PDRater – Ogilvie ratings and PD calculators

Ye olde cell fone

Here’s some trivia for you.  I have the world’s crappiest cell phone.  I get a lot of flack for my cell phone.  It’s beat to hell, got a cracked screen, dented, scratched, and it’s ridiculously old.

How old?  Well, March 15 will be the six year anniversary of the FCC’s acceptance.  My cell carrier has been sending me ever more frantic flyers for the latest cell phones for about four years now.  It’s gotten pretty pathetic, really.

Unfortunately my trusty phone is now taking it’s last gasps and I need to find a replacement.  :(

Anyone want to kick the tires?

I’m working on a new calculator and I could use some beta testers. [1]

If you’re interested, leave a comment or send me an e-mail.

Thanks!

1. Photo courtesy of CaptPiper [↩]

Antivirus Pro 2010 SCAM

My father in law’s laptop is infected with a very nasty program called “Antivirus Pro 2010.”  It disables a bunch of core Windows functions, messes with other programs, shuts down the computer randomly, tells you the computer has a virus (which is technically true), and then offers to help you out for $40.00.  In reality, this program is itself malware/spyware etc.

The problem is that it really looks like its an official MicroSoft or Windows program! [1]

After several attempts and trying to use numerous different programs, I’ve been unsuccessful in deleting it.  It installs pieces of itself all over the computer – and if you don’t delete each piece it will install the entire thing all over again.  The various recommendations I’ve seen on the internet have been ineffectual.

If When I finally remove it, I’ll post the information here.

1. Photo courtesy of bleepingcomputer.com [↩]

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 following[2] :

1. Earnings Loss[3][4]
   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 [↩]

Easy-to-make iPhone

A company once told me someone had offered to build permanent disability calculators for their website in three months for $7,500.  One said six months and $20,000.  Recently, another suggested it would take them a year and $40,000.  My response is usually some variation on “You’ve got to take that deal.  You’re wasting your time talking to me.”

It’s no big secret that building a great product takes a lot of work.  The important thing to remember is that just because something is easy-to-use, that doesn’t mean its easy-to-make. [1]

Difficult-to-make iPhone

Let’s take the iPhone for example.  Everyone will concede its an easy phone to use.  However, it was released more than two years ago on 6/29/2007. [2]  In that time the other players – BlackBerry, LG, Nokia, and Palm have all been trying to catch up.  If this easy-to-use phone were easy-to-build everyone would have their own version.

Look, there’s no special magic to building a website like this.  Really, anyone can do it.  All you have to do is learn the calculations inside-and-out, deconstruct the math involved in the various calculations, learn some client and server side programming languages, learn a content management system, make it all work together, keep current on changes in the law, start all over again each time the law changes, and earn the respect of the workers’ compensation community.  Once done, you’ll have your very own workers’ compensation calculator website!

To return to the lesson of the iPhone, building a touch screen phone that can play music and surf the web is totally doable.  Doing it right is another matter entirely.

1. Visit the link for a PDF of a cut-and-fold iPhone.  Thanks Gizmodo! [↩]
2. Wikipedia link. [↩]