My parents were in the professions and felt their children were destined for the same. They therefore insisted that we learn to touch type and get good and fast enough that we could draft documents at the keyboard. However, you and Prim aren't the first people I've met who hunt and peck very fast. Whatever works.
Prim, when I was writing my thesis, the PI whose lab shared space with ours was writing a grant. We kept seeing each other at around 11 pm, floating to and from the vending machines like ghosts. Fun times.
Health Care Reform
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WampusCat
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I took a typing class in high school and loved it. My fingers like to dance, whether on harp, piano or keys.
What's been hard for me is learning to type on phone or iPad, where the two-fingered method works better. I'm pretty fast now, but nowhere near my 80-words-per-minute on a proper keyboard.
What's been hard for me is learning to type on phone or iPad, where the two-fingered method works better. I'm pretty fast now, but nowhere near my 80-words-per-minute on a proper keyboard.
Take my hand, my friend. We are here to walk one another home.
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Guess I'm joining the off-topic-ness, but I can't imagine not touch typing! In fact, I had to think about what Prim even meant by "touch typing" because I suppose I never thought that people did it differently. I'm impressed that you both can use two-fingered typing well enough to construct full paragraphs.
I lucked out, though, I learned from a very young age--maybe five? We were taught in school on old computers with MS-DOS. I don't even have to look at the keyboard to type.
I lucked out, though, I learned from a very young age--maybe five? We were taught in school on old computers with MS-DOS. I don't even have to look at the keyboard to type.
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." - HDT
Wampus, does iOS offer 3rd party keyboards these days? On Android, I use Hacker's on the tablet, and it very nearly allows me to touch type. It even makes a typerwiter sound (optional). And Kii on the phone is awesome.
If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.
Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!
Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!
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WampusCat
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I've got a Bluetooth keyboard, but who wants to lug that around? Besides, I haven't heard any complaints about posting briefly. 
(I'm trying not to
at the concept of someone who is now an adult learning to type at age 5 on old MS-DOS keyboards. Needless to say, they weren't available when I was 5 ... in 1961. How did I get this old?)
(I'm trying not to
at the concept of someone who is now an adult learning to type at age 5 on old MS-DOS keyboards. Needless to say, they weren't available when I was 5 ... in 1961. How did I get this old?)Take my hand, my friend. We are here to walk one another home.
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Voronwë the Faithful
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Healthcare discussions always seem to come to this end point for me.Griffon64 wrote:.....
Drugs cost more in the U.S. than in other countries. Fact.
So, why?
....
We have a free market economy that includes pharmaceuticals, hospitals, labs and pretty much every area of healthcare.
We are trying to insure coverage for all while still hanging onto the ideals of a free market economy with regards to healthcare. It was and is my opinion that these ideals are in contrast to one another and that viability of coverage for everyone is and will be mitigated by the free market approach.
I just can't see how this will work without regulating the industry.
What's interesting is that my own dad didn't think I had it in me to be a professional anything, and forced me into typing classes in high school because he thought my only real option was to be a secretary. I was taking math and science as electives by then (for "fun", he said, and not far off) so I had to drop the last year of advanced chemistry to take my second year of typing.Lord_Morningstar wrote:OT, but I had the same problem. Through typing hundreds of thousands of words I've become fairly fast, but I can't touch-type. I still type with two fingers. But that wasn't an issue when I was child, because my parents assumed that I would be destined for the professions and have typists to type for me.I am not even a touch typist. Just seriously fast. I've wished over and over again I'd learned right, but in my day they didn't teach that stuff except to people who expected to be, y'know, typists.
Even though I still wonder what in the heck he was thinking (kids who take physics and calculus for "fun" typically look to professions other than secretarial), but in the end, his insistence paid off for me. I was able to take all the chemistry I wanted in college (oh, glorious days!), but I wouldn't have been able to take typing. And knowing how to "touch" type really does help.
... and what Holby said. All of it.
"What do you fear, lady?" Aragorn asked.
"A cage," Éowyn said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
"A cage," Éowyn said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
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Voronwë the Faithful
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Which is why, of course, the ACA does regulate the industry.Holbytla wrote:Healthcare discussions always seem to come to this end point for me.Griffon64 wrote:.....
Drugs cost more in the U.S. than in other countries. Fact.
So, why?
....
We have a free market economy that includes pharmaceuticals, hospitals, labs and pretty much every area of healthcare.
We are trying to insure coverage for all while still hanging onto the ideals of a free market economy with regards to healthcare. It was and is my opinion that these ideals are in contrast to one another and that viability of coverage for everyone is and will be mitigated by the free market approach.
I just can't see how this will work without regulating the industry.
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
This is the danger of foisting an agenda that has no apparent sound method of enactment. The entire democratic party is on the verge of political collapse, something the republicans couldn't manage to accomplish on their own.
Ideals are one thing. Practical application is another. We have likely been saddled with a GB III ideologue clone due to the lack of follow through or a well thought out plan.
Affordable health care means nothing if it isn't carried out in a way that is sustainable physically as well as politically. This is was always well divided politically and sociologically, and to enact a plan that is falling on its face is catastrophic in more than one way.
This is Hillary Clinton Part Deux all over again.
Worse than not carrying out the plan, we are potentially doomed to sociological regression. The enactment of a radical social change needs to be done intelligently, flawlessly and with patience to be effective.
For good or bad, this is how I see human behavior working. Long and slow painstaking effective steps. Not some ultimately divisive flawed plan that makes no logical sense.
We now have a three year lame duck and a needed social program that will fail.
Ideals are one thing. Practical application is another. We have likely been saddled with a GB III ideologue clone due to the lack of follow through or a well thought out plan.
Affordable health care means nothing if it isn't carried out in a way that is sustainable physically as well as politically. This is was always well divided politically and sociologically, and to enact a plan that is falling on its face is catastrophic in more than one way.
This is Hillary Clinton Part Deux all over again.
Worse than not carrying out the plan, we are potentially doomed to sociological regression. The enactment of a radical social change needs to be done intelligently, flawlessly and with patience to be effective.
For good or bad, this is how I see human behavior working. Long and slow painstaking effective steps. Not some ultimately divisive flawed plan that makes no logical sense.
We now have a three year lame duck and a needed social program that will fail.
Last edited by Holbytla on Fri Nov 15, 2013 4:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
1 - It certainly doesn't have to be flawless to be effective.The enactment of a radical social change needs to be done intelligently, flawlessly and with patience do be effective.
2 - Patience is required of all parties including the citizens.
I generally think people are making a way way way bigger deal of the website issues than it really is. So maybe it gets delayed for a little while. Big whoop. In a year or two it won't matter one wit.
I wanna love somebody but I don't know how
I wanna throw my body in the river and drown
-The Decemberists
I wanna throw my body in the river and drown
-The Decemberists
If only it were only the website debacle. There are far more reaching issues than that.
Cancelled insurance plans.
Illogical management decisions.
I have a son that is 6 months shy of his 21st birthday. He is no longer attending any type of schooling. He is gainfully employed and he is offered a health care plan that the company will pay a large portion of. He has no need or directive to subscribe to that plan because he is covered under my plan for the next 5 1/2 years. Whether I like it or not.
And yes I do appreciate that kids starting out on their own would benefit from a leg up, who is paying for that? Where is that money coming from?
That sort of thing makes zero sense as a business model, and make no mistake, health care is still business. In a big way.
It is these types of "loopholes" that will ultimately fail a social program and relegate us to opponents that will disregard the entire ideal.
Cancelled insurance plans.
Illogical management decisions.
I have a son that is 6 months shy of his 21st birthday. He is no longer attending any type of schooling. He is gainfully employed and he is offered a health care plan that the company will pay a large portion of. He has no need or directive to subscribe to that plan because he is covered under my plan for the next 5 1/2 years. Whether I like it or not.
And yes I do appreciate that kids starting out on their own would benefit from a leg up, who is paying for that? Where is that money coming from?
That sort of thing makes zero sense as a business model, and make no mistake, health care is still business. In a big way.
It is these types of "loopholes" that will ultimately fail a social program and relegate us to opponents that will disregard the entire ideal.
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Primula Baggins
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First, 
I'm so glad to see you here, old man!
Second—Do you know anyone who wouldn't be insured without Obamacare? I'm pretty sure you do; I'm one, and we're all over the place.
My kids are self-employed for the most part, so covering them on my insurance (now that I get to buy some on the open market instead of a state-run choiceless program) makes a lot of sense. My underemployed son I can't cover will get enough help that he'll be covered, too, at a price he can pay.
The cancelled plans were cancelled by the carriers, who don't want to upgrade them to ACA standards. Instead they want to sell those people ACA-compatible plans at much higher prices than they could get on the exchanges. Many carriers are not bothering to tell their cancellees that they can probably find something better there, often for a much lower price with financial assistance.
I don't love the ACA. Except compared to the other party's alternative, which is nothing at all, which is what most people like me have had for years.
We could do better. Maybe in time we will. For now, this is what we have, and millions of people are benefitting, at least in the states that have expanded Medicaid. Millions who don't qualify for Medicaid will benefit in a month or two.
In the first month of Romneycare, 123 people signed up. Yet it now seems to work pretty well, covering 97%+ of people in MA. I'm sure it's not perfect. But I have lived with zero insurance while seriously ill and in serious pain, and anything is better than that.
I'm so glad to see you here, old man!Second—Do you know anyone who wouldn't be insured without Obamacare? I'm pretty sure you do; I'm one, and we're all over the place.
My kids are self-employed for the most part, so covering them on my insurance (now that I get to buy some on the open market instead of a state-run choiceless program) makes a lot of sense. My underemployed son I can't cover will get enough help that he'll be covered, too, at a price he can pay.
The cancelled plans were cancelled by the carriers, who don't want to upgrade them to ACA standards. Instead they want to sell those people ACA-compatible plans at much higher prices than they could get on the exchanges. Many carriers are not bothering to tell their cancellees that they can probably find something better there, often for a much lower price with financial assistance.
I don't love the ACA. Except compared to the other party's alternative, which is nothing at all, which is what most people like me have had for years.
We could do better. Maybe in time we will. For now, this is what we have, and millions of people are benefitting, at least in the states that have expanded Medicaid. Millions who don't qualify for Medicaid will benefit in a month or two.
In the first month of Romneycare, 123 people signed up. Yet it now seems to work pretty well, covering 97%+ of people in MA. I'm sure it's not perfect. But I have lived with zero insurance while seriously ill and in serious pain, and anything is better than that.
Last edited by Primula Baggins on Fri Nov 15, 2013 6:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
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axordil
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From the Department of Labor website:
The Affordable Care Act requires plans and issuers that offer dependent coverage to make the coverage available until a child reaches the age of 26. Both married and unmarried children qualify for this coverage. This rule applies to all plans in the individual market and to new employer plans. It also applies to existing employer plans unless the adult child has another offer of employer-based coverage (such as through his or her job). Beginning in 2014, children up to age 26 can stay on their parent's employer plan even if they have another offer of coverage through an employer.
Italics mine.
The Affordable Care Act requires plans and issuers that offer dependent coverage to make the coverage available until a child reaches the age of 26. Both married and unmarried children qualify for this coverage. This rule applies to all plans in the individual market and to new employer plans. It also applies to existing employer plans unless the adult child has another offer of employer-based coverage (such as through his or her job). Beginning in 2014, children up to age 26 can stay on their parent's employer plan even if they have another offer of coverage through an employer.
Italics mine.
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JewelSong
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In my opinion, Obama's biggest mistake was not being more hard-line in the beginning. The original proposal was far simpler and had far less nit-picky carp in it. But Obama thought he could work with the GOP and the Tea Partiers and so he tried to compromise. Which should be a good thing, but it wasn't.
He had the votes (or could have, with some lobbying) and he should have just rammed the original bill through.
In my opinion.
He had the votes (or could have, with some lobbying) and he should have just rammed the original bill through.
In my opinion.
"Live! Live! Live! Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!" - Auntie Mame
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Primula Baggins
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Maybe so. But he didn't. And what we have is still better than what we had before. Enormously better for millions of people. I wouldn't sacrifice the merely adequate in exchange for nothing just because the adequate isn't perfect.
Yes, it could have been better. I'm hoping it still will be better, when we have people in Congress who are willing to do their constitutional jobs. Until then, I will take my health insurance and run with it. (And I'll be paying full list price—gladly.)
Yes, it could have been better. I'm hoping it still will be better, when we have people in Congress who are willing to do their constitutional jobs. Until then, I will take my health insurance and run with it. (And I'll be paying full list price—gladly.)
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
So no one should try to make big changes unless it's guaranteed to be perfect right out of the gate? Even though any flaws and problems that come up can be addressed as they come along? And even if those flaws and problems are far less significant than the problems it's trying to fix?It is these types of "loopholes" that will ultimately fail a social program and relegate us to opponents that will disregard the entire ideal.
The cancelled insurance plans thing is another non-issue IMO. From what I can tell it's only being played up because of Obama's quote that that wouldn't happen. But you know what? If they cancel your plan, you can now go get new ones. Ones that cover some basic standards. Which is the whole point. Again I say, big whoop.
I wanna love somebody but I don't know how
I wanna throw my body in the river and drown
-The Decemberists
I wanna throw my body in the river and drown
-The Decemberists
The botched roll-out does have the potential to be a serious issue. From what I have read they need to have 7 million signed up through the exchanges by March 31st. If that doesn't happen the insurance companies will start jacking up prices to cover the extra mandated coverage and those who do have insurance will once again pay the price. That, I think, will be the nightmare scenario that could indeed sink the entire Democratic party.
When the roll-out began on Oct 1 and the whole show-down between the Dems & Reps over the shut-down was happening, there was genuine excitement over the opening of the exchanges. That excitement has largely evaporated after more than a month of not being able to use the website. The perception now is that the exchanges don't work. It is going to take a massive PR effort to convince people otherwise, but instead of addressing that many Democrats seem to be running away from the problem and from the ACA in general.
The biggest issue to making it work is getting healthy young people to sign up. Those are the people who are not going to go through the effort of calling in for assistance or going to see an adviser. If the exchanges do not work easily and effectively those people will just give up. Health care isn't a priority for them and if it can't be done simply then many of them just won't do it.
When the roll-out began on Oct 1 and the whole show-down between the Dems & Reps over the shut-down was happening, there was genuine excitement over the opening of the exchanges. That excitement has largely evaporated after more than a month of not being able to use the website. The perception now is that the exchanges don't work. It is going to take a massive PR effort to convince people otherwise, but instead of addressing that many Democrats seem to be running away from the problem and from the ACA in general.
The biggest issue to making it work is getting healthy young people to sign up. Those are the people who are not going to go through the effort of calling in for assistance or going to see an adviser. If the exchanges do not work easily and effectively those people will just give up. Health care isn't a priority for them and if it can't be done simply then many of them just won't do it.