Everything Adam

So I lamented my lack of panoramas/panograms a few posts back. This had the positive effect of goosing me to do more. So here are two for you...

The Fire

Scene: Evening during the recent family reunion. Most of the family is sitting around the fire, talking about nothing in particular. So I pull out the camera phone and take this:

Ding dong I checked the little clock on the computer. 2:32 p.m. I did a quick mental run-down of who might be ringing my doorbell. Mail? Nope, already picked it up. Groceries? Nope, not until tomorrow. Delivery of some sort? I racked my brain for any evidence of orders placed. Nothing, unless Sara placed some. I double-timed it to the door and opened it to find two little girls, probably around five years old, bike helmets still firmly attached to their heads. I figured they were here to see if Linnea wanted to come out to play. "Hi guys!", I said. I've perfected a false cheerfulness that can slip under a child's radar. I'm currently knee-deep in kids, I've got game. "What's going on?" "Do you want to buy some lemonade?" Well, no, not really.

Tech Talk with Tim and Adam is a new technology-oriented radio show and podcast that's going to run on KYMN radio (1080 AM) every Friday at 11a and Sundays at 5p.  It's also available as a podcast for those of you who enjoy that stuff.  (And you should, there's some pretty nifty stuff available via podcast)

Anyways, the Tech Talk homepage is located right here and contains all the information and a big ol' player so you can listen online.

The funny thing about these photos is that I'm so conflicted. On one hand, I'm oh-so-awkward here. Bad hair, bad clothes (stone-washed jorts? Really, me?), thick glasses. On the other hand, I was a really happy kid and I know that I would have been enjoying the hell out of a family reunion like this. Also to note is my Grandmother Marie, who's in the middle of the second picture and passed away in 2003.

Out of courtesy to my cousins, I didn't put their names in here so it doesn't come up when someone googles them. :)

(I just noticed my dirty pair of high tops in the second picture. This was definitely 88.)

We all know about Swine Flu/H1N1. It's the first pandemic in a generation or so and as I write this it's still running out of control. This will eventually pass and there will be a lot of talk and ideas and analysis.

At times it might feel that there's not much that you, Joe Public, can do. I felt that same way. I sat around spitballing a few ideas until I had a good one - what we need is a large public database of illnesses. Not just the flu, but all illnesses, everywhere. If we had a good collection of this and a simple way to collect future information, it could be an extremely valuable dataset for scientists, statisticians, and others studying diseases.

I'm sure that the WHO and the CDC are building the same thing. They've got money and resources and time, but there's one thing that they're not doing: they're not sharing the data. I know that they're good at what they do, but by keeping this information from the general public they're preventing someone from potentially finding the Next Big Thing. By hiding this information, they're causing rumors and misinformation and distrust.

So here's what we do. We create our own database. We make it easy and fast for anyone to submit to it. And we make the collected data available to anyone, anywhere. That's what I hope Sickr will do.

If you are sick or have been sick in the past, take one minute and head over to Sickr and answer 3-5 questions about it. There's no guesswork, no need to have a diagnosis, and you don't need to leave identifiable information. All we need is your illness. If you do this and your neighbor does this and your neighbor's kids and their friends and... and... and... then we will have a wonderful tool to track and predict future outbreaks and hopefully, probably find a solution.

All you need is one minute.