Tales of Hoffman

Two mini book reviews: Just

Two mini book reviews:

Just finished Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. I know, I'm probaby way behind the times on this one, but it is being featured prominently as a paperback in the most discriminating airport bookshops. If you haven't yet read it, you should. Stephenson has done a great job of weaving two generations of characters into a fast moving, Indianan Jones-like story where cryptography is the topic that holds it all together. I actually learned more than I thought about cryptology and code breaking (appealing to my inner-geek) and was thoroughly entertained for most of the 1,000+ pages it took to get through this tome. An interesting sidelight is that by virtue of being written during the "Big Boom," this is a little time capsule of how we all felt, jet-setting around the world and making up (and sometimes making believe) business as we went along. A really good read.

Now, I'm in the middle of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow. I wrote about how Cory has had the guts to put his work out there for people to share on P2P networks with the confidence that folks will still patronize bookshops (and his publishers) to purchase the book. It's working for me. I'm reading from the PDF file on his site, but I will certainly click the link above and purchase a copy from Amazon: 1) because I want a "permanent" copy of this one for my bookshelf and 2) because I want to make this thing a conventional success (by measuring the number of mentions this is getting in the blogosphere, it's already a Net success) so Cory can go on writing for many years. This book is a head rush of ideas. Asking what would happen if the most current thinking about community on the Net were applied to everthing in "real life," this novel has had me smiling from the first page onward.

As someone with WDWOCD (Walt Disney World Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and a card carrying member of the Medical Blog Ad-Hocracy, Cory has managed to push all my buttons. Get this book (download, buy, whatever!) and read it. It'll make your head spin...but in a good way (like a ride on the Mad Tea Party).

Just back from Phoenix. Can

Just back from Phoenix. Can somebody tell me how my two visits there in the last three weeks happened to coincide with the only two rainstorms they've had there in about a year? Sorry, but my Seasonal Affective Disorder is getting the best of me.

David Weinberger was on NPR

David Weinberger was on NPR last week with a short commentary on how Wi-Fi availability, combined with laptops, blogs and IM can add a subtext of rich communication in and around technology conferences.

So what were people typing? Well, that's where the Wi-Fi effect gets really interesting. People weren't just taking notes for themselves. I mean, why be so selfish when you could press a button and post your notes to the Internet on your Web log, as at least 15 people were doing? Oh, and there was lots and lots of Web linking to one another, to further content on the topic being discussed, to articles arguing for it, against it. It was competitive linking, soon to be a major Olympic event.

So, here's the question for us (by "us" I mean you and me, dear reader). How long before we get this going at major medical association conferences. I know there are folks out there who work with the medical associations who's answer would be an immediate "Never." I'm a little more optimistic than that. I think it will come, eventually, but it will require one extremely forward looking Association to take the lead and prove the concept. Any out there? If you are, let me know.

Here's a really interesting Group

Here's a really interesting Group Blog by a organization called "Pursuing Perfection in Whatcom County, WA". Here's how they describe themselves:

Pursuing Perfection in Whatcom County, WA. is the current phase in our community's ongoing improvement of the healthcare system. Our efforts have been clarified by the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) Quality of Health Care in America Project and it's final pronouncement, Crossing the Quality Chasm Report, Our efforts have been accelerated by a two year, 1.9 million dollar grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; matched by the investment of more than three million dollars of local provider funds. We have as thought partners the staff of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and more than a dozen other organizations in the US and Europe who are working together toward very similar goals.

There's a whole network of links here that lead to blogs by docs (Marcus Pierson, added to the blogroll to the right), administrators and others who are involved in this project. I'll be keeping an eye on this and commend them for using the blog format for communicating their progress. I can't think of a better way to give others a look inside what's going on, for better or worse. Kudos. (thanks to reader Sebastien for clueing me in on this one!)

2/24/03 NOTE: Getting a ton

2/24/03 NOTE: Getting a ton of hits on this via NewsisFree, so I've found another source for the link. Enjoy!

Bush and Blair sing a love song duet in this 4.3MB Quicktime movie. I was literally guffawing out loud in my cubicle this morning...good thing I get in earlier than most...(Via the Boing Boing Blog)

This story by the Associated

This story by the Associated Press talks about a new lawsuit:

"The practice of showing commercials before the start of movies defrauds the public and should be stopped, according to lawsuits filed against two movie theater chains."

Excuse me, but aren't there more important things for you lawyers to worry about? Why not just get your seat and go buy popcorn for the 12 minutes of commercials and coming attractions? Let's be reasonable here. If I were to go around and sue everyone that wastes three minutes of my time, I might have to set up a cot in the courthouse.

Hey, the Medscape RSS feeds

Hey, the Medscape RSS feeds got a mention on Jenny the Librarian's Shifted Librarian site. Very cool! Thanks, Jenny.

I am really happy

I am really happy to announce that Medscape, the leading news, information, research and CME site for Physicians on the Internet has joined the RSS revolution. We are now publishing RSS feeds of our headlines in each specialty for which we have a home page. And if you really want the full picture of what's going on in medicine, you can subscribe to a full site feed that syndicates just about every article, news story and CME program that is published.

This is a direct result of my experiments here in weblogs, as well as interactions I've had with the "Doc Bloggers" in the column to the right. Admittedly, we are one of the few sites that rely on getting people to look at our content on our site launching this feature (and outside of technology-oriented sites, you can probably count the major media participants on one hand), and are certainly the first serious medical resource to do so.

So why aren't we afraid that publishing an RSS feed will actually lead to less traffic on our site? It comes down to this...we believe in the quality of our content. We know there is nowhere else on the Internet where you can get the same timeliness, focus and professional quality of medical information. If you are a doctor (or you are interested in medical information), our RSS feed is the best way to stay up to date on what we are publishing, and you will invariably want to visit our site to see the whole story.

Let's see what happens....

Absolute proof that (at least

Absolute proof that (at least on the net) advertising does not establish brand. Usable functionality wins every time. Solve a problem for your users and make it easy for them to do so and your brand will win. Very simple. Very cheap. And very scary for all those ad agencies, brand consulting organizations and marketing gurus who make up the "advertising industry."

From Paul Thomson, a nurologist

From Paul Thomson, a nurologist at UCLA, striking time-lapse images of the brain of an Alzheimer's patient taken with an MRI over the course of two years. My Grandmother has this horrible disease and there's an eerie feeling one gets looking at these clinical images and thinking about how much this image parallels the deterioration of mental capacity. It's a hard disease, and in some ways even harder on caretakers and relatives.