Personalised Arts
The arts are a great tool to accentuate the look of a home or office and popularly opted for by many people from across the world. A stunning variety exists in the art world and one can choose from diverse forms like traditional, tribal, contemporary, modern and its myriad substyles. While all forms of art are equally beautiful, trends indicate that certain styles dominate in certain times. And in the current era, trends of personalised art rate high.What is Personalised Art?This kind of art encompasses work that is done keeping someone specifically in mind. A portrait of your children, a sculpture etched specifically with your facial features or a cartoon that resembles you are all elements of these arts. Collages relevant to you, your wedding, birthday or corporate gathering are also considered in this section. Also, pictures of you with your name or a message/dialogue can also come under this style. Group art of people you know in real life or a company logo artistically developed are all varieties of this style.Why are these arts popular?Personalised art is fast gaining in popularity. Not only is it extremely attractive, it is also relevant. So when you put up your picture at home, it makes much more sense than displaying just some random artwork. This form also helps to freeze-frame an important memory on a medium of your choice, be it canvas, poster, wood, slate, cloth or stone. Another reason for its growing popularity, is also its ease of availability. Techniques and technologies have now made it possible to order for art work using online tools from the comfort of your home.Are they expensive?Art is a versatile field and a huge market extends between free art (made possible by free sites/etools) and highly expensive art (select artists with global acclaim). Between these two extremes likes an extremely good market striking the right balance between quality and price. So, in a nutshell, this form of art is as expensive as you can afford.How to buy such art?If you are out shopping for your own art in this style, then first decide what you want. You can then check out various art providers and select something you like. The best way to shop for provides is going online. However you can also consult local players, artists or studios in your area. Compare the providers on basis of product quality, delivery, charges and print medium.It’s a wonderful creative world out there, made even more special with art. The options are unlimited and you can pick up sketches, pop art Warhol versions, Lichtenstein style comic arts, photo collages or even black and white portraits. You can also try new variations like propaganda art, Obama style art or patch arts. Moreover, you can print these on objects like watches, clocks, mugs, cushions, display puzzles and other home/office décor objects. Three dimensional sculptures or personalised artifacts may also look good. Whatever you pick up, ensure that you have researched well and compared the various providers before taking a final decision.
Health Insurance Facts – Including 2010 Health Care Reform
Health Insurance Facts and FiguresIt’s amazing to read about the fact companies pay their top CEOs millions of dollars per year but that more than 40 million Americans – and more than 8 million children – can’t afford health insurance and don’t get it through their small business employer.The Affordable Care Act passed in 2010 aims to change this. Some of the new changes include that EVERYONE must have health insurance by 2014 or face penalties from the IRS. Small businesses will also receive large tax breaks and government stipends to help get their employees insured.Here are some more interesting facts about health insurance:Health care costs typically covered by insurance include doctor visits, hospital visits, surgery, advanced procedures, tests, home care, routine and advanced treatments and other services. Typically, the people who qualify for Medicare are those who are 65 years or older, as well as younger people with disabilities and people with permanent kidney failure. Medicaid is for people who are receiving federal government aid. It typically covers hospitalization, doctor’s visits and other types of services. Prescription drugs, chronic illnesses, uninsured patients, and longer life expectancy are adding to the rising cost of health care. Supplemental insurance covers treatments and services that regular health insurance doesn’t.Worker’s compensation covers health care costs for illnesses and injuries that occurred because of a person’s employment.Types of Plans:-Fee-for-Service: Fee-for-service plans allow you to choose the hospital and doctor you want, but you have to pay a monthly premium fee.-Health Maintenance Organizations: HMOs are prepaid health plans that require you to pay a co-payment when you visit a doctor. The plans concentrate on preventative care to keep costs down (the costs involved in treating someone with advanced illnesses are much higher).-Health Savings Accounts: These savings accounts help pay down high deductibles. They often carry over from year to year.-Point of Service Plans: These plans allow you to see doctors who aren’t inside your plan.-Preferred Provider Organizations: Like HMOs, there is a small co-payment for visiting doctors inside your plan. Unlike HMOs, you can see doctors who are outside your plan, but you’ll have to pay more of the bill yourself.-Self-Directed Health Plans: This is a PPO plan combined with a quarterly allowance that you can use for preventative health care. Like a health savings account, the money rolls over to the next year if you don’t use it.Health insurance figures:Millions of Americans are uninsured or under insured because of the soaring costs of health care. The U.S. paid almost $2.5 trillion in health care costs in 2008, and the average health care cost per American is $7,400 per year. Uninsured patients who also don’t pay their medical bills are driving up the cost of health care. Hospitals cover approximately $30 billion every year in unpaid medical bills. There are more than 40 million Americans who live without health insurance every year, and more than 8 million of them are children. Employers pay a premium of about $12,500 per year for insurance for a family of four. Economists predict that health care costs will rise to more than $3 trillion per year during the next decade.People who wait to see a doctor even though they are ill or injured often end up facing higher medical bills. Preventable hospital visits can end up costing those people more than $3,000 on average.
Philosophy in a Nutshell – The Mind, the Body and Reality
An issue which is both highly personal and quite universal is the problem of the nature of man or the mind-body problem. Is man different from animals, plants and machines? Will robots or computers ever be identical to man? Those who hold the view that people are nothing but physical matter adhere to materialism. Those who argue that man has both a physical body and a mind which exists apart from the physical brain are proponents of the dualism theory. If man is not totally a physical being, then what happens to his mind (or soul) when the body dies? Controversial issues of spirituality and immortality are raised immediately with this line of thought.Assuming that man does possess both a body and a mind, how do the two relate to one another? Interactionism holds that both the mind and the body can causally affect each other. Epiphenomenalism, on the other hand, states that physical events can cause mental events, but occurrences in the mind are not able to cause physical events. A third theory is that only the mind exists and that the material world, including the body, are simply perceptions in the mind. This brings up a fundamental question: How do you know that there are any minds at all besides your own?A sixth major area of philosophical inquiry is knowledge and science. How do we know anything? A fundamental issue is whether knowledge can be derived from pure reason or whether knowledge must be based on sense experiences. Rationalism holds with the former. Empiricism holds with the latter. The empiricist further distinguishes two kinds of science. These are formal or conceptual sciences, like logic and mathematics, and objective sciences, like physics and psychology.An almost frightening result of such inquiries is the realization that in fact there may or may not be an external world at all. This type of skepticism leaves one stuck with nothing you can be sure of! Whether absolute certainty about anything can be obtained is an inevitable controversy which arises when one attempts to wrestle with this problem.