December 2009
77 posts
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-11-29) →
The National (54)
The xx (52)
The Books (41)
Phoenix (25)
Johnny Cash (24)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
November 2009
58 posts
“If Ms. Totten and Mr. Hirshberg are correct, the potential for health care...”
– Health Care Savings May Start in Employee Diets - NYTimes.com (via evangotlib)
Saving healthcare will start with individuals taking responsibility for their own lives and improving their behavior.
“I have no desire to scale up or get bigger. My desire is to produce the best...”
– Joel Salatin, Polyface Farms Owner
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A clinic with two doors-- the future of healthcare... →
At the Lenox Hill clinic, on the insurance side, Helen waited 15 days to get an appointment. On the day of her mammogram, she stood in line at the reception desk in a crowded waiting room. An elderly patient wandered the reception area in her hospital gown, pleading for someone to help her. In the changing room, Helen’s gown was the usual thin seersucker. The technician was friendly and...
Aspen Design Summit Report: Mayo Clinic and Rural... →
For those of you interested in what our design team did in Aspen to create a program to improve rural healthcare delivery in Minnesota, check out the link.
I think its got a ton of potential and I’m looking forward to it. One of my contributions was quickly sketching out a potential website for this community platform. I do all of my storyboarding in Keynote. It’s more like...
Insurance Industry Antitrust Fight Headed To... →
There are laws that everyone must follow. And there are companies exempt from laws everyone else must follow.
And our “leaders” may mandate that we purchase insurance from an industry that picks and chooses which laws they want to follow by buying our elected leaders.
Harry Reid:
“Insurance companies have become so large they dominate entire regions of the country,” he...
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An insight from Oslo
If you want to understand the future, don’t pay attention to how technology is changing, pay attention to how childhood is changing.
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-11-22) →
Bear In Heaven (44)
The xx (36)
The Antlers (22)
Malcolm Middleton (15)
Bon Iver (14)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
I'm off to Oslo for the week.
I can’t wait.
Harry Reid's Health-Care Bill Attacks HSAs -... →
They’re trying to make true healthcare consumerism illegal. The insurance companies want control of every healthcare transaction in the country…even the little things that we all should be responsible for. They’re attacking low cost healthcare in exchange for mandated massive premiums. This is the insurance industry’s influence at the expense of hard working people.
...
Electronic Medical Records Don’t Save Money
hjluks:
“We analyzed whether more computerized hospitals had lower costs of care or administration, or better quality,” the authors wrote.
The results: “Hospitals on the ‘Most Wired’ list performed no better than others on quality, costs, or administrative costs.”
Himmelstein’s study is the second this week that disputes the benefits of EMR.
via healthleadersmedia.com
Does this surprise...
Watchrickwebb:
Makerbot2 on Vimeo (via Vimeo)
Who buys Makerbots?
“There’s just people who want to live in the future.”
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“Urban sprawl is not mindless at all. There is nothing inevitable about its...”
– John Thackara, from In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World
Epic fail = Epic win
Imagine how happy you must feel if you’re an insurance executive watching premiums rise for decades at three times the rate of everything else knowing that in less than a decade your product will only be affordable to the wealthy and, now, the government has mandated that all citizens purchase your product.
Epic win.
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Esquire - How Jay Parkinson Wants to Reform Health... →
As part of Esquire’s Annual Best and Brightest issue “Radicals and Rebels Who are Changing the World,” it’s finally online. Check it out.
Humbled.
Especially when considering the work of Eric Loewen, Clare Lockhart, David Iglesias, and the lovely Neri Oxman.
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-11-15) →
Bear In Heaven (39)
Deerhunter (28)
Fuck Buttons (25)
The Antlers (19)
Bon Iver (19)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
Worldometers - real time world statistics →
(via moritzstefaner)
Google's Flu Shot Finder →
Solving life’s problems one Google map at a time.
I’m getting my H1N1 vaccine this week. You should too.
Oh my God, you're FORCING me to buy insurance!
soupsoup:
This is my favorite cockamamie argument against universal insurance.
The same people who hate paying taxes have no problem paying for the uninsured, instead of forcing EVERYONE to buy insurance.
We don’t deny medical care to ANYONE in this country, regardless of insurance coverage.
Why not make sure EVERYONE is already covered so YOU don’t have to pay for someone else’s...
The Hipster Bank →
First we had the “Hipster Doctor,” Jay Parkinson’s Hello Health. Now we have the “Hipster Bank”, enter Perk Street Financial.
My neighbor, 3o3 Grand, is hosting The PerkStreet Lounge for the next week and a half -it’s open to the public, and offers FREE coffee & WiFi from 12PM-8PM, Thursdays-Sundays until Nov 22nd.
They are all hosting evening events, including this Friday’s PSFK Good...
ASPEN DESIGN SUMMIT 2009 →
I’m sitting in the Denver airport ready to catch a plane to Aspen for the Aspen Design Summit (a partnership between the AIGA, Winterhouse, and The Rockefeller Foundation). It’s not a conference. There are 70 really amazing thinkers (like Tim Brown, the CEO of IDEO and Robert Fabricant of Frog Design) split up to work on one of five projects to tackle rural poverty, rural healthcare,...
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“Failure does not bring with it a better chance for future success. It brings a...”
–
Ezra Klein
- Is a flawed health-care bill better than no bill at all?
“Let’s be honest. The goal isn’t to see whether I can pass this through the...”
– Rahm Emanuel on healthcare reform (via langer) (via soupsoup)
Rahm…is it possible to create a system that fosters innovation vs. putting an unsustainable industry on life support for a few more years until only the upper class can afford it? Or is fostering innovation too ideal? Also, is...
I would rather talk the truth than politicize the...
Why I Voted NO | Dennis Kucinich
Two of the most influential people in my professional life— Sidney Wolfe and Ralph Nader— are probably considered out of touch with reality. They speak the truth. They don’t compromise. They hold their ground because they have principles, even when those principles likely harm their cause. If they could only compromise, they could get things...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-11-8) →
Fuck Buttons (37)
The Antlers (32)
The xx (30)
Phoenix (25)
The National (19)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
“…the biggest federal subsidy for private insurance coverage is untouched by...”
– Ezra Klein (via azspot)
Exactly.
(via southpol)
(via newsweek)
Yes. This health reform charade is more about protecting the interests of the few under the guise of expanding coverage for all. Keep in mind, in 2016, the cost of providing insurance for each employee will average $28,500. This...
The social argument that we should all be insured
If health insurance companies are for-profit ventures protected from the Sherman Antitrust Act, can we truly make the argument that it is our social duty to use the young and the well to subsidize the cost of the sick and the old?
Do the good drivers subsidize the cost of the bad drivers? Yes, but are there arguments that it is our social duty as good drivers to subsidize the cost of the bad...
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Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living... →
smartercities:
earlyadaptor:
Owen, a staff writer for The New Yorker, makes a convincing case that Manhattan, Hong Kong and large, old European cities are inherently greener than less densely populated places because a higher percentage of their inhabitants walk, bike and use mass transit than drive; they share infrastructure and civic services more efficiently; they live in smaller spaces and...
Ultimate Satisfaction by Bear in Heaven
The...
Me and Guiliani Down by the Schoolyard (A true...
237 members of congress (44 percent) are... →
thedailywhat:
By comparison, only 1 percent of Americans are millionaires.
And the number of plutocrats could be higher still:
One caveat on those numbers: Federal financial disclosure laws don’t require members to list the value of their personal residences. That information could alter the net worth picture for many lawmakers.
iPhone App, Cry translator, knows why your baby is... →
Biloop have created an iPhone app which can tell why a baby is crying - after listening to it for just five seconds. You can just hold your phone near the baby and find out whether it is hungry, tired, bored, stressed or angry.
“Clinical studies have shown the Cry Translator can decipher the broad meaning of a baby’s cry with 96 percent accuracy.”
Looking for a Job? Health Care Is Still a Good Bet →
The health-care industry added an additional 29,000 jobs in October, nearly the same amount it grew in September. In total, since the start of the recession, the industry has added 597,000 jobs.
When everything else falls apart, healthcare keeps growing. We get paid for sickness. When the economy suffers, people get physically and mentally sicker. Therefore, healthcare gets busier and more...
Portion Size, Then Vs. Now →
Hey Blakely…”This is Why You’re Fat” not this (well, maybe “This is Why You’re Fat” has something to do with it.
The Power Of Less →
While Twitter has created practically an entire category out of the tiniest of business plans, think how many other industries could benefit from embracing the power of less. Health care is an industry crushed by the weight of its complexity, but even in that sector there are upstarts like Hello Health that are getting back to basics and providing more convenience, access and effectiveness by...
I love me some Obama, but this IS bad. I need to...
I had a conversation with a very smart guy at Foocamp about two months ago. He made a statement that I’m starting to almost 100% agree with…”If those who are currently making decisions will either be dead or retired in 10 years and won’t truly feel the effects of their decisions, they shouldn’t be allowed to make those decision.”
The internet is the greatest...
Do you fear when you fly? There's an app to help... →
Virgin rocks.
Virgin Atlantic has had an amazing 98% success rate in curing fear of flying though its Flying Without Fear classes. These are seminars held throughout the UK that provide flight knowledge through a Q&A session with Virgin Atlantic flight crews, followed by a psychology session to make attendees aware of what makes them afraid and provide techniques to combat the fear. At the...
“Mobile devices require software development teams to focus on only the most...”
– Why product designers should design the mobile app component first: Mobile First , from Functioning Form (via timoni) (via superamit)