Stop the presses! Actually, don’t stop — please keep them running — there will be a new edition of Poor Charlie’s Almanack out next week. My pre-order is in. (ᔥDaring Fireball)
Quote of the morning:
My view is that any theory of what is wrong with American health care is true because American health care is wrong in every possible way.
Very true! This is from Alex Tabarrok’s review of what seems to be quite a misguided book about America’s handling of covid. I’ll take Tyler’s side of that debate.
Rest in peace, Charlie Munger. If you are… were… are a fan of Charlie’s and haven’t heard of Poor Charlie’s Almanack, may this post correct the error.
There is both a science and an art to medicine. The “art” part usually comes into play when we talk about bedside manner and the doctor-patient relationship, but recognizing and naming diseases — diagnosis — is also up there. José Luis Ricón wrote recently about a fairly discrete entity, Alzheimer’s disease, and how several different paths may lead to a similar phenotype. This is true for most diseases.
But take something like “cytokine release syndrome”, or “HLH”, or any other syndromic disease that is more of a suitcase phrase than anything, and that can present as a spectrum of symptoms. Different paths to different phenotypes, with only a sleigh of molecular storytelling to tie them together. Yet somehow it (mostly) works. It’s quite an art.
Without even knowing it, a doctor played the blankface roulette each time he applied for a passport. This year, he lost:
The Northern Virginia doctor was born in D.C. and given a U.S. birth certificate. At 61, he learned his citizenship was granted by mistake.
I have been dealing with the Lovecraftian horror that goes by the name USCIS for 15 years now, and this is not surprising in the least. Not everyone gets to have their story told by the WaPo, so good for the doctor for making it happen — like a true American! Give the man his citizenship.
I, for one, am still digesting Thursday’s dinner. There’s a reason why Thanksgiving is but once a year!
The funniest 10 minutes of TV I saw this year was made in 1953. What on Earth happened to American television? (ᔥThe Scholar’s Stage)
And the best one hour of anything I’ve seen this year just came out on YouTube: Kurzgesagt’s 4.5 Billion Years in 1 Hour video. Good television isn’t dead, but is it television?
This is the perfect number of times a year to have cranberry sauce: one.
As heard on the Omnibus. Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate! Again.
The winner of this year’s Interactive Fiction Comp is the delightful Dr. Ludwig and the Devil. Browsing the winners of years past gave me a few flashbacks from the early 2000s, my peak years of IF gaming; these two in particular. (ᔥwaxy.org)