Compressed

While checking through Evernote for items containing the word, compressed, I came across an article which talked about ten things you can do to improve your computer's performance.  I immediately tried one, that of dealing with some of the items in the start-up of the computer.  Skype has been insisting on starting up when I open up the computer, and getting a call from a relative when you're still in your pyjamas and haven't put your teeth in is a bit disconcerting.  So that's been sorted. 

I've was interested to note however that the article also talked about opening up your computer and cleaning its inside.  Crikey.  That sounds a bit scary.  Making the computer work without opening anything extra up is enough at the best of times; opening the machine itself sounds too technical for words.  Not that I haven't been inside a computer a few times in the past, but that's usually been out of necessity, not for a spring clean. 

Anyway they suggest, among other things, using a can of compressed air to dust the interior parts.  Don't touch anything!, they also warn; just let the air do the cleaning.  You don't need to set out and buy air compressors for the task; that's overkill (or is likely to kill your computer dead, from the inside out).  A small can is all that's needed. 

Continuing on with the subject of compression, I was reminded that there's talk of using cassette tapes as data storage, in this case, big data storage, like all the information that floods through Facebook on any one day, or the 1 petabyte of info (that's a million gigabytes to you) from the world's largest radio telescope.  Now presumably, just as you won't be using a full scale air compressor to clean out your computer, you won't be using one of those manky old cassette tapes you've had stuck in a box since the 80s to store any data on.  These tapes will store "35 terabytes of data - about 35 million books worth of information - on a cartridge that measures just 10 centimetres by 2 centimetres."  The tape will be coated with particles of barium ferrite.  Of course you all know what barium ferrite is, but I had to look it up on Wikipedia, and truth to tell, I wasn't any the wiser when I had. Anyway, this fancy stuff seems set to change the way we store data.   As long as the cat doesn't get hold of the tape, and play at running around the kitchen with it, unravelling it as it goes...

Upskilling

Having a (newish) daughter-in-law who's in the medical line of business (she's a Physician's Assistant) I'm a little more aware of the wider world of medicine than I was when I was purely a patient.  Not that I've been a patient very often - at least as far as being in hospital is concerned.  I've only ever stayed in hospital twice in my life, once when I was 21 and once in 2009, by which time I was 64.  

And my daughter-in-law now has some very funny stories to tell about medical experiences - although when she tells them they seem much funnier than when I try to repeat them.  We were on Skype to her and my son yesterday (they're in the States) and she was telling us about how she was treating a Spanish patient in the ED where she works.  He spoke no English, so there was a translator involved as well.   My daughter-in-law had hiccups while she was examining and questioning the man, and suddenly he said something in Spanish and then went BOH! at her.   She was a little puzzled, especially when he did the same thing again.  Finally it was explained: he was doing to her what he would do to a child who had hiccups: giving her a fright.

This isn't the sort of thing you're likely to learn in medical school, and it's probably not something you'd use very often.   And I'm not sure if my daughter-in-law wants to go learning anything more at the moment: she's been studying for what seems like forever, and has some student debt to catch up on.  

However, for those who feel the need to catch up on some extra credits, or to upskill, there are a variety of courses available, courses that once upon a time wouldn't have been dreamed of: it was assumed that when a doctor was trained, that was it.  But these days there's a sense that a doctor's training needs to keep going, and not just in catching up with the latest developments in medicine.  Consequently there are all sorts of courses available, such as a medical teaching course or a medical management course.  These are especially useful for those who already do some training of other staff themselves, and who need to make sure they have the requisite skills.  It's a bit like the assessments students do of their lecturers; if the latter don't come up to scratch, then some updating of their teaching skills may be necessary.  Not every University- trained person automatically makes a good teacher.   In the medical field you can even attend a teach the teacher course (I sometimes think some school teachers and lecturers could do with something similar!)  And if you're in the administrative department of a hospital you might even attend a consultant interview course.

Of course, you might not want to keep attending courses!  Fitting these into an already busy medical life may be something you'd want to put off.  However, from my experience as a patient, I can assure you that the more informed the medical staff are the better.  For some doctors a 'treating the patient as a human being' course would be a good option.  I note that this kind of thing is now being included in the six-year course that doctors go through.  Thank goodness!

First Webinar Status

This morning I rose at 5.45 am in order to have the experience of going on a webinar. A webinar is a web-based seminar, as the link says, and "a key feature of a webinar is its interactive elements - the ability to give, receive and discuss information. Contrast with Webcast, in which the data transmission is one way and does not allow interaction between the presenter and the audience."

So there you have it. This was free webinar, which was just as well in view of what happened. And it was on a subject which I wasn't anxious to know more about; I was happy to listen to the seminar, but wouldn't have been cast down if I'd missed it. Which was just as well.

I'd booked the webinar about a week ago, and worked out from their little dinky linky thing that if it was 3 pm on Wednesday at the place where the webinar was coming from, it was 6 am on Thursday here in New Zealand. It was very kind of them to tell me so.

I gave myself a bit of time to sit down and get set up and discovered the first issue. I had to download a little programme in order to participate. Okay, not such a hassle.

I then realised, of course, that webinars require you to use a phone line, and so I rang the number (in the States) and was told that my access code was invalid, in spite of it being the one they'd sent me. Nothing would persuade the machine voice otherwise.

And then I realised that even if I'd got on the phone, it was going to cost me the price of an international toll call - for the hour I was on there. A change of plan was required (by this time the webinar had well started). I went and got the Skype earphones, and then realised (it was one of those mornings) that the plugs for these earphones are in the back of the computer - not the most accessible of places.

My wife - listening to my pacing back and forth from bed - got up and told me the sensible thing would be to use the laptop, which has a plug in the side. Went and got the laptop from the other room, carefully leaving the earphones behind as I did so.

Got Skype set up, found the earphones after some bewilderment as to how they could have wandered off on their own, and then found that we couldn't ring Skype to Skype, we had to ring a telephone number.

This required topping up the Skype account - in Euros. (Don't ask me why NZ has to use Euros.) Topped up the Skype account, and then discovered that I couldn't just copy and paste the phone number into the Skype box because it was one of those on-screen key pads. Had to go and check the number again. Type it in. Finally hear the sound of the seminar coming to an end and the question time beginning.

Had the joy of listening to questions about a topic I hadn't heard.

Nevertheless, I achieved first webinar status. At the end, when it was all over (it went from 6 to 7 our time) the person hosting the webinar forgot to turn off the connection at their end, and I had the joy of listening to her discussing with one of her colleagues how the thing had gone, how many people had joined in (180) and how few had 'put up their hands' to ask a question. They may be connected still, but I had to go to work.

Photo of a lady in red listening into a webinar by Pete Gray.

Radio ga ga

I haven't listened to internet radio much - or streaming radio, as it tends to get called here - but it is something quite amazing. It's a bit like the whole business of Skype, which my wife and I have been sorting out for when we go to England next week. Hearing the radio through your computer is a peculiar thing, especially when the quality is as good as you'd get on your own radio - well, most of the time. I've had patches when it's a bit hesitant, or there's some obvious interference, but overall it comes across very well. And it's great to have such a choice! When the program on the Concert program isn't to my liking - for instance, when they're playing something I've heard just once too often, or it's Tuesday night and Kate Lineham is on with her Sound Lounge, where all manner of 'music' is played, much of it quite inferior. It's often only played because it's 'alternative' in some way.
We 21st century people are more than spoiled for choice - there's so much choice in everything that's available to us. Of course, I'm talking about us middle-class Westerners who have the world at our feet, when all is said and done, and who as well off as many of the people who were considered wealthy in the 18th and 19th century. In some cases we're better off, in fact. We just don't realise how well off we are, which doesn't really do us much good, in the long term.