Palantir, the Palo Alto based big data, CIA funded start up that still hasn’t invited me to dinner announced Friday another round of financing. $196.5 million.
Thanks to The Daily News, September 28th edition for this news.
just a few – there are many, many more. This is not normal – this spamming is crashing servers of others. Facebook – stop this or tell me how to. Apparently it has to do with made up facebook pages?
| 28 Sep | 01:54:45 PM | Facebook Bot Unknown |
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Palo Alto, California, United States |
Facebook (69.171.235.114) [Label IP Address]
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| 28 Sep | 01:54:44 PM | Facebook Bot Unknown |
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Menlo Park, California, United States |
Facebook (173.252.73.113) [Label IP Address]
(No referring link)
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| 28 Sep | 01:54:42 PM | Facebook Bot Unknown |
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Palo Alto, California, United States |
Facebook (69.171.224.118) [Label IP Address]
(No referring link)
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| 28 Sep | 01:54:41 PM | Facebook Bot Unknown |
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Menlo Park, California, United States |
Facebook (173.252.103.1) [Label IP Address]
(No referring link)
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| 28 Sep | 01:54:40 PM | Facebook Bot Unknown |
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Palo Alto, California, United States |
Facebook (69.171.247.117) [Label IP Address] |
Government & Technology
Big Data, Big Brother, and Small Returns for Some
Posted on September 27, 2013
I said it before: Big money follows big data follows big disruption.
The Silicon Valley Business Journal recently wrote about Sequoia Capital Investor Michael Moritz arguing the position that collectively we are creating a massive data factory by our willingness to leave personal data behind which is in turn creating a new tech economy leaving many behind. According to Moritz only a small number of workers are qualified to work in this tech boom and many are getting left behind.
In the same arena, an article in the local Palo Alto paper, The Daily Post, about the local scooping up of citizen’s data cited an interview with a former East German military man who served in the Stasi, the secret police. He said he was amazed by the amount of information the United States collects on its citizens and his country’s secret police would loved to have had this much data. “It is the height of naivete to think this data won’t be used.”
Editor Dave Price’s article is worth reading in The Post.
“The times they are a’ changing.” Bob Dylan
“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things that are beyond the control of our will.” Epictetus
Maybe. It depends. You decide.
Government & Technology
Disruptive Change in Palo Alto and the rest of Silicon Valley
Posted on September 25, 2013
I have to forget the Palo Alto I knew and raised the kids in from the kindergarten on (Addison, Escondido, Jordan, Palo Alto High – oh yes and a year for one of the three at Fairmeadow Elementary). Moving on cognitively, philosophically.
I’m reframing everything because of the way we are. Which is what? Different. It’s different from the early tech days of Eagle, Atari, Osborne. It’s different from the heady boom and bust of the dot com days. This tech is here to stay. It’s different. It is disruptive.
That’s the difference. Not only is every start up asking and being asked, “What are you disrupting?” and incorporating that in their thoughts, strategies, business plans and power points, but the infrastructure of this region is being disrupted. For better or worse? Both. That’s the nature of disruption. You lose some great characteristics that defined the old but in doing so you make way for others that might not otherwise be possible. A trade-off?
Maybe. At the autonomous car presentation by the Google Project Manager Anthony Levandowski he showed us a slide about Google wanting to change humanity for the better with technology. Underlying every passion, every experiment at Google X and other places and in the hearts and minds of every start up hopeful is the desire to change something – to be disruptive.
To get on board with the concept of driverless cars with Google or semi autonomous ones with Elon Musk or biometrics as payment method (more on this soon – we know a local start up that promises to be very, very interesting, but it is still in stealth mode) or anything that is disruptive (Theranos, e.g.) the mind has to rewire itself. And the mind of the Bay Area is rewiring itself right now in what has become an extremely controversial topic – the entire infrastructure, physically and organizationally. Not only are buildings being built that are to house the workers near transportation that look like minimum security prisons (but so does the Palo Alto Medical Foundation – a hideous attempt at architecture) but the Bay Area wants to do away with borders and become One Giant Urbanopolis.
And now we have The Resilience Initiative from The Rockefeller Foundation, Clinton and Palo Alto, CIA funded Palantir and they will organize this initiative for 100 cities with Chief Resilience Officers. I’m reframing as I write. Of course it’s Orwellian – and that’s supposed to be a good thing now.
But George aside (Orwell that is), the “let’s change humanity with tech” IS going to happen and it will be disruptive. In some areas, fantastic – like in knowing your genetic blueprint or your broken dna repair rate. And one day we will have urban centers with nothing but driverless cars. And there are many pluses to that (think about it). But to get to the point that you see the positives, you have to undo the neural pathways saying, “Never gonna happen.”
Yes it will.
Last night I was at a MeetUp at Nissan Research Center in Sunnyvale to hear Google’s Project Manager for the Driverless Car give a talk. Anthony Levandowski had much to say and I was probably the most educated from what he said because I came in as the least knowledgeable. I’ll write that up soon. The time frame: 4 years. Then I see Elon Musk plans on a semi-autonomous car in 3 years. And if you need a job:@elonmusk Engineers interested in working on autonomous driving, pls email autopilot@teslamotors.com. Team will report directly to me.
The competition is on. More later.
North Face at Palo Alto City Hall today. I saw the backpack that charges your devices. Of course I need one. $249.00 Not today, but one day.
Next to Apple store, University Ave (video below)
and
CAFE VENETIA and Palo Alto trust and the iPhone
Look carefully at the chair.
Is this the new iPhone5s with fingerprint ID? Not worried about leaving it on the chair while you go inside? Full disclosure: I once had a FREE sign in front of my house for items I was giving away and accidentally left my iPhone there for 2 hours. I was amazed to find it still there. Thanks to all who saw and left it there.
Big money follows big data follows big disruption.
Questions, Google, I got questions about Calico, the new division dedicated to anti-aging and headed by Art Levinson, Chairman at both Genentech and Apple.
How will Calico interface with 23andme? with Apple? is the iWatch involved? What biotech is this all about? Mainly genetics? Telomeres? Is this Ray Kurzweil’s project? Larry Page mentioned 20 years to get answers. There are answers now and soon to be answers SOON. Get that information out and work on the long range plan (glad you are) but thinking in time frames like that makes you look and act old. (e.g. Low dose naltrexone – wow – that rejuvenated my body – it normalizes the immune system at 4.5 mg and under. See videos about curing cancer from presentations at USC Med. I love the pancreatic cancer patients cured because my mother died of this. Maybe if Google didn’t put WebMd and Mayo Clinic up front of every med search Steve Jobs might have found LDN – low dose naltrexone. )
I haven’t finished my posts on personalized medicine and Silicon Valley when this comes out. Exogen Biotechnology was my first example and then I heard an app mamma pitching hers to a VC. Her app will eliminate the gatekeepers from a patient wanting to report info to the doctor. In that sense, there is disruption (watch this word – it is THE WORD to say, “I am in, I understand what new tech is all about as”) But everything else about her app was Obamacare at its usual. “A woman NEEDS her doctor.” Like a fish needs her bicycle?
Let me explain. A woman, (a man) needs information to make decisions. We need data points. We need to know how to make sense of them. And THEN, we might, or might not, need a member of the medical industry.
23ndme gives us our genetic info. Geneticgenie.org gives us more using 23andme raw data.
What will Calico do, if anything along those lines?
Apple CEO Tim Cook said this about Calico: “For too many of our friends and family, life has been cut short or the quality of their life is too often lacking. Art is one of the crazy ones who thinks it doesn’t have to be this way. There is no one better suited to lead this mission and I am excited to see the results.”
n.b. to Tim Cook: Art is not crazy. He’s right. The current medical system DOES NOT WORK. Of course, Genentech and its parent, Roche are and have been part of the problem. Now that everyone has made their millions/billions on the backs of dumb and dumber drugs, are they saying, “Me? Take that crap when I have heart disease, diabetes, etc? No thanks. We know there is better to be had and now is the time to prove it, make it happen, and monetize it.”
Are you going to be dealing with DNA breaks like Exogen Biotechnology? How about telomerase activators like TA65?
A moment of silence for the pioneers who brought us to this point. Not content to believe a medical curriculum written by a pharmaceutical company or take a heart drug that destroys necessary enzymes – these people have often been shamed into silence while going about their work. I AM a medical curmudgeon and not afraid to be so. I am also the daughter of an M.D., FACP, writer of articles for NEJM and more, former chief of staff of an Ivy related hospital and so much more. He gave me access to his library from the day I could read.
It lead me to the basement of Stanford Medical Library many years ago when I walked out of a doctor’s office, ignoring his dire prognosis, and collected my data points on my own. I know there is a better way. I found it and here’s to Calico and finding and doing whatever it is. I know it is mainstream because you are mainstream disruptors now. Big money follows big data follows big disruption.
September 17th, evening, Palo Alto Apple Store, Waiting in THE LINE
Lawrence is still first but he’s taking a break….
Medical Technology
Medical Issues, Apps, Tests, Power, and Silicon Valley
Posted on September 16, 2013
This is Sylvain Costes, Ph.D. giving a lecture on Bleed for Science Day at BioCurious regarding his kit MyDNABreaks He is explaining what breaks DNA, what keeps it from breaking and what repair looks like. What engages me is the concept of broken and fixed and the relationship to how much control we have over what happens to us. Dr. Costes told us there is a fine line between repair and damage. If we can find that line we can make a difference in our health.
I think there are 2 kinds of power in the so called revolution in medical care. One is real power that actually empowers the person doing the test or using the app. Exogen Biotechnology‘s kit, MyDNABreaks,is real power. This is a consumer product that measures your DNA breakages. It is a window into how you are doing at this point in time. Too many breaks? And you eat hot dogs for breakfast, Splenda with every beverage and dinner is a slider with fries? You eat no fruits or vegetables, drink no green tea, and never take a vacation? You KNOW something is wrong with this picture and you pick a variable to change. Diet is the easiest. Throw out all the garbage you now eat, spend a week on veggie scrambles, salads, falafel and hummus, no alcohol, have coffee and green tea. No diet anything. Now, go back and measure your DNA. Less breaks? And does that correlate with your repair rate?
In this case you are in control. You don’t need a person from the medical industry to prove you are on the low end of DNA breakage and you don’t need a rocket scientist to tell you hot dogs are full of chemicals which can damage your DNA. You look at the test results, you make changes and you test again. This is science in action for your benefit and you control the experiment. This is A/B, A/B testing.
Uses proposed for a kit like this – 1) measure the repair rate of children considered for radiation and stem cell treatment. Those who do not repair their DNA well/quickly should not be given the treatment since it will further damage their DNA and make them more ill. 2) You know that anti-oxidants will prevent DNA damage prior to radiation. But what about anti-oxidants in other situations? How much is too much and what is just right for you? Again, the power is in your hands. Test, take, test. Find out who YOU are. You decide how much testing to do and for what variables. This is personalized medicine. This is an empowered health care consumer.
Then we have the apps that mirror the current paradigm: doctor as necessary god, patient as child. “Doctor I want my Vitamin D levels measured.” “Why?” We did this 6 months ago.” One app creator says. Every woman sees her doctor as a god.”
Mirroring the current paradigm in an app probably will work. The demographic that loves to see their doctors and considers them as THE SOURCE for information and action is huge. But change is in the air as the public becomes more educated about certain things. More later on another app that replicates paternalism and calls it personalized medicine. The message is: if it is on your iPhone it is personalized medicine. Oh hell no it isn’t.
I’ll tell you about one of them soon.
Medical Technology
More Exogen Info but first a Coupa Cafe Break and how that relates to my DNA
Posted on September 13, 2013
I went to the lecture on Exogen’s test last night and got re-tested. I have more data points to report, but I need a time-out vacation. This will protect my DNA from excess breakage. I choose a spicy mocha at Coupa, a bike ride and time to myself. The science behind a spicy mocha improving my DNA will be explained in the next post. The spicy mocha here is not just a drink, it is a work of art thus sheltering my DNA at several levels. Sweet!
Medical Technology Start Ups
Fly Me to the Moon and Keep My DNA Safe – Exogen in Action
Posted on September 12, 2013
I had my thumb pricked at BioCurious by Exogen Bio CEO and co-founder Sylvain Costes, PhD who is also at Lawrence Berkeley Labs.
The white blood cells will be analyzed to quantify the number of DNA breaks. The number could be related to various stressors such as diet, exercise, lack of sleep, immune health, and radiation exposure. I had one of my insomniac nights last night – a really bad one – so will that reflect in my DNA?
I am interested in the use of this test for the space program. Apparently with this test we are now able to see the damage and potential repair possibilities of our DNA when impacted by radiation. This will be used for the health issues of those in space. What a good thing this is!
I’m curious what it will do to the mammogram industry. I’ve been mocked for years for saying no to X-rays and mammograms because radiation is cumulative and carcinogenic. Today I asked the Exogen co-founder about this – he confirmed: radiation from any source is cumulative and carcinogenic. On the survey form I filled out was a question about my last dental x-ray and did I have a mammogram in the last 5 years. I did unfortunately have a dental x-ray (also now linked to brain cancer – go ahead google the study). However, no mammograms for me.
So, I repeat – Think Before You Pink. The breast cancer industry is huge and growing and thanks to extraordinary profits in mammograms (cash cow tit machine is how one doctor referred to it), there have been a lot of radiated breasts with a concurrent increase in breast cancer.
Can we do a pre and post radiation Exogen DNA test? Will that be the confirmation needed about the dangers of radiation?
The test will be crowdfunded. If you want to live long and thrive, help Exogen’s DNA test get funded! Be the crowd.
Here it is: EXOGEN