The psychology of the fade out at the end of a song

A "fade out" in music is when when volume of the song decreases gradually until the listener hears nothing at all, and is a common way songs are ended. There's a lot of hate for the fade out, as many people think it's a lazy way to end the song. Critics will say "I guess they couldn't come up with a good ending so they just turned the volume down".

Perhaps in many cases it is the result of laziness but often times it works well to create a feeling that the song is continuing on forever. But why would gradually turning down the volume create a vibe that something is continuing on forever?

One thing I've noticed is that the songs seem to sound their best during the fade out. Technically it probably doesn't really sound any better at all, but it's the point where you're like "goddamn this song is awesome, I wish it would keep going and going, I don't want it to stop". It's the point where you really start to appreciate the song and realize how good the vibe is. You've already heard the chorus several times by now at this point, but you took it for granted. Now you're realizing that this isn't going to last forever, and you're trying to hold onto it for as long as you can and cherish the moment.

You've heard the phrase "You don't know what you've got until it's gone", which can apply to many things in life like relationships and your health. When you're in the moment you don't quite realize just how good you have it, it's not until it's over or gone that you really appreciate it. Well, the fade out gives us the unique opportunity to have each foot on a different side and see both perspectives at the same time. On the one hand we still hear the song and are still in the vibe, but the other side of us sees it slipping a way and is in the perception of the song being over. We're able to experience both being in the moment and seeing the moment lost at the same time - which enables us to appreciate the song in the way we appreciate things in life after they're gone - only this time we have the benefit of getting to do that while we're still in the moment, if only for a brief amount of time.

Healthcare Solution: Everyone Pays Cash

Everyone's always talking about the health care crisis, it's one of the biggest "hot button" issues these days. Some of us here at People Liking People have had major health issues and we know first hand how incompetent the health care system can be. Costs are skyrocketing and health problems are going undiagnosed for years. So when people start complaining about health care, we're the first to agree and say that some changes do need to be made. Unfortunately the solutions most people are proposing and putting into action are dead wrong and are the complete opposite of what needs to happen to improve health care. Everyone is demanding that the government do something about the crisis, and the government is more than happy to oblige because usually their solutions end up giving them more power.

The real solution is for everyone to pay out of pocket 100% for their health care. Now I know the thought of this scares a lot of people. The reason it's so scary is because health care costs are through the roof and most people can't afford health care at current rates, ourselves included (We're not rich here at People Liking People). However, you need to understand that the reason health care costs so much is because of the third party payment system.

The third party payment system effects many factors:

1) The health care provider's real customer is no longer you, it's whoever is actually footing the bill. Their real customers are the insurance companies and the government.

2) People stop paying attention to the real cost. Most people don't know how much their doctors actually charge for visits, they don't know how much a CT scan is, and they don't know much their medication really costs. All they know is that with their insurance card, they pay their $25 co-pay and they're on their way. Nobody prices around looking for the best deal on a health product or service. Our insurance card takes care of that and we don't need to think about it.

3) As a result of people not paying for their health services, people aren't really that demanding with the quality they receive. We are not as demanding as we should be with doctors. We put up with their in-and-out 5 minute visits and we put up with them not always being the most thorough. We don't really make a big deal about it though it didn't cost us that much, oh well it was just $25.

4) Whoever foots the bill has the control. We have to go through their approval process to see whether or not we can receive a certain procedure.

People Liking People's Golden Rule: The more someone else is paying for a product or service you're receiving, the less of a say so you have in it. Also - you cannot complain about something you are receiving for free. Wheres your bargaining power? You have none. You're a liability now.


Imagine if tomorrow someone flipped a switch and all the sudden there was no health insurance. No third party payment systems. All cash out of pocket for doctors visits and procedures. What do you think would happen?

The first thing that would happen is patients would be calling their doctors offices asking what they're charging for a visit. There would be a lot of "WTF? you gotta be kidding me!" moments. For the first time people would be finding out just how much health providers have been gouging us. There would also be a lot of "Uhmm that's the best price you do? I'll have to call you back let me check around". Within a week prices would be driven down significantly by the market. If the doctors kept prices at the same high levels, appointments per day would drastically go down. Doctors would be forced to lower their prices to get demand back to what it was. All of the sudden little by little it would turn into a real competitive market, with the patient calling the shots and having the bargaining power. Doctors would be competing with each other, trying to offer the best quality at the lowest cost, and hospitals would be doing the same with the cost for procedures and tests.

And now that everyone is paying with cash, you better believe people are going to be a lot more demanding with the quality they're receiving. That's money coming right out of their pocket, they're not going to leave that office until the problem is resolved. And doctors and hospitals will work extra hard to keep customer loyalty.

If you were to have a bad experience at a restaurant and you speak to the manager and threaten to take your business elsewhere, there's a good chance they will be very apologetic and maybe even give you a meal for free. Try threatening to take your business elsewhere in a doctors office and see how quickly you get laughed out of there. They do not try hard for our business, they do not care. You're not the one paying them. When you pay for what you receive, that gives you complete control and bargaining power. It gives us the right to be demanding and creates a competitive dynamic among providers. This is how you lower costs and increase quality. Having someone else pay for it puts us completely at the whim of the payer and provider.

Dr. Drew Pinsky: Why is he given a free pass?

It seems to be fairly common knowledge that most of the celebrity/publicity whore/radio/tv doctors you see and hear are for the most part just talking heads that make a living out of giving quick advice and talking about being a doctor more than actually being one. People have long shrugged off any chance of Dr. Laura being a legitimate source of health or psychiatric information, and everyone by now knows that Dr. Phil isn't a licensed psychologist. But very rarely do you ever hear criticism of the "all-knowing" Dr. Drew Pinsky.

We here at People Liking People used to listen to Dr. Drew along with Adam Carolla on LoveLine back in the 90s. We'd hear him covering topics ranging from puberty, drug use, relationship problems, sexual health, physical disorders, the effects of child abuse and just about everything in between that callers would ask about. It was hard to tell exactly where his expertise lie because he seemed to profess a thorough knowledge on just about everything. We did enjoy the show, which Adam Carolla made a lot more entertaining by his presence, but we started to wonder, just how qualified is this Dr. Drew to make all these quick judgments in just about every topic? Everyone has a specialty, I don't believe someone can have all the answers on every subject. So when someone appears to do just that, we tend to think they might be blowing a bit of smoke about how professional their advice is.

Dr. Drew has enjoyed a long and successful career with Loveline, being the go-to expert for talk shows, and now VH1's hit show "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew". It's this latest drug rehabilitation show that has begun to illustrate the limitations of the respected doctor. Earlier this month former bass player for Alice In Chains Mike Starr died of an overdose from a mix of methadone and anxiety meds. A year ago Mike Starr had appeared on Dr. Drew's Celebrity Rehab show and became one of the show's success stories. While we certainly can't blame Dr. Drew for Starr's death, it does make one question the effectiveness of Dr. Drew and his Pasadena Recovery Center where the show is filmed. Just how much of this is showbiz and how much is actual treatment, and actual medical advice? And that question should be applied to Dr. Drew's career as a whole, not just this latest stint. It could be that his actual expertise and treatment is subpar and has been all along, it's just now more noticeable because the stakes are much higher and someone semi-famous has died after his treatment.

We can't help but wonder why all other television/radio doctors are dismissed for what they are, yet Dr. Drew continues with barely any criticism. Will Mike's Starr's death finally wake people up to the fact that you simple can't treat someone fully during a week or 2 show? Or fix a psychiatric problem is a couple of minutes? Why are we treating all of these serious problems like a circus act? It may have been fun for a while but when people start dying it's time to rethink what we're doing.

Fake Insurance Company Gives Itself Agent of the Month Award

We continue our investigation into Wise Health Insurance (aka Stephen Austin Insurance), which appears to be an operation where they do mass spamming to lure unsuspecting victims to their site where they gather personal information.

They list 700 Lavaca Street Austin, Texas 78701 as their address, it's a business office with accountants and law firms. We've learned that the Texas Secretary of State has no records of any current or past entities with names similar to "Stephen Austin Insurance Company" or "Wise Health Insurance." They've also ran a scam offering a weight loss diet (Hypersonic Weight Loss) that turned out to be pretty shady.



We happened to be looking through the website for "Stephen Austin Insurance" and found that they have a "find an agent" page. Guess what "agent" they recommend? It's no other than Wise Health Insurance. Wise Health insurance is the same operation as Stephen Austin Insurance, so he's recommending himself. What's even more amusing is he gave himself the "Best Agent of The Month" Award. But it's for October 2010 and we're now into March 2011. Basically he's trying to legitimize Wise Health Insurance by referencing it favorably on another site that he owns. He apparently did this back in October and forgot to update it. We're wondering if that's really a picture of him or if it's a stock photo he found somewhere.

"Wise Health Insurance" Bullsh** Marketing

Have you heard of Wise Health Insurance? Me neither, until recently. I was reading an article on Yahoo News about how golfer Camilo Villegas was disqualified from the PGA golf tournament for moving debris out of the way while his ball was rolling back towards him. I was bored and combing through the comment section when I see this:

I was told by a friend that something called "Wise Health Insurance" is offering health insurance plans starting just $1 a day. That is some thing we all can agree.

Gee really? Well that's cool and all...but what does that have to do with Camilo Villegas being disqualified? Wait a minute here, is a health insurance company really paying someone to spam the comment section pretending to be some random dude that heard from a friend how great this insurance company is? I mean that can't be true, that's way too pathetic.

So I decided to do a google search on: I was told by a friend that "Wise Health Insurance"
and it turns out that yes this company really is that pathetic.


See the results for yourself. Page after page of bullshit fake word-of-mouth spamming by someone being paid by Wise Health Insurance. The next time someone tells you about a friend that got a deal from Wise Health Insurance, you tell them to shove it up their ass.


Update:

We have reason to believe that this may not just be your normal insurance company that just so happens to be a spammer. We're doing everything we can to investigate this so-called company that calls itself Wise Health Insurance. If you or anyone you know has ever dealt with this company or person who purports to be this company, please let us know about your experience. If you've been ripped off or knows someone who has, please let us know and also contact the authorities. When a company or person does everything they can to hide their true identity, that raises a red flag for us. And there's a difference between someone just selling some T-shirts and an insurance company. We don't need to know everything about the guy selling you a shirt on the corner. You give him $20, you get the shirt and you're on your way. With insurance we're talking about important financial and personal information that's being given out and trust is a much more important factor. So when you have someone asking for confidential information yet hides everything about themselves, that gives us great cause for concern.

Websites owned by this same guy that we know of:

wisehealthinsurance.com
stephenaustininsurance.com
HypersonicWeightLoss.com

Phone numbers used:

512-587-2229 we called, got a msg saying temporarily out of service (512 is Austin TX)
916-218-8317 we called, got a generic voicemail greeting (916 is Sacramento CA)
877-275-0526
877-769-3008

Based on other information, we believe this spammer/possible scammer is originally from the Sacramento area and recently moved to Austin, TX.

Address listed in their domain whois and other places:

700 Lavaca Street
Suite #1407
Austin, Texas 78701

(This is an office building with various businesses)

An internet detective over at dietchoices.com stumbled on this company when they had a weight loss diet scam to gather information on its victims. They found that "the Texas Secretary of State has no records of any current or past entities with names similar to "Stephen Austin Insurance Company" or "Wise Health Insurance." And then added that "the addresses listed are in the 15-story 700 Lavaca building, which mostly rents space to professionals like attorneys and accountants. It is owned by the city of Ausin, Texas, and we are contacting the building managers to try to figure out who is in Suites 1400 and 1407, the two suites listed in various sources for the company.)" We are still waiting work back to see if we can find anymore information about who is behind this all.

All 3 websites are currently down at this moment, which is a recent development. The Wise Health Insurance page and Stephen Austin Insurance site were still up not long ago and are still available to see on Google and Yahoo cache. Combined with their phone lines being down, this appears to be some sort of hit and run operation, where they scam as many people as they can, then take off without a trace. We're attempting to look into this as much as we can and post about it here so others can find it and hopefully be able to provide further information.


Update 2: The Insurance websites appear to be back up, but he's replaced the 512 # with another one: 877-769-3008 under the contact section.