Proactive monitoring

Many patients use tele-health devices. Such devices ask the patient to enter data on their blood pressure or weight, and transmit these data to the doctor or other monitoring personnel by phone line or wireless Internet.

Describing the macro-economy

How do we describe the evolutionary process of an economy? Such a description involves some decision model of participating agents. Therefore it is more complex than fluid dynamics, where each particle has no mind of its own.
The ultimate goal of this exercise is making prediction and explaining what happened in the past.

Sensible Gun Laws

There is another sad news this week: In a university of Northern Illinois, a gunman walked into a classroom, opened fires to students sitting there, killing 5 and wounding a dozen or so. Then he killed himself. Upon arrival, police found 3 handguns and 1 shotgun used by this man. You may also remember the news just last week. In a small city of Missouri, a man walked into a city council meeting, shot 3 officials and 2 others to death. A few days before that, in a Chicago shopping mall, five women were killed in on their head by a gunman. We listen to such horrible news day after day. We are angry, scared and at a loss. You may ask: Why do so many killings happen? Is it unique to the United States? What can we do about it?

To find out an answer, we can simply look at all the other developed nations. Here are the statistics: In 2004, there were 5 people murdered by guns in New Zealand, 37 in Sweden, 73 in UK, 184 in Canada, and 11,300 in the United States. Think about it, 11,300. We have about 3,000 soldiers died in Iraq war. But people who are killed by guns inside this country are three times of that number. Adding to the people murdered by guns is another 10,000 people who use guns to kill themselves each year. We live in a land of extreme violence. What the news displays is just the reality that goes on in this country.

But the only difference between the high death toll of the United States and low numbers of other industrial nations is their gun laws. In Britain, handguns are banned. In Sweden, there is strict licensing process for applying for a firearm. In Australia, automatic weapons and handguns are banned, and there is strict licensing for shotguns.

Some people say any sensible gun law is restricting our freedom. But are we truly free when we have metal detectors everywhere, when we are scared to walk into a mall, and when we watch more than 20,000 people die each year from senseless killings?

Fortunately, people have acted on passing more sensible gun laws. In 1994, Clinton signed two laws, one is banning assault weapons. The other is requires 5-days waiting period before buying a gun. This would prevent people from buy a gun out of anger and it also gives more time to the law enforcement to check the background. The first law was forced to expire in 2004 by the republican congress. The second law was forced out four years later by the strong lobby of National Rifle Association. In addition, NRA is aggressively pushes for laws in each state that allow a person to carry a gun anywhere particularly in public place. It’s called concealed weapon law. Bush signed such a law when he was in Texas. Furthermore, NRA lobbies to have pass gun immunity law. Today, gun is the only consumer product in America that is not subject to any safety-related regulation. This is despite the fact more than 1,000 children are accidentally killed by guns at home. A law signed by Bush in 2005 gave gun industry complete immunity from lawsuit.

Why does NRA have so much power to sway federal and state legislation? It is all because their money and our political campaign depends on money. NRA has always been the biggest donor for the republican party. Mike Huckabee spoke to NRA gathering a few months ago, and he is a card-carrying NRA member. John McCain spoke to the NRA convention in September last year, saying how much he agrees with them. The democrats are typically on the gun-control side. But they cannot ignore the big money and influence of NRA. Therefore they never come out straightforwardly to talk about sensible gun laws. Nevertheless, Both Hillary Clinton and Obama have voted for requiring extensive background checks at gun shows, and limiting gun sales to one per month. Clinton also supported licensing and registration of handguns. Not surprisingly, John McCain voted against all of such measures. This is a fundamental difference between democrats and republicans.

What can you do to ensure gun safety for your children and for yourself? First, elect a democrat to the white house. Second, check out Brady Campaign website, find out facts about gun violence, and support their work. Thirdly, call or write to your senator. A new proposal is now pushed by NRA in Senate to allow loaded guns in national park. We have to act to stop this madness. Change happens only when we act. Let’s create this change.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate

Reading Audacity of Hope

I marvel at a man's passion and excellence. But more movingly is his deep thinking about this country, about policy issues. I am surprised that his mind is not occupied by how to create fame for himself, but how to tackle problems facing this country. He is larger than a politician. There is greatness about this man, who steps out his narrow self.

From his fresh eyes who just joined the Senate for 2 years, Obama describe the process that can corrupt a democratic senate. In order to get large donation, you start to dine and wine the top 1% people: banker, CEOs, venture investors. You start to enjoy private jet and special status. You are indebted to union and large interest group who has the power to break your campaign. All of these is because the large fee of TV advertising which requires millions of dollars. How can we reform this system so that a candidate no longer has to cave to these interest groups?

Obama also mentioned thousands of bills he has to vote for or against each year. The complexity of each bill makes every voting an agonizing experience. I hope we can adopt national referendum soon, like people do in California. This will not only reduce the work load for those law makers, but also empower people to make direct decisions.

The Audacity of Hope is an excellent book. It's beautifully written with remarkable of literacy flavor. It about a man's journey in his latest political career (State and US senate, democratic convention speech). But it is refreshingly real, personal. It gives you hope for what is good and what is right.

Meeting of minds

I had a lunch meeting with 9 other people who are interested in Web 2.0. It's amazing how much new information can be generated in this process. It also helps that we had good food. :)

Creating a dream buddy

It has long been the dream of AI field: A talking buddy who are respond to you, who understand you and who can give you advice.