Why I don't blog about the day job

In a way, I'd like to be more of a writer.  So, why don't I write more about the day job?

I put it down to two factors: Privacy is one thing.  I deal a lot in specifics, and the more specific you are in terms of an issue or a clinical scenario then the greater the risk that I might say accidentally something which breaches patient confidentiality or corporate confidentiality.  I know some bloggers manage decent levels of pseudonymity, however I'm a bit risk-averse on this point.

The other thing is the gap between my everyday and the reader's everyday.  It's easy to forget how the things that seem mundane to me might seem exciting to others.  Would today's work bore them? I wonder.

Raspberry Pi:First Thoughts

Back in March, technology-circles were dizzy with glee when the Raspberry Pi went on sale. The websites handling sales crashed in a way strongly reminiscent of Take That tickets going on sale. And then... delay

 As a result of unexpected demand and a few unexpected glitches in the far east it took about two and a half months for my Raspberry Pi to arrive and become yet another piece of hardware that seemed a good idea at the time.  However, the question does arrive: what do I do with it now?

Give it credit where it's due, it's an amazing feat to create a functioning caseless PC in such a size and for such a cost.  It was never designed for people like me: a magpie-eyed technological-dilettante who never got beyond swapping PCI cards.  Just how do you hold it without touching human-static fragile components?

So I'm a bit left in limbo while people who it is designed at work out what to do with it.  Yes, there are some wonderful ideas coming through, but I'm limited by time, experience and talent from doing anything cutting edge with this cutting edge tech.

From the perspective of my living room, I'm feeling a bit like this infamous story from 1970s California where an early computer - the Altair - was the subject of much wonder and interest - but nobody could actually make it do anything useful

"Steve Dumpier set up an Altair, and laboriously keyed a program into it. Somebody knocked a plug out of the wall and he had to do that all over again but nobody knew what this was about. After all, was it just going to sit and flash its lights? No....
You put a little eh transistor radio next to the Altair and he would by manipulating the length of loops in the sofware - could play tunes....
The radio began playing 'Fool on the Hill'....Da da da, da da da....and the tinny little tunes that you could tell were coming from the noise that the computer was generated being picked up by the radio. Everybody rose and applauded. ... I proposed that he receive the stripped Philips Screw Award for finding a use for something previously thought useless. But I think everybody was too busy applauding to even hear me."

From Triumph of the Nerds PBS 2006 episode 1 : (Transcript)

iPhone clinical app wishlist

Let's have a thought exercise: Imagine you're about to give every junior doctor in a hospital an iPhone.  However, this iPhone will be crippled so that it's little more than a phone and a web-browser.  Before it's crippled, however, you have a choice of any clinical applications to install on everyone's iPhone - and then access to the appstore will be turned off permanently.

Obviously a clinical calculator would be good, but which one?  What other apps would be good for junior doctors?

(And yes, in this purely hypothetical scenario, let's assume I've already asked the doctors concerned what they want).

My small contribution to the Romney Bandwagon

I don't have an iPhone, so I can't download this not-particularly impressive social media application, designed to promote would-be-US-president Mitt Romney for his campaign for the newly-founded state of Amercia.  They'll need their own currency, I reckon - so here's my draft for US Lol-lars, and with a potential national motto.

No need to thank me, Mitt.  A trip to Camp Daffyd will do nicely.

Community Pharmacists: What's the worst that could happen

Today I found out that a hospital near me is considering that nearly all patients being discharged will get an additional discharge letters with instructions to hand them into their usual pharmacy.  The advice will suggest they arrange a targeted MUR, or alternatively discuss their medicines with the trusted local healthcare professional.

On the surface of it: great.  It directs patient to an aftercare service that us hospital pharmacists can't provide, where we can rely on any medicines problems being sorted out professionally.  It might even stimulate development of professional services so community pharmacy isn't as reliant on the current volume-based system.

I'm just wondering if it could end up not so rosy.  So I'm wondering if community pharmacists could have a think about what's the worst that could happen in this scenario.  Is there something that could go wrong, or is this my English skeptico-cynicism trying to pick holes in it?

Comments much appreciated.

What am I on about?

Last night I had an idea of having a look at what sort of things I tweet about on my main account @kevfrost.


I used the service Tweetbackup (http://tweetbackup.com) to generate a CSV file of recent tweets which I then categorised manually in MS excel.  It pulled off the past 837 and I've used the past 500 as my sample.  These 500 were tweeted over a 2 week period between 21st April and 5th May.


My self-defined categories of tweets are as follows

Computing      111             (Including social media, hardware, gadgets)

Humour            94

Pharmacy         73              (Including medical and other professions aligned to pharmacy)

Media              63              (Music, movies, TV, newspapers and other "old media")

Politics             50              

Interaction        48              (Tweets purely about interacting with other users)

Life                  26              (Tweets purely about what I'm doing now)

Work               17             (My day job)

Spectacle         10             (Photos etc that made me go wow)

Running             8

Now obviously, there's certain events that bias my results, this period covered the UK local elections 2012 and the London Marathon, so there's perhaps more about these than normal; and I wasn't running due to illness so there's less about that than normal.  This is to be expected in a reactive social media like twitter - I post to react and reflect on what's happening and what I'm seeing.

One in Thirteen Thousand (Giving Up Twitter For Lent)

Apparently 13,937 people gave up twitter for Lent. According to someone who's used Twitter's API to calculate this. A classic of selection bias if you ask me, but of course being an atheist, I'm the last person you should trust on matters of religion.

I'm one of them. But when does Lent end? I was taught in Sunday School and Church-sponsored primary school that it was 40 days from Ash Wednesday, to commemorate 40 days in the wilderness, but others tell me it lasts until Easter.

Ash Wednesday was on Wednesday, 22 February 2012. Easter this year is on April 8th. There's 46 days between them. This is one of many things that I find Christianity confusing. Perhaps that's why there's a whole field of study (exegesis) telling us why the bible doesn't mean what it appears to mean at first glance.

Anyway, I reckon my 40 days of ignoring the best source of news about the subjects and people I care about is over on Monday 2nd. It's been an interesting experience of determining the difference between savoir and connaitre in terms of habits and giving them up. However, I haven't suddenly started phoning people more or asking to see people in person - as some would think you might.

So what did I miss in my 40 days in the social media wilderness? Anything worthy of note?

Twitter isn't for Buddhists

I'm now about 32 days into a state of (almost) silence and deafness on Twitter. One thing I'm particularly reminded of is the Buddhist concept of "monkey-mind", and how social media entities such as Twitter and StumbleUpon rely upon and potentially exacerbate this state of mind.

For those who haven't flirted with Buddhism on occasion (or more), Monkey-Mind is a metaphor for "the random, uncontrollable movements of the monkey symbolise the waywardness of the native human mind before it achieves a composure which only Buddhist discipline can effect.". It's a bad thing, in other words. It points to the restless, magpie-like tendency of some people to reach for the next shiny thing. Twitter is all about the next shiny thing - be it a bon mot, a celebrity's indiscretion, the glamour of being retweeted by a celebrity or the repeated opportunity to bond with a group of like-minded friends.

Buddhism suggests that perhaps it would be better to be content without a constant stream of shininess. Another monkey metaphor comes in handy here - that of the monkey trap. You stick a treat in a box that a monkey can stick it's hand into but can not pull the treat out of with the treat in it's grasp. The monkey doesn't let go, because it wants the treat and doesn't realise it's trapped until it let's go. Buddhism is all about letting go of that which is temporary and alluring in the material world and focusing on the bliss of the calm soul.

At the moment, I like shiny. And I like shining. I like the passion I get from caring about this temporary and alluring universe that I find myself in. It's nice to be reminded that there are other paths though.

Random idea of the month: Anaesthetic toothpaste

Every so often I come up with a random idea. Most will never go anywhere, apart from on this blog, where I offer it up freely for consideration.

How about pre-school children's toothpaste with very mild local anaesthetic included. The idea being that: when they're teething and hate the idea of anyone poking their teeth, then the act of brush their teeth relieves the teething pain.

I can think of at least one reason not to do this, feel free to add yours in the comments.

There goes the warfarin clinic....

http://www.prescriber.org.uk/2012/03/nice-guidance-dabigatran-in-af/

A tale of two citations

As my twitter-silence continues (nearly) unbroken during lent, another reflection from the things-I-would-tweet-about-if-I-wasnt-doing-this-lent-thing-for-no-good-reason department.

Yesterday I was catching up with some RSS feeds and I happened upon an article about thyroxine that contained an error that was so woeful it made me very very woe-filled.

I won't go into details of why it missed the subtle point of the press release it was recycling, nor how a pharmacy undergraduate would have easily spotted the error. Instead, let me speculate on how it illustrates nicely two approaches to social media.

There was another error, far far less woeful, about a drug called warfarin. In that case the author and I reciprocally follow each other on twitter and so we had a conversation abot the issue. A few other twitterers did the same. The author corrected and improved the article. Result: Improved article, more respected author and placated moaning me.

A key element of social media is building relationships. With relationship comes engagement, respect and trust. The journal publishing about warfarin understands this and benefits considerably.

The journal publishing about thyroxine prefers the other model: social media is a support mechanism to stabilise the print edition. I dont know who wrote the thyroxine article, there's a comment field but I dont know whether those comments will ever be seen. There's a generic twitter feed, used as a quasi-rss feed of articles published and generic email addresses.

Result: incorrect article remains, and I moan about it on blogspot.

I know which model of social media I prefer.

Linux excitement...fails.

It's @Raspberry_Pi day. And I am locked outside the virtual Raspberry Store doors :( It's like buying take that tickets...

Disconnect: #Givinguptwitterforlent day 4:

One of the issues I notice whenever a new social network launches is that what matters with social networks isn't the technology: It's the people.

An  social network is like a children's playground. It can contain the most cleverly designed play equipment, but it's the fun that children have that matters - in terms of social media that fun requires other people.

Today's dispatch from the land of the Twitter-exiles is a feeling of disconnect from the friends that I use twitter to connect to. The people I can't ask about south african Syndol or tell that Im 99% through to being a student again in March - my reflective essay passed.

Social media allows friends to connect when distance would have previously made this impossible.

Will you remember me? (#GivingUpTwitterForLent day 3)

There aren't many great songs about dementia, but my favourite is BRITISH SEA POWER's "REMEMBER ME". The video takes a slightly different meaning of the title, looking at memorials asking an inattentive public to remember them.

I have heard it said many times that the internet remembers everything. This has led some to consider that users should have a right to be forgotten. I rediscovered my first ever personal website last week, and I'm glad that it's forgotten but mildly disturbed that it's forever available should one know where to look. (You'll never find it, honest.)

I'm musing a bit about twitter, seeing as how I'm seeing what happens when I disengage from it for 40 days (see last few posts). One score it has over other web services is it's ephemeral, throw-away, forgettable nature. It's hard work to get beyond the past few dozen posts someone has put up, so things fade into the hazy distance of the readers' memories. While blog post are normally arranged into searchable date folders, I don't know what I was tweeting about this time last year, nor do I really care.

Not that people haven't suffered for the one time they put things up that could be misinterpreted as threatening airports or the United States of America. But these are the exception to a medium that appears to forget you.

Feel free to tell me I'm wrong in the comments below, of course!

The guilt of absent friends (#givingUpTwitterForLent pt4)

One thing I'm certainly missing from not being frequently on Twitter is the comraderie. In particular there are some people who are going through major changes at the moment, who Im wondering how they're doing.

Am I neglecting my friends by not keeping an eye on their tweet streams? Am I overdramatising my absence and in fact they're relieved that I'm not butting in?

Do any of us know what the impact of us on other people, really?

An alcoholic gives up vodka and muses whilst sipping whiskey

So Im now nearly 24hrs without twitter and my major reflection is summed up in the title. I am clearly plugged into digital networks to a huge degree, and stopping using one of my favourites in isolation is, for want of a better phrase, a bit daft.

So things I'm missing about twitter:
-Being able to hop into an alternative mental reality whenever I want, with some of the greatest people I know
-Having news that Ive tailored to my interests. Yes I want to know the minutiae of that and what she is eating.
-Being able to clown around with people that don't mind it
-Heated debate about random yet vital ideas
-Being able to express myself about anything I want to people who choose to listen.

All of the above won't be much surprise to any one who's used social media for a while of course. . .

And it turns out I'm not alone in considering a non-religious religious rite. . .

The question I'm musing on now is how do I differentiate the connections between my mind and technology which are social media and those which aren't. Today Ive used at least three 1990s web technologies for functions I normally use twitter for. Im still connecting with many people to develop relations. Does the use matter rather than the tools?

Id never go as far as trying to live without the internet these days, any more than Id try to live without leaving my house.

(And I'm deliberately using the spelling for bourbon rather than scotch whisky before *he* moans)

Practicing good behaviour (#GivingUpTwitterForLent pt2)

Giving up something relatively trivial for a period of time is useful as a demonstration to yourself of your motivations and your automatic behaviours.

I've noted before that, for me, the idea of telling people your goals is self-defeating. Apparently for many, the thought of having other people cheering you on is beneficial; whereas I find it intimidating to the point of suffocation. The one exception to this is occasionally I react towards someone's disbelief in the manner of "well, I'll show you!"

Im catching a few automatic behaviours, and have nearly opened up twitter a half dozen times already.  The urge to deliver a bon mot, a sharp remark or a trite comment has arisen a few times too. Alas, these declarations of genius are lost in time; like tears in rain.

And of course, Im using trivial only in terms of Twitter not being an addiction any more than shopping at Morrisons. Im already collecting thoughts on what Im missing on Twitter.  Love you guys ;-)

Giving up twitter for lent

On a whim, Ive decided to give up twitter for lent. So until Maundy Thursday or Easter Sunday (have to check when 40 days is up) that means

1) no checking timeline
2) no responding to mentions (@'s)
3) no posting tweets

I will still get notifications of direct messages and read/reply these though (in case of urgency/importance).

Why? Well to see. It's not like I'm dropping social media - all other channels are fully open (should still be a link from my profile to my about.me page). However, twitter is definitely a habit and one should always explore what habits are doing to you.

And the irony of this blogpost being automatically set up to generate a tweet is a) allowed b) done with full knowledge of it's irony.

Blog post erm deferred

This evening I posted about a series of tweets which occured this afternoon which gave me some thoughts about how the retweet of a twitter message by a professional account changes the context of the message. Whilst I stand by everything that went in that post, rather than take the risk of inflaming that storm-in-a-teacup any further, I've deleted it and in a few weeks I'll repost it.

In case there is any doubt, no disrespect was intended to any party and the post was fully anonymised. I was merely pointing out potential learning points to aid our collective understanding of social media.

There's only one thing worse than being talked about...

By pure chance, yesterday I discovered that Googling the name of one of my colleagues at work brings up a Yorkshire Post news story about something they were involved with 3 years ago. The story isn't earth shattering, it's one of those "they did something maybe a bit naughty and a lot of people got very cross, but it all worked out okay in the end" type stories which are full of heat without major substance. I wonder if they are aware, and whether it's a cross they've just decided to bear.

It brought to mind a time that a new employee was appointed to a senior position more recently and, for want of any information about him, we googled them. Google had absolutely nothing to say, nor Yahoo, nor Bing. If you knew where to look, his credentials could be confirmed; but not a single triumph or disaster, nor a single merit or flaw were recorded in the Great Library of the Internet.

To me there's one thing worse being talked about on the Internet, and that's never having done a thing worthy of being said.