QUOTABLES!
quote of the day
You may be a f***ing tough guy, but I'm a crazy guy. The difference is crazy guys don't give up.
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rant n' rave
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COMCAST. That's right, Comcast is working on an in-home device that monitors your health. CNBC reports, "The device will monitor people’s basic health metrics using ambient sensors, with a focus on whether someone is making frequent trips to the bathroom or spending more time than usual in bed. Comcast is also building tools for detecting falls, which are common and potentially fatal for seniors... Comcast plans to offer the device and related service to at-risk people, including seniors and people with disabilities, but the timing, pricing, and roll-out plan have not been finalized." Comcast, the cable bundle people. It made me think of the irony of bundles collapsing only soon to reform as new bundles. It's happening in the OTT world already with add-on channels and services. And I expect we will see this a lot more with HULU, DISNEY+, the WARNER MEDIA service, and others. The concept of quantified-self has always intrigued me. How can we use technology and access to data to maintain and improve our health? Increasingly, we are seeing companies and apps around our health take center stage. HEADSPACE for meditation and mental well-being. APPLE making forays into this space with their native apps. I love my APPLE WATCH. I use it daily to track my steps and heart rate. I have a portable KARDIA ECG monitor. My glucose levels are tracked wirelessly through FREESTYLE LIBRELINK device and app. MYFITNESS PAL tracks calories and diet. Basically an app for anything you can think of. I haven't seen this yet, and maybe it exists, but what about the emergence of a new bundle. Not HULU with SHOWTIME or STARZ. But rather a bundle of apps to monitor and improve your health. In tiers, like any other bundle, where you can add specific ones a la carte for a good price. And my assumption is that at some point the use of these monitors and some contribution of data (in a privacy savvy way) will help to bring down your healthcare premiums. And to be fair, as MusicREDEF MATTY KARAS suggests, "my assumption is that at some point this technology and data will go directly to your insurance company as well as your doctor and will help to raise your healthcare premium and/or get you kicked off your insurance plan." Totally possible, but I'm going to stay positive for a second. We have physical maladies. Anxiety and sleep issues are at epidemic proportions. Using these apps and maybe even having doctors prescribe them can help us and society at large to be more mindful of the most precious of all commodities, our health, and well-being. I love HBO. You know that. I love NETFLIX. You know that. I love HULU, and SPOTIFY and on and on. And bundles of those are great. But the health bundle is the future... I like to let some things marinate. Be less reactive. Especially to my TV shows. Historically, a little distance and thought after watching often makes films and television better. I wanted to throw my Nikes through the TV at THE SOPRANOS finale. I now think it’s one of the best endings ever. I appreciated the profound and timely messages of GAME OF THRONES finale. I loved this piece in USA TODAY that delves in. My only complaint? I just needed it to be 3 hours. These were big topics. Worth more time. And I guess at the end of the day that's as much of a compliment as it is a criticism. Our friend MATT BALL has some issues, "Game of Thrones, like George R. R. Martin, has long focused on what comes from the decision to rule. Until the show's finale." He lays them out in the spoiler-ridden "Hot Takes: 'Game of Thrones' Betrayed Its Own Lessons on Power"... Happy Birthday to HOWARD HANDLER, SEAN RAD, REX SORGATZ, ALEX CARLOSS, and DREW LIPSHER.

Jason Hirschhorn, curator

May 22, 2019