Midterms - Sickness. Correlation.

Midterms are here again - this week is H-E Double Hockey Sticks for me. Oh. And I'm sick. Just like the last time midterms came around. I'm sure I know why I'm sick everytime midterms come around - stress, lack of sleep, and like of proper diet do not a good immune system make. But I was prepared this time! I started drinking Airbourne early on in the week - two at a time, twice a day. I eat Vitamin C drops during class, I drink VitaminPower "Defense" water, I seriously have at least 3000% my daily value of Vitamin C in my body right now. Maybe that's why I'm sick.... oh... darn, better luck next midterm (if I make it through this one alive)....

Google to Share Patient Health Records

Yes, that's right, according to the Associated Press

"Google Inc. will begin storing the medical records of a few thousand people as it tests a long-awaited health service that's likely to raise more concerns about the volume of sensitive information entrusted to the Internet search leader.

The pilot project to be announced Thursday will involve 1,500 to 10,000 patients at the Cleveland Clinic who volunteered to an electronic transfer of their personal health records so they can be retrieved through Google's new service, which won't be open to the general public.

Each health profile, including information about prescriptions, allergies and medical histories, will be protected by a password that's also required to use other Google services such as e-mail and personalized search tools."

Woahh, that's a little scary to me - with only a password between my health records and the public world wide web, I would be a little hesitant in giving my health records out to Google. I can definitely see the benefits of having such records in a place that's easily accessible, but is easy accessibility what I want? I don't think so, not yet at least. What worries me is that 1) these records are not by the HIPPA bill, 2) this program is still in its early stage with no one really knowing what problems will arise or what implication this will have, and 3) the security is questionable. I'm also worried by if and how Google would use this program to earn revenue - if they are expecting to sell advertising like they do with their main search page, they I'll know that the are keeping a watch on me. So I would not put my health records into a Google database - to me it is just to risky. For the rest of my generation though, those chronicle-my-daily-life-and-possibly-illegitimate-activities-with-posts-and-pictures on Faceook type people, they might think differently. Maybe I will too in the feature, but not now, not at this time, with this technology.

Foodie

"Something must be wrong with me," my friend told me around a week ago when I was having dinner her, "when I'm not eating, all I think about is eating and when I'm eating, all I think about is what other people are eating. Basically, all I think about is eating. All. The. Time."

Seriously, I think the vast majority of college kids follow the same strain of thought, as lofty as we like to believe ourselves to be. I laughed at her at the time, but I was humbled last Sunday when our hall finally discovered the phone number to the Chinese restaurant that delivered (we're freshmen, as in, no cars). We all went crazy with the ordering, I personally came away with three-four dishes. It was ridiculous. After ordering, the first thing I did was various members of my family to tell them the news, "We got Chinese food. I'm so happy. I could die." My fairytale ended the next day however, when I ended up going to the Caf during its downtime and ended up having to subsist on a bagel and Rice Krispie treats. Ah... back to dreaming about food...

FISA and Telecom Immunity

So we were recently assigned to read two articles representing opposite sides of the FISA and telecom immunity debate, one by the Wall Street Journal and the other by blogger and author Glenn Greenwald.

How do I feel about it? I don't know. Greenwald's article, written in reply to the Wall Street Journal editorial, claimed that the editorial distorted a lot of the facts. I can only imagine that the writer of the Wall Street Journal editorial would claim the same of Greenwald. This leaves me in a lurch, unable to separate fact from fiction (although, on Greenwald's part, he cites a lot of information directly from the law).

Assuming that what Greenwald is true however, then I am very worried - not just about the policies in and of themselves, but more importantly, in the way they are going about trying to pass this bill - repeating sound bites and lying to the American people. I am not against all wiretapping, nor does most Americans, however it cannot be done with some justification of suspicion which would be represented by a court-issued search warranty. If the bill is really being pushed to include tha a court-issued search warranty is unneeded in order to wiretap then we will be violating the Constitution, the laws, the principles, and the values that we are fighting to defend in the first place.
Publish Post

Gene Nicol, the BOV, and the Future of William and Mary

This is definitely the news on everyone's mind today. I'm sure everybody and everything has heard all about it and expressed their respective viewpoints on it. I guess I'll just jump on the bandwagon and add in my two cents:

I just put it out there right now - I support Gene Nicol, I know not every student does, but let's take Gene Nicol the person and president aside for a moment. Whether you agree or disagree with what the BOV did, I don't think anybody can deny that the WAY they went about doing it was WRONG from taking the vote in a closed-door meeting without any recordings to allegedly bribing Nicol to not paint the "firing" from a certain angle to allowing a few select alumni and House delegates have more influence than the students and faculty. That, that is what's really wrong and that is what the fight really boils down to - who REALLY controls William and Mary?

And the answer should be easy - why the students and faculty who are here on this campus day-to-day and are actually affected by what happens in this school. But in the real world, money and influence is what talks and so it is the alumni and it is a few select persons who wield them that have real power in this school - a sad conclusion for the school that once educated the men who would go on to establish democracy in America.

Craig Aaron on Net Neutrality

Halfway through Craig Aaron's blog post on the future of the internet, I started to feel an awful like one of those "simpletons" that Aaron claims that the government says we are....

No, I've never really thought about net neutrality before
No, I never realized that the big telephone corporations of the world are involved in some mass conspiracy to get rid of it

Although I'm starting to get an inkling on why the United States may be starting to fall behind technologically (i.e. us simpletons)

Ah the guilt of ignorance...

But I do read the news! I do keep up with current events! But with all that is going on now - the campaign, the war in Iraq, the Middle East, the rise of China - is it any wonder that the story on net neutrality fell through the cracks? It's not exactly the sexiest topic - which brings me back to Aaron's post. He wants a "fundamental and truly public conversation about how the future of the Internet should look"by having the government agree to hold public forums - online and off - in every state and possibly district, before making "the monumental decisions that will shape the Internet for a generation."

Smashing idea Aaron - no, I'm not being sarcastic, I really think so. But in a country such as this, where it's amazing if half of all eligible voters turn out for elections, you might find yourself the only one in said forums. Maybe I'm just being a pessimist, maybe I'm just being a party pooper, but at the end of the day I just don't think the public is going to care that much - and that's the scary part.

Although, if something ever happened to Facebook...