Wednesday, September 16, 2015
Raising a Daughter? Handle With Care — Especially When She's 14
When my first baby was born, the doctor handed her to me and said, "Meet your future teenage daughter." Then she got on the phone with her own teenage daughter, and the two of them got into a loud argument about what to eat for dinner. I still remember the daughter's aggrieved voice, audible through her mother's flip phone: "That is REVOLTING and I would rather eat DOG FOOD."
My husband and I raised our eyebrows at each other over our own daughter's downy head. Surely this sweet, elfin, cashew-shaped bundle would never pick a fight with us about veal scallopini. We'd be there for her and hear her; if she became a vegetarian, we would develop a taste for seitan. When this baby reached adolescence, our groovy brand of friend-parenthood and open lines of communication would upend the traditional I-hate-you-don't-leave-me dynamic.
(Are you laughing? I am.)
Fourteen years later, here's what I'd tell my new mom self about my current teenage daughter — who, despite occasional tiffs, really is well worth the wait.
1. You never know who will come downstairs in the morning. One morning, she'll be all smiles and cheer — she loves your new sweater. The next day, she'll be mute and scowling. She'll gesture with her chin at the sweater you're now wearing for the second day in a row because she said she liked it, and this time she'll say, "Are you really wearing that?"
2. Most of the time, she doesn't want a hug. But when she does, she'll wrap her arms around your waist and rest her head on your shoulder, and the effect is reminiscent of happening upon a warm spot in a freezing cold lake. You don't know why it's there — maybe you don't want to know — but you float there for a while, enjoying the view. Fifty percent of the time, as she's extracting herself from your arms, she'll say, "Can I have money to buy Julia a birthday present?"
3. You know you need to keep your opinions to yourself. The problem is, sometimes she wants your opinion: on clothes, on a sticky situation with a friend, on whom she should write about for her project for Women's History Month. You will share a rewarding dialogue, but the next day, when you say, "Did you learn anything interesting about Susan B. Anthony?" she'll look at you as if she has no idea what you're talking about. In fact, she'll look at you as if she has no idea who you are. #coldspot
4. After a decade of making late-night small talk with baby sitters, nothing beats having your own teenager meet you and your spouse at the front door in her pajamas. She says her little sister was scared, "so I put her to bed in my room." She wants to know if the two of you had fun, if you liked the movie, what you had for dessert. #warmspot
5. You think she's wasting her money on cheap black booties from Forever21.com. When they arrive in the mail, you're pleasantly surprised that they look chic and stylish on her. When she goes to bed, you try them on. Guess what? You look like a 41-year-old mom wearing cheap shoes.
My husband and I raised our eyebrows at each other over our own daughter's downy head. Surely this sweet, elfin, cashew-shaped bundle would never pick a fight with us about veal scallopini. We'd be there for her and hear her; if she became a vegetarian, we would develop a taste for seitan. When this baby reached adolescence, our groovy brand of friend-parenthood and open lines of communication would upend the traditional I-hate-you-don't-leave-me dynamic.(Are you laughing? I am.)
Fourteen years later, here's what I'd tell my new mom self about my current teenage daughter — who, despite occasional tiffs, really is well worth the wait.
1. You never know who will come downstairs in the morning. One morning, she'll be all smiles and cheer — she loves your new sweater. The next day, she'll be mute and scowling. She'll gesture with her chin at the sweater you're now wearing for the second day in a row because she said she liked it, and this time she'll say, "Are you really wearing that?"
2. Most of the time, she doesn't want a hug. But when she does, she'll wrap her arms around your waist and rest her head on your shoulder, and the effect is reminiscent of happening upon a warm spot in a freezing cold lake. You don't know why it's there — maybe you don't want to know — but you float there for a while, enjoying the view. Fifty percent of the time, as she's extracting herself from your arms, she'll say, "Can I have money to buy Julia a birthday present?"
3. You know you need to keep your opinions to yourself. The problem is, sometimes she wants your opinion: on clothes, on a sticky situation with a friend, on whom she should write about for her project for Women's History Month. You will share a rewarding dialogue, but the next day, when you say, "Did you learn anything interesting about Susan B. Anthony?" she'll look at you as if she has no idea what you're talking about. In fact, she'll look at you as if she has no idea who you are. #coldspot
4. After a decade of making late-night small talk with baby sitters, nothing beats having your own teenager meet you and your spouse at the front door in her pajamas. She says her little sister was scared, "so I put her to bed in my room." She wants to know if the two of you had fun, if you liked the movie, what you had for dessert. #warmspot
5. You think she's wasting her money on cheap black booties from Forever21.com. When they arrive in the mail, you're pleasantly surprised that they look chic and stylish on her. When she goes to bed, you try them on. Guess what? You look like a 41-year-old mom wearing cheap shoes.
by Elisabeth Egan, Chicago Tribune | Read more:
Image: onebluelight / E+
Beware the Manic Pixie Dream Boyfriend
When I was in college I dated a guy who always checked that I was listening closely before making proclamations like “Dead flowers are more beautiful than live flowers.” After learning my building had roof access, he insisted we sit up there one night and chain-smoke Marlboro 27s. I was too anxious that my super would find out, and he was disappointed. “You’re totally closed off!" he exclaimed. “You’re never open to what the world is telling you.”
By “the world,” he obviously meant himself. If the world was telling me anything, it was Dump this idiot. (He was hot, though.)
This sort of guy can be irresistible, especially to goal-oriented women who need a break from obsessing about work. “I had serious obligations, and cared about success, and he was just, YOLO,” explains Beth, a 26-year-old union organizer, of her ex-boyfriend. “He was like, I'll read you my poetry and be romantic and freeing because I'll find things about you that are valuable that have nothing to do with your personal or career goals.” In your early 20s, they’re the opposite of the boring lawyer you “should” be dating.
The college guy was my first encounter with a type I have come to think of as the Manic Pixie Dream Boy: the self-mythologizing “free-spirited” dude who’s determined to make your life magical, whether you want it or not.
Think of him as a variation on the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, a term A.V. Club writer Nathan Rabin coined in 2007 to describe the whimsical female onscreen love interest whose sole narrative purpose is to help the sad boy hero cheer up. The Manic Pixie Dream Boy has a cultivated crunchy-eclectic-hipster aesthetic. (“He had a tattoo of a deer woodcut with a banner that said, ‘Stay Hungry,’” recalled my friend Jenna, 31, of her MPDB. “While we were making out he kept the poncho on that he got in Guatemala during his gap year,” said another friend, Margaux, 28.) Back when I was in school, he listened to Panda Bear; ten years later, as a late-20-something, he listens to Getz/Gilberto — on vinyl, obviously. He relishes breaking rules, and relishes even more his complete lack of concern that he’ll get caught. He gushes about tripping on mushrooms at Burning Man and he’s happy to supply you with some, as long as you promise to do them in nature. And he is determined to show women — no matter how much more successful, wealthy, beautiful, happy, and confident they are than him — that they aren’t living life to the fullest.
by Anna Breslaw, NY Magazine | Read more:
Image: Cultura/DUEL/Getty Images
By “the world,” he obviously meant himself. If the world was telling me anything, it was Dump this idiot. (He was hot, though.)This sort of guy can be irresistible, especially to goal-oriented women who need a break from obsessing about work. “I had serious obligations, and cared about success, and he was just, YOLO,” explains Beth, a 26-year-old union organizer, of her ex-boyfriend. “He was like, I'll read you my poetry and be romantic and freeing because I'll find things about you that are valuable that have nothing to do with your personal or career goals.” In your early 20s, they’re the opposite of the boring lawyer you “should” be dating.
The college guy was my first encounter with a type I have come to think of as the Manic Pixie Dream Boy: the self-mythologizing “free-spirited” dude who’s determined to make your life magical, whether you want it or not.
Think of him as a variation on the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, a term A.V. Club writer Nathan Rabin coined in 2007 to describe the whimsical female onscreen love interest whose sole narrative purpose is to help the sad boy hero cheer up. The Manic Pixie Dream Boy has a cultivated crunchy-eclectic-hipster aesthetic. (“He had a tattoo of a deer woodcut with a banner that said, ‘Stay Hungry,’” recalled my friend Jenna, 31, of her MPDB. “While we were making out he kept the poncho on that he got in Guatemala during his gap year,” said another friend, Margaux, 28.) Back when I was in school, he listened to Panda Bear; ten years later, as a late-20-something, he listens to Getz/Gilberto — on vinyl, obviously. He relishes breaking rules, and relishes even more his complete lack of concern that he’ll get caught. He gushes about tripping on mushrooms at Burning Man and he’s happy to supply you with some, as long as you promise to do them in nature. And he is determined to show women — no matter how much more successful, wealthy, beautiful, happy, and confident they are than him — that they aren’t living life to the fullest.
by Anna Breslaw, NY Magazine | Read more:
Image: Cultura/DUEL/Getty Images
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
The Fed is About to Attempt the Greatest Monetary Experiment in History
But there’s another important consideration that isn’t asked nearly enough: Can the Fed raise interest rates?
That query is more than academic. With the US economy looking increasingly strong, some still think the Federal Reserve could act to raise rates after its monetary policy committee, the Federal Open Market Committee, meets this week (Sept. 16 and 17).
Such Fed rate increases used to be commonplace. But those days are long gone. It’s been roughly nine years since the US central bank last ratcheted up its once primary policy rate, known as the Fed funds rate.
And in the near decade since then, pretty much every rule, technique, and guideline the Fed once relied on has been drastically rewritten, revamped, or removed. That blank slate underscores the fact that seven years after the financial crisis, the US economy continues to feel the reverberations.
In the words of one analyst, when the Fed tries to raise interest rates “their actions will entail the largest monetary policy experiment in human history.”
Here’s what you need to understand it.
How rates move
Once upon a time, the Federal Reserve altered monetary policy by raising and lowering its target for the Fed funds rate.
What are Fed funds?
They’re the reserves that banks have to hold—for large banks a 10% fraction of their deposits—by law. These funds are essentially for safekeeping, and can’t be invested. (Though since 2008 the Fed has had the power to pay interest on them.)
But funds in excess of that 10% ratio can be invested and lent out within the Federal Reserve system. This is the Fed funds market, where banks that have more reserves than they need lend to banks that don’t have enough, usually on an overnight basis. And the cost of borrowing money in this market is the Fed funds rate.
Here’s the problem: Right now, everybody has way more reserves than they need. That’s because the Federal Reserve has pumped large volumes of reserves into the system in recent years, in an effort to first contain the financial crisis and, later, support economic growth.
How did the Fed push these reserves into the system? Easy. It created them out of thin air, and used them to buy government securities from banks.
And why did it do it? To push interest rates down. (Supply and demand creates prices. All else equal, a rising supply of reserves pushes the price of reserves—the Fed funds rate—down.)
Here’s the trick: Traditionally, in order to raise interest rates, the Fed has to find ways to suck some those reserves back out of the system.
But that’s gotten a lot harder to do.
by Matt Phillips, Quartz | Read more:
Image: Andrew Harnik/AP
How Grown-Ups Deal With 'Microaggressions'
Whenever I first heard the word "microaggression," sometime in the last five years, I'm sure I was unaware how big "micro" could get. The accusation of a microaggression was about to become a pervasive feature of the Internet, and particularly social media. An offense most of us didn't even know existed, suddenly we were all afraid of being accused of.
We used to call this "rudeness," "slights" or "ignorant remarks." Mostly, people ignored them. The elevation of microaggressions into a social phenomenon with a specific name and increasingly public redress marks a dramatic social change, and two sociologists, Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning, have a fascinating paper exploring what this shift looks like, and what it means. (Jonathan Haidt has provided a very useful CliffsNotes version.)
Western society, they argue, has shifted from an honor culture -- in which slights are taken very seriously, and avenged by the one slighted -- to a dignity culture, in which personal revenge is discouraged, and justice is outsourced to third parties, primarily the law. The law being a cumbersome beast, people in dignity cultures are encouraged to ignore slights, or negotiate them privately by talking with the offender, rather than seeking some more punitive sanction.
Microagressions mark a transition to a third sort of culture: a victim culture, in which people are once again encouraged to take notice of slights. This sounds a lot like honor culture, doesn't it? Yes, with two important differences. The first is that while victimhood is shameful in an honor culture -- and indeed, the purpose of taking vengeance is frequently to avoid this shame -- victim status is actively sought in the new culture, because victimhood is a prerequisite for getting redress. The second is that victim culture encourages people to seek help from third parties, either authorities or the public, rather than seeking satisfaction themselves. (...)
I'm using microaggressions broadly here: to define the small slights by which any majority group subtly establishes its difference from its minority members. That means that I am including groups that may not come to mind for victim status, like conservatives in very liberal institutions. And no doubt many of my readers are preparing to deliver a note or a comment saying I shouldn't dare to compare historically marginalized groups with politically powerful ones. (...)
A while back, when I wrote about shamestorming, I ended up in a Twitter discussion with a guy who chided me for letting my privilege blind me to the ways that minorities (specifically women in tech, and more broadly on the Internet), experience microaggressions. You know how that conversation ended? When I pointed out that he had just committed a classic microagression: mansplaining to me something that I had actually experienced, and he had not. As soon as I did, he apologized, though that hadn't really been my intent. My intent was to point out that microaggressions are often unintentional (this guy clearly considered himself a feminist ally).
But I inadvertently demonstrated an even greater difficulty: Complaints about microaggressions can be used to stop complaints about microaggressions. There is no logical resting place for these disputes; it's microaggressions all the way down. And in the process, they make impossible demands on members of the ever-shrinking majority: to know everything about every possible victim group, to never inadvertently appropriate any part of any culture in ways a member doesn't like, or misunderstand something, or make an innocent remark that reads very differently to someone with a different experience. Which will, of course, only hasten the scramble for members of the majority to gain themselves some sort of victim status that can protect them from sanction.
by Megan McArdle, Bloomberg | Read more:
Image: Graham Barclay
We used to call this "rudeness," "slights" or "ignorant remarks." Mostly, people ignored them. The elevation of microaggressions into a social phenomenon with a specific name and increasingly public redress marks a dramatic social change, and two sociologists, Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning, have a fascinating paper exploring what this shift looks like, and what it means. (Jonathan Haidt has provided a very useful CliffsNotes version.)Western society, they argue, has shifted from an honor culture -- in which slights are taken very seriously, and avenged by the one slighted -- to a dignity culture, in which personal revenge is discouraged, and justice is outsourced to third parties, primarily the law. The law being a cumbersome beast, people in dignity cultures are encouraged to ignore slights, or negotiate them privately by talking with the offender, rather than seeking some more punitive sanction.
Microagressions mark a transition to a third sort of culture: a victim culture, in which people are once again encouraged to take notice of slights. This sounds a lot like honor culture, doesn't it? Yes, with two important differences. The first is that while victimhood is shameful in an honor culture -- and indeed, the purpose of taking vengeance is frequently to avoid this shame -- victim status is actively sought in the new culture, because victimhood is a prerequisite for getting redress. The second is that victim culture encourages people to seek help from third parties, either authorities or the public, rather than seeking satisfaction themselves. (...)
I'm using microaggressions broadly here: to define the small slights by which any majority group subtly establishes its difference from its minority members. That means that I am including groups that may not come to mind for victim status, like conservatives in very liberal institutions. And no doubt many of my readers are preparing to deliver a note or a comment saying I shouldn't dare to compare historically marginalized groups with politically powerful ones. (...)
A while back, when I wrote about shamestorming, I ended up in a Twitter discussion with a guy who chided me for letting my privilege blind me to the ways that minorities (specifically women in tech, and more broadly on the Internet), experience microaggressions. You know how that conversation ended? When I pointed out that he had just committed a classic microagression: mansplaining to me something that I had actually experienced, and he had not. As soon as I did, he apologized, though that hadn't really been my intent. My intent was to point out that microaggressions are often unintentional (this guy clearly considered himself a feminist ally).
But I inadvertently demonstrated an even greater difficulty: Complaints about microaggressions can be used to stop complaints about microaggressions. There is no logical resting place for these disputes; it's microaggressions all the way down. And in the process, they make impossible demands on members of the ever-shrinking majority: to know everything about every possible victim group, to never inadvertently appropriate any part of any culture in ways a member doesn't like, or misunderstand something, or make an innocent remark that reads very differently to someone with a different experience. Which will, of course, only hasten the scramble for members of the majority to gain themselves some sort of victim status that can protect them from sanction.
by Megan McArdle, Bloomberg | Read more:
Image: Graham Barclay
There Is No Theory of Everything
Frank (which is how he was always referred to) has recently become the subject of an interesting book by David Ellis, “Frank Cioffi: The Philosopher in Shirt Sleeves.” It gives a very good sense of what it felt like to be in a room with Frank. Truth to tell, Ellis’s title is deceptive, as I never recall Frank in shirtsleeves. He wore a sweater, usually inside out. He never had laces in the work boots he always wore, and strangest of all, because of an acute sensitivity to fabrics, he wore pajamas underneath his clothes at all times. The word “disheveled” doesn’t begin to describe the visual effect that Frank had on the senses. He was a physically large, strong-looking man, about 6-foot-4. The pajamas were clearly visible at the edges of his sweater, his fly was often undone (some years later, his only word of teaching advice to me was “always check your fly”) and he sometimes seemed to hold his pants up with a piece of string. In his pockets would be scraps of paper with typewritten quotations from favorite writers like George Eliot, Tolstoy or Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, whom he revered. (...)
Despite the astonishing breadth of his interests, Frank’s core obsession in teaching turned on the relation between science and the humanities. More particularly, his concern was with the relation between the causal explanations offered by science and the kinds of humanistic description we find, say, in the novels of Dickens or Dostoevsky, or in the sociological writings of Erving Goffman and David Riesman. His quest was to try and clarify the occasions when a scientific explanation was appropriate and when it was not, and we need instead a humanistic remark. His conviction was that our confusions about science and the humanities had wide-ranging and malign societal consequences.
Let me give an example. Imagine that you are depressed, because of the death of a loved one, heartbreak or just too much hard and seemingly pointless work. You go to see a doctor. After trying to explain what ails you, with the doctor fidgeting and looking at his watch, he exclaims: “Ah, I see the problem. Take this blue pill and you will be cured.” However efficacious the blue pill might be, in this instance the doctor’s causal diagnosis is the wrong one. What is required is for you to be able to talk, to feel that someone understands your problems and perhaps can offer some insight or even suggestions on how you might move forward in your life. This, one imagines, is why people go into therapy.
But let’s flip it around. Let’s imagine that you are on a ferry crossing the English Channel during a terrible winter storm. Your nausea is uncontrollable and you run out onto the deck to vomit the contents of your lunch, breakfast and the remains of the previous evening’s dinner. You feel so wretched that you no longer fear death — you wish you were dead. Suddenly, on the storm-tossed deck, appears R.D. Laing, the most skilled, charismatic and rhetorically gifted existential psychiatrist of his generation, in a blue velvet suit. He proceeds to give you an intense phenomenological description of how your guts feel, the sense of disorientation, the corpselike coldness of your flesh, the sudden loss of the will to live. This is also an error. On a ferry you want a blue pill that is going to alleviate the symptoms of seasickness and make you feel better.
Frank’s point is that our society is deeply confused by the occasions when a blue pill is required and not required, or when we need a causal explanation and when we need a further description, clarification or elucidation. We tend to get muddled and imagine that one kind of explanation (usually the causal one) is appropriate in all occasions when it is not. (...)
This is the risk of what some call “scientism” — the belief that natural science can explain everything, right down to the detail of our subjective and social lives. All we need is a better form of science, a more complete theory, a theory of everything. Lord knows, there are even Oscar-winning Hollywood movies made about this topic. Frank’s point, which is still hugely important, is that there is no theory of everything, nor should there be. There is a gap between nature and society. The mistake, for which scientism is the name, is the belief that this gap can or should be filled.
by Simon Critchley, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Tucker Nichols
How the NFL is Reshaping Surveillance Society
As guards were going so far as to check inside NFL fans' wallets as part of routine security measures before a recent preseason game at Levi's Stadium, a different form of surveillance was taking place on the inside of the San Francisco 49ers' 1-year-old, $1.3 billion home here in Silicon Valley.
We're not talking about facial recognition devices, police body cams, or other security measures likely zeroing in on fans. Instead, employees from San Jose-based Zebra Technologies had recently finished scanning the NFL uniforms of the 49ers and of their opponents—the Dallas Cowboys. All of a sudden, an on-the-field de facto surveillance society was instantly created when Zebra techies activated nickel-sized Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) chips that were fastened inside players' shoulder pads. Every movement of every player now could be monitored within an accuracy level of all but a few inches.
On its surface, this seems pretty innocuous. Cameras already track things like total player movement in sports, allowing teams to better recognize tendencies or gauge the physical toll on players. RFID chips, however, can provide more accurate, more granular information along these lines. The NFL's new real-time player tracking data—including things such as player speed and team formations—undoubtedly promises to reformat the game in terms of fan participation, team practicing methods, and potentially game-time strategy.
There's a larger story playing itself out as well. The league's RFID initiative may push far beyond the gridiron.
That's because this so-called geo-fencing technology has a geekier side, and it will likely recast things like fantasy football, the Microsoft's Xbox One experience, and perhaps even the Madden NFL video game produced by Electronic Arts. What's more, the technology potentially opens up new proposition gambling bets in Las Vegas sports books or other gambling venues. But its most unexpected impact will have nothing to do with sports at all. Fortune 500 companies are watching the NFL closely, examining how they might incorporate the RFID chip to monitor every move of their onsite employees from the construction site, the office, and beyond.
by David Kravets, Ars Technica | Read more:
Image:Christopher Schodt
We're not talking about facial recognition devices, police body cams, or other security measures likely zeroing in on fans. Instead, employees from San Jose-based Zebra Technologies had recently finished scanning the NFL uniforms of the 49ers and of their opponents—the Dallas Cowboys. All of a sudden, an on-the-field de facto surveillance society was instantly created when Zebra techies activated nickel-sized Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) chips that were fastened inside players' shoulder pads. Every movement of every player now could be monitored within an accuracy level of all but a few inches.On its surface, this seems pretty innocuous. Cameras already track things like total player movement in sports, allowing teams to better recognize tendencies or gauge the physical toll on players. RFID chips, however, can provide more accurate, more granular information along these lines. The NFL's new real-time player tracking data—including things such as player speed and team formations—undoubtedly promises to reformat the game in terms of fan participation, team practicing methods, and potentially game-time strategy.
There's a larger story playing itself out as well. The league's RFID initiative may push far beyond the gridiron.
That's because this so-called geo-fencing technology has a geekier side, and it will likely recast things like fantasy football, the Microsoft's Xbox One experience, and perhaps even the Madden NFL video game produced by Electronic Arts. What's more, the technology potentially opens up new proposition gambling bets in Las Vegas sports books or other gambling venues. But its most unexpected impact will have nothing to do with sports at all. Fortune 500 companies are watching the NFL closely, examining how they might incorporate the RFID chip to monitor every move of their onsite employees from the construction site, the office, and beyond.
by David Kravets, Ars Technica | Read more:
Image:Christopher Schodt
Monday, September 14, 2015
One Symptom in New Medical Codes: Doctor Anxiety
[ed. How about patient anxiety? If there's an upside for anyone here other than insurance companies (who would deny your claim), I'm not seeing it.]
The nation’s health care providers are under orders to start using a new system of medical codes to describe illnesses and injuries in more detail than ever before. The codes will cover common ailments: Did a diabetic also have kidney disease? But also included are some that are far less common: whether the patient was crushed by a crocodile or sucked into a jet engine.The more than 100,000 new codes, which will take effect on Oct. 1, have potential benefits, as they will require doctors to make a deeper assessment of many patients.
But the change is causing waves of anxiety among health care providers, who fear that claims will be denied and payments delayed if they do not use the new codes, or do not use them properly. Some doctors and hospitals are already obtaining lines of credit because they fear that the transition to the new system will cause cash-flow problems.
“It’s a sea change for physicians,” said Dr. Pardeep Kumar, a 46-year-old internist here who is counting down to Oct. 1. “We will have to be very much more specific.” (...)
The codes, from the 10th revision of the International Classification of Diseases, or ICD-10, have significant implications for patients. For example, Dr. Kumar said, doctors may need to perform additional tests to help determine if a patient with high blood pressure has heart failure.
ICD-10 includes 68,000 diagnostic codes, compared with 14,000 in the current compendium. The number of codes for inpatient hospital procedures will expand to 87,000, from 4,000.
Consumers often need prior approval from insurers for expensive tests and medical procedures. To get approval, they need a valid diagnostic code.
Dr. Michael R. Marks, an orthopedic surgeon and coding expert in Connecticut, said that if doctors did not use the proper codes, insurers could delay approval. “The patient,” he said, “will get frustrated and ask: ‘Why has my M.R.I. not been authorized yet? Why has my surgery not been scheduled?’ ” (...)
As people make the change, doctors and hospital executives say, it is inevitable that some claims will be denied for services that were provided but not properly coded. Patients may see the denials in statements they receive from insurers.
Many doctors and hospitals say they will step up efforts to collect the patient’s share of the bill, including deductibles and co-payments, at the time of service.
by Robert Pear, NY Times | Read more:
Image: James Brosher
Sunday, September 13, 2015
Thursday, September 10, 2015
Hipster Barbie Is So Much Better at Instagram Than You
Coffee & Kinfolk. Cuz my lyfe is beautiful.
[ed. See also: Socality Barbie Hits Uncomfortably Close to Home]
The Future of New York City Transportation: Goodbye Cars, Hello Rails
By any measure, young city dwellers are less and less likely to own a car. And New York City officials have spent millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours ensuring that trend works for the recent grads and young professionals that flock to it constantly. NYC bus, rail, and ferry systems are keeping up with a growing population; the roads, well, that’s a different story altogether.
Transportation engineer Samuel Schwartz — better known as “Gridlock Sam” to his readers in the Daily News — has studied transportation in New York City for almost all his life, beginning as a taxi driver in the 1960s, and eventually serving as the Department of Transportation’s Chief Engineer. Today, his eponymous consulting firm helps the city consider what efficiency could look like and his new book, Street Smart: The Rise of Cities and the Fall of Cars, is on the display rack. The semi-autobiographical book follows New York City’s evolution into a public transit powerhouse and kicks dirt onto the grave of urban drivers.
In the book, Schwartz makes an excellent case for why the future of most big metropolitan areas is in optimized public transit systems. He gave Inverse a preview of what’s coming down the tracks for New Yorkers.
What is the current status of transportation infrastructure in New York City?
It’s a mixed bag. The good news is that loads of people are using our ubiquitous subway systems. We have such an extensive network, but it’s a network that’s being stressed with some more frequent delays and breakdowns in the systems. I doubt if anybody would rate it an “A,” but one treasure is that it’s attracted 100 million more visitors in just one year. We’re beginning to see traffic volumes of people we haven’t seen on our subways since the late 1940s. That’s before the big surge in car traffic.
I saw that they were ranked fourth-worst in terms of car congestion, and that’s not a surprise to me, but then again all the cities that made the hit list — San Francisco and Washington D.C., Los Angeles — have also been doing very well as of late, so it’s not such a bad list to be on. And, as I pointed out in my book, congestion isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, at times it makes sense to introduce some congestion measures to slow the traffic down; it actually helps business.
What are the changing conditions that will affect New York City transportation in the next 25 to 50 years?
We’re already seeing more rapid changes than we’ve seen in a very, very long time. One is just land issues — the amount of development within three miles of the central business district. Within the central business district itself, growth has been extraordinary. It’s largely been driven by millennials, who are living in all the communities that have covered the East River — from Williamsburg, to Red Hook, to Long Island City, to Hunters Point, to Astoria. That’s created a whole change in demand. These are people that are looking for active transportation.
Bike and pedestrian paths will reach their limits. Before the East River bridges opened the only way that you could get directly from Queens or Brooklyn into Manhattan were bike or pedestrian paths. Even more rapidly changing have been transportation network companies, like Uber, Lyft, Via, and about 30 others that are all going around the United States and the world, and are looking to get into the New York market. So we’re seeing many many more vehicles on city streets, a lot of people that just use Uber, driving part-time, and that’s adding to congestion. Travel speeds have been going down.
The third big factor is that autonomous vehicles are coming. We probably will have them by 2030; they’ll be fairly common. Before 2030, I believe there will be lanes on highways that will be autonomous vehicle lanes where you take your hand off the steering wheel. You already have devices in cars that can allow you to accelerate and decelerate and cruise in lanes, so we’re not that many years away. Maybe in 2020 or so we might start seeing the first of those lanes!
But what autonomous vehicles will do is both good and bad. For those people who are going to be driving anyhow, it does make it safer. But it also will only contribute to a lifestyle that’s more sedentary and ever-increasing, which I discuss in my book parallels the growth of obesity and cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, stroke and others problems. I worry about a future in which people don’t walk. Their Uber car takes them right to the portal of wherever they’re going, and their office chair comes right out and greets them. Or it’s their home and their recliner comes and greets them. We won’t need legs anymore, like in Wall-E.
Your new book discusses how cars are falling out of favor in cities all around the U.S., including NYC. When did you first start noticing that cars in urban communities were on the decline? Was this all of a sudden, or gradual? (...)
What we thought was lousy transportation in the 1950s is no longer seen that way. The younger people want to be able to get places. It’s not about the status symbol of your big car with the huge rims, which was my generation. I had a big Chevy Impala with huge rims on it and I loved that car and that was a sign of freedom for me. Now a sign of freedom is having a smart phone and having the apps or Uber, Lyft, Zipcar, or Via. Suddenly you’re more free. You don’t have to lug around several thousand pounds of steel and figure out a place to park it and worry if you’re going to have a couple drinks and fight the traffic on the way home.
Transportation engineer Samuel Schwartz — better known as “Gridlock Sam” to his readers in the Daily News — has studied transportation in New York City for almost all his life, beginning as a taxi driver in the 1960s, and eventually serving as the Department of Transportation’s Chief Engineer. Today, his eponymous consulting firm helps the city consider what efficiency could look like and his new book, Street Smart: The Rise of Cities and the Fall of Cars, is on the display rack. The semi-autobiographical book follows New York City’s evolution into a public transit powerhouse and kicks dirt onto the grave of urban drivers.In the book, Schwartz makes an excellent case for why the future of most big metropolitan areas is in optimized public transit systems. He gave Inverse a preview of what’s coming down the tracks for New Yorkers.
What is the current status of transportation infrastructure in New York City?
It’s a mixed bag. The good news is that loads of people are using our ubiquitous subway systems. We have such an extensive network, but it’s a network that’s being stressed with some more frequent delays and breakdowns in the systems. I doubt if anybody would rate it an “A,” but one treasure is that it’s attracted 100 million more visitors in just one year. We’re beginning to see traffic volumes of people we haven’t seen on our subways since the late 1940s. That’s before the big surge in car traffic.
I saw that they were ranked fourth-worst in terms of car congestion, and that’s not a surprise to me, but then again all the cities that made the hit list — San Francisco and Washington D.C., Los Angeles — have also been doing very well as of late, so it’s not such a bad list to be on. And, as I pointed out in my book, congestion isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, at times it makes sense to introduce some congestion measures to slow the traffic down; it actually helps business.
What are the changing conditions that will affect New York City transportation in the next 25 to 50 years?
We’re already seeing more rapid changes than we’ve seen in a very, very long time. One is just land issues — the amount of development within three miles of the central business district. Within the central business district itself, growth has been extraordinary. It’s largely been driven by millennials, who are living in all the communities that have covered the East River — from Williamsburg, to Red Hook, to Long Island City, to Hunters Point, to Astoria. That’s created a whole change in demand. These are people that are looking for active transportation.
Bike and pedestrian paths will reach their limits. Before the East River bridges opened the only way that you could get directly from Queens or Brooklyn into Manhattan were bike or pedestrian paths. Even more rapidly changing have been transportation network companies, like Uber, Lyft, Via, and about 30 others that are all going around the United States and the world, and are looking to get into the New York market. So we’re seeing many many more vehicles on city streets, a lot of people that just use Uber, driving part-time, and that’s adding to congestion. Travel speeds have been going down.
The third big factor is that autonomous vehicles are coming. We probably will have them by 2030; they’ll be fairly common. Before 2030, I believe there will be lanes on highways that will be autonomous vehicle lanes where you take your hand off the steering wheel. You already have devices in cars that can allow you to accelerate and decelerate and cruise in lanes, so we’re not that many years away. Maybe in 2020 or so we might start seeing the first of those lanes!
But what autonomous vehicles will do is both good and bad. For those people who are going to be driving anyhow, it does make it safer. But it also will only contribute to a lifestyle that’s more sedentary and ever-increasing, which I discuss in my book parallels the growth of obesity and cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, stroke and others problems. I worry about a future in which people don’t walk. Their Uber car takes them right to the portal of wherever they’re going, and their office chair comes right out and greets them. Or it’s their home and their recliner comes and greets them. We won’t need legs anymore, like in Wall-E.
Your new book discusses how cars are falling out of favor in cities all around the U.S., including NYC. When did you first start noticing that cars in urban communities were on the decline? Was this all of a sudden, or gradual? (...)
What we thought was lousy transportation in the 1950s is no longer seen that way. The younger people want to be able to get places. It’s not about the status symbol of your big car with the huge rims, which was my generation. I had a big Chevy Impala with huge rims on it and I loved that car and that was a sign of freedom for me. Now a sign of freedom is having a smart phone and having the apps or Uber, Lyft, Zipcar, or Via. Suddenly you’re more free. You don’t have to lug around several thousand pounds of steel and figure out a place to park it and worry if you’re going to have a couple drinks and fight the traffic on the way home.
by Neel V. Patel, Inverse | Read more:
Image: Jon Harald Søby
F*ck Your Feelings
Put down the talking stick. Stop fruitlessly seeking "closure" with your peevish co-worker. And please, don't bother telling your spouse how annoying you find their tongue-clicking habit—sometimes honesty is less like a breath of fresh air and more like a fart. That’s the argument of Michael Bennett and Sarah Bennett, the father-daughter duo behind the new self-help book F*ck Feelings.
The elder Bennett is a psychiatrist and American Psychiatric Association distinguished fellow. His daughter is a comedy writer. Together, they provide a tough-love, irreverent take on “life's impossible problems.” The crux of their approach is that life is hard and negative emotions are part of it. The key is to see your “bullshit wishes” for just what they are (bullshit), and instead to pursue real, achievable goals.
Stop trying to forgive your bad parents, they advise. Jerks are capable of having as many kids as anyone else—at least until men’s rights conventions come equipped with free vasectomy booths. If you happen to be the child of a jerk, that's just another obstacle to overcome.
In fact, stop trying to free yourself of all anger and hate. In all likelihood you're doing a really awesome job, the Bennetts argue, despite all the shitty things that happen to you.
Oh, and a word on shit: “Profanity is a source of comfort, clarity, and strength,” they write. “It helps to express anger without blame, to be tough in the face of pain.”
I recently spoke with the Bennetts by phone about what the f*cking deal is with their book. A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows. (...)
Khazan: How would you sum up your approach to life’s problems, whether it’s love or childhood issues, or work?
Sarah Bennett: The first step is accepting what you can't control. So many people who come to my father—they want something they can't have. They want a happy relationship that’s never going to be happy, or they want opportunities that are not easy to come by.
So it's going into accepting what you can't control, the factors that are out of your hands, and seeing what you can do with what you can control. And learning to be proud of yourself not just for accomplishing what you can, and not beating yourself up for what you can't. Not seeing yourself as a failure, when you haven’t really failed because it’s not something that you could have controlled in the first place. And admiring your ability to withstand a feeling of rejection, and the frustration and the pain, and keep going on towards a more reasonable goal while being a good person. That’s also what’s emphasized so heavily. Figuring out your own values and sticking to them.
Michael: A big part of this—and it’s so hard to capture—is being able to laugh at how much life sucks. If you can laugh at it, you don’t take it as personally. That moment when you can laugh at how much life sucks and open your mind to the idea that, there you are. What are you gonna do?
Khazan: How would you say that this differs from other advice that you see out there? What’s the main difference between you and a lot of the other “how to be more content” books?
Sarah: Well, from what we know—and we are two people that have never read a self-help book—they seem to put the onus for happiness on the reader. I've had too many friends who made Secret collages. And that makes it seem like, if you made your collage as prescribed by [the pseudoscientific self-help book] The Secret, and you’re not happy, you screwed up. When that’s not really fair to you. You could wake up that morning determined to be happy, and the first step you take out of your building is into dog shit, and now you’re unhappy, but you didn’t put the dog shit there. It's not your fault. You really can't control your happiness, no matter what a book says.
Michael: I think there ought to be a law that you spend a certain amount of time right up front looking for the limit and preparing yourself for it. ... You go in the hospital and right away you start to think about what the limits are—what does it mean if things don't go right? Where is the point where you’ve had enough? People are ready to think like that, and they’re starting to think like that about medical problems. We should think like that about psychiatric problems. (...)
Khazan: I know that the title is a little bit glib, but do you think there’s any downside in walling off your emotions or not necessarily exploring the roots of your emotions too deeply?
Sarah: We always try and make sure that people know that we don’t hate feelings in general. That we aren’t total Vulcans. But this is more of a book about solving problems. It’s to not make feelings the most important factor in how you would approach a problem. In terms of getting to the source of problems, the issue with that is a lot of people think about it like, “If I can remember where I last saw my keys, then I can get them and everything will be okay.” If you can get to where you last or where you first saw this issue, that doesn’t make the issue go away.
Sometimes the search for the source of a problem can be a distraction, and it can also be a disappointment. A lot of the time, knowing why, for example, you pathologically cheat on partners, and you can say, “Aha, it’s because my dad was a jerk and he cheated on my mom.” That isn’t immediately going to flip a switch in your brain and make you monogamous.
What’s the real result? Will it just be rumination on all these bad things that have happened to me? Or, what is a more active action I can pursue that can have a more possible positive and constructive outcome?
by Olga Khazan, The Atlantic | Read more:
Image: YulyYulia
The elder Bennett is a psychiatrist and American Psychiatric Association distinguished fellow. His daughter is a comedy writer. Together, they provide a tough-love, irreverent take on “life's impossible problems.” The crux of their approach is that life is hard and negative emotions are part of it. The key is to see your “bullshit wishes” for just what they are (bullshit), and instead to pursue real, achievable goals.
Stop trying to forgive your bad parents, they advise. Jerks are capable of having as many kids as anyone else—at least until men’s rights conventions come equipped with free vasectomy booths. If you happen to be the child of a jerk, that's just another obstacle to overcome.In fact, stop trying to free yourself of all anger and hate. In all likelihood you're doing a really awesome job, the Bennetts argue, despite all the shitty things that happen to you.
Oh, and a word on shit: “Profanity is a source of comfort, clarity, and strength,” they write. “It helps to express anger without blame, to be tough in the face of pain.”
I recently spoke with the Bennetts by phone about what the f*cking deal is with their book. A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows. (...)
Khazan: How would you sum up your approach to life’s problems, whether it’s love or childhood issues, or work?
Sarah Bennett: The first step is accepting what you can't control. So many people who come to my father—they want something they can't have. They want a happy relationship that’s never going to be happy, or they want opportunities that are not easy to come by.
So it's going into accepting what you can't control, the factors that are out of your hands, and seeing what you can do with what you can control. And learning to be proud of yourself not just for accomplishing what you can, and not beating yourself up for what you can't. Not seeing yourself as a failure, when you haven’t really failed because it’s not something that you could have controlled in the first place. And admiring your ability to withstand a feeling of rejection, and the frustration and the pain, and keep going on towards a more reasonable goal while being a good person. That’s also what’s emphasized so heavily. Figuring out your own values and sticking to them.
Michael: A big part of this—and it’s so hard to capture—is being able to laugh at how much life sucks. If you can laugh at it, you don’t take it as personally. That moment when you can laugh at how much life sucks and open your mind to the idea that, there you are. What are you gonna do?
Khazan: How would you say that this differs from other advice that you see out there? What’s the main difference between you and a lot of the other “how to be more content” books?
Sarah: Well, from what we know—and we are two people that have never read a self-help book—they seem to put the onus for happiness on the reader. I've had too many friends who made Secret collages. And that makes it seem like, if you made your collage as prescribed by [the pseudoscientific self-help book] The Secret, and you’re not happy, you screwed up. When that’s not really fair to you. You could wake up that morning determined to be happy, and the first step you take out of your building is into dog shit, and now you’re unhappy, but you didn’t put the dog shit there. It's not your fault. You really can't control your happiness, no matter what a book says.
Michael: I think there ought to be a law that you spend a certain amount of time right up front looking for the limit and preparing yourself for it. ... You go in the hospital and right away you start to think about what the limits are—what does it mean if things don't go right? Where is the point where you’ve had enough? People are ready to think like that, and they’re starting to think like that about medical problems. We should think like that about psychiatric problems. (...)
Khazan: I know that the title is a little bit glib, but do you think there’s any downside in walling off your emotions or not necessarily exploring the roots of your emotions too deeply?
Sarah: We always try and make sure that people know that we don’t hate feelings in general. That we aren’t total Vulcans. But this is more of a book about solving problems. It’s to not make feelings the most important factor in how you would approach a problem. In terms of getting to the source of problems, the issue with that is a lot of people think about it like, “If I can remember where I last saw my keys, then I can get them and everything will be okay.” If you can get to where you last or where you first saw this issue, that doesn’t make the issue go away.
Sometimes the search for the source of a problem can be a distraction, and it can also be a disappointment. A lot of the time, knowing why, for example, you pathologically cheat on partners, and you can say, “Aha, it’s because my dad was a jerk and he cheated on my mom.” That isn’t immediately going to flip a switch in your brain and make you monogamous.
What’s the real result? Will it just be rumination on all these bad things that have happened to me? Or, what is a more active action I can pursue that can have a more possible positive and constructive outcome?
by Olga Khazan, The Atlantic | Read more:
Image: YulyYulia
You Aren't Good Enough to Win Money Playing Daily Fantasy Football
Every first-time player of daily fantasy football begins the new season undefeated, just like even the most hopeless NFL teams. But after 16 weeks of real football, most rookie fantasy players will have been separated from their money, just as certainly as the Cleveland Browns will be disabused of their playoff ambitions.
Daily fantasy is getting ready to generate more losers in 2015 than ever before. Each year in the history of daily fantasy sports has been bigger than the last, and September has become the biggest month for new fans trying the game, which combines the stats-jockeying of traditional fantasy contests with the thrills of old-fashioned sports betting. (Fantasy sports are exempted from the federal ban on sports gambling.) FanDuel and DraftKings, the two main services, will bring in a combined $60 million in entry fees in the first week of the NFL season, according to Adam Krejcik, a partner at Eilers Research. Sports books in Las Vegas, by contrast, are expected to handle about $30 million.
The rival startups prospered in football's offseason. Both companies raised huge new rounds of investment, bringing DraftKings’s total haul to $426 million and FanDuel’s to $363 million, and both are now valued at more than $1 billion. To get to the size their investors are expecting requires a continuous stream of new players lured by ever-increasing prize pools with the help of muscular advertising campaigns. These ads never spell out a simple truth about daily fantasy competitions: While any player might get lucky on the back of a handful of entries, over time nearly all of the prize money flows to a tiny elite equipped with elaborate statistical modeling and automated tools that can manage hundreds of entries at once and identify the weakest opponents.
As in poker, the top fantasy players who make off with most of the prize money are known as "sharks," and they've become embodiments of the riches on offer as well as threats to conitnued growth. “We don’t make any apologies that it’s a game of skill, and you might go up against the best in the industry,” says Nigel Eccles, the chief executive of FanDuel. “Some of the people are really good.” But new players won't stick around to keep paying entry fees unless there's at least a sense that victory is possible. Nobody wants to be a fantasy football fish.
Saahil Sud is a fake-sports apex predator. He enters hundreds of daily contents each day in baseball and football under the name "maxdalury," and he almost always trounces the field. He claims to risk an average of $140,000 per day with a return of about 8 percent. Sud studied math and economics at Amherst College and took a job in data science at a digital marketing firm before shifting to full-time fantasy. He's now the top-ranked daily fantasy sports player, according to Rotogrinders, a stats site for daily fantasy players. He says he's made more than $2 million so far this year. (...)
What Sud does each day doesn’t seem much like sports fandom—or even like much fun. He spends between eight and 15 hours working from his two-bedroom apartment in downtown Boston; the range reflects his uncertainly over whether to count the time watching games as work. During baseball season he puts about 200 entries into tournaments each night, and he can play more than 1,000 times in the weekly contests during NFL season.
by Joshua Brustein, Bloomberg | Read more:
Image: 731; Photos: Alamy (1), Getty Images (1)
Daily fantasy is getting ready to generate more losers in 2015 than ever before. Each year in the history of daily fantasy sports has been bigger than the last, and September has become the biggest month for new fans trying the game, which combines the stats-jockeying of traditional fantasy contests with the thrills of old-fashioned sports betting. (Fantasy sports are exempted from the federal ban on sports gambling.) FanDuel and DraftKings, the two main services, will bring in a combined $60 million in entry fees in the first week of the NFL season, according to Adam Krejcik, a partner at Eilers Research. Sports books in Las Vegas, by contrast, are expected to handle about $30 million. The rival startups prospered in football's offseason. Both companies raised huge new rounds of investment, bringing DraftKings’s total haul to $426 million and FanDuel’s to $363 million, and both are now valued at more than $1 billion. To get to the size their investors are expecting requires a continuous stream of new players lured by ever-increasing prize pools with the help of muscular advertising campaigns. These ads never spell out a simple truth about daily fantasy competitions: While any player might get lucky on the back of a handful of entries, over time nearly all of the prize money flows to a tiny elite equipped with elaborate statistical modeling and automated tools that can manage hundreds of entries at once and identify the weakest opponents.
As in poker, the top fantasy players who make off with most of the prize money are known as "sharks," and they've become embodiments of the riches on offer as well as threats to conitnued growth. “We don’t make any apologies that it’s a game of skill, and you might go up against the best in the industry,” says Nigel Eccles, the chief executive of FanDuel. “Some of the people are really good.” But new players won't stick around to keep paying entry fees unless there's at least a sense that victory is possible. Nobody wants to be a fantasy football fish.
Saahil Sud is a fake-sports apex predator. He enters hundreds of daily contents each day in baseball and football under the name "maxdalury," and he almost always trounces the field. He claims to risk an average of $140,000 per day with a return of about 8 percent. Sud studied math and economics at Amherst College and took a job in data science at a digital marketing firm before shifting to full-time fantasy. He's now the top-ranked daily fantasy sports player, according to Rotogrinders, a stats site for daily fantasy players. He says he's made more than $2 million so far this year. (...)
What Sud does each day doesn’t seem much like sports fandom—or even like much fun. He spends between eight and 15 hours working from his two-bedroom apartment in downtown Boston; the range reflects his uncertainly over whether to count the time watching games as work. During baseball season he puts about 200 entries into tournaments each night, and he can play more than 1,000 times in the weekly contests during NFL season.
by Joshua Brustein, Bloomberg | Read more:
Image: 731; Photos: Alamy (1), Getty Images (1)
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