|
Archive: March 15, 2023
|
 So, it's a wrap! The top ten mushers have finished, and the rest of the field are at various stages of making their way to Nome.
Congrats to Ryan Redington, 2023 Iditarod Champion, pictured at right with his lead dogs!
Here's the current situation, as seen by the flow tracker:
Following Ryan, Pete Kaiser opened up a lead on Riche Diehl for 2nd, and Matt Hall had a strong final run for 4th. Note Jessie Holmes run - he passed Kelly Maixner at Safety to finish 5th. Eddie Burke won the three-team race for 7th and also top rookie, outmushing Matthew Failor and Mille Porsild (who was top female musher). Wade Mars continued his late sprint to beat Hunter Keefe for 10th. The psychology for the remaining teams is interesting; with the top ten already in, many are taking long rests. At this point it's more about finishing strong than finishing fast.
At the other end of the field sadly Eric Kelly scratched at Shaktoolik, leaving a big group there "competing" for the Red Lantern. It might be a few more days before they make it to Nome. I'll leave the tracker running and you can check in on their progress.
With this post I'll end the 2023 Iditarod saga; here's an index of all my posts:
Just wanted to note an interesting story in GQ (!) about Dallas Seavey: The Saga of the World’s Greatest Dogsledder - and the Fight Over the Future of the Iditarod. The absence of Dallas and many other top mushers certainly hung over the Iditarod this year. Taking nothing away from Ryan - he beat Peter Kaiser, a former champion - the field was definitely much reduced this year, and sparked conversations about whether the race will continue in its current form.
Finally wanted to close with this pic, which captures the spirit of the race:
|
|
 Big trends in healthcare are wellness, consumerism, and wearables. These things come together in various kinds of monitors which you wear, which tell you, as a consumer, how well your doing. These include smartwatches, various bracelets, and rings, and a leading ring monitor is the Oura. I've had one for about eight months, and after eight months ... meh, not sure what to think.
Yes, I did register a 98 sleep score once, but I actually did not sleep for 10h 26m and honestly didn't even feel like it was a great nights' sleep after...
The Oura "works": insofar as it measures various vital signs and tracks them, and let's you view the result. Heart rate, respiratory rate, blood oxygen, etc. And it's comfortable, has reasonable battery life - charge about once a week, for an hour or so - and it's attractive (I have a black one). It sort of makes a statement: I'm wearing a smart ring, I care about my wellness, I'm hip, etc.
 I do wonder about the value though, on an ongoing basis. I can't say that anything the ring tells me has changed my behavior. It's more like I check the ring scores to see if they're right :) If you took it away from me I wouldn't fight hard to get it back.
There is a preventative medicine aspect to these devices; if something changes or goes wrong, you will know sooner and can alert medical professionals to take a closer look. That might be valuable. And if a physician wanted to see my heart rate history or something like this, then I would have it, and that would be valuable.
I'd say this is a transitional technology. Someday we'll have implanted monitors and they'll be more comfortable, more accurate, and more useful. For now, they provide a reasonable excuse for a blog post.
|
|
 So, the Ides are upon us. Did you know:
The Romans did not number each day of a month from the first to the last day. Instead, they counted back from three fixed points of the month: the Nones (the 5th or 7th, 8 days before the Ides), the Ides (the 13th for most months, but the 15th in March, May, July, and October), and the Kalends (1st of the following month). Originally the Ides were supposed to be determined by the full moon, reflecting the lunar origin of the Roman calendar. In the earliest calendar, the Ides of March would have been the first full moon of the new year.[3]
We of course know of the Ides via Shakespeare, who had soothsayer Spurinna warn Julius Caesar about them.
I've already had a terrible, horrible, not so good month, so the warning is late. Onward.
When you read about Chat GPT 4 and things like this, do you feel things are happening too fast? Jason Kottke notes Ezra Klein's use of the phrase "exponential time". There are more and more things happening faster and faster, it's hard to keep track. Best way I've found is to follow blogs as filters :) 
 Reid Hoffman: Last summer, I got access to GPT-4. It felt like I had a new kind of passport. Huh, sounds interesting.
Powerline note: Biggest victim of SVB collapse? The Climate, of course. "What hasn't received as much attention is that Silicon Valley Bank was particularly important to the climate-tech sector. More than 60 percent of community solar financing nationwide involved Silicon Valley Bank." Hmm.
Scoble: Google should win everything. Are they victim's of the Innovator's Dilemma? Time will tell.
 xkcd: flatten the planets. "I don't know why NASA keeps rejecting my proposals to improve the Solar System." hehe :)
 Blackberry, the trailer. "Picture a cellphone and an email device, all in one thing." Supercool. Can't wait!
BTW, could YouTube be any more annoying? Just when you think they've reached peak cruft, they prove you wrong.
Onward, hope you have a good Ides!
|
Return to the archive.
|
|
