Health
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Fire seasonings
I’m on the East Coast for the rest of the current fire season in California. Which is cool, literally. I miss Santa Barbara, but not the fear of destruction (which I generally don’t have there, but I need my rationalizations). Speaking of which, here’s The Mania of Owning Things, my EOF column for August 2009… Continue reading
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Ya gotta be born sometime
Seems I share a birthday with Benito Mussolini, Dag Hamarskjöld, Elizabeth Dole, Peter Jennings, Ken Burns, Wil Wheaton and about 1/365th of the world’s population. I also see here that ENIAC, “the first general-purpose electronic computer“, and I were fired up the very same day in 1947 — ENIAC at Aberdeen Proving Grounds and I… Continue reading
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Getting real about fixing health care
I’m listening right now to On Point*, where the topic is Pushing E-Health Records. The only case against electronic health records (EHR, aka electronic medical recordsk, or EMR) is risk of compromised privacy. Exposure goes up. The friction involved in grabbing electronic medical records is lower than that involved in grabbing paper ones, especially with… Continue reading
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Blogging .101
Hanging in The Cities on (what wants to be) a Spring Day (a little snow still on the ground), talking deep blogging trash with Sharon Franquemont and Mary Jo Kreitzer. They’re both new to the practice (which isn’t quite a discipline, at least in my case). So bear with me as I show off some… Continue reading
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This girl needs a kidney
From Chris Brogan via JP, a call to re-tweet: Sew hoping for a miracle. Here is an earlier picture (and post about) Marielle, by her mom, the blogger Sue (aka Sew), of The Domestic Diva. Marielle is dying, literally, for a kidney match. Pass the word along. Somebody somewhere should be able to help. Continue reading
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Whetlands
These are a few among the many salt ponds that ring the south end of San Francisco Bay. Once considered and agricultural innovation and an economic boom, the practice of “reclaiming” wild wetlands for industrial purposes is now considered ecologically awful by environmentalists, especially here on the West Coast of the U.S., which has precious… Continue reading
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The madness of man
(This post began as a response to this comment by Julian Bond, in response to this post about Mad Men. When it got too long I decided to move it here.) Smoking and drinking were standard back then. “Widespread” doesn’t cover it. They were nearly universal. It’s easy to forget that Industry won WWII, and… Continue reading
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Obama’s temperament and Roedjak
Steve Lewis writes, Obama’s “Homeostasis”: It must be the Roedjak! — a deep and wonderful detour from the usual punditry about a candidate’s temperament, informed by Steve’s years working in Indonesia, as well as his exposure to many countries and cultures unfamiliar to most Americans. I hope Steve doesn’t mind my lifting most of his… Continue reading
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Falling around
Fall in New England is a visual cliché of the first order, and exactly as advertised. Only better this weekend, because it’s been unseasonably warm, as well as clear and perfectly gorgeous, complete with full moons each night. We’ve been out at a church retreat at Otter Lake, New Hampshire. And it’s been a healthy… Continue reading
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Dancing on fire
It’s hard to feel shitty when the Steve Miller Band is playing Jet Airliner in the middle of your head. Or smart, either — at least in my case. Jeebus, all these decades I’ve been thinking the chorus was Big old jet had a light onDon’t carry me too far awayOh oh oh big… Continue reading
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Minding the Gap Fire
Since I lack a car here, I haven’t gotten out much, and not at all to any place that gave me a vantage on the fire. Until today, that is, when we went to Goleta and I had a chance to pause on Hollister Street by the airport where the Forest Service runs P3 Orion… Continue reading
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Gap Fire 5 July 8:15am
First, kudos again to Edhat‘s news list for not only gathering info from many sources, but for giving equal weight to both professional and amateur sources — and for hosting a great many comments on some of the postings. As an interactive local news service, “Ed” does a fine job. When surfing for the latest… Continue reading
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Gap Fire progress shots
I’ve loaded too many pictures onto this blog, so for this round I’m going to just point to shots elsewhere: in this case to a photo set of maps built with .kml files from the MODIS Active Fire Program and Google Earth. The latest one, from about 6pm this evening, has fewer active hot spots… Continue reading
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Making real health care happen
So now it’s time to put lessons to work. The Patient as the Platform is my latest post over at Linux Journal, and it proposes something that goes beyond merely giving patients control of their health care records. (As do, say, Google Health and HealthVault.) Specifically, I believe that having a data store for health… Continue reading
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Out but not yet about
In the hospital I had neither the means nor the energy to get pictures from my little Canon point & shoot to the blog. But I’m home now, so I just put up a small set of shots I took there over the last week. The ones with my face show a happier guy than… Continue reading
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Bulletin from the future
I’m almost old. Sixty-one next month. But old enough for the wear to do more than show. It’s performing now. The trick to longevity at this point is to dodge the complete failure of any one of many systems that are all wearing down. Aging is fatal, and the number of single points of failure… Continue reading
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Lasting
I still have three of these, my MRI says. So, for the first time, I’m watching The Last Lecture, with absolute intentions not to give my own Last Anything for another few decades. Highly recommended, by the way. Continue reading
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Day 7 report
People have been asking, so here’s the update. I’m due to start “clear liquids” in the morning. I was allowed to start tonight, but decided against it because if something goes wrong I’m not sure the slim night crew can handle it. (Not a knock on this hospital, just the Way Things Are in the… Continue reading
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What she said
Francine Hardaway: But I, as the widow of a physician, a mother, and an unlicensed practitioner of American healthcare system mechanics, want to use this moment not only to wish Doc the best, but to draw a lesson: NEVER GO TO THE HOSPITAL ALONE. Take an advocate with you, and try to make sure that… Continue reading
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From hunger
A sure sign I’m getting better: craving food. My wife mentioned taquitos a few minutes ago and my mouth watered immediately. I wanted to walk over to Jose’s right then, barefoot in my hospital gown. We won’t start until tomorrow, my GI doctor told me yesterday, no matter how good I felt. That’s cool. What’s… Continue reading