The Hacker gets a $33,000.00 fine and the employee who opened an attachment from a yahoo account on her perdiatric cardiac surgery department’s computer gets what? And seriously, pesonal medical data is worth what nowadays?
Pretty much every detail of this story shocks me.
Depeche Mode’s latest album Sounds of the Universe has me in its grips. I haven’t been overly fond of many of their albums since Violator (like many of their fans I suspect) but I liked Dave Gahan’s solo album Paper Monster and some of their stuff. So I gave this album a try, ignoring the tepid reviews.
Man is it a return to form! Love the vocal performances, love the retro sounds, love the lyrics (for the most part). In many ways this surpasses Violator (you can’t beat an album a gloomy high school student loved as he was coming of age, so I just don’t try anymore).
The first 4 tracks are powerful, tight, and totally enjoyable. If you liked Violator you should listen to this album – it is fabulous.
Lead single is “Wrong” – listen to Gahan getting behind the lyrics. The video is disturbing on its own, but DM has always been an interesting band to watch videos from. If you want to listen but don’t like that video, here’s the song set to some in-studio footage.
Second favorite song is “Fragile Tension”, you can see Dave singing a bit of it in this web clip. It totally harkens back to earlier DM, and combines a spine-tingling Gahan voice harmony with rising sequencers. Just awesome on headphones.
Only 1 dud in the bunch, but then I’ve never been a huge fan of the sappy side of DM. Second to last song goes too far down Gore’s path of troubadour style and I’m not lovin’ in yet. I might be alone in that though.
Anyhow, it’s my current obsession. I’ve owned it for weeks now and it is all I’m playing – I haven’t been this engrossed in an album for a long, long time.
Canadians have until Sept 13 to voice their opinion on Copyright Reform. If you’re not sure what to say, check out this wizard that provides a form letter – simply put your info down and they handle the emails and letters for you. You can even edit the form letter – a personal touch always warms the cockles of those politicians, right?
The issues at stake are quite important – a vital part of the Canadian legislation is being revamped to ressemble the US’s take on copyright. You know, the one that actually changed it laws so Disney’s material wouldn’t become public domain (and thus free for anyone to use). The one where it is illegal to circumvent any technoligical barrier in a product? You know those DVDs that just never seem to play – you can peer suspiciously at its “technological barrier” if you want, feel free.
The US’s state of copyright is a mess – let’s just do something different, shall we? Let’s ask why we have copyrights and then make the laws work towards those goals, rather than the goals of the mega corporations with the deep pockets (admittedly less deep now that digital music/movie sales are becoming mainstream).
I’m very wary of technology in Marley’s toys – I think there is plenty of time for learning how to use technology. Later. First come some basic person-type things like self-esteem, social interaction, and compassion. Anyhow who argues that kids today need technology to stay with the curve aren’t grasping that kids adopt technology much faster than their parents did when learning it. I am certain marley’s going to be able to text faster than I can type at some point in the future, but why rush there? Patience, as always, is the right way to go.
Here’s an article discussing the issue. Technology companies are marketing to 3 year olds (or more accurately their weak-willed paranoid parents) – the cigarette companies paved the way and pointed out that brand loyalty starts early. Why would Leap Frog be any different than Marlboro, for example? They’re not sleeping on those mounds of money because they feel good about your child’s exposure to electronic and articfial intelligence. There’s big money in toddlers today, don’t kid yourself (pun intended).
I’m proud to say that I am a co-founder and current chairperson of the Medical Imaging Group’s Environmental Council. Proud because my actions are having a positive influence on McKesson at large. I’m part of a change within McKesson that I wanted to see. Apparently GreenBiz.com wanted to know more.
“You must be the change you want to see in the world” – Mahatma Gandhi
A pro-marriage article. Rare, oft-derided, entirely accurate.
Just had an idea, and sent a quick email inquiry to Health Canada to see if someone else is already doing it.
In Canada all processed foods must by law have a nutrition label on it detailing specifics about the food inside the package. It’s very helpful for anyone counting calories or trying to maintain healthy eating habits. it’s quite shocking what these labels reveal sometimes. For example I’ve been enjoying a “Natural Trail Mix” from Costco recently – no sugar added, no salt, yogurt chips for sweetness. it looked quite healthy. Then I saw the calorie count in a serving, and the serving size. This product looks quite similar – looks quite healthy right? Then you see the nutrition label.
120 calories per ounce? PER OUNCE? Wow! Not a healthy snack after all. My trail mix was similar and I’ve since stopped using it for a snack and have reserved it for trails, where I need a light food that provides a lot of calories.
But I digress.
I sent the email below to Health Canada because I see a real opportunity here. I’m not sure the opportunity is for the Government of Canada, nor is it necessarily for the food manufacturers (though I think someone smarter than I could figure out how to market this idea successfully). At the very least I see an opportunity for someone – an entrepreneur who wants to somehow entrepren (??? see, I don’t know what to do with this idea).
Subject: Electronic communication of nutrition label information
I was wondering if there are any initiatives underway to provide a standard means of electronically communicating the nutrition information for foods. There are a large number of web sites that help people track their nutrition information, and in order to do so there is usually the need to manually copy into the website the info from the label.
This seems to be an opportunity to me, as I know that some computer somewhere has already collected that food’s info – why do I have to input it again? Why do thousands of people have to input it manually?
I’d love to see a service provided by food manufacturers where their website not only provides the info to web browsers, but also provides an electronic interface for software. This interface could answer queries from software or other websites to retrieve the nutrition information automatically, meaning we people don’t need to manually enter the data anymore.
We have the standard info and label (thanks very much). The next step seems to me to be sharing that info across the Internet. That’s the whole point of electronic communication – efficient sharing of data.
Are you aware of any such initiatives?
I think something similar exists for communicating recipes in software (Meal-Master is a standard format I think?).
Just for the sake of being thorough, I sent a copy and inquiry to my Member of Parliament too, to see if he feels there’s something here that Health Canada can get behind to help Canadian consumers navigate the nutrition information online.
Arstechnica, a favorite site of mine, links to a recent publication that looks at the history behind the mercury/vaccine/autism so-called war. The Ars article also provides a few insights of its own.
I’ve written before about my take on the fear people have about vaccines causing autism. I’ve also written about how we must be savvy media consumers, particularly when the media content pertains to our health. It seems I need to eat some crow, as my original post shows I fell into the trap that many people did – Wakefield’s work was not initially related to mercury concerns in vaccines, and hence autism.
So today I’m just re-iterating my belief that vaccines are still a good idea for our children. The PLoS Biology article is a nice summary of how things went wrong, and hopefully we can begin to dispel myths and get back to scientific facts. it’s hard when our emotions and, more importantly, our children’s safety are involved. But we owe it to ourselves, our children, and our community to get the facts before making decisions that affect us all.
The recent H1N1 scare should certainly make parent’s ears perk up when combined with statements such as
Last year in Minnesota, five children contracted Hib, the most common cause of meningitis in young children before the vaccine was developed in 1993. Three of the children, including a 7-month-old who died, hadn’t received Hib vaccines because their parents either refused or delayed vaccination.
Preventable death and disease. The H1N1 lesson should be that we are succeptible to disease, and that we should prepare ourselves and our community as much as possible ahead of time. Vaccines help us do that.
A few interesting TED talks:
Calling someone a father seems to have a very different meaning or tone than when calling them a Dad. Perhaps this has been obvious to everyone else, but recently I’m really seeing a difference. Maybe it is the recent Wendy’s ad where the baby’s first words to its mom are “Mama burger for $1.50” or something like that, to which the Mom says “You’ve been spending too much time with your Father.”
Calling someone a Father seems to include a negative connotation that calling them a Dad doesn’t seem to have.
I’d like to rename Father’s Day to Dad’s Day going forward at Goggs Avenue. Make it so.