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Georgia's New State Health Plan Is Google
theodp writes "In yet another case of life imitating Dilbert, the State of Georgia has issued a press release touting how helpful Google products will be in getting Georgians to go outdoors. According to the release and a follow-up Yo-State-So-Fat Official Google Blog post, this includes AdWords, Analytics, Maps, Earth, Picasa, Gadgets and a branded YouTube channel for the GO Georgia initiative 'We're thrilled that Google has joined us in the effort to help everyone in the state lead a healthier life,' said Sally Winchester, a manager for Georgia State Parks & Historic Sites. 'At Google, we are committed to helping our employees lead healthy lives,' added Maureen Schumacher, a Google regional sales director. 'We are very excited that Google products will be used as part of this effort to improve the health and well-being of all Georgians.'"
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Let's just say Steps 3 from 5 involve Google buying Georgia, rebranding the state Googlia (still GA), and eventually enslaving.... err.. emoploying the populace to work for the Google AI. Remember, the AI needs healthy people to carry out its will.
Is this a variation on 'Naw you kiahds git off ma lawn!"?
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so what if it's shameless promotion? the important thing is that the georgia administration is going against the status quo and admitting there _is_ a problem. i hope this gives other states (particularly southern states) the courage to go forward with health initiatives. with 1/4 of its adult population considered obese (as of mid-late 2007 http://vaccine-ophobia.blogspot.com/2007/08/georgia-14th-in-ranking-of-adult.html), this will hopefully start opening eyes and turning heads
Sounds like Georgia wants some free hosting and free tools and will only have to pay a web integration salary instead of a developer ... why the hell not?
Georgia is in the "Stroke Belt", with high rates of obesity (soul food), diabetes (sweet tea), and heart disease. The citizens of Georgia really need all the help they can get to decrease long-term health costs.
I am defenseless. Use your button. Mod me down with all of your hatred.
I wish they'd just drop the bullshit and come out and say "You want to turn into a lazy fatass and die an early death, that's your problem. Just don't pretend like it was anyone else's fault and don't burden the taxpayers with your poor decision-making and we're cool." I'd have much more respect for our esteemed leaders if they were honest about it.
...Google has been one of the single biggest things keeping me INdoors
-Carl
1: Partner with Google
2: ?
3: Health and profit
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
So I checked out their website http://www.getoutdoorsgeorgia.org/ and overall I'm pretty impressed with the idea. I think this is a good thing. If state park information is located in one place, perhaps more people might take advantage of the facilities.
Looking at the disc golf section though, I'm kind of disappointed that the only information is solely for state parks. Living in Atlanta, I know of a few courses around that aren't state parks but county parks. They are also much closer than 30+ miles of the state parks.
I'm hoping that this is simply due to an early start and more information will get put in as counties might get online. But if not, I think they're missing a big opportunity for more information and getting people more involved at a local level. But perhaps they are simply looking for the extra revenue from the parks since most of the local parks are free access.
And between the heat, mosquitoes, and smog, I hope to spend my summer in front of my computer. Then again, I'm posting to Slashdot, so you knew that already.
You will pry my Georgia sweet tea (kept ice cold so it can be super-saturated with sugar) from my cold, dead fin-- *urk* *THUD*
I'll second that.
Except for the part of living in Georgia, I live in Atlanta. There's a BIG difference.
Interesting that the plan does not include promotion of Google Health.
In order to super-saturate the tea, it must first be mixed at a higher temperature (where the equilibrium concentration of sugar is higher). Cooling it down brings the mixture out of equilibrium, but no precipitation occurs, resulting in a kinetically controlled metastable state (super-saturation). Allowing the tea to warm up won't change the sweetness level.
chillax137
...high rates of obesity (soul food), diabetes (sweet tea), and heart disease....
Having just moved from there, to the Bay Area, Ca....
Yes, Ga is unhealthy. Alot of the blame can also be put on the government of the state, which continues to push for more and wider highways (as if 16 lanes isnt enough), continue to allow and support the majority of power plants running on fossil fuels, mainly coal and including 3 of the dirtiest in the US, with two in the top 3 of that list. This, combined with naturally high humidity, ultra high pollen counts and high temperatures makes the air quality suck, putting Atlanta in 4th for most challenging place to live with asthma and consistently in the Top Ten smoggiest cities. This keeps people inside. Going anywhere basically means driving there as sprawl and the resulting proliferation of more roads without increased mass transit or even bike lanes(again, gvmt sponsored), reckless drivers in large vehicles thanks to (previously, and relatively) cheap gas and the whole "southern/redneck" bit that leans towards F250s with 12"lift on mud tires, and the horrid air make it difficult to impossible to walk or bike anywhere (outside of Down/Mid Town Atl) for fear of your life. So people tend to sit on their fat asses in their offices all day and eat at one of about 20 McDonads or Waffle Houses in the 2mi radius of their home (after driving there of course)... not that I miss having a 24h eatery nearby (I miss my WaHo and Marietta Diner!). Add to all that that NASCAR is a "Sport" in Ga, and as such, "exercising" consists of sitting in bleachers (or on the sofa), smoking, drinking budweiser and eating chilli cheese dogs while watching cars go in circles.
Alot of this could be fixed by improving mass-transit, curbing Sprawl (which is what really caused the drought) and improving Atlanta's Bikability. Generally getting people out of their cars and walking or biking places. MARTA's subway line only goes to about 3 useful places: the airport, downtown, and perimeter mall, while a majority of people live in Cobb County, which rejected having anything to do with a Marta rail line (think: "It will bring in the colored people to steal our TV's!").
Ga is way behind in most rankings of things as well: the Gov'ner has repeatedly struck down attempts to allow Sunday sales of any alcoholic beverage (outside of a restaurant), the most recent time saying it would teach "better time management," thus keeping Georgia one of 3 states still having such arcane blue laws. The state is kept in the past though laws like this, as well as the control the churches have over it and its citizens, which al
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Unless of course something we're to disturb to tea sufficiently or a suitable condensation nuclei we're introduced causing the sugar to come out of solution, in which case the only suitable solution is to reheat the tea.
Posting anonymously so I can still mod you up
Actually you can only super saturate water with dissolved solids such as sugar at high temperatures. It's gases that dissolve better at low temperatures.
So you're not only fat, but a dirty, dirty liar!
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