The videos of the Japanese guys avoiding the 1up mushroom in Mario 64 were great, and now they’ve posted another level. Clicky clicky!

A very convincing article by Peter Singer describing the need for health care rationing, although “rationing” is a term which should probably be avoided in debate situations, for obvious reasons.

Essentially, we are already rationing health care by way of cost, and the objections that life has no set value, while true in some ways, are not good policy guides. After all, the million spent to extend one person’s life a year may have extended ten people’s lives by ten years each, if only the money was better spent.

He also gets into the definition of the Quality Adjusted Life Year, or QALY, a unit (life extended by one year, adjusted for quality of said life) for evaluating the efficiency of treatments. At some point, he says (and rightly, I believe), we have to say we are willing to pay no more than X for a QALY, otherwise we end up with… well, the system we’ve got, where costs are astronomical, while expectations and outcomes are no better than countries which spend a fraction as much.

This is going to be a major talking point in the coming years, I’m sure, because if health care really changes, it’s going to need to take some of this into account.

A commenter at Metafilter does bring up a good point, though:
“Regardless of how effective government-run health care might be, it’s not for our society. It’s for societies that pay for things.”

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal absolutely nails the Russian doll-like way in which Psychology experiments are often organized. They’re never testing what you think they’re testing, and they always lie.

Give me a god damn break. This is some serious bullshit. I was going to put this post on TechCrunch but was beaten to the punch by another writer (damn his eyes).

Satirical (and hysterical) British columnist Charlie Brooker takes on the fact that suddenly we can’t trust the government, the press, or each other, even though we all know that’s how it’s always been.

I’ve always felt this way (individual actions are praiseworthy but ultimately ineffective in large issues), but I tend to expand my view to further individual actions like say, handing out pamphlets or picketing. Change only comes at the breaking point, and although you can make sure others are willing to make that change, it’s too much to expect that change to come before it’s good and ready.

I can’t stand this. Watch the video of the guy talking about how his mood is affecting his ability to use ‘quantum consciousness measurements" or something to change the color of this stupid lamp. God, what a chump!

I just spent last evening in Belltown and I’m more sure than ever that the whole neighborhood should be nuked from orbit. This guy seems to feel the same way about British club environments.