bookofjoe gets hate email! Tons of it, in response to the following open email to my local Mac Users Group:
Published April 17, 2004
As I read the posts about how to sync this with that, install this on that, etc., I'm reminded of the idiotstick anesthesia residents I occasionally suffered the misfortune of being assigned to supervise back when I was an attending at UVA.
These girls and guys were supersmart, no question: Phi Beta Kappa, AOA in med school, graduates of MIT, Harvard, and the like.
Yet, while a patient was anesthetized, paralyzed, and artificially ventilated, with their belly open, the surgeon screaming and digging around, blood spurting everywhere, these fools would be focused on some monitor that wasn't working properly.
I remember one guy actually asking me to get him a fresh 9-volt battery for his nerve stimulator so he could assess the degree of a patient's neuromuscular block while she was trying to rip off her arm restraints and climb off the OR table.
"Look," I said to him. "Look, what do you see?"
"Oh," he replied.
"Now push some relaxant, and stop this shit," I said.
I urge all of you who believe that getting the most from your technology is the goal to reassess.
It's what you do with it that matters.
The rest is a ridiculous waste of your time and your life.
- bookofjoe gets hate email! Tons of it, in response to the following open email to my local Mac Users Group:
- Published: April 17, 2004
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- Section: Culture
- Writer: bookofjoe
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Obviously what you need to do when using tech is be armed and hammered.
I remember at a journalism conference where Xerox donated a "publishing system". It didn't work and we wound up relying on typewriters and ditto machines (and when was the last time you could high from sniffing your blog? Bet you don't feel so special now!)
What I meant to type was "get high" which is similar to "getting small" but only if you know the right people who have the right LPs.
And Apple doesn't make turntables, yet.
"I urge all of you who believe that getting the most from your technology is the goal to reassess. It's what you do with it that matters. The rest is a ridiculous waste of your time and your life."
Whew! Now that was worth quoting.
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You are so right Dr. Joe, tools are only tools unless the tool-owner is a tool. We all need to step back and get some perspective from time to time.