Posts Tagged 'sundries'

Computers in Health Care – Take 2

Posted on March 22nd, 2010 · Posted in Impact and Symptoms

I mentioned in a recent post Lesa Becker’s study of the impact of computer adoption on hospital personnel. Well, I was visiting in a hospital the other day and noticed the wheeled computer the doctors were lugging around to patients’ beds, so I asked staff members whether the move to computerized patient records is a boon or a bane. Opinions varied as to the time impact: all agreed it takes longer to use, with older folks feeling more affected than younger ones; but I was surprised with the reply of the head nurse. She replied with an emphatic condemnation of.. Read more

Tweeting the world

Posted on December 8th, 2009 · Posted in Off-topic

One of the nice things about using Twitter is that you get to “meet” interesting people from all over the solar system (yes, yes, all from one planet, for the time being). I was amused, however, to get a message from a person that expressed delight at meeting on Twitter someone from Israel. The Internet is global and universal, after all, a prime expression of the supposedly flat world we live in, and we’re used by now to connect and interact with people from all countries without second thought; and this person told me she has Twitter friends from a.. Read more

How much information?

Posted on November 5th, 2009 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

Am in the US, where I gave a lecture in an interesting conference called “Information Growth. Is it what you think it is? – How much information 2009 summit”, organized by the Global Information Industry Center at UCSD. The summit was held to present first results from the “How Much Information?” (HMI) research program, which is sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and seven hi-tech companies. The research program works to quantify the amount of information that flows into the homes and workplaces of people in this day and age, and to understand how it is divided between different.. Read more

Mine eyes have seen the Glory!

Posted on October 26th, 2009 · Posted in Off-topic

No, sorry, not of the coming of the Lord. Earlier today, while flying over the East Coast, mine eyes have seen the Glory, a lovely but elusive optical phenomenon. I know what it is because of an old Scientific American article I’d read as a kid, which discussed meteorological optical phenomena, mainly rainbows of all kinds. The Glory was perhaps the strangest of the lot, and it stuck in my tender future-physicist mind. As you can see in the rather poor photo I managed on my Nokia, a Glory is a circular rainbow that forms on a cloud of water.. Read more