2012-03-30

Epic Medical Failure

I got together with my wife in early 2002. In mid- to later 2002, she started suffering from digestive problems. She got treated, got a little better, got worse, other things were diagnosed, she got treated, she got a little better, she got worse.

It’s been ten years now. I’m sure in the meantime, some of the stuff doctors told up turned out to be a diagnosis, and the treatment was alright. But nothing has made my wife any better.

Today, after the umpteenth blood test was performed on her, after she had repeated her huge list of symptoms to the hundredth doctor, one doctor mentioned in passing that she had Gilbert’s Syndrome – a supposedly harmless genetic condition. This isn’t the first blood test where it showed up, either, but nobody felt it was necessary to mention the condition to my wife.

Yet just about every symptom my wife has ever mentioned to anyone shows up on the list of symptoms for this condition.

Words fail me, for how FUCKING stupid this is. Ten years of suffering, not just from the symptoms of the condition, but far more from not knowing, and it’s just because doctors are a bunch of idiots? Really? Nobody put the list of symptoms together with the abnormal blood test results? REALLY?

Well, no, you’ve got to excuse doctors! Because, after all, their guidelines tell them that Gilbert’s syndrome is harmless.

Which in a sense it is. But if a patient comes to you, tells you of their suffering, and lists everything the blood test confirms, you’d THINK that they could FUCKING TELL YOU.

18:33 | Filed under: life | 4 Comments »
2012-03-24

ACTA & Copyright

The German news1 are currently dominated by a verbal battle between proponents and opponents of ACTA. For the uninitiated: ACTA is an attempt to put stricter legislation on the internet, in order for content providers (music/film industry) to better fight piracy.

In this debate, proponents of ACTA love to label any opponent as a pirate, potential pirate, or supporter of piracy. By contrast, ACTA opponents love to accuse ACTA proponents of being enemies of liberty.

The sad thing is, both parties are missing the fundamental truth behind the debate2.

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  1. Quite possibly also the international news; it just appears to be Germans that are sending me links right now. [↩]
  2. I hasten to add, that that’s not actually the case. I’ve read the same argument I’m making below a few times, but it’s raised far too little. That’s why I’m posting this again, to get it more exposure. [↩]
12:18 | Filed under: books, movies, music, philosophy, politics | 2 Comments »
2012-03-16

Introversion, Productivity & Work Environments

Let me start this post with a video:

Unless you understand introversion very well, please watch the video before proceeding with this post.

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11:04 | Filed under: life, philosophy, programming | 2 Comments »
2012-01-09

Domain Specific Languages & Turing Completeness

I don’t know if it’s been said before1, so in case it hasn’t, I’ll say it:

Every domain specific language converges towards Turing completeness over it’s lifetime.

The reason for this observation is that I’ve recently come in contact with a number of new DSLs2, which exhibit the same problem I’ve seen with other DLSs in the past. Except, this time, I noticed that their authors expressly distanced themselves from the idea of implementing Turing complete languages.

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  1. A quick search hasn’t found anything. [↩]
  2. New to me, that is. [↩]
12:34 | Filed under: philosophy, programming | No Comments »
2012-01-01

Best Tool for the Job

I thought I’d start the new year not with a boring (or not so boring) retrospective. I’d also like to avoid a post conveying my best wishes, but of course, I do wish you all a happy new year.

Instead I’d like to write a short post about an old adage and it’s (mis-)use in computing:

Use the best tool for the job.

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21:52 | Filed under: philosophy, programming, software | No Comments »