Category Archives: Technology

Years back, paleo warrior Karen De Coster was fired by her doctor for questioning the wisdom of the prescribed annual mammogram and refusing to submit to it. Uncoordinated, and in the same month, I was given my marching orders by my medic for a related infraction.

Just the other day, at the (new) doctor’s office, I was treated as an alien for suggesting that an ultrasound be performed for an additional data point, to alternate with the mammogram the provider kept pressing for. Be a daredevil, I suggested (not in those words, of course); get a different angle on the breast tissue! The providers’ response–from doctor to radiographer: “OMG! Nooooo … there’s a heretic among us. Reach for the smelling salts. Should we call security????!!! This could escalate.”

Pretty much.

Now the data suggest that mammography belongs not as an annual rule, but, rather, in the context of a personalized, individualized healthcare strategy, tailored to a woman’s genetic and general risk profile—the kind of holistic healthcare less likely under the trillion-dollar burden of ObamaCare.

From “American Cancer Society eases mammogram recommendations”:

In a major shift, the American Cancer Society is recommending that women at average risk of breast cancer get annual mammograms starting at age 45 rather than at age 40, and that women 55 and older scale back screening to every other year.

The new guidelines, published on Tuesday in JAMA, fall more closely in line with guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a government-backed panel of experts that recommend biennial breast cancer screening starting at age 50 for most women.

The Task Force’s 2009 recommendations to reduce the frequency and delay the start of mammogram screening were based on studies suggesting the benefits of detecting cancers earlier did not outweigh the risk of false positive results, which needlessly expose women to additional testing, including a possible biopsy. …

… The differences between the two sets of guidelines shows there is no single or correct answer for when and how often women should be screened for breast cancer, said Dr. Nancy Keating of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Dr. Keating, who co-wrote a commentary accompanying the new guidelines, said the differences between the two groups emphasize the need to talk to patients and understand their preferences about breast cancer screening. …

UPDATE: There are risk in radiation and in the exploration of false positives (biopsies or further interventions that cause disease). Overall, the data show that the annual mammogram doesn’t reduce mortality from breast cancer.

Pols Help Purge Your White Geek Sons From American High-Tech

Education, IMMIGRATION, Labor, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Racism, Technology

Presumably not even a self-loathing left-liberal, consumed with a homo-erotic longing for the people of the Third World, would wish to purge his flesh-and-blood from America’s great high-tech companies. A vote for Republicans and Democrats will guarantee that home-grown white high-tech talent is JOBLESS.

Other than Donald Trump, all the G-d-awful presidential candidates continue to carp about the need to import more Indians and Asians (the so-called best in the world) to do the high-tech work their sons and daughters, presumably, can’t do. Trump has also repeated this canard, on occasion (“we need good people, but they have to come in legally,” or something like that).

Indeed, even Mr. Trump has shown no awareness of the following fact and its implications (gleaned while writing an intro to one of the chapters in a new volume for publication):

“Strangely enough, the demographic breakdown of ethnicities in tech roles doesn’t mirror graduating computer science students. 60 percent of recent bachelor computer science grads were white and only 18 percent Asian. By comparison, for eBay, Yahoo, and LinkedIn, Asian employees actually outnumber the white employees by a sizable margin.” (“Eight charts that put tech companies’ diversity stats into perspective.”)

Can that kind of enormous ratio discrepancy, in a majority white country, be explained away by allusions to:

* differences in aptitude and productivity between whites and Asians.
* the fact that white kids are often freighted by hippie parents, who’ll urge the family’s computer-science graduate to pursue his passion in … Hollywood.
* data suggesting Americans with graduate degrees are … dumber than cohort across the developed world.

I suspect the Treason Class and its immigration policies are at work.

Trump is a quick study. He’ll pick up on the fact that DC pols are purging America’s white, geek sons from American high-tech. But inoculate himself Trump must against the professional political handlers.

Jeff Bezos Is Brilliant, But What Is Jay Carney Doing @ Amazon?

Business, Regulation, Technology

The real news is not that Amazon is a “‘bruising” and grueling workplace, but that former White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was given a job in such a fabulous firm. The nature of an over-regulated, often treacherous business environment is such that, instead of hiring a worthy senior vice president for corporate global affairs—Amazon is forced to invest in a crony to politicians, Carney. A ponce that’ll be able to read the political tealeaves is worth more to the company than someone with real skills. Hence the revolving door between politics and business.

Actually, Jeff Bezos’ work philosophy sounds magnificent, the exact opposite of The Other Soft, Social-Worker Oriented Software Company We Know All Too Well.

… Of all of his management notions, perhaps the most distinctive is his belief that harmony is often overvalued in the workplace — that it can stifle honest critique and encourage polite praise for flawed ideas. Instead, Amazonians are instructed to “disagree and commit” (No. 13) — to rip into colleagues’ ideas, with feedback that can be blunt to the point of painful, before lining up behind a decision.

“We always want to arrive at the right answer,” said Tony Galbato, vice president for human resources, in an email statement. “It would certainly be much easier and socially cohesive to just compromise and not debate, but that may lead to the wrong decision.”

… According to early executives and employees, Mr. Bezos was determined almost from the moment he founded Amazon in 1994 to resist the forces he thought sapped businesses over time — bureaucracy, profligate spending, lack of rigor. As the company grew, he wanted to codify his ideas about the workplace, some of them proudly counterintuitive, into instructions simple enough for a new worker to understand, general enough to apply to the nearly limitless number of businesses he wanted to enter and stringent enough to stave off the mediocrity he feared.

The result was the leadership principles, the articles of faith that describe the way Amazonians should act. In contrast to companies where declarations about their philosophy amount to vague platitudes, Amazon has rules that are part of its daily language and rituals, used in hiring, cited at meetings and quoted in food-truck lines at lunchtime. Some Amazonians say they teach them to their children.

The guidelines conjure an empire of elite workers (principle No. 5: “Hire and develop the best”) who hold one another to towering expectations and are liberated from the forces — red tape, office politics — that keep them from delivering their utmost. Employees are to exhibit “ownership” (No. 2), or mastery of every element of their businesses, and “dive deep,” (No. 12) or find the underlying ideas that can fix problems or identify new services before shoppers even ask for them. …

READ “Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace.”