Saturday morning coffee [October 5 2013]

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.” – Arthur Schopenhauer

So much happens each and every week that it’s hard to keep up sometimes. Here are some of the tabs that are open in my browser this morning along with some random thoughts….

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 was #1 at the box office last weekend. This is good news for Sony Pictures as they haven’t had much of a track record recently. What I find interesting about this movie is that I don’t recall the first one being all that popular. It reminds me a lot of the popularity for the second installment of Despicable Me this summer. It seems that the legend of both movies grew significantly after they left theaters. I wonder if it has anything to do with the combination of the target audience, i.e. kids, and the availability of things like Redbox, Netflix, etc. It’s so easy to watch a movie from home these days, which would make it easier to expand the market for kid’s movies over time outside the theater. Just a thought.

Jerry Fahrni semi-employment chronicles, day #72. No longer “the unemployment chronicles” as I’m technically no longer unemployed. I’m still working part time with a couple of per diem shifts a week in a local hospital. Of course I’ve had several people ask me to do things for them out of the kindness of my heart. I think I’ll stick with the paid gigs for a while. Just sayin’. I’ve had some interviews, but none have gone anywhere. Have another one next week with a company in the great state of Texas.

The most visited post at jerryfahrni.com over the past 7 days remains Why pharmacy continues to fail. No other post even comes close. Then again, I haven’t put much up lately.

Just in case you were unaware, which is entirely possible I suppose, the Government simply shut down this week. There are so many things wrong with this that I don’t know where to begin. Our government sure has become something to be viewed with disgust instead of pride. The United States has become one of “those countries”.

The first Tesla S fire was reported this week. It happened in Kent, Washington. I don’t know all the details, but it appears that a piece of metal punched a large hole in the car’s battery.  No one was injured. Looks kind of neat, doesn’t it.

The Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare” went into effect on Tuesday, October 1. Not without some glitches, but it’s up and running. It turns out that the timing for me is pretty good as I will shortly become one of many uninsured Americans. I visited the healthcare.gov website on Tuesday to check things out. I answered a few cursory questions and was referred to the Covered California site for more information. The Covered California site was completely jacked up. It was running properly when I checked back on Thursday.

Fecal pill anyone? Medpage Today: “Gel caps containing concentrated fecal microbes stopped recurrent Clostridium difficile infection and were well-tolerated by recipients, researchers reported here.” I know, it sounds gross, but the concept of fecal transplants for severe, recurrent C. difficile colitis infections has been around for a long time. C. difficile colitis can be absolutely brutal.

S.B. 493, legislation to expand the services that a pharmacist is authorized to provide was signed in California by Governor Jerry Brown on October 1. It’s definitely a victory for pharmacists in California. You can read more about the Bill here. There’s also a little blurb in the Fresno Bee written by a UCSF Pharmacy Student.

Mashable: “The new solution [high-tech vending] allows consumers to scan a smartphone on a vending-machine sensor, which will activate a touchscreen interface with purchase options. If the consumer has the SAP Hana app installed on his or her smartphone, the cloud menu can recognize the user and will eventually build a user profile based on purchase history. Consumers can select promotional offers and give feedback on their purchases.” – Forget about big brother spying for a second and think of the potential use in healthcare for such technology. A vending machine could be “aware” of an individual’s disease state and/or allergies and alert them in the event that their snack choice is contraindicated. It could also provide information back to a healthcare provider in a case where the patient is on a strict dietary regimen for one reason or another. Think about it.

Ok, this guy is great.

Pharmacy Times: “Pharmacists working in teams alongside primary care physicians, cardiologists, and nurses can help improve care of heart failure patients, according to 2 new studies presented on September 23, 2013, at the Heart Failure Society of America meeting in Orlando, Florida.  Both studies indicate the importance of team care in managing high risk patients and the significant role pharmacists can play in improving patient care.” – There are many, many studies like these in the wild. Good information to be sure, but the profession rarely does anything with the information.

Journal of Pharmacy Practice September 24, 2013 – Outcomes Assessment of a Pharmacist-Directed Seamless Care Program in an Ambulatory Clinic: “… the seamless care pharmacist (SCP) identified an average of 3.7 DRPs per intervention patient. The SCP identified more DRPs in patients receiving adjuvant treatment compared to those receiving palliative treatment. On average, family physicians, oncology nurses, and hospital pharmacists were satisfied with the SCP intervention indicating that they agreed the information collected and distributed by the SCP was useful to them. Pharmacist-directed seamless care services in an ambulatory oncology clinic have a significant impact on clinical outcomes and processes of patient care. The presence of a SCP can help identify and resolve DRPs experienced by patients in an outpatient oncology clinic, ensuring that patients are receiving the highest standard of care.” – Warning, there’s a paywall for the full text of this article.

One last article about pharmacists then I’ll stop. The Annals of Pharmacotherapy – Quality Improvement in Health Care: Opportunities and Responsibilities for Pharmacists (Ann Pharmacother September 2013 vol. 47 no. 9 1206-1209). Entire article is available for free so there’s no excuse for you not to read it.

The above tid-bits on pharmacy got me thinking about Evernote; sometimes the mind wanders. I continue to use Evernote for a lot of stuff and have been thinking about making much of my content public. I clip a lot of information about pharmacy practice, automation and technology, mobile healthcare, etc. There may be someone else out there looking for this type of info as well. I’ve often thought about creating an online repository with references to like articles, websites, images, best practices, videos I’ve taken, etc. Evernote might actual accomplish this goal without having to do much. Although it wouldn’t work for my videos. I already have one public Evernote Notebook out there. It contains RFID information that I’ve collected over the past couple of years. I started it when I was thinking seriously about RFID technology for pharmacy. I don’t do much with it these days, but it’s still out there for anyone that’s interested.

Behold, the very first images of a hydrogen bond. Images taken from The Verge, who I’m sure took them from this Royal Society of Chemistry article.

Dells went berserk this week by announcing a gaggle of new laptops and tablets.  As I’ve said many times I’m not a fan of Dell machines, but they’ve managed to grab my attention. They’ve embraced the concept of Windows 8 and have offered multiple form factors, along with multiple screen sizes. Oh, and they’re supporting the pen! I love what’s going on in this space at this point in time. I’m beside myself trying to keep up with all the new Windows tablets and ultrabooks. It’s a very exciting time.

Speaking of exciting machines, the new Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus is spectacular. Depending on how things go over the next few months I would like to purchase a new machine some time around the first of the year. I’m still undecided on what strategy I want to use, i.e. full tablet, hybrid or ultrabook, but the ATIV Book 9 Plus is at the very top of my ultrabook list. Check out the MobileTechReview video below for more information. It’s long, but insanely thorough. By the way, I think that Lisa Gade of MobileTechReview does the best reviews of anyone on the ‘net.

Speaking of lists, sitting at the top of my great-inking-experience-pure-tablet list is Microsoft’s Surface Pro 2. You can pre-order Surface Pro 2 now if you like, just in time for Christmas.  Just in case you were wondering I’ll take the 512GB SSD model. The 256GB version would be OK if you’re pinched for cash.

And, just because everyone needs a set of $700 Carbon-Fiber Dominos. Yes, that’s right, $700 domino set. Hey, it caught my attention.

Do you sometimes feel like we’re moving backward in terms of tablet technology? Hard to imagine given where we’ve gone in the past few years, but I have to wonder when I see something like this: IBM ThinkPad TransNote, circa March 2002.

Football is back, and I’m thrilled, but the NFL that I’ve come to know and love is changing in a way that I’m not happy about. The game is rapidly evolving into something more akin to flag football than tackle football. The spread offense has now become “the in thing”, and rules eliminating good hits are in full effect these days. Quarterbacks are virtually untouchable, defensive backs are now limited to a small target in the middle of a receiver’s body, and running backs can no longer “lower their heads” before plowing into a linebacker. Gone are the days when defensive players separate a receiver from the ball, or when a running back simple runs someone over to get that extra few yards; think Earl Campbell . Today I see quarterbacks and receivers alike slide down or step out of bounds a majority of the time prior to being touched. What happened to “football is a game of inches”?  Mark my words, before I die the NFL will have eliminated nearly all physical play. And please don’t cry about NFL players getting hurt. They know all too well what can happen. None of the potential risks are secret, none. I would have given my left arm to continue playing football beyond college. No amount of risk would have changed my mind at the time.

Ugh, Major League Baseball games are like cockroaches this time of year. You’re out and about and you see one scurry across in front of you. You’re briefly disgusted at what you’ve just seen, but quickly forget about the experience and go about your business.

“I told a Chemistry joke, but there was no reaction…” – I laughing on the inside right now. Almost blew coffee out my nose.

And, just because I thought it was funny. Honest Trailers – Star Trek Into Darkness (feat. HISHE)

Have a great weekend everyone.