Things from my Newsblur: December-2015 - The wait, what, this still exists edition?

So, Our Man realized it’s been an interminably long time since he let you know about stuff of interest from his Newsblur!   After racking his brain, and  checking his files (thus being certain that there was lots of good stuff bookmarked) it seems there was no good reason for this…other than good old fashioned laziness.  Thus consider things from my Newsblur back, with a New Year's resolution to help ensure it!*

- The statistical dominance of Dr. Seuss

This won’t come entirely as a surprise to those of you that have kids but nearly 25yrs after his death, Dr. Suess continues to own the world of children’s books having sold multiples of the next author on the list (a certain JK Rowling).   Oh, and Green Eggs and Ham only uses 50 different words.  (Priceonomics).

- I can eat it

Allergies, especially food ones, have been on the rise over the last couple of decades and the “solution” is typically to do everything on can to avoid the allergen.  While this typically works well for those will limited/controllable/etc allergies, it’s not much help for those with very severe reactions but thankfully there are other things being worked on. 

(Melanie Thernstrom, Stanford Medicine)

- What is code?  If you don’t know, you should read this.

Folks of Our Man’s generation (were young, about to be middle aged!) saw the technical revolution hit as we went through high school/university so are pretty good at using stuff!  Our Man’s kids are going to need to know more than how to just use things (though they’re freakily good at that too).  Our Man’s using this article so he’ll be able to nod, in just the right spot, in a few years when one of the kids explains how they programmed the toaster to the do the laundry or something like that!

(Paul Ford, Bloomberg Business)

- On Digital Healthcare

What happens when 2 VC firms try to map out the HC world, from a current traditional map to trying to figure out where it’s going and then blog about some of the things they’re seeing…

(Union Square Ventures and Version One Ventures, On Digital Healthcare)

- Inside Obama’s Stealth Startup

Anyone who’s been to the DMV, knows how bad the government’s IT systems can be…there is some hope!

(John Gertner, Fast Company)

- East India Company: Theoriginal corporate raiders

With the recent run of corporate scandals (including the Banks/Libor, Volkswagen/diesel emissions, and Valeant/stuff) it seems a good time to look back at the East India Company.  The company is thought of as the first corporate raiders, though their approach was to do this in the literal sense with the backing of their 200,000+ strong military force rather than through today’s boardroom maneuvres.

(William Dalrymple, The Guardian)

* Like all NY's resolutions, this only guarantees that Things from My Newsblur will be strongly considered but not actually acted upon/produced in the month of January.