Thanks for tuning in, as always. In more ways than one, things are heating up in Houston. We’re hangin’ in there. Me and my family are healthy. Lots of happy, cheerful children in our community are testing positive – so wear a mask and stand clear. Lots of healthy carriers among us. This post, Sicko Doctors and the Future of Drive-by Diagnosis, is the online version of the 33 charts newsletter that drops every week. Some of the best stuff I found over the week. You can/should sign up here.
Here is some of the stuff that I wrote and found this week:
33 charts
I went long-form with a post on the post-hype trough we’re seeing in telemedicine. The Telemedicine Hype-cycle and the Future of Remote Care discusses why the explosion of tele does not appear sustained and where we might land. Please check it out – it’s a little closer to analysis than what I normally write. Please share socially or send it along to anyone who might be interested.
Sicko doctors
This article talks about how 19th century literature and art portrayed doctors as deviants. The sicko doctor, whose fascination with the human body’s gory workings makes him creepily indifferent to his patient’s discomfort, routinely cropped up as a bogeyman in the fiction, political cartoons, and nonfiction of the antebellum United States. | The Public Domain Review
Drive-by diagnosis
Not entirely sure that this is our future but makes for fun reading. The drive-through clinic is conceived to be a midway point between telehealth, where doctors might miss critical symptoms, and physical clinic visits. It’s designed to be easily deployed in hospital parking garages and would take up 60 feet of space—the amount of space between two columns in a hospital parking lot. | Fast Company
MAGA bro COVID parties
Why is the media pushing the covid party narrative when they apparently arent happening? These tales also reinforce existing stereotypes—anti-vaxxer hippies in rural Washington, MAGA bros in the Deep South—and may scratch a psychic itch among readers who already tend to pin responsibility for the ongoing pandemic on other people’s bad choices. Fascinating. But I kinda like believing the narrative. | Wired
Allow me to vent
From the first documented case of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in 1732, through the 20th century’s polio epidemic, to coronavirus patients today, a brilliant short-form history of mechanical ventilation from Lindsay Fitzharris. And the pictures are brilliant. Lindsay is becoming one of this gens most historical voices. | Wellcome Collection
Tech release note as artifact
Using release notes as a window into a changing world. Interesting take — love the last point in this pull-quote. Release notes are a strange artifact. For an industry preoccupied with standards, structure, and order, they offer a rare moment of freedom. There are conventions, sure, but within reason, you’re free to write what you want. Tumblr’s release notes were once a short story about the making of the app. I like things like that. It’s a reminder that behind all this technology, there are humans who sometimes just lark about.. | OneZero
Baby bottles in outer space
From Scientific American 1959: “The problems of eating and drinking under weightless conditions in space, long a topic of speculation among science-fiction writers, are now under investigation in a flying laboratory. Preliminary results indicate that space travelers will drink from plastic squeeze bottles and that space cooks will specialize in semiliquid preparations resembling baby food.” | Scientific American
Manhattan project for testing
As COVID surges demand for testing has begun to outstrip supply. “We basically need a Manhattan Project for testing,” Sauer said. “A nationwide, systematic strategy with a clear agency lead is desperately needed. But it’s not happening and I think we all fear significant access issues and supply-chain disruptions in the near future.” | The Atlantic
OH on Twitter
Concerning the tech industry’s failure to substantially impact the course of COVID:
America explicitly chose to design tech, companies, and economies for short-term gain, conditioning investors for growth instead of value, and disregarding the long-term effects on the very same people who produce our goods and services. — Sara Holoubek
Digital exhaust
+ Making dentures can be oddly riveting – a fusion of biology, craft and fun.
+ MIT Press is launching an open access journal that will publish reviews of preprints related to Covid19 — an effort to quash misinformation and highlight credible research.
+ Apple began work on the Watch’s hand washing feature years before COVID-19.
If you love this post you will love getting 33mail. Sign up here.