Philip Greenspun’s Weblog

It has become common to listen to radio stations on computer systems, e.g., a desktop or laptop PC or the Sonos system. The processors inside these computers are capable of processing (low quality) video in real time. So one would think that the processor is powerful enough to compute whether the station is playing music or if an announcer is talking. A consumer listening to a public radio station might want to hear the music but not the advertisements (generally all talk, e.g., “support for WCRB comes from BP, the world’s leading blah blah blah”). Why isn’t there an option in a Windows radio player or in the Sonos system to mute or kick the volume down 20 dB during the talk segments?

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I asked a father today about his son’s post-graduation plans. The kid had every advantage that a loving family could bestow, including 12 years of private school at approximately $30,000 per year and four years of a prestigious liberal arts college at more than $50,000 per year. The kid has the following advantages:

• more than half a million dollars and 16 years of education
• the boundless energy and perfect health of youth
• a lively interest in commerce and making money
• native speaker of the world’s most practical language (English)
• willing to work for minimum wage (and would be willing to work for less if it were not illegal)

One would think that employers would be tripping over each other to hire this kid. What are his summer plans? Like most of his classmates, he couldn’t find a job and will be moving back home to live with mom and dad.

It seems odd to me that folks who run schools and colleges feel confident that they are doing a great job and that their graduates are superbly educated while simultaneously employers don’t think that they can make a profit by hiring the Class of 2010 at the prevailing low wages.

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Six months after trying to schedule a checkup (what they used to call an “annual physical”) with my primary care doctor, it finally happened at the end of March. Today’s mail brought a bill from the doctor’s office. I don’t think that this includes the lab tests that were done; these were handled at a separate facility where I filled out about 5 pages of forms, including insurance information.

The original bill was $510 and that’s what I would have had to pay without insurance. The $510 bill was submitted to the insurer/HMO on 4/1/2010. On 4/27/2010, there was a “disallowed adjustment” from the insurer/HMO of $416.97 and a “risk WH adjustment” of $9.75. The insurer/HMO actually paid $68.28 of the $510. My copayment somehow worked out to $15 and I was sent a paper bill for this amount, about a month after the visit.

So… in terms of the real economy, this was an $83 transaction, equivalent to what you might spend on dinner for two. But instead of being paid with a credit card swipe, there were apparently multiple clerks involved at the doctor’s office and the insurer. Negotiations happened behind the scenes. A paper invoice was printed and put into an envelope by hand. A check was mailed through the U.S. mail (perhaps it is our health care system that is keeping the Post Office alive).

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Our friends who have kids tend to be in their forties, i.e., too old to muster the energy and optimism necessary for divorce (divorce requires optimism because one would have to believe that one could be happier alone or with someone else). I was asked recently “Do you think Schlomo and Rebecca [not their real names] are going to have any more kids? They seem to fight a lot.” I replied that Schlomo would be better off with a third kid because then he would get along with three quarters of the other household members rather than two thirds.

Can this rule be generalized? For a young couple, each of whom might yet be able to build a new marriage with a more compatible partner, discord should lead to having fewer children. For an older couple, if they aren’t enjoying each others’ company, they should have as many children as possible.

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If the Politburo and Gosplan down in Washington, D.C., don’t object to the merger of United and Continental, let me suggest a name for the new monster airline: Aeroflot.

How can consumers profit from this change in the industry? Perhaps we should be shorting the stock of Orbitz, Expedia, and other ticket booking sites. When the U.S. has only one airline there won’t be much value in comparison shopping.

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The big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has gotten reporters talking about how many billions of dollars BP will have to pay. I wonder, however, if they should be held responsible. Under standard Common Law, they should not be liable unless they were negligent. It seems unlikely that BP wanted to blow up its own platform and presumably they were working carefully as they drilled a mile underwater. People have speculated that more and fancier equipment would have mitigated the tragedy, but that says more about human arrogance than engineering and geophysical reality. A 1989 Federal law imposed strict liability on offshore operations, but capped damages at $75 million (source).

Obviously this is a bad situation, but until the cause of the accident is known, can we say that BP is more at fault than are those of us who consume the oil?

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One of the readers with whom I shared coffee this evening in Orlando had what looked like a stack of papers. One of the papers turned out to be a notebook computer with an aluminum case. It was marvelously light and very sleek. What was it? A Dell V13, which is buried among hundreds of other products on the Dell Web site. It sells for $450 with Linux and 2 GB of RAM, a 250 GB hard drive, and a built-in Webcam. Deficits: no optical drive (impossible at this weight and thickness); no Thinkpad-style pointer nub in the middle of the keyboard so you’re stuck with a trackpad (the owner said he would have preferred the keyboard nub  but liked the machine anyway due to its “disposable price” so that he doesn’t have to worry about losing it or dropping it).

I’m wondering who designed this thing because it doesn’t look like anything that Dell has ever sold before.

[Update: I ordered a Lenovo ThinkPad Edge after reading all of the comments heaping scorn on the Dell and praising the Edge’s durability. Also, I have always loved the trackpoint in-keyboard nubby pointer thingy.]

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A recent New Yorker carries an article comparing a few books on happiness research. Folks are baffled by the fact that GDP per person has risen in the U.S. but reported happiness has not. One explanation not considered is that the government is now consuming a much larger share of GDP and the government tends to spend money in ways that don’t make people happy, e.g., by starting expensive wars, by imposing burdensome paperwork requirements on millions of people, etc.

[One bright spot in this research is “Afghans are, on average, a pretty cheerful lot. (The most cheerful areas of the country tend to be those in which the Taliban’s influence is stronger.)” So the U.S. government hasn’t managed to ruin everyone’s party!]

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A (single male) friend was interviewed by a magazine some years ago. They asked him “What would you do if you had millions of dollars?” His first thought was “Buy a helicopter gunship”, but in an attempt to use the article as a lure for single women, he softened his published dream to “a house with a yard big enough for a pony”. (He is now married with a lovely wife and three healthy children.)

I’m catching up on New Yorker magazines and I discovered an article about a boy who grows up and achieves his dream of having a personal helicopter gunship: “The Hunted”. I recommend the piece to aviation enthusiasts in particular. If you don’t have time to read the whole article, search for “Sunday Justice” and read the paragraphs of how this African cook is quoted in an American’s book written for Americans and what the New Yorker writer learns in a follow-up interview.

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Folks: I’ve taken some blog reader suggestions and will be staying two nights in Winter Park. Florida (in the Orlando metro area). I’d be very interested to meet folks for coffee in the late afternoon on Monday, perhaps at 5:30 pm. Please email (to philg@mit.edu) if interested in getting together and, if you have one, suggest a favorite place in downtown Winter Park.

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