So Dave you must be pissed. If the leftists get their way you are going to have another Canada on your hands. Tina tried to see a specialist about her feet. She has to wait 4 to 6 months. Last time that I was sick in the good ole state of Utah a Doctor actually came to where I was staying. It blew my mind. A house call. I'd never seen one before.
What I do see is Canada's top doctors dealing with waiting rooms full of people who need a sick note because they missed work. When things are free everybody wants one. My other favorite is my 4 hour stay in an emergency room on the verge of my apendix exploding and screaming my lungs out for nurses who wouldn't come. I guess they were too busy taking care of all those coughs and colds.
I would love private coverage and so would most of my family. Just imagine paying 46 cents on every dollar to the government of Canada. The same government that just gave public funding grants to Toronto's Gay Pride parade. As well, in most cases abortions are free without previous consultation, one of the only operations that you can get here without waiting 4 to 6 months.
Fight it and fight hard because as soon as the leeches start sucking they won't stop till all the blood's gone.
On a brighter note I talked to Craig Walker. He said he might move to Oklahoma. I told him not to wear his Cougars jersey for awhile. Their probably still sore about the loss.
Regards,
Kevin
Monday, September 14, 2009
A Canadian's Take on US Healthcare Reform
I got this message from one of my Canadian friends this morning, unsolicited, commenting on the US healthcare "reforms". I thought I would share with everyone:
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Education 2.0 vs Harvard 2.0
As a freshman on campus in the Fall of 2002 I stayed awake at night dreaming about how different college could be. One B. Sc. degree, a two-year service mission, three internships, one corporate job, and two startups later I cannot say how excited it makes me to see headlines like this one: "Yahoo! U".
Students starting school this year may be part of the last generation for which “going to college” means packing up, getting a dorm room, and listening to tenured professors. Undergraduate education is on the verge of a radical reordering. Colleges, like newspapers, will be torn apart by new ways of sharing information enabled by the Internet. The business model that sustained private U.S. colleges can’t survive.
This article did a good job at distilling down the forces behind this coming change in education, though I don't agree with everything said.
In the future, a handful of Soc. 101 lectures will be videotaped and taught across the United States, and online faculty will administer classes with many students but relatively little individual contact...
The typical 2030 faculty will likely be a collection of adjuncts alone in their apartments, using recycled syllabi and administering multiple-choice tests from afar.
I believe hacking edu means hacking three things: the professor, the textbook, and the classroom. This is where this article falls shortsided.
- The Textbook. The explosion of ebook readers and online textbooks was actually not even mentioned in this article--fine.
- The Professor. "The typical 2030 faculty will... be a collection of adjuncts alone in their apartments" and "online faculty will administer classes with many students but relatively little individual contact." I think that many see things this way--that the emergence of the dominance of online education will bring the student-to-teacher ration into the tens of thousands and that videotape will kill the radio star.
- The Classroom. Though it doesn't say it outright, this article, like all others, hint at social media being the new classroom. I think this will both happen and that it is a good thing, but I don't think that it will be the most successful classroom of the future.
This article correctly identifies that education 2.0 will separate the "class from the college". It foresees the aggregation of online content that will bring education efficiently to the masses at low costs. It also correctly identifies that learning is not the only end goal of college and that the role of certification and degrees are at the core of the college's product offering.
Not all colleges will be similarly affected. My bet would be that the more endowed a school and the more its name carries a cultural value independent of its ability to offer a degree, the less likely it is to change. Like the New York Times, the elite schools play a unique role in our society, and so can probably persist with elements of their old revenue model longer than their lesser-known competitors.
This article even correctly identifies that the Harvards of the world play a special role and have a third core product offering--"a cultural value". But where this and other articles are short sided is that they assume students want to learn and that they want a degree and that education 2.0 will revolutionize those two things. This article states that because of the ivys special third product offering--the cultural value--that they will survive longer than most.
Education 2.0 will bring revolution to both learning and certification, but what this article fails to foresee, is the revolution that will come to that third product offering--the cultural value. That intangible element of networking and social interaction amongst elite sets of peers under the tutelage of pipe-smoking, sweater-vested professors--these articles all seem to think that innovation and the future will come at the cost of that third element.
But why should it. People don't really want degrees--they want what degrees yield and what they mean. They yield jobs and they mean status. They are, for now, a differentiator. Many entrepreneurs will profit in this revolution that will make a B.A. a commodity open to the masses and online learning the norm, but the real winner is he who can replace and innovate, not inundate, on what the Harvards of the world offer--that third product of higher education--the cultural value.
And that will never happen with adjunct professors alone in their apartments, with little interaction amongst their students.
Friday, August 21, 2009
digital rights management and edu
What lessons edu needs to learn from the mistakes of big media:
There was a blog post a few days ago, “The 10 Stupidest Tech Company Blunders”. Sixth stupidest ever, the music industry fighting Napster instead of using Napster to change and innovate their own model.
“Today, of course, music-subscription businesses and streaming services such as Pandora dominate digital music. Had the record companies partnered with Napster, MP3.com, or any of the other file sharing networks instead of suing them, they might control digital music sales today--without nearly as many problems with piracy.”
Edu and music are not exactly the same. Institutional edu doesn’t seemed embittered by open education reform, such as MIT’s open courseware. There is however, a disdain and stigma for online education and the textbook industry’s growing threat of the ebook. There is tension between the traditions of the past and technologies potential innovations of the future. And in those tensions, there are some lessons to be learned from the mistakes of big media.
(1) Napster vs. Labels. Napster changed the world. It was a seed of innovation that had just began to sprout in a big way. And instead of adapting, adopting, partnering, mimicking, or in any way trying to learn from, embrace, or grow the innovation, the big labels felt threatened and just tried to crush the sapling that was Napster under its big boots. Largely it worked, killing what Napster might have become, but shoots spread and rose up in the hundreds, just delaying the march of progress and leaving the big labels outdated and now outmanned and out positioned to win the fight in the long run.
I see this in the world of edu—one recent case is the WA teacher unions fighting the Charter movement. Edu needs to adapt and adopt not fight and delay.
(2) Hollywood, Blockbuster, Netflix, and Red Box. In high school, every video I rented was from Blockbuster video. In college is was Blockbuster online. Two years ago it was RedBox and these days it is streaming from NetFlix on demand. There is an interesting story behind the evolution of the movie rental evolution that applies to edu. Hollywood Video is every university who still doesn’t offer online courses. Blockbuster is arguably those who do offer online courses as a bolted-on extension of their otherwise unchanged business model. In this analogy, I think edu is about where the movie rental business was while I was in college, so it is too early to say who is really the Netflix and the RedBox are here, but I will venture with this. RedBox is the online universities of today, Phoenix, Kaplan, DeVry. They are the 50% solution. I believe that RedBox is a 10 yr business model and then it will be forever gone. Streaming will mark its death. The online colleges bring great convenience, steal serious market share; they are the 50% solution. They brought convenience and arguably cost savings to the old business model. The NetFlix, and by NetFlix I really infer the NetFlix on demand (streaming is the future and they are the ones positioned for that market), is the real innovation. It is a change in distribution, technology, and business model. It is the disruptor. Whoever this is in the edu market, I think it’s too early to say.
(3) BluRay vs. HD DVD. Akin to the Napster lesson. With Napster, it was a fight against innovation. With BluRay and HD DVD they fought for the rights to the future of innovation, not against it. The problem was, they spent more time and more money fighting each other, that they lost the market entirely. BluRay finally pulled ahead, but so late in the game, they have won little share over DVDs and the market is soon to go the way of streaming. Billions of dollars lost and half a decade wasted. If BluRay and HD DVD had partnered at the very beginning, the market would have gone high def years ago and money would have been plentiful on both sides of the fence. I see this being akin to the fight between the traditional and the for-profits. They both want to educate students, they just both want to do it in their format. If they fight each other long enough, they will waste time, energy and efforts that could be spent innovating and blazing ahead.
(4) Digital Rights Management. I watched a interesting documentary on DRM in the music and film industry:
It was interesting to learn about how Disney ripped off works in the public domain and made them relevant to our day and age. “His work was a remix of the stuff that came before. He was a mashup artist”. For example, from the video (which is queued to the this portion of the movie) is about how Steamboat Willie was a direct ripoff of Steamboat Bill. But then towards the end of the 20th century, Disney had all of the public domain and copyright laws rewritten to protect their work for ~100 years rather than the previous 14 years as it was when Disney got his start.
The simple point I was to make here, is that education is built upon the works of those who have gone before. I am an economist and I believe in giving people incentives to produce works. I believe in copyright laws. But, it is important that the author/creator is protected and given incentives—not the marketplace or distribution channel.
A case from recent history that exposes what is wrong with music rights today is the Boston University student being sued for file sharing; he has been ordered to pay $675,000 for illegally downloading 30. That is because so many layers of labels and producers have rights to those songs. Protect the artist, but the way that iTunes and most recently, the Kindle, lock up their owners information is bad for education.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
this is what MIT thinks of me
This is what MIT’s Personas had to say about me:
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
The Stereotypical S. America Bus Ride
So I brushed the dust off of my external hard drive and pulled it back out to finish posting a few picks from the Peru trip. Consider the lost archives.
This pic is dusk on Lake Titicaca, the world's highest navigable lake located on the boarder of Peru and Bolivia. Though the landscape looks serene the journey getting there was not.
We decided to catch a midnight bus from Cusco to Puno (the major Peruvian city on Lake Titicaca). The bus was surprisingly, but deceptively nice. Before pulling out of the bus station, they took a mug shot of everyone on the bus, so if we tried robbing the bus or something, we were already on the police files.
My seat was next to a native. She fell asleep as soon as she hit her seat. We got off to a nice start and I dozed off. What had to be about an hour later, I awoke to the sound of metal clanking metal. The bus was stopped and the driver was gone, apparently outside the bus wacking at the engine. Looking around, I saw no lights, and at 1:30 am in the middle of nowhere Peru, there were no other cars to be seen on the highway. For almost an hour, with no word or explanation the driver clanked around outside with the engine. Finally, he got back on the bus, and with some struggle, but no further explanation, he started the bus up and we were once again off.
I dozed again only to be awaken the second time. This time I awoke with more of a startle--about 7 Peruvian SWAT team members were on our bus. They started at the front, saying nothing, reaching above our heads to open and inspect our bags. They moved slowly, front to back; when almost to the very back they apparently found what they were looking for. They grabbed at a bag of a Peruvian lady, who grabbed back and clutched the bag with everything she had. She refused to give the bag up and more and more of the SWAT members started grabbing at it and at her. She started screaming and crying but wouldn't let go of the bag. Finally, they overpowered her and without a word, marched to the front of the bus and left. They took the bag, but left the woman unquestioned on the bus.
We fired back up, and this time it is harder to fall back asleep. And just when I thought we had to be through the weeds, about an hour post-SWAT, we arrive in a small city located on the highway, to find that the highway is blocked by a bus and a semi-truck that tried to pass on the narrow building-lined road, only to find that they didn't both fit and had wedged themselves between the two buildings.
This "highway" was not wide enough for two large cars to pass at once, and there were only about two options for side roads. But they were both dirt, skinny, and windy. Many buses, blockaded and less determined, had already given up for the evening and were sitting in park waiting for the morning to come. Our bus driver, I think flustered by the course of the night's events, decided to brave one of the side roads.
These side roads would have been rough on a 4x4 pickup, and I confidently say, no bus had ever driven on these roads. I had 0% confidence that there was even an outlet for our bus along this road, but determined, our bus driver went for it. It wasn't more than 20 feet that a turn in the road required, literally, a 20 point turn. Another 20 feet, and the same thing again. This road winded through this little city, turns at every block that required people to get out and to guide the bus through several point turns. At one point a car was parked on the road that blocked us from getting by. Without the faintest possibility of being able to retrace our path in reverse, our only option was to bounce the car off the road--so that we did. Several people got the car bouncing and tossed it far enough out of the way for the bus to get by. At one point, the street narrowed so much that one set of wheels had to descend a staircase, while the other set descended the road.
It was hairy.
Two hours of effort, and we finally did make it past the barricade. Those hours managed to get us an effective 100 yards closer to our destination. But... the story ends well enough, as we did make it in to Lake Titicaca, alive and well.
The famous floating islands of Lake Titicaca. Those are man-made floating islands that people live on. Very cool.
City center in Lima at night.
Machipichu as seen from the peak of Winachi Picchu. Amazing.
Myself, Justin, and Dan in front of Machipichu (the peak behind us is Winachi Picchu).
This pic is dusk on Lake Titicaca, the world's highest navigable lake located on the boarder of Peru and Bolivia. Though the landscape looks serene the journey getting there was not.
We decided to catch a midnight bus from Cusco to Puno (the major Peruvian city on Lake Titicaca). The bus was surprisingly, but deceptively nice. Before pulling out of the bus station, they took a mug shot of everyone on the bus, so if we tried robbing the bus or something, we were already on the police files.
My seat was next to a native. She fell asleep as soon as she hit her seat. We got off to a nice start and I dozed off. What had to be about an hour later, I awoke to the sound of metal clanking metal. The bus was stopped and the driver was gone, apparently outside the bus wacking at the engine. Looking around, I saw no lights, and at 1:30 am in the middle of nowhere Peru, there were no other cars to be seen on the highway. For almost an hour, with no word or explanation the driver clanked around outside with the engine. Finally, he got back on the bus, and with some struggle, but no further explanation, he started the bus up and we were once again off.
I dozed again only to be awaken the second time. This time I awoke with more of a startle--about 7 Peruvian SWAT team members were on our bus. They started at the front, saying nothing, reaching above our heads to open and inspect our bags. They moved slowly, front to back; when almost to the very back they apparently found what they were looking for. They grabbed at a bag of a Peruvian lady, who grabbed back and clutched the bag with everything she had. She refused to give the bag up and more and more of the SWAT members started grabbing at it and at her. She started screaming and crying but wouldn't let go of the bag. Finally, they overpowered her and without a word, marched to the front of the bus and left. They took the bag, but left the woman unquestioned on the bus.
We fired back up, and this time it is harder to fall back asleep. And just when I thought we had to be through the weeds, about an hour post-SWAT, we arrive in a small city located on the highway, to find that the highway is blocked by a bus and a semi-truck that tried to pass on the narrow building-lined road, only to find that they didn't both fit and had wedged themselves between the two buildings.
This "highway" was not wide enough for two large cars to pass at once, and there were only about two options for side roads. But they were both dirt, skinny, and windy. Many buses, blockaded and less determined, had already given up for the evening and were sitting in park waiting for the morning to come. Our bus driver, I think flustered by the course of the night's events, decided to brave one of the side roads.
These side roads would have been rough on a 4x4 pickup, and I confidently say, no bus had ever driven on these roads. I had 0% confidence that there was even an outlet for our bus along this road, but determined, our bus driver went for it. It wasn't more than 20 feet that a turn in the road required, literally, a 20 point turn. Another 20 feet, and the same thing again. This road winded through this little city, turns at every block that required people to get out and to guide the bus through several point turns. At one point a car was parked on the road that blocked us from getting by. Without the faintest possibility of being able to retrace our path in reverse, our only option was to bounce the car off the road--so that we did. Several people got the car bouncing and tossed it far enough out of the way for the bus to get by. At one point, the street narrowed so much that one set of wheels had to descend a staircase, while the other set descended the road.
It was hairy.
Two hours of effort, and we finally did make it past the barricade. Those hours managed to get us an effective 100 yards closer to our destination. But... the story ends well enough, as we did make it in to Lake Titicaca, alive and well.
The famous floating islands of Lake Titicaca. Those are man-made floating islands that people live on. Very cool.
City center in Lima at night.
Machipichu as seen from the peak of Winachi Picchu. Amazing.
Myself, Justin, and Dan in front of Machipichu (the peak behind us is Winachi Picchu).
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