Sleep

I installed the Sleep Cycle iPhone app about a month ago, so I thought it was time for an update.

Let me share some data:

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December 25

December 25

December 26

December 26

Natural Selection of Information – Can Google Help?

A friend of mine brought to my attention an article with the Top 5 Threats to science-based medicine. It mentions the usual state sponsored quacks, but the most interesting one is #5: New Media.

Of course, “user generated content” and unvetted health advice and claims are easily made by anyone anytime. And thanks to the magic of Google, a health claim need only be popular to be promoted.

So far, so familiar: it’s very hard to separate truth from nonsense when it comes to health information online.   Not that this is easy offline. It doesn’t help that even supposed authorities contradict each other and have conflicts of interest.

But what got me thinking is this bit:

Truth, accuracy, and scientific rigor aren’t always rewarded in this brave new world of digital influence. Being right has been uncoupled from being influential. The “wisdom of crowds” now decides what people see first when they attempt to educate themselves about health matters.

Because I just watched an episode of Beagle, my mind is primed at evolution theory, natural selection and in particular some of the painful consequences that can have to ordinary life. This leads me to the following question: in this evolutionary battle, can disinformation win from information?

This article and my intuition seems to suggest that it can, at least in the medium term (a couple of decades) . Not just for health: the problem exists in creationism, the housing bubble, politicians deciding on economic stimulus packages, the way we don’t properly deal with climate change, etc. There are always a few people who know the truth about these things, but these voices are not heard through the noise. As long as popularity and not truth is the strongest selection criterion for the stuff is in our collective minds, we are screwed.
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Van frisdrankautomaat naar platform – Politie 2.0

Dit is een eerste opzetje van mijn gedachten rond dit onderwerp. Het is niet een officieel standpunt van welke organisatie dan ook, maar wie weet wordt het dat ooit.

Frisdrankautomaat of platform?

Tim O’Reilly – uitgever en bedenker van de term “Web 2.0” – zette begin 2009 een visie neer over Overheid 2.0. De overheid gedraagt zich in optiek nog teveel als frisdrankautomaat: je gooit er belasting in en er komen diensten uit zoals wegen, ziekenhuizen en politie. Betrokkenheid van burgers en bedrijfsleven is daarmee beperkt tot het schudden van de automaat. Wat de overheid volgens hem zou moeten bieden is een raamwerk van regelgeving en techniek waarmee eenieder dezelfde diensten kan aanbieden: een platform.


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Requesting Bulgarian to English speech to text iPhone app

I’m going to TEDxBG in Bulgaria on January 9th. The speaker line-up looks great, but there’s only one issue: not all talks will be in English. Now there’s several ways to deal with that.

I could learn Bulgarian. According to Tim Ferriss it’s a piece of cake and won’t take much time.  I already speak a bit of Slovak and I can read the Кирилица alphabet, so that gives me a head start. I could request English subtitles, which someone could write live during the talk. Or someone could dub the talks. But are there enough non-Bulgarians in the room to make that worth the effort?

Here I’d like to propose a different solution: who can build me an iPhone application that listens to Bulgarian speech, translates it and then shows the translated text on my screen? You would do me and the rest of the world a huge favor.

My suggested approach is to use a speech to text library that supports Bulgarian, send the resulting text to Google Translate and display the translation on the screen.

Hans Brinker

I came accross two key recommendations of Hang Together or Separately, Oxfam International’s call to action to Copenhagen:

  • Copenhagen must deliver a fair and adequate climate deal: one that keeps global warming as far below 2°C as possible, and that reflects the historical responsibility for emissions and the economic capability of developed countries.
  • Rich countries must agree binding individual country targets that cut greenhouse gas emissions to at least 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.
  • A UNFCCC Mitigation and Finance Mechanism must be established to match mitigation actions from developing countries with the required finance from rich countries – $100bn per year as an absolute minimum.
  • Rich countries must agree to provide sufficient funding for capacity-building, mitigation and adaptation, through the purchase of their Assigned Amount Units (AAUs) from the UNFCCC Mitigation and Finance Mechanism.

Assuming that they aim higher than what politicians can achieve, this is very sad news indeed.

Here’s a crash course in how to solve climate change. This is the bottom line of what humanity needs to do to fix this mess:

  1. Bring CO2 emissions to zero within a few decades
  2. Remove CO2 surplus from the atmosphere, so concentrations return to their preindustrial level
  3. Undo all damage already done by climate change and stop all processes that were set in motion by it

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Lomborg vs. Greenpeace in NRC-Next

Ik vond het leuk om vorige week in de NRC-Next een artikel van Bjorn Lomborg tegen te komen, dat een vertaling is van zijn artikel in The Guardian. Hoewel enigszins overdreven – ik heb sowieso niet zoveel met kinderen – komt zijn betoog erop neer dat de klimaathysterie in wereld schadelijk is voor de moraal van kinderen.

Het is onderdeel van zijn algemene punt dat klimaatverandering teveel geld en aandacht krijgt ten opzichte van andere problemen in de wereld. Dat wil zeggen, als je puur kijkt naar de effectiviteit van geboden oplossingen, zowel qua tijd als geld. Een uur vergaderen over klimaatverandering levert duizenden keren minder geredde levens op dan een uur vergaderen over gezondheidszorg in ontwikkelingslanden. Een miljoen euro in Kyoto is ongeveer net zo effectief als een euro in malariabestrijding* (plus of min een paar ordes van grootte). Ik ben het hier volledig met hem eens, zoals ik al eerder en veel uitgebreider beschreven heb.

Vandaag reageerde Greenpeace op zijn artikel, op een bijzonder voorspelbare manier. Laat ik het even kort analyseren.

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TED India fundraising update

As you are probably aware, I am trying to raise funds so I can go to TED India. I’ve reached 9% of the target so far, which is 6 times as much as reached in my previous campaign. The experience has already been invaluable.

First, there was the blog post. As you can see, the number of new views dropped very rapidly after a few days:

Blog post views

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GTD vs. 4HWW – and Flow

I just read an interesting and funny blog post that compares two well known – among certain people – productivity systems: Getting Things Done by David Allen and The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. I left a comment there that – in all my modesty – I’d like to share with you.

About four years ago I read GTD (Getting Things Done) for the first time. I was very busy – in fact slightly overworked – at the time. The methodology helped me to create an inventory of my “projects” and I used that inventory to start removing stuff.

It’s a fairly complicated system, but so is public transport; once you figure it out it pays. It’s no secret that I really like this book.
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Help Sjors get to TED India

I’m going to TED India! My application has been accepted (you have to apply in order to attend) and I’ve booked my flight. Only one minor detail remains: paying for the conference ticket.

I “should” be able to “afford” this conference, since I’m a software engineer in a fairly rich country. So it’s really a cash flow issue; if I could, I would have borrowed the money from my bank and worked for the ticket later.

This is where you come in…

Your donations** will help me go to TED India. In exchange, I offer one hour of my “brain power” to anyone donating $50*. Please send me an email if you wish to use that offer.

Click here to lend your support to: Help Sjors get to TED India and make a donation at www.pledgie.com !
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Weight vs. Sleep

I decided to keep track of my weight for a month, as a 30 day trial. I weighed myself first thing every morning on a cheap digital scale.

The result is the blue line in the chart below.

I knew there’d be some variation, but I wanted to figure out what is causing that. My attention was drawn to the sharp peak (73.0) at June 19th and so I looked back into my calendar to see what I was doing around that day.

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