Consider some of the things that have bound our nation together:

Universal postal service at a flat rate, whether you live in Santa Monica or Sitka, Alaska. Interstate highways, built with taxpayer funds and free of tolls. Regulated phone and electric service, with lifeline rates for the economically disadvantaged.

These were all based on a social contract honoring the notion that essential infrastructure should be available to all — indeed, that those normally left by the side of the economic road might be most in need.

But you can kiss that notion goodbye, because today’s model of building public infrastructure is to let private companies do it.

Americans are becoming more dependent on privately operated toll roads to get where we’re going, and on private delivery services like FedEx and UPS to carry our parcels. But the greatest shift has occurred in the sector that is most crucial in the information age: communications and data networks.

That brings us to Google — as happens sooner or later with any discussion touching on digital technology. The Mountain View, Calif., behemoth has branched into the Internet service business by introducing a fiber-optic data network for homeowners in Kansas City, Mo., and its neighboring namesake in Kansas.

The service, which is expected to be fully functional by the end of this year, is upending the traditional business and regulatory model for phone, video and data communications. But Google managed to exempt itself from the regulations that typically force cable companies to wire all neighborhoods, rich, poor and in between, for the Internet. The result threatens to leave underprivileged neighborhoods in the digital dust.

Ceding such a crucial service to a private company with minimal regulation is something that happened with virtually no public discussion about its implications for society. […]

It was obvious from the start that the removal of regulatory obstacles would count heavily in the race. The victors promised sedulous cooperation, including a team to provide “on-the-spot” exceptions where rules and regulations threatened delays. The two Kansas Cities even bowed to the demand they “obtain Google’s approval for all public statements” about the project.

Notably, they didn’t insist that Google guarantee service to their most disadvantaged communities. The reason is obvious: They didn’t have any real choice about the terms; it was fiber on Google’s terms, or no fiber at all.

This is a generation of kids that grew up with data science around them — Netflix telling them what movies they should watch, Amazon telling them what books they should read — so this is an academic interest with real-world applications,’ said Chris Wiggins, a professor of applied mathematics at Columbia who is involved in its new Institute for Data Sciences and Engineering. ‘And,’ he added, ‘they know it will make them employable.’

History of Electronic Health Records

cranquis:

numberneededtotreat:

YouTube | The History of EHRs

Excellent, short description of one reason why electronic medical records are terrible—the original development has not been driven by creating a clinical tool for doctors, but more of an administrative tool for others in healthcare (i.e.—administrators and payers)

Agree, agree, agree. My particular thoughts on this video:

  1. “Meaningful Use” — HAHAHA! What a waste of time. Do you know that my EHR now REQUIRES me to enter a blood pressure on any patient AS YOUNG AS 2 YEARS OLD before I can actually “see” the patient? Even though no study shows that measuring BP in all kids under 12 provides any useful data to improve their health? “But it’s required, for meaningful use” whine the EHR people. FACE-SLAPS ALL AROUND.
  2. Yay Epocrates!
  3. Have you ever tried to read an old visit note in an EHR? Think about how much scrolling and scrolling and scrolling you did before you finally found the one tiny sentence or phrase which actually gave you any clinically-useful information. The rest of that crap? Coding and Billing fluff.
  4. @ 2:05, I love the woman who is just standing there staring at the white board in the background. That would be me if I was ever trapped in one of these types of meetings. Maybe doodling a tiny Cranquis curb-stomping a tiny laptop, Office Space style.
  5. Dr. Dombrowski’s idea of “getting all the governmental agencies… on the same page” about EHR is nice and all — but unless doctors/nurses/PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY SEE PATIENTS are in charge of those much-needed revisions, things will never ever improve with EHR.

Awesome video, awesome commentary from Cranquis

User Experience is critical, so is Alignment of interests. Doesn’t seem to be much of either going on right now

“You’ve probably never heard of them…”

Hipsters of Westeros…

Kickstarter vs The US Government

warrenellis:

A facilitator for commerce moved more money around than a national arts grant system.  SHOCK HORROR.  In other news the sky is blue and water is fucking wet.  

templesmith:

adapia:

This is why I’ve been working with more and more creators and entrepreneurs on crowdfunding campaigns and why, after I gave big co’s a chance to get onboard a fantastic “Camilla” project and they all got shy about it, we’ll be hitting Kickstarter with something REALLY SPECIAL. 

The “d” in d’Errico stands for D-I-Y. You know it! 

 

fastcodesign:

Infographic: Kickstarter Dominates Indie Innovation

Like YouTube, Facebook, or blogging platforms, it’s almost hard to believe there was an Internet without Kickstarter, which may be the greatest testament to its success. In 2009, the site generated about $23 million for its projects—an impressive figure by all accounts—but in 2012, Kickstarter pulled in roughly 10 times that, leapfrogging the grant budget of the National Endowment for the Arts. You can find all those facts and many more in this masterful infographic created for Fast Company by Catalogtree:

See the full story and infographic here. 

And check out Fast Company’s feature story on Kickstarter here.

Kickstarter isn’t endless videos of cute kittens that suck up your time when you should be working… That’s for sure. I don’t think KS is going to not be “cool” for a very long time. Now if only creatives use it & other crowdfunding to fully change the rules of the game instead of propping up the old & tired existing gate keepers to various industries. We have the power now. The *consumer* has the power now.

If these movies were made back in the day…

wilwheaton:

rurone:

Yessss

I have no words to express how much I love these.

The greatest things I have seen in such a long time…

Joi Ito’s Principles:

brucesterling:

Joi Ito of MIT Media Lab:

Ito: There are nine or so principles to work in a world like this:

1. Resilience instead of strength, which means you want to yield and allow failure and you bounce back instead of trying to resist failure.

2. You pull instead of push. That means you pull the resources from the network as you need them, as opposed to centrally stocking them and controlling them.

3. You want to take risk instead of focusing on safety.

4. You want to focus on the system instead of objects.

5. You want to have good compasses not maps.

6. You want to work on practice instead of theory. Because sometimes you don’t why it works, but what is important is that it is working, not that you have some theory around it.

7. It disobedience instead of compliance. You don’t get a Nobel Prize for doing what you are told. Too much of school is about obedience, we should really be celebrating disobedience.

8. It’s the crowd instead of experts.

9. It’s a focus on learning instead of education.

We’re still working on it, but that is where our thinking is headed.

Some of my favorite authors include…

dangerousdays:

Personal favorite authors: William Gibson – Cory Doctorow – Bruce Sterling – Samuel R. Delany – Neal Stephenson

Seriously half of my book collection alone consists of work by them.

YES.

Peanuts + 90s rap lyrics =

criminalwisdom:

Mark Drew’s latest art show Deez Nuts mashes up Peanuts comic strip with 90’s rap lyrics.

WANT