Medicine

Technologies Old and New

by

A roundup of stories/posts/videos I found interesting:

The Jacquard Loom  is historically important,   not only for its direct impact on the textile industry but also for the inspirational role that it played in the emergence of punched cards and computers.   Jacquards are still very much a live industrial technology, although the warp threads are now lifted by computer-controlled solenoids or hydraulic cylinders rather than by direct mechanical linkage.   Several attempts have been made to create affordable Jacquard looms for home use, but they have foundered on the cost of purchasing and installing a solenoid for every warp thread.   Here is  a very clever way around that problem.

Also, an explanation of  how a traditional Jacquard works.

Speaking of the textile industry, I wrote a couple of years ago about  attempts to automate apparel manufacturing, especially the work of an Atlanta company called Softwear Automation and their product  Sewbot.   So I was interested the other day to see  this piece about apparel automation in Bangladesh.

See also this report from McKinsey on Nearshoring and Automation in the Apparel Industry.

Reviving manufacturing in Singapore, with the aid of  robotics.

Are  electronic medical records  actually  a detriment to knowing the patient?

Outgrowing Software…Benedict Evans suggest that  when  everything is a software company, then the important questions are somewhere else.

Also from Benedict Evans:  Are You a Seal?   (If you are, watch out for Amazon!)

Constructing a bridge in  Prague,  in 1357.

Speaking of construction: Automation in the Construction Industry

 

(An earlier version of this post was published at Ricochet; member feed only)

 

Septoplasty, Part One

by

Last Thursday I had a Septoplasty. I thought it might be interesting to some of our readers to read about it from beginning to end. Of course it isn’t really over yet as I’m still in the recovery phase, but I can’t really do much as far as any real activity goes so I decided to do this. I am also wanting to put this short series out as a guide for those who get this procedure done in the future so they know what to expect and how it all goes down. It may also give a glimpse for our foreign readers into how our medical system works in the good ‘ol USA.

Part One, today, will be pre-op, part two will be the actual surgery day, and the final part will be recovery. I may add an epilogue later with financial information and insurance and how that all went down.

Below the fold will be part one, pre-op.

Read more

Worthwhile Reading and Viewing

by

Much political anger is based on attributing to opponents views that they don’t actually hold, according to this study, summarized and discussed on twitter here.

Paul Graham, who himself writes some interesting essays, says:

No one who writes essays would be surprised by this. When people attack an essay you’ve written, 95% of the time they do it by making up something you didn’t actually say, and then attacking that.

The skill of surgeons varies tremendously, with bottom quartile surgeons having over 4x as many complications as the best surgeons in the same hospital…so says this study.   And surgeons are keenly aware of who is good & who is bad – their rankings of others are very accurate.   Summarized and discussed on twitter here, where there is also a reference to the classic study   showing 10X range among programmers, and another study measuring the impact of managers on revenue performance in the game industry.

Some innovation stories from small US manufacturers, and a shop-floor driven tooling innovation at GE Aviation.

Speaking of tools, here’s a study suggesting that using mechanical tools improves language skills.

The limits of narrative, at Quillette.

Ryan Peterson, CEO of the digital freight forwarder Flexport, discovered an AI tool that lets you create art without being an artist, and has been having fun with it.