Occassional Dimes

RFID enabled credit cards are easy to hack: I met Pablos at ETech earlier this year, he gave a fantastic talk on credit card (in)security and other topics.

Alternative Energy: Boom or Bust?

James Speth: The co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council in an hour-long interview on KQED's Forum.

Pico Iyer on the Dalai Lama: One of my favorite travel writers has a new book on Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, I'm really looking forward to reading it. In the meantime, enjoy this recent Fresh Air interview.

Weak Dollar Hurts Poor in the Philippines: Asian economies may be less dependent on the U.S., but in many countries, dollar remittances are an important source of income for the poorer segments of their populations.

Phillip Moffitt: Former editor/publisher of Esquire, emerges as a dharma teacher.

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Occassional Dimes

Robert Parker: Charlie Rose devotes a full hour to the world's most influential wine critic.

Unrest in Tibet (plus elections in Taiwan): Recent hour-long discussion on KQED's Forum.

The remaining entries are on health care related topics.

Treating the Numbers: Treating the numbers refers to the tendency of some Doctors "... to get a patient's test results to a certain target, which they assume will treat — or prevent — disease. But earlier this year, a study on a widely used cholesterol drug challenged that assumption."

Publicly-funded clinical trials of prescription drugs: Researchers highlight the many benefits of junking the current system, which relies heavily on Big Pharma.

Outsourcing the Patients: U.S. insurance companies are realizing that it is cheaper to have medical procedures performed overseas -- even after the cost of travel for patients and their families are included. Let's see if this revives supersonic travel!

Medical Tourism and Thailand: Not only are more Americans checking into Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok, the hospital has announced an alliance with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of South Carolina. Bumrungrad is one of the top hospitals in Thailand.

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Occassional Dimes

Remote Area Medical: CBS profiles this amazing organization founded to provide medical care to people in the developing world. What Americans may not be aware of is that 60% of their operation serves uninsured/underinsured people in rural and urban America.

Arguments mount for a National Healthcare system: I'm in favor of a national system, as long as its not a monopoly.

LA Times on Chuck Feeney: I blogged on Chuck Feeney late last year and I truly believe he is a role model not just for the super rich, but for a lot of upper middle class people.

Battery Technology: The Economist gives an overview of the history and current state of research in car batteries. Great reading for proponents of plug-in hybrids or electric vehicles.

Bug Labs: Hardware hacking just got easier. Open source hardware mashups for the rest of us.

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Occassional Dimes

From Geeks to Greens: The Economist on Silicon Valley's fascination with green technologies.

A World of Bananas: An expert weighs in on the best tasting banana in the world. His choice? The lakatan from the Philippines.

Made In Italy: Italy's leading brands are increasingly relying on Chinese workers toiling in sweatshop conditions. What happened to the famed EU labor laws?

Hydroelectric Power Without Dams: Freestanding underwater turbines are starting to get deployed in the U.S. and Canada.

Was it a good idea to move to lead-free solder joints?: Robert Cringley raises some interesting points.

Biofuel Stations in California: The lack of fueling stations gets Sacramento's attention. Why don't they promote recharging stations for electric vehicles instead.

The EU and the ASEAN: The EU is closely following the ASEAN's attempts at integration.

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Occassional Dimes

Drop.io: Needing to (anonymously) share files or communicate with your friends or the world? Check out this new site that is popular among "democracy movement" types overseas.

Tufte on the iPhone: Visualization guru weighs in on what's cool and what needs work. The QuickTime file is large and may require a few minutes to download.

Dow Jones Meets Dharma: Socially-responsible investing gains a small foothold in India.

Homeless Shelters In San Francisco: Reporters from the SF Bay Guardian go undercover and give an inside peek into how shelters in the city operate. Having worked as an overnight volunteer manager for a homeless shelter in the past, I am glad to say that not all shelters in California are as badly run as the ones covered in the article.

Health Care and U.S. Presidential Politics: Listen to this excellent overview from UNC political scientist Jonathan Oberlander. Of the remaining candidates, only Hillary Clinton's plan provides universal coverage.

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Occassional Dimes

David Rieff: Susan Sontag's son discusses her last days with Teri Gross.

Designs for the Real World: Dot Earth comes to MIT.

The Most Energy-Efficient Airline: One big catch, the plane never actually takes off!

World Equity Markets: The Wall Street Journal has a nice graphic that captures recent turmoil in stock markets across the world.

fMRI and Wine Tasting: "If a person is told they are tasting two different wines and that one costs $5 and the other $45 when they actually are the same wine, the part of the brain that experiences pleasure will become more active when the drinker thinks they are enjoying the more expensive vintage."

Are Cholesterol Drugs Any Good?: According to recent research, probably not.

Now do some simple math. The numbers in that sentence mean that for every 100 people in the trial, which lasted 3 1/3 years, three people on placebos and two people on Lipitor had heart attacks. The difference credited to the drug? One fewer heart attack per 100 people. So to spare one person a heart attack, 100 people had to take Lipitor for more than three years. The other 99 got no measurable benefit. Or to put it in terms of a little-known but useful statistic, the number needed to treat (or NNT) for one person to benefit is 100.

Compare that with, say, today's standard antibiotic therapy to eradicate ulcer-causing H. pylori stomach bacteria. The NNT is 1.1. Give the drugs to 11 people, and 10 will be cured.

A low NNT is the sort of effective response many patients expect from the drugs they take. When Wright and others explain to patients without prior heart disease that only 1 in 100 is likely to benefit from taking statins for years, most are astonished. Many, like Winn, choose to opt out.

Plus, there are reasons to believe the overall benefit for many patients is even less than what the NNT score of 100 suggests. That NNT was determined in an industry-sponsored trial using carefully selected patients with multiple risk factors, which include high blood pressure or smoking. In contrast, the only large clinical trial funded by the government, rather than companies, found no statistically significant benefit at all. And because clinical trials themselves suffer from potential biases, results claiming small benefits are always uncertain, says Dr. Nortin M. Hadler, professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a longtime drug industry critic. "Anything over an NNT of 50 is worse than a lottery ticket; there may be no winners," he argues. Several recent scientific papers peg the NNT for statins at 250 and up for lower-risk patients, even if they take it for five years or more. "What if you put 250 people in a room and told them they would each pay $1,000 a year for a drug they would have to take every day, that many would get diarrhea and muscle pain, and that 249 would have no benefit? And that they could do just as well by exercising? How many would take that?" asks drug industry critic Dr. Jerome R. Hoffman, professor of clinical medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles.

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Occassional Dimes

In Defense of Food: Michael Pollan talks about his new book on Science Friday.

Monsanto and the Future Seed: Very quietly GMO seeds are being adopted across the world. From the U.S., where they originated, through Asia, Africa, and even Western Europe. Monsanto and other agriculture conglomerates are targeting the large food producers rather than consumers. So while your chips and snacks probably contains GMO's, you may not find GMO's in the produce section of your grocery. I have yet to come across any large-scale study showing that GMO's pose health risks to humans. My objection to GMO's is that they make farmers even more dependent on the large agricultural conglomerates. Even farmers who refuse to use GMO seeds could be sued, if their own seeds and fields inadvertently start getting invaded by the GMO seeds.

Sick (The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis): Anyone interested in the U.S, Health Care system needs to read this book. Each chapter covers an aspect of the health care system through the story of an individual family, with families spanning several states across the country. The author also does a great job of providing the history of health care in the U.S. Exceptionally well-written book on an ever important subject. I recommend it highly!

The Auto Loans Crisis: While the crisis in housing loans has been covered extensively in the media, there is a serious disaster looming in the car loans industry.

Researching Charities: GiveWell provides research on charities similar to what equity analysts do for stocks. If you are trying to decide which charities to support, check out their useful site.

Malaysia and the Philippines: Interesting article on the prospects of these Southeast Asian neighbors in the battle to capture market share in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) market. According to this ZDNet article the top four markets in 2007 (with their market share) were: India (11.5%), China (4.4%), the Philippines (1.4%), and Malaysia (1.2%).

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Occassional Dimes

The Story of Stuff: One of the BEST online videos I have watched. An incredibly well-produced video addressing consumerism, industrial design, sustainability, and social justice. Its about 15 minutes long, but I highly recommend you watch it in its entirety.

Toxic Chemicals (The E.U. and the U.S.): As the child of Chemistry professors, I have always been aware of the role of chemicals in everyday products. In this episode of Fresh Air, author Mark Schapiro highlights the difference in regulatory philosophy between the EU and the US.

Biodiesel in SF: The City of San Francisco launches a program to collect cooking oil from participating restaurants. The goal is to make the converted biodiesel available to residents and eventually to power city-owned vehicles.

Fresh Pain For The Uninsured: In the past U.S. hospitals worked with uninsured patients and together both parties would agree on a reasonable payment plan. Recently, hospitals (including non-profit hospitals) have been selling patients debts' to "debt collection specialists", making healthcare debt subject to the same aggressive tactics found in the credit card, mortgage, and auto industries. Truly depressing article!

Five Easy Ways to go Organic: From the Dr. Alan Greene.

Fashion and Security: Combine the Japanese known security/crime phobia, their inventiveness, and the Japanese media hyping criminal incidents, and you get hilarious camouflage fashion!

Google Chart API: Really simple to use, I expect this to get some traction.

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Occassional Dimes

Tom Brokaw interviews Yvon Chouinard: The founder of Patagonia at the recent Google Zeitgeist! His fingers have never touched a keyboard, and he has never owned a cell phone. Personally I held off buying a cell phone until 2004 -- even then I did so only because I needed a work/office phone. I advise all you techno-geeks out there to watch this interview. Money quote: "We are no longer citizens of the world, we are consumers."

Leaving Microsoft to change the World: John Wood left a successful life as an expatriate manager for Microsoft to start the highly-regarded education non-profit Room To Read. The book traces Wood's journey from successful technologist to the current state of his successful non-profit. Non-profit employees and managers will benefit from the numerous tips and good practices that the author refashioned from his experience in the private sector.

City Bike Share: SF looks to implement a bike sharing system, similar to those found in European cities.

Dumpster Divers Go Mainstream In Thrifty Germany: Unfortunately available only to WSJ.com subscribers.

In many other countries, dumpster divers like Mr. Brylla would be written off as eccentrics. In Germany, he's just a normal 36-year-old graphic printer brought up to look down on wasting money on new things when sturdy old stand-bys are there for the taking.

"Consumption is nothing good," says Mr. Brylla. "It brings evil into the world."

Germans like Mr. Brylla are the retail trade's worst nightmare. They make enough money to buy the latest wares but choose to live in a free-of-charge economy. People who don't want stuff put it on the sidewalk. People who like it take it home.

"It's the culture here in Germany," says Dora Fecske, a Frankfurt businesswoman. "Why trash something if it's still good?" She recently found a large wooden dining table in the street and carried it several blocks to her home with help from friends.

... The trend is stubborn, with deep roots in history. Germans save their money partly because war and economic disasters during the last century make them think the future will bring more rainy days.

Today, even though the German economy is growing solidly and unemployment is falling, consumer spending is in the doldrums.

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Occassional Dimes

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture: Beloved Computer Science professor at Carnegie-Mellon, a pioneer in the field of computer graphics and animation -- he has advanced stage pancreatic cancer. What a moving video! Randy also maintains a chronicle of his battle with cancer.

Canada's Highway To Hell: This insightful feature article will surprise a lot of Americans -- it did me. Our neighbors up in Alberta are extracting large amounts of oil and destroying vast landscapes in the process. Oil in the tar sands is extremely difficult and energy-intensive to extract. The demand is fueled mostly by the US , but the question remains, why are the other Canadian provinces tolerating such destruction? If we, in the lower 48 states, can stop oil drilling in the Arctic National Refuge in Alaska, why are environmentalists up north so powerless? Perhaps its Canada's over dependence on mining and commodities ("... the GDP of energy-rich Alberta expanded by 6.8% last year, compared with Ontario's 1.9% and Quebec's 1.7%"). I definitely need to learn more about the Canadian environmental movement. We consumers need to be aware of where are oil comes from: 16% of oil imports are from Canada, already the largest source, and with expanded exploration of the tar sands, slated to get even larger.

11 Item You Don't Have To Buy Organic: Dr. Andrew Weil has a list of fruits and vegetables that you can buy, conventionally-grown, if you are on a budget. Hat Tip to zaddik2004.

Alms and the Monks: An informative perspective on the situation in Burma, from the Southeast Asian Press Alliance.

The Bay Area and the Microcredit Movement: The SF Chronicle highlights several Bay Area companies, including a few based in Davis, at the forefront of the microcredit movement.

China Bloggers Stew About Olympic Pigs: In China some people would rather eat like Olympic pigs.

In recent weeks, news that hogs are being specially raised to feed the athletes at the next year's Beijing Olympics has spurred an outcry on the Internet. The pigs are reportedly being fed an organic diet and getting daily exercise, treatment that has China's bloggers variously mocking, lamenting and raging online.

"I would rather be a pig for the Olympics than a human in a coal mine!" wrote a blogger who calls himself Shiniankanchai, referring to the reported deaths of thousands of workers in China's mines so far this year.

Shiniankanchai's sentiments soon spread to other blogs and to Tianya, the biggest Chinese-language Web forum. They reflect a growing frustration among ordinary Chinese with tainted food, dangerous or inhumane work environments and corrupt officials -- a frustration that is being expressed with increasing frequency.

It's "just ridiculous!" said Jane Xun, a 24-year-old employee of a Shenzhen logistics company, in an interview after she posted her own online objections to the pig-rearing program for the Olympics. "It actually shows how serious the food-safety problem is. What am I going to eat?"

... But a program to raise pigs specifically to feed the Olympic athletes, both the Chinese and those from other countries, is seen by many citizens as a sign of mad excess and pandering to foreigners.

Pigs are such an important commodity in China that the nation has a strategic pork reserve, a little like the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, to stabilize prices. China's pork reserve releases frozen meat and live hogs in a supply emergency. A recent jump in the price of pork after an outbreak of blue-ear disease among pigs played a part in pushing up China's inflation rate to 6.5% in August -- a serious concern for a government worried about an overheating economy, asset bubbles and a disgruntled rural populace.

Coming in the wake of reports of tainted Chinese food and toys, news of the Olympic-pig project are adding fat to the fire for some citizens. The special pigs "show how serious our food safety issue is," Shiniankanchai commented in an Internet posting. "While the government is devoted to solving the athletes' pork-eating problem, common people are asking: How about the food safety problem for people living in this country?"

The Olympics pork supplier, Qianxihe Food Group, or Lucky Crane, as the company brands itself in English, held a press conference in Beijing in August to announce the project. According to reports in the Chinese press, which widely covered the press conference, the company said its aim is to provide athletes with the purest of meat, free of any substances that could cause them to fail doping tests.

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Occassional Dimes

Running the Numbers: Chris Jordan's amazing photos help us visualize a variety of social statistics (e.g. American children with no health insurance coverage in 2007).

Freegans: LATimes article on Freegans -- "the word combining "vegan" and "free" -- a growing subculture of people who have reduced their spending habits and live off consumer waste."

Supercapitalism: Fresh Air's Terry Gross interviews former Dept. of Labor Secretary, Robert Reich.

Energyville: Interesting online simulation from The Economist and Chevron. You get to be a city planner in charge of your city's energy portfolio. Nicely done.

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Occassional Dimes

The Farm Bill: Science Friday has a round table with Michael Pollan, Marion Nestle, and Sandor Katz.

DH Love Life: I really like Daryl Hannah's environmental videos. They are short, informative and entertaining.

Clean Tech Economics: A recent hour-long discussion on KQED's Forum.

Water Diaries: Award-winning radio program Living on Earth, compares water usage in the US and India.

The Devil Came On Horseback: A disturbing and deeply moving documentary about the catastrophe in Darfur.

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Occasional Dimes

micro-wind technology in San Francisco:

" ... the 34-year-old engineer has pioneered the city's first permitted micro–wind project, a six-foot-tall cylindrical turbine that currently sits on his roof and sends juice into the energy grid ... (it) generate(s) between 300 and 600 kilowatt hours of energy per year, or about 10 percent of a typical home's energy needs. ... A one-turbine system will cost around $5,000, though Pelman estimates that rebates will reduce the price by $1,500."

Coal In China: An audio slide show from NPR.

Health Care in the U.S.: Yet another great episode on Fresh Air. I was surprised to hear that Australia and Germany have Health Care systems that are similar to the U.S., and according to Jonathan Oberlander, both systems contain practices that could be replicated here.

Big Coal: Renewable energy supporters need to understand how the coal and oil industry work. Big Coal and Oil on the Brain are well-written guides to these incumbent energy sectors.

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Occasional Dimes

The Strange Rise of Modern India: This is a must-read book on the world's largest democracy, incredibly well-written. Here is a recent interview with the author.

Danish Wind Sector runs into problems: "A conservative government has changed the rules of the game: Subsidies for wind-generated electricity have been reduced and planning rules for new turbines tightened. As a consequence, the flourishing market is stalling. In 2006, Denmark installed only 11 megawatts of new turbines, compared with the 2,200 megawatts installed in its big southern neighbor, Germany."

Large-scale production of Hydrogen using an Aluminum alloy: From Science Friday.

Going Green: A special broadcast from the Peabody award-winning program To The Best of Our Knowledge.

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Occasional Dimes: Memorial Day Edition

Amory Lovins (The Future of U.S. Energy): In about an hour, Amory describes his roadmap for getting the U.S. to energy independence using a few simple steps. Business leaders should pay attention to some of his suggestions, there are lots of profits to be made. Includes a cool overview of carbon fiber vehicles.

Oil on the Brain: What a great book. It reminded me of two other books I loved (The Travels of a T-Shirt and How Soccer Explains the World), in that it takes a seemingly mundane topic, but wraps it in amazing prose and as a bonus some pretty good "travel" writing. I loved just about every chapter of Oil on the Brain, but I especially dug the chapters on Refineries, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Distribution, and Venezuela. I can't wait to read this book again.

Health Dialogues: Health Care Reform: Click here for the mp3 file.

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