Tag Archives: andrew weil

Come Forth into the Light of Things

Posted on January 2, 2012 by
SonyHoliday_14_0814

Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher–William Wordsworth

So here it is, the last day of my winter vacation, and I am sitting inside watching people play ball outside at the Rose Bowl.  It might not seem so crazy to those of you who either love football or live in a cold climate that one would spend January 2nd indoors; but where I live it is about 60 degrees and sunny.  While I do love watching football, there is no legitimate weather-related excuse for being indoors, particularly since I have TIVO.

In addition to watching large men smash into each other on TV, I also used today to catch up on old magazines that are currently forming a looming architectural structure in my home that is getting large enough to require a light to alert approaching airplanes.  The fact that I am staring into a screen (while my daughter is next to me playing Temple Run on her iPhone) and not frolicking out in nature became particularly poignant as I finally got to a November 7th Newsweek article entitled “Don’t Let the … (read the rest)

Posted in Health and Wellness, Preventive Health, Random Thoughts of the Day, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Elementary, My Dear Watson

Posted on March 2, 2011 by
Holmes and Watson

I have previously confessed that one of my guilty pleasures is reading People Magazine.  Another is my willingness to devote time to watching TV game shows.  They fascinate me–everything from the badly coiffed host to the goofy jumping up and down of the winner.  It’s a little embarrassing to admit how much I like to be the first to get the Wheel of Fortune clue or the only one who knows the answer to some obscure Jeopardy question.   So naturally I was one of the people who tuned in to watch IBM’s Watson computer kick serious smart guy butt on Jeopardy last month.

For the 8 people who missed the public relations blitz, Watson, brainchild of IBM, is an artificial intelligence supercomputer that can directly and precisely answer natural language questions over an open and broad range of knowledge. It is programmed to have more information resident within it than any army of people could have and it has the means of accessing, culling through and integrating that information faster than the speed of light, or at least faster than the average Jeopardy champion’s reflexes.   According to IBM, the secret … (read the rest)

Posted in Diagnostics and Screening, Health and Wellness, Healthcare, Healthcare Information Technology, Healthcare Reform, Healthcare Venture Capital, Preventive Health, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment