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- THE FRIDAY LETTER -
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| http://www.gilder.com/
| Issue 271.0/November 10, 2006
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HEADLINES:
- The
Week / Human Health in the Telecosm
- Friday
Feature / What’s your exit strategy?
- Friday
Blogger Bonus / Global Warming Is a Myth
- Readings /
The
Week /
Human Health in the Telecosm
Dr. Arthur Robinson, Founder, Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine,
speaking at Gilder/Forbes Telecosm 2006 last month in Lake Tahoe (transcribed
excerpt):
Something needs to be done in medicine and the entrepreneurs and technologists
of the telecosm are the exact people to do it.
It involves moving diagnostic medicine into the hands of the
consumers—taking the diagnostic and technological tools of medicine and making
computer peripherals out of them, as well as making on-person monitors and
turning the Internet into an interpretive tool, so that the consumers of
medicine can evaluate the product that they receive and medicine itself could be
turned into a therapeutic industry competing on the basis of quality and price.
My youngest son Matthew has a dog named Rusty. When Matthew takes Rusty to the veterinarian, the vet can take a blood sample from Rusty, put it in a computer peripheral beside his PC, which costs $1,000, get the analysis in a few minutes, diagnose Rusty, and go on about his business. It measures the same couple of dozen things that would be measured if you went to a physician. Some veterinarians, in fact, send their samples to the local hospital and put them through the same medical devices used for humans.
In
any case, the veterinarian can do this for Rusty, but he can’t do this for
Matthew. If he measured Matthew’s sample, that would be unlawful. And, if a
physician had this device in his office, he also couldn’t use it. That also
would be unlawful. The only people allowed to use these devices are working in
approved commercial clinical laboratories, and most of those laboratories would
not measure a sample if Matthew asked them to do it. But, there is an out.
Matthew can measure his own sample. If he does it himself, it is lawful.
Medicine
is an odd industry. It is a monopoly that controls not only the product it
produces but also the evaluation of its own product. This is a historical
result. Initially medicine had very little technology. What was known about
medicine resided in the minds of the physicians.
As technology developed for medicine, especially diagnostic technology, this
technology involved very expensive machinery and evolved in a time when
computers were very expensive. It was just not possible for the people being
helped by medicine to handle their own diagnostic work. The industry grew up
measuring samples commercially. (It is now about a $100 billion industry.) But,
as the monopoly matured, these commercial laboratories disappeared behind the
gatekeepers of medicine, so that the individual cannot use high technology or
evaluate the product that he is using. Moreover, the technology advances at a
slow rate…
The
thing that holds back medicine is the quantitative measurement of health. It is
necessary to be able to measure quantitatively to make an advance. And yet it
is very difficult to do.
Why would you want to do this?
Suppose you could measure the percentage of life remaining to you or at least
your physiological age, quantitatively. Things would change. Someone may tell
you you’ll live longer if you eat more Vitamin E or exercise or eat your
veggies. You can do those things and have the opportunity to go back and
re-measure to see if these life style changes have changed your rate of aging
either positively or negatively.
The second reason for measuring health quantitatively is the probability of
illness. And the third is, if you do get sick, you need to be able to measure
your sickness quantitatively.
If you develop cancer and your physician suggests three or four options. What
do you do? You pick the one that looks the best and close your eyes and see if
you die. It shouldn’t be that way. You should be able to pick a method, watch
the rate of growth of the cancer as a function of time, see if it’s improved or
made worse by what you are doing, and then modulate and adjust your method of
battling the illness…
The greatest amount of information is held in the metabolites, the small
molecules found in urine, blood, and saliva that are produced and consumed in
the normal course of metabolism. They are where the action is and they are all
interlocked in different bio-chemical pathways. You don’t have to measure any
specific one. There may be 5,000 of them in there, but if you take a sample of
200, those 200 are carrying information about the other 4,800. For example, 30
percent of the substances in your urine are correlated with your physiological
age.
You can obtain tremendous amounts of information by profiling these molecules it is not being done…
Find
out how human suffering could be decreased and the human lifespan increased
using the technologies of the telecosm. Listen to Dr. Robinson’s complete Telecosm 2006
talk by downloading the MP3 audio file available on: http://www.gildertech.com/public/Telecosm2006/Agenda.htm#health
|
George Gilder’s telecosm technologies portfolio is up 307%
since the market low |
Friday
Feature
/ What’s your exit strategy?
Excerpted posts from the www.Gildertech.com
subscriber-only message board.
Gilder Technology Report Subscriber #1 (11/4/06): What is your exit strategy
assuming EZchip (LNOP) does well? I hope to have the discipline to sell
some as it goes up but I need a plan.
George Gilder (11/4/06): In general, unless I can see a clear path
toward large new markets, I tend to sell half my shares after a double or
triple. So should you if it becomes disproportionate in your portfolio. You
should always be ready to sell half or more of your shares when a company has
soared beyond easy explanation or justification.
Equally you should always be ready to make prudent purchases of shares when
they fall as a result of overreaction or panic. Today this condition might
apply to Altera (ALTR), PMC-Sierra (PMCS), NetLogic
(NETL), Ikanos (IKAN), Qualcomm (QCOM), Anadigics (ANAD), Corning
(GLW), Marvell (MRVL), Zoran (ZRAN), and even Microvision (MVIS).
GTR Subscriber #2 (11/4/06): I also hope the members of this
board still do the due diligence required to ride LNOP and explain and discuss
if it has overreached, underreached, or is in the right place. George, Thanks
to you and Charlie and the other major [message board] contributors for
uncovering this opportunity.
Logon with your subscriber ID at www.Gildertech.com
to read more posts by George Gilder and fellow GTR subscribers.
|
The Gildertech Blog, http://blog.gildertech.com/ | Logon now to see what’s new. |
Friday Blogger Bonus / Science Has Spoken: Global Warming Is a Myth
The global-warming hypothesis is no longer tenable. Scientists
have been able to test it carefully, and it does not hold up. During the past
50 years, as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have risen, scientists have made
precise measurements of atmospheric temperature. These measurements have
definitively shown that major atmospheric greenhouse warming of the atmosphere
is not occurring and is unlikely ever to occur.
The temperature of the atmosphere fluctuates over a wide range, the result of
solar activity and other influences. During the past 3,000 years, there have
been five extended periods when it was distinctly warmer than today. One of the
two coldest periods, known as the Little Ice Age, occurred 300 years ago.
Atmospheric temperatures have been rising from that low for the past 300 years,
but remain below the 3,000-year average….
Read the 1997 paper, written by Arthur Robinson (featured
in today’s Friday Letter “The Week”
section) and Zachary Robinson of the
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, and check out “The
Global Warming Hoax” blog:
http://globalwarminghoax.wordpress.com/2006/10/25/science-has-spokenglobal-warming-is-a-myth/
|
Did you miss Telecosm 2006? |
Readings /
Next Inning
Technology Updates Outlooks for Altera, Microvision, SiRF Technology, and Texas
Instruments: http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/061108/ph00661.html?.v=1
Microsoft
Unveils 3-D Maps In Latest Bid To Upstage Google
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17771&ch=biztech
Gannett
To Crowdsource News
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/media/0,72067-0.html?tw=wn_technology_internet_13
Verizon’s
Big TV Bet Goes Small-Town
http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/05/verizon-cable-tv-tech-intel-cx_df_1106verizon.html?partner=telecom_newsletter
Nvidia’s
New Graphics Chip Takes On Added Duties
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/15962897.htm
Silicon
And Sun
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17726&ch=nanotech
Cheap,
Superefficient Solar
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17774&ch=energy
Bad
Trade-Off
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTA0ZjVkNTA3OWY4YjQyZjM0NDFkMTY1NTI0NjY3NmQ=
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