Tales of Hoffman

Newest Medical Device? A Super Soaker.

I love when people don't take themsleves too seriously, and this is a perfect example. Some Canadian Doc decides to help out a friend at a resort and clear his wax-clogged ear, but there's no syringe around. So he uses what he's got at hand...one of those mega water guns called a Super Soaker.

Of course, he could have left it at that, but no, why do that? Why not write an article for the CMJ? And, by the way, why wouldn't the CMJ accept said article? Why not, indeed!

Here's my favorite part, in the footnotes:

Disclaimer: Despite what bush-mad physicians may get up to on their private islands, CMAJ by no means endorses this particular application of the Super Soaker Max-Whatever. Do not try this at home.

Acknowledgements: The authors would like to particularly thank Mr. Charlie Bannister, age 4, for his gracious loan of his Super Soaker Max-D 5000 for this pressing clinical and social need.

Competing interests: None of the authors holds stock in the Super Soaker Max-D 5000, water pistols or any devices of that kind.

Read the full article here: A novel method for the removal of ear cerumen. Bravo, CMJ, for having a sense of humor.

(via Boing Boing)

Son, Step Away from that F5 Key...

(via Digg)

Stupidity rules again. Some high school student decides to see if he can bring down his school's computer system by creating a web page that makes a connection to said system every time it loads. He encourages classmates to load the page. Repeatedly. School finds out and calls....the cops!

Local media writes it up, it gets found by the Internets and, in classic Web fashion, the URL for the school gets posted everywhere. Now there are so many people connecting to the site that it doesn't load at all. If it weren't so rediculous, it would be funny.

I've Been Published

w00t!

After all these years, I've officially been "published" by Medscape General Medicine. Don't get too excited, it's only a letter to the editor. Hmmmm, I wonder if this means I'll eventually show up as an author in Medline? Med Gen Med is a Medline-indexed publication, after all....

Now, THAT would be cool.

Can Web 2.0 be Sustained?

When it comes to volunteering for Web 2.0 "betas," I find it pretty impossible to stop. I love to try out new things and try to figure out which of the big new things will be the big new thing. But trying out all of these apps, from Digg to Squidoo to Newsvine to whatever is next has brought a thought to mind: Are there enough motivated users out there to sustain this many community created content apps?

I'm finding it exhausting to figure out when to contribute, and to which app. If I find something interesting on the web, do I "Digg" it? Add it to my Squidoo Lens? Add it to Newsvine? If I do any (or all) of the above, do I still blog it? I'm having enough trouble finding the time/motivation to blog as it is!

With Squidoo and Newsvine offering to share in the ad revenue from pages holding my contributions, I'm sure the operators of these sites are banking on the lure of dollars to make me think of posting there first, but for most of the folks who are creating their own content or participating in sites like these, is it the promise of money that motivates them? Nahhh, so few people make more than a few bucks on this stuff that it can't be the motivating factor.

So, after quite a ramble....back to my original question. When will we reach the Web 2.0 saturation point? Are there enough users willing to contribute in a meaningful way to sustain all these startups? In the great words of Van Halen (one of my favorite absurd lyrics, by the way): "Only time will tell if we  stand the test of time."

Happy New Year!

A healthy and happy new year is wished to all. There's been so much activity in the web world in the last few months that I have just not had the time to comment on, but I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things this year.

I've seen this happen to a lot of bloggers out there as "real life" impinges on their ability to post on a regular basis. I've never been a daily poster (and probably won't ever be one), but I hope to make more contributions to the conversation than I have been lately.