Wow!
Blogging of surprises, check out the following video of a kid seeing lobsters for the first time. This is the truest expression of amazement and wow! I have ever seen.
Wow! Siverdome Sells for <0.4% of Cost to Build It!
If you thought you’d seen all there is to be surprised about, hold your breath as this will truly amaze you. Washington Post reports that the 80,000-seat enclosed Silverdome , built for $55.7 million in 1975 to house the Detroit Lions, has sold for $583,000. Stop and think about it and also take a look at the image below.
Yes, that is 1.04% of what it cost to build it in 1975. If you thought that is remarkable, now consider what the the $55.7M would be worth today. According to measuringworth.com: In 2008, $55,700,000.00 from 1975 is worth:
| $222,741,030.83 | using the Consumer Price Index | |
| $180,034,654.23 | using the GDP deflator | |
| $258,104,670.18 | using the value of consumer bundle | |
| $218,906,961.66 | using the unskilled wage | |
| $348,349,855.39 | using the nominal GDP per capita | |
| $491,168,089.39 | using the relative share of GDP |
That would make the current sale price 0.32 % of the amount used to build the facility using the most pessimistic estimate of current worth ($180m).
It is simply incredible to think about the level of devastation the real estate market is experiencing in this wrenching recession. Who would have thought this type of depreciation was possible?
Voices of the Times
It is impossible to watch the following and not worry about the state of politics and political leadership in our country. The ability of a representative democracy to work effectively is predicated up on informed citzenary. Those with the means to inform abuse the privilege by inciting fear and hate. Those with the burden of leadership simply stand by and give credence to misconceptions and, even worse, exploit for their own political advantage.
Ardipithecus ramidus
“These 4.4 million year old hominid fossils sit within a critical early part of human evolution, and cast new and sometimes surprising light on the evolution of human limbs and locomotion, the habitats occupied by early hominids, and the nature of our last common ancestor with chimps.”
Military Expenditures: Price of Safety or Superpowerdom?
Below is a revealing chart, via The Economist, showing the list of big military per capita spenders. Is this the price of safety or superpowerdom? How much of these expenditures is truly directed towards achieving these goals?
“…Israel spends most on defence relative to its population, shelling out over $2,300 a person, over $300 more than America. Small and rich countries, and notably Gulf states, feature prominently by this measure. Saudi Arabia ranks ninth in absolute spending, but sixth by population. China has increased spending by 10% to $85 billion to become the world’s second largest spender. But it is still dwarfed by America, whose outlay of $607 billion is higher than that of the next 14 biggest spenders combined.”
Scientific Perspective on Healthcare Reform
If you take out the passion, obsession, and fear mongering out of the healthcare reform debate, you are left with hard to deny facts about cost, coverage, health outcomes, and geographic disparities. These facts are nicely summarized in the following video from NewScientist. Therein, they discuss data obtained from Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Health Data 2009 site and Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care.
Heathcare Reform in Graphs: Cost, Coverage, Per Capita Spending, and Public Support
In the interest of setting up a one-stop reference regarding health-care reform, included here are graphs that highlight the issues of cost, per capita spending, coverage, and etc. Some of these graphs have previously been discussed here and here. More graphs will be be appended as they are discovered.
Heath spending by population: The graph below shows the relative distribution of health spending within the U.S. population. It clearly shows where the cost overruns are concentrated at.
Heath-care cost versus per capita spending: These graphs below clearly shows what is the critical issue at hand regarding reform efforts here in the U.S.; that is, the incommensurate cost to the quality of care being delivered to the population at large. The U.S. simply stands alone spending more than twice the amount while achieving equal or lower levels of life expectancy.
Comparison between rise health insurance premiums and wage increase: There is no denying that wage increases have been lagging significantly behind rises in health insurance premiums in the past decade.
Percent of Americans uninsured by age: A clear demonstration of who has the most to gain from the implementation of universal coverage. There is a rather drastic increase in number of uninsured going down in age from 65 to 20. Of course, because of Medicare, seniors of 65 years and above are almost universally covered.
Physicians’ opinion on coverage options: a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine showed a significant support for a public option.
Physicians’ Support of Options for Expanding Insurance Coverage and Medicare. Panel A shows the proportion of survey respondents who favored public options only, those who favored both public and private options, and those who favored private options only. Panel B shows the proportions of respondents (according to their medical specialty) who supported, opposed, or were undecided about the expansion of Medicare to include adults between the ages of 55 and 64 years.
Advancements in Automotive Safety
Here is an interesting video, courtesy of Marginal Revolution, showing the progress made in improving automotive safety features. It shows a crash between a 2009 Chevrolet Malibu and a 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air. We have indeed come a long way!
In Honor Of Senator Kennedy
In honor of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, I’ll re-post and share a poem I wrote a while back, In the Sense of Time. As he said it best, the dream will never die… He lives on in the dreams he birthed and in the dreams he fulfilled.
In the Sense of Time
In the sense of time I die
I die cell by cell
And piece by piece
Destined for a life mortal
In war and peace.
Yet I breath
Knowledge I absorb
Expressions of self
In spite of death.
In the sense of time we die
Yet dreams of a preacher
Live on to see
A destiny fulfilled
A changed generation
And a nation perfected.
The hope distilled
Of pain and despair
Seeing no end
Lives on to inspire
Elevating a son
Of a mother single
A bearer of light
A hope-vessel half-full.
In the sense of time we die
Dreams live
But you and I.
.
Impressive High-speed Robot Hand
Do you want to know how far robots have come towards rendering us almost replaceable? Check out this video showing Ishikawa Komuro Lab’s high-speed robot hand performing incredible acts of dexterity and skillful manipulation. Indeed, an impressive demonstration of advances in robotics and A.I.
He Did It Again!
Just look at the distance between him and the rest of the field at the finish line…
Alone
Hands tied together, he looked up
As if to beg for a sliver of hope
Mercy maybe to a life short lived
Looked down to see the suffering and misery
To find, the hands which were thought to be tied
Free, but crippled and incapable of reach
For the hope dangling upfront to silence the hungry mind
He sensed, though, without letting go off the inflated ego
That which tied the hands so as to hide
In the arm pit, deceiving the passersby and self
Denying much needed linkage, belonging, and meaning
Being among those who care with stretched out arms
Reaching for contact like a branch of a conifer tree
Spreading out and together growing forward…
Basked in sweet and agony, he sat upright
Upon the the realization he, too, has really become inanimate
Just growing and being, like the branch soon to be detached
Off the tree, left to rote on the ground
Where am I? He asked with no being near to respond
Even the room seemed like a grave; echoless and dark
Quiet, distant, alone; is it the essence of being, the meaning of creation?
With a sudden shock of death, he awoke again
To realize all that was just a dream, or so he thought.
He could see the old lady, gracefully aged sitting next to a son
He also heard the cry of a baby and the soothing of a mother’s sound
He felt comforted, he thought he wasn’t alone
Then, a rude awakening besets drenching him in more sweat
He was really alone, he concluded, having estranged from parents
And left his beloved now miles away; receding by the minute
Hands tied, can’t bridge the distance left behind
He awoke again, his hands reflexively reaching out and desperate
Stretched out to shake and hug; to rub and massage; to hold
“Well, hello!” the old lady sounded; “what is the matter, son?”
He could sense the roughness of a life hard-lived, and the warmth
As she held and pressed, life and hope into this inanimate vessel
He begged for this to never end, never to wake or sleep
“Thanks, mom!” He blurted out, while admiring the rising sun at the horizon.
Health Care Reform 101
Here is a distilled (<1000 words!) version of all the issues concerning the health care reform debate via Alec MacGillis of The Washington Post.
Spreading the Cost Saving Reform
The crux of the matter about health care reform is that something needs to be done to address the exploding cost of care, which is incommensurate to the quality of care provided and makes the U.S. an outlier among all the nations. Atul Gawande et al. discuss this in a recent article. Here is an excerpt:
“We have reached a sobering point in our national health-reform debate. Americans have recognized that our health system is bankrupting us and that we have dealt with this by letting the system price more and more people out of health care. So we are trying to decide if we are willing to change — willing to ensure that everyone can have coverage. That means banishing the phrase “pre-existing condition.” It also means finding ways to pay for coverage for those who can’t afford it without help.
Both of these steps stir heated argument, not to mention lobbyists’ hearts. But what creates the deepest unease is considering what we will have to do about the system’s exploding costs if pushing more people out is no longer an option. We have really discussed only two options: raising taxes or rationing care. The public is understandably alarmed.
There is a far more desirable alternative: to change how care is delivered so that it is both less expensive and more effective. But there is widespread skepticism about whether that is possible.
Yes, many European health systems have done it, but we are not Europe. And evidence that places like the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota or the Cleveland Clinic are doing it is likewise dismissed because their unique structures (for example, their physicians work on salary rather than being paid for each service) make them seem as far from Middle America as Sweden is.
Yet in studying communities all over America, not just a few unusual corners, we have found evidence that more effective, lower-cost care is possible.”
Please refer also refer to another informative article by Gawande in which the issue of cost/quality disparity across regions is discussed.
Fractal Dendrites on Ice
Here is another glorious manifestation of fractal geometry to go along with a previous post on fractals in nature. This time it is dendrites in the cracking pattern of a sheet of ice.
Health Care: Canada versus the United Kingdom
Nate Silver has a great demonstration of and comparison between health care systems in Canada and the U.K., both of which are frequently vilified by the opponents of health care reform here in the U.S. Enjoy!
The Problem with Recommender Systems
Here is a recommender system that is clearly broken. Six to seven years back I purchased a book on graduate schools from Amazon. You can then imagine my surprise when I keep getting this type of solicitation to buy more of the same. Don’t they understand that this is a type of commodity you use at most once and over a very short period of time? Doesn’t it occur to them that I may be out of graduate school by now? You would think this is straight forward. But, apparently not to whoever setup this personalized recommender system for Amazon.
Modern Day Conservatism
Here is an intriguing quote:
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” – JK Galbraith
The Epitome of Hypocrisy
Working to address the inefficiency, waste, and unsustainable cost in the dysfunctional health care system (if there is one) is hard enough a task to bring about reform without having to deal with such hypocrites. How do they sleep at night?!
Happy National Relaxation Day!
I bet you didn’t know August 15th is a special day unlike any other. Yes, it marks the National Relaxation Day. It says a lot about the breakneck speed at which our everyday life unfolds for us to need a reminder to take time and relax. In any case, if you are not the relaxing-type and have no ideas as to what to do on this very day, here are some ideas, courtesy of eHow:
Take the whole day or part of the day off if possible. Sleep late. Lounge around the house. Just enjoy a lazy day.- Read a good book. Watch a movie or TV marathon of something you really enjoy.
- Spend the day in a place that is tranquil and relaxing. Suggested places: a lake, the beach, the mountains, or a quiet cafe.
- Spend time relaxing on your deck or patio.
- Let voice mail take your calls. Let your e-mails wait until tomorrow. Take a technology break. Revisit your connection with silence and with nature.
- Visit a spa. Enjoy a massage. Relaxation day is on a Saturday this year. Enjoy a weekend retreat in a serene place. Pamper yourself on relaxation day.
- Do not cook on relaxation day. Order delivery food or dine out. Take a break from ordinary, daily housework and yard work.
What is Happening to Us, America?
What is happening to us, America?
Unable to listen, screaming at each others’ throat
Quick to affirm our rights, in a shouting match of sound bites
Denying the right of others, are we growing intolerant of the other
Who appears foreign, forgetting that this land we call home
Is a gift to all, to the peasant off the boat generations ago
To the immigrant of tomorrow disembarking of a Boeing plane
None owning her, a gift to the freedom seeker
In search of justice, equality, and opportunity.
Birthers of those who landed on her a long time ago
Why can’t they care for the new in rememberance of the old
The toil and persecution, the hunger and oppression they fled
That which is evident in the torment of of waterless eyes
Lifeless skin, barely hiding the bone – crushed by the weight of pain
Of the novice eager to belong and take a bite of burger
Founding a new and promised destiny to the next generation may be.
Why don’t we awake in awe of the privilege
That which our forefathers died for in order for us to bask
In the entitlement fight of the land.
Let us remember and celebrate, the gift of care and nurture
That this land gave to the slaves and slave masters alike
To the protestant and hungry, fleeing the oppression of bigotry
To the Holocaust survivor that found a safe home
The political refugee who found respite from having to look over his shoulder
To the woman made to live in a subhuman and subservient order
Coming home to a land, where her fight for civil rights
Would awaken a peoples’ conscious, mobilizing a nation.
Imperfect she may be, but malleable always
Willing to be shaped, by the blood and tears
Of those who choose to partake in the arching of her destiny
Towards a beacon of hope and a promise land for the free.
Fulcrum of Love
At the fulcrum, hangs the balance between I and we
Defining the equilibrium of love and belonging.
Does she worry about asserting of her right
Or her happiness, her body, or her income
All used to define the essence of an independent woman
Does he care just about his needs
Gratification of self, stroking of ego
Being the center of attention, effusion of machismo.
In the celebrated self reliance gained, at the expense
Of the lost interdependence of nurture
The feeding of care and compassion for the other
His hunger hers, her pain and joy always his
The lever tilting at the fulcrum towards me and I
Away from we, dissolving the bridge
Destroying love and care, exchanging caress for self.
A Golden Glory
They claim thousands of years of glory
A civilization unlike any other
The foundation of humanity and being
Philosophy, architecture, art and history
But, where is civilization now
In a population, tied down to the barrel of a gun
Where is the glory now
In the millions of people suffering everyday
Poor, sick, illiterate, and hungry
Where are the marvels of architecture
In the home-less, destitute and lonely
For all the claims of ancestry to the glorious generation
Of vast wisdom, anarchy besets in the land
Steeped in the thousands of years of history
Where the force of military is used to silence the mass
To kill the innocent, to spread hateful ideology
Where is the golden glory of humanity
In the suffering of mothers and baby
Raped to death by the merciless children no less
Turned into killing machines fueled by
Guns and dope delivered for a profit that builds
An oasis of life nurturing and plenty
To children of arms dealer, the corrupt politician
And the drug lord, squeezing humanity out of the land.
In all the despair and imperfection there lies and example
A union of many bound together by a common destiny
Of immigrants: European, African, Asian, and Latino
From east to west north and south
Black, white, red, and brown; together as one
Protected by rule of law with unalienable rights
With a military standing guard of a nation
By the people, for the people, and of some people
A proud institution of protection and defense
With a might of destruction unparalleled
A testament to the perfect balance of power
Between professionalism and passion of voices
Striving to affirm their right; yearning to be heard.
U.S.A.: The Outlier in Health Care Expenditure
In a previous post, a comparison of per capita spending and life expectancy for some of the developed countries in the world was compared. In it, the incommensurate cost to the quality of care being delivered to the population was discussed. Then (at the beginning of the year), the post was more of an exercise in the sharing of information. There is a new found urgency nowadays in ensuring that relevant information is shared and spread given the significant amount of attention the issue is getting from lawmakers and the population at large. It is instructive to take a look at yet another graph that highlights how much of an outlier the U.S. is in comparison to other nations of the world in terms of health care expenditure.
Ill
Feeling ill, dysfunctional and sick
Lack of interest reaching the peak
Like a fruit wasting away; nearing harvest pick
Uncovered by fashion, which normally sleak
Hiding the rote, masking the stink
Frustration, disgust, and hate; piled like a rick
All matters of cure, unable to break
The vicious cycle, stuck in a wreck
Soul dripping away, essences of being leak
Left a flying zombie, fur seals in Raikoke.
Hourglass
Speckles of sand flow
From one side to the other
In obedience to gravity
Marking the timeless evolution of time
In symbolism of a body figure sculpted at the waist
Into a proportion of man-made beauty.
The narrowness of the neck dictates
The flow of time in the hourglass
Separating the present from the past
Or is it a testimony to the depravity of delight
In the fullness of body and waist
Manifest in the religiosity of diet.
The bifrication of of purpose distinctly evident
While the diameter of the neck serves
To mark the passage of time infinite
That of the inward pulled and strapped
Serves only to please a fleeting standard
In vanity, of beauty and perfection misplaced.
Rollercoaster
The ups and downs rendered in formation
Like a marching band befitting of a dawn
The oneness of rhythms and the imbalance of movement
Up and jumpy, happy and limitless at once
Down and thumping, deafening and hardened in instant.
Where is the sigh when it is sought
Where is the melody when one dances
Fickle it is flowing between fingertips
Tangible in the wetness of skin left behind
But, echoless chamber filled with screams.
Where is the engine that could
Pumping more vivacious spirit than just blood
Without fail, day in day out without effort.
Why is humanity the combined sum of parts
Of limbs farflung and lungs charcoaled by smoke
Of flesh weak and enslaved of craving and addition
Of brain and heart like a hardened brick, fearing and knocking
All that is foreign, destroying the other and losing
Self with every chipped corner of fortitude and empathy.
Parallel Universes
They ask why; why are you not jovial?
Alone, pensive, and distant
They ask why; why are you so banal?
Small, shallow, and trite
Their wills live on parallel universes
Governed by rules disparate and diverging
Unbeknownst to them the gulf widens
Like the parting of the sea, only to come
Together at last up on the awakening
On the emotional journey bridging the divide
The essence of completion in the co-joining
Of the complementary universes; through time warps.
Genetics, Intelligence, I.Q., and Success
What do Asian-Americans, Jews and West Indian blacks have in common? Well, these groups are considered to be relatively successful in the U.S. Nicholas D. Kristof provides, yet again, another insightful opinion piece on the connection (or lack thereof) between genetics, intelligence, I.Q., and success. He debunks the myth of the connection between genetics and intelligence (and success) by contrasting the experience of these genetically disparate groups of people.
“Asian-Americans are renowned — or notorious — for ruining grade curves in schools across the land, and as a result they constitute about 20 percent of students at Harvard College.
As for Jews, they have received about one-third of all Nobel Prizes in science received by Americans. One survey found that a quarter of Jewish adults in the United States have earned a graduate degree, compared with 6 percent of the population as a whole.
West Indian blacks, those like Colin Powell whose roots are in the Caribbean, are one-third more likely to graduate from college than African-Americans as a whole, and their median household income is almost one-third higher.
These three groups may help debunk the myth of success as a simple product of intrinsic intellect, for they represent three different races and histories. In the debate over nature and nurture, they suggest the importance of improved nurture — which, from a public policy perspective, means a focus on education. Their success may also offer some lessons for you, me, our children — and for the broader effort to chip away at poverty in this country.”














