obama’s support in the genereal election came from Americans with less wealth. Yes, that’s a generalization, but it also happens to be true. It’s also true that most of the President’s domestic agenda items (Health care reform, tax reform, the financial bail-out) favor the poor over the wealthy… but are paid for by taxing the wealthiest Americans.

Think that through for a second.

In the long term, what will a pattern like that do to class relations in America?

TANSTAAFL, folks. If you are currently one of the 96 million Americans who don’t have health insurance, do you really expect a new law to -poof!- give you insurance without anyone paying for it? Employers will foot the bill… and salaries will drop. Or people will get fired. Or taxes will go up. The money has to come from somewhere.

I would love to be wrong about this. But anyone unselfish enough to not be blinded simply has to see how this plan is a bad idea.

Mobile podcasting via AudioBoo and my iPhone

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:18:08 -0500

I’ve started to include an audio podcast here. Well, sort of. I’m using a cool free app for the iPhone called AudioBoo [App Store link] to create short audio recordings that you can listen to in the browser or subscribe to in iTunes or any other RSS/podcast client.

The process is so simple that I don’t even have to walk you through it. Just download the app, create a free account at the AudioBoo website and start recording. You can record up to five minutes of audio and upload it right from the iPhone. I’ve used the Apple earbud microphone, a pair of third-party earbud’s mic and the speakerphone, all while driving, and they all sound fine. The upload is nice and quick (especially over wifi!) and once you press “Publish,” you’re done!

I’ve put links in the sidebar so you can subscribe to the Podcast if you want, or you can just listen via the flash player AudioBoo provides.

Enjoy!

The Yanks and I both win

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:05:58 -0500

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Saturday night hopeful: after

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:20:07 -0500

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Saturday night hopeful: before

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:56:16 -0400

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Hate crime legislation

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:52:00 -0400

(Alternative title: Don’t hate me because I’m rational.)

According to the White House Blog, the “Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act” became federal law today, effectiely making it legal for you to be punished for thinking incorrect thoughts.

Seriously… there are a number of issues on which Leftists and Conservatives disagree, but few are so clarifying as this one. I’ve written before about how I believe that, in general, Leftists are motivated by emotion over reason, and the debate over this issue substantiates that claim.

During his remarks, President Obama said:

…we must stand against crimes that are meant not only to break bones, but to break spirits — not only to inflict harm, but to instill fear. You understand that the rights afforded every citizen under our Constitution mean nothing if we do not protect those rights — both from unjust laws and violent acts. And you understand how necessary this law continues to be.

Let us imagine a scenario in which a young man named William is severly beaten late one night outside a Wal-Mart in Ohio. What punishment do his attackers deserve? We have criminal charges on the books through which they can be made to serve jail time and we have civil courts which could force them to compensate William for medical expenses, lost wages and pain and anguish.

In other words, William’s constitutional right to not be attacked has been protected. Why should this be any different simply because William’s attackers had an imaginary reason to attack him? Suppose they attacked him because he was black. Or Jewish. Or gay. Or Hispanic. Or whatever. Why is that crime somehow worse than attacking him because you don’t like his shoes or because he cut you off in traffic or because you’re simply in a bad mood?

Punishing attackers because of their thoughts frightens me.

I understand why Leftists and Liberals are moved to make this argument. As horrible as it would be to be beaten up because I provoked through some slight, it would be infinitely more terrible to be beaten up for no “good reason” at all. We feel sorry for the victims of hate crime… so we are motivated to do better by them than other victims. This makes emotional sense and is the reason why so many people are happy about this new law.

However, judging people’s thoughts is scary idea. What if the fact that I hate you has nothing to do with your gender, race or sexual orientation? What if I’m just a violent jerk who feels like beating you up? Is my crime someone less than that of the bigot who beats you up with “cause”?

Discussing the issue rationally exposes the absurdity of the claim. This is why the President doesn’t discuss the issue rationally. The end of remarks claim:

We have for centuries strived to live up to our founding ideal, of a nation where all are free and equal and able to pursue their own version of happiness. Through conflict and tumult, through the morass of hatred and prejudice, through periods of division and discord we have endured and grown stronger and fairer and freer. And at every turn, we’ve made progress not only by changing laws but by changing hearts, by our willingness to walk in another’s shoes, by our capacity to love and accept even in the face of rage and bigotry. In April of 1968, just one week after the assassination of Martin Luther King, as our nation mourned in grief and shuddered in anger, President Lyndon Johnson signed landmark civil rights legislation. This was the first time we enshrined into law federal protections against crimes motivated by religious or racial hatred — the law on which we build today.

In other words, our nation made it through all of that conflict and tumult, hatred and prejudice, division and discord without hate crime laws. In the aftermath of King’s assassination, President Johnson signed laws prohibiting institutional bigotry, which is far cry from actively seeking to punish differently based on motivation.

These laws will be abused by zealous prosecutors looking to win big cases. They will be abused by DAs to force confessions from defendants terrified of a hate-crime conviction.

Like Affirmative Action, this is a step backward for American monorities of every kind.

FSJ on trends in smartphone marketshare

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:28:58 -0400

FSJ on trends in smartphone marketshare:

Fake Steve Jobs points to this graph and says, “So, okay. RIM is ahead of us. But look at the trend lines and ask yourself, who would you rather be? Yeah. Me too.”

Football Ramble

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:23:13 -0400

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Lunchboo

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:51:45 -0400

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"Can’t please everyone,” isn’t just an aphorism, it’s the secret of being..."

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 21:48:23 -0400

““Can’t please everyone,” isn’t just an aphorism, it’s the secret of being remarkable.”

- Seth Godin