Politics & Other Issues

I really enjoyed this article about how little information is needed to personally identify you. The answer is, a lot less than you might think, and using more benign information than you might imagine. 1990 census data showed that 87% of people in the US could be identified based on their zip code, gender and date of birth. I found their results on movie preferences even more interesting: “Knowing just a little about a subscriber–say, six to eight movie preferences, the type of thing you might post on a social-networking site–the researchers found that they could pick out your anonymous … Continue reading Never admit you like Star Wars

I spent a fair bit of time not only reading the content of this weblog post applying Traveling Salesman to the transportation of produce, but also the extensive comments. The idea is that one hears people say that locally grown produce has less of an environmental impact, but when you consider the transportation of food for all people, you probably ought to be minimizing the fuel spent across the entire community, which may not be the same as minimizing the fuel spent to get food to a single individual. Essentially – that distribution centers add fuel efficiency. I think it … Continue reading The Megastore killed the Traveliing Salesman

Medical databases are one of the huge trends in IT right now, and there are a lot of people looking at how to make national, integrated personal medical information databases a reality. There are also a lot of people looking at the special requirements for accuracy and privacy when building such databases. I like this person’s comments, from a patient’s perspective, on the importance of sharing ownership of the records with the patient. The comments were triggered by someone commenting that they signed up for Google Health and found it to be a combination of inaccurate and with troubling omissions … Continue reading My Body My Data

I find this visualization of how the choices we make can reduce water consumption odd, if not downright problematic in places. The graphic seems to be an odd mix of “here are some things that you might do” with a tinge of “here is your complete usage in a day” – if it was the former, why would they include flushing the toilet and washing your hands twice. But if it is the later, well, they are suggesting you need only do those things twice in an entire day – this seems improbable and/or unhygienic. But it is the assessment … Continue reading But can I trade my morning coffee for a dinner glass of wine?

As promised, I spent part of Tuesday wandering around my local area taking some photos documenting the election. I’ve put together a representative sample in this year’s election photo collection. It was interesting to note that while I went to many of the same places that I did in 2004, I came across fewer demonstrations or evidence of particular political stances this time around, besides the expected yard signs. The sentiment out there was more one of “make sure you vote”.