iChange, like so many other sites, offers guidance on losing weight and eating well…but it goes so far beyond what other sites are currently offering with a number of unique features. Let me just highlight a few:

• When you register with iChange you can choose a personal nutritionist to assist you. Right now this is either Diana Young (registered dietitian, specializes in ADA methods, served as Chief Clinical Dietitian at two major hospitals) and Linda Miner (registered nutritional counselor, specializes in metabolic typing, holistic and alternative medicine approach). These folks are really available to you – ready to answer questions and give you counsel on how to progress towards better health.
• iChange takes a really holistic approach. Many sites focus on weight loss, mood monitoring, nutritional diets, and so on – but very few talk a full-fledged and well-rounded approach. iChange offers nutritional/meals modeling, weight loss / exercise, fluids, calorie, mood, energy, sleep and stress monitoring.
• They offer a simple checklist that only has three items on it at a time that encourage you to take small steps towards increasing your health. As you finish a step you are given another task. You can bang these out or take your time.
• There is an incentive system – its minor (e.g. web-based “awards”) – but still pretty cool. We all like “earning” awards or achieving accomplishments (why else do so many people play farmville)?
• The community is proactive in reaching out. Within hours of registering I received a contact from another member (a SuperCharger) who asked how I was, introduced herself, let me know how she’d successfully used iChange, and generally provided encouragement to continue on. This is unlike other communities for health I’ve been involved in, where there isn’t that sort of proactive effort to reach out to new members.

You might think a site like this would cost something – many other health sites with more limited functionality do – or have a freemium model. But iChange is entirely free.

So, my advice – go register. Give it a try. It takes ten minutes to get yourself through the initial setup and its very intuitive. I think you’ll find it well worth your time.

In closing, I’d like to make a list of some enhancements I’d like to see in iChange. While these are enhancements that should be implemented – I’ll reiterate again that iChange is far ahead of any competitors I’ve seen thus far.

• The ability to monitor medication intake.
• Eventually, the site will need a profit model – they have a few links to Amazon associate products tucked away, but this really should be tightly integrated into the system.
• There is a nice row of boxes along the top with checkboxes that show you your progress in various areas, unfortunately they aren’t clickable!
• The iChange site is a bit slow sometimes. Need to ramp up the server power.
• Links in emails to attached documents take you to the main iChange page – not very helpful.
• When you download a document, its name is just a string of random letters and numbers, it’d be nice if the PDFs had names reflecting their purpose. Of course, I can rename them, but still…
• Create a Facebook app. – this will be a huge marketing item. It will provide individuals who view an iChange profile with a quick and convincing advertisement to use the program – e.g. when they see we’ve lost ten lbs using the service and so on.
• Eventually, it’d be pretty cool to see it allow us to “schedule” things we should be doing on a semi-regular basis – e.g. do we need to make an appointment with the dentist, doctor, or optomologist? I’d like to see this expanded to include more general task management – I used to use a service (whose name I can’t remember and has since closed) that reminded me of things I needed to do around the house and with my automobile – allowing me to take better care of my house and belonging – things like changing furnace filters, checking batteries in smoke alarms, and taking the car in for inspection/maintenance.
• I’ll add more as I think of them.

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Disclaimer:

When it comes to discussions about nationalized healthcare, cost reductions, and other major political issues – I generally don’t feel qualified to comment. With this post I’m stepping out on a limb – and my qualifications(1) for doing so are probably still lacking. I welcome your feedback. I’m more than happy to be proved wrong – this is just want seems logical (and obvious?) to me.

Delimiters:

In this post I am not going to argue for or against nationalized healthcare, rather I am going to discuss alternative methods of reducing costs/improving treatment. This is not because I disagree with nationalized healthcare(2) but rather because I see these steps as being a natural first step in any attempts at cost reduction/treatment improvement.

Automation:

Each year I (try to) go for a physical with my doctor. I don’t enjoy it – but it allows me to find out if there is something major and obvious wrong with me. It takes a lot of time to see a doctor. After setting up the appointment one generally has to leave work and travel to the doctor. Being the anti-travel person that I am, that isn’t too big of a hazard – my doctor is five minutes drive from my house, ten from my work. Still – its a nuisance.

Once I arrive, no matter how early or late, I always end up waiting and waiting (and waiting and waiting). Generally I am surrounded by others like me who are healthy and present for routine maintenance as well as those who are ill. Unfortunately, this means I am in a closed air enclosure with several individuals who are hacking and sneezing – throwing contagious germs around the room. I don’t harbor any hard feelings – I do the same when I am ill and I go to the same place to get treatment…but still, the risk is that I will leave with more wrong with me than when I entered.

The doctor’s examination includes fairly routine processes. He checks my height and weight. Checks my blood pressure, listens to my heart beat, pays attention for any abnormalities in my breathing, checks my mouth, ears, and nose – amongst other questions and proddings. Much of this process is actually carried out by one or more nurses (including the occasional bleeding for blood tests).

Now, my suggestion is simple, why not work on devices like the Zeo which can perform most of this sort of monitoring automatically? Granted, the Zeo is only for sleep – but why can we not make multifunctional devices that can monitor our blood pressure, heart beat, breathing, and any of dozens of other health factors? It seems that both the Apple iPhone and the Verizon/Motorola/Google Droid would be able to serve as perfect multifunctional devices for such a purpose (in addition to their many current uses). I’m not a big fan of having something implanted in me (call it Revelation/666 syndrome if you must) but I see no reason why such devices could not be used once a day/week in a few moments or with a small wireless bandaid type patch to monitor our health.

This automation would provide us with numerous benefits such as:

• Reduced visits to doctors for regular physicals, increasing our work productivity/time off for recreation.
• Increased monitoring of our vitals – alerting us to health issues in days instead of weeks or months.
• Reduced exposure to environments with significant amounts of communicable health issues.
• Advanced analysis of our health vitals to determine patterns of health that are disconcerting and need review.

Let me give a few examples of how a device like this might function:

• Jane is fairly healthy. She uses her multifunction device once a week. It gives her peace of mind that her main vitals continue to operate within normal bounds. She doesn’t spend as much time worrying about whether this or that minor issue might be part of a bigger dilemma.
• John uses his device daily. The device notes over a months time that John has significant blood sugar spikes around noon every Friday and this is accompanied by extreme bouts with sleepiness throughout the day. The device alerts John and John is able to change his dieting habits to reduce the sugar intake reducing his sleepiness.
• Mary has chronic heart problems. While family bought her one of those devices that calls 911 if pressed they still worry about her constantly…until she received a multifunction device. She keeps a wireless patch on her all the time – which covers her vitals. It lets her know when she is working too hard and in danger of bringing on a heart incident and will even call 911 if she keels over – without her interaction.

Analysis:

I know some people are afraid of having their records kept electronically. I could explain why I don’t think this is a major concern but perhaps another time(3). The keeping of electronic records instead of traditional paper records would offer several significant benefits:

• Medical offices could (with permission) share information instantaneously. No more waiting days or weeks to get paperwork transferred from one office to another.
• Medical offices could communicate with one another electronically and share results to coordinate better treatment plans.
• A significant reduction in the amount of paperwork could be made. Individuals could give HIPAA consent via an e-sign form rather than through the useless bundles one receives at each doctor.
• The data could be analyzed anonymously to garner important health information and to look for patterns invisible to the naked human eye. Think about it – we could find that individuals who now live in every state in the union and are suffering from stomach cancer all originally lived in the small town of (put name here). While this might not solve their health problems it could launch an investigation to discover that (name toxin) is present in (name location – e.g. elementary school).
• Further, the efficiency of treatments, the possibility of causes, the analysis of diseases could all be significantly expedited by such a process. The data could be anonymized and then made available for legitimate researchers to utilize in performing research (e.g. such as World Community Grid projects).

Pre-Treatment:

A lot of expense and time is caused by the inability to discover issues before they occur. What if we could monitor our health? What if we could be alerted (and allow our medical professionals to be alerted) before a major issue arises? If our spiking cholesterol levels were managed before they became a crisis? If our hearts failing functionality was noted before it resulted in a heart attack? If our liver and kidney function could be monitored?

Severity Monitoring:

I get sick somewhat often with minor bugs – a stomach bug, a cold, a virus. Annoying but not life threatening. In my line of work (IT) sometimes its really important to get a project done and while I personally am of the opinion that it is better to stay home and heal before returning to work many others in my field (and the American culture in general) are not. Sometimes even I succumb to the pressure to be present when feeling under the weather. What if I could cough into a small device attached to my multifunction and receive feedback on what sort of cold or virus I have? If its just the common cold I take some dayquil and am good to go – but if its strep, bronchitis, or the flu – well I stay home and see a doctor. How many epidemics could be prevented or reduced?

Conclusion:

I am not arguing for or against nationalized healthcare. I do wonder why there is not more effort in the areas I have outlined above – by governmental and private agencies – to utilize technology to solve these issues. I recognize that these solutions will have minimal effect on what some are especially concerned about (I am concerned as well) – the masses who are unable to receive affordable healthcare coverage. I suppose my thought is that if we can reduce the burden on the overall system, reduce our costs overall, this would provide more time and finances to direct towards those who have a need (whether that is on a governmental, religious, local, or personal level) while creating a sustainable system for future generations.

I eagerly await your thoughts and feedback. Thanks for your time and consideration of my ramblings!

Notes:

(1)In this instance my qualifications consist in their entirety of (a) reading Newsweek weekly, (b) keeping current on major headlines [including healthcare] via Yahoo, and (c) reading/skimming a wide variety of rss feeds covering a gamut of tech/health topics.

(2)I disagree with those who utilize (Christian) Scripture as a argument against socialized medicine. I see no such impetus in Scripture. On the other hand, I find myself less optimistic about the effectiveness of governmental organizations than many more liberal minds (in Christian circles, Jim Wallis comes to mind).

(3)In brief, (a) privacy is an illusion – our information is already available, perhaps just not centralized and (b) I have nothing to hide – so why hide it? You want to know I struggle with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder? Now you know. Finally, as outlined above I think the benefits are huge (and outweigh the negatives).

Requests for Comment:

Here are a few people who I’d like to hear their thoughts on this post: Dana Blankenhorn (ZDNet), Jim Wallis (Sojourners), Ed Dobson, Tosca Lee (Demon: A Memoir), Michael Arrington (TechCrunch), Jason Calacanis (Mahalo), the folks over at Zeo.

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Okay folks, I haven’t gotten my hands on this device yet but after reading Andy Oram’s post on it – I want it. The Zeo is a device that monitors how you are sleeping and then offers analysis of how you have been sleeping each night. I’d love to try this and see what it says about my sleep patterns. At $250 it isn’t an inexpensive device – but I’m adding it to the wish list.

In the future I expect us to see a lot more of these devices – and then the reduction of these devices into a single device. This increase in monitoring and analysis of our lives will allow us to significant improve our health and reduce healthcare costs by proactively resolving issues before they become major (imagine people with sleep apnea finding out about it before they get into a horrific car accident or a sudden change in brain wave patterns signaling a epileptic seizure triggering an automatic emergency response from a hospital).

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Target carries name brands but they also carry their generic brand products called Market Pantry. In general, my experience with generics has been disappointing. In the cereal department, while the generics may taste okay, they certainly don’t taste anything like the brand name equivalent. Similary, have you ever tried those generic oreo’s? Yuck! But this isn’t the case with Market Pantry. You won’t notice a sub-par taste in their Apple Juice, and if you swap out boxes on cereals your kids would never guess they weren’t eating the real Lucky Charms.

What really is the kicker for Target’s Market Pantry line of products is the pricing. I always gawked at paying nearly $4 for a box of cereal, but oftentimes couldn’t stand some of the generics. Now I get Market Pantry for less than $2.50 a box and don’t notice any taste difference!

So, what am I saying? Next time your out, if the Target isn’t too far from your normal grocery store, consider stopping by there first to get the non-perishables and then going to the grocery store – I think you’ll be happy with the difference.

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I must first admit as I review Liv Natural’s drinks that I am not an objective observer. Igor St. Phard, Sales Manager for Liv-Natural is a friend, worship at the church I attend, and is a sometimes basketball opponent. He generously gave my brother-in-law (Chris) some of the Liv-Natural drinks when Chris was on a liquids only diet after being randomnly beaten in NYC. It was during this time that I received my first taste of these drinks. On the other hand, I don’t push products I don’t believe in – so I think you will still find this review helpful.

When I first heard about these “all-natural” drinks I had my doubts. My mom is a big fan of organic foods and I oftentimes rebelled against this because I didn’t enjoy the taste (e.g. bread made with honey instead of sugar). I’d had rice milk before and didn’t like it – so I thought that these all-natural rice drinks would probably be disgusting as well. But when Chris couldn’t finish all the drinks Igor gave him – I began trying them, and I was amazed. It actually tasted good.

It isn’t every day that we find things athat are both healthy for us and tasteful. Sadly, we oftentimes must choose between a healthy lifestyle and enjoy the food we eat. But with Liv-Natural this is not true. The juice tastes amazingly like your run-of-the-mill sports drinks, except perhaps better. It uses agave nectar which is amazingly tasty and a good replacement for fructose corn syrup.

Now, I admit, I’m no expert on the benefits or dangers of rice and agave nectar and whether these ingredients may have any dangers similar to the processed ingredients found in many of todays sports drinks – but I do know  that I’d rather drink a sports drink without that fructose corn syrup and other processed ingredients any day.

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Against Depressionby Peter D. Kramer is an astonishing volume. It is not your standard work on a mental disorder – in fact, the title is both misleading and exactly on point. Against Depression is not so much about explaining and treating depression as it is a polemic literally against depression. Kramer effortlessly skips across a wide variety of knowledge clusters to formulate his argument, as comfortable delving into artistic exegesis of paintings to literary analysis of any of a variety of authors – modern and past, and then again into the depths of history and the cutting edge of scientific discovery – especially in the arena of the biological and physiological nature of depression.

Synopsis:

Kramer argues that (a) humanity has a bias against the curing of depression because (b) we are afraid that some positive traits/activity will be lost if the depressed are cured (e.g. moody, brooding literary and artistic works; a deep understanding of pain; alienation (against tyranny); hope for a better world) but that (c) the result of curing depression would be a fuller humanity, not a lesser one.

Literary Merit:

Kramer’s work is a piece of art. Kramer shows an almost infinite capability to string together diverse topics and observations to make cognizant arguments. He is as comfortable discussing literary and artistic analysis as philosophy, psychotherapy, and the latest cutting edge science relating to the biological and physiological nature of depression. There is the unfortunate fact that someone’s editor didn’t do the best job proof-reading in two or three chapters[1. The number of errors in these several chapters are almost stunning, especially in comparison to the rest of the volume. I am wondering if these chapters were inserted at the end and did not receive the same rigorous process as the rest of the book, though the chapters themselves are interspersed throughout the book, not appearing chronologically at the end.]. Besides this, Kramer’s writing is much more a philosophical work than anything else and it carries a philosopher’s tone. It is not the easy reading one has come to expect from lay-illness volumes – not only in its vocabulary but in the concepts it communicates and the time and space Kramer dedicates to these concepts. Still, the volume is extremely well-done and the task which Kramer has undertaken is a massive one, which we will discuss a little later, and as such one can lend little criticism against a volume that undertakes such as an impossible task.

Do We Fear The Cure?

Kramer is able to convincingly argue that we do fear a cure for depression. We believe that depression is part of our humanity – while it may not be in every person we cannot imagine some people without it. We wonder if by curing their depression we are in fact simply muting a portion of their personality, forcing everyone into a standard definition of humanity with little room for differentiation. Kramer reports repeatedly receiving the question, “What if prozac had been available to…?” (Nietzsche, van Gogh, Poe, Woolf). In other words, would we not lose the intellectual and artistic drive that this depression caused?[2. Neither Kramer, nor I in my agreement with him, believe that treatment can be pursued without any consideration for its effect on the personality. In fact, Kramer acknowledges that treatment can affect the personality - but suggests that this is because we have blunt treatments, not the fine surgical ones we need. His polemic indicates a desire to carefully advance the treatment of depression with consideration for the larger dangers of affecting personality. At the same time, he (and I, following after in his shadow) would suggest that depression itself is a disease and that the treatment of a disease with the right tools is the right thing, without question.]

But It Isn’t Honorable…

Kramer goes on to argue that we don’t give other diseases this distinction – we don’t suggest that individuals should keep their cancer or their heart disease. We don’t claim that there is something inherently valuable that adds to a person’s personality in the illness. Yes, there may be something that the individual learns, but this is not inherent in the illness itself. He suggests that we can ask the question if illness is every useful, but that this question cannot be posed to depression specifically, but must be posed across the board to all diseases. In other words, it is unfair to pick out one group of sufferers who we choose must suffer so that humanity can benefit from the lessons they learn, while all other sufferers are treated.

Kramer goes on to demonstrate from cutting edge research that depression does not advance a person’s abilities to think and create but rather dulls them and that the research indicates long-term, irreversible damage to the physiological structure of the brain is caused by depression.

A Better Future…

Kramer attempts to draw a picture of a future without depression and suggests that it would create a better humanity, not a shallower, more bland humanity. He suggests that the fullness of personality is restored in healing from depression, not caused by depression. That the characteristics we see in the depressed individual while sometimes admirable in and of themselves (e.g. unrest with the current life situation) are not valuable when they come from disease rather than a person’s own personality.

Conclusion…

A fascinating philosophical read that at its deepest asks what it means to be fully human and what role depression plays in encouraging or discouraging humanity, as well as evaluating our historical literary and artistic preference for works created by and about depressive themes to those of more brightness – and whether this indicates an inherent greater value in these works or a taint to humanity that we desire such.

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On Medication & Side Effects:

I do not want to discount the real concern that there are potential side effects from consuming medications that interact with our minds. Unlike many of our other organs which we understand to a great degree, the brain still resides as a major mystery and our treatments for aberrations in this mysterious and fascinating organ are far more primitive than any of us would desire. On the other hand, I’d like to share a few observations in my personal battle in deciding to consume medications:

• The damage from mental aberrations is certain, the damage from medications is small (or unknown). Peter D. Kramer in his book Against Depression
  writes, “In the aged brain, strokes cause more injury than they do in the young brain, and so do infections, blood clots, inflammation, low blood sugar, seizures–you name it. Prior exposure to stress (and to stress hormones) is the critical factor in this age-related vulnerability. More stress in the past makes an animal more brittle in old age. Both neurons and their protectors, glial cells, are at risk.” “Much of the damage done by stress hormones is to the stress-response system itself. The brain is a complex communications network, one cell reaching out to another. In the face of stress hormones, neurons lose connective wiring. In particular, cells in the hippocampus shed receptors for incoming messages about stress. The hippocampal cells also lose dendrites, the branches that connect a neuron to neighboring cells and transmit outgoing messages. Like overwhelmed people who withdraw from social contact, overwhelmed neurons in the hippocampus become isolated.” (pg. 117) Point being, while there may be unknown long-term side-effects to taking a medication there is no doubt about the health effects of untreated aberrations on the human mind.
• We have a certain fear of losing ourselves through medication. We ask ourselves, “are we just druggies, in need of a fix to make ourselves feel good?” We ponder whether there is not some good side to our illness.[1. I don't want to tackle this question in too much depth, but let me briefly summarize my position. There are lessons that can be learned while undergoing a challenge of any form - physiological, mental, familiar, economic - but these lessons are pain that is utilized by God for good, they are not in themselves good. In the Scriptures we do not find Jesus (the incarnation of God) saying to those who asked for healing, "I'm sorry. Its better for you be ill. I won't heal you." No, we find him bringing hope and healing. There is more than enough pain in this world, more than enough challenges, lets not purposely embrace unnecessary challenges - lets heal where we can and depend on the grace of God throughout.] We fear that society would lose a certain portion of itself without those who mentally struggle. We ask what would have history been like if individuals like Martin Luther, Picasso, van Gogh, Kierkegaard, George Fox, and so many others of our great minds had not suffered?[2. Peter Kramer tackles this topic extensively in Against Depression
  , a book that while to all appearances on the disorder of depression has more to do with fighting the cultural value we have given depression (and can be extended logically to other disorders).] This is the question, but we are simply asking it the same way. One does not lose depth without disorder. When one removes the disorder one finds greater ability to tap and manage depth. The disorder disables the individuals, removing capacity to innovate, it does not add to it.
• Yet, there is still a concern about the medication. There is no doubt that medication can affect us in ways we do not expect – in fact covering over portions of what we consider our personality. Sometimes the side effects are the exact opposite (though only in a very small minority) of what is expected – instead of relieving depression or anxiety it increases it. This is why I suggest the involvement of a community in the process is essential. At the most basic one’s psychiatrist, but preferrably including friends and family. These individuals can objectively help you understand the effects of the medication on your daily behavior and assist in determining whether the medication is allowing the real you to shine out or masking it (the latter is marginal, but possible).
• We assume that medical illness is a choice we face in isolation, but it is not. While we assume that refusing treatment is solely our suffering we cannot underestimate the impact of our suffering on others. The lack of energy we feel translates into a lack of energy for friends and family. The sudden bouts of rage we battle flies out at the most uncomfortable times – at work, with our wives or children. Our illness is real and affects those around us. If our worldview is twisted, we impart this twisted worldview to those we interact with to some extent. We must recognize the extent of others suffering.
• We oftentimes assume that our suffering isn’t that bad. We are resilient people in many senses. Many of us operate on a decently functional level without medication. Especially as adults we learns methods of coping with our foibles. But there is a great difference between functionally nominally well and functioning to one’s true human potential.[3. When I speak to "true human potential" I do not mean the actual perfection of mankind. I do not want to embark on a theology lesson, but it is my firm belief that we are beyond hope in (via natural means) redeeming our broken selves (and thus in need of a more than natural (supernatural) escape). When I speak of "true human potential" I mean a level of functioning which we as broken humans can embrace. It is not the full escape, but it is better than. The individual with clotted heart may need stints, this will make life better - allowing him to act to his "full potential" as opposed to without stints. At the same time the individual still is not "whole" in the sense of having a perfect heart.] Some of us have been suffering for so long that we don’t know what it is like to be free. Even after a short while in the grip of a mental illness it feels natural, as if this is the way things should be. Yet I have experienced (and proudly bear witness to) becoming more myself (and it is the self I strove for but could not be) when accepting and receiving treatment.

What About Them Psychologists/Counselors?

There is a fear of psychologists/counselors that permeates many and especially amongst those who would consider themselves Evangelical Christians (of which I consider myself a constituent). The fears are not entirely unfounded. There have been individuals who have seen a counselor/psychologist who provided bad advice and have changed their lives for the worse because of this advice[4. Probably one of the most ready examples to Christians is recommendations to divorce a spouse.]. But I would suggest that we need not fear the psychologist (or counselor) but instead the uncritical thinking and lack of contextual support that allows illegitimate beliefs to grow. In my opinion, a counselor is an individual to dialogue with about our lives and whom we allow to speak honestly and openly with us about the issues they see in our lives.[5. With Larry Crabb (Soul Talk: The Language God Longs for Us to Speak), it would be my hope that eventually this sort of "soul care" could be performed by one another. Unfortunately, at this juncture, too often this help is not available and those around us (including ourselves) are not able/willing to enter into the required depth of dialogue.] When we give someone permission to explore our life and philosophy this does not mean we give them permission to determine our beliefs. We can and should critically evaluate each suggestion for its truthfulness. Additionally, I would suggest that counseling becomes much safer when one uses it as a primary means of exposing the difficulties in ones life but then also utilizes a secondary support system to give you context to the recommendations and issues raised. While many people are not prepared to provide the depth of inquiry and feedback that a counselor can, many of them are willing to discuss with you individual subjects which the psychologist raises. Thus the danger of psychology is not that there may be false beliefs but that we uncritically and without contextual relational support accept such beliefs. No individual has perfect knowledge, every encounter is a mixture of truth and error, this is true even for professionals. We must be willing to battle for truth on our turf, not simply accept the pronouncements of others. That said, having someone challenge our belief system can help us revise and strengthen our belief systems in ways that allow us to live better lives.[6. When I speak of better lives I mean in many ways - less painful, less stressful, etc. But to me the ultimate depiction of a better life is the ability to love and know God and one another despite circumstances. Everything else is frosting on the cake.]

Are We Willing to See Ourselves?

When it really comes down to it, my argument is not so much particularly for psychological medications and treatment – but for the willingness to explore ourselves, and not solely internally. You can sit down and talk with a psychiatrist and a psychologist without taking medication and without accepting their advice. But perhaps it is worthwhile to ask the question? To open ourselves to the possibility? To ask someone else, “Do you hurt this way every day? Do you feel this anxious? Do you have this much trouble sleeping?” So often we assume our suffering is normative, when it is anything but.

Please feel free to give me some feedback on this post. I know this post has been much more ideological than many others I have posted but I want to engage you in discussion about this. I am at much risk of mixing truth with error as any other fallible human being. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why God said after creating everything else “good” that “it is not good for man to be alone.”[7. In an ultimate theological sense, even the community of mankind is not enough. We can do better by working together, but we still find ourselves to fall short. Extra-natural inspiration and revelation is needed (I could just say "supernatural" but this word is beaten to death like a horse and connotes all sorts of wishy-washy sentamentalism that so many reject without considering the underlying import of the word. By changing words I am not changing the meaning but simply attempting to force us to process those things with which we have become so comfortable (or uncomfortable).)]

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Sometimes the problem with accomplishing a charitable objective is not convincing people to support an endeavor but simply making them aware of the need and how they can be a part of the solution[1. I do believe in the sickness of mankind - corporately and individually. In other words, I do not believe we are a blank slate capable of perfect good, but rather irretrievably corrupted, redeemable only via super-natural means. In such, I agree with traditional ideas on the depravity on man. However, too often the fact that we are sick has been used to describe us as dead. We yet bear a bit of that perfect image in which we were formed and while we will always make bad choices this does not preclude us from making good choices. Evangelacism too often has failed to lead causes in arenas such as social justice because of a misuse of the concept of depravity. I consider myself solidly evangelical but unwilling to allow depravity to overcome ideas of social justice, charity, and humanity. It is a partial explanation of, but not a full picture, the nature and future of man.]. I believe this is the case with the World Community Grid and I want to share with each of you about this exciting project that meets real needs and that each of us can painlessly participate in.

The Problem:

Humans cannot perform the calculations fast enough for many of the massive scientific and medical experiment currently in process. We need the assistance of computers to perform these massive calculations faster and reliably. Unfortunately, super-computers with massive processing power are in limited supply and expensive to either build or rent. This places a strain on medical and scientific researchers as they must secure extra funds or wait for computing resources to become available.

The Solution:

The World Community Grid allows individuals to install an application on their computer that essentially allows their computer to become part of a massive super-computer. Already hundreds of thousands of individuals participate, and well over a million machines are involved. Already we have contributed 195,000 years of processing power to various projects.

The Questions:

• Will my computer run slower? Yes and no. In a strictly literal sense, it will – because its doing something else in the background. But in a realistic sense, there are generally no tangible changes in system performance. The software automatically reduces its resource utilization when you are actively utilizing the computer[2. You can always turn off the application temporarily or permanently.].
• What sort of projects are these researchers working on? Cures/treatments for cancers, AIDs, muscular dystrophy, STDs, malaria, and flavivirus infections (e.g. West Nile encephalitis and yellow fever). The projects also model climate predictions and look for effective food hybrids (e.g. a more nutritious rice).

Conclusion:

Go to WorldCommunityGrid.org and sign up for a free account. Its easy, fun, and really makes a difference. In the U.S. alone we have a population of well over 200 million. Right now there are less than one million participants and we are already accomplishing amazing things. Join us for this exciting journey! If you have questions or encounter problems please enter them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer each one.

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I don’t know about you but I hate seafood. I like shrimp and I don’t mind halibut – but don’t try feeding me salmon or just about any other type of seafood. Thats unfortunate for me healthwise, as seafood appears to be extremely good for you – if you get the kind without mercury.

Over the years I have several times attempted taking Omega-3 supplements to help replace (at least in some small way) the lack of seafood in my diet. But every time has failed – either because of cost or taste – or a combination of the two. The pills can be rather expensive and they don’t taste very good and oftentimes result in bad tasting/smelling breath.

Recently I discovered Coromega and I really love them! You can buy them in packs of 90 off of Amazon. They are packaged in something similar to condiment containers (e.g. ketchup, mustard) and each packet contains one serving. They are flavored using natural flavors and can be eaten straight or mixed with something like a yogurt. I find they taste great just by themselves – though very sweet (but not from sugar!). The packets come in a variety of flavors including orange, lime, chocolate orange, etc.

For those who are running, Omega 3 fatty acids have numerous health benefits. Research indicates they are helpful for heart health, effective blood flow, and in fighting depression. You can read more over at Wikipedia.

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Well, I don’t plan to blog too often about products or services I don’t like, but for the sake of humanity I think it is worthwhile to talk for a few minutes about eHealthInsurance. Choosing a health insurance provider is like pulling teeth – there are dozens of them and they all use confusing terms and have dozens of plans with prices that can outrun your income. eHealthInsurance seeks to make your life easier by compiling a number of health care providers at one spot – honing in on the plans that are best for you – and allowing you to apply right then and there online.

What did I like about the service? Well, the initial pages of the website where straightforward – enter my name, age, height and weight as well as that of my wife Charity. I also entered my zip code, then a large number of plans were made available to choose from and I could look at them by popularity, company, price, etc. Okay, all well and good.

I was a bit overwhelmed even with all this streamlining so I decided to call in. The phone menu was a little longer than necessary – but not bad comparatively (e.g. Verizon). I talked to a representative named Keith. Now I was impressed. This guy knew what he was talking about, walked me through the process, recommended the best plan for my needs, and was genuinely polite and friendly – I thought I would love eHealthInsurance.

He told me to get back on the site and fill out the online application and this is where things when downhill. While the main site has a nice design and UI, the form is a nightmare. Part of this is the insurance companies’ fault. They ask questions out the wazoo. But still, the UI design is pretty bad, so I’m going to highlight the issues here and hope eHealthInsurance stumbles upon this page and hears my concerns. They have a great nebulous idea, but until these issues are resolved I can’t recommend the service wholeheartedly:

• When asked to select a doctor they allow you to perform a lookup of physicians. This is great, except for the fact that once you find the physician there is no way to automatically import that physician’s information into your application. You have to type it in by hand!
• There form validation fields are all messed up. For example, even though we hadn’t taken medications for certain ailments the validation made us select a treatment begin and end date! And this was even so after we checked the “none” box to note we hadn’t taken any medications.
• After asking about our ailments and treatment they proceeded to have another entire form that asked just for all our prescription medication treatments – again. This information should have been imported from earlier in the document.
• Just these changes could make a huge difference in the user friendliness of the form. For a few thousand (dollars) more they could throw in a nice web 2.0 ajax enabled ui that would allow for streamlined forms that could be half the length (e.g. the page asking what ailments you have and the page allowing you to enter details about ailments/treatment could be made into one single page).

Well that is about it. I’m not saying eHealthInsurance isn’t a good company. In fact, if I had to say, “go here to get a health insurance quote.” I would probably still send people to eHealthInsurance…But not before warning those I tell about the site to be prepared for some tears and anguish before the job is completed.

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