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RWJF Grant Supports Innovative Telehealth Model for Bringing Specialty Care to Rural and Underserved America
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) today announced the award of a three-year, $5-million grant to Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes), a New Mexico program that uses evidence-based medicine and interactive technology to bring sorely needed specialty care to patients living in rural and underserved areas who are suffering from serious, complex chronic conditions.
Project ECHO uses a secure, Internet-based audio-visual network to connect primary care providers with medical specialists at the University of New Mexico (UNM) Health Sciences Center. Unlike most telehealth initiatives, which primarily connect patients with doctors, Project ECHO trains doctors, nurses, physician's assistants and other clinicians in rural and underserved areas to work together to manage patients, expanding the health system's capacity to deliver high-quality chronic care to those most in need.
"Through Project ECHO, we are treating very sick people who couldn't otherwise get care, and we are extending the capacity and reach of the health care system by engaging more colleagues in highly needed specialties," said Sanjeev Arora, M.D., Project ECHO Director and UNMHSC Executive Vice Chairman, Department of Medicine. "We believe that this approach can help bring best practice specialty care to millions more Americans."
The United States Department of Health and Human Services' Health Resources and Services Administration has designated 32 of 33 counties in New Mexico as medically underserved areas and 14 as professional shortage areas. The ECHO network links the UNM medical school with more than 40 partner clinics based in public health departments, prisons, Indian Health Service sites, community health centers and rural primary care practices around the state.
In 2004, Project ECHO launched an effort to address Hepatitis C (HCV), a deadly but curable disease afflicting an estimated 32,000 New Mexicans that few providers in the state are equipped to treat. Since then, specialists at UNM have provided education on HCV to primary care physicians, nurses, physician assistants, pharmacists and community health educators in rural clinics and prisons; supplied Web-based technology necessary for training; and conducted weekly telemedicine clinics to discuss and review patient cases. The program has provided more than 4,000 consultations for patients with HCV, and clinicians in rural areas have received 3,500 hours of continuing medical education credit. Outcome studies have shown that treatment of HCV in rural areas using the ECHO model is as safe and effective as in a university-based clinic.
The RWJF grant is supporting a replication of the ECHO model, beginning with the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle, and the expansion of the model to treat other common chronic and complex diseases, including diabetes, substance abuse and mental health problems, asthma, rheumatology, chronic pain, and high-risk pregnancy.
"Millions of Americans suffer from debilitating, chronic illnesses that could be treated if resources were available," said Nancy Barrand, special adviser for program development at RWJF. "The ECHO model teaches us that we can leverage our existing health care resources to provide safe, effective care to patients in their communities, regardless of where they are."
In addition to RWJF, Project ECHO has received funding from the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the New Mexico Legislature, the University of New Mexico, and the New Mexico State Health Department.
In 2007, Project ECHO won the Disruptive Innovations in Health and Health Care competition sponsored by RWJF and Ashoka's Changemakers, which drew 307 applicants from 27 countries. Arora was also honored with ehealth Initiative and Computerworld awards for his creative use of technology.
Project ECHO
Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) at the University of New Mexico, Department of Internal Medicine, uses evidence-based medicine and telehealth technology to bring specialty care for chronic complex diseases to patients in rural and underserved areas. The project builds knowledge networks based on best practice protocols and case-based learning.
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Pioneer Portfolio
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on the pressing health and health care issues facing our country. As the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans, the Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and timely change. The Foundation's Pioneer Portfolio is dedicated to accelerating the trajectory of innovative ideas that may lead to breakthrough improvements in the future of health and health care. Projects in the Pioneer Portfolio are future-oriented and look beyond conventional thinking to explore solutions at the cutting edge of health and health care.

subset: commoncrawl


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Bedford Ginger Ale 12oz – 24 PACK
Bedford's sodas have been a Pacific Northwest tradition for over 30 years. Handcrafted and known for outstanding flavor, Bedford's is now available from coast to coast and considered a fine example of a regional soda made with care and quality ingredients. Enjoy a Bedford's for flavor and refreshment. 12- 12oz. long neck glass bottled sodas made with pure cane sugar.


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In Beijing we had booked a hostel in advance via www.hostels.com. Originally we planned to stay one night in Beijing, then take a night train to Shanghai, stay another night there and then fly home from Shanghai.
We had already booked the flight from Beijing to Vienna via Dusseldorf with AirBerlin, but some weeks before the trip, we were notified, that this flight would be cancelled. AirBerlin offered a full refund of the ticket price (~450 EUR) and a discount of 150 Euro for any other AirBerlin-flight.
So we booked a flight from Beijing with them and due to the discount it cost only 304 EUR. This flight was on the same day as the other flight from Shanghai, so we extended our stay in Beijing by two nights. The hostel for the 1st night (Beijing Downtown Backpackers) was already fully booked for the other two nights, so we booked another hostel (Wangfujing International Youth Hostel) for the 2nd and 3rd night.
After arriving from Pyongyang at the main train station, we went to the hostel by taxi. Going by taxi in Beijing is relatively cheap and easy. It is just necessary to have the destination written on paper in Chinese. Fortunately the hostels adress was written also in Chinese on the booking confirmation.
The hostel was in a quiet narrow road north of the city center. As both of us had already been to Beijing before, we were not in a hurry to do as much sightseeing as possible. We decided to make a day-trip to Tianjin with the new highspeed-train, but apart from that we had no plans yet. It was also good to have some time to work through all the impressions of our trip to North Korea and sometimes we couldn't believe that we really had sucessfully done the Tumangan-route to Pyongyang.
On of the 1st things I did after arrival at the hotel was checking my e-mails and telling relatives and friends that our trip was a success and we were still alive. As expected there were also some e-mails from our travel agency in my inbox, which I could read only now. Our last-minute-announcement about the "modified arrival details" for Pyongyang caused – initially – a lot of confusion and then a lot of troubles at the travel agency (Korea Konsult) and within KITC. But it was not possible to prevent us from entering at Tumangan…
However, it seemed that our trip was quite a shock for KITC and that they would now do everything to prevent that something similar happens again.
Well, back to Beijing. After hanging around at the hostel for some hours we decided to make a walk around downtown Beijing.
The narrow road, where the hostel was located:
We made a lunch break at a restaurant in Jingshan Xije road, then headed for the Jingshan park.
View from the hill in the Jingshan park, Beihai lake in the foreground.
It is quite unusual to have such a clear sky in Beijing which even allows to see the distant mountains! Usually one cannot see further than one kilometer due to the fog/smog…
View from Jingshan park to the east:
We then went around the Forbidden City down to Tiananmen Square.
Forbidden City, palace moat:
Meridian Gate of the Forbidden city:
Tiananmen Square:
The Qianmen Dajie road leading to the south from Tiananmen Square had been totally rebuilt since my first visit to Bejing in 2005. It is now a pedestrian zone, all houses are new, but everything looks very kitschy and artificially…
I prefer the smaller and more traditional roads like Dazhalan Xijie with lots of small shops and sales booths for everything.
It is not necessary to have a car to transport big and heavy things – we Europeans should learn from the Chinese people regarding that ;-)
In the evening we went to the train station to buy tickets to Tianjin. We asked the hostel staff to write our ticket request on a sheet of paper, but we also found a ticket booth, were english was spoken.
Due to the low price level we decided to travel in 1st class. The one-way-ticket for the 130-km-trip cost just 69 Yuan (~ 7 EUR).
After breakfast we took a taxi to get to the station Beijing South, from where the highspeed trains depart. The ride took about 45 minutes.
Arriving at the station by taxi:
The station is more like an airport with all that security checks at the entrance:
The departure boards swtich between English and Chinese:
The waiting area:
Ticket office:
Everything is kept clean:
We found some "propaganda" about the Chinese railway plans fort he future:
Map showing the highspeed line Beijing – Shanghai (under construction):
Planned new train station and airport at Shanghai:
Two local girls checking out the station plan (Beijing South):
Beijing South station:
Our train was a Siemens-"Velaro" train (CRH3):
The impressive steel construction of the station roof:
Train ticket Beijing – Tianjin:
The train seemed to be fully booked. Inside a 2nd class wagon (only ~10 Yuan cheaper than 1st class):
1st class:
The ride was smooth and fast – 334 km/h was the top speed:
After 30 minutes we arrived at Tianjin, and the first thing we did there was buying the return tickets. The ticket office was quite crowded. There were also some ticket machines and we decided to use them, as the "spoke" also English. For the Chinese people it was quite unusual to see Europeans buying tickets themselves at the ticket machine, everyone was looking over our shoulders. And when they saw, that the machine could be switched to English, everyone was quite surprised… ;-)
We bought tickets for a train departing in the afternoon, so we had some time for a walk.
Ticket office:
Station square
Skyline near the station:
Downtown Tianjin has some quite European looking buildings from the colonial era.
By the way, we noticed that especially here in Tianjin, but also in Beijing, many people now were using electric bikes or other electricity-powered vehicles.
I do not know who they were and why they were marching lock-step…anyway quite funny.
Back to the station we took such a taxi:
Small booth selling the Chinese railway timetable book:
Tianjin station:
We were lucky, on the way back we had a CRH2-train, so we experienced both types of trains used on that line:
Ticket Tianjin – Beijing:
Inside 1st class waggon:
Some videos of the train ride with more than 300 km/h:
Exit gates at Beijing South station – it's important to keep the ticket till leaving the station:
We took a taxi to our hostel, where we just picked up our backpacks and continued to the other hostel for the remaining two nights at Beijing.
In the evening we rented bikes to ride around, which was quite funny. We also stopped at the main station to take some photos of the international train to Moscow, which departs from Beijing every friday (there is a 2nd weekly train going via Mongolia):
Chinese dining and sleeping car to Manzhouli (at the border to Russia):
New Russian waggons:
At Shenyang two similar wagons coming from Pyongyang are attached to this train. These wagons are the officially (by KITC) accepted way to travel from Russia to North Korea or vice versa by train…
Departure of the train to Moscow:
Of course I would have preferred taking this train over flying to get back home to Europe, but my job was already waiting for me…. I'd need more holiday ;-)
It was quite an unspectacular day for me. Oliver decided to make a trip to the Chinese Wall, he had not been there before. As I felt al little bit tired and had already done the same trip in 2005, I decided to stay in Beijing and make a lazy day.
I started to sort my photos, made another bike trip, had lunch, did some shopping etc.
Beijing by night:
No visible evidence of communism….
That was a long day for us. We got up at 6 and left the hostel at 7. A taxi brought us to the airport, where we noticed that we were at the wrong terminal. So we had to take a bus to the other terminal. But we were not in a hurry, departure was only at 11 or so.
The plane to Dusseldorf:
The route of the flight was via Mongolia, Siberia and the Baltic Sea. Only till the Sayan mountains (just west of the Baikal Lake) we had clear view to the ground, so it was quite boring for most of the time.
I have to admit that take-off and landing is quite spectacular, but apart from that I prefer train travel. A week on a decent North Korean train is more comfortable than 10 hours economy class…
We arrived at Dusseldorf in the late afternoon (local time). Oliver's connecting flight to Zurich was within one and a half hour, whereas I had to wait for four hours.
The flight to Vienna took 90 minutes and after a 30-minutes train trip with a suburban train I arrived at the small station Wien-Traisengasse at 10 p.m. local time (already 4 a.m. Chinese time) – the same station, from where I had started the adventure 22 days before…
Two more minutes walking and I was at home in my apartment - 22 hours after getting up in Beijing.
That was it...I hope you liked the travelogue and I appreciate your patience, as it took me nearly a year to write this travelogue.
And I also apologize for typing errors and grammar mistakes, English is not my native language, and so it might not be perfect, but I wanted to make the report available for a greater audience, so I decided to write in English instead of German.
And I ask all of you, who are not so much interested in railways, for your understanding for the many rail-related details in the travelogue...
Apart from that I hope, that the travelogue provided some useful and interesting background information about the DPRK, which you don't get from the news on TV.
I think that a country must not be reduced to it's government in the personal perception. I don't support the North Korean regime and I don't deny the problems which exist there, but the country doesn't exist only of Kim Jong Il, nuclear bombs, concentration camps and starvation.
Most of the people there are also just people as everywhere, they live under quite hard circumstances, but they also have family and friends, make jokes, make love, go to work…of course our contact to them was limited, but the few encounters with North Koreans, we had (train staff, fellow passengers, border guards at Tumangan and of course our guides), were very nice and interesting and I hope that one day I can meet some of them again….
I still often think about this trip. Sometimes I have the feeling as it was just some days ago, but sometimes I feel that it was already very far in the past or that it even didn't happen at all. I think that this is due to the fact that the places, to which we have been, are so hard to reach…
I still hope that there will one day be a happy end for the situation in North Korea and that North Korean people will be able to travel like we did and that we will be able to travel across North Korea more freely.
If possible, I will visit this fascinating country a 2nd, 3rd, etc time and I hope I will one day have the possibility to explore especially the regions which we crossed by train on the way from the border at Tumangan to Pyongyang.
There is still so much to see there. After our trip my interest into this country grew even more and now I often think, that I should have kept my eyes even more open on the trip. And that I should have taken even more photos during the train trip, especially of everyday life. But on the other hand, we were glad that we could take this route at all and too afraid to take photos when people were looking at us.
I also appreciate the feedback of all of you, I received a lot of e-mails and comments on my blog from all over the world. Please apologize, that I couldn't answer personally to every mail due to lack of time. I tried to answer all e-mails containing questions, but maybe I just forgot some e-mails. So if you still have an unanswered question, please send me an reminding e-mail.
If anyone can provide additional information about trains in North Korea and especially the Tumangan-route, please write me an e-mail.
And I would also like to get in contact with others, who have 1st hand experience with the Tumangan-route. As this route was open to tourists till around 1995, I'm sure that there are more people who travelled this way. I personally know three other people, who did this route before 1995.
Or if one day somebody succesfully repeats our trip – please report!!!
I also found a report from some Russians, who recently took a train from Pyongyang to Chongjin and then further via Tumangan/Khasan to Russia on a business trip. They visited the Russian consulate at Chongjin, so maybe they were Russian diplomats. Their report is at http://www.ermanok.net/news/comment.php?1591 (sorry, in Russian only, you might use Google to translate it).
I also decided to create a blog dedicated to the North Korean railways at http://dprk-railway.blogspot.com/
I hadn't yet much time to create a lot of content, there are just some photos of another rail-related trip to North Korea done by a friend of mine in 2005.
But I plan to collect more information about the railway system in North Korea, please just be patient!
If you're interested, please subscribe there as a follower. Any important news regarding the Tumangan-route will also be posted there.
Last but not least I also want to apologize for the troubles which our trip caused for "Korea Konsult" (the travel agency with which be booked the trip) and for anyone else.
I admit we were quite egoistic when doing this adventure. It was no one elses fault, that we could enter North Korea via this back door – it was just our crazy plan and we had to realize it at that time, as the timeframe we had choosen for the trip, turned out to be perfect for the experiment during the planning phase (a small mystery – the ideal time for such a trip has something to do with the number 106,5...ho has an idea?).
And if you want to travel to North Korea yourself (on "legal" routes), I really recommend "Korea Konsult", they did a good job!
Or if you just want to get some special experience you can reapeat what I did in 2006: Just take the North Korean waggon for a domestic trip (like Moscow - Irkutsk) inside Russia. This is totally legal and it's likely that you will be the only foreigner among North Koreans on board of this waggon. If your're interested, just contact me.


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One of the first tough decisions that startup founders have to make is how to allocate or split the equity among co-founders. The easy answer of splitting it equally among all co-founders, since there is minimal value at that point, is usually the worst possible answer, and often results in a later startup failure due to an obvious inequity.
Another common "failure to start" situation I see is one where the "idea person" insists that the idea is 90% of the value (and 90% of the equity). In the real world, the "idea" is a very small part of the overall equation. A startup is all about "execution" - meaning the equity should be allocated based on the value that each partner brings to the table in each of these dominant variables:
Experience running a startup business. Running a new business starts with building a solid and credible business plan, working the investor funding process, and building an organization from nothing, with minimal resources. Successful Fortune 500 executives need not apply, since most would have experience with any of these tasks.
Domain expertise and connections. If you are recognized as an expert in the business area of your startup, with a good reputation, and you know all the key vendors and customers, your value is huge. Building a product doesn't get it distributed and sold. Expertise can be marketing, technical, financial, or sales.
Pre-existing intellectual property. Ideas are not intellectual property, until they have been converted into patents, trade secrets, trademarks, or copyrights. In many cases, one founder has started earlier and brings an important completed piece of work to the table, and that can have great value.
Sacrifice and time commitment. A part-time commitment, while holding down a "real" paying job, is obviously not the same as a full-time executive role, especially if the cash compensation is nonexistent, deferred, or at high risk.
Funding. Providing the major funding source for an early-stage startup is a totally different dimension, but it usually trumps all the items above in demanding some equity. For purposes of commitment and business decision making, I always recommend that execution partners retain control of at least 50% of the equity.
An arbitrary, but perhaps rational equity factoring approach would be to assign each of these five items as 20% of the total, and allocate equity based on each partner's relative contribution to each. For example, if your rich uncle is providing all the initial funding, but has no active business role, it might be smart to offer him a 20% slice of the pie.
Equity allocation is usually the first point in a startup where outside help should be considered (legal counsel, potential investors, startup advisors), as they may be able to provide experience and more importantly, an unbiased view that the entire team can trust.
An important key is NOT to dodge the discussion up front, come to some agreement quickly, and write it down. If you and your potential partners can't get through this discussion in a timely fashion and come to agreement, then it's unlikely that your startup can ultimately survive anyway. Startup decisions only get harder later, never easier.
Even still, regardless of the initial equity split, you should seriously consider vesting your founders shares over at least two years. This means they will be metered out month-by-month, and a partner who changes his mind or defects early will not walk away with half the company.
The next big challenge for a multi-partner startup is the allocation of roles. Who will be the CEO, CFO, and CTO? The same variables apply, but here skills and experience are paramount. If you are an inventor and have the key patent in hand, that doesn't mean you should be CEO. Of course, holding key assets and money always provide leverage to management rights as well as economic rights.
All partners should never forget that their allocated shares are only the beginning, and will be diluted proportionately when outside funding is later required from angels or venture capitalists. Investors will be quick to remind you that a small percentage of something is worth more than 100% of nothing. The same logic applies to splitting equity with co-founders.
Marty Zwilling


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Sully Was Cool, But Passengers Were Like 'We're So Dead'
Ice-cold saintly hero pilot Chesley Sullenberger didn't blink after the engines on his plane failed, forcing him into a death-defying river landing. The passengers, on the other hand, were totally freaked the fuck out. Book excerpt, ho!
Two books are coming out about Sully and the dramatic(ally short) Flight 1549 that crashed in the Hudson. One of them is Sully's own book, Highest Duty. Let's be honest: Dude's a great pilot, but maybe not a born writer of dramatic tales. The book is called "Highest Duty." Not "How to Crash Land a Plane in a Motherfucking River and 99 Other Life Skills Every Badass Should Know." Which would have been our title recommendation, but it's not a big thing.
But the other book, Miracle on the Hudson, excerpted in USA Today, is full of passengers talking about how they were all scared out of their gourd, which is really what the public wants to hear after things like this. Scary things! The jet shook after hitting the geese; the engines stopped and caught fire; a lady screamed. The smell of "a mix of jet fuel, burning hair and burning flesh" permeated the cabin. The passengers...acted about how you would probably act, in such a situation. Ridiculously.
Lori Lightner burst out: "Oh, crap, we're crashing." Then she quickly prayed, "Forgive me for everything I've done wrong. I don't have time to go through it all because I'm going to die."
Haha! It's funny because she didn't die. At least one pithy, movie-ready remark came out of this ghastly affair:
In first-class Denise Lockie, an office-supply executive, remained braced in her seat until her seatmate, Mark Hood, an ex-Marine, nudged her.
"Am I in heaven?" she asked him.
"No, and I'm no angel," Hood, a deeply religious man, replied as he urged her to get moving.
Hollywood's calling, Sully. Get ready to play yourself in a movie. Mortal humans don't have that edge.
[Pic: AP]


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Upon finishing Yuval Harari's Homo Deus, I found an unwelcome kink in my otherwise comfortably adjusted frame of reference. It brought with it the slight nausea of a hangover, a lingering whiff of jet exhaust from a hard night, possibly involving rough psychedelics.
I'm usually content with my (admittedly incomplete) understanding of the role humanity plays in the universe, and in particular, with the role that technology plays as that narrative builds. And lately that technology story is getting pretty damn interesting — I'd argue that our society's creation of and reaction to digital technologies is pretty much the most important narrative in the world at present.
But as you consider that phrase "digital technologies," are you conjuring images of computers and iPhones? Of "the cloud" and Google? Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Netflix, Slack, Uber? I've always felt that this group of artifacts — the "things" that we claim as digital — the companies and the devices, the pained metaphors (cloud?!) and the juvenile apps — these are only the most prominent geographic features of a vaster and more tectonic landscape, one we've only begun to explore.
Harari would ask us to explore that landscape with a new state of mind — to abandon our human-centered biases — our Humanism — and consider what our embrace of technology may augur for our species. Yet through most of the book, he failed to push me from my easy chair. It was comforting to nod along as Harari argued that the devices — the computers, the platforms and the networks — are nothing more than the transit layer in humanity's inevitable evolution to a more god-like species. And cognizant of the inescapable baggage of the "digital technologies" tag, Harari has gifted his new state of mind with a name: Dataism. More on that in a minute.
Homo Deus is the possibly too-clever-by-half continuation of the author's masterstroke bestseller Sapiens, which the New York Times, despite crowning it as a runaway hit, acidly derided as "tailor-made for the thought-leader industrial complex." If that made you snort the literary milk out your erudite nose, just wait for the other whiteshoe to drop: The same Times review charitably credited Homo Deus with having "the easy charms of potted history."
Oh, Snap!
And look, the decidedly humanist Times is right to be offended by Harari's assertions. For they are utterly unsettling, in particular to those most content in the warm embrace of Humanism, which Harari dismisses as a state of mind already past its prime. Dataism is its replacement — a reductive religion of algorithms, both biological and digital, driven by intelligence but decoupled from consciousness. It is therefore unconcerned with experience, the very bread which feeds humanist mythos. Net net: Let's just say Dataism could really give a fuck about people in the long run. Harari's money quote? "Homo sapiens is an obsolete algorithm."
So yeah, the ideas prosecuted in the pages of these two works, which run collectively just under 900 pages, are unsettling. But unlike the Times reviewer, I'm not ready to dismiss them as so much armchair pottery. It's not often a work of literary merit (and this is certainly that) forces our vaunted industry to consider itself.
And did our industry consider it? After all, this is the follow on to Sapiens, a book celebrated by Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Barak Obama, for goodness sakes.
Turns out, our industry has pretty much ignored Homo Deus. Ezra Klein did have a thing or two to say about it in a podcast, but…crickets from most everywhere else.
Technology is having a crisis of self reflection. It's understandable — we're not the types to think too hard about the impact of our actions, because we've already anticipated them, after all. Creating new behaviors is the business we're in, so we're not surprised when they actually happen. We've developed a super-fast creative process on top of digital technologies — we come up with new plans as quickly as the old ones fail, and the act of doing this just proves our world view correct: We have a thesis, we prosecute it, and as we collect more data — including and especially data about our failure — we stare at it all, we rethink our approach, and we deftly devise a new algorithm to navigate around the damn problem. The better the acuity of our data, the more responsive our tools, the better the outcomes. Even when most of us lose, we're always winning! Failure is just more data to fuel an eventual, inevitable victory.
This approach to life and business doesn't reward deep reflection. And we know it. That's why we're so damn obsessed with meditation, with yoga (guilty), with flying to South America and doing strange psychedelic drugs. But so far all those reflections center on the me, and not on the us, on the society we are building. How often do we — the Royal Technology We — consider the butterfly effects of our work? And don't tell me Zuck did it for us with that manifesto. That thing could have used a touch more psilocybin, amiright?
Perhaps Harari strikes us as a lecturing harridan — we know we have more homework to do. We understand we now rule the world, but we are reluctant leaders, because our industry has forever been in opposition, forever carrying a torch for a future state of humankind that the noobs and the squares and the company men didn't get.
Only, we've won. So now what?
Well, that gets us to purpose. Why are we here? Why are you here? Why am I here? What are we here for?
Remember when you were a kid, in that kid-like state of mind, when you whispered to a friend, a confidante — "Where's the wall at the end of universe?" And if they bit, if they acknowledged there might be an end to it all, a place where the universe ebbs to finality, you ask them this: "Well, then, what's on the other side of the wall!?"
Remember that little pre-adolescent mind hack? Yeah, we're about at that point now, Technology Industry. It's time for us to come up with a better answer.
My favorite response to this paradox is: "The unimaginable." That's what's on the other side of the wall. The only boundary in the universe, for Homo sapiens anyway, is the fact that we need a boundary in the first place. We understand so much, but at the end of that understanding we face the unimaginable. In that dark gravity we first populated gods, then God Himself, then Science and its attendant Humanism, and now….well, Harari makes the case that our digital technologies have hastened our transition us to a new era — one in which we "dissolve within the data torrent like a clump of earth within a gushing river."
OK, I'm out of my armchair now. If all biology is algorithms, and science certainly believes this is so, then our fate is to join the church of pure information processing, driven by the inescapable end game of evolution.
Checkmate! Humanity exists because algorithms exist, algorithms that predate us, algorithms that will outlive us, and algorithms that exist for one reason: to solve problems. If we embrace this, then perhaps we stand at the cusp of solving our biggest problem ever: ourselves.
I"m not sure I buy all this — and even Harari, at the very end of his book, admits he's not sure either (that felt like quite a hedge, to be honest). But the issues he raises are worthy of deeper debate — in particular inside our own industry, where self-reflection is far too absent.


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Mental Illness a Prerequisite to Run for Public Office
It's unbelievable what people would do to be in power. I know: It happens everywhere. I can't believe that normal people in their right mind would run for elected position. There has to be something wrong in their value system to go through what they have to go through. What I saw here was much worse: so much humiliation to run for office.
— Vihar Krastev
Escape From Ignorance and Chalga, John Feffer, Focal Points
No End to Atonement in Sight
Germany apparently remains eternally wounded, dependent upon the healing power of remembrance. Germans must live with their trauma and occasionally reopen the wound to prevent it from festering. … "History or, to be more precise, the history we Germans have repeatedly mucked up, is a clogged toilet. We flush and flush, but the shit keeps rising," Günter Grass concluded in his 2002 novel "Crabwalk."
'Our Mothers, Our Fathers': Next-Generation WWII Atonement, Roman Leick, Spiegel Online
From Marijuana and Heroin in Vietnam to Anti-psychotic Drugs in Afghanistan
… there has been a giant, 682 percent increase in the number of psychoactive drugs — antipsychotics, sedatives, stimulants and mood stabilizers — prescribed to our troops between 2005 and 2011. … The data suggest that military doctors may prescribe psychoactive drugs for off-label use as sedatives, possibly so as to enable soldiers to function better in stressful combat situations.
Wars on Drugs, Richard A. Friedman, The New York Times
Iron Lady Surpasses Hitchens's Record for Most Disrespectful Obituaries of a Brit
… when I was a child she was just a strict woman telling everyone off and selling everything off. I didn't know what to think of this fearsome woman. … It always irks when rightwing folk demonstrate in a familial or exclusive setting the values that they deny in a broader social context. They're happy to share big windfall bonuses with their cronies, they'll stick up for deposed dictator chums when they're down on their luck, they'll find opportunities in business for people they care about. I hope I'm not being reductive but it seems Thatcher's time in power was solely spent diminishing the resources of those who had least for the advancement of those who had most.
Russell Brand on Margaret Thatcher: 'I always felt sorry for her children', Russell Brand, The Guardian
Giving the C.I.A. Its Head in Pakistan
[American ambassador to Pakistan Cameron] Munter was reporting daily back to Washington about the negative impact of the armed-drone campaign and about how the C.I.A. seemed to be conducting a war in a vacuum, oblivious to the ramifications that the drone strikes were having on American relations with Pakistan's government.
How a Single Spy Helped Turn Pakistan Against the United States, Mark Mazzetti, The New York Times


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NEW YORK – It's been a scandal-filled few months for banks.
JPMorgan Chase revealed a $2 billion trading loss, triggering an investigation by the government and hearings in Congress. Then the large banks were implicated in a global dust-up over interest rate manipulation.
All this happened amid signs of a slowdown in the U.S. and Chinese economies and a debt crisis in Europe, which won't help the banks as they report their financial results for April through June.
All eyes will be on JPMorgan on Friday, when it becomes the first bank to report. The trading loss rattled the company's stock price and hurt both its reputation and that of CEO Jamie Dimon, who is expected to provide an update.
JPMorgan, the country's largest bank, has scheduled a conference call with analysts to start at 7:30 a.m., two hours before the stock market opens. The call usually happens at 9 a.m. The bank has also doubled the length of the call, to two hours.
Besides its usual presenters, Dimon and chief financial officer Douglas Braunstein, the bank will also have Mike Cavanaugh available to answer questions. Cavanaugh leads a team of senior executives overseeing the loss.
Analysts aren't expected to give the company a pass.
"We expect a detailed account of what went wrong, what has changed and what is remaining," says Jason Goldberg, a bank analyst at Barclays Capital, a global investment bank.
Goldberg, like most investors and analysts, has no idea how deep JPMorgan's loss is. He said it could range from $2 billion to $9 billion. JPMorgan has said it lost the money trying to hedge against financial risk.
JPMorgan's stock has been pummeled, falling from $40.74 before the announcement of the trading loss on May 10 to about $34.59 on Wednesday.
Other bank stocks have also been dragged down because of uncertainty over how Europe is handling its debt crisis, the recession that has gripped some countries there and economic slowdowns in China and India.
Those worries have led to fewer corporate deals, such as mergers and acquisitions, which require Wall Street help and provide much-needed fees for the big banks.
Companies are also putting their growth strategies on ice, which means they are raising less money on Wall Street to pursue their strategies. That translates to lower fees, too.
Most analysts have recently reduced earnings estimates for banks and also downgraded several stocks. Goldberg cut profit estimates for JPMorgan twice during the quarter, and reduced Bank of America's by 3 cents and Citigroup's by 19 cents.
Here's what to expect from major banks. Expectations are compiled from analysts surveyed FactSet, a provider of financial data.
— Reports: Friday.
— Forecast: Profit of 76 cents per share on revenue of $21.8 billion.
— What to watch for: Despite its trading loss, the bank is expected to report a profit for the quarter. Investors are more interested in what the bank has to say about the trading loss, which has given bank management sleepless nights and sent heads rolling. Bank analyst David Konrad at brokerage Keefe, Bruyette & Woods says clarity will be key. "Management's ability to get the transaction behind the bank is more important than the actual size of the loss," Konrad says.
— Reports: Friday.
— Forecast: Profit of 81 cents per share on revenue of $21.3 billion.
— What to watch for: Wells is expected to benefit from record low mortgage rates, high refinancing and improved housing sales in the past three months. Because of its focus on basic banking offerings such as mortgages, Wells is also shielded from poor performance of investment banking divisions at other large banks.
— Reports: Monday.
— Forecast: Profit of 89 cents per share on revenue of $18.9 billion.
— What to watch for: Citi is the most global bank and is a large underwriter of debt and equity. The global economic slowdown and uncertainty is expected to hurt Citi's business and also reduce the fees that it can collect from helping corporations with their financial markets transactions.
— Reports: Tuesday.
— Forecast: Profit of $1.28 per share on revenue of $6.4 billion.
— What to watch for: Goldman's primary business is investment banking. It advises corporations on strategies such as acquisitions and helps clients like pension funds make big trades. Both of those areas were slow in the past three months. Analyst David Trone at brokerage firm JPM Securities reduced his estimates for Goldman's earnings by 24 cents per share. He expects trading revenue at Goldman to plunge 28 percent.
— Reports: Wednesday, July 18.
— Forecast: Profit of 16 cents per share on revenue of $22.7 billion.
— What to watch for: More cost-cutting. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said last September that the bank would cut 30,000 jobs to save $5 billion a year by 2014. With slow economic growth in the U.S. and abroad and new laws banning certain fees, bankers seem to have run out of ideas to grow. Barclays analyst Goldberg says the bank's cost-cutting plan, dubbed New BAC, is just a fancy name to make up for "less than desired" growth in its revenue.
— Reports: Thursday, July 19.
— Forecast: Profit of 34 cents per share on revenue of $7.7 billion.
— What to watch for: Morgan Stanley, like Citi and Goldman, is vulnerable to weaker sales and trading of bonds and shares.


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John Jantsch talks Fiscal Cliff on Wall Street Journal Radio
There's plenty of talk and a fair amount of angst swirling around the made-for-reality TV Fiscal Cliff negotiations.
I was asked several times last week about the impact these talks and falling over the cliff might have on small business. I appeared briefly on the Daily Wrap show on Wall Street Journal Radio and gave my two cents. (Listen to the 5 minute or so segment above.)
As I shared in the interview I believe so much of the talk about the economy is rooted in a bygone era of the Industrial Age. I'm not saying that people won't be impacted by whatever legislation comes about, change often has to impact someone.
I do find it funny that every time we have a political decision facing the economy we trot out small business owners and put them on display as the backbone of the economy only to run roughshod over this same group when the musical chairs game comes to an end.
Small business owners are a breed that few understand. We are used to assessing the rules we are handed and making something out of nothing. If we fall over this cliff or don't there will be another hurdle and another.
We just take it as it comes, adjust course and go make money. There's no need to use us as your argument for continuing the Industrial Age – we've moved on to the Information Age and will be just fine. All we ask is that we know what the rules are so we can go about winning the game!


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Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Would Deflation Be a Good Thing or a Bad Thing?
A headline from Associated Press today reads "Dow slips below 8,000 on growing fear of deflation". See also this and this.
But would deflation be a good thing or a bad thing?
Well, lower prices are good for consumers. As Business Week puts it:
"A bit of deflation that boosts real wages may be the best way to get American households out of the hole."(higher "real wages" means that people's wages will go further because the prices of things we buy will be lower).
But Nobel economist Paul Krugman argues that deflation would be bad because it would drive up the cost which corporations have to pay to borrow money.
The Guardian points to other adverse effects from deflation:
Another effect of falling prices is to increase the burden of any given amount of debt, even as banks and households are sharply paring debt, or deleveraging, in reaction to financial turmoil and a wave of bad economic news."The problem with negative inflation is that the real value of your debts is increasing," Societe Generale economist James Nixon said. "In a deleveraging cycle you need negative inflation like you need a hole in the head." ***Deflation would be problematic because, if sustained, it could lead consumers and business to curb spending further, shrinking economic activity and reducing demand even more, and pushing prices lower still.
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What's the Matter with India?: A Powerhouse of Social Innovation Struggles to Take the Next Step
Editor's Note: This week we're launching NextBillion Health Care, a new blog focused on deliverying medical services and products to low-income patients and consumers.
When it comes to social innovation, there's no place like India.
With its vast underserved communities and the sheer number of groups serving them, India is the site of countless cutting-edge programs focused on the base of the pyramid.
In health care alone, the Center for Health Market Innovation (CHMI) profiles more than 240 innovative programs in India – including 46 social enterprises. New businesses are testing novel ideas to meet the needs of the poor, while existing programs focus on scaling up. In the meantime, public and private initiatives are strengthening the ecosystem for social entrepreneurs, connecting different stakeholders, unlocking new investment sources and identifying trends in the field.
So what's the problem?
In a nutshell: social entrepreneurs have largely stuck to the big cities such as Mumbai and Bangalore, where the ecosystem is most amenable to testing new models. This has left out much of the country – especially the poorest eight states that carry over a quarter of India's population. With poor infrastructure, human resource gaps, historically weak governance and a lack of outside investment, these eight states present unique challenges to private sector entrepreneurs – and health care companies are no exception.
I recently attended the Sankalp Forum's Samridhi Social Enterprise Recognition and Regional Summit in Patna, the capital of Bihar, on behalf of CHMI. The summit brought together funders, policymakers, and entrepreneurs to identify ways to facilitate more social innovation in India's interior. Although the enterprises that attended the forum expressed a desire to expand their businesses in India's underserved states, they cited several issues – from weak infrastructure to high levels of red tape – that stood in their way.
But for health care companies in particular, one of the main challenges in serving these communities is the need to redefine cost parameters. Public and private health spending per capita in Bihar is 513 INR, less than half of what it is in Kerala or Tamil Nadu, two states known for their strides in public health. In the absence of adequate public spending on health or effective risk pooling mechanisms, cost will determine whether poor patients can access high quality private services.
Within limited budgets, health care enterprises must find ways to either develop human resources locally or attract staff from other states. Yet the Public Health Foundation of India estimates that Bihar alone requires 27 new medical colleges and 102 new nursing schools to meet the staffing needs for scaling up basic health coverage. These complexities challenge an enterprise's ability to rely on modest investments and quickly gain market share.
(Left: Vineet Rai of Aavishkaar, in discussion at the Samridhi Regional Summit.)
Further complicating things, many underserved Indian communities aren't fully conscious of the ways that health care products and services can benefit them. So in spite of the great need for more and higher-quality health services in India's poorest states, simply making them available is not enough. Instead, health care companies' growth often depends on their ability to change the health behaviors and awareness of potential customers.
For example, in many Indian communities, patients typically do not visit formal providers, and may not fully realize that many diseases can be prevented or treated. If businesses hope to reach these customers, they must create strategies that inform patients about the ways different health care products or services can meet their needs, and incentives that encourage them to access these services.
Now for the good news.
Though entrepreneurs at the forum acknowledged the operational difficulties in working in India's poorest states, they affirmed plans to continue expanding their reach in these areas. Other participants at the summit also made commitments to support the development of social enterprise. Funders like the UK's Department for International Development and Germany's GIZ explained that they planned to increase investments in social enterprises and provide technical assistance wherever needed. And the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) presented a new funding window through the Millennium Alliance, a partnership between FICCI, USAID, and the Technology Development Board, to identify, incubate and scale up path-breaking concepts that serve the base of the pyramid.
In another promising sign, the forum participants who were most eager to advance social enterprise in the poorest states were impact investors. Investors explained that if a social business could successfully operate in a place as difficult as Uttar Pradesh or Bihar, it was an indication that the model could be scaled up in other states. So empowering entrepreneurs struggling in India's most difficult operating environments could ultimately have countrywide impact.
When the forum concluded, most participants felt that it was the first step of many to grow the social enterprise movement in India to reach the poorest of the poor. Although challenges lie ahead, Vineet Rai, managing director of Aavishkaar Venture Management Services, noted that the development of entrepreneurialism in India's poorest states may mirror the process that transformed cities like Bangalore and Mumbai into vibrant centers of innovation.
It took a number of years for India as a whole to implement business-friendly policies, develop its infrastructure and attract fresh investment. If the lagging states adopt complementary policies and programs that lay the groundwork for improved governance and a willingness to collaborate with new partners, then the social enterprise community can help expand this wave of growth and social development to all corners of India.
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I'm heading to my 15-year class reunion at Stanford this weekend. I'm excited to see some old friends, spend time on campus, and attend the various parties, sporting events, and fun stuff planned for the weekend. At the same time, I'm feeling quite anxious about the whole experience - knowing how easy it can be for me, especially in that environment, to get caught in a pattern of negative comparison.
As I looked through our 15-year reunion class book a few weeks ago (a book where fellow classmates submit a page with an update on their lives), I got a sick feeling in my stomach as the little voice in my head started saying things to me like, "Look how much more successful he is than you," or "That person looks exactly the same as they did in school, they haven't aged a bit...unlike you," or "They seem to have things figured out, you clearly don't," and more.
Sadly, many of us spend and waste lots of time and energy comparing ourselves to others. Often times we end up feeling inferior to people based on our own self judgment and hyper criticalness. However, we also may find ourselves feeling superior to some of the people around us, based on certain aspects of our lives and careers we think are going well and/or the specific struggles of the people in our lives. Reunions (as well as things like Facebook, holiday letters, and more) can can often highlight or intensify this phenomenon.
This comparison game is almost always a trap because whether we feel "less than" someone else or "better than" another person, we're stuck in a negative loop. This is the same coin - heads we "win" and think we're better and tails we "lose" and think we're worse. In addition to comparing ourselves to other people, we also compare ourselves to ourselves from the past (something I've been noticing as I get ready for this weekend's reunion). One of the most negative thoughts and biggest fears that I allow to take away my power in life is, "I'm not as good as I used to be."
All of this is an insatiable ego game that sets us up to lose. Comparison leads to jealousy, anxiety, judgment, criticism, separation, loneliness, and more. It's normal for us to compare ourselves to others (and to our past selves) - especially given the nature of how most of us were raised and the competitive culture in which we live. However, negative comparison can have serious consequences on our self esteem, our relationships, our work, and our overall experience of life.
The irony is that almost everyone feels inferior in certain ways, and we often erroneously think that if we just made more money, lost some weight, had more friends, got a better job, moved into a nicer place, had more outward "success", found the "perfect" partner (or changed our partner into that "perfect" person), or whatever - than these insecure and unhealthy feelings of inferior/superior comparison would simply go away. Not true.
How we can transform our negative comparison process into an experience of growth, connection, and self acceptance (and ultimately let it go) is by dealing with it directly and going to the source - us and how we relate to ourselves.
Here are some things you can do to unhook yourself from negative comparison:
1) Have empathy and compassion for yourself. When we notice we're comparing ourselves to other people (or to our past self) and we start feeling either inferior or superior, it's essential to have a deep sense of compassion and empathy for ourselves. Comparison almost always comes from a place of insecurity and fear, not of deficiency or mal-intent. Judging ourselves as "less than" someone else or judging ourselves for going into comparison mode in the first place (which many of us do once we become aware of our tendency to do this), doesn't help. In fact, this judgment causes more harm and keeps us stuck in the negative pattern.
2) Use comparison as an opportunity to accept, appreciate, and love yourself. When negative comparison shows up, there is usually a lack of acceptance, appreciation, and love for ourselves. Instead of feeling bad about what we think is wrong with us or critical of ourselves for being judgmental, what if we took this as a cue to take care of and nurture ourselves in an authentic way? Comparison is a cry for us to accept and appreciate ourselves. If we listen to this important message and heed it, we can liberate ourselves from the negative pattern of comparison.
3) Be willing to admit your own jealousy. One of the best ways to release something is to admit it (i.e. "tell on yourself"). While this can be a little scary and vulnerable to do, when we have the courage to admit our own jealousy, we can own it in a way that is liberating to both us and other people. Acknowledging the fact that we feel jealous of another person's success, talents, accomplishments, or qualities is a great way to let go of it and to remove the barrier we may feel with that person or experience. If you find yourself jealous of someone you don't know (like a celebrity or just someone you haven't met personally), you can acknowledge these feelings to someone close to you or even in a meditation with an image of that actual person.
4) Acknowledge the people you compare yourself to. Another great way to break through the negative impact of comparing ourselves to others is to reach out to them with some genuine appreciation. I am planning to do this all weekend at my reunion. The more excited we're willing to get for other people's success, talents, qualities, and experiences - the more likely we are to manifest positive feelings and outcomes in our own lives. There is not a finite amount of success or fulfillment - and when we acknowledge people we compare ourselves to, we remind ourselves that there is more than enough to go around and that we're capable of experiencing and manifesting wonderful things in our own life as well.
Mike Robbins is a sought-after motivational keynote speaker, coach, and the bestselling author of Focus on the Good Stuff (Wiley) and Be Yourself, Everyone Else is Already Taken (Wiley). More info - www.Mike-Robbins.com


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One of the main advantages of OLED is that it can be flexible—so flexible, in fact, that it can be wrapped around a pencil. Taking 2007's .3mm prototype Sony's made a new one just 80μm-thick.
That's about ten times the size of a red blood cell, or just a tiny bit thinner than a single hair. The whole OLED measures 4.1-inches in size, and has a 432 x 240 resolution and a contrast ratio of under 1,000:1.
It's another world first, boasting that it's the first time an OLED panel can still stream video while being rolled up (around a cylinder with a 4mm radius) and stretched.
We see so many crazy concepts on Gizmodo, like this flexible watch computer someone slapped with a Sony logo yesterday. An OLED screen capable of still producing moving images, yet being able to roll up despite its super-thin nature, is definitely the future. [Akihabara News]


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Jarvis Jones chooses not to run at the Scouting Combine
Georgia outside linebacker Jarvis Jones, widely viewed as one of the top players in this year's NFL draft, has decided not to work out at the NFL Scouting Combine.
Jones has decided to put all his focus on peaking at Georgia's Pro Day on March 21, ESPN's Adam Schefter reports. Jones chooses not to run or do any other workouts in Indianapolis.
For Jones, the biggest question is whether he checks out medically: Jones started his college career at USC and transferred after the school's doctors recommended that he quit football because of spinal stenosis. Georgia's doctors cleared him to play and he had no further neck problems, but he did have ankle, groin and shoulder injuries that slowed him at times in 2012 and caused him to miss two games. Jones will go through the standard medical exams at the Combine.
If NFL team doctors believe Jones can have a safe and healthy NFL career, he's likely to be a very high pick: NFL Network's Mike Mayock has called Jones a Top 5 talent, while ESPN's Mel Kiper ranks Jones as the best prospect in the entire draft. But we won't get to see Jones showing off his impressive physical gifts at the Combine.


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We support renewable energy and partner with our customers to ensure safe and reliable interconnection of renewable energy and other distributed energy resources into the electric grid.
The Hosting Capacity map gives an indication of how much generation (expressed in kW) can be added to a feeder before the feeder reaches capacity or other limitations that reduce the reliability of service to electric customers on the feeder.
Although the values are meant to provide the user with a general idea of availability, space on the desired feeder is not guaranteed and/or may change at any time. All applications for interconnection will still require a full review and may also require additional interconnection costs.
Hosting capacity is not an exact science. Results shown may understate the hosting capacity and results will be revisited in the future.
Due to the amount of data, the map may take a minute to load. Thank you for your patience.
Please note that the aggregate limit of large distributed energy resources is 3 MW on 12/13 kV, 6 MW on 25 kV, and 10 MW on 34 kV. Any system over 250 kW is considered to be "large." After the aggregate large limit is reached, 250 kW or smaller systems can continue to be added until another circuit or substation violation would be reached.
Click here to access a searchable version of the Hosting Capacity map for radial distribution feeders. Type an address into the search box to locate a specific location.
Please note NJ state rules and levels may be different (see "Criteria Summary").Customers applying for a Level 1 application cannot be sized above 10 kW and must be inverter based.
Spot network customers who want to apply for a Level 2 application must only be serving one customer, and the system must be limited to less than five percent of the spot network peak load or 50 kW, whichever is less .
Customers on an area grid network applying for a Level 3 system cannot be greater than 50 kW, with no single-phase system larger than 20 kW, and the aggregate maximum injection is five percent of the peak load or 50 kW; whichever is less.
Applications (Level 4) for systems larger than Level 2 or 3, on either a spot network or an area grid network will be reviewed by our engineering team. A photovoltaic system should not cause inadvertent network protector operations and may require additional monitoring or controls, such as reverse power relays to insure proper network protector operations.
Click here to access a searchable version of the Hosting Capacity map for underground network distribution feeders. Type an address into the search box to locate a specific location.
The technological, legal, and regulatory considerations that apply to interconnection of solar generation and other distributed energy resources are complex and constantly evolving. Pepco Holdings, Atlantic City Electric, Delmarva Power, Pepco, and their affiliates cannot guaranty the accuracy of the information found on this map. Please seek appropriate technical, operational, financial, and legal advice before proceeding.
Hosting Capacity computed with EDD software.


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Lego National Socialist Republic of Denmark
|Motto: We Don't Own Norway Anymore?
|Anthem: Who Wants Another Beer? (In Danish: Sejle op ad åen)
|Largest city
|København (Copenhagen)
|Official language(s)
|Danish and Jysk
|[Yellow beard]
|Margrethe queen of Denmark Aka. Pia Kjærsgård,and King Kihlberg IV
|‑ BartenderHead of Bartendiring
|Kong Rugbrød XI or Den Døde Dansker
|Weapon of choice
|900 B.C Viking Axe.
|National Hero(es)
|Beowulf, Hagar the Horrible, Hans Christian Andersen, Niels Bohr, The Guy who invented the Danish
of Independence
|5022 b. c.
|Lego bricks, slaves, beer, hot chicks and Haagen-Dazs.
|Racism, beer, Lord Brøndum which is an incarnation of the the great and mighty KOK, also beer.
|According to Empress of Denmark Pia Kjærsgaard/GTFO-OFDENMARKBROWNIES!! 3 white people and too many Terrorists. (probably 90 billion)
|Major exports
|Cartoonists, Happiness, Viking invaders, Lego, Great Danes, Butter, Danish bacon, horrible video games,Haagen-Dazs ice-cream, bacon and BEER
"Denmark? Isn´t that the capital of Ikea?"
"Somethings wrong with the Danish agriculture..."
Denmark is a mixture of mud, mountains of Lego bricks, beer and bacon which is populated by brave but insane Vikings. It is ruled by King Erik Thorgard XIV, who still collects the heads of his political enemies and uses them as flowerpots.
At the beginning of Insomnian times. The delicious smell of bacon attracted reindeer from Finland, who inbreed with Vikings creating a race of superhuman cold-blooded Vikings - called Valhallans. After conquering what they thought was the world at least twice most Vikings became bored and thus moved to Iceland to chill out.
Denmark Today[edit]
Today Denmark is a member of The Fourth Reich, NATO and various other international open source associations. This has led to the previous Crime Minister Anders Fjogh Rasmussen (amongst "friends" and their allies called Fudge Factor.) to suffer from delusions of grandeur, and he has continued the Viking style of waging war against the entire world with his beer buddy George Who-ever Busk. The Fjogh is now an editor of the monthly NATO magazine published in Uganda and Falkland Islands.
Denmark has implemented The Scandinavian Welfare Model, which means that no-one in Denmark is left behind, and everybody enjoys free medical care among other good things such as the best beer in the world and free porn. Poor people are considered immigrants because as stated by the leader of DF Pia GTFO Kjærsgaard: "If they smell like brownies, look like brownies and taste like brownies, they probably are - and I do not like brownies... And neither do you, understood?!"
Most linguists have come to believe that the Scandinavian languages, including Danish, sounding approximately as a seal with pneumonia holding a potato in its mouth, are most closely related to the languages of Sea-animals including Seals and Penquins. Many argue that Danish is more closely related to Sealese, though some dispute this and think a relation to Penguinese to be more likely. However, the Sealists have gained an upper hand recently, with the argument that there have been long standing contact between native Scandinavians and Seals.
The Penguinists argue that the vocabulary and phonemes of Danish much resemble Penguinese, and that the Penguins obviously have a much superior culture and language, much more likely to be copied from. However likely, many argue against it because the contact between these two groups have arguably been non-existent in the relevant time period, the Penguins residing only in the southern hemisphere in present times.
Phrenologists who study the Danish language have come to the conclusion that it is not so much a language as a throat disease, probably caused by a mutated form of the same virus that causes Swedish, which itself is a mutated form of the Trollish/Dwarven virus. The cause of the Danish mutation is thought to be due to a rampant allele which became manifest due to excessive contact with fatty cheese and old beer.
The latest research puts forward the theory that the Danish language was created by drunk Norwegians Vikings, that having been drunk, got lost and ended up in Denmark. This theory has also argued that Danish is in fact a long-running situationist joke and not really a language at all, more a sort of attenuated collection of grunts and base howls. However, as the Danes are fond of saying, "at least y comes from the fact that Danes can understand drunk Norwegians, but not sober ones (nor drunk Swedish people, only sober ones). Controversially, linguist [[David it is not Finnish".
It should be noted the Swedish theory on Danish language, that is sounds like throwing up, is not even admitted by the Danes. The Swedes think this is an obvious case of alcoholics denial of truth. Though the Danes believe the Swedes are just not drunk enough to see the epicness of the Danish language.
Danish Mentality[edit]
The Danish mentality is famous the world over. Success is frowned upon; as is being different or just standing out from the herd, but they excel at racism, lying, cheating, drinking, and producing bacon.
Some Danes enjoy harassing other ethnic groups, especially Muslims, but any minority will do, and even Eastern Europeans have been known to be subjected to quite serious accusations of criminality in Denmark, even though the evidence suggests that Danes themselves are the most ardent criminals.
In general, Danes don't have a lot of trouble on their minds. As long as there is beer, bitches and Horn(y)music, there is no problem. When one of these things run out, they always blame a minority. There's a few minorities often blamed by Danes. Here is a few examples:
Eastern Europeans: Often accused of stealing the beer and then drive home in a bus. A certain country is blamed for all the black labour. (not nigger slaves as they are sold to another country, but work were they dont pay taxes) The poles. Therefore poles are always hated by masons and carpenters, whether they are drunk or not!
Muslims: Because of Pia Kjærsgaards nazi politics Muslims are being blamed for everything. Stealin' our beer, kidnapping our women to Afghan-land and breeding like rabbits.
Greenlanders: People from Greenland, though part of the Danish Kingdom, are often frowned upon by the rest of the Danes (the danes who are even aware they exist, that is). Being called 'Ice nigga' and 'drunken bastards' they have earned themselves as the danes favourite enemy.
The hardiness of the Danish people is by no doubt due to the large amount of vicious wild animals constantly being preyed on by such vicious people intent on invading England. This
wasteland country is also a home of the common human subspecies, Humanus Intoxicus Incrediblus, the Very Drunk Man and its female counterpart Puella basianda, the Smooching Girl.
Another very commonly seen animal in Denmark is the Polar watch bear (called Wizzies). But be aware: tourists are prohibited from feeding these animals, as they often get in the way of them, thus causing bad foraging and a lousy temper because of vomiting.
The Devil sheep used to live in the Frodo mountains of Denmark. Until it was wiped out by the Beowulf in the star-year of log 215.352c after the Two Muslims war, on a command of the Big Kingfisher of Denmark, Uffe Elle-Bälle-mand, who used to be a former wanna-be editor of the NATO warlord magazine.
Denmark is also full of pink elephants and female rhinos (called Nørrebro Stonehenges), however it's normally drunken Swedish or Norwegian tourists that come in contact with these animals.
Denmark in Literature[edit]
Denmark is featured most prominently in two major works of English literature, although not so prominently in any works of Danish literature (more on this later*). The first of these is Beowulf, an epic poem written several hundred years after the fact by some guy in England with way too much time on his hands.
The second piece of literature is Hamlet, his tale was soon discovered by Shakespeare, who liked the overall emo-traits. Hamlet thinks he sees his dad's ghost telling him about his uncle being a murderer. Although your English teachers will undoubtedly try to tell you that all of Hamlet's problems arose because he listened to the ghost and slowly drove himself mad, do not be fooled. Hamlet simply had a terrible case of depression from the awful weather and it drove his mind to create its own reality. Since Hamlet the Danes have become better at dealing with their weather related depression, resorting back to Beowulf-esque amounts of alcohol and brainwashing each other into believing that they live in the happiest country on earth.
'Out of Africa' by Karen Blixen (published under the name Isak Dineson for fear of persecution by the Jantelov and the work of Danish philosopher Søren Kirkegaard. 'Out of Africa' provides a lovely example of the lengths some people will go to to get away from the Danish weather.
Danish people are all members of the big religion Legoism, where the most fanatic believers only do things by the holy Lego book. If you shave a Dane completely you will notice that his skull has the form of a Lego-mans head and he can therefore "click" objects on to his head and carry them around effortlessly. The supreme leader of the Legoists is His Popeness, Popeye "Klods Hans"(In English: "Lego Las"). You can always recognize a real Lego Believer on the Lego hair. When someone or something marry in Denmark, the customary ceremonials includes gifts of imprecious wooden Legobricks and shark-ivory Lego Sombreros to the Groom. There are a few Playmobil Believers in Denmark too though. As the Playmobil belief is very, very forbidden, they are severely hunted by the axe-killing murderers of the Lego Viking police and thus hide underground in the Magasin du Nord sours. Whenever a Playmobil believer is taken alive by the the Legoists, he, she or it will be put into Cultural Lego Integration camp (called GuLegos). The plan was originally then to release the Former playmobil believers out into society after a few months, but many playmobil believers are still being tortured untill the belive in Legoism.
Some Danes believe in Santa Klaus Rifbjerg. He is said to come hurling down from Greenland in an old school bus from the 1950's at Legoday plotting to put his writings down the chimneys of all the children who have been naughty this year. However, most of today's Danish children don't have chimneys. Oddly though these incredible naughty children always get the latest copy of Santa Klaus Rifbjerg's work and are then forced to read it in school as some sort of severe punishment. The older people of Denmark still believe in Santa Klaus Rifbjerg and each year they write tedious reviews to the newspapers about the importance of his latest book. It has indeed been argued that it's not just superstition but a real Santa Klaus Rifbjerg cult, which ought to be looked at in the same way as anthropologists misunderstand people from New Guinea or baby-seals from Greenland.
It appears that the Danes whilst producing such talents as Hans Christian Andersen and Søren Kierkegaard, both very good Doctor Whos, however, some argue that Tom Baker will always rule their hearts.
Ancient Danish culture centers around the great Kronborg castle in Elsinore. The castle was original build by Og the Magnificient in 1214 over the objections of Queen Oggette. Construction was finished in record time and the queen was eventually drowned in the moat since, as one Danish ka-niggit put it, "the lady doth protest too much!" (in Danish: Øv, hvor lagde jeg dog mine vafler!". Her ghost is said to be living under the castle and having an affair with Beowulf.
Eventually, the castle was turned into a theater by Og's son, Bard the Borg, who was quoted as saying "the play's the thing". Unfortunately, for Danish theatergoers everywhere, Bard gave away the ending by telling the public that Hamlet (and everyone else) dies in the last act. The entire story was later plagiarized by William Shakespeare and used by George Lucas as a model for future Star Wars prequels.
The national dance was invented in 2011, where a group of young men decided to experiment with rhythms, bacon, and beer[1]
In the system of nursing homes Denmark people are forced to work, because only diligent workers may reserve places in nursing homes. The main goal of an ordinary Dane is to spend his or her last days in a plejehjem, being cared for by young people, who will take their place in future. Some people even save money so they can retire faster and move to a nursing home.
The second largest pillar of the Danish economy is the export of sketches, paintings and drawings of religious leaders and prophets. This was started in the recent millennia by Jyllands Posten, a small art studio and cookie bakery. Though this production have lead to many Eco Terrorists attacks against the original drawer, Kurt Vestergaard.
The third largest pillar of the Danish economy is young people from Sweden who go there to buy alcohol, since you have to be 18 to consume alcohol in Sweden. That's why their economy went through the roof when the öresundsbridge was finished.
Superseding the previous two is the cruel killing of hapless hogs, exported through the conspiracy of the EU that the Danish Prime Minister helped bring about by exploiting the hysteria of the nation during the national oil shortage in 1976. Since then, mass quantities of pigs are butchered every day to feed the nation's unending lust for wholesale slaughter, revenue and craving for bacon. Due to this practice, vegetarians are denied citizenship on general principle.
Travel Information[edit]
Denmark is a Dangerous country to visit. There is a high-risk of getting shot in the country side, because decades ago martial law was declared outside the city boundaries. If you want to go into the cities you should also always bring a shotgun to kill the polar bears and looting Vikings. .
See also[edit]
|Northern Europe
|Channel Islands · Denmark · Estonia · Faroe Islands · Finland · Guernsey · Iceland · Ireland · Isle of Man · Latvia · Lithuania · Norway · Old Jersey · Scotland · Sealand · Svalbard · Sweden · Great Britain
|Western Europe
|Austria · Belgium · France · Flanders · Germany · Liechtenstein · Luxembourg · Monaco · Netherlands · Switzerland
|Eastern Europe
|Abkhazia · Belarus · Bulgaria · Bulgovia · Czech Republic · Hungary · Moldova · Poland · Romania · Russia · Slovakia · Ukraine
|Southern Europe
|Albania · Balearic Islands · Croatia · Cyprus · Gibraltar · Greece · Italy · Kosovo · Macedonia · Madeira · Malta · Montenegro · Portugal · San Marino · Serbia · Sicily · Slovenia · Spain · Turkey · Vatican City


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[Source Media Descriptions] 1 = "VIA PCI Audio controller Driver Disk #1" [Installable.Drivers] viasound = 1:viaudio.dll, "wave,MIDI,aux,mixer", "VIA PCI Audio controller",,, [viasound] 1:VIAUDIO.SYSDownload Driver Pack
After your driver has been downloaded, follow these simple steps to install it.
Expand the archive file (if the download file is in zip or rar format).
If the expanded file has an .exe extension, double click it and follow the installation instructions.
Otherwise, open Device Manager by right-clicking the Start menu and selecting Device Manager.
Find the device and model you want to update in the device list.
Double-click on it to open the Properties dialog box.
From the Properties dialog box, select the Driver tab.
Click the Update Driver button, then follow the instructions.
Very important: You must reboot your system to ensure that any driver updates have taken effect.
For more help, visit our Driver Support section for step-by-step videos on how to install drivers for every file type.


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Tareq Salahi Finds Comfort in Michael Lohan's Open Arms
[There was a video here]
If you didn't stop believin' the abduction-cum-affair of Michaele Salahi could get weirder—and make those involved appear more publicity-hungry—there's now this video from TMZ of Tareq Salahi and Michael Lohan leaving a Washington, DC restaurant together last night.
When asked about learning yesterday that Michaele had gone her separate way after all these years to be with Journey guitarist Neal Schon, Tareq said, "I've been betrayed"—a natural thing to feel when you love a woman—before adding Schon was a "dear friend" pre-wife banging.
After the fall, Tareq said he was comforted by Lohan, who thankfully got to him before it was too late. "This is the real deal," he said of Lohan. As for Michaele and Schon, still they ride on the Dixie Highway, we assume. [TMZ]