Medical Arts

Clinical Cases and Images posted an article about Merriam-Webster's Visual Dictionary of Medical Terms (online edition) in 2008. It remains an excellent reference source, useful for medical terms and for general interest topics.

While visiting the Clinical Cases blog, I found and followed a link to the official website of the most well-known medical illustrator of the 20th century, Frank Netter.

I spent many happy hours looking at Netter-signed illustrations when we lived in New Mexico. There were so many of them in my father's medical reference books. Dr. Netter was an exceptional artist.

Did Frank Netter illustrate anything else, beside human anatomy? Did he have other artistic inclinations?

Frank Netter was born in 1906. He wanted to pursue a career as an artist. However his parents wanted him to do work that would ensure a good living. So he went to medical school near home, in New York City. Netter gradually transitioned from clinical practice, as a general surgeon, to work as a full time, widely acclaimed medical illustrator:

"The first comprehensive collection of Netter’s work, a single volume, was published by CIBA Pharmaceuticals in 1948. It met with such success that over the following 40 years the collection was expanded into an 8-volume series—each devoted to a single body system."

This multi-volume series was referred to as Netter's Greenbooks. Elsevier Publishing acquired Dr. Netter's collection of hand-drawn, then painted, medical artwork after his death in 1991.

That was as much information as I could find in the biographical information from Elsevier.

Frank Netter's images showed great sensitivity toward his subjects. I remain curious what sort of artwork he did in his spare time, and in the years before he attended medical school. The Morisstown Museum in New Jersey exhibited Dr. Netter's work recently. It was a large show, and ran from November 2010 through March 2011. More insight could probably be found there.

Finding the L0L0 cat

In the days of Google's youth

This is one of my favorite April Fool's Day special features from Google. The video is brief, so do listen, please? 

Things were different then, even though the year was already 2012. The Google Tokyo employee in the video is a native Japanese language speaker. Notice how he has fun with us, pronouncing all his "L"s as "R"s in English?! There's the subject matter as well, evoking Nintendo, I believe? That living room is so elegant and beautiful. 

Another subtle detail is the date. It is 31 March. Why? Well, because the date was already 1 April in Japan! 

I enjoyed the dial-up modem sounds.

The Google NES 8-bit is a replacement for what I had in its place when I originally wrote this. At the time, I had segued to something cartographic using a GIF from Funny Blog. Unsurprisingly, Funny Blog and the source of the GIF are both long gone. You'll have to use your imagination. The GIF was a special feline hybrid: The Cat Erpillar!

Funny Blog has a funny cat for you!

Source: Silver Jewelry Life

Where is the L0L0 cat?

The idea for this came to me from the lolcat internet meme, although this is more cartographic, than feline. I'll give one clue to solving the mystery of the L0L0 cat's location, and why it is special. The clue is:

"What is the name of the official Google map product blog on Blogger?"

Not the URL, but the name of the blog. I must intercede with another update. The official Google map product blog no longer exists under its prior name. (The format is worse too. Like every other website, each entry is arranged as a grid of square blocks, making it difficult to ever find anything.) In the past, it was called the Google Latitude Longitude Blog.

Have a look at the map, and observe the caption at the bottom center. The caption is truly L0L0 rather than LOL or LOLO. 

The map may be enlarged here by clicking on it. It isn't necessary to open it on another page if you don't want to, although you can by clicking the underlined caption below. I didn't use Google Earth, only Google Maps, so no additional software is required to view. (Google Earth formerly required a download of software in order to support 3D rendering.)

Click here for a full-size view of the Land of L0L0

The triangular red map-marker--with an exclamation point--shows the physical location of the L0L0 cat but doesn't solve the puzzle.

I hope I haven't given the answer away.

Ultra short epistemology post

So many clever people, such good writing, so little time!

I read something that I liked today. Let me share the joy. It seems fitting, particularly in these uncertain times, with a possible rapture scheduled for the weekend, amongst other things:

Probabilities are for understanding... Truth is a rhetorical device.

Tempered by this wry observation,

On the other hand, "justified at an 83.5% probability" leaves something to be desired for whipping the tribesfolk into a frenzied mob.

via Aretae: Short epistemology post

For more political economy-flavored thought delivered with the sincerity of an electrical engineer, see Aretae and his list of BlogFriends.

Some of my own favorites are featured:

• The Volokh Conspiracy, which sounds sinister but isn't. They are actually a very loosely affiliated and mostly cordial cabal of blogging law professors.
• The Money Illusion, a very sane and friendly site where the author and readers discuss serious policy matters in an agreeable, self-deprecating way. Two typically understated examples are Other activities bumped and Still Not Blogging.
• xkcd: A math, physics and etymology web comic. It is also supposed to be about sarcasm and love, but there is not so much of that lately. I even wrote my own tribute to Randall Munroe, the author and creator of xckd in my earlier post, With love and geo-hashing.
• Greg Mankiw's Blog: I think he won a Nobel Prize. He's an often reviled pillar of economic orthodoxy, whatever that actually means. Maybe "University of Chicago-school monetarist" or "economic heterodoxy" would be more accurate. He has an arrogant style sometimes, but is very bright. Bonus: Mankiw gives links to sites with nice free things. Like economics or statistics textbooks. Or gratis access to the Brookings Institute economics journal.
• Overcoming Bias
• Foseti on banking and regulatory capture
• The Unenumerated: I really liked this post, Signals, Gifts and Politics.

eBook Reader Product Review

This is the best review of an eBook reader that I've run across yet. It was written by a bona fide computer scientist, too!  His assessment was not biased by the novelty of the technology. That can happen. I know. I've experienced it.

An eBook reader is a device such as the Amazon Kindle or Apple iPad. Giorgio Sironi addresses certain issues that I would  expect to encounter while reading text on an electronic device instead of an physical book. Yet Giorgio's review is the only one that describes these difficulties, despite the many eBook reviews I've read.

"The only problem with reading eBooks is the device you use to read them. My Asus PC is good for writing articles, and skimming blog posts, or for a bit of PHP programming... But for reading extensively, LCD screens will kill us. You know when, as a child, you were told not to stare at the Sun? Here is the same mechanism, on a lesser scale... The LCD screen has a very different light intensity from the surrounding environment, which causes eyestrain due to continuously adapting between the screen and the rest of the world."

The brighter the environment, the less you see on the screen.

"With an e-ink screen like Kindle's, you must have ... external light to read. This is an advantage for e-ink devices."

The actual post goes into more detail. But the conclusion is that an LCD-based device is unsuitable for regular use as an eBook reader. Not if you want something that isn't a headache to use!

"Forget about iPads- They make wonderful trays for Martini glasses but not as an e-Reader."

Physical books v.s. eBooks

I guess that's why I like paperback books so much. They are small, very durable, replaceable, inexpensive and very green, because they continue to provide value to owner after owner. That makes me seem like a Luddite. Or jealous, because I don't have an iPhone of my own!

The biggest problem for me is eyestrain. I find it so much easier to use any of the following:

1. a portable electronic device that is NOT light-emitting and allows large font sizes,
2. a book, or
3. a full-size desk top monitor with all the usability features activated.