Sign Here

I was at the dentist today and they had me fill out a 9 (or so) item form about cancer screening. I’m all for screening where it is needed, but the 9 items that required my signature were not necessary. They were just stats. 27% of this (fear here) and some group of (fear there) do not require my initials.

Let me sign that I do or do not want the screening procedure that is more expensive and move on. If I can’t afford the screening, or don’t want it, let me opt out. Let me just check, “No,” sign the form, and move on.

Forms designed like this upset me because they’re designed to scare patients and to earn the office more money through fear and nonsense. Let’s do away with fear as marketing and leave it to the terrorists. They’re better at it anyway.

You Don’t Know Percentages

When what you read is:

Debt increase by presidents: Reagan 186%, Bush 54% Clinton 41% Bush II 72% Obama 23%. /source CBO [from Twitter].

Does your brain translate it to this:

It turns out those percentages don’t add up to the actual national debt value, so the numbers seem wrong.  But when someone shows you percentages get out your spread sheet or calculator to make sure that you’re not being had.  If you say that Obama has had less spent during his presidency or that Clinton was a spendthrift or any number of other things based on percentages you’re probably doing it wrong.  And yes, this is showing billions and trillions [the formatting isn’t quite right in the copy/paste].

Due to the compounding values of those debt numbers this massive expenditure of “only” 23% is rather ‘off’.  Additionally Obama’s presidency is not over, so calling this one is a bit premature.

I say we call them all out for being fools with the financial resources.  Additionally: congress(es) is (are) also responsible for this.

History Repeats Itself

From the Stanford Technology Venture Program – Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders:

“I can only encourage you to make mistakes.  It is perhaps the most valuable part of the learning experience.  When you make a mistake it’s the only way for you to understand the context of the impact or the cost of your actions. … Just don’t make the same mistake twice. ” – Mark Jung

I try to learn from my mistakes and others’ mistakes, but I have to agree: when you make a mistake it sticks.  Sometimes it’s the pain, sometimes it’s the survival, and sometimes it’s the wonder that you get to experience life in a new way.  Don’t be afraid of mistakes as much as you’re willing to learn from them.