Thursday, December 19, 2013

What is Communism? And why are so many Americans afraid of Communism and Socialism?

Communism is an economic system originally invented by a German named Karl Marx in the middle of the 19th century, based on ideas that had been floating around Germany for the last hundred years or so. Remember, the mid- to late-19th century was a time of very great income inequality; the "robber baron" period in the United States, when men like Vanderbilt and Carnegie and JP Morgan built huge fortunes on the backs of large masses of workers. Today our billionaires are mostly the beneficiaries of technology; Bill Gates, for example, primarily benefitted from inventions that are fundamentally of the mind. The rich men of the 19th century, conversely, built their fortunes mostly on resource extraction and heavy industry (coal, steel, railroads). That meant there was a huge workforce making what we could consider to be nearly slave wages today.
Marx's basic idea was that unfettered capitalism would continuously result in the rich getting richer. And, until certain philanthropically-minded men (most notably Henry Ford) decided to basically govern themselves, Marx was right. His political philosophy, "communism" was based on resource redistribution through a planned economy. Instead of letting people do whatever they felt like and letting the "cream rise to the top," in a Marxist society people would be assigned tasks that best suited their skillset. In theory this would better capture the economic potential of all humanity and the rising tide would lift all boats.
In 1918 the Bolsheviks (a working class political party/terrorist group) in Russia overthrew their King (Czar Nicholas II) and put Marx's theories to the test. They were led initially by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, as well as several others. Over time, Lenin accumulated what amounted to absolute power, assisted by other powerful revolutionaries who he appointed to the Politburo, which was the governing body responsible for essentially allocating all resources in the new, planned economy of the Soviet Union. A "soviet" was originally meant to be a small council of local officials, kind of like a city council, that would allocate resources more efficiently at the local level. Thus in theory the Soviet Union was just a large mass of small councils each acting both independently and in concert to help humanity achieve its potential by maximizing the best use of economic resources, kind of like an ant hive.
The experiment did not go well. While the planned economy is a great idea on paper, humans do not act like perfectly rational automatons. As men at the top accumulated power through their control over the economy, they grew corrupt. Dissenters--men with ideas different than those on top--were purged; either killed outright or sent to work camps in Siberia. Leon Trotsky wound up fleeing to Mexico after he fell out with the Soviet leadership; he was assassinated there.
When Lenin eventually died, power fell into the hands of Josef Stalin, who was a classic dictator wielding the doctrine of Marxist-Leninism as a mere facade, to cover up his murderous campaigns. Stalin killed more "undesirables" (mainly an ethnic group called Cossacks) in the Soviet Union than Hitler did Jews. And Stalin's economic planning was poor; he set a series of "5 Year Plans" throughout the 1930s and 1940s which generally failed. Millions starved to death. Millions more died fighting World War II, which ironically propped up the Soviet system and alleviated some of the economic stress by reducing the numbers of mouths to feed after the war.
People hate Communism today because it is a pernicious philosophy. It is founded on a fundamental belief in the goodness of man, and on very respectable rational ideas about the best use of our human resources. But like all Utopian philosophies, it fails to account for human nature. While it has some very good ideas, Communism historically has ended up in dictatorships in every single country where it was implemented. (Cuba, North Korea, China, Romania, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland, and the USSR itself).
Socialism meanwhile is essentially a less extreme version of communist philosophy; a hybrid, if you will, of pure capitalism (where the market dictates people's action and the "cream rises to the top" while people on the bottom sweep streets), and of communism. Socialism or some variant thereof is the predominant government system in Europe today, and arguably even in the United States. The "social safety net" programs like Social Security and Medicaid, along with the graduated income tax (where the rich pay more because they can afford to contribute a greater proportion of their income to help run our government) are socialist ideas and programs.
Finally, most of the pejorative words like "pinko" or "socialist" or "communist" that you hear tossed around by people like Rush Limbaugh are just that: pejoratives. Name-calling. Limbaugh certainly knows all of this stuff. He is a very smart man. His audience, on the other hand, is going to range from people who know it cold down to people who have no idea but just know it's a bad thing to be.

Does my body benefit from being in a resting state when I'm lying awake trying to sleep?

Being in a resting state has benefits, such as relaxing muscles and organs, but sleep is something that we evolved to have specifically because it rests the brain. When we're awake, resting or not, our neurons are firing and our brain isn't resting, but when we sleep they aren't (as much), allowing our brain to rest.

Why do things seem so much funnier when we're "over-tired"?

Your brain releases bursts of dopamine when it's sleep deprived. This causes euphoria, but can also cause reckless decision making. The euphoria is why you get so giggly and delirious, basically your brain is getting a bath in happy chemicals.

What exactly is Obamacare and what did it change?

Already in effect:
  • It allows the Food and Drug Administration to approve more generic drugs (making for more competition in the market to drive down prices) ( Citation: An entire section of the bill, called Title VII, is devoted to this, starting on page 766 )
  • It increases the rebates on drugs people get through Medicare (so drugs cost less) ( Citation: Page 235, sec. 2501 )
  • It establishes a non-profit group, that the government doesn't directly control, PCORI, to study different kinds of treatments to see what works better and is the best use of money. ( Citation: Page 684, sec. 1181 )
  • It makes chain restaurants like McDonalds display how many calories are in all of their foods, so people can have an easier time making choices to eat healthy. ( Citation: Page 518, sec. 4205 )
  • It makes a "high-risk pool" for people with pre-existing conditions. Basically, this is a way to slowly ease into getting rid of "pre-existing conditions" altogether. For now, people who already have health issues that would be considered "pre-existing conditions" can still get insurance, but at different rates than people without them. ( Citation: Page 49, sec. 1101, Page 64, sec. 2704, and Page 65, sec. 2702 )
  • It forbids insurance companies from discriminating based on a disability, or because they were the victim of domestic abuse in the past (yes, insurers really did deny coverage for that) ( Citation: Page 66, sec. 2705 )
  • It renews some old policies, and calls for the appointment of various positions.
  • It creates a new 10% tax on indoor tanning booths. ( Citation: Page 942, sec. 5000B )
  • It says that health insurance companies can no longer tell customers that they won't get any more coverage because they have hit a "lifetime limit". Basically, if someone has paid for health insurance, that company can't tell that person that he's used that insurance too much throughout his life so they won't cover him any more. They can't do this for lifetime spending, and they're limited in how much they can do this for yearly spending. ( Citation: Page 33, sec. 2711 )
  • Kids can continue to be covered by their parents' health insurance until they're 26. ( Citation: Page 34, sec. 2714 )
  • No more "pre-existing conditions" for kids under the age of 19. ( Citation: Page 64, sec. 2704 and Page 76, sec. 1255 )
  • Insurers have less ability to change the amount customers have to pay for their plans. ( Citation: Page 47, sec. 2794 )
  • People in the "Medicare Part D Coverage Gap" (also referred to as the "Donut Hole") get a rebate to make up for the extra money they would otherwise have to spend. ( Citation: Page 398, sec. 3301 )
  • Insurers can't just drop customers once they get sick. ( Citation: Page 33, sec. 2712 )
  • Insurers have to tell customers what they're spending money on. (Instead of just "administrative fee", they have to be more specific).
  • Insurers need to have an appeals process for when they turn down a claim, so customers have some manner of recourse other than a lawsuit when they're turned down. ( Citation: Page 42, sec. 2719 )
  • Anti-fraud funding is increased and new ways to stop fraud are created. ( Citation: Page 718, sec. 6402 )
  • Medicare extends to smaller hospitals. ( Citation: Starting on page 363, the entire section "Part II" seems to deal with this )
  • Medicare patients with chronic illnesses must be monitored more thoroughly.
  • Reduces the costs for some companies that handle benefits for the elderly. ( Citation: Page 511, sec. 4202 )
  • A new website is made to give people insurance and health information. (I think this is it: http://www.healthcare.gov/ ). ( Citation: Page 55, sec. 1103 )
  • A credit program is made that will make it easier for business to invest in new ways to treat illness by paying half the cost of the investment. (Note - this program was temporary. It already ended) ( Citation: Page 849, sec. 9023 )
  • A limit is placed on just how much of a percentage of the money an insurer makes can be profit, to make sure they're not price-gouging customers. ( Citation: Page 41, sec. 1101 )
  • A limit is placed on what type of insurance accounts can be used to pay for over-the-counter drugs without a prescription. Basically, your insurer isn't paying for the Aspirin you bought for that hangover. ( Citation: Page 819, sec. 9003 )
  • Employers need to list the benefits they provided to employees on their tax forms. ( Citation: Page 819, sec. 9002 )
  • Any new health plans must provide preventive care (mammograms, colonoscopies, etc.) without requiring any sort of co-pay or charge. ( Citation: Page 33, sec. 2713 )
1/1/2013
  • If you make over $200,000 a year, your taxes go up a tiny bit (0.9%). Edit: To address those who take issue with the word "tiny", a change of 0.9% is relatively tiny. Any look at how taxes have fluctuated over the years will reveal that a change of less than one percent is miniscule, especially when we're talking about people in the top 5% of earners. ( Citation: Page 837, sec. 9015 )
1/1/2014
This is when a lot of the really big changes happen.
  • No more "pre-existing conditions". At all. People will be charged the same regardless of their medical history. ( Citation: Page 64, sec. 2704, Page 65, sec. 2701, and Page 76, sec. 1255 )
  • If you can afford insurance but do not get it, you will be charged a fee. This is the "mandate" that people are talking about. Basically, it's a trade-off for the "pre-existing conditions" bit, saying that since insurers now have to cover you regardless of what you have, you can't just wait to buy insurance until you get sick. Otherwise no one would buy insurance until they needed it. You can opt not to get insurance, but you'll have to pay the fee instead, unless of course you're not buying insurance because you just can't afford it. (Note: On 6/28/12, the Supreme Court ruled that this is Constitutional, as long as it's considered a tax on the uninsured and not a penalty for not buying insurance... nitpicking about wording, mostly, but the long and short of it is, it looks like this is accepted by the courts) ( Citation: Page 164, sec. 5000A, and here is the actual court ruling for those who wish to read it. )
Question: What determines whether or not I can afford the mandate? Will I be forced to pay for insurance I can't afford?
Answer: There are all kinds of checks in place to keep you from getting screwed. Kaiser actually has a webpage with a pretty good rundown on it, if you're worried about it. You can see it here.
Okay, have we got that settled? Okay, moving on...
  • Medicaid can now be used by everyone up to 133% of the poverty line (basically, a lot more poor people can get insurance) ( Citation: Page 198, sec. 2001 ) (Note: The recent court ruling says that states can opt out of this and that the Federal government cannot penalize them by withholding Medicaid funding, but as far as I can tell, nothing is stopping the Federal government from simply just offering incentives to those who do opt to do it, instead)
  • Small businesses get some tax credits for two years. (It looks like this is specifically for businesses with 25 or fewer employees) ( Citation: Page 157, sec. 1421 )
  • Businesses with over 50 employees must offer health insurance to full-time employees, or pay a penalty. ( Citation: Page 174, sec. 4980H )
Question: Can't businesses just fire employees or make them work part-time to get around this requirement? Also, what about businesses with multiple locations?
Answer: Yes and no. Switching to part-time only won't help to get out of the requirement, as the Affordable Care Act counts the hours worked, not the number of full-time employees you have. If your employees worked an equivalent of 50 full-time employees' hours, the requirement kicks in. Really, the only plausible way a business could reasonably utilize this strategy is if they currently operate with just over the 50-employee number, and could still operate with under 50 employees, and have no intention to expand. Also, regarding the questions about multiple locations, this legal website analyzed the law and claims that multiple locations in one chain all count as a part of the same business (meaning employers like Wal-Mart can't get around this by being under 50 employees in one store - they'd have to be under that for the entire chain, which just ain't happening). Independently-owned franchises are different, however, as they have a separate owner and as such aren't included under the same net as the parent company. However, any individual franchise with over 50 employees will have to meet the requirement.
Having said that, the ACA only requires employers to offer insurance to full-time employees, so theoretically they could get out of this by reducing all employees to 29 hours or fewer a week. However, if any employees' hours go above that, their employer will have to provide insurance or pay the penalty. And also, this is putting aside how an employer only offering part-time work with no insurance will affect how competitive they are on the job market, especially when small businesses with 25 or fewer employees actually get that aforementioned tax credit to help pay for insurance if they choose to get it (though they are not required to provide insurance).
  • Insurers now can't do annual spending caps. Their customers can get as much health care in a given year as they need. ( Citation: Page 33, sec. 2711 )
  • Limits how high of an annual deductible insurers can charge customers. ( Citation: Page 81, sec. 1302 )
  • Health insurance cannot discriminate against women on pricing or plan availability ( Citation: Page 185, sec. 1557 )
  • Reduce costs for some Medicare spending, which in turn are put right back into Medicare to increase its solvency. Most notably, this bill reduces the amount that Medicare Advantage pays to be more in line with other areas of Medicare ( Citation: Page 384, Sec. 3201 and Page 389, Sec. 3202 ), and reduces the growth of Medicare payments in the future ( Citation: Page 426, Sec. 3402 ). The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that between 2012 and 2022, this will amount to $716 Billion in reduced spending ( Citation: CBO Estimate ). Also being cut is $22 Billion from the Medicare Improvement Fund, most likely because the PPACA does a lot of the same stuff, so that spending would be redundant ( Citation: Page 361, Sec. 3112 ).
  • Place a $2500 limit on tax-free spending on FSAs (accounts for medical spending). Basically, people using these accounts now have to pay taxes on any money over $2500 they put into them. ( Citation: Page 820, sec. 9005 )
  • Establish health insurance exchanges and rebates for the lower and middle-class, basically making it so they have an easier time getting affordable medical coverage. ( Citation: Page 107, sec. 1311 )
  • Congress and Congressional staff will only be offered the same insurance offered to people in the insurance exchanges, rather than Federal Insurance. Basically, we won't be footing their health care bills any more than any other American citizen. ( Citation: Page 100, sec. 1312 )
  • A new tax on pharmaceutical companies.
  • A new tax on the purchase of medical devices.
  • A new tax on insurance companies based on their market share. Basically, the more of the market they control, the more they'll get taxed.
  • Raises the bar for how much your medical expenses must cost before you can start deducting them from your taxes (Thanks to Redditor cnash6 for the correction!).
1/1/2015
  • Doctors' pay will be determined by the quality of their care, not how many people they treat. Edit: a_real_MD addresses questions regarding this one in far more detail and with far more expertise than I can offer in this post. If you're looking for a more in-depth explanation of this one (as many of you are), I highly recommend you give his post a read.
1/1/2017
  • If any state can come up with their own plan, one which gives citizens the same level of care at the same price as the PPACA, they can ask the Secretary of Health and Human Resources for permission to do their plan instead of the PPACA. So if they can get the same results without, say, the mandate, they can be allowed to do so. Vermont, for example, has expressed a desire to just go straight to single-payer (in simple terms, everyone is covered, and medical expenses are paid by taxpayers). ( Citation: Page 117, sec. 1332 )
2018
  • All health care plans must now cover preventive care (not just the new ones).
  • A new tax on "Cadillac" health care plans (more expensive plans for rich people who want fancier coverage). ( Citation: Page 812, Sec. 9001 )
2020
  • The elimination of the "Medicare gap"

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

How do pirates crack games without access to the source code?

'Most' DRM schemes used to protect games work by scrambling (encrypting) the actual game program. The program that you run therefore isn't the game itself merely a stub that performs the following:
  1. Check that this is a genuine game and the user is allowed to run it
  2. Decrypt the actual game program
  3. Run the actual game
There are many methods crackers use to break the protection but one is similar to the following:
  1. Install a genuine, licensed copy of the game
  2. Run the game allowing it to decrypt itself in memory
  3. Use a software tool to 'save' the unencrypted program code from memory to a file
  4. Make the program executable and remove all the software 'tendrils' that the DRM leaves behind
No. 4 tends to be the hardest part and can often be a cause of controversy within The Scene. Sometimes cracks will be nuked because they fail to meet the required standard by cracking groups.

What's happening in my brain when when I read an entire page or so of a book, only to realize that I wasn't actually paying attention and have no idea what I just read?

"Mind-wandering", an extremely common phenomenon, but understudied subject in cognitive and educational psychology. MW can take the form of task-related (e.g., imagining scenarios utilizing current material) or task-unrelated (e.g., dwelling on relationship issues, dinner planning, etc.). MW can be mitigated by reaffirming your internal motivations (e.g., interest in the topic) or external motivations (e.g., upcoming exams, being paid to absorb material). However, MW has also been correlated to higher creativity measures, so it ain't all bad. Source: cognitive neuroscience researcher.

How does my brain know to wake up just before my alarm goes off, especially on the morning of something important.

Your body has internal cues in the form of circadian rhythms (including your sleep-wake cycle, your body temperature, hormone levels, and impulses from nerves in your stomach, etc) which all feed back up to the supra chiasmic nucleus in your brain which is a bit like the clock face - get rid of it and you can't tell the time) that help you wake up. But these are also often attuned to environmental cues - light, sound (e.g. birds singing), temperature, etc.

Chances are you have conditioned yourself to wake up in relation to some of these cues which you may be more aware of as you exit REM sleep and go back into a combination of stage 1 sleep / wakefulness. As such, your mind may become aware of birds singing, light coming into your room, body temperature, changes in adrenal and noradrenal hormones, having had a certain amount of REM sleep cycles or stomach emptiness, all of which are cues (then there's the often forgotten glimpses of the alarm clock while we are half asleep!).

What is the high pitch ringing noise you can hear when turning on an old TV?

The tube-based TVs have a huge coil of copper to make an EM field to make the electron guns (red, green, blue - if color) shoot across and down the screen. The electronics to run this coil, eventually, wear down and start emitting secondary electronic noise, and that may include a whine at the very high end of the hearing range.

Why are milk advertisements for milk in general rather than a specific brand?

In 1993, Californian dairies agreed to put three cents from every gallon sold towards an overall marketing campaign to promote milk. Since they are all contributing, the ads don't favor one brand over another.

Why does the US Federal Reserve consider a 2% rate of inflation to be the sign of a healthy economy?

Moderate inflation is a byproduct of a healthy economy, not the cause.
A healthy economy is one that grows.
Increased population, more jobs, growing cities, larger commerce - these are good things.
To accommodate for the increased growth, the Federal Reserve prints more money. When you print new money, you dilute existing money, causing inflation.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Why do the armpits of my white undershirts turn yellow after they go through the laundry?

It's because you use an antiperspirant containing Aluminium zirconium tetrachlorohydrex gly.

"When mixed with sweat, aluminium zirconium tetrachlorohydrex gly is known to stain clothing with a yellowish tint. It can also cause a stiffening of the affected areas of clothing. These stains can be removed with the application of vinegar or a mild bleach."

Why do a lot of people say "Macs are just better for doing graphical design"?

Back in the late 1990s, I wouldn't work with anything but Apple computers for desktop publishing work and graphic design. Macs at the time were incredibly stable compared to PCs, had gorgeous display, supported a wider variety of fonts out of the box, had more accurate color depiction and seamlessly integrated many desktop and graphic design tools available at the time. Apple also made strategic partnerships with multimedia production companies and cemented themselves as a somewhat industry standard in the field.

Apple as a brand is seen as a 'set it and forget it'. This is how I felt and still feel about their products today. It attracted many creative types way back and now because of how simple and non-intrusive the entire system is with the latter being important to a smooth workflow.

Of course today, the divide between mac and pc is rather unimportant. They are both tools and whatever helps you do your work should be the one you use.

Why are the US states on the east coast smaller than the ones on the west coast?

When the U.S. first expanded beyond the first colonies, many of those states automatically claimed the land that was west of them as theirs. Imagine a Virginia that reached the Mississippi, or a Detroit, New York.

In the early years of a country it already had other parts of states become new ones like Vermont from New York, and Maine from Massachusetts. So when the new lands were gained from the French. Many of the land was already in use. Places along the Mississippi river were already bustling towns. The mountainous borders of Appalachians had already become hinge to many Scott-Irish. It's why many of the second rush of states are not much larger than the east coast ones.

The states beyond the Mississippi are large for a few reasons. The first is due to their relatively low populations. Becoming a state requires a minimum amount. The second reason was because of the pending civil war. New States could help either side. The third reason was to break up Texas, which used to be much larger. Stars like California were created so large with the goal to make smaller states later on, northern California was supposed to become the state of Jefferson, but WW2 broke out and it just never happened.

What's the difference between Narcissism and Solipsism?

Narcissism is a type of personality disorder. Narcissists not only have a high opinion of themselves, but they have an obsessive need to have other people affirm this superiority, and as a result they engage in a lot of attention-seeking behavior.

Solipsism is a legitimate philosophical position...just not a very popular one. Much like people don't want to admit universal skepticism—the idea that no knowledge of any kind is possible—no one wants to say that he is the only real person in the universe. So it usually regarded as a dead-end that means you have made a mistake somewhere if your argument leads to solipsism.

Nevertheless, solipsism as such says nothing about how you will behave or treat other people. Even if you regard all other people as some sort of illusion or creation of your own mind, you might treat them very nicely. After all, you observe that being nice to these phantoms tends to bring about good results for you. (That is just an example; it's not to say that egoism—the belief that the good is what benefits oneself—must be a consequence of solipsism.)

How do 99 cent stores sell goods so cheaply?

  • Stack 'em high and sell 'em cheap - they sell large volumes;
  • Loyalty - the idea that goods are cheap keeps customers coming back (apparently);
  • Maximise margins - consistent costs (so no relabelling) and no additional fancy costs;
  • Buying power - most 99c shops were I am have dozens if not hundreds of stores so they can push for lower prices;
  • Smaller units - less for your dollar than two dollars gets you somewhere else;
  • Efficiency - such shops tend to be ultra-aware of what sells and what doesn't;
  • Sometimes it's also about selling stock acquired cheaply because it is expensive for the seller to keep it or dispose of it.

Why are there so many islands in the Pacific ocean, but not the Atlantic Ocean?

Many of the islands are volcanic, and the Pacific is much more volcanically active than the Atlantic. The reason for that, in turn, is that the central Atlantic is a divergent boundary between tectonic plates (the plates are moving apart, which produces spread-out, 'ooze-y' undersea lava vents). The boundaries around the Pacific are mostly convergent plate boundaries (the plates are pressing into the Pacific plate, either one going beneath the other and forming volcanos (Japan) or crumpling up against it a forming a mountain rage (the Andes).