Medical user experience in the US is pretty terrible; at least one New York City medical practice is looking to improve that. I've had really good experiences with Kaiser Permanente's infrastructure (pharmacy, test lab, specialists and general practitioners all under one roof, integrated scheduling and useful email/website), but they don't have any services in New York State.

I'm using Beeminder again to track a personal goal of mine (getting my personal email inbox under control). Danny O'Brien told me about them and I like their approach: easy to enter data, free until and unless I go off track.

I have a weak spot for corporate anthems. I think the HSBC song is gonna end up in my "energizing music" playlist. It's just so peppy!

"Actually, Jamie Newton, one 'hi' will suffice."

I'm interested in seeing how the Wikimedia community (including you, if you ever read Wikipedia) will help make the new discussion system better.

In speculative fiction:

• There is a new grant available for working class, blue-collar, poor, and homeless speculative fiction writers (including speculative fiction writers who have faced these financial barriers in the past). Deadline February 28. (via Mary Anne Mohanraj)
• C.C. Finlay is guest-editing an issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction and is accepting submissions electronically. Deadline January 14.
• A new anthology seeks "narratives that explore the immigrant experience in a science fiction setting". Deadline January 31. (Also via Mary Anne.)
• If you get a WorldCon membership by January 31, you can nominate for the Hugo Awards, and you can get a supporting membership (which lets you vote) for USD 40 (or 25 British pounds). I plan on doing this. (Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie was SO GOOD.)
• I went on a vid binge today and discovered a vid that completely recontextualizes the Q/Picard relationship for me, a sweet vid that uses Vienna Teng's "Lullabye For a Stormy Night" to underscore the nurturing of children in Star Trek: The Next Generation, and (omg omg) an amazing shot-for-shot remake of bironic's Starships vid that draws only from black-and-white film and TV. See the side-by-side comparison. Just jawdropping. I just adore the attention to detail in shot-for-shot remakes and similarly loving and thorough parodies, and this hits that spot for me.
• Perhaps you've noticed the short scifi Nature publishes? Check out a super-realistic time travel exam, a nice "mad scientist/mad engineer" joke, a cold study-habits-of-the-future glimpse, a painful thought experiment about time, a short meditation on colonialism, and a good creepy mind control story.
• Mary Anne Mohanraj thinks about the plots of The Stars Change & "Jump Space" and potentially a new upcoming work in the same universe -- cool!
• Oh my goodness, the short story "Immersion" by Aliette de Bodard sure has interesting things to say about assimilation, language, self, imperialism, and solidarity.

What have you accomplished since March 2007?

I may have to read all of the New York Fed's blog posts on historical echoes in modern economics news and financial practices.

Mary Anne has another moving, thoughtful post on professionalism and showing the messy work behind the impressive result (against sprezzatura). Relatedly, Peter Fraenkel goes into some detail thinking about how arrogance presents and what to avoid.

I'm interested in thinking more about what jokes & bugs have in common, per Val Aurora's insight. I have indeed laughed aloud at a particular bug's presentation (which feels like a pratfall) or at finding the cause of a bug (which feels like observational humor). I also laugh aloud sometimes when I think of a possible arbitrage. The art of imagining hypothetical worlds leads to many other arts, and a few of them include testing, stand-up comedy, game design, and politics.

Finally, a sweet gluten-free Christian reminder that "Disciples don't fit in."