Monday, June 1, 2009
Driving to the Arctic Circle
Apparently it can be done! There is not a single road into Nunavut. However in the Northwest Territories it is possible to drive to the town of Inuvik, where there is 24 hour a day sunlight for 56 days in the summer. It probably be a similar length drive to what I did last January. It would probably be best just to fly, but that would make for an impressive drive.
Still Safer
And the trend that has been happening for most of the last fifteen years has continued. Crime rates dropped again last year:
Nationwide, murder and manslaughter dropped 4.4 percent in 2008. Aggravated assault declined 3.2 percent, forcible rape decreased 2.2 percent, and robbery dropped 1.1 percent. The country also saw a huge drop in car thefts -- more than 13 percent.2005 and 2006 saw small increases in the crime rate. That was up from historic lows though, now that it has dropped for two more years we are still quite clearly at the lowest crime rates in the past forty years.
Nunavut
I think I have just found what would manage to simultaneously be the most awesome, and more than likely boring, vacation site possible. Nunavut. The most northern providence in Canada. I knew it existed, but the shear vastness and emptiness is mind boggling. Even Alaska cannot compete as it has around twenty times the population, in a land area that is nearly two hundred thousand square miles smaller(if Alaska was a country it would be the 18th largest in the world, if Nunavut was a country it would be 15th):
The book Kabloona was written about the area as it was something like eighty years ago. Even today more than 80% of the population is Inuit. It just isn't an environment that many people wish to learn to survive. Still, a few summer weeks would probably be about as surreal an experience as can be found anywhere in the world.
Looking online, it is clear they are trying to draw tourists, but it also doesn't give the impression that this is actually that common. The webpage is full of warnings that just wouldn't exist in a more populous part of the world like how you may find yourself unable to exchange foreign currency so it should be done before the trip.
Nunavut is both the least populated and the geographically largest of the provinces and territories of Canada. It has a population of 29,474 spread over an area the size of Western Europe.The largest city in this massive land area is just over 6000 people!
The population density is 0.015 persons per square kilometre, one of the lowest in the world. By comparison, Greenland, to the east, has approximately the same area and nearly twice the population.
The book Kabloona was written about the area as it was something like eighty years ago. Even today more than 80% of the population is Inuit. It just isn't an environment that many people wish to learn to survive. Still, a few summer weeks would probably be about as surreal an experience as can be found anywhere in the world.
Looking online, it is clear they are trying to draw tourists, but it also doesn't give the impression that this is actually that common. The webpage is full of warnings that just wouldn't exist in a more populous part of the world like how you may find yourself unable to exchange foreign currency so it should be done before the trip.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Health Care Articles
I have seen some pretty interesting health care articles recently. First, the LA Times had an article entitled Canada's healthcare saved her; Ours won't cover her talking about the experiences of a lady who because of a bad car accident can no longer get health insurance in America. This is probably the practice that I think most needs to be outright banned. Health care companies should have no access to medical records for setting prices or deciding whether to cover people. The whole point of an insurance system is that the lucky pay for the unlucky. By simply not insuring, or over-charging, the unhealthy we remove the entire reason for an insurance system in the first place. At most companies should be able to see demographic information for setting prices, and I am mostly willing to do that because children are really cheap to insure on average and I would like to see that children's insurance remains cheap under any system.
This law would decrease the total cost of health care in America. Whole armies of bureaucrats devoted to denying health care, or calculating prices based on medical records, could be fired outright. It would up the price of care for a few healthy people, but in exchange they get the knowledge that if they ever get really sick they are still insurable. The only real risk this system would face is people exploiting the system by only signing up when they get really sick. This is easily prevented by letting companies phase in benefits over a couple month period when they are first insured(although it should probably still be banned when people move from one company to another to ensure people do not get trapped by an insurance company).
The second article was in the New Yorker and compared parts of the country where the costs of health care were high, and where they were low and tried to figure out what caused these differences. One of the conclusions was simply that there was no difference in quality of care. To me this seems pretty reasonable. All of the real wonder treatments we have are quite cheap. I would be shocked if Antibiotics and Vaccines were not the biggest life savers we have while being among the cheapest things we do. Back surgeries, advanced medical imaging, plastic surgery, cesarean sections, and cancer care among other things are expensive and do little to help patients. So in fact what our medical system needs is more rationing. We need to stop doctors from trying to help when they are in fact more likely to cause problems than help anyone. All the talk about how we should be afraid of the government taking over the medical industry because of rationed health care are therefore pretty silly. Rationing is just what we need.
This law would decrease the total cost of health care in America. Whole armies of bureaucrats devoted to denying health care, or calculating prices based on medical records, could be fired outright. It would up the price of care for a few healthy people, but in exchange they get the knowledge that if they ever get really sick they are still insurable. The only real risk this system would face is people exploiting the system by only signing up when they get really sick. This is easily prevented by letting companies phase in benefits over a couple month period when they are first insured(although it should probably still be banned when people move from one company to another to ensure people do not get trapped by an insurance company).
The second article was in the New Yorker and compared parts of the country where the costs of health care were high, and where they were low and tried to figure out what caused these differences. One of the conclusions was simply that there was no difference in quality of care. To me this seems pretty reasonable. All of the real wonder treatments we have are quite cheap. I would be shocked if Antibiotics and Vaccines were not the biggest life savers we have while being among the cheapest things we do. Back surgeries, advanced medical imaging, plastic surgery, cesarean sections, and cancer care among other things are expensive and do little to help patients. So in fact what our medical system needs is more rationing. We need to stop doctors from trying to help when they are in fact more likely to cause problems than help anyone. All the talk about how we should be afraid of the government taking over the medical industry because of rationed health care are therefore pretty silly. Rationing is just what we need.
Its new so it must be dangerous!
There seems to be a strong tendency of humans to declare anything new to be dangerous. Whether it is ancient greek philosophers complaining about the dangers from reading or people complaining about the car ruining the teenagers of the 1920s, or modern day people panicing about predators on the internet. Each generation seems to latch on to the idea that whatever new is dangerous.
Still, the article in the New York Times about the dangers of text messages particularly hurts my head. I feel really sorry for the poor teenagers who will face the wrath of parents because of this horrible article.
Its basic idea is that being distracted this much by text messages must be damaging in some way. They say this despite admitting that there is no scientific evidence to suggest this is so. Particularly laughable is the following quote:
The idea that teens should be trying to separate from their parents is of course quite valid. The idea text messages hurt this process is just silly though. I would guess one in two hundred text messages I have sent in my life have been to my parents. I would be shocked if I found a teenager who sends half of their text messages to parents. Text messages help with communication with peers far more than with parents, allowing much needed experience with building and maintaining social networks. I would go as far to state that those teens who text message more are likely to be those with better social skills.
The second idea though makes me wonder if the author has ever even seen a teenager. What the hell does teen development have to do with peace and quiet? Where did they manage to find any hint of scientific evidence for that silly idea? In fact text messages are much nearer the historic position of humans. One observation of primitive tribes is that they are in near constant communication with each other. As I discovered in my experiment last fall, without books, movies, the internet, and other modern distractions alone time goes from being an interesting diversion to just plain boring. Therefore in pre-literate societies people spend all their time communicating with other people. Just what text messages allow.
The article also spent a lot of time rambling about how they lead to a loss of sleep. This is an important issue. However to take this goal seriously is to realize that text messages are not the issue. The biggest threats to the sleep of teenagers are artificial lighting and alarm clocks. Following that we have anything that is more interesting than falling asleep, TV, Video Games, Books and so on. I would bet that a study on the biggest aspects causing teenagers to lose sleep wouldn't even put text messages in the top ten. Certainly it wouldn't compete with the horrors of early school hours.
Still, the article in the New York Times about the dangers of text messages particularly hurts my head. I feel really sorry for the poor teenagers who will face the wrath of parents because of this horrible article.
Its basic idea is that being distracted this much by text messages must be damaging in some way. They say this despite admitting that there is no scientific evidence to suggest this is so. Particularly laughable is the following quote:
“Among the jobs of adolescence are to separate from your parents, and to find the peace and quiet to become the person you decide you want to be,” she said. “Texting hits directly at both those jobs.”
The idea that teens should be trying to separate from their parents is of course quite valid. The idea text messages hurt this process is just silly though. I would guess one in two hundred text messages I have sent in my life have been to my parents. I would be shocked if I found a teenager who sends half of their text messages to parents. Text messages help with communication with peers far more than with parents, allowing much needed experience with building and maintaining social networks. I would go as far to state that those teens who text message more are likely to be those with better social skills.
The second idea though makes me wonder if the author has ever even seen a teenager. What the hell does teen development have to do with peace and quiet? Where did they manage to find any hint of scientific evidence for that silly idea? In fact text messages are much nearer the historic position of humans. One observation of primitive tribes is that they are in near constant communication with each other. As I discovered in my experiment last fall, without books, movies, the internet, and other modern distractions alone time goes from being an interesting diversion to just plain boring. Therefore in pre-literate societies people spend all their time communicating with other people. Just what text messages allow.
The article also spent a lot of time rambling about how they lead to a loss of sleep. This is an important issue. However to take this goal seriously is to realize that text messages are not the issue. The biggest threats to the sleep of teenagers are artificial lighting and alarm clocks. Following that we have anything that is more interesting than falling asleep, TV, Video Games, Books and so on. I would bet that a study on the biggest aspects causing teenagers to lose sleep wouldn't even put text messages in the top ten. Certainly it wouldn't compete with the horrors of early school hours.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Credit Card Law
This new credit card legislation is the best thing that the administration has passed. Every practice this bill banned should have been illegal decades ago.
For example: If they make the payment due on a day mail is not delivered they can no longer give you a penalty if the payment arrives one day late; some credit card companies were counting payments as late if they came in the afternoon mail on the correct date. They made the deadline the morning of the day the deadline so if it came in that afternoon it counted as late; They can no longer charge you for going over your credit limit without telling you that the payment will go over the limit and give you the option of doing something other than pay their ridiculously high fee; They can no longer raise the interest rate nearly as easily or quickly as they do now.
Some people are complaining because these abusive practices were a huge percentage of the revenue at credit card companies. This means someone else will be paying the bill, and some card holders who payed off their debt monthly will in fact get a worse deal on their card. But remember, credit cards will always have to stay a better deal than debit cards or no one will use them. So the effect of this will be more limited than they are trying to make it sound.
For example: If they make the payment due on a day mail is not delivered they can no longer give you a penalty if the payment arrives one day late; some credit card companies were counting payments as late if they came in the afternoon mail on the correct date. They made the deadline the morning of the day the deadline so if it came in that afternoon it counted as late; They can no longer charge you for going over your credit limit without telling you that the payment will go over the limit and give you the option of doing something other than pay their ridiculously high fee; They can no longer raise the interest rate nearly as easily or quickly as they do now.
Some people are complaining because these abusive practices were a huge percentage of the revenue at credit card companies. This means someone else will be paying the bill, and some card holders who payed off their debt monthly will in fact get a worse deal on their card. But remember, credit cards will always have to stay a better deal than debit cards or no one will use them. So the effect of this will be more limited than they are trying to make it sound.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Garden Pictures
Corn is neat to grow, it grows really fast, and large. Next time I think I will pick a larger corn variety though. This one only gets to about six or seven feet, some get five feet taller. The beans and Melons haven't been nearly as successful but as they are still growing I imagine they will ultimately catch up. It is quite a long growing season.
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