Moonwatcher

Talking iPad

My buddy BJ and I had a great time talking with Omar Gallaga at the Statesman earlier this week about our new iPads. Here's Omar's article, plus some video they shot:

My MacBook Pro runs JavaScript 26.7x as fast as my iPad

I just ran the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark on my iPad and my (2.66GHz Unibody) MacBook Pro. The raw results are here and here, respectively. Here's the comparison:

TEST                   COMPARISON            FROM                 TO             DETAILS

=============================================================================

** TOTAL **:           26.7x as fast     10999.0ms +/- 0.7%   412.0ms +/- 1.0%     significant

=============================================================================

  3d:                  38.7x as fast      1995.2ms +/- 1.7%    51.6ms +/- 1.3%     significant
    cube:              39.9x as fast       622.2ms +/- 3.5%    15.6ms +/- 4.4%     significant
    morph:             41.5x as fast       796.8ms +/- 0.9%    19.2ms +/- 5.4%     significant
    raytrace:          34.3x as fast       576.2ms +/- 1.5%    16.8ms +/- 3.3%     significant

  access:              41.4x as fast      1621.0ms +/- 2.5%    39.2ms +/- 2.7%     significant
    binary-trees:      20.4x as fast       114.2ms +/- 2.9%     5.6ms +/- 12.2%     significant
    fannkuch:          37.5x as fast       562.0ms +/- 3.8%    15.0ms +/- 5.9%     significant
    nbody:             75.2x as fast       751.8ms +/- 2.9%    10.0ms +/- 8.8%     significant
    nsieve:            22.4x as fast       193.0ms +/- 1.8%     8.6ms +/- 12.9%     significant

  bitops:              39.6x as fast       895.8ms +/- 4.4%    22.6ms +/- 9.2%     significant
    3bit-bits-in-byte: 52.2x as fast       167.0ms +/- 2.2%     3.2ms +/- 17.4%     significant
    bits-in-byte:      22.1x as fast       159.0ms +/- 3.1%     7.2ms +/- 14.4%     significant
    bitwise-and:       33.7x as fast       154.8ms +/- 27.5%     4.6ms +/- 14.8%     significant
    nsieve-bits:       54.6x as fast       415.0ms +/- 0.5%     7.6ms +/- 14.6%     significant

  controlflow:         33.6x as fast       134.6ms +/- 1.8%     4.0ms +/- 22.0%     significant
    recursive:         33.6x as fast       134.6ms +/- 1.8%     4.0ms +/- 22.0%     significant

  crypto:              31.3x as fast       777.4ms +/- 0.5%    24.8ms +/- 4.2%     significant
    aes:               17.4x as fast       229.6ms +/- 1.2%    13.2ms +/- 10.3%     significant
    md5:               41.8x as fast       267.8ms +/- 1.7%     6.4ms +/- 10.6%     significant
    sha1:              53.8x as fast       280.0ms +/- 2.5%     5.2ms +/- 10.7%     significant

  date:                12.5x as fast       739.8ms +/- 1.4%    59.0ms +/- 4.7%     significant
    format-tofte:      12.3x as fast       331.0ms +/- 1.1%    27.0ms +/- 6.5%     significant
    format-xparb:      12.8x as fast       408.8ms +/- 1.8%    32.0ms +/- 9.1%     significant

  math:                44.1x as fast      1543.4ms +/- 0.2%    35.0ms +/- 5.6%     significant
    cordic:            55.6x as fast       544.6ms +/- 0.6%     9.8ms +/- 5.7%     significant
    partial-sums:      32.9x as fast       579.0ms +/- 0.5%    17.6ms +/- 9.5%     significant
    spectral-norm:     55.2x as fast       419.8ms +/- 0.5%     7.6ms +/- 9.0%     significant

  regexp:              47.6x as fast       989.8ms +/- 0.7%    20.8ms +/- 7.8%     significant
    dna:               47.6x as fast       989.8ms +/- 0.7%    20.8ms +/- 7.8%     significant

  string:              14.9x as fast      2302.0ms +/- 1.4%   155.0ms +/- 1.5%     significant
    base64:            20.4x as fast       334.8ms +/- 0.9%    16.4ms +/- 6.8%     significant
    fasta:             15.1x as fast       452.8ms +/- 2.4%    30.0ms +/- 2.9%     significant
    tagcloud:          11.7x as fast       385.2ms +/- 4.3%    33.0ms +/- 0.0%     significant
    unpack-code:       13.5x as fast       620.2ms +/- 1.2%    45.8ms +/- 3.5%     significant
    validate-input:    17.1x as fast       509.0ms +/- 1.1%    29.8ms +/- 3.5%     significant

It's one thing not to be able to run Flash apps. But JavaScript performance like this effectively means the iPad can't run complex JavaScript apps either. Interesting.

Update: Tim Anderson reports that even his $325 netbook runs the SunSpider benchmark 4.5x faster than an iPad. This (plus, of course, Flash support) could turn out to be a distinct competitive advantage for Google Chrome OS netbooks, which will surely be JavaScript speed demons.

Update 2: Iñaki Rodríguez ran the benchmark on his Acer 1810T netbook ($612 at Amazon) running Google Chrome. The results were 13.3x as fast as an iPad. This could turn out to be a BFD.

Update 3: According to the benchmark, the iPad runs JavaScript 1.52x as fast as an iPhone 3GS.

What's with all the old-fogeyism about the iPad?

In his post The Kids are Alright, John Gruber quotes a bunch of people complaining that the iPad isn't a hacker playground. Cory Doctorow kvetches that you can't open it up. Alex Pane frets kids with iPads won't grow up to become programmers. Mark Pilgrim despairs that Apple is trying to stunt his kids' sense of wonder. Good lord, guys, get a grip!

As Gruber points out, you can indeed write code for iPad—it just requires a Mac to do it on. And just like Gruber, my first computer—the one that inspired me to learn how to write programs—was an Atari 2600. Could you code directly on it? The BASIC Programming cartridge aside, no. But I wanted to learn to write the kind of games I was playing, so when my dad bought an IBM PC I picked up the BASIC manual and got cracking.

Machines like these inspire kids. They want to know what makes them work, and how to make them work differently. If you want to bag on a technology platform, go after the video game console market. Good luck cobbling together a little app in your bedroom for your PS3. But the minute my kids ask me for a Mac mini and an Apple Developer Program account, I'll buy it. And when they do, I bet they will have been inspired by a descendant of the iPad.

Which way do you see the world?

Compare this image (click for larger image):

with this one (click for larger image), created by Trey Ratcliff:

Which way do you see the world? There's a powerful lesson there.

What I Tweet About

These days I, uh, tweet a lot more than I, er, blog. Here's what I tweet most about, according to tweet cloud:

The Expected Effects of the Public Option and Mandated Coverage on Health Insurance Premiums and Total Medical Expenditures

This is a paper I wrote for my Health Economics class. I originally shared it on Google Docs, but due to popular demand (well, from one person anyway :) I'm cross-posting it here. Comments welcome.

The Expected Effects of the Public Option and Mandated Coverage on Health Insurance Premiums and Total Medical Expenditures

Charlie Wood
November 30, 2009

On November 7, 2009 the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR 3962, a comprehensive health care reform bill that included among its numerous provisions the creation of a health insurance program to be operated by the federal government, commonly called "the public option", and a mandate that most legal U.S. residents obtain health insurance.¹ This paper examines how the combination of the public option and the individual mandate should, all else equal, be expected to affect health insurance premiums facing both participants and non-participants in the program and total medical expenditures.

What is the Public Option?

In order to analyze the effects of the public option it is important first to define it. The public option as described by HR 3962 is a government-operated health insurance program that will offer coverage to legal U.S. residents who are not covered by existing government programs like Medicare or Medicaid and who do not have insurance through their employers. Reimbursement rates for health care items and services will be negotiated with health care providers by the government. The premiums charged to participants will be required to cover the cost of the program itself, including startup costs, benefits, administrative costs, and a "contingency margin" of at least 90 days of estimated claims. Benefits and premiums for the various levels of coverage available under the public option will be published online. In addition, although participation in the public option itself is voluntary, HR 3962 includes a mandate that most legal U.S. residents obtain health insurance coverage.

Effects on Premiums Faced by Those Not Covered by Group Insurance

People eligible for the public option will see the most immediate, direct effect on the premiums they face for health insurance. Since they are covered by neither employer-provided plans nor government programs like Medicare or Medicaid, those people currently have two options: forgo health insurance altogether or purchase individual coverage, which is typically very expensive.

Four main factors contribute to the high premiums in the market for individual health insurance: adverse selection and a lack of economies of scale, both of which increase the insurer's costs, and the market's oligopoly structure and limited price transparency, both of which allow insurers to set prices above marginal cost. Together the public option and the individual mandate address each of these factors, which should lead to lower premiums.

First, the information asymmetry inherent in the market for health insurance can lead to adverse selection and ever-increasing premiums. People generally know more than their insurer about how much health care they're likely to consume. Relatively healthier people, that is, those who expect their health care expenditures to be less than the premiums they face, can simply opt out and not buy insurance. The remaining pool of people is relatively less healthy and will therefore incur higher average health care costs, driving up actuarially fair premiums (AFP's). Again, the healthiest people in the group opt out of insurance and the cycle repeats, driving premiums ever higher. The individual mandate included in HR 3962 prevents this cycle by requiring most legal residents to carry qualifying health insurance, solving the problem of adverse selection and substantially lowering AFP's.

Second, the cost of insuring individuals is significantly greater than that of insuring groups due in large part to the economies of scale enjoyed by group insurers. Loading fees for individual policies ranges from 60%-80% of benefits, while those of groups of more than 1,000 are only 5%-8% of benefits.² The public option is a group plan expected to cover millions of people, and should therefore enjoy significant economies of scale.

Third, the health insurance industry is not a perfectly competitive market, as evidenced by the fact that insurers are able to generate and sustain profits.³ In fact, individual health insurance markets are typically oligopolies dominated by their top three firms.⁴ As oligopolists, private insurers set prices above marginal cost (P_O in Figure 1) and provide an economically inefficient quantity of insurance (Q_O).


Figure 1. Oligopolistic vs. Competitive Pricing

Since the public option is required to (and presumably, only allowed to) break even, it acts as a competitive firm, setting premiums equal to marginal cost and thereby lowering premiums faced by consumers from P_O to P_C.

Finally, since information about benefits and premiums for the public option will be easily available via an online exchange established by HR 3962, consumers will enjoy increased price transparency, leading to more competition and lower premiums.

One factor that would make the public option more expensive for some people than it would otherwise be is the requirement that it not vary premiums to reflect differences in enrollees' health. While such a community rating system benefits sicker participants, to cover its costs it does so at the expense of those who are healthier, since they would pay lower premiums if their good health could be taken into account as with experience rating. However, some risk-adjustment mechanisms for the public option are specified and allow premiums for the oldest participants to be twice those of the youngest, helping to mitigate the issue.

By solving the problem of adverse selection with an individual mandate, taking advantage of economies of scale, setting prices equal to marginal cost, and increasing price transparency, the public option is expected to offer premiums that are lower than those currently facing people not covered by group insurance.

Effects on Premiums Faced by Those Covered by Group Insurance

Two other groups will be eligible for the public option in addition to individuals not currently covered by group insurance: employees of small businesses that choose to participate in the public option and workers with employer-based coverage whose existing premiums exceed 12 percent of their income.

Even though the public option will enjoy greater economies of scale than do private plans for small groups, it will still be smaller overall than existing large insurers and will, according to the Congressional Budget Office, "probably engage in less management of utilization by its enrollees and attract a less healthy pool of enrollees," and will, "typically have premiums that are somewhat higher than the average premiums for the private plans."⁵ Higher premiums will provide no downward pressure on premiums for existing employer-provided plans.

Effects on Total Medical Expenditures

Total medical expenditures are determined by the prices paid for medical care and the quantity of care consumed. The public option's impact on these factors will determine its effect on total expenditures.

While larger insurers are able to negotiate lower rates with providers, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the administrator of the public option will have limited price negotiating power, and that therefore, "The rates the public plan pays to providers would, on average, probably be comparable to the rates paid by private insurers."⁶ In other words, the public option will not have an appreciable effect on prices paid for medical care. Its effect on total medical expenditures will therefore be determined by how it impacts the quantity of care consumed.

Demand for certain types of medical care is elastic, and in such cases the quantity consumed depends not on the prices actually paid to providers for care, but the effective prices facing the consumer. The public plan's limited cost-sharing makes these two prices different. For instance, demand is elastic for both well care and mental health care.⁷ Both are covered by the public option, so program participants will face lower prices for these services (shown as P₁ in Figure 2) than the prices actually paid to providers (P₀). These artificially low prices will lead people to consume more of these services than they would otherwise.⁸


Figure 2. Increasing Medical Expenditures Due to Increased Utilization

Since the prices paid to providers are expected to remain the same but the quantity consumed should increase, total medical expenditures should be expected to increase.

Conclusion: Lower Premiums for Some, Higher Total Medical Expenditures

The public option is only one of many provisions of the health care reforms being debated in the Congress, and will affect more than just health insurance premiums and total medical expenditures. Nevertheless, its expected effects on these two important facets of health economics are clear. Health insurance premiums facing people not currently covered by government- or employer-provided programs should be significantly reduced, while those for others should remain largely unchanged. Prices paid to providers for medical services should remain unchanged, but consumption should increase. As a result, total health care expenditures should be expected to increase.

---

¹ Sweeping Health Care Plan Passes House, The New York Times, 7 November 2009
² Charles E. Phelps, Health Economics, Fourth Edition (New York: Addison-Wesley, 2010), p. 350
³ Fortune 500 2009, Fortune Magazine, 4 May 2009
⁴ Private Health Insurance: Research on Competition in the Insurance Industry, United States Government Accountability Office, 31 July 2009, p.3
⁵ Preliminary Analysis of H.R. 3962, Congressional Budget Office, 29 October 2009, p. 6
⁶ Ibid
⁷ Phelps, pp. 131, 134
⁸ This overconsumption due to artificially low prices, or moral hazard, creates deadweight loss, but welfare issues are beyond the scope of this paper.

Microsoft plays Dodge-ball, loses badly

No longer content merely to drift into irrelevance, Microsoft is now actively trying to sabotage itself—and nary a tear will be shed. Now, go follow @dondodge.

Google Reader refuses to mark this entry as read... Coincidence?

Uncovering Steve Jobs' *Real* Presentation Secrets

BusinessWeek stole the idea, and even the headline, for this blog post. But I thought of it first. And mine's better.

Steve Jobs is the CEO of the Decade. He's a multi-billionaire. And he's the best presentation presenter in the world. So what's his secret? Actually, he has exactly three of them. And by using these secrets, you can be the best presentation presenter in the world too. Here they are:

3. Make the best products in the world

This one is so obvious that most people overlook it. It's hard to present a great presentation without something great to present. So first, create something everybody in the world wants, like a Mac, an iPod, or an iPhone, then give a presentation about it. Once you do, you'll be on your way to being the best presentation presenter in the world.

2. Present them

Once you've made the best products in the world, don't make the common mistake of forgetting to present them to people. Find a stage, go up on it, and turn towards the audience. Then hold up these best products in the world that you've made and smile.

Also, feel free to go ahead and tell people that your products are the best products in the world, just in case they don't understand why you're smiling.

1. Be Steve Jobs

But the most important Steve Jobs presentation secret? Be Steve Jobs. Duh.

Google vs. Microsoft: One Developer's View

This article in the New York Times ponders Microsoft's seeming drift into irrelevance and quotes Google's Dave Girouard as saying, "The big difference in technology here is the pace of innovation." But as a developer using both Microsoft and Google technologies, I can tell you what the difference is.

When I wanted to develop a new service using Google's technology their first question was, "How can we help?" When I wanted to develop using Microsoft's their first question was, "Where's your check for $100,000?"

True story.