Futurist

There are 390 posts filed in Futurist (this is page 19 of 39).

Flu shot effectiveness below 50 percent

My friends are making noise about getting a flu vaccine. I am not anti-vaccine at all, but not all vaccines are the same. And not all flu vaccines are the same, either. Each season’s flu vaccine is a coin toss whether it will actually work. According to CDC statistics, patients 65 or older who got a flu shot during the 2012-2013 season were only protected from flu an abysmally-low 9% of the time.

There is also evidence from the CDC that repeatedly getting flu shots makes you more susceptible to getting the flu.

There are a lot of claims being made about the flu vaccine, including a lot of hype. I think it’s important to pay attention to what the science tells you.

The flu vaccine was 47% effective against medically attended flu for all influenza strains in the 2011-12 season, and being vaccinated the year before lowered effectiveness, according to a study yesterday in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

US researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and elsewhere looked at complete data for the season, which was relatively mild and peaked late. They found an overall vaccine effectiveness VE of 47% for preventing medically attended flu.

VE against 2009 H1N1 was 65%, but against H3N2, which was the predominant strain during the 2011-12 season. VE was only 39%. Its effectiveness against type B strains was 58% but was actually lower against the Victoria strain included in the vaccine 52% compared with the Yamagata strain not included in the vaccine 66%.

The investigators also noted a statistically significant difference between VE for those who received a flu vaccine the year before 33% and those who did not 56%.

via Flu Scan for Nov 14, 2013 | CIDRAP.

On the Matter of Why Bitcoin Matters — The Magazine on Medium

Glenn Fleishman, frequent contributor to The Economist, takes a closer look at Marc Andreessen’s recent NY Times opinion piece about Bitcoin.

Marc Andreessen wrote an essay for the New York Times about Bitcoin, “Why Bitcoin Matters,” in which he attempts to explain the relevancy of the digital currency for the future of commercial transactions. He uses analogies, allegories, history, and ostensible facts to build his case.

However, I believe he fundamentally misrepresents or misunderstands key aspects of the technology, ecosystem, and impact, despite Andreessen Horowitz, of which he is a founding partner, having just under $50m in investment fully disclosed in “Bitcoin-related startups.” I own no Bitcoins; Marc has a “de minimis” amount. I will note that someone owning Bitcoin investments and not Bitcoins is the same as owning gold-mine investments and no gold.

via On the Matter of Why Bitcoin Matters — The Magazine on Medium — Medium.

Why Bitcoin Matters – NYTimes.com

Internet pioneer Marc Andreessen explains the promise of Bitcoin. I thought I understood these concepts well enough but this showed me new possibilities.

That last part is enormously important. Bitcoin is the first Internetwide payment system where transactions either happen with no fees or very low fees (down to fractions of pennies). Existing payment systems charge fees of about 2 to 3 percent – and that’s in the developed world. In lots of other places, there either are no modern payment systems or the rates are significantly higher. We’ll come back to that.

Bitcoin is a digital bearer instrument. It is a way to exchange money or assets between parties with no pre-existing trust: A string of numbers is sent over email or text message in the simplest case. The sender doesn’t need to know or trust the receiver or vice versa. Related, there are no chargebacks – this is the part that is literally like cash – if you have the money or the asset, you can pay with it; if you don’t, you can’t. This is brand new. This has never existed in digital form before.

via Why Bitcoin Matters – NYTimes.com.

Nasa says Mars mystery rock that ‘appeared’ from nowhere is ‘like nothing we’ve seen before’ – Science – News – The Independent

This is bizarre.

A mysterious rock which appeared in front of the Opportunity rover is “like nothing we’ve ever seen before”, according to Mars exploration scientists at Nasa.

Experts said they were “completely confused” by both the origins and makeup of the object, which is currently being investigated by Opportunity’s various measuring instruments.

via Nasa says Mars mystery rock that ‘appeared’ from nowhere is ‘like nothing we’ve seen before’ – Science – News – The Independent.

Here’s the referenced Mars status report from NASA.

Cord Cutters And The Death Of TV – Business Insider

The cord-cutting and shift away from TV that I mentioned before is accelerating. TV as we’ve known it is dying.

The TV business is having its worst year ever.Audience ratings have collapsed: Aside from a brief respite during the Olympics, there has been only negative ratings growth on broadcast and cable TV since September 2011, according to Citi Research.

Media stock analysts Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson recently noted, “The pay-TV industry has reported its worst 12-month stretch ever.” All the major TV providers lost a collective 113,000 subscribers in Q3 2013. That doesn’t sound like a huge deal — but it includes internet subscribers, too.

Broadband internet was supposed to benefit from the end of cable TV, but it hasn’t.

In all, about 5 million people ended their cable and broadband subs between the beginning of 2010 and the end of this year.

via Cord Cutters And The Death Of TV – Business Insider.

After loss of key doctors, WakeMed seeks to stabilize

I enjoyed John Murawski’s excellent health care story in today’s N&O. You should read it if you haven’t already.

One underlying theme I deduced from the story is summarized here:

“Hospitals have a possibility of providing you with a network of referring physicians, where you can sleep on a more comfortable cushion, knowing that you’re going to get a share of the market and referrals on a regular basis,” Lacin said.

Lacin also said working for Rex frees him and other doctors from money worries and lets them concentrate on practicing medicine.

This got me thinking. Could medical care simply not be a good fit for the so-called “free market?” Honestly? Doctors don’t want to hassle with the business side so they let someone else (i.e. hospital) deal with it and, before you know it, our medical costs are soaring.

What if we went to single-payer healthcare in America? It seems to me that the burden of business hassles could be taken on by the government just as easily as a hospital and the costs could be much less.

With its soaring costs, I think it’s fair to say the free market is failing the medical industry. One day Americans will wake up to this and join the civilized societies which value the mutual health of their citizens.

via After loss of key doctors, WakeMed seeks to stabilize | Health & Science | NewsObserver.com.

Cheap Thoughts: Parking meter app

Dinosaur

Dinosaur


Paying for parking? There’s an app for that. Or at least there should be.

Walking down a downtown sidewalk this week, I pondered a sawed-off pipe near the curb where an old-fashioned parking meter once stood. A few years ago, the City of Raleigh got rid of all the traditional coin-based parking meters and put up new electronic parking kiosks instead. Drivers simply note the painted number for their parking space and enter that into the kiosk along with their payment.

Simple, right? Instead of collecting coins from hundreds of meters, parking staff simply empty the money from kiosks, which take credit cards and paper bills in addition to coins. Drivers can also refresh their parking time from nearby kiosks, avoiding a trip back to the kiosk nearest the car.
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Orange orbs over Cork, Ireland

Remember those mysterious floating flares I saw over Raleigh the night of Bluegrass Wide Open in September? I never did figure out what they were, nor did the city’s 911 center have any records of anyone calling about them. Yesterday, though, I came across this video someone took that shows what is purportedly fiery orange orbs descending over Cork, Ireland in December 2012.

Now, I don’t know if these are UFOs, flares, Chinese lanterns, or simply some fancy video editing. Providing there’s no photographic trickery involved, the objects are extremely bright, probably flying at a low altitude, and seem to appear out of nowhere instantly. What’s more, they look exactly like what I saw floating at a distance back on that September night.
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We need to talk about TED | Benjamin Bratton

A critical (and much-needed) look at TED.

Instead of dumbing-down the future, we need to raise the level of general understanding to the level of complexity of the systems in which we are embedded and which are embedded in us. This is not about “personal stories of inspiration,” it’s about the difficult and uncertain work of demystification and reconceptualisation: the hard stuff that really changes how we think. More Copernicus, less Tony Robbins.

Keep calm and carry on “innovating” … is that the real message of TED? To me that’s not inspirational, it’s cynical.

via We need to talk about TED | Benjamin Bratton | Comment is free | theguardian.com.