Archive for December, 2004

First, Happy New Year to you all! We plan to stay home, as we usually do, and let amateur night at the bar, and therefore the roadways, pass. We’ll probably go outside tonight (unusually warm here) and listen to the fireworks, and the gunshots.

My other holiday celebration is our fifteenth wedding anniversary. I think we’re beaten the over by a lot so money no longer changes hands in either family. We’re glad to still be together, happy and healthy with a good family.

If 2005 is as good to me as 04 was, I’ll be the happiest man alive.

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ScrappleFace: Study: Family, Friends Reduce Quality Internet Time

A new survey from the Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society shows that relationships with family and friends may reduce both the quantity and quality of time spent surfing the internet…

Although I wasn’t part of the study (that I’m aware of), this would certainly explain my lack of posting recently. Fortunately, I now have all those pesky relatives out of the house and can resume my regular, inane programming.

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code blog: tales of a nurse: Grand Rounds, 14th Edition!The twenty posts of Christmas!

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OK, here’s a Christmas Challenge: name all 10 of Santa’s Reindeer. The answer is in the extended entry.
Read the rest of this entry »

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Linked to last year, and still funny, is the British Public Health Services’ 12 Sexually Transmitted Infections of Christmas, put to music.

Laugh, and learn. And be safe!

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PhysOrg: The Physics of Santa Claus

…”Santa obviously has an ion-shield of charged particles, held together by a magnetic field, surrounding his entire sleigh. This is how he solves the heat problem,”…
“Likewise, Santa Claus doesn?t travel in our four dimensions (remember that time is the fourth dimension), but makes use of some 11 dimensions. These dimensions make it quite easy to pick up gifts from his warehouse at the North Pole,” emphasises Oedegaard, while Nils Lid Hjort and Gaute Einevoll feel that recent string-theory allows for the use of at least 26 dimensions.

The more dimensions, the easier to deliver gifts.

Many answers to the real physics of Santa. Read the whole thing, which debunks the silly “Santa’d burn up going so fast” simplistic physics.

via Slashdot

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Mom has been a NMCRS volunteer for years, and literally 2000 hours of work. She recieved a nice recognition pin yesterday, and here it is:

It’s the Official Charity of GruntDoc, and it’s a family affair. Way to go, mom!

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If you’re a consultant doc to an ED, and the ED doc gives you a courtesy call that they’ve accepted a very critical patient for you to take care of, because a)you’re a doctor, b)it’s your specialty and c)you’re on call for that specialty, feel free to say “Thanks”, or even “OK”. A two minute tirade on how life is unfair, demonstrating that your mom obviously didn’t love you like your sibling, or that your undies are too tight isn’t really necessary. It is, in fact, painful and embarrasing to listen to, and we’re embarrased for you.

In fact, should you be a consultant in a system where the ED doc makes all the transfer acceptances, perhaps you’d like to change that system and take all the transfer calls for your specialty yourself, at all hours of the day or night, should you be on call. If not, perhaps you could act more like a professional, a physician and a colleague, and less like a spoiled child with a good vocabulary and a bad attitude. That’d be great, and everyone around you would be glad to work with you. The ED Doc would be glad to be out of the middle of that system, believe me.

So, you do your job, and we’ll do ours. Do your job without making ours painful, and we’ll help. Do your job with even a hint of a good attitude and we’ll go out of our way to help you out. We’re not your enemy, we’re ED docs.

also posted to LingualNerve

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My camera has returned, fixed. Photos to follow.

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JibJab.com Santa has a request, and he’s a little grumpy this close to Christmas.

via Code:TheWebSocket

Update: As of December, 2006, they’ve moved it: Santa, by JibJab

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Some perspective on medicines, and safety.
Shrinkette

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Training for Eternity

By the time I got back to our compound it was all over the news. It seemed like the thing had just happened when in reality I had been neck deep in it for several hours. And there it was on TV. Frankly, it’s kind of a blur…

As a doc I’d be really busy, and detached in that ‘this is my job, this is what I have trained to do’ way. I wonder if that’s how chaplains see it. Somehow, I doubt it. They are forced to deal with the emotion personally, without the barrier of science, clinical detachment, etc. I think that would be worse.

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Bad Day

Just in case you thought your day was bad…

via InstaPundit

Update: the last frame is a fake, the rest is real.

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USATODAY.com - Single-serving coffee can heats itself

Beginning Jan. 2, consumers can buy a 10-ounce container of Wolfgang Puck gourmet latte at the store and heat it by pressing a button. No electricity. No batteries. No appliances.

“It will expand the way people drink coffee,” says Puck, the celebrity chef with a growing empire.

How does the can do it? A single step mixes calcium oxide (quicklime) and water. It heats the coffee to 145 degrees in six minutes and stays hot for 30 minutes.

{Monty Burns}Excellent!{/Monty Burns}

via Slashdot

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CodeBlueBlog

…These are not just clones budding throughout the medical blogosphere; rather, we are watching unique individuals produced with information crossed, passed, and punctuated by bloggists who are inhabitants all over the map of modern health care. It’s a remarkable phenomenon — an evolution in front of our eyes…so keep watching. It’s sure to produce many new beings. here’s a sampling of this week’s best.

MedBlogs Grand Rounds is up!

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