Google books. A Calculus of History?

A few years ago, I did a bit of genealogy research.  I found books.google.com to be a pretty powerfull resource for finding information on some of my more prominent relatives.

A few days ago, I though about searching again, knowing that more books have probably been scanned since I last looked.

One of my Great Grandfathers was a Episcopal Preacher  between 1838 and 1862 or so.  This time around I found a nice summary of one of his tenures, and I also found this little tidbit of his writing.

Having studies eschatology a bit lately, I was very interested in the term he used “for the renovating of the world”   Seems quite post-millennial.

This is where the revolutionary part comes in..  It is quite easy to type that phrase in the box on the left click search, then see all of his contemporaries who where using simular phrases.  Without a ton of work, you can find the social circle in which an idea was being exalted, and with a little research it would not be root sources of these schools of thought.  I suspect without the google book search tool, this would be a very time consuming endeavor.

I suspect computers are opening up the “Calculus of History”   In future studies, we will not only study the way things where, but the patterns by which they where changing.

Keeping health care costs down…

It seems to me that the solution to keeping health care costs down is fairly simple.. Make people profit from keeping their own costs down…

The Health Savings Account/High deductible plan that is gaining ground in the insurance market is a good model. Rather than having a low deductible and a high premium, the customer has a high deductible and a low premium. The money that you would have spent on premiums and deductibles goes into a savings account that you can use on your health care costs. What you spend you lose but what you don't spend you keep. You get to determine what kind of care that you want to pay for. You may choose the 2000 dollar treatment that has an 85% chance of working rather than the 10000 dollar treatment that has a 90% chance of working… It is up to you.. It is your risk and your reward… If you have something catastrophically expensive hit you, your losses will be limited to the deductible.

The real problem with our current system is that each layer of transactions adds a layer of irrationality… The employer buys insurance on behalf of his employees. The employer buys the policy that keeps the employees happy with the least expense. The insurance company markets to the employer, not to the employee. It seeks to satisfy the employer, not the employee.. The doctor is paid by the insurance company, and as such he is likely to do the most expensive procedure that the insurance company is willing to pay for. The problem is that it is the patient who needs health care. Not the employer, not the insurance company. These people serve their own interests and make decisions differently than you would. Patients also behave differently because it is not their money on the line. They tend to go for the most expensive option that the Insurance company is willing to pay for, after all, that is what they paid the premiums for.

In general, the insurance companies don't have a long term need to keep costs down.. Their goal is to minimize surprises. Normally, insurance companies are expected to keep a certain percentage of the premiums as profit, so as premiums go up, the income for the insurance companies goes up as well. If costs go up dramatically because they are being forced to cover something that they did not expect to cover, they will fuss… But usually they will begin covering the new surgeries, and just up the premiums in order to compensate for the added costs.

Doctors also have little incentive to keep the costs down – the more they can charge the better. Anyone who tries to hold cost down is going to be labeled as an evil greedy corporation.

Really the key is to eliminate all of these layers of transactions and get it so that the patient pays the doctor directly and has financial incentive to buy the cheapest effective treatment rather than the most extravagant allowed treatment.

When it comes to Government run health care, it is quite clearly a bad idea. When insurance companies refuse to cover what should be covered, the regulators crack down upon them. Well over 90% of Social Security Disability claims are denied the with little review, and usually it takes a few appeals to get benefits, even when they are obviously well qualified. Any insurance company that behaved in this manner would be driven out of business. But when the government calls the shots, you have little recourse.

Moreover, our democratically elected officials have great incentive to spend money. It makes their constituents happy and wealthy, and happy wealthy constituents get you re-elected, even if that happyness and wealth was embezzled a bit from all of the rest of the taxpayers. Some gain a lot, and a lot lose a little. The winners are very happy, and the losers hardly notice the trickle.

The per capita expense for healthcare is $5,283 With today's system, that money will be paid one way or another (Through Insurance premiums, Medicare taxes, increased medical charges) It makes sense to give people control of the bulk of that money, and let them make their own decisions as to what is reasonable and what is excessive.

If we spend 2283 of that 5283 on premiums covering the financially catastrophic health care emergencies, and let people hold on to up to 3k per year, by staying healthy and being frugal, then expenses would likely go down. If you charge them the 5283 in premiums and deductibles, they are going to want to get their money's worth, and they are going to try to claim as much health care as they can.

Cheap and easy internet filter..

My kids really like to play on the computer.. Mostly they play flash games online that Mom says are okay.. They play with Webkinz and beanie baby websites, PBS kids and the like.. They don't seem to get into much trouble, but on the internet trouble is often just a mistyped URL away... Typing is not the kid's strong suit yet.

Open DNS is handy. I just go into my router and insert Open DNS's address as the DNS server.. From then on any machines getting their network assignments from that router will send their requests through openDNS. Once you setup an account and give OpenDNS instructions on what kind of domains you want to allow or deny, you are done.

I set mine on the Low Setting... This blogs Porn and Phishing, but not the British Tabloids. You can crank it all the way up to the point where it blocks social networkings sites and the like.

It isn't foolproof, but it is far better than nothing.. Sites like Youtube.com are either on or off. It would be nice to have a some where in the middle setting..

Anyway, I don't think this is a replacement for adult supervision, but it does reduce the risk of ugly images passing before the children's eyes accidentally. I suspect it will also do a pretty nice job of preventing spyware from taking over your PC's. (Macs Rock)

If you would like to try it out here is the link!

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The Great Idol

We spend far too much time "watching" and far too little time "doing"

In Genesis 2:15 God put's Adam into the Garden, to work it and to keep it. Cultivation is what man was built do do.. Many of the most satisfying experiences in life come from cultivating God's creation. Making and raising children. gardening, hunting and fishing, ministering to those in need.. When we take the resources we have around us and use them to strengthen and enable others, we get a huge reward...

I see our entertainment industry as being a real threat to our ability to enjoy life in this way.. Most of the time, if we do what we naturally do, we sit... In front of the TV, the Computer, and get ourselves entertained.

Instead of being a conduit that feeds blessings to others, we become a basin that just soaks life up for ourselves.

I really like John Piper's advice here about thinking about your death:

(HT: Seth McBee

Entertainment is by and large morally neutral.. But if you let your life orbit around morally neutral stuff, you just won’t ever get around to the morally good life that God is calling you to.

What are some examples of morally neutral activities that you see smothering lives?]]>

Switching over to a new comment system

Installed the Disqus Commenting system. Hopefully that will help make it easier to interact with Fingertoe.com.

I know, it is probably more important that I post stuff up here that is worth talking about… I will work on that…

Comment away, any testing you can do will be helpful!

Getting Traction with twitter..

So, here is the trick to getting going...

Go to search.twitter.com

Enter something that you are interested in. This is easy for me… I like preachers.. I enter something like Francis Chan, Mark Driscoll or Matt Chandler. If you have different interests, it may be harder.

Once you hit enter, you see everybody who is talking about what you are interested it. There are some folks that may be worth following. Click through to their profile and see if any of their other tweets interest you.. If so, follow them. Don’t stop there… Try to dialog with them. I rarely follow people who follow me.. 300 or so is more than I care to keep track of. I almost always follow people that dialog with me. So find a recent tweet that you find interesting and send the an @reply about it.. Many will follow you back..

As you go, remember that Twitter works best when there is some dialog. Go out of your way to interact with the people you are following. Retweet stuff you think your followers might like. It isn’t a microblog, it is a party. You can build real relationships with real people, and ask them questions like they are in the next cubical.

Hope that helps.
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Free Francis Chan!

ChristianAudio.com is giving away his "Crazy Love" audio book. http://christianaudio.com/free_download.php Use coupon code JUL2009 to get it for free...

If you don't know Francis Chan, here is a good sample of his preaching... It is light, fun, and brutal, all at the same time...

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How trivial is fame?

The Michael Jackson death is all the news today… It has me wondering, in the whole scheme of things, will Michael Jackson even be historically memorable?

The recording industry is pretty darn new.. The whole audio recording thing came about in 1890.. The 45 record wasn't invented until after World War 2, and prior to that, the various technologies where not nearly as popular.

So I am wondering, despite the fact that everyone knows Michael Jackson, and he is probably one of the most recognizable people in a generation, Is he really a historic figure?

I ran this question by my wife, and she argued that music changes culture, and cited the Beatles. I think a better case could be made for The Beatles being historically significant, but I don't think they changed the world with “I want to hold your hand”.. As the culture changed them, the change was reflected in their music, and that music may have amplified the change that was underway…

I don't really think MJ's music had a ton of social content in it. It was good to dance to. But I don't see him impacting culture much outside of a bunch of silly teenagers running around wearing one sequined glove for a few years.. The Beatles changed and the world changed with them. Michael Jackson changed and the world laughed and cried about him.

I suspect in 150 years when they look back, The Beatles might be a small footnote, and Michael Jackson will go unmentioned.

Differenciating between idealism and legalism.

Mark Driscoll addresses the idea of stay at home dads for example:

Or Voddie Baucham’s view on Public Schooling:

In both of these examples, I think that they hold up an ideal that is correct. Husbands should provide for their families. Parents should actively insure that their children are being descipled under the biblical worldview.

Now the challenge is that many of us fall short. We live in a fallen world, and we are being rescued from a fallen culture – one that doesn’t necessarily prescribe to the same values as Voddie and Mark. The values being espoused should be something that we can aspire to, not something that we need to feel unchristian about because we are not fully sanctified yet. If you are 18 years old, just setting out on your own, don’t go and aspire to find a Doctor wife so you can stay at home and play all day. Aspire to be a primary provider. But if you are a father of 4, and your wife has a long established career, give yourself some slack… Try to conform to the ideal as much as it is practical. Your situation isn’t ideal, but few are.

Many folks tend to say “Oh, he is just too radical on that issue” and throw out the advice altogether. I do not think this is wise. When we are in less than ideal circumstances we need to understand that. We need to try to compensate for that, and when practical we ought to consider making sacrifices to get ourselves into a more ideal situation. ]]>

Another variation on my twitter airport game.

Here is another game.. This one requires a traveling companion who is in on the game.

When you are an airport, search for other twitter users at the same airport. Look at their tweet stream and try to ascertain where they are going. Find the appropriate gate and look for them. Once you find them Sit next to them, and watch their twitter stream on your cell phone..

Converse with your traveling companion. Whenever your target sends a tweet, try to change the topic to match their tweet. Keep doing this and see if they ever catch on or join in the conversation. If they do, try to let the conversation die until they tweet again… then repeat the process… As their flight is leaving, send them an @reply thanking them for the conversation.