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Trivia

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mkalus
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More Water

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AMD baut Stellen ab und will sich auf "KI"-Chips konzentrieren.NEEEIIIIINNNNN!!!Gut, ...

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AMD baut Stellen ab und will sich auf "KI"-Chips konzentrieren.

NEEEIIIIINNNNN!!!

Gut, aus Sicht der Investoren ist das wahrscheinlich ein No-Brainer. Nvidia scheffelt Milliarden und unser GPU-Business stagniert? Dann müssen wir auch mehr "KI" machen!

Aber ich musste sofort an diesen wirklich bahnbrechenden Vortrag von Clayton Christensen denken, der da Disruption erklärt. Wenn ihr das noch nicht gesehen habt, dann solltet ihr das unbedingt nachholen. Es geht um "Mini-Mills" und die Stahlproduktion.

Die Geschichte geht grob so. Es gibt "integrated steel mills", traditionelle Stahlproduzenten. Die bauen auf allen Qualitätsschichten Stahl, von Rebar (für den Verbau in Stahlbeton) bis Steel Sheets.

Eines Tages werden Mini-Mills erfunden, die Schrott elektrisch einschmelzen und wenig wertigen Stahl für 20% weniger Kosten produzieren können. Gut genug für Rebar, weil es da keine harten Qualitätsvorschriften gab.

So und jetzt das Muster. Die Integrated Steel Mills machten mit dem Rebar-Stahl bloß 7% Marge. Die waren froh, dass sie sich aus dem Marktsegment zurückziehen konnten, weil sie da eh kaum Profit machten! Und die Mini-Mills waren natürlich auch froh, weil sie Millionen verdienen konnten.

Als der letzte Integrated Steel Manufacturer sich aus dem Rebar-Markt zurückzog, brach der Preis ein, weil sich nur noch Mini-Mills Konkurrenz machten, und die machten plötzlich kaum noch Profit. Also haben sie riesigen Druck gehabt, eine Schicht höher zu gehen. Als sie das schafften, waren die alten Stahlproduzenten wieder froh, weil das in ihrem Portfolio das unprofitabelste Segment war. Das wiederholte sich ein paar Mal und am Ende waren alle alten Stahlproduzenten bis auf einen pleite, und der eine spezialisierte sich auf Spezialstahl mit Sonderanforderungen und war nur noch ein Schatten seiner selbst.

So, und jetzt guckt euch mal an, welches Marktsegment unsere Autobauer nur noch bedienen, und ob das eine gesunde Entwicklung war.

Und ich überlege mir bei AMD, ob da nicht dasselbe passieren wird. Die wickeln den Teil ab, der am wenigsten Profit machte, aber ohne dass ein Disruptor ihnen die Butter vom Brot genommen hat. D.h. wir haben danach nur alle verloren, weil wir weniger Anbieter, weniger Konkurrenz haben und die Preise hochgehen.

Im Moment geht es erstmal "nur" um 4% der Belegschaft bei AMD. Aber die Richtung sieht für mich sehr klar aus.

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mkalus
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Sure, I Voted for Someone Whose Policies Might Kill You, but Now's the Time to Put Aside Our Differences

jwz
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McSweeney's:

Why can't we just agree to disagree? Demonizing Trump voters like me only leads to toxicity, and it's bad for your health to be so agitated. Let's find a way to unite so that this ugliness doesn't surface again when we head to the polls in four years. And if your worst-case scenario comes to pass -- that this was the last democratic election we'll have in this country -- think of how stress-free you'll be then. For now, maybe just pop a Xanax and have a little faith.

I personally believe we'll continue to have elections. We will elect Trump in 2028 and in 2032 and, God willing, every four years as long as he shall live. Or perhaps scientists will find a way to preserve his body and stop aging so that he can be our leader until the literal end of the world, which I know you think will happen soon because of climate change, and if you genuinely believe that, why are you so worried? You'll only have, what, twenty years or so of authoritarian rule before life becomes nothing but fleeing fire and flood. It'll be like those Irwin Allen disaster movies we loved as kids! I personally think it's awesome that my house in Central Massachusetts might be waterfront property sooner rather than later.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

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"I prefer to meet people where they are" says reasonable-sounding white dude holding court at a table in the back of a Nazi Bar.

jwz
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It's Bluesky. The Nazi Bar is Bluesky.

"Now that Dorsey has bailed as a board member and principal funder, Bluesky's DNA is basically [TESCREAL / Effective Altruist] people. It gets worse. Blockchain Capital LLC was co-founded by Steve Bannon pal Brock Pierce, a major crypto advocate, perennial presidential candidate, and close friend of Eric Adams. Pierce has dozens of other shady MAGA/Russia ties as well."

Previously, previously, previously, previously.

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Pluralistic: America's richest Medicare fraudsters are untouchable (13 Nov 2024)

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Today's links



A man in a top hat smothering a girl in a bed with a pillow. The girl's protruding arm is blue. He is being handed a sack of money by Uncle Sam in a Santa suit. At their feet is a fizzing bomb with an oxygen tank label.

America's richest Medicare fraudsters are untouchable (permalink)

"When you're famous, they let you do it": eight words that encapsulate the terrifying rot at the heart of our lived experience, a world where impunity for the powerful trumps the pain of their victims.

"Populism," is shorthand for many things: rage, despair, distrust of institutions and a desire to destroy them. True populism seeks to channel those totally legitimate feelings into transformative change for a caring and fair society for all. So-called "right populism" exploits those feelings, using them to drive a wedge between different groups of victims, turning them against each other, so that elites can go on screwing the squabbling factions.

The far-right parties that are marching to victory through a series global elections are different in many ways, but they all share one trait: they appeal to mistrust of institutions, claiming that the government has been captured by elites who serve them at the expense of the governed. This has the benefit of being actually true, and while the fact that far-right parties are owned by these government-capturing elites might erode their credibility, the fact that so many "progressive" parties have stepped in to defend the institutional status quo leaves an open field for reactionary wreckers:

https://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-dem-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/02/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-slogan-219908

Why would voters turn out to support a "Department of Government Efficiency," run by a bully whose career has been defined by abusing the people he is in charge of? Maybe they're turkeys voting for Christmas, but they also have personal, traumatic experience with government departments that protected the abusive corporations that preyed on them.

Today on Propublica, Peter Elkind tells the incredible story of Lincare, the nation's leading supplier of home oxygen, a repeat-offender fraudster and predator that has made billions in public money without any real consequences:

https://www.propublica.org/article/lincare-medicare-lawsuit-settlements-oxygen-equipment

Lincare has been repeatedly found guilty of defrauding Medicare; in this century alone, they have been put on probation four times, with a "death penalty" provision that would permanently disqualify them from ever doing business with the federal government. In every case, Lincare committed fresh acts of fraud, but never faced that death penalty.

Why not? Lincare is far too big to fail. In America's bizarre, worst-in-class, world-beatingly expensive privatized health care system, even public health provision (like Medicare) is outsourced to the private sector. Lincare has monopolized oxygen, a famously very important molecule for human survival, and if it were disqualified from serving Medicare, large numbers of Americans would literally asphyxiate.

Lincare clearly knows this. Too big to fail is too big to jail, and too big to jail is too big to care. They are the poster children for impunity, repeat offenders, multiply convicted, and still offending, even today. Lincare has been convicted of fraud under the administrations of GW Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden, and they're still in business.

What a business it is! Elkind takes us to the asbestos-poisoned town of Libby, Montana, where more than 2,000 of the 2.857 population suffer from respiratory diseases from the open-pit mine that operated there from 1963-1990. The elderly, dying population of this town rely on Medicare and Medicare Advantage oxygen concentrators to draw breath, and that means they rely on Lincare.

That means they are prey to Lincare's signature scam: charging Medicare (and 20% co-paying patients) to rent an oxygen concentrator every month, until they have paid for it several times over. This is illegal: under federal rules, patients are deemed to have bought their oxygen concentrators after 36 months and contractors are no longer allowed to charge them. Lincare doesn't give a fuck: the bills keep coming, and Lincare patients who survive long enough have paid the company $16,000 for a $799 gadget.

When Brandon Haugen, a local Lincare customer service rep, noticed this and queried the company's home office in Clearwater, Florida (home to Scientology and the Flexidisc), he was given the brushoff. After multiple attempts to get company leadership to acknowledge that this was illegal, he quit his job, along with his colleague and childhood friend Ben Montgomery. Between them, Haugen and Montgomery had 14 children who depended on their Lincare paychecks. Despite this, they both quit and turned whistleblower, with no job lined up. Eventually, Lincare paid $29m to settle the claim, with $5.7m to the whistleblowers and their lawyers. For Lincare, this was part of the cost of doing business and the fraud rolls on.

Lincare doesn't just defraud Medicare, they also have a high-pressure commissioned sales force that has repeatedly been caught defrauding Lincare customers – overwhelming sick, poor, elderly people. Patients are pressured to accept auto-billing, then Lincare piles medically dubious gadgets onto their monthly bills, as well as useless, overpriced "patient monitoring" services. Customers with apnea machines are mis-sold ventilators by salesmen who falsely claim these are medically necessary.

Salespeople illegally auto-shipped parts and consumables for Lincare machines to patients, then billed them for it. To satisfy the legal requirement that they telephone patients before placing these orders, sales agents would call patients, put them on hold, then part the call until the patient hung up.

Salespeople are motivated by equal parts greed and terror. Make quota and you can get up to $8,000 per month in bonuses. Miss that punishing quota and you're out on your ass (which is why one salesperson ordered a medically unnecessary ventilator).

Lincare also habitually ignores requests to pick up medically unnecessary equipment, because so long as the equipment is on the patient's premises, they can continue to bill for it. As one Ohio manager wrote to their staff: "As we have already discussed, absolutely no pick-ups/inactivation’s are to be do[ne] until I give you the green light. Even if they are deceased." Execs send out company-wide emails celebrating regional managers who have abandoned pick-ups, like a Feb 2022 "Achievement Rankings" email that touted the fact that most regional centers had at least 150 overdue pickups.

Lincare represents a deep, structural rot in American society. They are too big to punish, and too powerful to regulate. A 2006 law meant to curb oxygen payments was gutted by industry lobbyists. Today, Congress is weighing legislation, the SOAR (Supplemental Oxygen Access Reform) Act, which will allow Lincare to bill the public for hundreds of millions more every year, raising rates and eliminating competitive billing. The bill is supported by patient advocates who are rightly interested in getting oxygen to patients who have been locked out of the system, but the cost of that inclusion is that Lincare will be even more firmly insulated from its corruption.

The Trump Administration will doubtless crack down on some of America's worst companies, and the furious voters who elected the only candidate who campaigned on the idea that America was rotten will cheer him on. But Trump has made it clear that he will select the targets of his administration based on whether they are loyal to him or stand in his way, without regard to whether they harm his supporters:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/12/the-enemy-of-your-enemy/#is-your-enemy

Companies like Lincare, repeatedly caught paying illegal kickbacks, know how to play this game.

(Image: p.Gordon, CC BY 2.0, modified)


Hey look at this (permalink)



A Wayback Machine banner.

This day in history (permalink)

#20yrsago Aschroft: judges shouldn’t uphold the Constitution https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna6472084

#20yrsago Fighting spam shouldn’t mean fighting free speech https://web.archive.org/web/20041116043239/http://www.eff.org/wp/?f=SpamCollateralDamage.html

#20yrsago FCC thinks it has authority over PCs and everything that can play a show https://web.archive.org/web/20041117014541/http://scrawford.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2004/11/11/180969.html

#15yrsago TSA bans snowglobes. TSA, meet Archimedes. https://memex.craphound.com/2009/11/13/tsa-bans-snowglobes-tsa-meet-archimedes/

#10yrsago Americans believe things https://web.archive.org/web/20141102085809/https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3466/Perceptions-are-not-reality-10-things-the-world-gets-wrong.aspx

#10yrsago XKCD’s epic, day-long Rosetta mission flipbook https://xkcd.com/1446/

#10yrsago Roca Labs sends abusive, unwarranted DMCA notices to banish negative reviews https://www.techdirt.com/2014/11/12/roca-labs-issues-bogus-dmca-takedown-notices-to-google-to-try-to-hide-pissedconsumer-reviews/

#10yrsago When the FBI told MLK to kill himself (who are they targeting now?) https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/fbis-suicide-letter-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-and-dangers-unchecked-surveillance

#10yrsago Cheap dates: the pitiful sums that Big Cable used to buy off the politicians who oversee it https://gizmodo.com/how-much-money-big-cable-gave-the-politicians-who-overs-1657002442

#5yrsago alt.interoperability.adversarial https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/11/altinteroperabilityadversarial

#5yrsago A woman’s stalker compromised her car’s app, giving him the ability to track and immobilize it https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/11/06/womans-stalker-used-an-app-that-allowed-him-stop-start-track-her-car/

#5yrsago Transcription service rev.com cuts “professional transcriptionists'” effective hourly wage from $6.35 to $4.50 https://gizmodo.com/transcription-platform-rev-slashes-minimum-pay-for-work-1839784941

#5yrsago Before you ask your Chinese factory for a discount, make sure you won’t be kidnapped and/or have your product cloned https://web.archive.org/web/20191113124342/https://www.chinalawblog.com/2019/11/the-right-way-to-reduce-your-china-product-costs.html

#5yrsago EFF and ACLU triumph as federal judge rules that warrantless, suspicionless device searches at the border are illegal https://www.eff.org/press/releases/federal-court-rules-suspicionless-searches-travelers-phones-and-laptops

#1yrago The (open) web is good, actually https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/13/this-is-for-everyone/#revisiting


Upcoming appearances (permalink)

A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, holding a mic.



A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.

Recent appearances (permalink)



A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..

Latest books (permalink)



A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.

Upcoming books (permalink)

  • Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025

  • Unauthorized Bread: a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025



Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

  • Enshittification: a nonfiction book about platform decay for Farrar, Straus, Giroux. Today's progress: 788 words (81055 words total).

  • A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

  • Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2025

Latest podcast: Spill, part four (a Little Brother story) https://craphound.com/littlebrother/2024/10/28/spill-part-four-a-little-brother-story/


This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.


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"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

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