JH – Page 7 – User Is Content

Dance With Chance – Making Luck Work For You

In a nutshell, Dance with Chance is all about knowing what you can and cannot predict and, therefore, what you can and cannot control.

Think about it. Every day human beings make decisions. Some are important: should you invest your life savings in the stock market? Others are trivial: should you take an umbrella today? But in both these cases you have no control. The stock market will go up or down, it will rain or it won't"¦ and there's nothing you can do about it.

The problem comes when people seek to gain control by making predictions. By consulting an investment expert or a weather forecast, they think they can control the value of their investments or avoid getting wet.

But this is just an illusion. An illusion that psychologists call "˜the illusion of control'.

In many areas of life – the stock market and the weather are just two examples – accurate prediction just isn't possible. There is always uncertainty about the future in most areas of our lives. Throw in some emotions, such as greed, fear and hope, and human beings' predictions get even less accurate. So what are we to do?

Fortunately, Dance with Chance comes up with plenty of positive suggestions. Most importantly, it uncovers a "˜paradox of control' that's the antidote to the "˜illusion of control'. By knowing when to give up control, we can actually gain more control over many aspects of our lives than we had in the first place.

Dance with Chance: Making Luck Work for You

Healthcare X PRIZE Releases Initial Design Guidelines

Personally I'm a little skeptical about a Healthcare X Prize that is sponsored by Wellpoint, (does it not follow that a giant for-profit healthcare provider would primarily be motivated to discover ways to become more profitable?) but after watching the Peter Diamandis "Why design a Healthcare X PRIZE?" video I'm at least convinced that the experiment could provide some very valuable information.
The idea is to pick five teams that will compete in providing healthcare to test groups of 10,000 people each over a period of three years. The 'winner' will have garnered the best quality-of-life score from their group. Let's hope at least that there will be a Single-Payer team in the competition. Certainly the Healthcare X Prize provides an arena in which advocates of Single-Payer can show their stuff.

Single-Payer National Health Insurance

I've been through the death of two close relatives through the Canadian medical system. In both cases the illnesses were complicated. In both cases my relatives were treated expertly, without concern for expense–or profit– but with dignity and the loving care that befits all of us. All this talk currently about reforming the U.S. Health Care system, without Single-Payer Health Insurance even on the table?!! Could it be the 4 health care company lobbyists for each Congressperson in Washington? We need to get organized around this. A good place to start is Physicians For A National Health Plan.
I recommend listening to Ian Masters interview with PHNP's Dr. David Himmelstein–on President Obama's failure to include the proven success of the single-payer health care model among the possible solutions being considered for national heathcare reform. Dr. Himmelstein is co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, which advocates for a universal, single-payer national health program, and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. The author of numerous studies and books, he is recognized as a national leader in the movement for universal health care. Dr. Himmelstein's interview is second of three interviews on this episode of Background Briefing.

Get it?

Update 061609
From LA Times:

…The documents show, for instance, that one Blue Cross employee earned a perfect score of "5" for "exceptional performance" on an evaluation that noted the employee's role in dropping thousands of policyholders and avoiding nearly $10 million worth of medical care.

WellPoint's Blue Cross of California subsidiary and two other insurers saved more than $300 million in medical claims by canceling more than 20,000 sick policyholders over a five-year period, the House committee said.

Update 062709
From Rhonda Hackett of Castle Rock, a clinical psychologist. DenverPost.com, Debunking Canadian health care myths

Nassim Taleb on the Financial Crisis

From EconTalk.org (Includes full transcript).
Direct link to mp3 interview
Nassim Taleb talks about the financial crisis, how we misunderstand rare events, the fragility of the banking system, the moral hazard of government bailouts, the unprecedented nature of really, really bad events, the contribution of human psychology to misinterpreting probability and the dangers of hubris. The conversation closes with a discussion of religion and probability.

Keep tabs on what Nassim Taleb is up to over at BlackSwanReport.com

The Price of Right: How the Conservative Agenda Has Failed America (and Always Will)

Alicia Morgan is a musician friend with whom I've occasionally had the pleasure of working over the last decade or two. Her blog turned into a book, The Price of Right: How the Conservative Agenda Has Failed America (and Always Will). I've just read it and highly recommend it-that is-if you're in good health and not worried about getting riled up. I come away from it "mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more", and (after all the business-as-usual cabinet choices) Obama or no, there's just too much wrong with America to sit on the sidelines and wait for something to happen.

Alicia lays the groundwork with some psychology of types- Farmers vs. Hunters. From there we learn how Marketing Speak has become a major tool in the arsenal of the Conservative agenda. She goes on to trace the evolution of the wealthy, powerful and organized Conservative Right since Newt Gingrich. She documents the co-joining of the Conservative Right with the Christian Right. Following that she applies her insight to the issues of Iraq, the erosion of the Middle Class, Health Care, Worker's Rights, and Corporate Media. Alicia tells her story with names and dates and quotes-who said what when-then adds her perspective, which for me is so compelling. A few examples, first, of the evidence she's discovered.

Language: A Key Mechanism of Control
…"I wish I could speak like Newt."

That takes years of practice. But, we believe that you could have a significant impact on your campaign and the way you communicate if we help a little. that is why we have created this list of words and phrases…(From a pamphlet sent out by Newt Gingrich's politcal action committee to Republicans across the country.)

The "cruel and unusual punishment" clause of the 8th Amendment to the Constitution has been interpreted by the Supreme Court to require prisoners, as part of their humane treatment during detention, to be guaranteed the right to health care.

Currently prisoners are the only group who are specifically granted the right to health care. It is probable that the founders of our country, if they could have predicted the importance of health care, would have granted that the same standard of humane treatment be extended to every citizen. (Dr. Howard Haft, Executive VP and Chief Medical Officer at Conmed Healthcare Management, Inc., a provider of health care services for correctional institutions.)

In the 1980s, the Reagan administration, during its foaming frenzy of deregulation, raised the number of stations a company could own from seven to twelve. In 1983, most major media was controlled by fifty companies. It then went to twenty-six in 1987 to twenty-three in 1990, to ten in 1966, accelerated by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 signed by Bill Clinton. Today almost all of the major media outlets in the U.S. are owned by five corporations.

And here's an example of how Alicia turns these facts into hard-hitting truths.

It's important to realize that the corporate media is granted (for free!) leases for their slice of the broadcast spectrum. This amounts to a gift from us-the American taxpayer-of billions and billions of dollars. In other words, we are paying the big corporations to be lied to, manipulated, and stolen from.

Hey Alicia! The last few years I've been hiding under a political rock. Your heartfelt perspective on our current situation has rekindled my desire to get back into the fray. Thanks for a great book.

THC Cancer Cure?

Try it as a thought experiment.
What if an extract of Marijuana/Hemp DID cure cancer? Or some cancer. Or even 1% of skin cancers. Wouldn't you want to try it on yours? Especially if it did no harm? Especially if you'd exhausted whatever treatments your Doctor had advised?
Well, here's a little science:
Marijuana Cuts Lung Cancer Tumor Growth In Half, Study Shows
Here's a little history:
What is the history of medical marijuana and the US government?

And here's the story of how a retired engineer from Nova Scotia is helping friends and neighbors become cancer-free using THC extracted from Hemp:
RUN FROM THE CURE – The Rick Simpson Story (Part 1 of 7)
Rick's website: PheonixTears.ca

Related… I can recommend a couple of excellent podcasts. Especially the interviews with established and emerging psychedelic researchers. There seems to be a a lot of energy coming back into the psychedelic research area, most of it falling well below the radar. Podcasts are turning out to be an excellent way for me to build a knowledge base of alternative information. Search the iTunes store for whatever you're interested in. Undoubtedly some Podcasts will show up. Click the See All. Subscribe to a few or download an episode to see if they're what you're looking for.

The Entheogenic Evolution
iTunes http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=272825477
Web http://entheogenic.podomatic.com/

Gnostic Media
iTunes http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=294157083
Web http://gnosticmedia.podomatic.com/

[Update 012610 "The Marijuana Cancer Cure Cult" Lots of great cancer/Mj background and more
on Simpson.]

Saul Griffith, "Climate Change Recalculated"

According to Saul's calculations, in order to reach a goal of 450 ppm of atmospheric carbon dioxide in time to limit a global rise in temperature to 2 degrees C., we'll have to reduce the amount of burned fossil fuels to 3 terawatts (of power). That means we'll need to replace 11.5 terawatts with new clean sources.

From Stewart Brand's Long Now Blog:

That would mean the following. (Here I'm drawing on notes and extrapolations I've written up previously from discussion with Griffith):

"Two terawatts of photovoltaic would require installing 100 square meters of 15-percent-efficient solar cells every second, second after second, for the next 25 years. (That's about 1,200 square miles of solar cells a year, times 25 equals 30,000 square miles of photovoltaic cells.) Two terawatts of solar thermal? If it's 30 percent efficient all told, we'll need 50 square meters of highly reflective mirrors every second. (Some 600 square miles a year, times 25.) Half a terawatt of biofuels? Something like one Olympic swimming pools of genetically engineered algae, installed every second. (About 15,250 square miles a year, times 25.) Two terawatts of wind? That's a 300-foot-diameter wind turbine every 5 minutes. (Install 105,000 turbines a year in good wind locations, times 25.) Two terawatts of geothermal? Build 3 100-megawatt steam turbines every day-1,095 a year, times 25. Three terawatts of new nuclear? That's a 3-reactor, 3-gigawatt plant every week-52 a year, times 25."

All of it! Please listen to Saul's Long Now Lecture to hear how, despite the odds, he remains an optimist.

Calculate and compare your own power consumption at WattzOn.com.

Check out the very cool 100 mpg, charge-overnight-from-a-wall-socket, ready-for-the-carpool-lane, 3-wheeled (California only) Aptera.
(As mentioned in Saul's talk.)

Early Warning Systems – Larry Brilliant

A thread over at the neXtPrize blog got me thinking about Early Warning systems–how mobile technologies like SMS can allow Twitter-like real-time monitoring of data for the purpose of discovering emerging disasters. Pragzz pointed me to a couple of non-profs that are already supporting this. Ushahadi (Swahili for 'testimony') is an Open Source platform that anyone can use to set up and manage monitoring campaigns.

The core engine is built on the premise that gathering crisis information from the general public provides new insights into events happening in near real-time. It is being developed by a group of volunteer developers and designers, hailing primarily from Africa.

MobileActive.org is a community of people and organizations using mobile phones for social impact.

We are committed to increasing the effectiveness of NGOs around the world who recognize that the 3.5 billion mobile phones provide unprecedented opportunities for organizing, communications, and service and information delivery.

Their site also features a directory of NGOs who are using mobile phones to make a social impact.

Researching this reminded me of a Ted talk I'd heard by Larry Brilliant on the occasion of his winning a 2006 Ted Wish prize. Larry's wish was to build a better early warning system for monitoring the outbreak of dangerous disease. Larry knows of what he speaks- he led the WHO team that eradicated Smallpox. He also was a founding member of the Seva Foundation which has restored sight to hundreds of thousands. Based on the work previously done by GPHIN Larry launched InSTEDD which plans to amplify the data collection and monitoring capabilities of GPHIN a hundredfold. You can watch Larry's amazing Ted Talk and read a short history of the INSTEDD project here. Larry launched InSTEDD with the $100,000 Ted prize. It will be interesting to see what he can do with $1 billion as head of Google.org. Go Larry!

See Also: HealthMap.org
Update 022309: Larry departs Google.org to become "Google's Chief Philanthropy Evangelist".

E. Howard Hunt names the men who killed Kennedy

On November 23, 1963 I was a grade two student. I sat in the desk in the front row next to my friend Bruce. I remember that it was very unusual that the Sister who taught us rolled a television set into the classroom. She seemed to be very upset. There was the sense of something being very wrong. She turned on the black and white television and explained to us that the President had been killed. Today is the 45th anniversary (do you call it an anniversary if it was a tragedy?) of the murder of JFK
The following is a re-post of an article from May of 2007.
——–

I'm not familiar with prisonplanet.com, but they tell the story of a recording E. Howard Hunt made on his deathbed. The tape was recently made public by Howard Hunt's son, Saint John Hunt. On the tape Howard Hunt describes a bitter LBJ and his involvement with the murder of JFK. Hunt names others who were involved in the conspiracy. Five minutes of the tape were aired recently on CoastToCoastAM.com
There is a direct link to the mp3 file here.

What's been bugging me about it is, what if it's true? I mean – just for a minute – inhabit a world where the Kennedy assassination has been solved- We know who did it, who helped who and why.
Now what?
How is justice served over 40 years later? Who's going to pay?
What does it mean? What would change?
How do I heal, or why, or who cares?
Is it just miscellaneous information?

Dean Kamen's Electric/Stirling Hybrid

Dean Kamen, inventor and entrepreneur, has pieced together a hybrid that uses electric battery power for the drive train, and a Stirling engine for heat and defogging. In a pinch, the Stirling engine can also be used to recharge the battery. Read the whole story at UnionLeader.com (See Also: Dean Kamen's Deka Revolt Electric Car Runs on Any Fuel.

And check out this TedTalk from 2002. Kamen discusses the Stirling engine and it's applications for water purifying and power production in poverty zones.
Dean Kamen: Rolling along, helping students and the third world.mp3

And here's a Kamen TedTalk video where he discusses development of a prosthetic arm/hand that can pick up a raisin.

See Also: Esquire's How Dean Kamen's Magical Water Machine Could Save the World.
See Also: Telegraph's Dean Kamen: part man, part machine.

Farrakhan On "A Black President"

In 1999 I compiled a 'best of' collection of mostly political audio clips from my KPFK collection. I was reminded of this one from Louis Farrakhan when Obama won the Presidency last night.

louis-farrakhan-black-president.mp3

DifficultDebate.com

It's great to see people taking the issues and statements the candidates have made seriously. Andrew Allemann of DomainNameWire.com took the time to track down the Obama and McCain policy statements and put together some hard questions for each of them.

From DifficultDebate.com

The 2008 election for President of the United States has nothing to do with who's wearing a flagpin and lipstick on a pig, but that's what the media is focusing on. Sadly, that's what the campaigns seem to focus on too.

This web site is dedicated to asking the difficult questions of our candidates. They're specific. They can't be dodged. And they aren't based on heresay.

The basis for these questions are the candidates' own plans. Not rumors. I read through the plans on each site and had questions about many of the candidates' stances and how they specifically plan to accomplish them.

Some of these may be easy to answer, but they certainly aren't explained well on the candidates' web sites.

I'm an independent and undecided voter who likes some of what each candidate has to say. But I'm not getting the answers I need from the mainstream press.

> See Difficult Questions for Barack Obama

> See Difficult Questions for John McCain

Google Mapping Public Transit (And Giving Directions!)

From WorldChanging.com

this article was written by Jeremy Faludi in June 2007. We're republishing it here as part of our month-long editorial retrospective.

Google Transit was already the best thing that ever happened to online public transit trip planning, and now it's grown to a whole new level. Even better, it's starting to be incorporated into the default Google Maps and Google Earth. The new features and the integration into normal map queries will make public transit more accessible and easier for everyone to understand; and in doing so, it will certainly increase transit ridership and reduce driving.

One of the big barriers to public transit use is the knowledge required to use the system: where to wait, when to wait, where to transfer, how much to pay, etc. Some readers may remember that two years ago we helped cause Google Transit to happen, but it's taken off far beyond what we had suggested, and they keep getting better. What's more, they're doing it at no charge to the transit agencies (a perpetually under-funded sector of local governments). More cities are coming on board, as well; if you live in one of the eleven cities now participating, enjoy! If you live elsewhere, consider writing to your local transit agency and telling them to join the 21st century. (ahem… San Francisco, right in Google's back yard, no excuse… ahem.)

What are these tools? In addition to being able to type in your route and get comprehensive directions (including walking to stations, showing the bus or train route, walking directions between stations, how much it costs, etc.), you can plan trips by departure or arrival time and see when the next couple buses come if you miss the one you're aiming for. Now, if you zoom in enough on any Google map in the right city, all the transit stops appear, with different icons for bus, light rail, etc.; click on a bus stop and up pops a list of the buses or trains that stop there; click on the bus number, and up pops the timetable for the next several buses stopping there.

Here's a summary of the new features, with screenshots, right from the horse's mouth–Thomas Sly, a business development manager on the project. (Note the screenshots are small for bandwidth reasons; for real-size ones, give it a spin yourself on the real site.)

Read the rest of the article.

MAPLight.org $$$>Legislators>How They Voted

From WorldChanging.com

This article was written by Micki Krimmel in June 2007. We're republishing it here as part of our month-long editorial retrospective.

I first learned about MAPLight.org at the recent NetSquared Conference. As I wrote last week, the conference attendees chose MAPLight as the winner of the first prize NetSquared Innovation Award. In a crowd of extremely well-deserving projects, MAPLight stood out as an organization applying the best of Web 2.0 technology and standards to create a vital tool for transparency in democracy.

MAPLight.org brings together campaign contributions and how legislators vote, providing an unprecedented window into the connections between money and politics. We currently cover the California Legislature and U.S. Congress.

Maplight has been receiving a fair amount of attention lately and the $25k prize will help them take their project to the next level, providing the funds for them to create customized widgets for bloggers and nonprofit organizations to share up to date information on their websites automatically. MAPLight is also working to expand their service to other states, with New York next on the list.

I chatted with Sean Tanner, Maplight's Research Manager via email to get a little more insight into Maplight's mission and future particularly as America turns its attention to the next Presidential election. As Research Manager, Sean coordinates the MAPLight.org database and research internship program. He is also the chair of the Young Advocates, a group of young professionals who support the work of Human Rights Watch.

Micki Krimmel: Can you tell me a little bit about the mission of MAPLight and its origins?
Read the rest of the article.