Tag: 2

On the other hand, in this week's IT Safety email, there was a comment about avoiding light, esp. blue light, to be able to sleep better: "Blue lights, such as those from a cell phone as they trigger the body’s wake cycle"

Which made my BS meter quiver, so I decided to do some research.

Unfortunately, there seems to be some reputable scientific basis for this idea. For example, Harvard Medical School (http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletters/Harvard_Health_Letter/2012/May/blue-light-has-a-dark-side/):

'Even dim light can interfere with a person's circadian rhythm and melatonin secretion. A mere eight lux—a level of brightness exceeded by most table lamps and about twice that of a night light—has an effect, notes Stephen Lockley, a Harvard sleep researcher. Light at night is part of the reason so many people don't get enough sleep, says Lockley, and researchers have linked short sleep to increased risk for depression, as well as diabetes and cardiovascular problems.

While light of any kind can suppress the secretion of melatonin, blue light does so more powerfully. Harvard researchers and their colleagues conducted an experiment comparing the effects of 6.5 hours of exposure to blue light to exposure to green light of comparable brightness. The blue light suppressed melatonin for about twice as long as the green light and shifted circadian rhythms by twice as much (3 hours vs. 1.5 hours).'

Light in general is a problem, but some lighting — CFLs and tablet/phone backlights — have more blue wavelengths.

The Chicago Trib article linked below mentions an AMA policy that notes "exposure to excessive light at night, including extended use of various electronic media, can disrupt sleep or exacerbate sleep disorders, especially in children and adolescents."  It also notes:

'In May 2011, Swiss researchers at the University of Basel reported that subjects who spent time at night in front of an LED computer screen, as opposed to a screen emitting a variety of colors but little blue light, experienced "a significant suppression of the evening rise in endogenous melatonin and … sleepiness."'

So here's part of the "Uh-oh" moment here.

1. We tend to spend much of our evenings watching TV and hanging out on computers — all of which are LED screens.  We don't do it upstairs in bed, but sometimes that breaking away to actually go upstairs is delayed.  Unwinding? Or suppression of sleepiness?

2. In general we keep our room pretty dark.  But … our alarm clocks have blue LEDs on them.  They're great alarm clocks, but …

So maybe we can get around #2 with … hmm, some red gel/film over the clocks?  (I would truly hate to give up those clocks.)  

For #1, maybe we need to cut off use of computers at an earlier hour. Which would be painful in terms of recreation of choice, but might help us get more reliable sleep during the week.

1. They serve as safe storage and utilization for liquid assets — checking and savings deposits (personal and business), which are traditionally leveraged for relatively low-risk loan activity for homes, cars, business expansion, etc.  That's called retail banking.

2. They serve as major investment brokers, where massive assets (individual or group) are leveraged for larger, higher-risk gains. That's called investment banking.

The problem comes where the assets of #1 — which are a critical to the citizenry as  whole — are used as the foundation for #2 — which are high-profit, and high-risk, activities.

There used to be a pretty big firewall between #1 and #2, 1933's Glass-Steagall Act, which institutionally separated companies doing #1 from also doing #2.  That lasted until the Go-Go 90s when the banking industry finally convinced Washington that such separation of functions (and risks) was totally unnecessary because profit was growing like a giant bubble that would never burst.  (And, yes, both parties, including a Democratic president, were part of that bubbly decision.)

And, of course, the #2 bubble burst, and suddenly the foundation of most people's assets — #1 —  was at risk.  Hilarity and massive bail-outs ensued.

Drawing that bright line between traditional retail banking and investor banking remains a critical, and still unaccomplished, need for the country.  Retail banking could be nationalized or treated as a public utility, but it can also be run effectively and safely as (as in the past) as highly regulated private businesses if those assets aren't available for casino games by rich investors (individual or institutional).

I wouldn't want to see the investment banking side of the house run as a public utility, because it should be high risk, and high reward, because that in turn can have great value in expanding the economy and growing overall wealth.  But that risk needs to be real and borne by the individuals and institutions directly involved, not socialized out to the public ("If I win, I get the profit; if I lose, the government bails me out").  Investment banks need to be small enough — or isolated enough — to fail, and what institutional money can be put into them needs to be controlled (personal investors? sure, with disclosures of risks.  pension funds? no.).

So, no, I don't want to see banks as a public utility — but if it was a choice between that and letting high-rollers treat my savings account as chips on their table, safe in the assumption that any losses will be covered by the taxpayers … well, that utility options suddenly becomes a lot more attractive.

Reshared post from +Mary McD

Touche'