this week i

analyzed a four-year pooled meps sample using r. r is the free, open-source statistical programming language that will eventually gain the largest market share. for many reasons.

scrutinized the cahps-based medicare advantage plan ratings to learn about how satisfaction differs in different types of plans.

investigated health spending among patients with different chronic diseases, split out by age groups, to learn which diseases get more costly as you get older and which don't. wouldn't you like to know. semi-inspired by this new obesity study.

settled into my new home.


find it amazing that starbucks spends more on employee [health] benefits than coffee.

suspect chinese restaurants intentionally misspell words to appear more authentic.

listened again and again. joe cocker, as usual, covers better than the original (ignore the video).

continued watching the maps of meaning lecture series, rare intelligence.

"the hero is always born at the time of maximal crisis."

"out of the unknown we mine new information."

"archaic people externalized [emotions] and gave them the status of deities...in the modern world, the deities have moved inside of us and become psychological forces."

"mice will not mate with mice that have rh blood factors that are likely to produce unfit offspring."

"one of the things mythology is quite clear about is you never win a final battle with evil. it's a permanent property of the world."

"he who would rule must hear and be deaf, see and be blind."

"to encounter fear, then to master it, then to extract out something of value."

"it's the space inside a pot that makes the pot worthwhile."

"it's not just sex and aggression that gets regulated, it's also playfulness and creativity and spontaneity."

"the world is always coming to an end, because what you think now is not good enough for the next second. that's the apocalypse and it's always upon us."

don't understand how anyone could've sat through these lectures. i pause them at least ten times in order to understand what the fuck is going on.

8/13/09