telephone tag

Stephen D. Levitt of freakonomics fame wants people to wear a freakonomics t-shirt if they are audtioning for Sci Fi’s "Brain Trust" reality TV show. When did they show showing sci-fi and start showing reality TV?

It seems that the thrust of the show is to solve previously unsolvable everyday problems. So far so pointless.

But since they want applicants to solve a single everyday problem of no major social importance what would it be? And what out of the box approach would you use to solve it?

So I thought about it...

I would like to get a training programme running for people leaving phone messages. Teach them to slow down when leaving a reply number if nothing else.

How to do this... telephone tag.

A phone based contest where a baton "phrase phone number" is passed from one person to another. Cash (or mobiles) for prizes, but the person who drops it looses out. All contestants must be pre-registered.

Sorry about the "his", its being used for ease, pretend its his/her or her...

A contestant gets a recorded message on his voice-mail with the phrase number and a number to call. The contestant must pass a message and the phrase number and the number he is calling to the number in the message.
This message is recorded, and passed another contestant.

If a contestant does not call before a certain both the contestant and the person before him are deemed to have dropped the baton.

Both are dropped, and the "telephone tag" continues with the rest of the contestants. Continue until you have the required number of winners.

Now could I get Nokia or Apple to sponsor it... (or a launch idea for MaxRoam?)

take care,
Will

tags : Stephen Levitt, freakonomics, Brain Trust, reality TV, telephone, telephone tag, contest

Physician: cut yourself?

Could your blood chemistry get you to cut yourself?
Or rather is it possible for the chemical imbalance caused by haemochromatosis to trigger a self harm response?

For the record, I'm NOT advising you find out!

Its something which a Steven D. Levitt could answer (you can tell I've just finished reading Freakonomics).

What started this is the New Scientist podcast and article about the survival of the sickest. The gist of the article is that haemochromatosis is a disease which causes too much iron to be stored by the body, but it has an odd side effect. If you have the condition, its harder for you to pick up certain diseases... like the black death. This may explain why the disease is especially common in people of "northern European extraction". In this way Haemochromatosis may be a benefit with a bad effect in the same way that Sickle-cell disease helps the carrier be resistant to malaria.

The treatment for haemochromatosis is to have a blood donation. There is an anecdotal story in the article about Sharon Moalem's (the author of the article and the papers) grandfather feeling better after a blood donation. It may also explain why the medicinal leech was used so much in Europe as a treatment. The patient felt better after their regular blood letting.

Which brings me to self harm, and cutting in particular. While the "relief" brought about by the cutting is from the actual cutting and very little blood is lost, is there a correlation between cutters (or former cutters) and haemochromatosis sufferers?

Dumb question, but that's why I'm the idiot.
Will

tags :

blood, blood chemistry, cut yourself, chemical imbalance, haemochromatosis, self-injury, self harm, Steven D. Levitt, Levitt, Freakonomics, Sharon Moalem, New Scientist, survival of the sickest, iron, black death, Sickle-cell, blood donation, leech, correlation, cutter