Monday, December 19, 2005

Rants and Raves

We look up health information, notably on ovarian cancer on the web quite often [because we know someone who has elevated risks of the disease] and use them as another set of data points to make informed decisions. Unfortunately there are many anecdotal tales (e.g. ovarian cancer symptoms, ...) of heart breaks but the lack of quantitative information details (how often, every 6 hours, 10 days cycles, ...? the IBS-like symptoms or pains/symptoms occur?, ...) makes these stories much less useful. 

The obscene millions of dollars that CU Boulder football coach got when fired for poor performance are noted in a letter to the Denver Post by Anne Culver on December 17, 2005, "... What happened to the concept of sports as a contribution to health, character and the spirit of teamwork? In a world where ball catchers, throwers and other 'entertainers' make millions, and social workers, school teachers and nurses make a pittance [What's wrong with this picture?], it's high time somebody laid it on the line: Sports [especially, collegiate ones] should comprise a contribution to the quality of our lives [and secondary to the goal of a university to educate all students], not a hot commodity for buying and selling." 

Frank Petkovich of San Francisco wrote in the Dec 26, 2005 Businessweek that "... in my eight years with three venture capitalist-funded startups, I have found that many of these VCs are simply lucky imbeciles hiring other lucky imbeciles to run most of the Valley companies." He wrote to comment about the fair play that Google is requesting VCs to complete information spreadsheets before meeting with them.