tylee78

the German welfare system (healthcare included) is taxing the living hell out of the working families. It's insane. I'm pretty sure that like anything else, there is a ton of beaurocracy in Germany that loves to "list" prices. Unfortunately, in the beaurocracy side of it, the US is in a worse state. Hopefully this is the beginning of free market competition in the healthcare sector.

yes. that's an amazing piece of research. this article really opened my eyes. after studying that article it's much clearer how healthcare can and should be reformed.

this is an industry not just ripe for disruption but instead ripe for some anti-trust laws and investigation for fraudulent behavior

indeed. again, looking at world affairs, that might be a greater motivational force than anything else.

I just went through some of the posted reports. There is one that caught my eye. Someone developed a "bidding" portal to reduce cost. Quite intriguing:

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-930984

At least it seems that getting a handle on the prices is the way to go.

maybe they should increase the 'streets' budget (and not just have 1 company get all the contracts) and then clean up that gigantic pile of trash that the city is. never seen a more filthy city than Philadelphia

I highly recommend Robert Zubrin's "The Case for Mars" - you'll be surprised what else is possible on Mars with current technology:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Case-Mars-Settle-Planet/dp/1451608...

Buddhism does not really fit the (Western) context of a "religion" anyways - probably that's why. That is especially true for the more ancient forms of Buddhism - which the author of this book subscribes to.

...my experience (originally from Germany, in the US since 2005) as well. It's a question of mentality. While in the US a vast number of people want to create their own business or already did when they are quite young, running a business or starting one is a herculian task in Germany. And you get punished when you fail. And you get taxed to death when you don't. Running a company can easily become a social stigma too. Even if starting your company happens to be easier now then it was 10 years ago, still the majority of people are rather focused on finding a secure position in a larger company with lots of benefits then "creating" something "new". Numerous reasons I guess for why that came to be (I don't think it was like that in the 50s/60s) - maybe as society ages there is less of a "drive" for radical innovation and a risk-averse mentality becomes mainstream. Either way, before I came to the US I had heard about "the difference in mentality" but I could not believe how "different" it really was and how much of an impact that meant on a daily basis: the biggest eye-opener was the completely different attitude towards things that needed to be changed and people just "did it".

no. just a "honor" murder each week. usually knives though, so does not count.

I really am surprised by most of the (young) parents I have met so far in the US. My father used corporal punishment for even little things on us and left a (psychological) scar - I could never touch my kids - on the other hand, in our home (4 kids of my own) discipline is an extremely high (positive) value.

This has nothing to do with submission but with self-control - a rare quality which kids have to master. The so-called "timeouts" and disciplinary measures by our American friends don't work - resulting in children which cause so much more suffering for everybody - they don't work because the parents just do not establish a sense of authority and strict rules. Forget physical punishment for a moment but at home the parents and in school the teachers have to be able to establish their authority. I have seen so many parents, themselves using mental pharmaceutica who let their kids get away with things that were purely evil. At the same time I feel the sub-human stimulation (TV, games, etc.) many kids are flooded with over decades is considered less (negatively) habit forming than the application of simple repetitive acts of cultured manners, polite expressions and self-restraint.

The idea behind meditation is not that difficult to understand. However, it is watered down quite a bit, especially if you learn it in a New Age environment. If you go back to the old schools of meditation, the techniques are very clear and straight forward and can be applied in daily life. It is really helpful though to know some meditation principles:

http://theravadin.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/surfing-on-the-wa...

http://theravadin.wordpress.com/2010/11/03/anussati-sinking-...

Happens to me all the time. I am working on a piece of code in the afternoon, and can't move forward or looking to identify a bug or optimizing some algorithm - wasting hours. After a meditation session I walk back to the computer screen, take a seat, and my hand clicks around the tabs, my fingers scroll around, my eye catches one obscure line of code which is EXACTLY where the problem sits. I had this happen so many times, it's a given by now. The article (and I am sure all who do meditate) shares the same kind of experience.

...which goes to show that socialized health-care can even be worse.

nice system! sounds like it has a market principle built into it...

After 15min ER due to a strained wrist the bill was $4100 dollars. We demanded detailed itemized bills and send letters to the doctor (billed separately) and the hospital. The doctor dropped his bill from ridiculous $900 dollars (for saying everything was alright and taking 5 mins to open a tiff file on his computer) to $200 after our complaint. His bill and the hospital had up-coded our visit and tried to hide the costs of their ill-managed hospital by billing a piece of cloth (made in Guatemala) with $500, the price of an iPad.

compared to Germany the percentage of criminals seems the same - it's just that our criminals are on the streets, yours in prison.

being German myself, I cannot agree more. I was sometimes wondering if the author of this article was in the same country that I left. But I have seen this tendency before: people who visited Germany in the 60s, 70s and 80s have a "mental picture" of Germany that only partially fits reality. The structural unemployment is still very high, the educational system is a mess, the tax rates and regulations are borderline insane.

one example: it is used that way in Germany and applied (mostly) to right wing parties

Yes, was going to mention it too. It's incredible and works so well... It's basically a khan academy for Latin and a shame not more people know about it. Definitely the way to go if you want to learn Latin the way a roman child learned it :-)

reminds me of the 400 dollars the hospital charged me the other day for part of a splint (the wrapping cloth) which was probably manufactured in China for $.50

Now seriously, as a software developer, what would be the best skill set to help these guys... As soon as I can afford it I would knock at their door and work for them for free. What would be most usefull for them (or spaceX)... A lot of C, C++, knowing NASA's open source repos in and out, doing MIT online courses on robotics and astrophysics... ?