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Multipurpose Expedit

admin — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 01:42:43 +0000

My apartment has a strange living area layout (almost pentagonal), and, being one to need my separate spaces, I wanted to create a conventional rectangular living room with a functional triangular office space. Ikea to the rescue! Given that my apartment is only 650 sqft and has a monstrous bedroom and walk-in closet, I needed multi-functional furniture. The Expedit anchors the living area. From the front, nothing looks amiss – just an Expedit TV shelf with the standard trimmings (and an extra large TV! A Samsung LN42C650).

Nothing to see here. Just a plan Ikea Expedit.

The first tweak is some functionality+art. Come around the side, and you find that the Expedit is actually a room divider. The large side panel made for a beautiful canvas in the middle of the room that seemed ripe for some custom subway-art, which I designed in Photoshop and ordered from Etsy as a vinyl applique ($60). The text itself is religious in nature and reflects the spirituality I like to have at the center of my life (which fits nicely with its location in my apartment). A little further around the corner and you’ll find my office space where I can read and work away from the gorgeous time-suck of an HDTV armed with Netflix/Hulu/Amazon Video.

Subway-Art on a blank Expedit canvas.

The back of the Expedit is rather boring. It’s a giant blank panel of solid particle board – strong enough to bear some weight and definitely in need of some life. Unfortunately, the space behind the Expedit is limited and I wanted both a computer desk and a reading table, but also a way to stash one away if I really wanted extra space. I looked for a drop-leaf table and found a great option right at Ikea – the Bjursta in matching black-brown. By setting the table height right at the bottom of the TV back-panel, the leaf rises to the perfect height for a desk – 30″. At that height, all the mounting screws for the Bjursta are actually screwed into the back panel for the Expedit long shelves. I grabbed two VESA swivel mounts from a local computer shop and drilled keyholes into the back of the TV panel to run wiring (hidden, conveniently, behind the TV) for two monitors which fit beautifully side-by-side. The wiring emerges through the cable management gap Ikea so graciously built in between the TV and AV shelves. Lighting from above is provided by two Ikea Lagra spotlights attached to the shelves, and wired across the top and side of the Expedit.

Two Acer monitors mounted side-by-side.

Where, though, to put the computer? Originally I had it in one of the shelves facing the living room, but changing CDs (and even hitting the power button) was annoying because I had to walk around to do it. My slimline Gateway Sx2800-01 is only 4″wide and the Bjursta shelf protrudes 5″ from the back of the Expedit. Realizing that it would fit perfectly with a natural conduit for wiring in the swinging arm of the drop-leaf, I bought three 5″ corner braces from Home Depot and screwed them into the bottom of the shelf backing using #10 1 1/4″ wood screws and set my computer on them. The extra inch means I don’t really have to use any sort of restraint system to hold the computer in place AND it forces the drop-leaf to fall at a right angle when let down for a more finished look.

Computer mount on corner braces.

Now, I can easily swivel my chair between the reading desk and the Bjursta/Ikea computer desk, the small office feels double the previous size and fits my needs perfectly. I can drop the leaf and slide even further away from the desk or raise it to work on my dual-screen setup. Oh, and since you’re wondering, the keyboard and mouse live on the other side panel of the Expedit, where I have a small bin attached and the Mohu Leaf HD Antenna powering free basic channels in hi-def. (Sorry, I forgot the photos!)

Separate spaces thanks to Ikea!

So let’s see, this Expedit does the following:

1) Entertainment Center + Storage
2) Room Divider
3) Modern Art Piece
4) Dual-screen Computer Workstation + Mount
5) Antenna and Device Holder

Hmm… Now that I think about it, I’m not certain there are any more surfaces on this thing I can actually use. Well, what do you think of my multipurpose hacking of an Ikea legend?

Making Sense of the Stock Market Swings

admin — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 18:40:18 +0000

Rollercoasters are fun. At least as long as we’re talking about amusement parks and not 401(k)s. The past three months in the stock market have been surreal ride at times. It’s a heaven for traders but a nightmare for individual investors managing their retirement nest-eggs. In fact, Wall Street and corporate America have done so much to disenchant individual investors that Prudential Financial noted that 44% of Americans will never put money back in the stock market. The current volatility isn’t doing much to change that. These swings of 1-2% up or down on low-to-dismal volume has a lot of pundits wondering why, after an amazing run from March 6, 2009, the market has stagnated in a sideways trend for the past quarter.

Perception of stocks is at an all-time low. Source: Prudential Financial

Bad tech quarter. Market down 0.75%

Bailout news from Europe. Market up 1.4%.

Bad jobs data. Markets down 2.1%

It’s like the S&P ran right back to 1350 and then hit a lead ceiling that it can’t seem to break. There are a lot of theories. Most revolve around some form of trading-the-news. Not that it matters to me, though, since I don’t buy that story. I think the explanation is much simpler, and, unfortunately, much more ominous.

On October 12, 2007, the S&P500 hit its all time high of 1,557 points. This was the height of the economic “boom” of the Bush era. Financial alchemists were busy in the Wallstreet Lab, producing more and more complex derivatives, and the Loan Wizards at your neighborhood bank were supplying the raw materials in the form of ARMs and HELOCs. New properties were being built, old ones were being renovated, and times were good. Confidence in the American dream was at an all-time high.

Skip forward to June 1, 2011. Closing at 1314.55, the S&P500 index endures an intraday thrashing of over 2%. By virtually every measure, our economy has not recovered. Unemployment high, home sales low, consumer confidence low, and the list goes on. Yet somehow, some way, the stock market indexes have found their way to within 15% of their all-time highs. Does that mean the entire decade of the 2000s was just vapor growth? Probably not since we had just come out of a ridiculously large tech bubble that defined “vaporware” in more ways than one. If we consider even some of the growth in the subsequent years to have been “real” economic growth (benefitting Main Street, too, not just Wall Street), then it’s difficult to find the current index market valuations to be anything but complete horses***.

Of course, current valuations incorporate other variables beyond “book value” such as uncertainty risk and growth prospects, so let’s look at it from that angle. There is no doubt that uncertainty regarding the housing market has ebbed significantly since 2007. It has been replaced, however, by serious uncertainty in the solvency of entire countries (Greece, Ireland, Portugal, etc.) and the long-term feasibility of a major world currency, the Euro. This is not a risk to be trifled with. Debt default in one country may destabilize other ones as confidence in the Euro falls. At least in the United States, we have one-country-one-currency. So perhaps the real reason for the spectacular 2 year run in the stock market is the growth prospects.

Let’s see… Where can we grow fast? Cars? Housing? Well, hard to get financing these days, not to mention $4 gas. Maybe agriculture? I’m sure congress wants to give them more subsidies in a deficit scenario like ours. How about technology? Ah, yes. Knowledge Process. All we have to do is make sure our students are the best and the brightest… Oh.

Unless there are some drastic changes in the United States, our growth potential is limited, and I believe that an unconscious knowledge of this is manifesting in the volatility we see in the stock market. We have to generate a serious solution to this problem to be able to move up from here.

Drilling anywhere, cutting everything BUT entitlement programs, “tax cuts for small businesses,” and clicking ones heels three times and chanting, “I’m exceptional!” do not constitute real solutions to this long-term viability problem the United States is facing. We must compete on a global scale now. That means our wages and prices have to come down and our productivity has to go up. We cashed in a century’s worth of investment in a decade, so it’s time to start again.

No, He’s Not Crazy. Just Cool.

admin — Fri, 27 May 2011 15:52:13 +0000

Sarosh Jacob has filmed some amazing videos over the past few years from his travels around the world. This video of Sarosh swimming with swarms of landlocked jellyfish has a surreal beauty about it. It’s little surprise to me that this made the frontpage of reddit.com (which is where I unabashedly stole this from).

My favorite is the scene where its raining and he dives downward and the jellyfish slowly come into view, swimming around him and bouncing off him as the surface gets further and further away. The myriad textures and colors would make each frame its own unique work of art.

Mother nature is truly amazing in every which way. Her elegance is supremely humbling in so many simple ways, and stunningly surprising in all the ways you didn’t even think were possible. Here’s to hoping we don’t rape and pillage our planet into obsolescence. If only our progeny can also marvel at sting-less jellyfish.

Before You Leave the Hospital, Do This!

admin — Tue, 24 May 2011 20:04:45 +0000

There is no dearth of advice on how to be a better patient. It usually pertains to behavior, questioning, and follow-up the outpatient setting, and most often while in the exam-room with the doctor. As medicine changes, however, a new behemoth threatens the health of patients. Called “transitions of care,” these are periods when patients are in transit between providers; whether in the same facility during a shift/service change, between hospitals, or from hospital to primary care clinic; or between health states from curative to palliative/hospice or independent to assisted living.

With the current failure of electronic medical records to efficiently convey this information between providers on behalf of the patient, the patients themselves are left with the responsibility to convey this information, often at times of mental or physical health distress. Besides leading to repeat procedures and increased cost, these patients likely experience worse outcomes as a result.

TRANSITIONS OF CARE refers to the movement of patients between health care locations, providers, or different levels of care within the same location as their conditions and care needs change.

As a medical provider, I believe that patients should take an active role in managing their healthcare. From one perspective, they’re paying for it, so they should be watchful of their resources. From another perspective (and the more important one), patients will always know themselves better than the doctor will. Physicians should help patients optimize their understanding of their health status, especially when facing a care transition.

One effective model of patient-centered transitions of care involves the development of a Personal Health Record (PHR). PHRs contain personal information that is relevant to easing your navigation of the system, including but not limited to:

Personal identification and emergency contact information
Contact information for all your physicians
Health insurance information
Living wills and medical power of attorney
Dated list of past illnesses and surgeries
List of current medications and known allergies

This should be updated at every point of contact with the healthcare system. Nevertheless, this record will remain incomplete as it does address the interval period during a transition of care. A sample one can be found here courtesy of CMSPulse.

Information like “what to do if [X] happens” is notably absent. To address some of these issues the following intervention activities checklist was developed to facilitate discharge and the interval period prior the patient’s next point of contact in the healthcare system.

You should not leave the hospital until these questions and issues have been sufficiently answered and addressed and you would feel comfortable giving an answer to that question in your own words. And trust me, a medical provider who sees a patient taking this kind of interest in assuring their own health will be happy to spend the time making sure you understand.

As medicine evolves in the United States and transitions of care become commonplace, the onus will continue to be placed on the patient to make smart, informed decisions. Your healthcare providers at all levels are a resource to you to make that a reality. Use them.

Winning the Drug War: Disruptive Ideas to Control the Drug Trade

admin — Tue, 24 May 2011 18:55:27 +0000

Mexico lost another battle in the war against the cartels this week with asylum-request of the youngest female police chief in the history of Mexico. Twenty-one year old Marisol Valles Garcia took the job in the border town of Praxedis G. Guerrero fresh out of school after no one else signed up – the previous chief was abducted and decapitated. Despite her promise to focus on social issues, one she backed up by not having body guards and hiring female police officers who didn’t have guns, the harassments by the cartels did not stop. The reported death toll is almost 35,000 in the last five years.

That’s almost one killing per hour, day in and day out.

How to Disrupt the Drug Trade:
1) Increase supply
2) Exploit pricing and revenue
3) Redirect funding
4) Create new markets

This war is about the drugs that American citizens consume. It is about the border we try to make impermeable but let people, guns and drugs through like a sieve with a gaping hole in it. Marisol’s bravery is without reproach as best I can tell – she thought outside the box for solutions and did what she thought was best for her townspeople. It’s time we started doing that with the drug war.

Let’s be honest for a moment. We will never rid the world of drugs. We will never rid the world of drug-related crime. There have been, are, and always will be people who would rather waste the entirety of their existence in a opiate-tinged stupor. Billions of dollars and thousands of lives make it pretty clear these are the wrong goals. We need more people like Marisol to think outside the box. We should be open to outlandish ideas, mine for data that allows us to exploit pricing and availability in more savvy ways than seize-and-destroy.

Here’s some radical (and probably terrible) ideas for how to end the violence in Mexico and alter the tide of the drug trade:

1) Allow more product in. Legalize cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana use in the United States and charge a heavy import duty for foreign product (10% of gross product weight) that is still less than current product loss by seizure (typically 15-50%, depending on the substance). The goal is to drive down prices and let usage reach a new equilibrium at a higher supply/demand intersect, which could reduce access-related crime.

2) Exploit pricing advantages. Sell currently seized or tariff-based product inventory in quality-controlled distribution centers. Offer high-quality product at marginally higher prices to starve demand for low-quality product. Tax registered dealers at competitive rates to incentivize creation of efficient distribution networks or co-opt existing cartel based networks. (Yes, that’s right, I said the government should sell drugs.)

3) Redirect funding. Direct sales and tax revenues to education and incentive programs. Target evidence-based remedies that lower use frequency and increase time-t0-first-use. These increase an individual’s productivity in the years most commonly robbed by drug use (18-35). Create an education guarantee: Don’t use drugs at all, and the government will pay for college at a 4-year public institution in your state.

4) Alter market fundamentals by creating drug-user communities in abandoned ghost towns where high-quality product is available for cut-rate prices to individuals engaging in community upkeeps/public works services. These towns will receive Special Economic Zone (SEZ) status, and production facilities in this town (manufacturing, assembly, etc.) will receive export tax benefits and the employees can receive trade-able credits for free product.

There is no doubt these ideas are probably grossly flawed. In fact, I can think of a few problems already. But the truth is we need to be honest about what is and isn’t working in this war. Maybe we should stop treating it as a war, accept that drugs are here to stay, and make the most of it.

I want to hear your disruptive ideas. Post them down below!

Understanding Psychosis: A Case Report

admin — Mon, 23 May 2011 01:57:31 +0000

Psychosis as understood by the lay population (and portrayed by the media) constitutes a very narrow interpretation of an otherwise broad concept in psychiatry and mental health. Unfortunately, this misunderstanding has penetrated the medical field as well with many practitioners at all levels from medical assistants to physicians. This has many implications, from the social stigma associated with carrying this title to poor treatment efficacy.

Downloads:

This case report and presentation show that confusion in the terminology used to define psychosis can lead to poor history-taking and progress monitoring during treatment and offers an alternative definition of psychosis as a continuum of symptomatology rather than discrete categories (though the latter may still be a useful way to define the spectrum).

Protected Health Information in the case report and presentation has been redacted to protect patient confidentiality. If you feel that further redaction is necessary, please contact me immediately.

Your Decorating Hotline

admin — Mon, 23 May 2011 00:39:43 +0000

Cindy and Terrie run a fantastic blog to help design-handicapped folks like me do it right. It may not be flashy, but the content is amazing. They even answer questions personally!

My Employer: Exempla St. Joseph Hospital

admin — Sun, 22 May 2011 18:52:37 +0000

I am studying Ob/Gyn in Denver, Colorado at Exempla Healthcare’s St. Joseph Hospital. Visit them. Visit me!

TED: A Light Switch for Neurons

admin — Sat, 21 May 2011 22:55:29 +0000

The human mind and the brain in which it lives is the last great truly unexplored frontier.

This TED Talk by Ed Boyden is a good introductory insight into the goal of controlling individual neurons or single classes of them. Whereas pharmaceuticals take a shotgun-approach to neuromodulation, this version of the holy grail potentially gives much finer control of neurologic disorders such as schizophrenia, PTSD, epilepsy and others, by modulation of dopaminergic neurons, pyramidal cells, or basket cells to the exclusion of others.

The application of vectored channel rhodopsins in blindness is a particularly interesting correlate application.

Mother Nature’s Finest: The Aurora Borealis

admin — Sat, 21 May 2011 10:46:49 +0000

Aurora now, fair daughter of the dawn, Sprinkled with rosy light the dewy lawn. – A. Pope

Gently flowing across the night sky, the Northern Lights grace the skies like streaming ribbons in the hair of the Seven Sisters. With a serenity that belies the high-energy science, Mother Nature’s own light show reminds us, even in the darkness, of our inextricable dependence on the Sun. With its equally gorgeous southern sister, the Aurora Australis, these cosmic dances wrap the ends of our planet in a perpetual wreath of color.

And though many have tried, describing their beauty has proven difficult for even the most adept in the language of men. A picture is worth a thousand words, but this film by Terje Sørgjerd silences the mind.

Click the play button above to show Sørgjerd’s video or click the images below to see some of the best aurora photos from Flickr.com.