anamnesis

Click to Zoom Some more data visualization...

This is kind of a morbid application, but it's an interest of mine ---using interfaces and visualization to make data more meaningful, that is. This particular application depicts the death rates in recent years for different conditions by hospitals across the U.S. It gives you a peek, based on hard data, on where the best and worst hospitals might be in your state or across the country for treating things like heart attacks and pneumonia. One of the worst places, for example, for heart attacks seems to be Kennewick General Hospital in Washington and LeHigh Vallley Hospital in PA, one of the best.

This cracked me up: His system is remarkably similar to mine. Except for the tv shows and magazines. Amass research, obsess, re-org, rehash, take a stab. Case in point. Here I am playing with this nifty way to edit and publish blog entries using Windows Live Writer . Pretty fancy. It's free, and don't believe the stuff about having to register a Microsoft ID, it works fine without it. After we came back from Albuquerque, I've been bouncing back and forth between amass and re-org . Might get to the re-hash later this evening. Part of the amass was researching the next incremental good habit: Coconut oil. This stuff has lots of hype, but if you pick through all the actual research behind it, the story is compelling. (May need to bump your browser font up a few notches to read that article.) Healthy Mayonnaise 1 whole egg 2 egg yolks 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice 1/2 teaspoon sea salt or Celtic salt 1/4 teaspoon white pepper 1/2 cup Virg...

DA = Dental Assistant K = Innocent bystander DA: "Well, hello stranger" K: "Hi, I'm here for some x-rays I need for tomorrow." DA: "I know why you're here, but we only see you like, what, once every 2 years?" K: "Don't feel bad, I haven't seen a doctor in 25 years." DA: "So we should feel special huh?" K: "Yep, you're on my frequent visitor program. But I'll be in when things settle down to get back on track." DA: "So how old are you?" K: mumbles something DA: "You better go to a doctor, in a few years is when people really need to be checked." K: "I'm not planning on hanging around forever. So whatever." DA fiddles with wing-nuts and hairdryer looking x-ray thing. Runs into next room to tattle to Doc who is working on someone else. DA: "OK, done with this, but Doc says if he sees anything on these he's going to call you." K: "Fine. Aren't you go...

Just a quick note of warning for those family members getting started with ebay and such. If it hasn't happened already, you will soon start receiving a number of emails that look like they are from ebay or paypal. These will have dire warnings and urgent pleadings from everything from customers complaining they paid and haven't received anything to ebay or paypal noticing "suspicious" activity on your account and more. In each instance there will be a link conveniently provided in the email to resolve the matter quickly. The link will even "look" legitimate. For those more technically inclined it's amusing to hover over these links to see where they actually point. Some subject lines of ones I've recently received: eBay Unpaid Item Dispute for Item #290250074158-- Response Required Bank of America Unauthorized Account(s) Access (Secure Code: UB05-C0B1-A-1) Please Verify Your TDBanknorth Commercial Account PayPal Account Security Measures In any case...

It's fun to see China host the Olympics. This is kind of their coming out party. Some thinkers I'm usually in agreement with, take a cynical stance on China's involvement ---their hypocrisy, human rights, censorship etc. I don't think, as a nation, we're in any position to cast stones. And their publicity can mean more than one thing. It gives China a chance to raise visibility of their culture and people to the world in a media stage of unparalleled international scope. A stage about competition, sure, but the competition of play. Which is where we need to get to, as a planet. This hatred, mistrust and arrogance about cultures outside our little flash-lights of experience in the large universe shouldn't be something we react to from fear but with a mind and heart that wants to understand more, to be more, than the slice of our historical milieus and the stamp of our geographical coordinates. Those are the least important aspects of our journeys as a species, a...

First, here's to hoping August picks up for family and friends struggling with challenges big and small. My comments on dance, by the way, were some thoughts about this too. In a sense our lives are one long dance from cradle to grave and there is flow, staccato, chaos, lyrical moments and stillness. About all that seems to be constant is that whatever the rhythm is now, it will change. Sometimes just dancing with the body tells the mind that this is something it already knows. And there are ways to understand it that don't require thought. This doesn't mean disco or salsa or even the hokey pokey, it just means letting your body express something on its own, maybe just a sentence or two in an idle moment during the day. We often find it may want to say even more, and we may even learn how to listen to what it's telling us this way. Something words and thoughts can not encompass. Some people even use it to communicate back to the universe, like a prayer. But anyway, that...