superamit: Many of you have asked, so here’s what’s going on with me. WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE 8/1979: Born. Grew up in CT, built a killer eraser collection, fell in love with computers. Left college to start a company. Fell hard. Fled to India for 3 months. Started 2nd company. Learned to be an adult. Fell in love with NYC. Moved to SF, discovered burritos & some of my fave people on Earth. 9/2011: Got diagnosed with Leukemia! Cried. Went through 3 cycles of chemo. Hurt. Thought hard about what I want out of life. Grew up a second time. TODAY … After over 100 drives organized by friends, family, and strangers, celebrity call-outs, a bazillion reblogs (7000+!), tweets, and Facebook posts, press, fundraising and international drives organized by tireless friends, and a couple painful false starts, I’ve got a 10/10 matched donor! You all literally helped save my life. (And the lives of many others.) WHAT HAPPENS NEXT Tomorrow, I’ll be admitted to Dana Farber in Boston for 4-5 weeks. First I’ll get a second Hickman line to allow direct access to my heart (for meds and for nutrients if I’m not able to eat). Over the next week, the docs blast my body with a stiff chemo cocktail to try and eradicate all traces of cancer cells. In the process, the immune system I was born with, and my body’s ability to make blood, are destroyed. Next Friday, I get my donor’s stem cells by IV. I start on immunosuppressants to prevent my body from rejecting them (I’ll be on them for 12-18 months). For these weeks I’ve no immune system, so I’m severely vulnerable to viruses and bacteria. My hospital room and hallway become my world. Meanwhile, the stem cells make their way to my bone marrow and, with some luck, start producing platelets, red blood cells, and white blood cells. At this point, my blood type changes to the blood type of my donor. And my blood will now have my donor’s DNA, not my own. This is science fiction stuff. I can hardly believe it’s even possible, and there’s lots of chances for things to go wrong. It’s frightening. AFTER THE TRANSPLANT Recovery to a new state of “normal” takes about a year, but there’s a few storm clouds hovering: My immune system is new, like a baby’s. I’m prone to getting sick. Just as with any organ transplant, there’s a chance of rejection. Except in this case, it’s my blood that’s the foreign body, and it touches every organ. They call it graft-vs-host-disease and it can cause health issues and organ complications for the rest of my life. Successful transplant or not, Leukemia can relapse. Stubborn mofo. Overall, 75% of AML transplant patients survive year one, 50% make it through year five. My odds are a little better since I’m young. THE GREAT NEWS I’ve got a long road ahead. But I’ve got a donor & amazing family & friends. A few months ago I didn’t have many options. Today I have a plan. I am alive. I start tomorrow. Wish me luck! Thank you.
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superamit:

Many of you have asked, so here’s what’s going on with me.

WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE

  • 8/1979: Born. Grew up in CT, built a killer eraser collection, fell in love with computers.
  • Left college to start a company. Fell hard. Fled to India for 3 months.
  • Started 2nd company. Learned to be an adult. Fell in love with NYC.
  • Moved to SF, discovered burritos & some of my fave people on Earth.
  • 9/2011: Got diagnosed with Leukemia!
  • Cried. Went through 3 cycles of chemo. Hurt. Thought hard about what I want out of life. Grew up a second time.

TODAY

… After over 100 drives organized by friends, family, and strangers, celebrity call-outs, a bazillion reblogs (7000+!), tweets, and Facebook posts, press, fundraising and international drives organized by tireless friends, and a couple painful false starts, I’ve got a 10/10 matched donor!

You all literally helped save my life. (And the lives of many others.)

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

Tomorrow, I’ll be admitted to Dana Farber in Boston for 4-5 weeks.

First I’ll get a second Hickman line to allow direct access to my heart (for meds and for nutrients if I’m not able to eat). Over the next week, the docs blast my body with a stiff chemo cocktail to try and eradicate all traces of cancer cells. In the process, the immune system I was born with, and my body’s ability to make blood, are destroyed.

Next Friday, I get my donor’s stem cells by IV. I start on immunosuppressants to prevent my body from rejecting them (I’ll be on them for 12-18 months). For these weeks I’ve no immune system, so I’m severely vulnerable to viruses and bacteria. My hospital room and hallway become my world.

Meanwhile, the stem cells make their way to my bone marrow and, with some luck, start producing platelets, red blood cells, and white blood cells. At this point, my blood type changes to the blood type of my donor. And my blood will now have my donor’s DNA, not my own.

This is science fiction stuff. I can hardly believe it’s even possible, and there’s lots of chances for things to go wrong. It’s frightening.

AFTER THE TRANSPLANT

Recovery to a new state of “normal” takes about a year, but there’s a few storm clouds hovering:

  • My immune system is new, like a baby’s. I’m prone to getting sick.
  • Just as with any organ transplant, there’s a chance of rejection. Except in this case, it’s my blood that’s the foreign body, and it touches every organ. They call it graft-vs-host-disease and it can cause health issues and organ complications for the rest of my life.
  • Successful transplant or not, Leukemia can relapse. Stubborn mofo.

Overall, 75% of AML transplant patients survive year one, 50% make it through year five. My odds are a little better since I’m young.

THE GREAT NEWS

I’ve got a long road ahead. But I’ve got a donor & amazing family & friends. A few months ago I didn’t have many options. Today I have a plan.

I am alive. I start tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Thank you.

Maybe that’s one that’s been misunderstood, people compare it with Facebook and people talk about “why would I tweet?” But it’s a one to many broadcast mechanism, it’s a newspaper replacement. It’s not for everybody to tweet, it’s for everybody to follow. The more people figure that out, they see it’s RSS-plus. It’s literally the place you check for information.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gurley-qa-2011-6?op=1#ixzz1PiuzrhAX

What the research showed is that while executive pay at the largest U.S. companies was relatively flat in the ’50s and ’60s, it began a rapid ascent sometime in the ’70s.

As it happens, this was about the same time that income inequality began to widen in the United States, according to the Saez figures.

More importantly, however, the finding that executive pay was flat in the ’50s and ’60s, when firms were growing, appears to contradict the idea that executive pay should naturally rise when companies grow.

This is a “challenge for the market story,” Frydman said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/with-executive-pay-rich-pull-away-from-rest-of-america/2011/06/13/AGKG9jaH_story_3.html

jonathan-cunningham:

Robert Reich lists six reasons the economy is in trouble:

  • The economy has doubled since 1980, but wages are flat
  • All gains from the economy go to the super rich
  • The money gained translates to political power, which translates to tax cuts
  • Tax cuts result in huge deficits
  • The middle class is divided fighting over the remainder of resources
  • Without strong purchasing power in the middle class, the recovery is anemic
tofias: Level of Political Participation by Use of Social Networking Site Platforms The graph is from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project’s Social Network Site Survey (pdf). Note that Michael McDonald estimates that 41.6% of the voting eligible population turned out in the 2010 elections. I know what you’re going to ask next, and so did Pew. The Pew Internet study (“Social Networking Sites and Our Lives”) also reports: Controlling for demographic characteristics, internet users are nearly two and a half times more likely to have attended a political rally (2.39x), 78% more likely to have attempted to influence someone’s vote, and 53% more likely to have reported voting or intending to vote than non-internet users.
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tofias:

Level of Political Participation by Use of Social Networking Site Platforms

The graph is from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project’s Social Network Site Survey (pdf).

Note that Michael McDonald estimates that 41.6% of the voting eligible population turned out in the 2010 elections.

I know what you’re going to ask next, and so did Pew. The Pew Internet study (“Social Networking Sites and Our Lives”) also reports:

Controlling for demographic characteristics, internet users are nearly two and a half times more likely to have attended a political rally (2.39x), 78% more likely to have attempted to influence someone’s vote, and 53% more likely to have reported voting or intending to vote than non-internet users.