Wednesday, January 23, 2008

ABC drama series takes pseudo science to primetime. TV writing reaches a new low.



ABC is launching a new legal drama revolving around a family with an autistic child. The father is an attorney who starts having second thoughts about defending pharmaceutical companies. After a moment of inspiration, or an overdose of late night infomercials, he decides to sue big pharma for creating vaccines that cause autism.

In other news, the same network will launch a reality series focusing on the aerodynamics of pigs vying for the X Prize.

Frankly, I am not a big fan of railing against corporations, but ABC and parent Disney better provide an honest effort to correct a message that is sure to fan the flames of the vaccine-autism quacks. What is wrong with these people? I realize the writers are on strike, but reverting to an issue that clearly puts children in harms way by convincing more parents that vaccines are wrong is irresponsible. It wipes any type of CSR and save-the-world intentions the companies claims to abide by. For people like myself who try to make vaccines more widely available by either developing delivery technologies, or others who work on actual vaccines, this is a straight up insult.

It's one thing to see a one-time episode of ripped-from-the-headlines plots like in Law and Order. It's another thing to make a complete series whose sole aim of entertaining can undermine years of public health education.

I hope it gets cancelled. I hope it never gets syndicated to other markets, particularly in the developing world, where vaccines are often the most reliable way of securing a child's life. I hope they put back to back Surgeon's General warnings before and after the show. I hope they pledge the a portion of the profits to GAVI. Let's see if they put that in the Annual Report.

Don't send your letters to me, send them to ABC.

More at NYTimes

PS This is our first official rant. :)

Google unleashes massive storage bank for scientists

According to Wired, the company plans to offer algorithms for searching and visualizing the data sets, as an offshot of their acquisition of Gapminder.



According to Wired, the company plans to offer algorithms for searching and visualizing the data sets, as an offshot of their acquisition of Gapminder.

(Google people) are providing a 3TB drive array (Linux RAID5). The array is provided in “suitcase” and shipped to anyone who wants to send they data to Google. Anyone interested gives Google the file tree, and they SLURP the data off the drive. I believe they can extend this to a larger array (my memory says 20TB).


One of the more interesting details is that they will actually SHIP you a suitcase with 3TB of storage for you to load your data and ship it back. I guess 3TB is not that bandwidth friendly.

More at http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/01/google-to-provi.html

One of the more interesting details is that they will actually SHIP you a suitcase with 3TB of storage for you to load your data and ship it back. I guess 3TB is not that bandwidth friendly.

More at http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/01/google-to-provi.html

It's little, it's (RED), it helps Africa


Dell just announced that they are teaming up with Microsoft to produce a line of crimson red XPS PC to raise funds under the (Red) program benefiting Africa's fight against AIDS and debt.

The offering will include both laptops and desktops and will net $50 and $80 to the fund respectively.

The XPS M1330 is a nice little machine that I have been seriously looking at. Given the demise of my Sony early this month, it may be time to give these machines another look.

If you would like to make a laptop donation, I'd be happy to receive the hardware and notify Bono that the $50 are in your name.

Full scoop in the NYTimes