Online gamers crack AIDS enzyme puzzle

Online gamers crack AIDS enzyme puzzle.

Games provide a framework for bringing together the strengths of computers and humans. The results in this week’s paper show that gaming, science and computation can be combined to make advances that were not possible before.

Regulars here know my thoughts on games – at the core of the best games are puzzles. Gamers are puzzle solvers. The described ability of gamers in the article was absolutely no surprise. The skill is honed by playing games, and all we have to do is figure out how to properly channel it. I’ve mentioned here that I wish games were used to teach pro-social lessons to children, but I have no problem with pro-science and pro-health games popping up.

The Right To Health According To The Right

This article from Roll-Call indicates that Congressional Republicans are both clueless and toothless when it comes to actually generating or pushing ideas for health care reform.

“House Republicans presented a four-page outline of their health care reform plan Wednesday but said they didn’t know yet how much it would cost, how they would pay for it and how many of the nearly 50 million Americans without insurance would be covered by it.”

This comes around the same time a recent Gallup Poll indicated that only about 34% of the American public thinks that Republicans would be capable of managing health care reform.

Courtesy of Think Progress

I don’t understand the debate in this country over health care. Why is it so foreign a concept that all people deserve medical care when they need it? I’ve heard all the arguments against a public option but the only one that rings true with me are statements essentially saying, “I don’t see why I should have to pay for someone else’s health care”.

Have you ever heard of a sorrier or more selfish group of ingrates in your life? Despite all the whatever about how this country was founded on rugged individualism and effort for personal profit (Yes, I’ve read the stuff about how the first colony almost failed while practicing collectivism) but in all truth this country has truly succeeded in times when we have all pulled together to support one another. That’s how a society functions and that’s how a culture grows, though I guess I shouldn’t be surprised given that I firmly believe that the USA has no culture of it’s own to speak of. If it’s true that America has the best, brightest and most ingenious hard working people in the world then why, pray tell, can’t we make this thing work? Other countries have universal health care; in fact the USA is the only industrialized nation to NOT have it. If Great Britain, who’s had universal care since the fifties, can make it work then why can’t we?

All these disingenuous arguments are merely deflections from the simple cold facts. Heath care companies make a shit ton of GREEN, and there are a lot of little gnats, ranging from politicians to investment bankers, who buzz around picking little bits off of that runny brown mess of capital. That’s what it’s all about. The simple fact of the matter is that politicians and other entities are stoking the fires of ignorant America in order to protect a source of income. With arguments stating an opposition to a public plan comes from a fear that it will, “create unfair competition” for health care dollars. Boo-fucking-hoo.

Why should I have to pay for someone else’s ROI in the health care industry? I guess my desire for a public option makes me a selfish American too.