Miscellaneous and Useless Information

James Lin’s infrequently updated blog

More good shows on PBS

Just saw two fascinating shows on KQED:

A story in Frontline World covered an ingenious idea called Play Pumps. It takes water pumps and turns them into a piece of playground equipment, so that kids have fun while they pump water. It started out as a cheap way to bring clean water to poor areas in South Africa, and the company making them is now receiving $15 million in funding from the U.S.

Twisted follows four people with dystonia, a bewildering neurological disorder where a person literally cannot control parts of their own body. Probably the most famous sufferer is Dilbert creator Scott Adams. There is treatment called deep brain stimulation (DBS) where electrodes are implanted into the brain, but doctors don’t know why it works. The film follows one person in particular as he agonizes over whether to get DBS, and then struggles while the doctors try to make the treatment work for him.

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