Jason's Notes About Stuff

In the news: Another high profile case of a Canadian getting a huge bill in the States and not being covered. They were on vacation and were caught off guard with a baby that came 9 weeks early. They had proper travel insurance, but it Blue Cross, an American insurance company, decided that they're not covered due to preexisting conditions . Unfortunately, this sort of thing happens all the time. I had my own expensive lesson in 2001 when I moved down for a new job, and had a medical emergency in the short time gap before my employer health insurance took effect. Citizens of (every country except the United States) may be shocked to realize that a huge number of Americans must pay for emergency care out of pocket , bankrupting about 2 million people per year. Not realizing the scale of the costs involved, and thinking that my Canadian government coverage applied (it did, but only for a tiny fraction) I went to the hospital and was treated. I received random bill...

Check out the following article: UW study shows direct brain interface between humans This is really cool stuff. I first remember this technology concept from the original 1987 movie Robocop . It's also been featured more recently in movies like Iron Man and Avatar . I've always been interested in BCI (Brain–computer interface)  advancement, and the last decade or so has seen some amazing progress. Perhaps my prediction of BCI going mainstream by 2025 will come true after all...

A million dollars isn't cool , but do you know what would be cool? If you could target posts to your friends the same way you with Facebook ads. When you " boost your post " from a Facebook Page, you can target your audience by Location, Age, Gender, and Interests. The interface looks like this: I think it would be really interesting if you do something similar when you created a personal post.