Young and Brilliant

Still one week left. Here are the readings from the week ending June 21st.

1. “The Cost Conundrum” by Atul Gawande
   Gawande’s article has been causing quite a stir. For it, Gawande traveled to McAllen, Texas, where apparently resides the highest cost health care in the nation. Gawande’s argument lies in the fact that doctors have become businessmen, rather than healers. He argues that there are other, better, more efficient models for health care, particularly the Mayo Clinic. The article has come under fire for misdiagnosing the reason health care is expensive, to arguments that the Mayo model isn’t sustainable at a larger level. Either way, it’s an interesting bit to read.
2. “Focusing Design Solutions on Social Problems” by Alice Rawsthorn
   A look at “social design,” it’s habit of combining multiple disciplines together, and in particlar, the case of ReD associates helping the city of Copenhagen deal with sick leave in it’s civic employees. It includes an analysis of the problem and an actual implementable change.
3. “Can science reinvent the economy?” by Mark Buchanan
   This multi-part story covers why economics is so hard to predict and understand, why traditional economics doesn’t really work. Instead, it talks about some of the other ways of thinking you could use to model the economy, from network theory to earthquake prediction models.
4. “Getting Up to Speed” by Jon Gertner
   Good writing is the kind of writing that gets you interested in something you honestly never cared about before, and conveys to you why the topic is so magical, meaningful or important. It also speaks frankly about limitations and problems, insecurities and doubts.
5. “Generating Usable Energy, Just by Driving” by Dave Eyvazzadeh
   There’s been lots of talk and hype about generating energy from cars via kinetic energy harnesses in roadways, but here’s one proof of concept. Everything is so much more exciting with a proof of concept.
6. “New Technique Promises Billion-Year Data Storage” by Priya Ganapati
   And for everytime there’s an idea with a proof of concept, there’s a crazy, interesting idea without. I love the nice simplicity of this idea, the way it correlates back to the way the data is actually created, and mostly, that the writing explains it simply and clearly.