Coffee buzz: Java drinkers live longer, big study finds; regular and decaf are equally goodBy Associated Press, Published: May 16MILWAUKEE — One of life’s simple pleasures just got a little sweeter. After years of waffling research on coffee and health, even some fear that java might raise the risk of heart disease, a big study finds the opposite: Coffee drinkers are a little more likely to live longer. Regular or decaf doesn’t matter.The study of 400,000 people is the largest ever done on the issue, and the results should reassure any coffee lovers who think it’s a guilty pleasure that may do harm.“Our study suggests that’s really not the case,” said lead researcher Neal Freedman of the National Cancer Institute. “There may actually be a modest benefit of coffee drinking.”
Frankly, I’d wee on Superman’s Cape before I stole a Troopers’ car:
CISCO — A 40-year-old Fort Worth man was in the Eastland County jail Thursday, accused of briefly stealing a state troopers patrol car. The car was wrecked after officers shot the tires, authorities reported.
Keep us in the ED here in your thoughts this weekend, as our area, along with Mother Nature and some unfortunate timing are conspiring to build the Perfect Storm for ED saturation.
Here in Fort Worth we will have the following:
The two largest nearby hospitals are going to new EMR’s this weekend
Every year marks an Anniversary of blogging, mostly to remind others I’m still here.
I started this inauspicious blog in 2002, not knowing really why. I still don’t know why. In people years that’s Ten Years, in the Social Media world it’s a lifetime.
Friends are the biggest thing I’ve gotten out of it, and I thank all of you who’ve taking the time to comment and occasionally critique. I’ve been to BlogWorld and met some terrific med bloggers, and have had fun conversations with others who are only internet buddies. This has continued in the SoMe world, and I continue to enjoy the blog but also Twitter, where rapid-action snark is appreciated/derided in equal measure.
It’s always odd to me that anyone even mentions I’m a blogger and that I have a blog; it’s like people pointing out you have good penmanship or have perfect attendance: it’s just something I do. I enjoy this, I’ve enjoyed the time spent here, and plan to continue.
I’d be lying if I told you I’m the blogger I used to be: clearly not. Re-reading some of my posts makes me realize I used to be a lot angrier, and that’s a big motivator for a blogger. I’m older, more established and frankly happier, which is a nice realization but is kryptonite for the rant blogger.
Professionally I’m doing well, plenty of patients and challenges, and yet: there could be more. I’ve recently been named (surprising mostly me) Director of Medical Informatics (chief tech geek and data dude) for the consulting company to which 130+ of us Independently Contract for the ED’s of the Gigantic Hospital Corporation, which we all like and respect. It’s a terrific opportunity, and a challenge I’m not sure I’m up to. Here’s hoping.
At any rate, as I’ve said before I’m too lazy to quit, so I’ll keep blogging.
Yeah, my name and email are on the bottom, but they’re a touch hard to make out... A little too easy to see, it turns out. Was a field of bluebonnets (my own photo). Cropped that bit out.
Upside: I will NOT have yet another clone of an Apple computer at the next meeting.
FYI, I got these (quickly and well made) from UniqueSkins.com
I think that was a WWII title for a series of propaganda trailers. (Maybe not).
Mohammad Ashan, a mid-level Taliban commander in Paktika province, strolled toward a police checkpoint in the district of Sar Howza with a wanted poster bearing his own face. He demanded the finder’s fee referenced on the poster: $100.
I watched those debates. Wish ‘d thought to take a pain killer, too.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry was under the influence of painkillers during televised presidential debates over the last year to help relieve severe back pain, according to a soon-to-be released eBook on the 2012 Republican race for president obtained by The Daily Caller.“It became an open secret that he was using painkillers in sufficient dosages to keep him standing through the two-hour debates,” write the authors of “Inside the Circus.”
We got about 4 inches of rain a few weeks ago, which must have been perfect timing for the bluebonnets (State Flower of Texas, by the way). They exploded, and they’re beautiful.
Here’s a pic from today (and this is just a convenience photo, there are much more dense collections around, but I was cycling and trying not to croak during the ride):
The red flowers, by the way, are still bluebonnets, but they’re called maroon bluebonnets. There, you learned something today.
Tonight, the clock shifts forward. Tomorrow, sunset moves from 6:07 p.m. to 7:08 p.m. But our work here is not done. If we really wanted to fill our lives with joy and save energy and money, if we really wanted to move beyond the fiction of our agrarian conception of time and into the modern world, we’d shift to year-round Daylight Saving Time–or, if we really wanted to embrace reality and maximize life, go to Double DST, a big, two-hour push forward of the clocks that would turn our summers into a marathon of gorgeous, endless evenings.
Here, adapted from my piece from this moment two years ago, is the argument for Double DST:
President Warren G. Harding didn’t like daylight saving time. If people want more daylight, he said, they should just wake up earlier.
Just think about the weirdness twice a year in payroll departments trying to keep track of this oddness. (Also, my EMR locks up on the fall-back, and that’s a problem).
On Tuesday, Apple issued the iOS 5.1 software update, and with it came a small but hugely symbolic change: the AT&T iPhone 4S data indicator now reads “4G.” Owners of the iPhone will notice no difference in performance or data transfer speeds; the device will not magically connect to AT&T’s shiny new 4G LTE network. It will simply receive a deceptive labeling change that allows AT&T to market the iPhone as a 4G device against competitive phones from Verizon — including, perhaps most importantly, Verizon’s own 3G iPhone 4S. It is a triumph of marketing for AT&T, and a rare acquiescence to a poor and confusing user experience for Apple.
But mistakes are learning opportunities. And in thinking about Star Wars, let’s leave the prequels behind and focus on the original trilogy. It occurs to me that the Star Wars films have a lot to teach us about leadership styles.
In particular, the Galactic Empire strikes me as a quintessential example of how not to effectively run an organization. Let’s take a look at five of the Empire’s biggest mistakes and see how you can avoid them in your own organization.
Mistake #1: Building an organization around particular people, rather than institutions.
