Tag: nerd

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Sep
9
2010
Laptop, Technobabble

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Youd have to know the theme song to really get it...
You'd have to know the theme song to really get it...

You’ll understand the title in just a moment…

For the last few months my laptop has been in bad shape.  Such bad shape I’ve been using a backup laptop. 1  Something on my laptop’s motherboard went bad and killed the battery. 23  I could still use it – but I had to keep it plugged in all the time.  If I needed to move it, I had to shut it down all the way, move it, then boot it up – since it had no battery life at all.

Well, Dell’s kick ass incredible customer service took care of me – once again.  I can’t thank these guys enough for going above and beyond.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, my next laptop is going to be a Dell. Thanks to Lionel my laptop is sporting a totally brand-spanking new motherboard and power cord.  I’ve also just slapped in a totally new battery as well.

Anyhow, I’m beyond happy. 4

  1. Trust me, the back up laptop is nothing to brag about. [↩]
  2. You see, the motherboard – it went bad.  It was one bad mother…  Oh, forget it. [↩]
  3. The photo does not belong to me and is probably the property of MGM. [↩]
  4. Yes, yes, I’m a nerd – whatever. [↩]
Oct
12
2009
2005 PDRS, AMA Guides, Ogilvie, Technobabble, Wage Loss, Workers Compensation Resources

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Back to the drawing board
Back to the drawing board

DOWNLOAD THE MATHEMATICAL PROOF AS A PDF!

A little while ago William S. Morris, an Applicant’s attorney, told me that the Ogilvie adjustment calculation could be further simplified. 1 He suggested the following2 :

  1. Earnings Loss34
    1. L = (PIESSE – PIEA) / PIESSE
  2. Individualized Proportional Earnings Loss
    1. = (WPI / L) / 100
  3. DFEC Adjustment Factor
    1. = ([1.81/a] * .1) + 1
    2. = ( (1.81 * .1)/a) + 1
    3. = (.181/a) + 1
    4. = 1 + (.181/a)
  4. Ogilvie DFEC Adjusted Rating
    1. = WPI * DFEC Adjustment Factor
    2. = WPI * (1 + (.181/a) )
    3. = WPI * (1 + (.181 / Individualized Proportional Earnings Loss) )
    4. = WPI * (1 + (.181 / ( (WPI / L) / 100) ) )
    5. = WPI * (1 + (18.1 / ( (WPI / L)  ) )
    6. = WPI * (1 + (18.1 * (L/WPI) ) )
    7. = WPI + (18.1 * L)
  5. Conclusion
    1. If the injured workers’ individualized proportional earnings loss is outside all of the FEC ranks, you may calculate the Ogilvie adjustment by adding (18.1*Earnings Loss) to the WPI.

The only flaw with the proofs offered by William and myself is that they are too exact.  The WCAB in Ogilvie never sets forth the exact process for performing the Ogilvie adjustment calculation – so the only official method involves rounding to different significant figures at different places.  Thus, a calculation performed in strict accordance with the WCAB in Ogilvie and through one of these mathematical proofs would differ very slightly.

What do you think? Leave a comment or drop me a line.

  1. Photo courtesy of Dahveed76 [↩]
  2. I’m paraphrasing here [↩]
  3. PIESSE = Post Injury Earnings of Similarly Situated Employees [↩]
  4. PIEA = Post Injury Earnings of Applicant [↩]
Sep
17
2009
Workers Compensation Resources

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Would you sign my copy of Ogilvie?
Would you sign my copy of Ogilvie?

As I mentioned a few days ago, I was recently at the State Bar Convention in San Diego.  While at the Steve Jimenez Memorial Special Recognition Awards Ceremony, I bumped into one of the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board commissioners.1

It was one of those days where I’m kicking myself for not lugging around my copy of Ogilvie II.2

I got to tell this commissioner, “I’m a big fan of your work.”3

  1. You’ve got a one in nine chance of guessing which one.  ;)  [↩]
  2. Photo courtesy of USAFA87 [↩]
  3. Yes, yes, I already know I’m a great big nerd. [↩]
Sep
3
2009
Author, Blogging, PDRater, Road Warrior

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To sleep, perchance to dream
To sleep, perchance to dream

And my dream is to do four walk through settlements at three different WCAB district offices in one single day.12

I’ve given this a lot of thought and I even have a plan as to how to get this done.  If I ever got the chance to do four walk throughs at four Boards in one day, I’d do it like this:

  1. Get up early, arrive at the Santa Rosa WCAB at 8:00 AM and attempt the first walk through
  2. Head to San Francisco over the Golden Gate for the second walk through
  3. In the afternoon, do the third walk-through in San Jose
  4. Hit the road for Oakland and do the fourth walk through
  5. According to Google Maps, that’s 234 miles and 4 hours and 26 minutes

I honestly don’t even know if this is possible. 3 There are a million things that could go wrong.  I could hit traffic, I could be missing a page from a benefits printout, someone could change their mind about the settlement, a doctor could issue a supplemental report.  I also know that I would need a LOT of things to go right.  Here’s my tentative checklist:

  1. Four walk through settlements ready to be approved at four different Boards (this is easily the toughest part)
  2. Four claims examiners standing by on speed dial
  3. One full calendar day
  4. A fully charged GPS, two fully charged cell phones
  5. A full tank of gas
  6. $55.00 or so ($10 for bridge tolls, about $5 for photocopies, and easily another $40 for parking)
  7. A bag of snacks (I’m probably not going to have time for lunch)
  8. Call ahead to all of the Boards to make sure I can do a walk through that day
  9. The good will and cooperation of the Board staff and my colleagues

However, having done two walk through settlements in a single morning gives me hope.

  1. Photo courtesy of robertrice [↩]
  2. I told this dream to a co-worker yesterday and he laughed and called me a nerd.  Pssh – tell me something I don’t know, Steve. [↩]
  3. Perhaps this might be easier in Southern California – there’s as many as seven Boards within about 15 or 20 miles of one another. [↩]
Jul
17
2009
2005 PDRS, Case Law, DFEC Rebuttal, Ogilvie, Workers Compensation Resources

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Ogilvie for Dummies
Ogilvie for Dummies

UPDATE: DOWNLOAD THE MATHEMATICAL PROOF AS A PDF!

Get ready to stop paying people to do Ogilvie calculations, recycle your Gearheart/Gerlach handouts, and delete your Frost Excel spreadsheet.1  We’re about to go all “Beautiful Mind.”

Yesterday while at the Oakland WCAB an Applicant’s attorney mentioned he noticed an interesting trend in the Ogilvie formula. 23 He said that whenever he does an Ogilvie calculation for someone with a 100% earnings loss and a modest WPI, the WPI is always increased by 18. 4

I ran a number of test calculations on this theory and it appeared to be right.  My calculations show that up to a WPI of 44 the increase appears to always be 18.1, but the last “0.1” always gets rounded down.  However, appearing to be right just isn’t good enough for me.  And, because I am just truly that nerd, here’s the fully mathematical proof:

Let’s break down the calculations at the heart of Ogilvie:

  1. Earnings Loss56
    1. = (PIESSE – PIEA) / PIESSE
    2. = ($1.00 – $0.00) / $1.00
    3. = $1.00 / $1.00
    4. = 1
    5. = 100%
  2. Individualized Proportional Earnings Loss
    1. = (WPI / Earnings Loss) / 100
    2. = (WPI / 100% )/100
    3. = (WPI / 1) / 100
    4. = WPI / 100
    5. Thus, for any WPI less than 45 and a total loss of earnings, the Individualized Earnings Loss will always be less than 0.450 in Table A.
  3. DFEC Adjustment Factor
    1. = ([1.81/a] * .1) + 1
    2. = ( (1.81 * .1)/a) + 1
    3. = (.181/a) + 1
    4. = 1 + (.181/a)
  4. Ogilvie DFEC Adjusted Rating
    1. = WPI * DFEC Adjustment Factor
    2. = WPI * (1 + (.181/a) )
    3. = WPI * (1 + (.181 / Individualized Proportional Earnings Loss) )
    4. = WPI * (1 + (.181 / (WPI / 100) ) )
    5. = WPI * (1 + (.181 * 100 / WPI ) )
    6. = WPI * (1 + (18.1/ WPI ) )
    7. = WPI * ( (WPI/WPI) + (18.1/ WPI ) )
    8. = WPI * (WPI + 18.1/ WPI )
    9. = WPI * (WPI + 18.1/ WPI )
    10. = WPI + 18.1
  5. Conclusion
    1. If you have an Applicant with a 100% post injury earnings loss and a WPI of 44 or less, you should rebut the FEC and arrive at an adjusted WPI that is equal to the original WPI plus 18.1.

Therefore, I propose a new Ogilvie formula that will be easy for anyone to remember:

  • Step 1: If the injured worker has a 100% earnings loss and a WPI of 44 or less, add 18.1 to the WPI and round down.
  • Step 2: If the injured worker has less than 100% earnings loss or a WPI of 45 or higher, go to Step 3.
  • Step 3: For heaven’s sake, just make your life easier and use the calculators here at PDRater.com.

What do you think?  Leave a comment or drop me a line.

  1. Sorry Jeff, Mark, Mark, and Ray! [↩]
  2. Thank you “S”!  Unfortunately, he did not want to be named. [↩]
  3. Man, I *wish* I could take credit for this observation. [↩]
  4. Not multiplied by 18, but an addition of 18. [↩]
  5. PIESSE = Post Injury Earnings of Similarly Situated Employees [↩]
  6. PIEA = Post Injury Earnings of Applicant [↩]
Feb
17
2009
PDRater, Technobabble, Website Updates, Wordpress

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Refresh for updates
Refresh for updates

In no particular order:1

  • I often refer to myself as a Workers’ Compensation nerd.  The other day I realized that would be a GREAT website name!  Unfortunately, WCNerd.com is already taken by “white collar nerd.”  Bummer, no?  What a great e-mail address that would have been, too!
  • With well over a 100 posts and counting I thought it was time to include a “tag cloud.”  Its on the bottom of the right sidebar of this website.  Its basically a grouping of the common words I use to tag various posts.  The more common a word is the larger it appears.  The top contenders are pretty telling
  • To help with the website navigation and use of the “tag cloud” I’ve started being more liberal with how I tag my various posts.  Its actually kinda fun.
  • I’m  using a new e-mail contact form.  I was using “Contact Form 7,” which has a truly impressive feature list. While effective, I didn’t much care for this plugin because of its complexity.  What I really wanted was a quick and easy way for website visitors to send me e-mail.  Recently I found “Tiny Contact Form” by Tom Braider to be exactly what I needed.  It is small, simple to configure, and easy to include.  I’m actually using a modified version of the really fantastic “Tiny Contact Form” plugin.  I’m rather proud of my modification on this plugin and even sent Tom Braider my changes which he ended up incorporating into the next version!
  • Google recently swallowed up Feedburner.  I was using Feedburner to manage the RSS feeds for this website.  The only problem was that it was causing all kinds of problems.  My RSS reader wasn’t picking up the new posts from my own blog!  So, I scrapped the Feedburner management of my RSS feed and went back to the native WordPress support for RSS (which is pretty damn good).
  1. Photo courtesy of RandomChu [↩]
Feb
6
2009
1997 PDRS, 2005 PDRS, AMA Guides, Calculators, Free, Ogilvie, PDRater, Technobabble, Website Updates, Workers Compensation Resources

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Need help with a workers compensation calculator?
Need help with a workers' compensation calculator?

I put out the call for help testing my Ogilvie DFEC rebuttal calculator and got a bite! 1 I wrote it two days ago and refined it a little bit last night.2

If anyone else is interested in helping test this Ogilvie DFEC rebuttal calculator, please drop me a line and let me know.

The ideal tester is someone who:

  1. Has read Ogilvie and understands how to do the Ogilvie DFEC rebuttal calculations
  2. Is willing to use the Ogilvie DFEC rebuttal calculator this weekend
  3. Is willing to e-mail me with feedback this weekend so I can launch it on Monday to the public

If you’re not a registered user for this website, its free to sign up and free to use all the workers’ compensation calculators.

You heard me, free as in free.

  1. Photo courtesy of Joy of the Mundane. [↩]
  2. Because I’m a total workers’ compensation nerd. [↩]
Jan
7
2009
Business, Laptop, Technobabble

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New Laptop
New Laptop

Yesterday I discussed the basics of buying a new computer.  The most important first step is figuring out what you need and what you want out of a new computer.  There are three main types of portable computers available these days: netbooks, basic laptops, and high-end laptops.  Today is all about “netbooks.”1

(Scroll to the end to see my picks…)

Netbooks

A netbook is a very small laptop designed to extremely mobile and portable.  They are optimized for portability and wireless connectivity.

Netbooks typically have a display of 10″ or less. 2 They usually don’t have any CD or DVD drives. 3  They usually have very small solid state drives or mid-sized hard drives.  On the plus side, they usually have bluetooth, media card readers, and WiFi.  They’re typically between 2 to 3 pounds, depending upon brand and type of battery.  They’re also relatively cheap – between $350 to $500.

My requirements may differ from yours.  If I were to buy a netbook, I would want:

  • Minimum 2 USB ports, preferably 3
  • Minimum 100 GB hard drive
  • 1 GB RAM
  • Bluetooth
  • WiFi aka 802.11a/b/g, and preferably also 802.11n
  • Ethernet port
  • Modem port

Other things people might care about (but I don’t):

  • Webcam
  • Keyboard size
  • Monitor size

Keep in mind, I’ve never used any of these laptops – I’m just evaluating them based on their prices and my own opinions as to their respective brands and specs.  Although, I’m enough of a nerd that I put together a spreadsheet to compare those five netbooks as well as about another dozen or so models and submodels.  If anyone is interested in seeing the spreadsheet, mention it in the comments below or drop me a line.

Dell has a new netbook too, but it only has solid state drive options – which are too small to be of use to me. 4 However, I’m sure it would be perfect for some people.

My picks are, in rough order of preference:

If I were to buy a netbook today, I’d probably go for the Acer Aspire One.  It occupies a sweet spot in terms of price, is a decent brand, and has very comparable specs to the higher-end models.

Next, basic laptops!

  1. Photo courtesy of Ciccio Pizzettaro [↩]
  2. TV’s and monitors are always measured by the diagonal. [↩]
  3. This means they’re no good for watching DVD’s or playing CD’s. [↩]
  4. 8 GB of hard drive space is barely enough to run an operating system and a few programs these days… [↩]
Oct
8
2008
Not Workers Compensation

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Obama McCain Fight*
Obama McCain Fight

First, my advice for the candidates (you know, from my years of political experience):

  • Obama: Way way too many “uh’s”.  It makes you look unprepared.
  • McCain: Don’t wander around in the background.  At best it is disrespectful, at worst it makes you look befuddled and lost.

By any of the polling numbers, Obama went into last night’s debate so far ahead in the polls that the only way for McCain to really come back would be for Obama to commit some terrible blunder. 1 I imagine it would have taken something like this:

My impressions from the debate:

  • McCain said last night he wants to purchase all the bad loans in the United States and renegotiate them?  He’s suggesting resetting these loans to the present value of these homes.
    • First of all, where the hell was this guy before we spent $700,000,000,000.00???
    • Second, this sounds like a really tragically flawed idea.  If you buying loans high and then forgive hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, you’re basically giving hundreds of thousands of dollars per bad loans to those banks who had poor judgment in the first place.
    • Third, if you’re going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars per bad loan, why not just give them to the people who purchased the homes rather than the bank?
    • Fourth, if you’re going to buy the loans and then forgive a large chunk of them, why do you need to buy them?  Just tell the bank to adjust those loans.
  • Obama thinks the government invented computers so our defense department could communicate over long distances.  The defense project DARPA was invented that way, not computers.  I’m wondering if Obama lost the nerd vote there.
  • McCain wants to put medical records on the internet.  We can NOT put medical records online.
    • Government and business websites get hacked every day.  The last thing we need are our records posted on Craigslist.
    • As it stands, medical records enjoy a special protection in our system.  If that information is all online, it would be a simple task for our government to tap into that information.  This may sound paranoid until you recall that the NSA under the Bush administration has already done something far more invasive.
  • Tom Brokaw is a terrible, terrible moderator.  When someone is over their time, you cut them off.  Better yet, shut off their mike.  Don’t whine about it after they stop – that just invites apologies and “witty” comments.
  • McCain says he’ll double the tax exemption for each child.  Yay!  More babies!
  1. Photo courtesy of DaveHogg.  Photo editing, all me! [↩]
Oct
2
2008
Author, Free, Laptop, Not Workers Compensation, Technobabble

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Nerds
From Uncool Nerds...

Yeah, I said it. And, I don’t care that it sounds ridiculously self-serving. Frankly, I think iTunes, MySpace, and instant messaging are to blame. These three things, more than anything else, made computers cool.

You think mechanics and handymen were always considered cool manly-men?  No way.  First cars and home improvement had to be cool. THEN the guys who fix/maintain those things became cool.

There was a day when computers and the internet were only good for word processing and searching libraries.  When these things were not indispensable, there were no real uses for nerds.  You know, besides copying their homework.

I think the first time anyone ever thought I was cool for being a nerd was when I was in law school.  A fellow law student had a floppy disk (yeah, it was that long ago…) that stopped working.  The campus tech guys were unable to do anything about it.  I asked if I could take a look – and was able to recover the data.

To Cool Nerds
...To Cool Nerds

These days a nerd can save your iPod, iPhone, laptop, recover your lost passwords, convert your files, and set up your wireless network.  They keep your computers virus free, network humming along, and your e-mails arriving right on time.

Heck, sometimes they even build online web-based workers’ compensation calculators which crank out permanent disability ratings and let everyone use them for free.

So, why not hug a nerd today?

This Public Service Announcement has been brought to you by Huey Lewis and the News, because it really is “Hip To Be Square.”