I must have been in a cave the past 7 months, because today was the first time I had ever seen an Amazon Locker! This is great concept to deliver Amazon orders, especially since there are many buildings in the city that do not have doormen to sign for deliveries. Apparently, they are only available in Seattle, New York City, and London.  I’d imagine that these lockers would be sustainable only in larger cities where home delivery is a problem.  Even so, these lockers will likely need to produce significant traffic to warrant their existence, given the expensive real estate in the cities. We will see how long these lockers will last…

computing tech

Whenever I see Rafa Nadal power through a seemingly impossible inside-out forehand, the thought of how many hours of practice it took him to be able to pull off that move.  Maybe with heroic training, I, too, can become a superstar eye surgeon.

The reality is that the world only has one Rafa, but about 700 new ophthalmologists finishing their residency training annually in the U.S. alone.  Some will be better surgeons, but all of us will [hopefully] be able to perform safe surgery for our patients.

Fortunately for us, the ability to become an efficient, skillful surgeon doesn’t require  innate superhuman ability, only practice and attention to detail.  Seven months ago when I performed my first phacoemulsification, my cut to close time exceeded that of my large incision extracapsular cases.  Now I can probably perform 5 routine cases in the same amount of time.

Interestingly, the total number of cases I’ve performed in 7 months has been limited.  However, I think that there are several principles to follow when learning surgery (other than the need for experience):

• Operative time often correlates with early postoperative result.  In general, the longer you mess with tissue, the more bruising you get. In cataract surgery, this translates to cornea edema.
• The speed of the surgery does not correlate with how quickly you move your hands, but rather how efficient each movement is.
• Read the point above AGAIN. Each movement should have a clear purpose to help move you one step closer to finishing the case successfully.
• Know what to do before you enter the OR. Learn the steps of the case, and have an idea what to do when basic complications arise.
• Learn from your peers. Watch their videos and figure out how they get out of trouble.

Lastly, go in with confidence! We all have good and bad days. The good surgical days will come if you believe in it!

medicine

I recently attended a conference in South Korea, and was reminded how clever how much attention is paid toward efficiency in Asia.  At my hotel in Pusan, the elevator buttons could be deactivated by simply pushing the button again.  I can’t imagine the number of times I’ve witnessed elevator passengers “inadvertently” summon the elevator to an unattended floor, only to delay everyone in the building waiting for the elevator.  The interesting aspect is that the logic required to cancel call on an elevator floor is not difficult, and the elevators in Asia with these features are manufactured by Otis, an American company.

misc misc

Energy storage is one technology that has not obeyed Moore’s law.  This is clearly the case in smartphones–I often see heavy users plug in their phones everywhere they go to maintain enough juice to last the entire day.

In contrast, my dumb phone holds enough charge to last 4 days on standby. The bottom line is that the more functionality your mobile device has, the shorter the battery life will be. These features include 4G antennas, multitasking apps, push notifications, WiFi/Bluetooth activity, background processes, and flash camera use.

I’m often asked for tips to prolong battery life on the iPhone 4S. For those without the software glitch, here are a few suggestions (some are phone agnostic):

• Shut down background apps. Back when I was writing TSR‘s, I learned that background processes with leaky memory will throttle cpu big time. On the iPhone 4S, hold the Home button until a list of apps appears on the screen. Hold onto one of the icons until they start shaking. You will also see a red negative sign. Hit the sign to shut down the apps. This is most useful in apps that require net access. On Android, you can use Advanced Task Killer.
• Disable Bluetooth when not in use. Obvious.
• Disable cell signal if you are in poor reception areas. If you’re not expecting calls or texts, this is the way to go.
• Disable push notifications on non-urgent apps.  Tricky. If you’re a day trader and rely on your texting/phone vibration for your job, you may be out of luck. You can also increase polling time.
• Disable Flash. Pertinent to Android devices. Yes, Flash is a battery killer.

There are many “disables” on this list. There are also a dozen other minor tweaks that can be found online. Be aware that apps typically aren’t screened as closely for memory leaks or routines that potentially cycle cpu time without effect. Your battery life will greatly depend on the apps you use daily.  Unfortunately we are still limited by our technology, but perhaps these recommendations will help get you through the day.

computing computing, tech

Snooki is an idiot. I was recently made aware of her quote in Ok! magazine that false eyelashes are functional even during sleep.  This statement is absurd for many reasons, but false eyelash use during sleep certainly raises concern about one’s hygiene.  It does not require much knowledge of science to realize that these eyelashes must attach to the eyelid somehow using an adhesive.  Common eyelash glues consist of latex, gum, and a touch of formaldehyde as a fixative.   Given this composition, I’d imagine that I would not want this material on my skin or near my eyes longer than necessary.  Many companies market these glues as certified as waterproof–to me this just means that more dirt will be able to stick to them from the longer duration of use.

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medicine oculoplastics, ophthalmology, rant