Tales of Hoffman

I actually noticed this the

I actually noticed this the other day, but RangelMD has a posting about adding an RSS feed to his blog. That's great! Now if we can only convince Medpundit and DB, I'll be able to complete my morning blog viewing ritual without having to resort to Bookmarks! ;-) 

Medscape is looking for a

Medscape is looking for a physician or other health care provider that can give its readers an insider's perspective on the War with Iraq. If you, or someone you know, are a health care provider for the military, are in the Middle East and can be contacted via E-Mail, Fax or Phone, Medscape would like to talk with you about providing "Tales from the Front" for our readers. The best way to contact me is to click here.

The story below is courtesy

The story below is courtesy of the Medscape RSS Feed. I did tell you about that, didn't I? ;-)

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) Update: Wednesday, March 19. A daily digest of breaking news, analysis, and official reports from Medscape's Infectious Diseases, Critical Care, and Pulmonary Medicine editors.
Medscape Medical News [Medscape Headlines]

Goodbye to Nana Very,

Goodbye to Nana Very, very light posting the last week or so. My Grandmother, whose Alzheimer's Disease I have referred to here before, passed away last Wednesday. It was a sad weekend for the family, but she led a long and happy life -- and 92 years and 10 months is nothing to sneeze at. I hope to resume my regular blogging ways in the next day or so.

Pretty cool new box from

Pretty cool new box from Martian Technologies. It's a 40GB network harddrive with built in Wi-Fi. All in a neat little, fanless box for $400. Just turn it on and it's got whatever software it needs to get a DHCP IP address from your wireless base station and show up as a network drive to Macs and PCs. One question for those who know these types of things...Does this mean I can put my iTunes library on this thing and then play the music from any Mac on the network? Does Wi-Fi have the necessary throughput for me to do that?

AOL Is Planning a Fast-Forward

AOL Is Planning a Fast-Forward Answer to TiVo from the New York Times. More cluelessness from big media. Basically, they are developing a system that allows "Tivo-like" functionality, but all the content and technology is held at the head end (in other words, centrally controlled). These guys still don't realize that the horse has left the barn, the train has left the station (fill in any other bad analogy you would like here). The Internet has proven that successful networks allow the power to go out to the edges.

Tivo accomplishes that by allowing the user to take control of the content. Even the lame, Tivo-like features that they are discussing here: time shifting, pausing, fast forwarding, etc. -- are rendered less useful to the user by serving them up from a central location. Will your local cable company have the bandwidth to execute on this? What happens when there's a great play during the Super Bowl (or another Britney Spears commercial), and everyone on your block hits the rewind button at the same time. Even more important...will you pay more to your cable company for a Tivo that inserts ads when you pause, fast forward or rewind?

I don't really refer much

I don't really refer much to my two years at McKinsey (not a consultant, mind you. Just a lowly knowledge management worker.. ;-) ), but this story from the New York Times, McKinsey Selects New Leader, does a good job of summing up where the firm is at these days. Lots of smart people there, but it's just not a good time to be a consultant.

Via Boing Boing Blog: The

Via Boing Boing Blog: The LA Times is breaking a story that's been making the rounds on a few Apple Rumor sites...Apple will launch a "legit" music downloading service just for Macs and iPods.  This is very exciting.

"This is exactly what the music industry has been waiting for," said one person familiar with the negotiations between the Cupertino computer maker and the labels. "It's hip. It's quick. It's easy. If people on the Internet are actually interested in buying music, not just stealing it, this is the answer.''

That last sentence describes me to a tee. I hope that "person familiar..." is right.

Google has become so effective

Google has become so effective at finding stuff on the web that it has actaully crawled it's way into databases that should not have ever been exposed to the public. In this Wired story, read every hospital and medical practice's IT nightmare come to life as Drexel University winds up with 5,500 medical records publicly available online.