Pssst, Aspirin may be good for health beyond heart disease, reduce your cancer risk

I am an old guy, turning 54 this year.  My Dad died from Colon Cancer when he was 64, only 10 years older than I will be shortly.  I have had three colonscopy tests to make sure I am OK.  My cholesterol is managed with a statin.  I don’t smoke, get an annual physical, and work out 4-5 times a week.

What else can I do?  Taking a daily dose of aspirin is recommended with some risks.

Daily aspirin therapy: Understand the benefits and risks

Is an aspirin a day the right thing for you? It's not as easy a decision as it sounds. Know the benefits and risks before considering daily aspirin therapy.

One of the studies that got attention is from my friends at RMS who have a study on the financial risk to pension funds if adults take daily aspirin, creating a $100 billion increased cost to support adults who live longer.

Rise in Aspirin Use Likely to Increase Pensioner Life Expectancy

  • NEWARK, Calif. – April 02, 2013 –

  • Recent medical reports have confirmed the growing body of evidence that taking a daily low-dose of aspirin reduces cancer mortality, in addition to its known benefits for cardiovascular health. Experts believe around 15% of current cancer deaths could be prevented by daily aspirin use with benefits beginning as early as three years into treatment. Conventional cancer treatments are expensive and new treatments typically require a lengthy approval process. By contrast, aspirin is inexpensive and readily available and has the potential for rapid uptake.

Based on these new findings, RMS modeled several potential scenarios of daily aspirin uptake which revealed that a typical 65 year-old male could see a 12-month increase in life expectancy and a 40% increase in the chance of living to 100, depending on a variety of lifestyle factors.*

Women’s risk of heart disease is significant and there is evidence aspirin helps with cancer’s that impact women.

Previous research has suggested that aspirin may help to reduce the risk of breast cancer and melanoma. Now, new research from the National Institutes of Health suggests that women who take low-dose aspirin every day may reduce their risk of ovarian cancer by 20%.

The findings were recently published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Asia's Data Center Power Infrastructure

I have been staring at this post on DCD for a while to write my own post, then I realized the post was written by Schneider Electric SVP for APAC, Philippe Arsonneau.

 

ASIA PACIFIC’S POWER CHALLENGE

 

Will power will take on new importance in 2014?

 

10 February 2014 by Schneider Electric SVP for APAC, Philippe Arsonneau

 

 

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Asia Pacific’s power challenge
burning power: Singapore at night

One of the major trends we see for businesses moving into the New Year is the need for green, efficient IT, especially in Asia Pacific.  As IT demands increase, so too does the data center’s power expenditure. Analyst firm Frost & Sullivan notes that more than 80% of the major data centers in Asia Pacific are running at close to 90% capacity. Companies across the region are struggling to cope with changes while data center capacity is constrained by inefficient equipment and stranded power.

 


I found this post useful to provide information on what is the current state of power in Asia that I have heard from friends.  Until I find a public disclosure though, I didn't feel comfortable writing about the situation.

Here are some good facts.

In terms of energy efficient data centers, parts of Asia – particularly the developing South East Asian countries – are falling behind due to a combination of factors including poor internet connectivity infrastructure (Indonesia), unstable power and inadequate power supply (Malaysia), developing standards (Vietnam). The more established countries include the likes of Singapore, Australia and Hong Kong. But that’s not to say they don’t also face challenges.

Part of why companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have built data centers in Singapore is the stable power infrastructure.

Singapore is a very mature market in terms of technology compared to emerging countries such as Thailand and Indonesia. The Singapore IDA initiated its iN2015 master plan in 2005 to grow the infocomm sector and build up IT infrastructure. This initiative encouraged many major players to set up their data centers as early as almost a decade ago.

The call to action is good.  You can’t just think of the data center in isolation of the IT load.  The opportunities are to think of the synergy between the facilities and the IT load.

What is required in 2014? 
Effective and comprehensive energy management goes beyond IT. As such, senior IT executives will need to work closely with their facility management colleagues to put in place a comprehensive energy management strategy.  They will also need to develop a more holistic and end-to-end approach towards their data center strategy and energy management as opposed to seeking piecemeal solutions such as server virtualization or DCIM.

To operate energy efficient and reliable data centers that are able to cope with the exponential growth of data brought on by smart cities, it is important that business take a holistic and end-to-end approach towards their data center strategy.



Wouldn't it be so much Easier if Google had a map of where there Barges are?

CNET writes about the Google Barge moving to Stockton.  Wow isn’t that exciting.  :-)

It's official: Google Barge moving to Stockton

The floating showroom is expected to set sail for its new home as early as next week. Now, maybe Google will finally tell us what's behind all the black netting and scaffolding.

by 
 February 26, 2014 5:04 PM PST

Google Barge is said to be moving to Stockton, Calif., as early as next week, weather permitting.

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)
It would be so much easier if Google would just share the location like where is James Hamilton’s boat?
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The Three Rules of Obamacare's Trauma Team

Time has a an article on the Trauma Team that rescued Obamacare.

Monday, Mar. 10, 2014

Obama’s Trauma Team

By Steven Brill

 

Last Oct. 17—more than two weeks after the launch of HealthCare.gov—White House chief of staff Denis McDonough came back from Baltimore rattled by what he had learned at the headquarters of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency in charge of the website.

McDonough and the President had convened almost daily meetings since the Oct. 1 launch of the website with those in charge—including Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, CMS administrator Marilyn Tavenner and White House health-reform policy director Jeanne Lambrew. But they couldn’t seem to get what McDonough calls “actionable intel” about how and why the website was failing in front of a national audience of stunned supporters, delirious Republican opponents and ravenous reporters.

One excellent point are the three rules that most of us know work well for an effective team.  In this case it was the Trauma Team to make Obamacare work.

Dickerson quickly established the rules, which he posted on a wall just outside the control center.

Rule 1: “The war room and the meetings are for solving problems. There are plenty of other venues where people devote their creative energies to shifting blame.”

Rule 2: “The ones who should be doing the talking are the people who know the most about an issue, not the ones with the highest rank. If anyone finds themselves sitting passively while managers and executives talk over them with less accurate information, we have gone off the rails, and I would like to know about it.” (Explained Dickerson later: “If you can get the managers out of the way, the engineers will want to solve things.”)

Rule 3: “We need to stay focused on the most urgent issues, like things that will hurt us in the next 24—48 hours.”

Can you imagine the disruption of the chain in command?  An example is the executive Zients who chooses to use the Apollo 13 analogy.

Zients isn’t a techie himself. He’s a business executive, one of those people for whom control—achieved by lists, schedules, deadlines and incessant focus on his targeted data points—seems to be everything. He began an interview with me by reading from a script crowning the team’s 10-week rescue mission as the White House’s “Apollo 13 moment,” as if he needed to hype this dramatic success story. And he bristled because a question threatened not to make “the best use of the time” he had allotted. So for him, this Apollo 13 moment must have been frustrating—because in situations like this the guy in the suit is never in control.