Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Rebuild the World Trade Center Already
It's been over 7 years. What is the hold-up? Did they lose the plans? Just rebuild it the way it was. The original towers only took about 7 years to build. Go to youtube and watch for Penn & Teller's take on the subject.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Healthcare Reform
There has been much debate as to whether the US should switch (completely) to government-run universal healthcare. Supporters of such a system often cite that many countries (actually all of them) with socialized medicine spend less per capita for
healthcare than the US.
Per Capita Healthcare Spending in US$ (Public + Private)
At the same time, the US lags behind many other countries in terms of infant mortality and other indicators. These facts are presented as an open-and-shut case for socialized medicine. Let's dig a little deeper to see if there isn't more to the story.
In 2000, the World Health Organization gave this list as ranking of all countries in terms of healthcare quality. The US took 37th place. However, if you check, you'll see that Canada is 30th and Germany is 25th. And there are many nations with socialized medicine such as China that have a much lower ranking. If we look at the top-ranking nations, we see that they are also among the world's wealthiest. This leads to a rather unsurprising conclusion: wealthy nations have better healthcare than poor ones. Well, derrr, they have more money to spend on it. It is true though that the US is near the bottom in healthcare quality when compared to other wealthy nations.
OK, so why is the US's ranking so low when so much money is being spent on it? Well, part of it might have to do with the high cost of medical lawsuits. With this many lawyers involved, you can be sure there are armies of math geeks doing their damndest to spin the numbers, but here is a factsheet from the docs that says basically the same thing. Well, looky here: Harvard says 40% of medical lawsuits are hot air. According to this article, the legal cost of medicine is actually quite small, and the higher costs are attributable to doctor's salaries and the price of drugs.
So, the US system could use some tweaking. Are the people who want universal healthcare be willing to pay $8.62/gal for gas? OK, only part of that tax money goes to healthcare, but to pay for it, many other commodities must be taxed. And let's not forget that the insurance industry is not going to agree quickly to shut down and give up billions of dollars in profit.
In brief, the US healthcare system is a giant clusterfuck, so take care of yourself and buy good insurance.
healthcare than the US.
Per Capita Healthcare Spending in US$ (Public + Private)
| #1 | United States: | 4,271 | |
| #2 | Switzerland: | 3,857 | |
| #3 | Norway: | 3,182 | |
| #4 | Denmark: | 2,785 | |
| #5 | Luxembourg: | 2,731 | |
| #6 | Iceland: | 2,701 | |
| #7 | Germany: | 2,697 | |
| #8 | France: | 2,288 | |
| #9 | Japan: | 2,243 | |
| #10 | Netherlands: | 2,173 | |
| #11 | Sweden: | 2,145 | |
| #12 | Belgium: | 2,137 | |
| #13 | Austria: | 2,121 | |
| #14 | Canada: | 1,939 | |
| #15 | Australia: | 1,714 | |
| #16 | Finland: | 1,704 | |
| #17 | Italy: | 1,676 | |
| #18 | United Kingdom: | 1,675 | |
| #19 | Israel: | 1,607 | |
| #20 | Ireland: | 1,569 |
At the same time, the US lags behind many other countries in terms of infant mortality and other indicators. These facts are presented as an open-and-shut case for socialized medicine. Let's dig a little deeper to see if there isn't more to the story.
In 2000, the World Health Organization gave this list as ranking of all countries in terms of healthcare quality. The US took 37th place. However, if you check, you'll see that Canada is 30th and Germany is 25th. And there are many nations with socialized medicine such as China that have a much lower ranking. If we look at the top-ranking nations, we see that they are also among the world's wealthiest. This leads to a rather unsurprising conclusion: wealthy nations have better healthcare than poor ones. Well, derrr, they have more money to spend on it. It is true though that the US is near the bottom in healthcare quality when compared to other wealthy nations.
OK, so why is the US's ranking so low when so much money is being spent on it? Well, part of it might have to do with the high cost of medical lawsuits. With this many lawyers involved, you can be sure there are armies of math geeks doing their damndest to spin the numbers, but here is a factsheet from the docs that says basically the same thing. Well, looky here: Harvard says 40% of medical lawsuits are hot air. According to this article, the legal cost of medicine is actually quite small, and the higher costs are attributable to doctor's salaries and the price of drugs.
So, the US system could use some tweaking. Are the people who want universal healthcare be willing to pay $8.62/gal for gas? OK, only part of that tax money goes to healthcare, but to pay for it, many other commodities must be taxed. And let's not forget that the insurance industry is not going to agree quickly to shut down and give up billions of dollars in profit.
In brief, the US healthcare system is a giant clusterfuck, so take care of yourself and buy good insurance.
Friday, December 26, 2008
In Defense of Cynicism
Too often, the word "cynic" is used to mean a person who is irrationally distrustful of other people or unreasonably negative. Cynicism, as it is defined in most dictionaries, is the belief that people are primarily motivated by self-interest. As I look at the world, I find that this is generally true. Take the automotive bailout for example. Supposedly, their companies are on the verge of going belly-up, and yet somehow, they still have enough money to fly all the executives on private jets to DC to beg for a hand-out. Call this cynical if you will, but I predict Congress will give them the money and the bastards will just go ahead and fire everyone anyway. Who's going to stop them? I further predict that absolutely nothing will be done to punish them after this occurs.
OK, that was a bit depressing, so let's take a look at some of the benefits of cynicism:
1) Cynics are usually right.
When Hurricane Katrina was about to hit New Orleans, many people believed the government would take care of them. Others felt it was best not to leave their safety in the hands of the authorities.
Hundreds of buses, perfectly capable of evacuating everyone, were left idle. If more people were cynical about the ability of the government to take care of people, perhaps fewer people would have died.
Hmm... that was pretty depressing too. But the good news is that by being more cynical, you can protect yourself from the incompetence, recklessness, and malevolence of other people.
2) When cynics are wrong, it is usually a pleasant surprise.
OK, I'm having a hard thinking of examples for this one. Wait, here we go: honest cabbie returns $4 million violin. Bravo, sir.
It seems to me that most of the world's scoundrels, be they con-artists, politicians, or religious leaders, thrive on the trust of other people. We should all strive to be more cynical.
OK, that was a bit depressing, so let's take a look at some of the benefits of cynicism:
1) Cynics are usually right.
When Hurricane Katrina was about to hit New Orleans, many people believed the government would take care of them. Others felt it was best not to leave their safety in the hands of the authorities.
Hundreds of buses, perfectly capable of evacuating everyone, were left idle. If more people were cynical about the ability of the government to take care of people, perhaps fewer people would have died.
Hmm... that was pretty depressing too. But the good news is that by being more cynical, you can protect yourself from the incompetence, recklessness, and malevolence of other people.
2) When cynics are wrong, it is usually a pleasant surprise.
OK, I'm having a hard thinking of examples for this one. Wait, here we go: honest cabbie returns $4 million violin. Bravo, sir.
It seems to me that most of the world's scoundrels, be they con-artists, politicians, or religious leaders, thrive on the trust of other people. We should all strive to be more cynical.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Snows of Kilimanjaro
"As wide as all the world, great, high, and unbelievably white in the sun, was the square top of Kilimanjaro." -Ernest Hemnigway
This is where I work.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Stop sending food to Somalia
Somalia has been getting food aid almost continuously since 1991. During the same period, there has been non-stop fighting between rival warlords and the provisional government. Despite receiving massive amounts of food, Somalia is no better off than it was 1991.
The World Food Program, which distributes most of the food aid in Somalia, warns that a greater number of Somalis face starvation if food aid is not increased. The estimates that form the basis of this claim come from UNICEF and other aid organizations. So, the people that get paid to provide famine relief are also the ones determining if there is a famine or not. This is called a "conflict of interest."
The rash of pirate attacks in Somalia doesn't jive with the famine claim. If they're starving, why are they spending money on weapons to hijack ships?
The food aid that is being sent to Somalia has in all probability prolonged the suffering and chaos in that nation. Warlords fight over the food aid and sell it on the black market to buy arms. For a detailed analysis of this, read The Road to Hell by Michael Maren.
Not only does the food aid fuel the chaos of war, but it also puts local producers out of business by driving down prices. The only benefactors from the ensuing chaos are the warlords and pirates.
More broadly, all the major recipients of foreign aid (a large proportion of which comes from the US) are disaster areas. Liberia, Somalia, the former Zaire, Sudan- billions of dollars were poured into these places and they are all engulfed in anarchy and bloodshed.
The first rule of helping is "do no harm."
The World Food Program, which distributes most of the food aid in Somalia, warns that a greater number of Somalis face starvation if food aid is not increased. The estimates that form the basis of this claim come from UNICEF and other aid organizations. So, the people that get paid to provide famine relief are also the ones determining if there is a famine or not. This is called a "conflict of interest."
The rash of pirate attacks in Somalia doesn't jive with the famine claim. If they're starving, why are they spending money on weapons to hijack ships?
The food aid that is being sent to Somalia has in all probability prolonged the suffering and chaos in that nation. Warlords fight over the food aid and sell it on the black market to buy arms. For a detailed analysis of this, read The Road to Hell by Michael Maren.
Not only does the food aid fuel the chaos of war, but it also puts local producers out of business by driving down prices. The only benefactors from the ensuing chaos are the warlords and pirates.
More broadly, all the major recipients of foreign aid (a large proportion of which comes from the US) are disaster areas. Liberia, Somalia, the former Zaire, Sudan- billions of dollars were poured into these places and they are all engulfed in anarchy and bloodshed.
The first rule of helping is "do no harm."
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Giving an expired equine a few more hits
As Dubya is on his way out and mud begins flying at him from all directions, I thought I might reflect on the handful of decent ideas he had.
1) Guest Worker Program
This is the only sensible solution to illegal immigration; that is to legalize it. They're going to keep coming anyway. Building a wall will not do anything.
2) Moon Base
I think we can all agree this would be pretty cool. The Chinese put a man in space? That's nice. We should send them an invitation to our swimming pool . . . . . . . ON THE MOON!
3) Great wacky quotes
OK, not so great of a president, but you have to admit he made you laugh. It is a rare occassion in history when a whole industry springs up to mock one person.
"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully."
-George W. Bush
And my own analysis of his biggest blunders:
1) Tax cuts & spending increases
Cut revenue and increase spending? Is this what they taught you at Harvard Business School, George?2) Picking Michael Brown to head FEMA
3) Missile Defense
$100 billion since Reagan and it still doesn't work? Christ, we could have built a Moon Base with that. Or at least a functional lightsaber.
5) Iraq War.
Good job getting rid of Saddam. Too bad all those people are dead.
I sorta feel sorry for this guy.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Let's Reform Spelling
I'm going to be lazy and just copy and paste this from this site.
WHY ENGLISH SPELLING SHOULD BE UPDATED.
-English spelling is too difficult for most people.
-Even after 11 years at school barely half of all English speakers become confident spellers.
-Italian children can spell accurately after just 2 years at school.
-Italy has only half as many identified dyslexics as England.
-Around 7 million British adults and 40 million US adults are functionally illiterate.
-English speaking adults always come near the bottom in international studies on literacy.
-In 1992 Dr. Lamb reported on the poor spelling standards of university students in the UK.
-In 1998 Bernard Richards reported on the poor spelling of many students at Oxford.
-In all UK schools there are some teachers who regularly make spelling mistakes on school reports.
OK, back to me. As I see it, there are basically five arguments for retaining the current spelling system:
1) the aesthetic argument (the extra letters make the words look nicer)
2) the etymological argument (the spelling makes it easier to identify the word's origin)
3) the discipline argument (pointless drudgery is good for children)
4) the asshole argument (I can spell and you can't- hahaha!)
5) the chaos argument (changing the spelling system would just cause more confusion)
Argument #1 is way subjective. Spellings have changed many times over the years. At what point in history did the words acquire just the right number of extra letters? Even if it is more beautiful, is it worth the enormous effort required to teach it?
Argument #2 is even flimsier. Only linguists and other specialists care about the origin of words. How many English speakers are aware that "goodbye" is a corruption of "God be with ye"? In many cases, the current spelling distorts the root word even more. If the word "dungeon" was spelled "dunjin" would it be easier or harder to tell that the word originiates from the Middle French word donjon?
Argument #3 doesn't hold up very well either. Isn't the purpose of education to teach children how to think? But in order to spell properly, logic and consistency must be tossed aside.
Argument #4 is the domain of people who derive a living from the current system: English teachers, spellcheck software companies, etc. They oppose reform because it threatens their livelihood, which is understandable, but is that really a good reason to keep things as they are?
Argument #5 might hold water if not for the fact that we now have movable type. Printing books is not really that big a hassle these days, and in any case, books wear out and have to be reprinted anyway. Given the already high rates of illiteracy, I fail to see how it is possible to add to the confusion. 40 million American adults can't read a newspaper? Sounds like plenty of people are confused already.
If you're still not convinced, here are some more reasons to simplify spelling:
-Simplified spelling would greatly reduce illiteracy, which in turn would lower crime and unemployment.
-A simple spelling system would free up more time to teach other subjects in school.
- Simplifying English spelling would make it easier to teach as a foreign language. More people speaking English strengthens the status of English as a world language. English is in an excellent position to be a universal language: it has a large number of native speakers, a wealth of literature and other media, simpler grammar than many other languages, and it uses the latin alphabet, the world's most widespread writing system.
b as in "bug" ch as in "chin" d as in "dim" f as in "fig" g as in "gum"
h as in "hen" j as in "jump" k as in "kin" l as in "long" m as in "man"
n as in "not" p as in "pen" r as in "red" s as in "sit" t as in "tan"
th as in "thin" v as in "van" w as in "win" y as in "yes" z as in "zen"
plus a couple new ones:
dh is new; thus "them" would be written as "dhem"
kw replaces q in words like "quit" and "enquire" to get "kwit" and "enkwier"
zh so "pleasure" becomes "plezher"
ks replaces x in words like "hex" to get "heks"
OK, in many plurals and verb forms that end in "s", the actual sound is "z". For example, "trees" sounds like "treez". To keep things simple, plurals and verbs formed by adding "s" will still take "s" even if the sound is actually "z." For the same reason, past tenses formed by "-ed" will stay the same.
The unstressed vowel will not been written unless is comes at the beginning of a word:
associate -----> usoaseeait (verb), usoaseeit (noun)
people -------> peepl
cradle--------> kraidl
Maiking dhu Inglish laingwij eezeeyer tue lern dus not weeken it; it strengthens it.
Join dhu rebelyin!
*Last edited on 22-11-2008 to add "aw", "ow", and "-ed" rule.
WHY ENGLISH SPELLING SHOULD BE UPDATED.
-English spelling is too difficult for most people.
-Even after 11 years at school barely half of all English speakers become confident spellers.
-Italian children can spell accurately after just 2 years at school.
-Italy has only half as many identified dyslexics as England.
-Around 7 million British adults and 40 million US adults are functionally illiterate.
-English speaking adults always come near the bottom in international studies on literacy.
-In 1992 Dr. Lamb reported on the poor spelling standards of university students in the UK.
-In 1998 Bernard Richards reported on the poor spelling of many students at Oxford.
-In all UK schools there are some teachers who regularly make spelling mistakes on school reports.
OK, back to me. As I see it, there are basically five arguments for retaining the current spelling system:
1) the aesthetic argument (the extra letters make the words look nicer)
2) the etymological argument (the spelling makes it easier to identify the word's origin)
3) the discipline argument (pointless drudgery is good for children)
4) the asshole argument (I can spell and you can't- hahaha!)
5) the chaos argument (changing the spelling system would just cause more confusion)
Argument #1 is way subjective. Spellings have changed many times over the years. At what point in history did the words acquire just the right number of extra letters? Even if it is more beautiful, is it worth the enormous effort required to teach it?
Argument #2 is even flimsier. Only linguists and other specialists care about the origin of words. How many English speakers are aware that "goodbye" is a corruption of "God be with ye"? In many cases, the current spelling distorts the root word even more. If the word "dungeon" was spelled "dunjin" would it be easier or harder to tell that the word originiates from the Middle French word donjon?
Argument #3 doesn't hold up very well either. Isn't the purpose of education to teach children how to think? But in order to spell properly, logic and consistency must be tossed aside.
Argument #4 is the domain of people who derive a living from the current system: English teachers, spellcheck software companies, etc. They oppose reform because it threatens their livelihood, which is understandable, but is that really a good reason to keep things as they are?
Argument #5 might hold water if not for the fact that we now have movable type. Printing books is not really that big a hassle these days, and in any case, books wear out and have to be reprinted anyway. Given the already high rates of illiteracy, I fail to see how it is possible to add to the confusion. 40 million American adults can't read a newspaper? Sounds like plenty of people are confused already.
If you're still not convinced, here are some more reasons to simplify spelling:
-Simplified spelling would greatly reduce illiteracy, which in turn would lower crime and unemployment.
-A simple spelling system would free up more time to teach other subjects in school.
- Simplifying English spelling would make it easier to teach as a foreign language. More people speaking English strengthens the status of English as a world language. English is in an excellent position to be a universal language: it has a large number of native speakers, a wealth of literature and other media, simpler grammar than many other languages, and it uses the latin alphabet, the world's most widespread writing system.
The only other minor obstacle I can think of for spelling reform is orthography. Any choice for orthography is arbitrary so, I will choose US English as my basis. It is worth noting that the US and UK use different spelling for many words already, even when they are pronounced alike (e.g. "center" and "centre") so there are already two main standards for English spelling.
My New Spelling System
The vowels:
a as in "hat" ai as in "pain" ar as in "farm" aw as in "law"
e as in "get" ee as in "bee"
eer as in "beer" er as in "herd"
i as in "lip" ie as in "pie"
ier is new; thus "fire" would be written as "fier"
o as in "dog" oa as in "boat" oi as in "oil" oo as in "book"
oar as in "boar" ow as in "how"
u as in "run" ue as in "glue"
The consonants:
b as in "bug" ch as in "chin" d as in "dim" f as in "fig" g as in "gum"
h as in "hen" j as in "jump" k as in "kin" l as in "long" m as in "man"
n as in "not" p as in "pen" r as in "red" s as in "sit" t as in "tan"
th as in "thin" v as in "van" w as in "win" y as in "yes" z as in "zen"
plus a couple new ones:
dh is new; thus "them" would be written as "dhem"
kw replaces q in words like "quit" and "enquire" to get "kwit" and "enkwier"
zh so "pleasure" becomes "plezher"
ks replaces x in words like "hex" to get "heks"
OK, in many plurals and verb forms that end in "s", the actual sound is "z". For example, "trees" sounds like "treez". To keep things simple, plurals and verbs formed by adding "s" will still take "s" even if the sound is actually "z." For the same reason, past tenses formed by "-ed" will stay the same.
The unstressed vowel will not been written unless is comes at the beginning of a word:
associate -----> usoaseeait (verb), usoaseeit (noun)
people -------> peepl
cradle--------> kraidl
Maiking dhu Inglish laingwij eezeeyer tue lern dus not weeken it; it strengthens it.
Join dhu rebelyin!
*Last edited on 22-11-2008 to add "aw", "ow", and "-ed" rule.
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