Togaranko's shared items in Google Reader

March 16, 2007 – While the world has successfully learned to live longer, this longevity presents many new challenges that will require cooperative planning by the world's nations, says a new report, Why Population Aging Matters: A Global Perspective , which was presented yesterday at the Summit on Global Aging, hosted by the U.S. State Department in collaboration with the National Institute on ...

The Trouble with Knowledge

2007-05-07T14:32:23Z

Technology that alters human nature will upset our inherited moral categories, argues one of Britain's most esteemed philosophers. In a posthuman future, he asks, how will our children and grandchildren know right from wrong?

Developing world can expect a 'pandemic of cancer' by 2020 (News-Medical-Net)

2007-04-24T14:24:10Z

The developing world is expected to account for more than half of all cancer cases in the world by 2020 say medical experts.

Five minds for the future (rediff.com)

2007-05-22T15:54:29Z

To know how psychologist Howard Gardner defines the cognitive abilities that will command a premium in future, read on. . .

Annoying things about the future

2007-06-25T17:37:40Z

Technology was supposed to make our lives easier. But instead it made us faster, more enmeshed and, well, annoying. Looking ahead, Nick Douglas predicts even more annoying things to come. They include animated billboards, widespread in-car GPS voice-overs, ubiquitous traffic cameras, and camera-wearing geeks who video blog their entire life.

Second Earth: Print Edition

2007-06-20T01:31:18Z

The World Wide Web will soon be absorbed into the World Wide Sim: an immersive, 3-D visual environment that combines elements of social virtual worlds such as Second Life and mapping applications such as Google Earth. What happens when the virtual and real worlds collide?

The Canadian Press: Southern Ontario woman gets Newfoundland accent after stroke, researchers say

2008-07-03T20:26:12Z

Shared by Togaranko
interesting....

Marrying for health care

2008-05-05T10:20:00Z

By Sarah Arnquist About 7 percent of Americans recently reported in new Kaiser Health Tracking Poll that someone in their household got married so they could get health benefits. While 7 percent may be a bit high, I have no...

Beyond breakfast: Breaking cereal's boundaries

2008-04-21T14:21:00Z

The challenge: Convince customers to eat cereal in the afternoon. The plan: Rebrand with a word other than 'cereal. The payoff: A giant customer base that chows down on cereal all day, every day

online data visualization talks

2008-05-01T09:33:24Z

from Eric Rodenbeck from stamen.com at Postopolis, the mapping & data visualization firm known from digg labs & Trulia Hindsight.

several data visualization talks have been put online recently. if you are interested in this subject, be sure to check out following online recordings:

. Fernanda Viegas & Martin Wattenberg (IBM) @ Parc Forum 2006 (not blogged before)
. Ben Fry @ See conference 2008.
. Frank van Ham (IBM) @ See conference 2008.
. Bernard Kerr (Yahoo! interaction designer) @ Innovationsforum Interaktionsdesign.
. Eric Rodenbeck (stamen.com) @ Nextcity.
. Jonathan Harris documentary.
. Hans Ronsling @ TED 2006.
. Jonathan Harris @ TED 2007.
. Marcos Weskamp @ See conference 2007.
. Sep Kamvar @ See conference 2007.

this should keep you busy for at least a couple of hours.

[link: vimeo.com|via w.we-make-money-not-art.com]

John Crombie

2008-03-05T23:48:00Z

How to find the best address for your business

Succession dilemma

2008-01-31T16:35:00Z

Without the right plan, your business is doomed to flounder

The interface between intellectual property rights and competition policy

2008-03-13T07:00:00Z

Lewis Thomas

2009-10-05T00:00:00Z

"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."

Canada must stay competitive

2008-03-31T13:15:00Z

... ones. So an important economic strategy for Canada should be to make the country a ... risk. Active angel investors and a healthy venture capital industry typically provide this money. And this ... In a submission to the panel, the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, warned ...

Google the web tomorrow - today!! [Keith Employment Law Grinsted]

2008-04-01T07:30:19Z

.
The future is here today...

Google Australia has announced the launch of gDay, a new beta search technology that will search web pages 24 hours before they are created.

Google's new gDay search engine, developed in Google's Sydney engineering centre, can accurately predict future events and internet content.

According to Google, the accuracy of the artificial intelligence Machine Automated Temporal Extrapolation (MATE) system is anywhere between 75 per cent and 95 per cent.

See the full story here...

http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php/id;922546551;fp;2;fpid;1

Keith Grinsted Ecademy Regional Leader
Baldock Revisited - the networking event of the year - click here to register

A Strategic Mobile Mash-Up

2008-03-31T04:56:08Z

With the help of Industry Canada, Mobile MUSE has completed a plan (attached) for expanding the impact of its applied innovation model beyond the Arts & Culture sector into other key public-facing industry sectors including Environment, Health and Tourism. Your comments and ideas are welcome!

Pay first, evidence later.

2008-03-15T17:42:28Z

Merrill Goozer reports (”CMS okays heart scan…“) on how Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has reversed a policy to stop paying for heart scans. There has been no clinical evidence to show that these expensive heart scans identify heart disease any better than less expensive procedures (i.e.: stress tests).

Physician revenue, however, would be hurt by this decision and after extensive lobbying, CMS has decided that paying for heart scans may be a good decision after all. In the words of Merrill Goozer: “Pay first, evidence later. It’s the American way.”

Zagat rates your doctor

2008-03-21T05:30:15Z

According to Insurance and Technology, health insurer WellPoint has partnered with Zagat’s Survey to allow WellPoint’s members to rate their doctors. Zagat’s will use its 30 point rating system to evaluate all doctors. According to Spirit magazine, patients can grade doctors based on “including doctor availability, office environment, trustworthiness, and communication.”

Other websites, such as RateMDs.com, already offer patients the ability to rate doctors, but WellPoint is the first health insurer to offer this service to its members.

Medicare to surpass Social Security expenditures in 2028

2008-03-25T20:40:12Z

The [Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust] fund also continues to fail our long-range test of close actuarial balance by a wide margin. The projected date of HI Trust Fund exhaustion is 2019, the same as in last year’s report, when dedicated revenues would be sufficient to pay only 78 percent of HI costs. Projected HI dedicated revenues fall short of outlays in this and all future years. ”

Who is this scare-mongering quotation from? Rush Limbaugh? Conservative think tanks? Fox News?

Actually, this message is from the Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees 2008 Annual Report. Currently, Medicare accounts for 3.2% of GDP. The authors of the report project that by by 2028, Medicare expenditures will surpass Social Security expenditures. By 2082, Medicare expenditures will account for 10.8% of GDP!

What is to be done? We can increase taxes to levels that in the long run would cripple the economy. We could cut the number of people receiving Medicare benefits. For instance, we could increase the age at which people are eligible for Medicare or limit Medicare benefits to only certain groups (e.g.: the poor, those who are eligible for Social Security benefits, etc.). The government could reduce the generosity of the plans by either shifting more costs to patients (i.e.: increasing co-pays and deductibles), or reduce the generosity of the benefit package (i.e.: rationing). Or we could scrap Medicare all together and start over (e.g.: a voucher program, no elderly health insurance, mandatory savings for the purchase of health insurance later in life).

All of these ways to solve the Medicare crisis have pros and cons and those adversely affected by any change are likely to vehemently protest any reform. Nevertheless, Medicare as it currently is structured is not a fiscally sustainable program.