Prius Acceleration Is Adequate

Prius actually does have adequate power, but you really have to stomp on pedal to get it. So they discourage hard acceleration, thereby encouraging better fuel economy. But you can get it when you really want it. And that is without putting it in "Power" mode!

State Insurance Exchanges Are The Wrong Idea

(Disclaimer: I work in IT for a large healthcare company. These opinions are entirely my own, however.)

The Affordable Care Act (ACA, aka Obamacare) envisioned each state setting up its own insurance exchange. There was surprise when many states declined to do so. In the states that did so, the path to full administrative functionality is sometimes slow in the making. There's a really obvious question to be asked, and it feels like nobody is asking it. That question is--Why? Why would anyone ever think it makes sense for each state create its own Exchange??

Each state Exchange entails specifying, designing, coding testing and maintaining a major, complex, integrated information system. Why do the same thing 50 separate times? This is exactly the opposite of the logic that drives many corporate mergers, where the goal is to gain operational efficiencies by eliminating redundant, back-office functions. So why for the love of Pete is the blueprint for ACA that each state should do its own thing?!

There is an answer, and it lies in politics and the misguided perception that conditions vary so widely from state to state that each state that will be much better able to serve its local peculiarities (see previous post for more on this notion). In a modern, connected, transient homogeneous country, this is hogwash.

I really wish some of the national press would start asking this question. The business press, in particular, should be all over it.

UPDATE: This King vs Burwell article from NYT hints at it.

Hating on the IRS

I don't want to to spoil anybody's fun, but hating on the IRS is as morally suspect as reviling returning Viet Nam soldiers. The IRS is a civil-service function that tries to do the job assigned to it, with the resources allotted. Slashing IRS funding out of vindictive or ideological motives is a terrible idea. Do we want to become Greece, where most taxes go uncollected?

Web App Idea: Preference-Based Approach to Coordinating Across Time Zones

My daughter is going on an international trip, and needed to coordinate a time to Skype with people in multiple time zones. By multiple, we're not talking U.S Easter, Central and Pacific. Or even a European time zone. We are talking, U.S., Europe, Australia. There is going to be zero overlap of normal working hours.

Obviously the ideal solution involves a web-app to coordinate reasonable times. Reasonable here being defined as anytime during a given party's normal waking hours.

I found a number of websites that do this to an extent. This one seems as good as any. The 4-color scheme requires some mental math, but then I realized, instead of trying to track the three colors that represented waking time, I just needed to eliminate the 1 color (red) that represents sleeping time.

The enhancement I would like to see is personalization. Instead of default typical hours, I would like the ability for each of the participants to enter times that conform to their personal schedule.

For extra credit, there could be two tiers: preferred, and can-make-it-work. Results would be returned, in sort order, using a two-stage algorithm. First stage would maximize the number of participants who can attend. E.g., if a time slot meets 100% of can-work but 0% of preferred, it will make the cut, whereas 90% preferred and 0% can-work won't make the cut. Then within first cut, sorting would be a points system. Say 2 points for each preferred and 1 point for each can-work.