Tales of Hoffman

Tale of Hoffman at AAFP 

Tale of Hoffman at AAFP  Arrived yesterday without incident and now about an hour from the exhibition floor opening. It should be interesting to get feedback directly from docs about Medscape since we really haven't had a presence at these large conferences in quite a while. It's always good to talk to real users. One of the drawbacks of being in the Web business is the inability to actually see your users (customers). I like that contact. Again, if you're reading this and you're here in San Deigo (probably unlikely), stop by the Medscape booth #2921.

Information Storage - Medical Knowledge. 

Information Storage - Medical Knowledge.  Jacob Reider at Family Medicine Notes has a thought-provoking entry concerning how docs think about retrieving knowledge (whether it be from databases or books on their shelf).

Dave Winer can superimpose a hierarchy of thoughts on how many people organize their homes.   So long as we learn good searching strategies . (yes .. hierarchies again .. I hear you coming, Dave!) .. and maintain good search engines . it doesn't matter at all.  We physicians have strugges for years to develop nomenclatures that describe medicine.  ICPC, SNOMED and ICD-9 are all examples of such attempts.  ugh. 

Although the above is only an excerpt, I couldn't agree more with that last statement. As someone who has worked for a long time trying to figure out how to help docs find what they want on the Net (not to mention time actually spent working in a job with "Knowledge Management" in its title), I can attest to the messiness of this topic. All of those nomenclatures are just "tagging" systems. They don't accurately reflect how a person thinks about medicine...they are just convenient ways to reflect how a machine "thinks" about medicine. If done correctly, it can help a search engine get better results, or assist in providing some semblance of navigability to a structured set of information, but not much more.

The best solution is transparency. Just as there's no one site that can answer every question a doc may have (although Medscape does a good job! ;-) ), there is no one way to organize information on a web site that reflects how every doc thinks about solving a problem. The best we can do is try to present the information in a way that makes it clear how the site builder is organizing the topics and make it incredibly easy for users to navigate that organization.  As I said...sticky problem. Feel free to solve it for me and let me know what you come up with.

The Efficacy of Duct Tape

The Efficacy of Duct Tape vs Cryotherapy in the Treatment of Verruca Vulgaris (the Common Wart). Thanks to Family Medicine Notes for finding this one.

Is 'Dell Dude' Steven Done

Is 'Dell Dude' Steven Done For?. Nothing could make me happier. He gives "Steven"s the world over a bad name....

Tales of Hoffman Hits the

Tales of Hoffman Hits the Road Come see me at the AAFP Scientific Assembly in the Medscape booth. I'll be there from Thursday through Saturday. It would be extremely cool to actually meet someone who has read my weblog. I'll also try to lob in a few posts from the exhibition floor to let you know what's going on.

Clash of Internet Privacy Policies.

Clash of Internet Privacy Policies. A good article from the NY Times about how new "automatic" settings in Microsoft's IE browser are making it very difficult for large scale sites on the web to serve their pages without jumping through hoops. I'm all for protecting privacy on the web, but in my opinion, the "Privacy Mafia" has gone overboard in scaring everyday surfers about abuses of their privacy on the net. At Medscape, we deal with this issue every single day, and having folks nervous about who's placing cookies on their machine makes it extremely difficult to deliver the level of service that we know our readers want.

Let's face it: With the amount of traffic that a large scale site gets, not only does the site not necessarily care where you, Mr. Smith, goes, but I've never seen a company with the processing power and knowhow to actually make sense of that data in a way that can do harm to you. In short...relax.  By all means, read privacy policies and avoid sites who have policies with which you feel uncomfortable, but don't assume that cookies are harmful to you. Most companies that are placing cookies on your machine are doing so in order to provide you with better service.

F.C.C. Blocks EchoStar Deal With

F.C.C. Blocks EchoStar Deal With DirecTV. This article from the NY Times is actually old news left over from Friday, but interesting to those of us who use DirecTV, Tivo and HDTV. I'm all for competition in the satellite TV industry, but this news is potentially bad for those of us looking for the availability of more HDTV programming on two fronts: First off, the pairing of EchoStar and DirecTV would have given that combined company enough satellite capacity to offer many, many more HDTV channels than either one can possibly deliver today. Secondly, if this deal is off, all signs point to DirecTV being acquired by News Corp., who -- through their actions (or rather inactions) with their Fox network -- have shown no inclination to produce or broadcast true HDTV programming.

Wired News: A Site for

Wired News: A Site for Your Eyes. Holy Template, Batman! Wired News has redesigned their site. Some cool stuff here, especially the ability to change the size of the body text right from the navigation bar. The part I like the best is the ability to get to the "Elsewhere on the Web" section without scrolling for one or two mintues. Jury is still out on their decision to change the color scheme every day. That may prove to be interesting or just annoying. Unfortunately, they're still stuck with that stupid Terra Lycos frame at the top of the page...it does nothing but make some corporate honcho happy.

What I did on my

What I did on my fall vacation.... So, just back from the Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, NY. Yes, the place looks just like the picture in my post from last Friday. Absolutely amazing, actually. Here's the mini-short-capsule review:

The hiking, golfing and other outdoor activities are unparalleled. I'm not a big hiker, historically, but the trails are great, especially the hike to "Skytop," a monument built to the founder of Mohonk Mountain House in the 1920s. It's on a peak about 1,500 feet high, and from it, they say you can see six different states. I don't know, I got up there and expected to see a bunch of dotted lines and labels..."New York," "New Jersey," "Vermont"....I just couldn't see it. ;-)

In any event, we were outside hiking around for most of our stay. And that's a good thing, since our room reflected the fact that the place was probably built close to 100 years ago. It wasn't dirty or too run down, but it was old in style and the bathroom gave a whole new meaning to the term water closet (actually, two different closets: bath and toilet in the door to the right, sink in the door on the left. Really!). The food was largely a disappointment.

On balance, if you want a great place to spend the day hiking and doing outside stuff, I recommend you go as a day visitor. Otherwise, plan on brushing your teeth in the closet to your left.

No blogging till Thursday. Off

No blogging till Thursday. Off to hike, golf, and otherwise enjoy the fall season at the Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, NY.

Hopefully, I'll have some nice stories to share on my return.