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Eco CornerBy Jake Reiner
Choices for Sustainable Lifestyles
Eco Skiing
Green Resorts
Snow season is here. On the slopes, out in nature, fresh air and sunshine – it must be eco. But ski areas are actually not very green. Huge amounts of energy are required to run those lifts and heat the lodges. Chemicals used in snowmaking and run-off from parking lots poison local rivers, but sustainable options are available and starting to spread.
Aspen Resorts in Colorado is now purchasing 100 percent of its energy from wind farms. Their buildings are extra efficient, and they use biodiesel in all their snowcats. They also support environmental groups and are ISO 14001 Certified, a standard for companies to help organizations from negatively affecting the environment.
Falls Creek resort down in Australia is also powering its lifts with renewable energy. They established a plastic bag-free zone to reduce waste and also replant native vegetation on the mountain to offset global warming. Let's hope the Japanese resorts take some lessons from these guys.
Eco Diamonds
Conflict Free Stones
Bright shiny things sometimes have a dark and dirty story behind them. Too many of the diamonds circulating the world today are "blood diamonds," also known as conflict diamonds. These stones come from environmentally destructive African mines, often worked by slaves and children.
Every time you buy one of these diamonds, you send money to fund dictators and warlords' brutal campaigns in violence-stricken countries such as the Congo and Sierra Leone. But because of eco consumers such as you demanding an alternative, many companies are now offering "conflict free diamonds."
These range from recycled stones from family heirlooms to community-based projects in Africa to sustainable mines in Canada and South America. So if you are getting ready to go down on one knee, or thinking about an early birthday present for yourself, be sure to tell the salesperson you'll only buy certified "conflict-free" diamonds.
Hope she says, "Yes!"
Eco Cycling
Battery Free Lights
Bicycles are a great eco way to travel. Of course, you need a light if you ride at night, but a good eco-warrior eschews batteries, as they are full of toxic chemicals and difficult to recycle.
Luckily there are lights that generate their own power from the simple motion of your bike. The Reelight uses efficient LED lights. Magnets are attached to your spokes generating a friction-free charge as the wheel spins. And the latest innovation from Taiwan is a small wind generator that attaches to your handlebars.
Eco TV
Treehugger Online
Another shameless plug for my friends at Treehugger.com. This great Website bringing you everything "green" now has an online TV station, "dedicated to everything that has a modern aesthetic, yet is environmentally responsible." So whether you are an expat missing the Discovery Channel or Japanese and wondering what goes on in the rest of the eco world, check it out.


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Environmental Mission Statement
Marlboro College, in advancing its mission, acknowledges and celebrates the inherent connections between the educational work we do and the places where we do that work—on campus and in our local and global communities.
Recognizing its role and responsibility as an environmental leader, Marlboro College commits to limiting its environmental footprint by using energy efficiently and resources wisely.
We, its resident and affiliate members, shall foster among ourselves a sense of stewardship for the natural resources on which we depend and educate ourselves and others about the opportunities and obligations we share as citizens of a sustainable world.

subset: commoncrawl


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As i promised you, here is the post with the outfit from the Cosmetics Beauty Hair Fair. Is very simple , casual and comfortable outfit!
Also i want to tell you that i have big plans for the next months , but i will keep them secret and i will let you know when they will be in the final phase. But untill then you have to keep your fingers crossed and wish me luck , because i need it :D
I wish you a wonderful week,
Kisses,Manuella ♥


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|Saratoga, Calif.
|High School:
|Saratoga HS
High School
Played four years for coach Brad Fredrickson at Saratoga High ... Was a four-year starter for the Falcons ... A four-time all-league selection, Hanna averaged 40 assists, 11 kills and 15 digs per match ... Was an All-Central Coast selection in all four years of high school ... Was the Falcons team captain and MVP in 2010 ... Carried the team to the Central Coast Section postseason in 2007, 2008 and 2009 ... Also played basketball for two seasons, helping the team to the league title as a freshman ... Was a two-time all-league pick in that sport and the basketball team was in the playoffs in both of her years as a member of the squad ... Was named the 2007 Redwood Middle School Athlete of the Year.
Played three years for Vision ... On her Vision 18 Gold Team, under the director of Jason Mansfield, Hanna led her team to a bronze medal in the 2011 Junior Olympics and a silver medal at Far Western ... The 18 team won the NCVA Power League and captured a bronze at the Southern California qualifier ... As a member of the Vision 17 Team she served as a captain for coach Will Yven ... The team won a bronze at Junior Olympics where she was selected to the All-Tournament Team ... Carried the squad to a gold medal at Colorado Crossroads and a silver medal at the Pacific Northwest qualifier ... The 17 team also won the Power League ... With the Vision 16 Team and coach Joe Ripp, Hanna was a team captain ... Helped the team to a fifth-place finish at Junior Olympics ... The team won the Power League and also a silver medal at the Colorado Crossroads.
Hanna Nielson entered the world on November 18, 1992 in Mountain View, Calif. to parents John and Jincy ... Has two older siblings - her sister Bryte, who played volleyball at Cal and her brother, Bo, goes to Colorado ... Roots for the San Francisco Giants and the Golden State Warriors ... Enjoys going to the beach, swimming, hanging with her friends, riding in golf carts and on her dad's Vespa as her favorite activities ... Favorite flick is "Love and Basketball" ... Listens to Britney Spears, Rihanna, Li'l Wayne and Taylor Swift ... Calls winning a bronze medal at the 2011 Junior Olympics and being selected to the All-Tournament Team her most memorable athletic accomplishments ... Her favorite athletes are LeBron James, Brian Wilson, Monta Ellis and Kerri Walsh ... Has a dog, Louis, and a cat, Stanley ... Is undeclared at UCSB but will likely become a communications major ... Aspires to become either a sports writer or own her own company.


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Illinois BioNanotechnology Seminar Series Fall 2011: Mechanotransduction at Cell-Cell Contact
Licensed according to this deed.
Published on
Differential adhesion between cadherin subtypes expressed on cell surfaces is postulated to direct cell segregation during tissue morphogenesis. The studies described here used magnetic twisting cytometry and traction force microscopy to test the impact of cadherin binding selectivity on mechanotransduction and substrate rigidity sensing at cadherin-based adhesions. Micropipette measurements in turn quantified the binding affinities of different cadherin subtypes. Here we present evidence that the ability to transduce mechanical information across cadherin junctions depends on the identity of the ligand, such that only homophilic bonds between identical cadherins support force-activated junction remodeling. Mechanical stimulation with dissimilar cadherins or with anti-cadherin antibodies failed to elicit any response to force. Surprisingly, this behavior does not correlate with protein binding affinities, suggesting that mechanical differences may supercede protein-binding affinities in controlling intercellular organization during development.
Sponsored by
Cite this work
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
Beckman Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagn, Urbana, IL
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign


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The future of free-market healthcare
Over nearly a century, progressives have pressed for a national, single-payer healthcare system. When it comes to health reform, what have conservatives stood for?
For far too long, conservatives have failed to coalesce around a long-term vision of what a free-market healthcare system should look like. Republican attention to healthcare, in turn, has only arisen sporadically, in response to Democratic initiatives.
Obamacare is the logical byproduct of this conservative policy neglect. President Barack Obama's re-election was a strategic victory for his signature healthcare law. Once the bulk of the program begins to be implemented in 2014 — especially its trillions of dollars in new health-insurance subsidies — it will become politically impossible to repeal. And as the baby boomers retire and Obamacare is fully operational, government health spending will reach unsustainable levels.
The great irony of Obama's triumph, however, is that it can pave the way for Republicans to adopt a comprehensive, market-oriented healthcare agenda. The market-oriented prescription drug program in Medicare has controlled the growth of government health spending. Similarly, conservatives can use Obamacare's important concession to the private sector — its establishment of subsidized insurance marketplaces — as a vehicle for broader entitlement reforms.
While most Americans view their healthcare system as "free-market," Switzerland actually has the most market-oriented healthcare system in the West. It translates into universal coverage and low entitlement costs. Swiss government entities spent about 3.5 percent of gross domestic product on healthcare in 2010, compared to 8.5 percent in the United States. That's a difference of more than $5 trillion over 10 years: real money, especially relative to our $16 trillion debt.
There is no "public option" in Switzerland. Instead, citizens qualify for means-tested, sliding-scale subsidies and choose among a variety of regulated, private-sector insurance products. The Swiss have the freedom to choose their own doctors, as Americans do, and access to the latest medical technologies. They also have short waiting times for appointments.
Both Representative Paul Ryan's "premium support" proposal for Medicare and Obamacare's exchanges are modeled on the Swiss system. If premium support is a dastardly right-wing plot, despite its origins in Democratic circles, applying Obamacare's exchanges to Medicare is even more so. After all, Obamacare's subsidies only apply to those with incomes below four times the federal poverty level: $60,520 for a family of two. By contrast, Medicare subsidies apply to every American over age 65.
Shifting Medicare to the exchanges would save trillions of taxpayer dollars in future entitlement spending. After all, why should middle-class taxpayers be forced to pay for Warren Buffett's health insurance?
There is, indeed, a way to use health-insurance exchanges to both reform our healthcare entitlements and reduce premiums for those with private insurance. This transition could take four steps.
The first is to replace or reform Obamacare's exchanges, which are larded with costly mandates and regulations. These drive up the price of insurance, while limiting insurers' ability to come up with more innovative, cost-efficient products.
"Community rating," for example, will dramatically increase premiums for young people, a counterproductive approach when one considers that most uninsured Americans are in their 20s and 30s. States should build free-market exchanges with affordable health plans — as Utah has done — and demonstrate their superiority to Obamacare's costlier approach.
Second, Republicans in Congress should put the size, scale and growth of Obamacare's insurance subsidies on the table in all current and future budget talks. The subsidies should end at 300 percent of the federal poverty level, as they do in Massachusetts, instead of 400 percent. And they should not grow at a faster rate than the economy, as they are now designed to do.
Third, we should use the insurance exchanges in the service of Medicare reform. Instead of bothering with complex legislation, Congress should raise the eligibility age for traditional Medicare by three months each year — for the foreseeable future. Retirees will then gradually migrate into the exchanges' premium-support systems.
Medicaid-eligible seniors should also be offered exchange-based coverage, to improve the quality and coordination of their care.
Fourth is to gradually shift the remainder of Medicaid's low-income enrollees into the exchanges. Today, Medicaid recipients face a strong disincentive to seek work, because entry-level jobs can force them to give up their health coverage in exchange for modestly higher income. The exchanges would allow these workers to climb up the income ladder while maintaining their insurance.
The end result would be a fiscally sustainable, fully reformed set of entitlement and insurance programs that place American families in charge of their own health dollars. In other words, everything that conservatives have always wanted. And we'd have Obama, in part, to thank.
EDITORS' NOTE: This piece provoked a wide-ranging web discussion, including arguments from The New York Times' Paul Krugman on his The Conscience of a Liberal blog, Andrew Sullivan in The Dish, Josh Barro for Bloomberg View's The Ticker, Matt Yglesias on Slate's Moneybox, Aaron Carroll on The Washington Monthly and Walter Russel Mead on his Via Media blog,
Holtz-Eakin and Roy wrote an extensive response to these rebuttals and you can find it here.
PHOTO (Top): Medical supplies in a pediatrician's office in Encinitas, California July 30, 2009. REUTERS/Mike Blake
PHOTO (Insert): Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington June 1, 2012. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/
"Free market healhcare" is an oxymoron (with stress on the "moron" portion of the word).
"Free markets" are not the solution, but the problem whenever they are applied to anything that serves the "public good", such as public utilities.
Prices go up and services go down as monoplies form, which hardly serves the public good.
Only the wealthy profit, literally, from the free market.
"The market-oriented prescription drug program in Medicare has controlled the growth of government health spending." Totally wrong. By not using the leverage of massive purchasing to get "good prices", Medicare Part D became "welfare" for "Big Pharma"
My wife lost her free access to an expensive Astrozeneca drug and Astrozeneca charged her Part D Plan full retail until her benefit was drained, at which time they had a "new assistance program" one MIGHT qualify for for the remainder of the year (at which time the whole cycle began again). So Astrozeneca TOOK a "benefit" intended for "we, the people". We lost a LOT of time jumping though an otherwise unnecessary administrative obstacle course for NO personal financial benefit.
We also found it advantageous to buy ALL her other medications outside the program from the Costco mail order pharmacy. Their price, timewly delivered, was usually half what it would have been for the same drugs and quantities through our Part D "provider".
Also, before Part D, her doctor would prescribe medications in hundred-pill quantity at double strength she could split. Under regulations, patients are limited to 90-day use quantities. That does NOT benefit patients!
"…Medicaid recipients" are not the only ones who "…face a strong disincentive to seek work…". Income from even a good middle-class job is but a pittance when compared to rapidly accruing medical expenses for the uninsured because it is "worth" so much less than the care available through community outreach or charity medical care assistance to those "unemployed". Serious late-stage cancer treatment can bankrupt families with GOOD insurance still "on the hook" for 20% of "retail price" medical care.
Wow, how grossly irresponsible to discuss a market-based approach to US healthcare without once mentioning profit. Come on, guys. Why do you think companies that make up the US healthcare industry are in business? That's like writing a piece on bird migration without bothering to factor in why birds migrate in the first place. You have to factor in company profit if you expect your piece to retain any credibility. It's the companies that make up our healthcare industry that are in charge of healthcare policy, either through the corporate decisions they make at their board meetings or by applying pressure on our policy-making legislators. Make no mistake, their primary goal is for us–as individuals and as tax payers–to pay as much as they can get away with making us pay and by giving us as little as they can get away with giving us for our money, and still remain competitive. You can't pretend that's not the case.
Obamacare withholds subsidies from states if the federal government establishes the exchange.
Half the states opted against exchanges.
The Administration is trying to back-door subsidies, but they simply aren't provided for by statute.
Far from being politically impossible for the Republicans to get rid of, they are politically impossible for the Democrats to enact.
It's over. Sure, they can kick and drag this out for the next 4 or 5 years, but Obamacare is finished.
"Profit" in a capitalistic system is included in the "price" and the "price" is ALWAYS "what the market will bear". "What the market will bear" is largely dependent on demand and competition. This "is the case" and has always been.
What's your point? When it comes to medical and medicinal progress, if "compassion" is to limit profit, then there must be a government "sweetener" that essentially decides what diseases will get "priority" to cure and funding for related research. Choices must be made from the possible, and any "deal" acceptable to all necessary parties.
Free markets do not work for consumers when they are not informed enough to make choices to their benefit. How we got Obamacare is the pre-existing condition escape cause in privet insurance. The average consumer has no knowledge of medicine until he has a problem for a long time. Even if he did he does not know the real meaning of the words in his insurance contract until he need things. He also only knows his doctors fake smile until he needs his skill and time.
Privet insurance companies have a profit motive not deliver care only take premiums and advertise care.
All markets where the product requires much skill and information for good choices require heavy regulation or government provision. One case in point is construction. Places that have good building inspection and a reasonable building code, do not have many deaths in earth quakes. Others do. Compare Chile and California
results of their last big ones with Russia, China and India when they had big quakes.
If one wants to save money on health care without killing or hurting people. Produce more doctors hospitals (independent of each other), and generic drugs, as well as government oversight. That is free medical schools for students that show progress and schools that take the program's payment as fees in full. Loans to build independent hospitals and trust busting of the interconnected ones. Government programs to develop generic drugs.
Insurance companies if left to themselves only produce except causes like no pre-existing condition one. When serious common health concerns like heart problems are long term. Obamacare is a reaction to them.
If one wants to save money on health care without killing or hurting people. Produce more doctors hospitals (independent of each other), and generic drugs, as well as government oversight. That is free medical schools for students that show progress and schools that take the program's payment as fees in full. Loans to build independent hospitals and trust busting of the interconnected ones. Government programs to develop generic drugs.
Insurance companies if left to themselves only produce except causes like no pre-existing condition one. When serious common health concerns like heart problems are long term. Obamacare is a reaction to them.
You didn't so your research before writing this did you? The Swiss system is highly regulated and has price controls. But if that's what you think we should strive for I am all for it. Single payer, no more employer based healthcare and cradle to grave coverage for everyone.
Here a few free market reforms which could immediately lower costs:
1. Open up health care competition nationwide. This is one area where using the commerce clause to expand competition would actually help consumers rather than special interests.
2. Bifurcate health insurance into catastrophic policies and and health savings accounts for day-to-day coverage. Insurance company actuaries can easily quantify the risk serious illness or injury, resulting into affordable catastrophic policies. And like term life insurance, the younger one obtains the policy the cheaper the premium. And tax-effective health savings accounts would allow most individuals to set aside enough funds for regular health care services. And for those without the means for either approach, government subsidies, which would be more affordable, could be provided.
3. Only cover the cost of treating illness or injury. Health coverage shouldn't be a stealthy way of furthering social policies (i.e., contraception).
4. Capitate ineffective programs. Although we all want those with mental health or substance abuse issues to obtain treatment, the fact is that existing treatment has a very low success rate.
The fact is that health care, at its most fundamental, is simply a kind of service. There's no reason these services would be immune from market efficiencies if only the government wouldn't interfere.
The "public" healthcare system (Obamacare) will resemble the "public" education system within a few years.
The the resulting medical lower rung will be reserved to the masses just as public education is reserved to those who can't afford private education.
Those with money will pay fee for service and avoid the worst of Obamacare and other "public" benefits.
America will soon have "public" education, "public" healthcare, "public" transportation and other "public" benefits paid by the productive class and consumed by the parasite class.
The terms "fiscally sustainable" and "entitlement" are completely incompatible.
Doctors all over the country are establishing a free market for health care. It's called cash for service. They accept no insurance or entitlement program payment at all.
The authors seem ignorant of what a free market is, and also totally uninformed on the free market that exists today in American medical care.
The comments and the opinion piece itself all seem to justify a single payer mandated system of sorts. Maybe like ObamaCare, but without the political loop holes in it? Free markets have no business in public utilities and infrastructure. They should be managed by the government. The problem that arise though is that our government is no longer capable of doing anything at all. It can barley maintain itself, never mind doing anything else. So do we fix the chicken? Or the Egg?
Okay, but for one thing. Community rating or something like it is necessary for any scheme to work. The whole point of health care reform is to make those who don't need care and can pay for it shoulder the costs for those who do need health care and can't pay for it. So long as the Republicans continue to choke on this point, they will be irrelevant to the debate. Those who need care and can pay for it should be the canaries in the coal mine, so to speak, telling us what it is safe to omit and what must be provided for everyone. The more people who have a pecuniary motive to control their own health care costs, the better. That is real "free market health care." Another point, it is unwise to limit future expenditures on health care to any fixed proportion of the national GDP. At least it is unwise unless we can foresee the future. No one knows what proportion of our budget we will want to spend on health care 50 years from now. Better to make relatively affluent individuals shoulder more of their own costs. That is the way that Switzerland does it.
"Free Markets"..that would mean competition and lower pricing..How can the Medical complex "influence" the Beltway gang without $$$$..?
OneOfTheSheep: What is my point? I thought I made myself quite clear. To elaborate on my bird migration analogy, if we find there's a problem associated with a species of bird and their migration habits (as there is with healthcare affordability, the topic of this op-ed), one can't examine the problem without incorporating why birds migrate in the first place. Likewise, you can't have a meaningful discussion about healthcare in the US without factoring in why we have a healthcare industry in the first place: for profits.
The reason this is significant is because healthcare is more than just a "product" (the term used in this op-ed) that we can opt to spend our money on. This is what sets healthcare apart from other things available on the market. You describe healthcare as if the price is determined by natural acts of nature, which you refer to as the "market". If that were true, it would render this entire discussion moot. Understand something, the market is man-made. It's also manipulated by man–all the time. Why? For profit. This is why healthcare profits MUST be taken into account in any discussion about how the US can make healthcare more affordable.
I repeat what I already stated, the healthcare industry exists for profit in the US. The companies that make up the industry, including insurance companies, have every incentive to increase prices while decreasing their own expenditures. And since the industry determines how it is to be regulated, we have a system that is designed to continuously work against the best interests of the American people, and FOR the profits of the industry. This is why healthcare should not be treated as a product like real estate or computers. Millions of Americans die due to a lack of healthcare. Millions of Americans go bankrupt trying to afford healthcare. And it only happens that way here, in America, which is why no other developed nation has a system like ours. Where US wages have remained pretty much stagnant, healthcare costs have been rising at average annual rate of 6% a year. This is unsustainable, as healthcare continue to eat up a increasingly larger share of our income, not to mention savings, and tax revenue.
This op-ed disingenuously holds up Switzerland as an example of a system these writers are advocating. That's misleading. As yakdriver correctly points out, the Swiss carefully regulate their healthcare industry, and there are price controls in place. Why? For the reason I already pointed out. People need healthcare to live and if a nation treats it like just another product, millions will go without, and the Swiss care enough about their own not to allow that to happen. We don't, and shame on us. The authors of this op-ed don't want a system like Switzerland's, and they know there's no way the Republicans would allow it.
A third of the Swiss are subsidized by their government to help pay for their insurance. And as I already mentioned, healthcare prices are regulated by the government. OneOfTheSheep, if what you're saying was true and the market would automatically adjust healthcare costs in an efficient way, why would the Swiss feel the need to regulate their healthcare prices? Why are more and more Americans unable to afford their healthcare costs? Why is the US the only country where millions are forced into bankruptcy due to healthcare costs? The market is not an efficient way to determine the cost of a nation's healthcare. This should be obvious.
OneOfTheSheep: There's an excellent article in the latest issue of Time that does a great job of underscoring the points I'm trying to make, about how US healthcare costs are out of control, how dangerously irrational things have become, and how "the market" is failing the American people regarding our healthcare: http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/20/bi tter-pill-why-medical-bills-are-killing- us/
We have the best and the brightest attending our medical schools in this country for a good reason, the "market" still dictates what they will earn. I doubt very much that we will have the same bright students attending medical school after the government takes over a sizable share of the medical industry. It's simple economics… you get what you pay for. Same is true for funding new drug research. The costs and risks are huge. So far, all I read is everyone thinking that healthcare providers should be motivated solely by altruism and charity. What utter nonsense.
Competitive markets are the surest way to bring about the best care, the most advanced medicines, and the most highly skilled care givers. If we enforce the already existing competition laws, then no firm is able to command monopoly profits.
Plain common sense should inform you that driving earnings below a "market" rate of return sought by those who are highly skilled at medical research or as surgeons will drive down quality as well. Competitive markets drive down returns towards true marginal costs. Not so when Congress starts to debate whether doctors should earn more than a plumber in a good year. Then we will lose the best and brightest to other professions where their incomes are not regulated; where they are allowed to earn what the market says their talents are worth. I prefer my brain surgeon makes more than a plumber in a good year, how about you?
Heavy rationing goes on in single payer countries to hold down costs because even in single payer countries we cannot spend money on healthcare without any limit. If you are not aware of the extent to which this rationing goes on, then you're being too lazy to become well informed. Start here and then do your own research. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lon don-18557916. It's not a new phenomenon. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/d ec/21/nhs-health-operations.
Also, a 2009 University of Pennsylvania study concluded that the US has the best outcomes for several critical medical conditions affecting life expectancy written by Samuel H. Preston and Jessica Ho. "Low Life Expectancy in the United States: Is the Health Care System at Fault?
What we need is to encourage a market not based on fee for services, but based on the model found at the Mayo Clinic where doctors are paid a salary irrespective of what they prescribe. And those salaries paid to Mayo doctors are still determined by the market. Yet, the Mayo Clinic is heralded as one of the leading medical centers of the world, and the cost is often if not always lower than that charged by other hospitals of lesser quality.
Critiques on this article from Mathew Yglesias: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013 /02/20/gop_surrender_on_obamacare_dougl as_holtz_eakin_and_avik_roy_say_it_s_tim e.html
Aaron Carroll:
http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpr ess/i-dont-the-swiss-health-care-system- is-what-they-think-it-is/
and Paul Krugman:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02 /21/swiss-myths/
Back in 2009 Krugman was arguing in favor of Obamacare because it was like a successful system already in existence — the Swiss system!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/opinio n/17krugman.html?_r=0
OneOfTheSheep, and anyone else really interested in this topic. Just wanted to give you people a heads up on a movie that's coming out soon about our healthcare system. It's called Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare. Here's a trailer: http://www.upworthy.com/the-one-totally- stupid-thing-that-will-decide-the-fate-o f-our-entire-economy?c=cp2
It should dispel any myths still being clung to about our healthcare system being basically sound. It's important to understand, whether you approve of Obamacare or not, that the Republicans have been fighting to retain our current healthcare system as if the nation's future depended on it. Actually, the opposite is true. Our nation's future is in peril if we don't fix our healthcare system. And the Republicans know this.
more from Krugman:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02 /22/more-swiss-myths/
Anonymous, you ignoramus. The bulk of drug research funding is shouldered by the Taxpayer! NIH alone accounts for something like 40% of drugs research. Then add all the basic science research that is paid for by all the public universities, not just in America (but chiefly). Then try again to explain why drug companies should be allowed to charge monopoly pricing on "new patents" which is really just one innovation, after stealing dozens of innovations from the public sector, and putting their own logo on it. Another hypocritical example of socialism for the rich, externalizing the risks on the public. Shameful.
However disastrous Obamacare is, isn't, or may become has yet to be seen. Though, fundamentally it marks a dramatic departure from a broad economic model that has persisted well for some 200+ years; and that despite our various democratic regimes. The model of course is that of capitalism. Healthcare has always stood out as more vulnerable to swing into govt. control, but always held a "stake in the ground"; a pillar of laissez-faire or market competition. It was indeed a large piece of the pie, which defined us for so long as a free market society.
Well… no more. Crushed under the weight of a new electorate, fortified in numbers, with a new errrr old way of thinking, conservative America has had to yield. As this article points out we have likely swung on this issue to the point of no return, with O's second term landmark win. In truth, the GOP is likely the unsaid author of this monster, having offered up no substantial reform proposals leading up to this point (or 2008). That said, we will have to play the cards we've been dealt now. As the article states, with this event will come new opportunities for reform (e.g., Paul Ryan's "premium support" proposal for Medicare and Obamacare's exchanges modeled on the Swiss healthcare system). The GOP must seize such opportunities and demonstrate leadership on this issue going forward, or America will be over-run by the ever growing welfare state and it's spurious agenda.
If you read what I said reasonable care you should have figured out that we essentially agree that our present "system" is both inadequate and unresponsive. I don't trust movies to be reliably factual. Perhaps this is the best current online synopsis of the problem:
http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/20/bi tter-pill-why-medical-bills-are-killing- us/print/
That said, Anonymous makes some good points no serious person should dismiss, although I think (along with you?) that the conclusion suggested (continuing the status quo) is inappropriate to any reasonable "system" of modern day health care.
@ Benny 27 for his or her Feb 22, 2013 7:25 pm post responding to mine of Feb 21, 2013 11:48 pm posted as from "Anonymous"
Thanks for your erudite comments. However, may I be so bold as to point out a few facts as well?
First, I hope that your criticism's focus on drug research in relation to my remarks indicates that you otherwise agree with my concern about Congress dictating the earnings that doctors and surgeons should be allowed to make. That's an aspect of central economic planning that I hope remains discredited with the fall of the Soviet Union. We don't need a healthcare commissar let alone 535 healthcare commissars in Congress dictating to doctors and other healthcare professionals what their fees and salaries will be.
Second, no doubt you picked on what you perceive as the soft spot in my opinion that warned of the unintended consequences that will result from the government's ham handed intervention into the healthcare market. You attack my remarks by claiming that drug research and its costs are largely subsidized and little or no credit should be given to private capital in the form of retained profits being risked in new drug research.
My perspective differs from yours in that I do not place a lot of reliance on sources that are on a mission to justify driving our healthcare system towards socialized medicine. Rather, I chose to rely on unbiased sources, like the Congressional Budget Office.
The CBO had published some time ago a rather succinct report on drug research in this country. It's worth a read for you and hopefully may cause you to at least begin to question the authenticity of your own sources on this topic. Hopefully you will not conclude the CBO is peopled by ignoramuses in having dispelled your populist myth.
There are two different types of research involved: Basic research and applied research. The government focuses on the former, and in doing so stimulates private investment in the latter. The government's involvement, however, is not a whole substitute for applied research, does not guarantee that applied research by private capital will be successful or that it is without significant risks. The pharmaceutical industry spends more on R & D relative to its revenue than almost any other industry. So says the CBO in its report. Indeed, it spends more than 5 times the average of US industries generally on R & D.
The CBO report includes the study published around 2000 that found it cost on average $800 million in applied research to bring a new molecular entity out into the market place as a new drug. The FTC supposedly attempted to duplicate the result of that study, and found substantially similar average research durations and timelines. That is also recounted by the CBO at pages 20 and 21 of its report.
http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/c bofiles/ftpdocs/76xx/doc7615/10-02-drugr -d.pdf
The problem is accounting. Like software companies, pharmaceutical companies have tremendous upfront costs that are expensed immediately, but then when a drug is successfully brought to market, its marginal cost does not reflect that initial investment that was expensed earlier. So people focus on the relatively low marginal cost to produce dosages of new medicines, and love to depreciate the role of private R & D investment in bringing new drugs to the market place.
Read business news articles, and you will see that the price of drug company stocks are fairly volatile depending on the outcome of clinical trials for new drugs, or FDA approval of a new drug. The market recognizes the risks as being real and quite significant to the prospects of a drug company's profitability.
Sorry, but you get only what you pay for. If there is one economic principle that stands out above all others, it is this: There is no free lunch. And the other important principle to remember is this: Central economic planning is not a viable substitute for markets.
I remain, Mr. Benny27, your obedient servant and admirer of your profound knowledge of all things affecting the economics of healthcare.
Dear One of the Sheep:
I believe we can learn from the Swiss when it comes to healthcare. But note this. The Swiss realize healthcare has to be rationed. The demand is inelastic (we all want it when we need it), but it is simply not realistic to think that any government can afford to give every one of its citizens the keys to a Cadillac healthcare program or policy allowing them to spend with hardly any limits. Chevy's yes. And that's what the Swiss do. For the Swiss, if you want more than a Chevy, then it's you who have to be able to afford more and pay for it above a basic subsidized plan or policy.
The American egalitarian penchant causes too many policy makers and wonks to espouse the notion that everyone is to have just as much as they want or need when it comes to healthcare. That is completely unrealistic. It doesn't happen in single payer countries, and it doesn't happen in Switzerland either. But Obamacare represents the one size Cadillac for everyone fits best way of thinking.
@Flashrooster and some others have made most of the points that need to be made. But here are some odds and ends.
@jack512 says, with an apparent sense of gotcha!
Back in 2009 Krugman was arguing in favor of Obamacare because it was like a successful system already in existence — the Swiss system!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/opinio n/17krugman.html?_r=0
Posted by jack512 | Report as abusive
Um, you don't know, Jack. Try reading "below the fold" in that 2009 post:
"So where does Obamacare fit into all this? Basically, it's a plan to Swissify America, using regulation and subsidies to ensure universal coverage.
"If we were starting from scratch we probably wouldn't have chosen this route. True "socialized medicine" would undoubtedly cost less, and a straightforward extension of Medicare-type coverage to all Americans would probably be cheaper than a Swiss-style system. That's why I and others believe that a true public option competing with private insurers is extremely important: otherwise, rising costs could all too easily undermine the whole effort.
"But a Swiss-style system of universal coverage would be a vast improvement on what we have now. And we already know that such systems work.
"So we can do this. At this point, all that stands in the way of universal health care in America are the greed of the medical-industrial complex, the lies of the right-wing propaganda machine, and the gullibility of voters who believe those lies."
Hardly an unqualified endorsement of the Swiss system,Jack, and totally consistent with what Krugman was arguing in response to Roy and Holtz-Eakin. Krugman was simply accepting in 2009 the political reality that Obama was not about to get single payer through Congress — and Max Baucus. Not that the Swiss system was some sort of model of perfection.
But on to some more serious nonsense — and sophistry.
Roy and Holtz-Eakin say:
"The Swiss have the freedom to choose their own doctors, as Americans do, and access to the latest medical technologies. They also have short waiting times for appointments."
The dog whistle here is that the Kenyan Socialist wants to take away your freedom to choose your own doctor, and make you wait forever for appointments.
But guess what? The French — a system with which I and my wife have had a fair amount of first hand experience, and not just for cuts and scrapes — have all of the above listed benefits that Roy and Holtz-Eakin tout for the Swiss in their basically monopsonist system at the primary level, with something like the Swiss system built on top as supplemental insurance. The French pay less for them than the Swiss, have comparable or better outcomes, and, by the way, reflecting these basic facts, finished #1 in the WHO Report comparing and ranking all of the health care systems in the world, and with a very sophisticated and scientifically valid methodology:
http://www.who.int/whr/2000/en/whr00_en. pdf
The Swiss ranked #20, below most other Western European countries. And the U.S., of course, finished #37.
Hey, we're #37!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVgOl3cET b4
By the way, it is the Republicans who are basically proposing to force Medicaid patients into HMOs where they won't be "free" to choose their own doctors, not to mention the HMO structure of many of those Republican supported — and less efficient — Medicare Advantage plans.
Roy and Holtz-Eakin say:
"The first is to replace or reform Obamacare's exchanges, which are larded with costly mandates and regulations. These drive up the price of insurance, while limiting insurers' ability to come up with more innovative, cost-efficient products."
Where to begin?
First, here is the link that R/H refer us to in order to support the sophistical "larded with costly mandates and regulations … [that] drive up the cost of insurance."
When you look at this document you discover that it's basically challenging the concept of community rating, which R/H do elsewhere in this article. In other words, the private insurer's dream: get rid of community rating so the insurance company can sell policies only to healthy people and dump the sick off on the government — i.e., the taxpayers.
And despite the drive-by mendacity of what R/H say, the question as to whether Obamacare will, with its mandates and regulations, drive up insurance costs system wide — in a context where we don't accept as acceptable public policy fobbing off the uninsurable and the poor on the government — was answered by the CBO in scoring Obamacare.
The answer was:
Obamacare would reduce costs over what they would otherwise be, not raise them. The fact that R/H are essentially giving three cheers for free riders is either foolish or knavish, probably a bit of both, so let's call it knoolish.
By the way, snap quiz. What was the single most important driver of the establishment of Romneycare in Massachusetts?
Time's up.
It was the scramble by the Governor and the Legislature to maintain $350 million or so in Federal Government subsidies for its uninsured population which was being treated in the most expensive way possible, i.e., for "free" in Emergency Rooms.
The Feds were balking at continuing to subsidize Massachusetts' growing uninsured treatment reimbursement pool and told them the money would go away unless they cleaned up their act with a more rational and cost effective system.
Presto! With the assistance of the Heritage Foundation and Jonathan Gruber, Massachusetts came up with community rated and mandate driven Romneycare.
So R/E are simply engaging in Fox News style memism when they take swipes at mandates and regulated insurance markets.
By the way, the Swiss market has mandates, and is very heavy with "expensive" regulation. Apparently the Swiss don't trust the private sector to let their consciences be their guide in providing insurance coverage to the Swiss.
Which brings me to the final bit of disingenuousness in the R/H article that I will mention. Though this hardly exhausts the intellectual smarminess evidenced there.
"[L]imiting insurers' ability to come up with more innovative, cost-efficient products."
Limiting insurers' ability to come up with products that cherry pick the population for the most healthy people and offer them high-deductible, lower cost policies that will work just fine — as long as they "decide" to only catch colds and get jock itch.
No heart attacks allowed.
Or, if you do make a "bad choice" to have a heart attack, at that point you can go to the Federal Government and ask them to please cover your expenses because the "innovative" product you have from CIGNA doesn't quite do the trick.
And if you also made the wrong "choice" to catch a chronic disease, yeah, the Feds may be able to help you out as well.
I mean, guys, we're in this for the money. Why would we ever want to subject ourselves to adverse selection — unless the sick guy was Warren Buffet or Shel Adelson?
A final, final thought.
The nonsense from supposed professional economists like Holtz-Eakin and Roy — though Roy is not a professional economist; he's a flak for investing in health care businesses — and the rest of the Republican menagerie that promotes the concept of consumer driven cost control in insurance is beyond depressing from an intellectual point of view.
Kenneth Arrow dispatched this nonsensical thinking 50 years ago in his seminal article, "Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care."
The argument in this article has never been refuted. It has, instead, become the bedrock of academic health economics.
I have yet to see one of these Republican-minded health care pundits cite it, let alone provide a critique of its basic premise, namely, that the idea of health care being treated, from an economic point of view, as something functioning according to the laws of so-called free markets is LOL wrongheaded.
But "wrongheaded" sometimes seems to be the principal qualification for being a Republican pundit on health care.
Since the much-touted part of Obamacare that covers those with pre-existing conditions has already run out of funding and thousands still left without care, what does that say about the remainder of the program?
Doesn't look good from here.
What no one seems to really get is that our system, as it currently stands, is not and does not work like a "free market" system. There is little cost transparency, there is virtually no competitiveness for price or quality (though there may be a semblance of that at the top and the bottom of the health care system there may be some), customers don't shop either price or quality, providers don't give customers any choice, customers are told WHAT to buy, WHEN to buy, WHERE to buy and HOW to buy by their physicians and the system is a positive feedback loop. How is that ever going to be "free market"…you all know the answer and continuing to promote that it is like a free market is either ignorant or disingenuous…i think i know which!!
[…] few months later, former Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Holtz-Eakin and I wrote a similar piece for Reuters, which elicited a broad range of responses from both the left and the […]
[…] few months later, former Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Holtz-Eakin and I wrote a similar piece for Reuters, which elicited a broad range of responses from both the left and the […]
[…] http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/20 13/02/20/the-future-of-free-market-healt hcare/ […]
[…] conservative healthcare wonks (such as they are) were all excited about Switzerland. For example, Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Avik Roy wrote, "While most Americans view their healthcare system as 'free-market,' […]
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text:
Otto Matic... Your rocket ship will take you to each of the planets, starting with Earth. While on each planet you must save as many humans as you can, but be careful because the Brain Aliens will try to abduct the humans before you can save them. When you save humans, they are teleported to your rocket ship. To escape the planet you must also collect rocket fuel. Once The Giant Brain has been defeated and peace restored to the galaxy, you will return to Earth with your human cargo where they will be freed.
In Otto Matic...
- 10 levels on strange alien planets!
- Battle 25 different
What's New in Otto Matic
Version 3.1.2:
- Added Spanish localization to description in the app store.
Requirements for Otto MaticMac OS X 10.6.6 or later
Similar Software
Suggest other similar software


text:
Local Administrators
Each of the five district courts of appeal and each of the 20 circuit courts have their own local administrative structure. Each of these 25 courts is presided over by the chief judge for that jurisdiction.
In each of the five district courts, a clerk and a marshal provide operational assistance to the chief judge. In the 20 circuit courts, a trial court administrator provides operational assistance.
More information on this structure is available in the Florida Rules of Judicial Administration maintained by The Florida Bar.


text:
I want to rename a lot of files on Mac OS X (10.7.2).. I don't have the perl package for the
rename command.
My files have names like "T452-102456-0.png" and I want to delete the "-0" part. I know I can do this action by writing my own php-cli script, but I would like to know of an easier and faster solution.


text:
I need some Graphic Design
Presupuesto RM32-99 MYR
Design girly style screenshots to put on google playstore for an existing app. Language require: Chinese Tradition
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text:
Japanese Game Maker Engages In Wiki Edit War With Fansubbers, Then Opts For The DMCA Option
from the making-new-enemies deptIn the past, we've seen the movie industry attack "fansub" efforts for trying to translate movies into other languages. But, in the video game industry, we did see glimmers of hope when a publisher allowed fansubbers to complete their version of the translation and compete side-by-side with the commercial translated version in the marketplace. So, it's sad to see Japanese game maker Minori slap TLWiki, a translation site, with a DMCA takedown for their work on a one of their games. Apparently, this was after an edit war on the wiki itself, where the game maker supposedly deleted the entire contents of a page, replacing it with:
minori holds copyright over all the files made available on this webpage. We, minori, have removed the contents of this page because the owner of this page has not received our permission for distribution of these materials. Please understand [the above statements]. Still, if there are objections, etc., please contact Minori, Inc. in Japanese at email@example.com course, since wikis have an easy rollback feature to prevent errant deletions like this, this change was easily reverted, and after a few more rounds of edits & reverts, the site was slapped with an official DMCA takedown notice. Once again, quashing fansub efforts is a fantastic way to annoy and disenfranchise your most loyal fans, who donate hours of their free labor as a hobby. We've seen ways to engage these communities advantageously (like hiring them to do the official translation), so surely Minori should take note.


text:
A good financial and accounting system, like a powerful engine on a seafaring vessel, should propel your business forward. It should give you the specific insights you need to spot the storms ahead, help you maximize resources with streamlined processes, and be nimble enough to help you navigate the changing currents of today's business environment. It should turn information into insights and give your employees the access they need to make informed decisions. Despite vendor claims, many accounting systems do just the opposite. They tie you down, restrict your progress, and make you change the way you operate on a daily basis. Rather than offering you 'smooth sailing' as you steer your business forward, these ineffective software packages act like anchors that keep your business stuck. Accounting software is a strategic investment, and you should not settle for less than exactly what you need to reach your business goals. Before you embark on a search for the right solution, you need to make sure you have the facts straight about what to look for, and more importantly, what to look out for.
Sailors learn not only what to do in an emergency, but also how to identify potential trouble — and what flag to raise when they see it coming. In this slideshow, Intacct, a provider of cloud-based accounting software, offers tips on how to avoid making the wrong system decision by separating the characteristics that matter from those that could run your business aground. You'll learn how to compare fair-weather solutions to systems that are designed to weather rough regulatory seas, facilitate international business, and provide clear navigational guidance. The goal is to help you find a system that provides a solid foundation to help your business steam ahead—rather than just stay afloat. By taking the time to carefully select the right solution, you can confidently set sail on a grand business adventure.
Amazon's Tablet vs. iPad (What Consumers Want) Could a low cost Amazon Android tablet present one of the first serious contenders to the iPad?
A Road Map to a Converged Infrastructure Establish a common modular infrastructure by grouping servers, storage and I/O resources into shared pools of computing resources.
Too Much Social Media Information IT organizations are behind in their ability to police social media information.
Related Topics : Cloud Computing, Dell, Services Vendors, SMBs, Web Platform Vendors
IT administrators need to identify zombie assets, verify idle status and shut off anything that is unused. Here's how to get your dormant infrastructure back in shape. ... More >>
Cloud SaaS adoption allows organizations to gain the flexibility and scalability necessary for creating a high-velocity business. ... More >>
IT executives need the right tools to monitor and control their cloud infrastructure to maximize the positive impacts and mitigate security threats. ... More >>


text:
Massage and sound therapy has become a weekly treat
A pilot session of massage and sound therapy by a local holistic therapist has proved so popular it has become a weekly highlight at Fernhill House.
Michelle Beagley spends three hours every Tuesday in the home, offering treatments to residents and staff.
While the soothing and physically beneficial effects of massage are well documented, sound therapy is a lesser known practice – which involves the use of relaxing or stimulating sounds such as drums, bells, bowls and the human voice to induce calm and rebalance the body's energy.
Massage and sound therapy are just some of the therapeutic treatments available at Fernhill House. Hot towel pampering, which involves a hand massage and essential oils, manicures, meditation and reiki are among the treatments available – with the hairdressing salon open to those living with dementia in the wider community.
All therapists are dementia trained, ensuring a relaxing experience as well as a comfortable space for non-residents to have their hair styled. * Residents can relax in a 'sound bath' at Fernhill House


text:
© 2012 The Joy of Cooking Trust and the MRB Revocable Trust
Joy of Cooking App for iOS
The Joy of Cooking is the quintessential American cookbook. Or as the New York Times says, "The most popular cookbook in America." Now, it's been retooled, re-thought, and re-imagined. The JOY app includes not just every one of the thousands of recipes and reference articles in the latest version of the book, but more: we added more than 700 recipe photos; expanded and reworked many of the recipes for the more expansive digital format; and pored over every line of text to adapt it for mobile use, enabling pre-set digital timers, smart shopping lists, and metric conversions, just to name a few of the app-only features.
Available on iTunes or at joyofcookingapp.com.
- Thousands of recipes and reference materials cover everything from enchiladas to lemon meringue pie.
- All materials are included in the app. No internet access is required.
- Pre-set digital timers enable you to get each recipe just right.
- Let the app speak each step aloud so you can concentrate on cooking, rather than
- Navigate each recipe with simple voice commands. No need to touch the screen
- with sticky fingers!
- Thousands of photos and illustrations leave nothing to interpretation.
- Built-in menu-maker allows you to create a menu and use it to navigate among
recipes while you cook; you can even print it out or email it to your guests.
- JOY classic red bookmarks help you keep track of several recipes at once.
- The Favorites list lets you store recipes that you want to cook again and again.
- Shopping lists can be created easily from one or more recipes.
- The Sleep-Block feature prevents your iPad from sleeping when you just want to
- A setting for Imperial or metric units automatically adapts the recipe to your
- A built-in conversion calculator makes it easy to substitute just about anything. Want
to know how many teaspoons are in a half-cup? That answer, and many others, is
just a few taps away.
- A smart search page, with easy-to-set filters, gets you results fast.
- One-tap help overlays make the app's features easy to discover.
- Email or print any recipe for easy reference when you don't have the app.
- Easily share what you're cooking via social media so your friends can try to keep up.
- A handy notes page on each recipe lets you file away your own customizations for
later reference.
Introduction to the Joy of Cooking, 2014 iPad Edition, by John Becker
After three years of collaborative toil, we present the newest iteration of the Joy of Cooking, first published by my great grandmother Irma Rombauer at her own expense in 1931. Subsequently revised and updated by Irma; her daughter (and my grandmother), Marion Becker; and my father (and Marion's son), Ethan Becker, JOY has had a total of eight major editions—each with their own set of peculiarities and innovations. The most recent edition was published in 2006, 75 years after the first, limited run printed by A.C. Clayton of St. Louis. This app is based on the 2006 text.
So now, as my wife, Megan, and I become the fourth generation to update and maintain the family cookbook, I welcome you to the first digital version of JOY. We have received requests for something of this nature for years from avid JOY users who began to venture into digital and wanted their trusty cookbook by their side. And while our arrival to the world of apps may seem late (after all, what well-established brand does not have an app or two under its belt?), the issue has weighed on our minds for many years. However, we are nothing if not cautious. While eager to please our fans and satisfy our own need to constantly improve and update the book, we wanted to work with a team as thoughtful, careful, and meticulous as we are—people who would treat the book and its contents as if it were their own. After a period of searching and uncertainty, we were lucky to be approached by Culinate, whose abundantly successful translation of Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything into an app was the closest we'd seen to the transformation that would have to take place with JOY.
We knew that the process would be complicated and intensive, but I don't think any of us knew the extent of the changes we would have to make or the time it would take. One would think, after all, that once the content is ready, the process would mostly involve design choices and moving the component parts around a bit. Though we
faithfully kept all the recipes and reference material from the 2006, many changes were made—some necessary, others very desirable, hardly any of them truly foreseen. Most of the necessary changes were of a technical nature and required hard decisions: how do you best optimize a book as immense as JOY for mobile devices? Since no one wants to merely scroll through a table of contents 40 entries long, how do you organize the book's browsing experience? What features will users find useful, and which would merely function as a "techie" gimmick to sell the app?
Other decisions however, were made with an unmistakable glee: free of the limitations of printing, many of us felt as though we were unpacking the book, "opening up" the content, letting JOY breathe for the first time since it was first published. While these analogies might make some sense, I feel a little elaboration might be called for.
We wanted our first digital JOY to be as useful and approachable as possible. This may seem elementary, but in the case of JOY, this simple requirement was quite daunting. Since the first major expansion of the book by my great-grandmother Irma in 1936, JOY has always pushed whatever page-limit boundaries were put before it, and many space-saving measures were employed, for better and worse.
Fortuitously, Irma's first ingenious solution to the space issue—i.e., squeezing the largest number of recipes and information into the publisher's page limit—was her novel and unique recipe-writing format, the "action method." Instead of having the ingredient list and instructions separate, Irma interspersed the ingredients in the instructions themselves, thus alleviating the need for readers to continually refer back to the ingredients list. So in this case, Irma's attempt to save space also made referring to recipes while cooking easier and faster.
Over the interceding decades, however, the family contrived many other strategies to save space as the scope of the book increased. We have always favored including as much quality information and
instruction as we possibly can. To make room for new information on ingredients such as tofu, fish sauce, Szechuan peppercorns, Harissa, and bonito flakes—or new recipes for Bouillabaisse, Mongolian Hot Pot, Sofrito, Green Curry Paste, and Pho—tolls had to be paid to the gods of printing, which often included sacrifices at the altar of "user experience." Cross-references proliferated, cooking instructions were consolidated, and white space was eradicated. Indeed, hardly a square inch of paper is wasted in any edition of JOY you care to pick up, from the wartime 1943 edition to our latest.
Of course, we could have cut older recipes more vigorously—and over the years many have thought it best for JOY—but we have always felt that there are meals we share with others that are memorable and worthy of repeating, or, at the very least, that a good, reliable recipe is less perishable than many often think. Of course, we find readers hard to please on this count: we're too conservative to be hip, and too practical to be kitsch. On top of that, for every three letters of thanks we receive for not changing their grandmother's favorite cake recipe in the newest edition, we might receive one cursing us for cutting another family's favorite cookie, roast, or pickle.
So, for us, the best option was to organize, fold recipes into each other, have a very strong index, and be as encouraging as possible. Better to give confidence and provide an answer after three page flips than remain silent on how to dress a rabbit, blanch vegetables, make a dark roux, temper chocolate, or purify water. Thus, with an 80-year-old dedication to providing as much culinary information as possible, JOY has been one of the best value-propositions in the cookbook world, as it covers the breadth and depth of many cookbooks without being unnecessarily hard to use or merely "of its time." For those who have come to love it—despite its idiosyncratic embrace of the cross-reference—JOY is always going to be the answer to that "if you had to choose one cookbook" question. We cover almost everything, and we're trustworthy.
Maybe by now it's fairly obvious why we found developing this app to be empowering and perhaps why it is so significant in the history of the book: all of the space-savers that impinged on the reader's experience of JOY are no longer necessary. As a result, over several hundred recipes were "expanded" for ease of use and, for the first time, photography has been included in a major release of JOY.
Of course, new firsts for JOY abound in this release. As we all expect now from digital content, our "index" is actually a keyword search box; cross-references are now tappable links; the type can be made larger (via general settings on your iPad); and all of our recipes can be shared via paper, email, message, and social networks, etc. Other features we helped develop with Culinate are specifically designed to address the particular challenges faced by cooks when they plan meals and work in the kitchen; many of those are described in detail in the Guide, found in the auxiliary menu at the top lefthand corner of the screen.
The most obviously useful feature that goes above and beyond a typical ebook is the app's grocery list feature. Add as many recipes as you need to shop for to the grocery list, and the app will calculate the total of each ingredient you need and organize them alphabetically or by grocery store aisle.
Another feature we find very useful for meal planning: ingredient search filters. Have some chiles, garlic, and chicken parts in the fridge, and need some ideas? Simply tap each of these filters from the search screen to get a list of recipes that use them, add your choice to the grocery list, check off what you already have, and voila: a plan and a shopping list.
Speaking of search filters, many of you might be surprised by the number of vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free recipes JOY contains, all of which are now easy to find thanks to the extensive recipe tagging we have done. Readers can easily find recipes by cuisine (Italian, Thai, Eastern European, etc), seasonality, how quick they are to prepare, how crowd-friendly they are, or what cooking technique is used to make them. Additionally, all of our family's favorite
recipes are now easy to find in one place (tap the "JOY Family" filter), as well as recipes that have been in the book since the 1930s (available via the "JOY Classics" filter).
All of these features are designed to make planning and shopping much easier. For use in the kitchen, we and Culinate have concocted an entirely different set of features to make cooking a snap.
In years past, arguments occurred over how many ribbons JOY was allowed to have. JOY is, after all, a large volume, and cooking multiple recipes out of the book at the same time is much easier with bookmarks—just ask any frazzled home cook trying to get a large meal on the holiday table. Turned Roast Turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, roasted carrots, Brussels sprouts, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie: A smart cook spreads the preparation of these holiday classics over as many days as possible to avoid a multitasking nightmare. That being said, we all eventually find ourselves pressed for time, dividing our attention between four or five projects every Thanksgiving.
Luckily, virtual ribbons are quite cheap—and much easier to use. For those special-occasion meals that may require quickly flipping among multiple recipes, we have provided the ability to add them to a customizable "Menu" list (accessible via the place-setting icon at the bottom-center of the screen). This allows for lightning-quick "page flipping" to the information you need (and the ability to save entire menus). If you want to come back to a recipe later, bookmark it by tapping the ribbon icon to the right of the recipe title, or tap the star to add it to your favorites list. (The bookmarks list itself is accessible by tapping the bookmark icon at the top of the app, while the favorites list can be found by tapping the star at the base of the app.)
Another feature we added to ease the multitasking burden placed on entertaining cooks: built-in timers. Just tap on the time given in a recipe, and a timer is as good as set. You can set as many as you need to and view all of them—each is conveniently labeled with the
recipe they were set by—by tapping the clock icon at the right bottom corner of the screen.
For the inquisitive who have time to spare, we have made it easier than ever to access the encyclopedic collection of culinary knowledge contained in JOY. Not only can you get direct access to our "Know Your Ingredients" and "Cooking Methods and Techniques" chapters in the Kitchen Reference section, but specific ingredient information will also be given next to most recipes, along with related recipes, general reference information, and, when appropriate, sauce pairings.
Though JOY has had an Anglicised edition since 1946, we are very excited to offer a metric-friendly version of the 2006 edition for the first time. For those using metric measures, just set the app to metric via the gear icon at the bottom left corner of the screen. For those wishing to convert a quantity from tablespoons to, say, cups—especially useful if you want to double a recipe—tap on an ingredient quantity, and a converter will appear with an equivalent of every measure you could possibly need.
These features—and countless additional tweaks—make this the most accessible and useful edition of JOY ever. We expected as much from our partners at Culinate. What we did not expect was the insight we gained from taking JOY apart and putting it back together. Our grandmother Marion used to compose JOY on index cards, and we feel very close to her after doing the digital equivalent. This was no easy feat, and we could not have done it without our editor and friend Maggie Green, whose expertise, sharp eyes, dedication, and hard work during this three-year odyssey made this app possible.
At Scribner, we thank Whitney Frick and Susan Moldow for their unflagging support and keen insights. None of this would be possible without them, nor the hard work of Augustine Reyes and Steve Kotrch at Simon & Schuster, who initiated the arduous process of turning JOY's pages into XML. We must also mention Carolyn Reidy, Jeff Wilson, Roz Lippel, Michelle Howry, Doug
Stambaugh, Brian Belfiglio, Gwyneth Stansfield, Devu Gandhi, and Kara Watson for their support and considerable efforts.
Last but not least, we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to James Berry, Kim Carlson, Mark Douglas, and Todd Linkner at Culinate for their determination to release the best JOY app possible. Not only are they competent, dedicated, and innovative, they also happen to be incredibly lovely folks who are a pleasure to work with. James and Mark brought their indispensable coding know-how and conceptual insights to the app; Kim (and her wonderful assistants Giovanna Zivny and Cornelia Lewis) oversaw much of the editorial work necessary to bring a digital JOY to life; and Todd—even during the first few months of fatherhood—provided the design direction and countless aesthetic tweaks for JOY's user interface.
Perhaps most important, thank you for downloading our app! We hope you find it useful, informative, and inspiring.
—John Becker