Cool article

I hope they get this to work. This could revolutionize medicine in many ways, including providing specialized surgery to rural areas and performing operations in clean-room like conditions.

Dateline 3/27

Easter Sunday. I went to church and then spent the rest of day breaking the 3rd commandment (working on the seventh day...) But it has been a good weekend. On Friday I hosted a large party and had a good time drinking with the russians. I also tried to go to the Bulls-Celtics game with John and Hiren on a whim, but when we got there it was sold out. On saturday I got out of bed and somehow got through my lab meeting (the prof. noticed that my eyes were red, i had to admit that I was entertaining the night before) where I was asked if I could come back that night and work on a project untill it was at the point where the Prof. could present it as data. I ended up coming back at 6 and working untill after 9 so that was pretty much all I did saturday. I did manage to get a lot done though, so all and all a good weekend.

Proposal : National Healthcare Registry

This article describes problems with communicating useful medical information at hospitals. This has always been a problem, but is more troubling recently. With advances in information technology, communicating data has become much easier in pretty much every other field, and this magnifies the problems in health care. Taking this into consideration I propose a simple solution: a national registry of health-care information much like a credit bureau. Basically it contains all pertinent medical information in a central location, including things like prescription medications and previous medical emergencies and conditions. Whether it is run by a private institution like Equifax or held as a central government database, it would be accessed for both read and write operations by any licensed medical group in the same way that banks and credit companies use credit bureaus. Identification could be linked with either Social Security numbers or health insurance cards to make emergency or on-site identification possible. Worries about security or privacy should have largely been answered by the recent health insurance and portability protection Act (HIPPA) that conveys legal protection to medical records that is similar to financial data. The database would be worth while in helping doctors make quicker and more accurate medical decisions and would also eliminate many drug interaction and allergy problems.

Good article : Genetically Modified foods

Here is a great article about genetically modified foods, one of my favorite subjects. This article actually manages to hit the issue right on without getting too hung up on anyone's opinion. It also highlights how most people are completely ignorant of what genetically modified food is. It is very interesting how the same ignorance in the United States and Europe has caused completely different reactions, with Americans opting to simply ignore it while the Europeans vehemently and foolishly oppose it.

Opinion : Red Sox

Looks like to the Red Sox are staying in the neighborhood. This is yet another good PR move by a team that makes of lot of them. Leaving would have meant giving up the advantages of the the back bay, including devoted fans that would literally die for them and and an endless pool of new fans from the thousands of nearby college students. I'd have always been impressed that even when their games are sold out (always) the team still goes out of their way to make cheap seats available to people who live near by, like me.

Dateline 3/20

Palm Sunday.(and yes, I went to church) I spent most of the day doing homework, 2 problem sets and a lab. Also I reinstalled the antivirus and style programs on this computer and seem to have windows working again. I ran for over 3 miles at the gym (in about 27 mins) and I am starting to get the aerobic endurance thing going.

Dateline 3/18

TGIF. I slept in and then ran around like mad doing everything I needed to do. I met with the biomech TF, convinced him to change my grade, and then walked by the lab I work for and remembered that I was supposed to be there for a meeting. I got out of that, went to a control systems discussion, and then met with my writing professor. I really hate writing. I have always been of the opinion that the grading in writing classes is very random, and WR 150 is affirming this opinion. Some professors say to open up generally and some say start specific. Today all of a sudden it is a rule that you should not start a sentence with a demonstrative pronoun. (although apparently this wasn’t a rule on my last paper) also the Prof. simply disagrees with 2 of my 4 analysis points. I really wish she would just grade the paper as on style and mechanics and ignore the message. I am not good at sucking up, and even worse, are next unit seems to be on the theme of feminism (Virginia Woolf). I get the feeling that this is going to go downhill quickly.

As for the rest of the day, I went grocery shopping, followed up on some summer job stuff, downloaded music, did lots of work, and watched sports. And speaking of sports, how about Vermont? They are the only tournament team I saw in person this season and I like an underdog, but they keep beating BU and I picked SU to go deep. Well it is nice to see the America East conference take a game in the big dance.

Cool article

From the DUH dept: X chromosome may cause women to be different than men. Seriously though, this could be a big step in opening up a deserving but controversial field of research. (physiological differences between men and women)

Dateline 3/15

Sort of a mixed day. I just got back from an industry networking inner where I discussed the current state of hiring biomedical engineers (outlook good). It included a really good free dinner (chicken marsalla, among others) and I got to where my new sport coat that I got for Christmas so it worked out well, even though it probably won’t lead to a job.
On the academic front, I got an exam back in control systems today and did pretty good, at least beating the average. I also got my research paper back in writing class, but that was not too good. Apparently, I have great ideas and good research but the grammar was terrible. This is not completely surprising because I dashed it off between studying for midterms and never really had a chance to look it over. I seem to have set a new record for number of dangling modifiers in an essay.
In other news, I finally got in touch with AHRC and the director apologized and said that she would send in my recommendation letter by Friday. She claimed that the reason that it took so long is that she had to run it by personnel (as per company policy) and she did not get it back until recently (a convenient cover for "I forgot about it until I got your voicemail message" if you ask me) Either way, that’s taken care of. In addition, my father has negotiated me buying a car, so it looks like I am going to have ‘95 Toyota Corolla to drive this summer. He says that it is in "perfect mechanical condition". We will see.
Now I need to go draft a fabtasy baseball team in a league with some friends from Rochester...

Cool Idea

A very good idea. I have a feeling we will be seeing a lot of this in the near future

other people 's opinions

A collection of well-written articles that do reflect the opinions of this publication and its owner:

___the realism view of the war on terror. the reality is clear, you just cant stop everyone.


___George Bush may say foolish things, restrict liberties, and pander to the aristocracy, but it could be worse...he could be Vladmir Putin, the current leader in all those categories.

___This article describes what happens when communications people try to use numbers. Even logical considerations escape even the best journalists, and the public is routinely misinformed.


___Like all engineers, my internships are paid (even the social work ones that I did in past summers). This article exposes volunteer positions for what they are: exploitation.

___A great article debunking the hype about Bird flu. There are several reasons why this disease will not kill very many people. This article points out pretty much all of them.

___At every level of my education, girls were always the best students. Blame the feminists. This highlights my belief that any programs that seek equlity by discriminating are foolish

___Is the US losing its competitive edge? I would argue that maybe other countries contributing to scientific knowledge is good, but can our economy survive?

___This is a great article about Healthcare reform. This is just like what we talk about in Public Health class.

___It is about time we left the terrorism to the Arabs. This article describes why Ireland should be moving towards peace.


___A compelling reason to shorten the Baseball season.


___I believe the organic food movement is the biggest ripoff in a long time. For a more researched view, consider this


___A brilliant look at social security: why and how it needs to be reformed
also, another look at old vs young in the working world.


___Call me a partisan hack, but I have always liked Bill O'reilly's writing. Here is a good example
(don't ask how I came across this site, I can't remember, but it's good)


I will add more of these later...

Dateline 3/14

I Just got back from another winnig broomball effort. We really dominated the other team, and took a lot of shots, but only won by 5. (I personally took and missed 5).
Also today I got back midterms in both thermodynamics and Biomechanics. As for the thermo, I got the avg grade, which wasn't exactly what I was shooting for. In biomechanics, I did even worse. This semester is off to a bad start, and I really need to pull a GPA in the A- to B+ range to stay on track with the premed stuff. I am not terribly worried yet though, I have started worse before.

Dateline 3/13

Spring break is over, classes are starting up tommorow. All I did this weekend was study and go to hockey games. BU did win the series with Providence tonight, although that will probably be the last hockey game I will see this year. After the first 10 mins of game one, the terriers played great the whole series, so things look good for the playoffs.
On the topic of college sports, I just filled out my march madness bracket, but I havent been following basketball closely enough this year to be very confident in my picks. For the record, my final 4 teams were: Duke, Illinois , Kansas, and Louisville. For some reason, Yahoo is not doing a women's pickem this year. While I am not a fan of womens sports, I must say I always do better picking women than men (probably because there are a lot fewer upsets and the Big East usually dominates)
This coming week should be good. I will get midterm grades back in every class and will hopefully hear from some of the summer jobs I applied to...

Dateline 3/10

The last few days all I have been doing is hanging around and studying MCAT review stuff. Boy it is nice to sleep late...

Review : The Handyman

The following is a 5th grade style boook review of The Handyman by Carolyn See which I had to read for my writing class:

Now I have not read many non fiction books in the last few years (actually none) so that fact might color this review. That said, I really enjoyed this book. This novel starts by telling you how everything ends up in the future, which may seem odd, but as the author admits, it is necessary to frame the story. The story is about an artist who needs to find himself. To make money and bide time, he moves back to his hometown of Los Angeles and runs errands for people. The errands he ends up doing however, end up changing people's lives and eventually his. Predictably, the novel ends when Bob finds himself and runs off into the sunset with the people he loves and becomes a successful artist.

This book was assigned as a case study in creativity, and it does provide interesting insight into the life of a struggling artist. The book also manages to make lots of social commentary, on issues ranging from feminism and abuse, to AIDS and gay rights. Character development (especially of Robert) was also superb and the story is exciting from cover to cover. Also importantly, there is a lot of sex.

My only to critiques after reading this were first of all, why he does Robert not have any other friends then the people he meets that summer. Robert has supposedly lived in L.A. for over 20 years, yet the introduction an story lead us to believe that he has no childhood, high-school, or college friends. The other issue that I would take with this book is that the ending would be more believable if it was not for the scene where Mrs. Landry walks and on Robert and Millicent. Seriously, that scene should just have been removed. Other than, this was a great novel, and I would recommend it. I suddenly want to be a handyman...

opinion : Social Security reform

So fixing Social Security is going to cost 2.5 trillion dollars. Or maybe not. Well either way we need to face the facts the system is in trouble. Whether you like the president's plan or not, you have to admit that we need to do something. The system takes in less then it pays out, and this is clearly not sustainable. Sure the easiest thing to do would be to just let it run out and 2042, but that is just about the time when I would retire, so clearly I don't like that option.
So what can we do about this problem? Well first we need to look at how the system was supposed to work. In fact it hasn't changed much since it was established in the Great Depression. At that time it worked great because there were very few people who were retired and many workers to support those who did. This reality has changed howeve,r and we need to change the system to meet current needs. First of all the minimum age is being argued about. Any one who thinks that this does not need to be changed is probably being bribed or about age 50. With much different occupations and much better medicine and nutrition, there is no reason why people today cannot work much longer. In fact they live much longer and there is no reason why a 65 year old person needs to retire from an office desk job. Raising the age to retire over 70 would probably be the best start to fix the system.
Because of the huge influx of old people thanks to the baby boom, The system will still not work without some other major changes. The fact is that we need some way to get more money into the retirement fund pool. Now there are many ways to do this, with investing in private markets and raising taxes being among the most obvious. Now the investment way seems to be favored by the president and the whole thing could work very well, assuming that the stock market has good returns forever, which seems unlikely. this plan would essentially make the Social Security fund a giant mutual fund. Now I would think that the huge influx of capital would be a boon to the economy, but the obvious question remains: where are we going to get the money for this. This is where the 2.5 trillion dollar figure comes from, as this is what analysts believe the one time costs of this program would be. And this brings us to the other solution, which would raise the 2.5 trillion dollars in the same way that's the government raises all its other funds: raising taxes. Of course everyone is always against raising taxes, but in this case, I am not sure that we have any choice. I am certainly not a big fan of taxes but I would much rather pay an extra one or two percent now than not get social security money when I retire. So I guess my point and all this: whether or not you agree with the president's plan, you must agree that we need to do some type. Leaving this problem along will not make it go away.

Opinion : Fox News

But look at those ratings! I have to admit, am a big Fox News fan. I spend at least 5 minutes watching TV news a month and they are all on Fox (not counting channel surfing) Now I know Fox is biased, but they are no more biased than any one else. Facts are boring and news is a commercial industry, so things are going to be slanted.
Yellow journalism, as it is referred to, is nothing new in the US. People complained that it was responsible for instigating wars and ruining our international reputation back in the '90's...the 1890's (see Spanish-American war history). Things have not changed. Before Fox news, there was a decidedly liberal bias to American media, so the conservatives decided to stop complaining and start there own network. With free speech and free markets, the general public will ultimately decide which is better, and they have. If you don't like it, just change the channel and stop criticizing it. If you watch it and talk about it, you are just giving the sort of publicity and attention that media types crave.
The problem with CNN is not some vast right wing conspiracy. The problem is that less-than-competent corporate executives following the AOL Time Warner merger drove out its visionary founder (Ted Turner). The quality has been suffering ever since. Fox has better graphics, more intelligent commentators, bigger host personalities, and better looking reporters. That is just good TV business, it has nothing to do with news accuracy. What CNN and the other networks need is some creative marketing and a little more pandering. What Fox needs is to keep a good thing going. And what people who watch cable news need is a life.

world hunger -> Ended

thats probably the wrong interpretation of this article. In other news, 3 out of 5 american females are fat. JUST STOP EATING.

Dateline 3/6

Today was a good day for getting things done. I went shopping and bought myself a belt, two cheap watches, and a new wallet. I have needed all these things for awhile and all of them were on sale. I also bought my sister a DVD for her birthday. Downtown crossing is convient and has nice stores, but I really wish there was a walmart around here. I would have been able to cut my shopping time by at least half.
After that, I cleaned my apartment and did my taxes and financial aid. The taxes were easy because I filed them using telefile like I always do, but unfortunately I owe over a hundred dollars. As for the financial aid, I started both the FASFA and CSS but I need my parents information to finish them.

Dateline 3/5

last night was good. My future roomate and a bunch of his friends came over to party with us but there were very few people around as most BU students have gone home already. So we played poker awhile, did quite a bit of drinking, and just hung around and had a good time.
First day of spring break, and all I did was work. This morning I had a two-hour meeting with the professor that I do research with to try to find a direction for the latest project that I am working on. This whole thing is a big database that contains all the abnormalities in the genome that are related to mental illness. The list was compiled by another student over the summer and as part of graduates student in psychology, and now we are just refining it to try to do some statistical analysis. This is all really just tedious make work stuff, but this year that's all I really have time for.
After that I came back and worked a 3 hour shift at the fitness room and sat there by myself because nobody came down to exercise, except for one guy who then lost his cell phone. well that is the last I have to do that for the least eight days so I am pretty happy, although I don't know how I am going to stay in shape.
On another note, I have got my voice dictation program working, and am using it to write this entry. This makes it much easier to make entries because I have never who learned how to type properly and it takes me awhile. This should also make my future entries much longer and more involved.

Cool article

wow, the US has developed plasma weapons. I hope there are some cameras around when they bust out the Star-trek on some unsuspecting Iraqi's
Also in this artcle are some highbrow British scientists complaining that there American counterparts should not be helping the government. Because personally,I would feel much better if some company or random madman owned this technology instead...this is probably the most benign weapon the US millitary has developed since...well ever.

Dateline 3/3

SPRING BREAK!!! I have very little official work for the next 9 days or so. time to start on all the other crap I have been putting off for weeks (shopping, taxes, financial aid, research, sleep, etc.)

Dateline 3/1

Two exams today, but I think I did good on both of them. I am also going to make a push to finish the work I need to do over spring break before it, so I can get some actual free time next week, even though I am not really going anywhere.