Jen’s Posterous

About Seppukoo

The invisible Committee -
--> “This is the end. My only friend, the end.”

You are more than your virtual identity
«Virtual life» is an - often - abused term used to describe the whole of one person online activities. But as media communications let our second/online/offline identities overflowing into real life - and vice-versa - the distinctions between the real and the virtual are becoming, more and more confused. Which is virtual? And where's the real? Beyond all those questions only a fact remains: that our privacy, our profiles, our identities, our relationships, they are all - fake and/or real - entirely exploited for a sole purpose: to be sold as a product. But are those lives really worth to be experienced?

Pass away. Leave your ID behind.
Rather than fall into the hands of their enemies, ancient japanese samurai preferred to die with honor, voluntarily plunging a sword into the abdomen and moving the sword left to right in a slicing motion. The name of this form of ritual suicide is Seppuku (切腹, "stomach-cutting"). Among the important people who committed seppuku there are Azai Nagamasa, forty-six of the Forty-seven Ronin (1703), Takijirō Ōnishi , and, of course, Luther Blissett.
As the Seppuku restores samurai's honor as a warrior, in the same way, Seppukoo.com deals with the liberation of the digital body from any identity constriction in order to help people discover what happens after their virtual life and to rediscover the importance of being anyone, instead of pretending to be someone.
Hacking and parasiting one of the most popular social networking website, Seppukoo.com deactivates one's user facebook account, driving people into one of the most radical chic user-experience: the vir(tu)al suicide.

Suicide networking. Infecting the social.
As viral marketing strategies have been exploited by corporate media to make profit connecting people all over the world, Seppukoo playfully attempts to subvert this mechanism disconnecting people from each other and transforming the individual suicide experience into an exciting"social" experience.
With Seppukoo in fact it's not important how many friends you have, but how much you may influence them. Induce your friends to commit suicide and rise up the Seppukoo Rank!

Resurrections. There's no death where there's no life.
Suicide is a free choice and a kind of self-assertiveness. Unfortunately, Facebook doesn't give to its users this faculty at all, and your account will be only deactivated. This means that any information regarding you and your friends, will be strictly preserved by facebook authorities in order to keep your virtual life alive for the eternity.
That's why you won't need any superpower to come back to your virtual life after death: just a simple login, and your life will be completely restore back.
Still hesitating? Let yourself be conquered by Seppukoo as you have an honour to save yet!
Don't waste this opportunity.

Strangely compelling and disturbing.

Seppukoo.com lets you 'fall on your sword' and commit social network suicide.

From: "Seppukoo » About."

ePatients like whoa...

From: "8 Medical iPhone Apps You Should Prescribe to Your Health-Care Professional | All Up in Your Business | Fast Company."

Hat tip to Brian Dolan, @mobilehealth, from MobiHealthNews, for the great link.

From: "http://www.chipchick.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/VITAband1.jpg."

More info: "http://www.chipchick.com/2009/12/vitaband-tap-technology-bracelet.html."

"VITAband can be this generation’s Medical ID bracelet. It’s a digital identification bracelet with two key functions: it stores personal health records to give first responders access to critical information in the event of an emergency, PLUS gives access to tap payment technology through a RFID chip – and this is all on your wrist, just like in Japan where this technology is extremely popular.

So the VITAband works out great if you end up in the hospital. All your medical data is on your wrist, and when you are done just tap your wrist and pay your bill.

To get started it will cost you $39.90 for the bracelet and an annual subscription. For every year thereafter it will cost you $19.95 a year to store your data and be able to use it to pay for purchases. You can easily replenish your VITAband with funds through various sources."

Holiday shoppers looking for that perfect last minute holiday gift have a new option this year that could literally save the recipient's life. The new 911 Medical ID ™ card provides the security of personal medical information that can be carried as easily as a credit card, and is a great present for travelers, seniors, caregivers, parents, students, the chronically ill, and many others.

If you’re severely injured in an accident, suffering from a severe allergic reaction, or impaired due to a medical emergency such as a stroke, heart attack or seizure, you can't possibly speak for yourself. The new 911 Medical ID™ was created to relay your important health information to first responders, emergency room doctors, or other medical personnel.

Approximately two millimeters thick, the 911 Medical ID™ is the world’s thinnest USB medical information storage device, fitting in your wallet as easily as a credit card. This new Portable Personal Health Record (PHR) provides a simple way to store and carry important medical information such as health history, allergies, and prescriptions, in a format that is easy for medical personnel to access. The information carried on the card will reduce misdiagnoses, save valuable time, and even help cut the cost of medical care as the healthcare industry moves more toward electronic records.

911 Medical ID™ has been in development for three years by MEMI Tech, LLC in Louisville, Kentucky. It can be purchased for $39.99 from http://www.911medicalid.com .

“The 911 Medical ID™ card would be a perfect gift for anyone,” said MEMI Tech CEO Mark Weiss. “It is an easy way to create a Portable Personal Health Record (PHR) that gives you the ability to better control your medical information, and can save your life in an emergency.”

From: "New Portable Personal Health Record (PHR) Card is a Life Saving Last Minute Holiday Gift - AOL Money & Finance."

I think this is worse, definitively, than getting coal in your stocking.

Loma Linda opens health ‘geoinformatics' laboratory

Students interested in public health and wanting to learn how computerized mapmaking and data analysis software can be used to improve the health of populations around the world will be able to take training at the newly opened Health Geoinformatics Laboratory at Loma Linda (Calif.) University.

The lab was opened in partnership with ESRI, a Redlands, Calif.,-based developer of geographical information systems software, according to a news release Tuesday by the software developer.

The lab “will provide undergraduate and graduate students with hands-on experience in applying modern information system technologies that combine maps and satellite imagery with data about the geographic locations of diseases, healthcare resources and socio-demographic characteristics of communities,” according to the release.

Undergraduate students will be able to earn Bachelor of Science degrees in public health, health geographics and biomedical data management while students with graduate degrees will be able to add certificates in health geoinformatics, environmental health, global health and development, and spatial epidemiology. The lab is part of the recently completed, $85 million Centennial Complex at the university. — Joseph Conn / HITS staff writer

From: "Scientists at AT&T Labs in Florham Park have created wireless-enabled medical devices."

Whoops. Someone wasted a ton of grant money or R&D moolah on this bad boy...

There is a widespread faith, beginning at the very top of our government, that pouring money into computerization will lead to big improvements in both the cost and quality of health care. As this study shows, those assumptions need to be questioned - or a whole lot of taxpayer money may go to waste. Information technology has great promise for health care, but simply dumping cash into traditional commercial systems and applications is unlikely to achieve that promise - and may backfire by increasing costs further.

From: "Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Throwing computers at health care."

Proof? Wherefore art thou evidence-based HIT? 

A "PHR" is a Personal Health Record.  PHRs can collect and store official records, labs, tests, and claims data directly deposited by providers.  They can also store other health-related data such as heart rate, glucose levels, medications, allergies, exercise habits, lifestyle, sexual history, personal notes and other data you create.

The term 'PHR' implies you control this type of electronic health record - because its 'personal,' it's yours.  But that is simply not true of all PHRs.

How much control do you really have?

Think twice about who you allow to see, use, or control your most sensitive, personal health records, from DNA to prescriptions. Patient Privacy Rights (PPR) did our best to decode PHR privacy policies and spell out what control you have over your information.  PPR makes no recommendations on specific PHRs.  The Report Card is our opinion based on the information available on these companies' websites.

From: "Patient Privacy Rights: PHR Report Card - Home."

Worth a detailed read. Some PHRs, as noted by the study, are really EHRs or EMRs (electronic health or electronic medical records) reskinned as 'personal.'

In short, this sector is a long way from maturity. There are still huge problems to solve in the space.

Mixed feelings = both sad and energized by these reviews; upset because it means we've still go so far to go and energized because it means Contagion is on the right track.

That means Rummble users can geotag tweets with their current location (if they choose to share it) and any venue in the world. This real-time geo-data is consumable by everyone on Twitter, regardless of whether they are signed up to Rummble or not.

This is one of the first social apps (outside of twitter clients) to use geo tweets. It adds geo lat/long into tweets for Twitter’s Location-api for status updates posted out of Rummble. This covers the user’s location, check-ins and tweets posted of Rummble reviews of a bar or cafe etc. Tweets from the Gowalla and Foursquare aps are geotagged if the setting has been switched on in twitter settings.