Custom Word medical spell check dictionary updated
I have updated MeDic with a new version. 0.0.2 brings the dictionary from 41,009 words up to 66,239.
I have erred always on the side of accuracy, opting to omit a word when I couldn't be sure that it was correct. Users have submitted their own additions, and I have folded them in, after verifying their accuracy to the best of my ability. Many of the words are quite obscure, as most of you can imagine.
Most recently, someone from Australia has created an Australian localization for the work, and I have added that to the page as well.
I think this is a better option for students and anyone else that wants a pretty comprehensive spell check word list, and doesn't want to pay Stedman's $100 to get one. This is also much more comprehensive than those $15 shareware dictionaries that you see floating around — many of which have spelling errors. (I know, I've looked at most of them.)
MeDic is, of course, freeware. And always will be. It's also available for OpenOffice.org, for those of you who don't use Word.
If you think it's useful to you or someone you know, please bookmark it, Stumble it, or even throw me a link to the MeDic main page:
A unanimous triump of common sense
Arthur Firstenberg says he is highly sensitive to certain types of electric fields, including wireless Internet and cell phones.
"I get chest pain and it doesn’t go away right away," he said.
Firstenberg and dozens of other electro-sensitive people in Santa Fe claim that putting up Wi-Fi in public places is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The City Council has unanimously approved a plan to provide wireless Internet service in libraries and other city buildings, over the objections of those who say they are electrically sensitive.
That doesn't mean the legal wrangling is over, however.
Julie Tambourine, an advocate for the disabled and homeless, said after Wednesday's meeting that the legal analysis was flawed, because it didn't take into account those with diabetes, seizure disorders, respiratory ailments and other conditions that can be adversely affected by microwave radiation.
These idiots need to read up on the electromagnetic spectrum. Unless they're going to sit in a lead box all day long with no visible light on a carefully controlled diet, they're going to be exposed to all kinds of EM radiation, including gamma rays throughout their lifetimes. And even inside that theoretical lead box, there's no guarantee of being radiation-free.
For further comic value, these people's minds would explode if they had any idea of how many radio waves pass through their bodies each second. Theoretically, for physiologic purposes, 802.11b+g wi-fi signals (0.124-0.121m wavelength depending on channel) are no different than FM radio signals (~3m wavelength). Common sense would tell you that that's pretty insignificant.
But since common sense is often wrong, we look to the actual evidence. And the evidence in favor of wifi radiation sensitivity just isn't there.
A smattering of images that have made me chuckle recently
In no particular order:
This one's for The Angry Pharmacist:
And for keagirl and Dr Schoor:
Allergic to WiFi (so let's sue the city)
America: where's it's your God-given right to sue anyone or anything for whatever the hell you want, no matter how absurd it is.
God bless the tinfoil hat brigade:
Arthur Firstenberg says he is highly sensitive to certain types of electric fields, including wireless Internet and cell phones.
"I get chest pain and it doesn't go away right away," he said.
Firstenberg and dozens of other electro-sensitive people in Santa Fe claim that putting up Wi-Fi in public places is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Psst, Arthur, this is what we call a somatization disorder.
Sante Fe, the rest of the country is laughing at you.
Dude, I need a WTF stamp
I could stamp all the ridiculous prescriptions and fax 'em back to the douchenuggets who wrote them.
Lucky for me, I can have one made… I wonder if my company will pay for such a worthwhile piece of office equipment?
Knowing me, I'd probably go around stamping people, too.
I had no idea MS was in the imaging game
News to me. I'm kind of surprised that they don't have smaller products for private practices.
Come join a team of experts to design, build and ship the first version of a product that will change the world of medical imaging! We are a startup group with the goal of bringing cutting edge technology to the market in order to change the way medical image storage, distribution and interpretation happens. Our product will leverage Amalga* platform, creating a system that will enable physicians with completely new access to diagnostic images and other patient information. We have Medical imaging industry experts at the core of our team and are looking for additional expertise.
Job Description
We are looking for an expert software developer to join a team of highly experienced senior software engineers to build a solution that can seamlessly connect imaging systems from multiple departments and provide interactive visualization of up-to multi-GB datasets to physicians whether they are in the hospital or at home. You will work closely with domain experts in DICOM, imaging IT, Volume Rendering, large dataset handling and advanced image processing and you will be a key contributor to guide technology selection and strategy to solve data processing and distribution problems that have yet to be solved. You will work and collaborate with our distributed team across the globe (core team in Redmond, part of the team in D.C., supporting development team in Beijing, China and research team in Cambridge, UK).
The Health Solutions Group is the same group at MS that's responsible for their HealthVault product as well as the Amalga family.
Gardasil: DTC advertising via your college bookstore
Merck is advertising Gardasil directly to college students that utilize Barnes and Noble's bkstore.com. For those unfamiliar, bkstore.com has a plugin structure where students log on to their college's bookstore, choose their class number (e.g. PHRM 328), and their books are loaded up, and you can either pick them up or have them shipped to you. No going to stand in lines or trying to figure out what books you need. One click shopping at it's most convenient.
So these are college bookstores inadvertently advertising prescription drugs to the entire college population. Well, more accurately, to the population that chooses to have their books shipped to their home, anyway. I don't know if the bundles that can be picked up have similar advertising info.
Merck's going about it in a strange way, though. They're sticking the prescribing information into these boxes. No fancy brochures, just the PI packet, which I find rather bizarre.
I can't say it doesn't make sense, or that it's a terrible idea — I think it's better than advertising Ambien on television — but it does make me wonder what's next… Cephalon advertising Provigil to high school and college kids? Med students? Pharmacy students?
(No discounts for having advertising in your box of books, either. 
)