Not a Potted Plant

A long while back an acquaintance gave me a VHS tape (giving you an idea of precisely how long back we’re talking) of a movie called Terminal Impact. It was being rotated out of the selection at the movie rental place that he worked. The movie was pretty lame. It was about “college students” (that looked 40) being turned into deadly cyborgs. Not coincidentally, there was a blockbuster film called Terminal Velocity starring Charlie Sheen that came out at the same time. They had a similar name and the font of the title was similar, but that’s where the similarities ended. It was pretty clear that the entire purpose of the movie’s title was to get rentals from people who were confused. (Indeed, the movie was created with another title and they changed it to match.)

Erik wrote about a resurgence of “mockbusters” a while ago. I was talking to a friend who was saying that somebody should do something about this.

I really, really hope that nobody does. I hope that, if Disney and others start flinging lawsuits, that they lose them. Terminal Impact may have been a waste of 90 minutes of my life, and would have been a waste of a couple dollars if I had actually paid for it, but the last thing I want is for courts to have to have to wade through distinctions of impact of a terminal nature versus velocity of a terminal nature. My concern is that it opens the doors to the entertainment variant of software patents.

It wouldn’t bother me if Hollywood Pictures (the makers of Terminal Velocity) forced Nu Image Films (the makers of Terminal Impact) to go with the movie’s original title (“Cyborg Cop III”), though that one didn’t make much sense either (the baddies, not the cops, were cyborgs) and were likely taking advantage of an associated title (the movie bears no resemblance to the previous Cyborg cops, the second of which also had an alternate title). However, two movies with redhead leads with the movie “Brave” in the title strikes me as more problematic. What if it’s a girl with brown hair? What if it’s a year later? Three years later? The opportunities for trademark trolling seem evident, to me. And it would almost certainly apply in only a single direction where Pixar can determine a small studio’s packaging while a small studio would have a much harder time doing the opposite.

So, in the end, we are responsible for knowing precisely which movie it is that we want to see. If somebody is taking advantage of our failure to do so, I can live with that.

No, I’m not going to become a daddyblogger, but I did have to share this monumental feat:

Lain discharged a rear projectile that darted out 57 inches.

Fortunately, I have a dog, and so I have things to clean poopy off a carpet.

So, some time back Wells Fargo decided that bank passwords needed to be more secure. You have to include numbers. That’s no problem for me, as I have long intended to change our account password. I have difficulty remembering what the username and passwords are anyway. As soon as I finally hit the jackpot, I go into the accounts section and change the username to something I am going to remember. Then I go to change the password, knowing that the old password didn’t meet requirements anyway.

The problem is that because my old password didn’t meet requirements, they wouldn’t let me change to a new password. I get logged off, and then it won’t let me log back in because the password doesn’t meet the new requirements. Not that the password is wrong, mind you. And nevermind that it let me log into the password a half-hour before.

So our online banking is so secure that I can’t get in there without calling their number.

[A] For Michael Cain: As the United States turns to natural gas, Europe is turning back to coal.

[B] Matt Yglesias and Kevin Drum explain why pot is illegal everywhere in the world.

[C] So apparently, Patrick Dempsey has purchased Tully’s Coffee. There was one back in Zaulem where we used to live. There are actually a lot of places out west that serve their coffee and have their logo in the window, though they’re not part of the chain. (Sadly, it does not appear that anybody – movie star or otherwise – has bought Hit Coffee.)

[D] William Pesek writes on the road China has ahead of it. It touches on the demographics problem, as well as one of my issues (they’re not going to want to make our cheap stuff forever).

[E] This is probably a hat-tip to my freakishness, but I think “PC City” in this Vizio ad looks blissfully practical and efficient (except for a disk drive coming out of a building and such). It’s probably no coincidence that I like the basic look of Thinkpads and standard tower computers. I want to live in PC City. (Which apparently was made from models.)

[F] A documentary-maker on fracking is accusing Matt Damon’s new anti-fracking movie of being a liar. In the interest of fairness, it’s starting to look like resource exploitation in Alberta is doing a number on the water there.

[G] When all of the flaws of Cash for Clunkers were pointed out, a counterargument was that aside from the economics, it was about the environmental benefit. Maybe not. I may not agree with the premise that C4C was a primary… errr… driver in the raising of used car prices, but what a stupid program.

[H] Cosmic radiation could be causing Alzheimer’s in astronauts. Speaking of astronauts, anyone up for a one-way trip to Mars?

[I] Ezra Klein writes an ode to Biden and explains that he really could be a presidential contender in 2016.

[J] A lot of people don’t realize that the Catholic Church has a back door for married priests. My scumbag former pastor was fired from the Episcopal Church and is now a married pastor in the Catholic Church.

[K] One of these days, when they have it running and I’m ready, unless I end up going back to school for realz, I am going to try one of these online-certificate courses.

[L] I love stories wherein real life intersects with our video game life. If you ever find some good ones, feel free to send them my way in an email or OT comment. I have a potential creative pursuit that involves this sort of thing (short version: a detective in a place wherein the world revolves around the virtual and most crimes that are committed occur because of something happening in a game.)

[M] Slate on global fertility decline.

[N] Dan Slater wonders if online romance is threatening monogamy. I think, as with school and college, choice paralysis is a potential issue. But I think this piece is overwrought. Amanda Marcotte and Alexis Madrigal have stronger words.

[O] The potentially regressive effects of technocraticism.

[P] How can Atlantic Cities write a not-brief piece on the decline of the shopping mall without mentioning Walmart? Because it doesn’t fit with their narrative? Because it didn’t occur to them? Regardless of that oversight, it’s a worthwhile piece.

[Q] EDK points out that we probably wouldn’t even see a doomsday asteroid until it’s too late.

[R] Japanese scientists have located a giant squid in the Pacific Ocean.

[S] Apps are coming to cars and Ford and GM are looking for developers. I’m a bit at a loss as to why Android isn’t there yet. I have an idea of why Google wouldn’t want to do it, but somebody should. There’s no reason for this to be on a separate platform.

Warning, the rest of the links involve smartphones – and Linux, for a couple of them. If you don’t care, I hope you enjoyed the above links.

[T] If you want to learn Android programming, the Linux Foundation wants to help. Meanwhile, Ubuntu is planning to release their own OS. Kinda neat, I guess, but also kind of redundant.

[U] AndroidCentral recommends against getting the 8GB Nexus 4 because that’s not enough space. Of course, this wouldn’t even be an issue if they had a MicroSD slot.

[V] I have mixed feelings on the way that Samsung is (along with Amazon) running away with the Android tablet market. The good news is that, with it being Android, they have to keep putting out a good product. Or, at least, Samsung does.

[W] I think Apple’s move towards cheaper smartphones is – while good for cheapskates like me (if I were an Applyte) actually a mistake. They’re also considering multiple colors. As a consumer, I’m not a fan of the idea (there is no reason ever to deviate from black or silver). As a business matter, I don’t know that it really matters.

How many athletes from the London Olympics can you name?

I wanted to write a post about the new 23-point Biden Memo, which is the White House’s attempt to demonstrate that it is Doing Something in response to the Sandy Hook massacre.

But I literally fell asleep reading the memo. Somewhere around banning armor-piercing rounds (the kids at Sandy Hook were wearing body armor?) my eyes glazed over. A week and a half of nothing but gun talk here at the League burned me out a bit on the subject. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors from talking about guns with their patients? Really? This comes up?

And seriously, a 23-point “action plan” consisting of a lot of further study and a lot of rhetoric at Congress is taking public policy into the razor-blade like realm of self-parody: just as one day my razor will be the size of a tennis racquet because three, four, five blades will no longer be acceptable and I will demand twelve, thirteen, or fourteen of them, so too will asking for “the specifics” from politicians produce ever-longer numbered lists of vague ideas. More vague ideas must mean at least some of them are specific, right?

So, hey. The Administration Did Something. They called for a renewal of the assault weapons ban. There you go, gun rights advocates: your proof that Obama is a gun-grabber. They called for the government to educate the public about how to safely store guns, a conceptual lighting of money on fire. Responsible gun owners already store their weapons safely. Irresponsible gun owners are going to ignore the public education. But, the White House Did Something.

Here’s what I’m going to do: admit that I’m an awful person for not caring as intensely about this as you do at this exact moment.

Sometimes, I really just don’t understand sports media. Particularly when it comes to college sports. I guess sometimes they need things to write about, but even when they write about frivolous things, they write about unlikely ones. Over the past few months, there has been a lot of talk about the Big East Conference being “on life support” or similarly dire terms. Now, competitively, the Big East will be a far cry from what it was the last several seasons (in my opinion, the most under-rated football conference in the country). But there is almost no reason why we should think it even a possibility that the Big East disbands and the schools slated to join the conference scramble for a home or come back from whence they came.

To recap: TCU left before it ever actually joined. West Virginia has left. Louisville, Pitt, Syracuse, and Rutgers are leaving. The eight Catholic non-football schools are leaving. That leaves only Cincinnati, Connecticut, and South Florida as continuous members along with Temple, who joined this past season*. SMU, Houston, Memphis, Tulane, East Carolina**, and Central Florida are slated to join. Boise State*** was slated to join, but has decided to remain in the Mountain West Conference. In the coming weeks, San Diego State*** is likely to make the same decision. Navy*** is also supposed to join in a few years, but I’d be surprised if Navy didn’t reconsider as well.

If you can follow that, it paints a pretty sour picture. Granted, Cincinnati and Connecticut are very competitive within the conference (and also, basketball!). But there is a decent chance they will be leaving, too. That would leave the mediocre South Florida as the sole continuous member of the conference. For the sake of this post, let’s assume that happens (because if it doesn’t my skepticism towards the non-viability of the Big East becomes much, much more warranted).

So that would leave SMU, Houston, Tulane, Memphis, East Carolina, Central Florida, South Florida, and Temple. With the exception of the first two, there is little talk of those schools being invited to a better conference. in the case of Houston and SMU, there has been loose talk about them joining Boise State and San Diego State in the Mountain West Conference. This is unlikely but represents one of the few genuine threats to the conference’s viability.

People look at these eight teams and think how much worse it is than the Big East has historically been. That’s why they use terms like “life support.” However, for the constituent schools, with the possible Houston/SMU exception, it represents the best conference they can join and a better conference than the one they left. There were five top performing schools in Conference USA – their present league – and three of them are a part of the package. Tulsa, number four, would absolutely accept an invitation to the Big East tomorrow if issued an invite. The situation for Southern Miss (#5) is more complicated. Because of their weak financial position, they might not be able to afford it.

Meanwhile, they are leaving behind a lot of excess baggage. And with the possible exception of Southern Miss, anybody they don’t want to leave behind can be invited at a moment’s notice.

Conference USA, the place where most of the teams would return to (all but Temple are former members), is simply not an attractive option. Houston and SMU have been replaced by North Texas and UTSA. Central Florida has been replaced by Florida International and Florida Atlantic. Because of this, a return would mean conference congestion in Texas (six teams) and Florida (four). As a general rule, schools don’t want too much in-state rivalry because they want to separate themselves in terms of recruiting and prestige. SMU doesn’t want to play sibling to North Texas. South Florida doesn’t want to play sibling to Florida Atlantic. So these schools will move heaven and earth not to resign themselves to that fate.

I would say that even if Houston and SMU were to go west, and even if they took Tulsa and another school out of consideration for the Big East, they’d still stick together rather than scramble to get back into their old conference. Replace Houston and SMU with some combination of Rice, North Texas, and UTSA and keep on trucking. The only reservation I have about this is East Carolina. They still haven’t issued ECU (the only school in the lot to bring more than 50,000 fans to each football game, as well as one of the best schools in the present Conference USA) an all-sports invitation. And Conference USA went out of their way to bring in schools that ECU wanted (bucking the general rule, East Carolina actually wanted teams in closer proximity and that’s what they got). If they were to high-tail it back to Conference USA, that would bode ill.

But that’s unlikely, if the members keep a level head, for two reasons. First, because it continues to represent an opportunity to “clean house” and end up with a conference that replaces the two least desirable members of Conference USA with Temple and South Florida. Second, because they are sitting on a huge pile of cash. With the exception of seven of the eight Catholic schools and San Diego State, every departing member is paying an exit fee and they are substantial. If pressed, they can buy Southern Miss’s admission into the conference with that money. And it gives them enough money to set up camp and relax about the present lack of a TV contract.

Now, I’d be remiss if I did not mention the two scenarios in which I could be wrong.

First, if Cincinnati and Connecticut get ACC invites, it’s possible that they have a window where they can turn off the lights on their way out. It takes 2/3 of the conference to vote for dissolution and that represents two of the three current all-sport members (South Florida). However, Temple is a member as well and it’s unclear whether or not they have a vote. There is also a good chance that they can be persuaded not to kill the conference with a carrot (“we’ll waive the exit fee for you two”) and stick (“We will go to court over this”). Given that the incoming teams joined the conference in good faith and are materially harmed by dissolution, it would strike me as unlikely that they would have no case in the event that the conference is needlessly killed.

Second, if the ACC gets absolutely plundered. If the Big 12 goes to 18, for instance (two divisions of 9 with a majority of the ACC), of some combination of Big 12, Big Ten, and SEC pilfering of the ACC to a total number of more than four schools. If the ACC loses both Florida schools, then South Florida and Central Florida are in play. That, in turn, would make the conference substantially less appealing to several members. Possibly to the point that it’s less appealing than returning to Conference USA or heading west would be. If the ACC loses eight, then you are likely to see a near-merger between the ACC and Big East, with less than a handful of schools remaining and very little leverage to tempt anyone away from Conference USA. But this would require more than just the Big Ten and SEC going to 16. If they lose four, the ACC can rebound with just two in order to get back to 12. So both of those would have to happen and the Big 12 would need to expand into the region.

A lot of people are rooting for the Big East’s demise and have been for some time. The conceptually problematic additions of Boise State and San Diego State (and to a lesser extent Houston and SMU, and TCU before those two) only added to the whiff of desperation of something that must be critically ill in some way or another. But with Boise State and San Diego State gone, the geographic blueprint is no larger than that of the old Conference USA and is smaller than that of the Mountain West Conference. And, as underwhelming as the conference looks compared to how it looked a year or two ago, it’s still better than the alternative for most of its constituent schools.

* – Temple is presently only a football member, but all sports will be joining starting next season.

** – East Carolina is presently slated to join as football-only, but a full-sport invitation may be in its future.

*** – Navy, Boise State, and San Diego State were/are slated to join as football-only.

Jaybird asks:

My question: To what extent do you think that working with people who need a lawyer has changed your opinion on any given hot button political topic from, say, what it was when you first passed the bar?

I passed the bar nearly half a lifetime ago, when I was a very young man. I see newly-minted lawyers these days who are now as old as I was when my license was new, and I just shake my early-middle-aged head in amazement that they’re letting children practice law these days. I mean, they still have acne on their faces, instead of their shoulders where grownups get it.

That my opinions on issues would have evolved over two decades plus some change is only natural and it’s kind of difficult to tease out how my professional experiences have steered that evolution as opposed to more general life experience. And given the time-consumptive nature of practicing law for a living, it’s kind of difficult to separate out the two.

With that caveat, I’ll try to answer the question.
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The Baltimore Sun has an article about the effects of medical malpractice tort. A couple things jumped out at me with this part of the story:

In the Hopkins case, Enso Martinez and his wife, Rebecca Fielding, also claimed their son became oxygen-deprived in his mother’s womb and that medical staff should have performed a Caesarean section sooner than they did. The birth had started at home, overseen by a midwife whose license was later suspended, but the mother was rushed to Hopkins because of complications. The judge in that case excluded evidence about the midwife’s license, saying it would prejudice the jury.

The first bit is about midwifery, which I am broadly supportive of if that is what a woman chooses to do in that regard. And I would support laws that would help women make that choice. That said, one of the things that midwives are very critical of obstetricians about is c-sections. And here we had a midwife who screwed up (or appeared to) and a doctor who lost a massive lawsuit for failing to provide a c-section. When we look at the high c-section rate in this country, the fact that doctors rarely get sued over unnecessary c-sections and do get sued for failing to perform them needs to be thrown into the soup. I don’t even think it’s necessarily even a direct thing where doctors are choosing c-sections in borderline cases for fear of lawsuits, but it contributes to a culture of intervention. I’m not sure it’s something that tort reform would be able to fix, as it’s more about frames-of-mind than anything. It’s one of the things that has me concerned about expanding access with current mentalities in place. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t, but it is one of the things I see on the horizon that disturbs me.

The Wall Street Journal has an article about the expanded access and the lack of providers to provision them:

When demand exceeds supply in a normal market, the price rises until it reaches a market-clearing level. But in this country, as in other developed nations, Americans do not primarily pay for care with their own money. They pay with time.

How long does it take you on the phone to make an appointment to see a doctor? How many days do you have to wait before she can see you? How long does it take to get to the doctor’s office? Once there, how long do you have to wait before being seen? These are all non-price barriers to care, and there is substantial evidence that they are more important in deterring care than the fee the doctor charges, even for low-income patients.

For example, the average wait to see a new family doctor in this country is just under three weeks, according to a 2009 survey by medical consultancy Merritt Hawkins. But in Boston, Mass.—which enacted a law under Gov. Mitt Romney that established near-universal coverage—the wait is about two months.

When people cannot find a primary-care physician who will see them in a reasonable length of time, all too often they go to hospital emergency rooms. Yet a 2007 study of California in the Annals of Emergency Medicine showed that up to 20% of the patients who entered an emergency room left without ever seeing a doctor, because they got tired of waiting. Be prepared for that situation to get worse.

This is something that is going to need to be tackled. We can blame Obamacare for failing to do so, but it at least made moves in the right direction and Republicans have not really been offering their own solutions. At the same time, more doctors and more access will lead to increased costs. Worthwhile costs, perhaps, but it’s something that is going to need to be accounted for.

The Atlantic’s Ben Gallagher has a plan:

Despite such significant investments in physician education, the government asks very little in return. Doctors are free to choose what type of medicine to practice, where to set up shop, how many hours to work per week, or whether to practice medicine at all. It should come as no surprise, then, that physicians’ choices so often diverge from what legislators have in mind. In a country with a scarcity of primary care doctors and with many regions suffering shortages of health care providers, this situation is untenable.

Politicians and voters should insist on a fix to this system. An initial approach might be to raise awareness of government spending on medical education among current students. The topic was never broached when I was applying to medical school in 2010, and has not been discussed by my school’s administration since I was admitted. If more students knew that their government was making an expensive investment in them, they might strive to become the kinds of doctors their country needs.

But medical students are only human, and we’re more likely to follow financial inducements than civic callings. State and federal lawmakers should begin considering policies that would force more doctors to go into primary care, work in underserved communities, and work full-time.

My wife will be moving to a “part time” schedule that will almost certainly leave her working more than forty hours a week. A lot of the shift away from “full time” work to “part time” work has to do with the fact that full time and part time take on different meanings in that profession than in others. Physicians work long hours and generally do not retire young (though they do semi-retire, sometimes). Burn out is a serious problem. Further, the problem with “underserved” areas is precisely the commitment it requires.

However, I am in favor of nudging more doctors into primary care. Nudging them into underserved areas is also a worthwhile project. But this should be divorced entirely from the notion that doctors are broadly not carrying their load.

And lastly, apparently some medical schools are looking to speed up the process:

Administrators at N.Y.U. say they can make the change without compromising quality, by eliminating redundancies in their science curriculum, getting students into clinical training more quickly and adding some extra class time in the summer.

Not only, they say, will those doctors be able to hang out their shingles to practice earlier, but they will save a quarter of the cost of medical school — $49,560 a year in tuition and fees at N.Y.U., and even more when room, board, books, supplies and other expenses are added in.

“We’re confident that our three-year students are going to get the same depth and core knowledge, that we’re not going to turn it into a trade school,” said Dr. Steven Abramson, vice dean for education, faculty and academic affairs at N.Y.U. School of Medicine.

At this point, the effort involves a small number of students at three medical schools: about 16 incoming students at N.Y.U., or about 10 percent of next year’s entering class; 9 at Texas Tech Health Science Center School of Medicine; and even fewer, for now, at Mercer University School of Medicine’s campus in Savannah, Ga. A similar trial at Louisiana State University has been delayed because of budget constraints.

But Dr. Steven Berk, the dean at Texas Tech, said that 10 or 15 other schools across the country had expressed interest in what his university was doing, and the deans of all three schools say that if the approach works, they will extend the option to larger numbers of students.

For those wondering, this won’t create more doctors because medical schools themselves are not the bottleneck. Allowing doctors to graduate with less debt is a good thing for doctors, of course. There are arguments to be made that this might help combat the need of doctors to rat-race when they get out in order to pay down their student loans. But it may have no effect at all. There are a lot of factors at play.