Malcolm K. Sparrow is a British academic. He is Professor of the Practice of Public Management at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is the faculty chair of the school’s executive program “Strategic Management of Regulatory and Enforcement Agencies.”... In his book License to Steal, Sparrow conservatively estimated that the billing fraud in the health care industry is 10% of all expenses or about $360 billion this year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Sparrow (more)

Dan Davies: why and when what works won't (part 2). This might be one of the factors behind the often disappointing performance of “evidence based” initiatives. Starting out with a mission statement to “do what works” often means failing to follow the Malcolm Sparrow sequence of actions (identify a problem – gather evidence to understand it – solve the problem – tell everyone what you did). ((2023-05-10) Davies Why When What Works Wont Part1) (more)

Tom Wolfe novel (1998) ISBN:0553381334 (more)

John Cutler: TBM 265: Rebuilding Trust and Breaking Free From Trust Proxies and The Swirl. We will explore how trust issues—especially among senior leaders—can greatly impact an organization (and why it is so hard to address these issues). (more)

cf psychological safety

Zvi Mowshowitz: DeepSeek Panic at the App Store. DeepSeek released v3. Market didn’t react. (more)

Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed is a book by James Scott critical of a system of beliefs he calls authoritarian high modernism, that centers around confidence in the ability to design and operate society in accordance with scientific laws.[1][2] It was released in March 1998, with a paperback version in February 1999. The book catalogues schemes which states impose upon populaces that are convenient for the state since they make societies "legible", but are not necessarily good for the people. For example, census data, standardized weights and measures, and uniform languages make it easier to tax and control the population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State ISBN:978-0-30007016-3; see Legibility (more)

protagonist/book-series from Cory Doctorow - https://us.macmillan.com/series/themartinhenchnovels (more)

aka Alpha Male, Alpha Chimp (Primate). In social animals, the alpha is the individual in the community with the highest rank (status, power). Where one male and one female fulfill this role, they are referred to as the alpha pair (the term varies when several females fulfill this role – it is extremely rare among mammals for several males to fulfill this role with one female). Other animals in the same social group may exhibit deference or other symbolic signs of respect particular to their species towards the alpha. The alpha animals are given preference to be the first to eat and the first to mate; among some species they are the only animals in the pack (Tribe) allowed to mate. Other animals in the community are usually killed or ousted if they violate this rule. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_(ethology) (more)

Matt Zeigler: The Risks Of Switched-Off People. Switched-on people are out there picking up dots and sharing connections for the pure joy of discovery. They're alive in a way that's almost electric. When they're hyped about something - whether it's the perfect ramen recipe or the mathematics of black holes - it's contagious. (LivePlayer) (more)

I saw a toot from someone saying they suddenly couldn't read their Kindle ebooks that they bought more than 5 years ago - they had to re-buy them, then contact customer service for refunds! (more)

pill to supposedly improve your Gut Microbiome (more)

an American Internet entrepreneur who co-founded Revision3, Digg, Pownce, and Milk. He also served as production assistant and co-host at TechTV's The Screen Savers. From 2012 to 2015, he was a venture partner at GV. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Rose

Healthy Diet? Is that the goal? (more)

Gut microbiota, gut microbiome, or gut flora are the microorganisms, including bacteria, archaea, fungi, and viruses, that live in the digestive tracts of animals.[1][2] The gastrointestinal metagenome is the aggregate of all the genomes of the gut microbiota.[3][4] The gut is the main location of the human microbiome.[5] The gut microbiota has broad impacts, including effects on colonization, resistance to pathogens, maintaining the intestinal epithelium, metabolizing dietary and pharmaceutical compounds, controlling immune function, and even behavior through the gut–brain axis... The composition of human gut microbiota changes over time, when the diet changes, and as overall health changes.[9][15] A systematic review from 2016 examined the preclinical and small human trials that have been conducted with certain commercially available strains of probiotic bacteria and identified those that had the most potential to be useful for certain central nervous system disorders.[16] It should also be highlighted that the Mediterranean diet, rich in vegetables and fibers, stimulates the activity and growth of beneficial bacteria for the brain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_microbiota (more)

The Food That Helps Battle Depression. Now recent studies show that a healthy diet may not only prevent depression, but could effectively treat it once it’s started. (more)

old geeky Tv Show

(2017-07-12) Cory Doctorow's Fully Automated Luxury Communist - or even Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism. (more)

series of books/services by Michael Gerber (more)

What If Ice Cream Is Actually Good for You? Back in 2018, a Harvard doctoral student named Andres Ardisson Korat was presenting his research on the relationship between dairy foods and chronic disease to his thesis committee. One of his studies had led him to an unusual conclusion: Among diabetics, eating half a cup of ice cream a day was associated with a lower risk of heart problems (more)