GeorgeBMac

EPIC and the hospitals are not concerned about patient privacy or cost (When did our healthcare system ever worry about cost?)

They ARE concerned about losing control of patient data for a plethora of reasons:  Once control of the data is taken away from "The System" the patient has a lot more knowledge and control -- which can put the hospital in bad spot.  Basically, our healthcare system, particularly at the hospital level, has always been adamant on maintaining total control of what goes on -- the patient is limited to refusing care, but even that is very difficult.   In addition, the patient's data would lose a great deal of its monetary value as they would not be able to sell it themselves to companies like Google (which one major system has already done).

When thinking about why our large health care operations do something always think money and profits because that is all that they think of - just as any other corporation does.  This proposal will cost them both in money and control so they are opposed to it.   Their objections have nothing to do with protecting the patient -- that's just the shield they hide behind.

I just upgraded from a 44mm Series 1 to a 44mm Series 4 -- because I could get a new one for $130 off from a third party vendor trying to clear stock.   Yeh, the always on display of the Series 5 is a very nice feature -- particularly in meetings where you need to sneak a peek to get the time and doing a dramatic wrist raise is not in good taste.   But, being retired, that feature is no big deal to me.

 But, this was a major upgrade from my Series 1 (which was running really well).  To be honest, I noticed an improvement in speed, but surprisingly nothing dramatic because the Series 1 was already pretty quick.

But four things that are making a big difference for me:
1)  The increased size of the icons make it a lot easier for my fat fingers to maneuver the home screen.
2)  The increased font sizes make it a LOT easier to read while running (that's really nice).
3)  Having a phone on my wrist means I no longer have to carry a phone around for safety in case I need to call for help.
4)  The fall detection already kicked in:   While running on a trail yesterday I tripped over a rock buried under some leaves and went down hard (partly because I was already moving at 6-7mph).   And, it gently asked me if it should call for help -- which was doubly nice since I was out there alone and did not have my phone with me.

So, this Series 4 with LTE is already pretty sweet.  And the Series 5 is obviously even better -- especially if your boss is lecturing you over something as it comes time for your bus to arrive.

Type 2 Diabetes is becoming an epidemic in western countries living the Standard Western Lifesyle -- eating junky food and sitting around.

But Pre-Diabetes already is in epidemic numbers:   that's where the person has elevated sugar levels but not to the point of being diagnosed as a full diabetic. 

That is, diabetes is not a switch where you either have it or you don't.   It's a continuum with an arbitrary line drawn saying "at this blood sugar level you have diabetes".

So, this feature on an Apple Watch could benefit far more people than just diabetics.   From the CDC:
--  30 million Americans have diabetes

--  70 million Americans have pre-diabetes

It's not just that pre-diabetes might (probably?) turn into diabetes but that pre-diabetes harms the body's systems and organs just as diabetes does -- it just does less harm rather than no harm.   And, we know that the harm from these things is cumulative -- it's the constant attack on the body's systems year after year, decade after decade that finally gives way to "Age Related Diseases".

So, a person should not wait to take action when they are diagnosed with diabetes but when they develop pre-diabetes -- because both conditions are primarily caused by unhealthy lifestyles and can be prevented, controlled and often reversed with healthy lifestyles.

I have not experienced any of these problems after updating my iPhone 7 and Series 4 AppleWatch.

But, as a warning, I have experienced problems when trying to restore an iPhone and then re-pair it with a watch.  

Specifically:   The iPhone would restore and appear to be fully functional but the pairing process would fail on multiple attempts.

Eventually what was happening became more clear:   while the data (such as contacts) was restored from the iCloud backup, the phone was still restoring data from elsewhere.   That was data that was not backed up under iCloud backup such as:  music, health, pictures, etc....   While it was never exactly clear what was going on, it appeared to be that the download of that additional data overrode the download of data to pair the Apple Watch (almost like WiFi had failed) and the pairing process failed.

Today there was an article about former American intelligence agents pulling in $200-$400K salaries for spying on America for the UAE using American spy techinques.

But, yeh, let's blame the Chinese!  It's the politically correct thing to do.   It distracts from Russia

To me, the "Jobs" movie was far more accurate.   It portrayed Jobs and how he was driven to do and to create great things -- even if it meant pushing, driving and even being mean to to people.   He was so totally focused on his mission, that people were mostly just tools to be used to get there.  Yes, he could be heartless -- but not for the sake of being mean and heartless.   (and yes, being so absorbed in his mission, he did make mistakes -- things that he later regretted).

Conversely, the "Steve Jobs" movie portrayed him as vulnerable, but primarily just a mean, self centered, ambitious bastard who relished being mean and nasty.

I think, from all I have seen and heard, that the Steve Jobs movie portrayed a popular, superficial and ultimately false picture.

His biggest (only?) complaint about his M1 MacBook Air is that it can't meet his needs because it is frozen in time with what it came with when he bought it -- versus his MacPro which grew and developed with enhancements as his needs, wants and requirements grew.

Likewise, my 9 year old i7 Thinkpad runs perfectly well and meets all of my needs -- because it's been upgraded to a 500Gb SSD, 16Gb Ram and an internal harddrive used for ongoing, real time backups.  Without those cheap and very simple to install (5 minutes or less) upgrades the machine would have been scrap

That makes sense....

Sleep is primarily a chemical process that occurs in the brain and throughout the body.   But that process and the overall physiology of sleep is poorly understood.  And, the only chemical treatments are sedatives and pills with sleepy side effects like Benadryl (an anti-histamine).

But, since they have little understanding and no treatments for the root causes of insomnia, they have to rely on environmental solutions derived from observational data.

While that works for things like stress and anxiety (use a relaxation technique to relieve it) it tends to branch out to things with little or no effect like what color light enters the brain before sleep.

We need to do better.   Sleep is as critical to life as water and nutrients.  And, a lack of sleep impacts multiple things throughout the body.  For instance there is an ongoing debate whether manic episodes in bipolar disorder are triggered by sleep disturbances or if the sleep disturbances are triggered by the manic episode.

We need to do better in this area -- we need a lot more basic research.