You can read Bill Gates' 2010 Annual Letter for the Bil & Melinda Gates Foundation here. It's broken into 12 sections which you will find below. Personally I really like the line at the top of every page: "All Lives Have Equal Value"
I'm playing bachelor dad this weekend so I'm constructing my honey do list for the weekend. I used to think lists were unnecessary, but that was before close to two decades of parenting sucked my brain dry. So lists it is.
This weekend's list includes chauffeuring kids to various events of varying consequence, supervising the cleaning of the house (now that the kids are teenagers I've moved from labor to management on this one) and, most importantly, purchasing Beano to be sprinkled liberally on our dogs' food. I cannot describe the unholy stench that permeates our house, but rest assured that I'm hoping beyond all hope that the Beano works. If it doesn't I'm gonna invest in a couple of good corks.
Have a great weekend everyone.
Mark Cuban's latest post, titled Why are we condemning Jeff Zucker & NBC over Leno, has this:
In today’s corporate world, if you don’t take the risks, you don’t get skewered on blogs, on cable news, in the newspaper. Public condemnation appears to be a far worse consequence than financial success is a reward. Thats a huge problem for our country.
In today’s world, we reward Patent Trolls with 8 and 9 figure settlements for ideas they never did a minute of work on or ever tried to monetize. The extent of their effort was hiring or selling out to patent lawyers. That’s a problem.
In today’s world, we reward companies that cut 10,000 jobs to benefit a few thousand shareholders. We lie to ourselves and say that the money will be re-invested in growth or passed on to shareholders. In reality, it will be used to buy back the stock that was awarded to corporate management under the guise of “avoiding dilution”
His post also contains a little nugget that is going to enter my lexicon of regularly used aphorisms: "No balls, no babies." Don't think I'll use that one when I'm coaching girls soccer though.
Fred Wilson has a post, Twitter.com vs. The Twitter Ecosystem, that is an essential read for anyone whose job involves Twitter. Strike that: it's important for anyone in business, period. I say that because the evolution of Twitter and similar "sharing" services is happening much faster than many people realize and it is reflected in the numbers that Fred shares. Anyone in business will be directly affected by that trend.
Please read Fred's post for yourself and keep in mind that his audience is a geek-ish, early adopter crowd, but over the five years I've been reading Fred's blog I've found them to be highly predictive of the world of communication and commerce that is about a year down the road. In other words they are behaving now the way the average consumer will be behaving in the next year or two.
Congress' attempt at health care reform is a big issue right now, and if you watch the news about what our Congresscritters are up to you can surmise that hardly anyone will be happy with the results. On the other hand most people seem to be holding their breath and hoping that, if nothing else, the changes to the system will at least be an improvement on the status quo.
Whatever the result we need to make sure that situations like this will never arise. From the story:
The financially strapped Jackson Health System has stopped paying for dialysis treatments for 175 poor patients with failing kidneys — a decision that experts say could be deadly.
“It is no game,'' says Emelina García Cordoví, 67, whose treatments at a South Miami-Dade center were cut off Dec. 31. “We are talking of the lives of persons who depend exclusively on their dialysis.''
Jackson, Miami-Dade's government health system intended to be a safety net for the poor and uninsured, said it expects to save $4.2 million by stopping payments for outpatient dialysis treatment for the 175 patients. Of those, other avenues for care have been found for all but 41, says spokesman Robert Alonso. About a third of those are undocumented immigrants, who are not eligible for government programs.
It's a debate as old as the water closet: should your toilet paper hand from the top or bottom? The debate is settled here (h/t to Lex).
Continuing with the theme from my last post I must point out that you really should be careful with the use of "bear" vs. "bare." I just read a Tweet that ended with "Please bare with me." My reaction? Uh, I really don't know you that well, and considering that you're at least 20 years younger than me and much better looking, I'm thinking that you'd be getting the crappy side of the deal if I did indeed decide to bare with you.
Now that just about every online news source allows commenting on articles and everyone with a pulse is on Facebook I've noticed a disturbing trait in most peoples' online rantings: they don't know the difference between "lose" and "loose."
I bring this up because I've read one too many status posts that say, "I'm gonna loose 25 pounds this year!" Really? Once you set them free where do you plan on sending them? I hope you keep them the hell away from me since I have 25 too many of my own.
See what I mean? Here's a quick primer on the difference between "lose" and "loose."
Your mind: it's something you lose when your children reach the age of 13. I'm sure there are ways to loose your mind, but I can't think of any at the moment.
Your belt: If you lose it your pants will be on the ground. If you eat too much you'll likely loosen it.
Next time we'll explore the difference between to, too and two. I'm too tired to even try and deal with the proper usage of there, their and they're, but I've seen those mangled a time or two as well.
Of all the countries to get pummeled by a major earthquake I can't think of many less prepared to deal with it than Haiti. Of course there are other Third-World countries out there, but because of Haiti's proximity to the eastern U.S. those of us who live here in NC are more likely to know someone who has been there or is involved with a group doing work there than elsewhere.
In the last hour I've received two emails from people who have friends or acquaintances in Haiti. One came from friend (and former neighbor) Susan Ewing, who has a very close friend, Pam Carter, currently in Haiti and she asked for all of us to pray for Pam. Luckily Pam is okay and she was able to get an email out to her husband and daughters to let them know that she's fine. Here's an article in the Charlotte Observer with more details. Of course things can go from "okay" to "very bad" in short order so please do keep Pam and everyone else in Haiti in your prayers.
The second email came from Bob Krebs, a board member of the organization I work for who is also heavily involved with Free the Kids. Free the Kids supports an orphanage about three hours from Port au Prince and Bob wrote that the orphanage was okay, that much of Port au Prince is demolished and that food and water are quickly becoming a problem and since the orphanage's food supplies come from Port au Prince they do not yet have a solution for the food problem.
Another local connection to Haiti is Susan Midgett who raised $100,000 for the orphanage by doing the Escape from Alcatraz Sharkfest swim last year. Hers is truly an inspirational story and I encourage you to take a look at the difference that one person made in the lives of literally thousands of children.
I'm sure there are many more local connections to this tragedy, and while it doesn't make the situation any more or less tragic I think it does help us appreciate the magnitude of what is unfolding down there. If you know of ways that people can help please feel free to share them in the comments or by emailing me and I'll try and get the word out as best I can.
Update 1: Gotta love Twitter. Just found this : Text HAITI to 90999 and $10 will be charged to your cell phone bill for the Red Cross effort in Haiti (via @barackobama )
Befuddled 