good ideas

Because in every hospital in America, patients die because of hierarchy

09 March 2010 By captbob 0

The New York Times is running an article about Dr. Peter J. Pronovost of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, who's made a career of hospital safety. His work was highlighted in a New Yorker article about 18 months ago. But this particular article highlights the nexus between political culture, physical organization, and method.

Speaking of journalism...the NY Times is doing a lot right

19 May 2009 By captbob 0

I LOVE this new feature: http://www.nytimes.com/timeswire/index.html

It works great, provides great content, and I suspect I'll be using this as my NYTimes interface from here on out.

Just as an aside, I think the Times approach of subtly introducting new features is the right way to do things: it provides a good soft-launch to assist in debugging, and if it doesn't work, they can just as quietly retract the feature and work on it until it they can make it work well.

Words of wisdom from the other Capt. Bob

15 May 2009 By captbob 0

Bob visited us for dinner last night. As usual, we had a great conversation and good libations. He provided more than his usual number of insightful observations, and I just wanted to get a few of them down. These aren't necessarily the best ones, just the ones I remembered this morning.

"I'm not sensitive, but I'm trainable."

"We live in an age of splinter skills."

"You can't bullshit a boat. You have to do it right, or pay the price. You may be lucky for a while, but sooner or later you're going to learn about nature and yourself. Most people give up."