Chocolate! Is it really good for you?

Yum.

Let's hope the ThinkWell crew can come up with a good trial idea or three. If you want to join in the brainstorming, click the title of this post and it'll take you straight to the discussion forum over at the ThinkWell Open Access Virtually "Real" Real Department of Public Health. (Phew!)

Daz


For links to news sources on Burma which are still publishing news from within and information on actions you can take to support the peoples of Burma, please visit Burma Activists Resource and Campaign Area.

Free Burma

Call for bloggers to strike on 4th October: Burmese Bloggers Without Borders

Following the lead of the fabulous Medicins sans Frontieres and Reporters sans Frontieres, the ever-fabulous Burmese People established Burmese Bloggers Without Borders on 30th September 2007.

They are asking for a bloggers strike on Thursday 4th October, 2007.

International Bloggers' Day for Burma on the 4th of October

Free-burma.org has called for the action named as "Free Burma" to support the peaceful protests in Burma by international bloggers. In their web site, it is said that the purpose is to set a sign for freedom and show the sympathy for the people who are fighting the cruel regime without weapons. The participating bloggers will have to refrain from posting to their blogs on October 4 and put up one Banner underlined with the words, Free Burma!"

The Burmese People need our support! China must act!

What's happening in Burma is amazing - all power to the Burmese People - but their chances of success are small. This uprising is comparable to the uprising in 1988 which was brutally suppressed with at least 3000 demonstrators shot dead. The monks and the people are showing great courage, but the mountain they have to climb is unimaginable to those of us on the outside.

There is a hugely important difference now compared to 1988. Burma is oblivious to most of the world, being heavily reliant on China and to a lesser extent India and Russia for trade. These are the only states which have a chance of influencing the outcome and realistically it is up to China; the emerging superpower that is opening up to the world and looking forward to the Olympics as its big coming out party. China does not want another Tiananmen Square by proxy

This is a powerful tool for campaigners. China is investing heavily and has powerful political influence in Africa, particularly Sudan, but appeared oblivious to Darfur until the slogan "Genocide Olympics" was used by campaigners; there is hope that China may be forced to act. We must bring this same pressure to bear on behalf of Burma; China is intervening behind the scenes and we must keep the pressure up.

Please, write to your MP asking for questions in the House or an Early Day Motion highlighting the impact on the Olympics if a massacre is allowed to happen. They Work for You! Write to the papers, get on their feedback forums, demand that they call for action by China; intervention to prevent a massacre and oust this evil regime once and for all, on the eve of the Beijing Olympics. Blog about it, talk about it - by whatever means necessary, we must demand that Burma is finally freed.

Please take a few moments to check out these online petitions (hosted at petitiononline.com):
Online petition started by UN human rights type people
Online petition from the Burmese people and friends

This must not be allowed to continue. If the international community had even a fraction of the courage of the Burmese People it would not.

StatFAQs are go!

Cool. Jose has stuck up a few teaser threads to get some stats discussion going. I'm going to just watch for the timebeing; it's a bit scary but I'll get there one day!

One of those water cooler moments!

Hot curry and colds.

Heh.

Daz

Vandalism on the daz blog!

I'd just like to point out that my partner in crime hijacked the dashboard for a few minutes and vandalised the blog.

I might leave it a while before fixing so you can all see how evil she is.
Daz

Free toys! ThinkWell has free toys!

Oh! Look at the toolbar Jo just made, just look at the toolbar! Nice piccie here!

Download it and you're well away!

New Q&A started on plans for DNA collection in research studies

Ooh! Q&A is up an' running, awaiting the arrival of our resident medical genetics type expert guy, Maurice. Get in there and post any questions, or bookmark to check later when the discussion is in full informative flow!

Here's the blurb for the Volunteer forum:

The other end of participating in research; being the guinea pig! There's loads of things ThinkWell could do with your data, and unlike the government we won't charge you for the privelege, store it insecurely or misuse it in any way. And you can trust us because we're you. Use this forum to ask questions, get answers and see what sorts of things you could do with your data.

No spam here, thanks!

Heh. I'm liking the anti-spam sticky Jose just made in the Community Blog (CLOG).

More importantly, AdminAssistant has laid the ThinkWell vision out in the Secretariat forum; well worth repeating here I think (starting with an explanation of the role of the Secretariat):

ThinkWell is a completely open access, free for all in Virtuality, 100% Real Department of Public Health! And as if that wasn't good enough, there ain't no bosses or bureaucracy either. Cheques go into the bank; send cheques out. Keep statements. Kinda simple. We have a volunteer or barely remunerated secretariat to sort out the boring stuff. This is where they hold their meetings; all welcome to attend and contribute. Any questions? Start a thread. This is how ThinkWell works, and why it works well. You humble servants, The Secretariat.

Hi

I've been asked to post a brief explanation of how the ThinkWell financial side of things works and how we propose to let everyone have their say in how any grant monies we win are spent.

We don't have any cash at all right now, bar a few quid for training courses we managed to score. That's being spent on developing existing collaborative research bids (more on these should appear soon in R&D) and communicating with our colleagues in Europe and across the pond, right now.

Most of our grant applications will include one or more "lay" representatives; these will be elected from amongst those in the ThinkWell community who others agree can contribute most to the implementation of the idea (ie actually doing the research); often but not always including the person who made the original suggestion.

Other co-applicants will be individuals with relevant formally recognised expertise, no matter what their relationship to the secretariat. ThinkWell does have an "inner" core consisting of both academics and lay people (the de facto secretariat), but only because someone had to get the ball rolling.

Grant applications will include salaries for full or part-time research assistants. Exactly how that is spent depends on the department which will be physically dealing with the trial (like posting out drugs or receiving DNA spit'n'post packages).

Any and all vacancies and short-term contracts will be advertised on the situations vacant subforum; all ads will make it clear if physical location and/or secure fast internet connection are required. The salaries attached will be included. All other work paid from ThinkWell monies will be posted in the Situations Vacant forum. Privacy issues for other forum users will be considered for data handling posts.

This should allow proper community scrutiny to make sure that the people who have to handle the money can't get frisky with it, and the closest we can ever get to allowing anyone a fair shot at being financially rewarded for their participation in ThinkWell.

As we grow-up as a community and get more experience, procedures will develop to accommodate new situations. This thread will be how they develop. Post as required.

Welcome! Marhaba! Bienvenue!

I will be trying to improve this blog via an RSS feed to the ThinkWell forums (see top right for the link). I'll be adding stuff here regularly, including the best of the best from the ThinkWell Conmunity Blog forum. I will also be addin' some interviews, podcasts, films an' ting, so please do check in.

Plenty of fun and games over at the Thinkwell Real Department of Public Health (see forums). Maybe I'll see you there?

Ciao

Daz