The Big 5.....psych personality model.

     Jordan Peterson recently acknowledged in a forum that for a long time he didn't believe in the Big5 model, but over time had come to believe it to be the most informative model.  The bare skeleton is that there are 5 personality types, openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.  Beyond this I say nothing, except that the types can be remembered by the acronym CANOE

3 Sigma Rule

     Stastically speaking:  Anytime there is a spectrum of values, there is obviously a mean average.  If you want to talk about  whether the distribution making up the average is normal, as in a bell curve or skewed toward one of the two extreme values, you can talk about by referring to a "standard deviation"  Simple stated a SD is about 16% of the spread and as such there are about six SD in a spectrum. 

     Apparently for reasons that I don't want to know, it is true that the 68-95-99 rule applies. namely that in most distributions about 68% of the values are within 16% of the average and 95% of the values are within 2 SD or 64% of the average, and of course essentially all values are within 3 SD, or 99%. 

     As far as I know this is only useful to know because so many useful things about the world are communicated by smart assholes who want to refer to the magnitude of variances as being/no being within one SD.  Hope I remember.

Medicare....bundled payment plan!

     McKnight Health News reporting that Medicare is testing a payment plan where Hospitals are to be paid for services in a way that incenticizes the Hospitals to minimize their referrals to Skilled Nursing Homes in favor of less expensive ALF's and HomeHealth.  Presumably by Medicare aggregating the single patient cost in relationship to the diagnosis they will positive/negative hold the hospital responsible.  It's kind of a stronger version of the  ObamaCare provision where Savings Groups could by reducing cost get extra payments.  Sounds like a good idea.  The $5000 monthly is a waste.  Giving around $1500 monthly through VA "Aid & Attendant" makes more sense.  At least 70% of NH patients would do well at RH+, which would be current configuration ($1800) plus additional 12hrs daily of LVN for a cost of $2100, of which about $1500 would be Social Security funded and Medicare/VA would pick up shortfall. The $net $600 monthly cost would cut SNF funding by 85%.  Of course it would leave a bunch of broken down 1960's buildings empty and their gaming passive owners broke.

Blockchain :18

     Not every notable human expression is being politicized in todays culture where politics is so integral to everyones daily life that no seperation seems possible.  However, for the most techie of expressions,  politicalization is finding the handle very slippery. CRISPR will likely have a profound effect on the society that Trump wants to make a reflection of his own mind, but, at present, the necessary political tools to control are just not available.  Yes,  there has been some political manipulating in the cyber sector, as in Net Neutrality, Russian Hacking, Voting Fraud, Dark Web Prosecuting, etc., but on balance, even in this complex arena, not so much.  Perhaps the most notable example of the "politic free" endeavors is the "Blockchain Phenomena".

MISSOURI MEDICAID (just pathetic)

     Yes, Missouri is one of the few States that chose not to expand Medicaid during the Obama Administration, and yes, our State Government is all about Republican Alt-Right politics, and further, our small liberal constituency is led by "no-value-added" Claire Mckaskil, but....there is no damn reason that our States Medicaid Program should be so ineffectual, punitive, confusing, non-responsive, inaccessible,  hypocritical, prejudicial, and many other condemning adjetives not listed.

     This is not an indictment from a "benefit denied applicant".  It is a "fair commentary" offered by a, of average intelligence, senior who does not need the "presumed available benefits", but who is angry that for those Missourians that  do.....engaging with "MO Health Net" is like punching a marshmallow.