Here are the web links I’ve found over the last few days, posted a bit later than I’d intended. Cope.
Hacking the human heart, literally
Excellent. It’s possible to wirelessly hack into a combination heart defibrillator and pacemaker and re-program it to shut down or deliver fatal jolts of electricity. Hat-tip to Memex 1.1.
Australia 2020 brings out the whingers
Another day, another lobbyist for one specific community sector fails to understand what the Australia 2020 Summit means. This time it’s Professor Warren Hogan whingeing that “the ageing population” isn’t mentioned enough.
As reported in that august journal Australian Ageing Agenda, Hogan reckons the “omission” of aged care from the Summit agenda is “inexplicable”.
“An immediate worry with the new Government comes from the failure to address any issues in aged care for the 2020 summit,” he said.
No, Professor Hogan, what’s really “inexplicable” are:
- Why you haven’t bothered looking at the list of topics at the Summit website, which clearly says: “Health — a long-term national health strategy — including the challenges of preventative health, workforce planning and the ageing population.” [my emphasis]
- How you reckon the Summit fails to address this issue when it hasn’t even happened yet.
I’m getting pretty goddam sick of the narrow-mindedness and short-term thinking shown by so many of the commentators so far.
Injured knee: slow day results
I’ll be a little slow for the rest of this week. Last night I accidentally knelt on a glass object, which shattered, slashing my knee. Result: 4 stitches (after some hours waiting in the hospital). A minor injury, really, just a bloody inconvenience.
NSW health overhaul critical after years of inaction
My mate Bernard Kealey has scored the Sydney Morning Herald‘s lead letter today for this scathing criticism of the NSW health system. Fight the good fight, brother!