griffinn's Quotable Blog

Yes, this is a blatant tribute to del.icio.us, to borrow the words of Twilightseer (of Twilightseer Album Reviews fame).

"Why not griffinn.hk?" You ask. For one thing, finn.hk gives me the flexibility to open more websites in future:

• snif.finn.hk - About the habit of cocaine snorting
• stuf.finn.hk - About various recipes for turkey stuffings
• muf.finn.hk - Well this one is obvious

起點和終點都顯而易見... 現實也是這樣的話，多好。

大好聖誕假期，偏偏連續兩晚也發辦公室夢，情節大致上都是自己陷入時間緊迫、壓力大的狀況之類。

為了報復，回到辦公室之後，我會加倍努力地... 發夢。

(For English speakers trying to pop this article into babelfish to find out what it is about, 太太口服液 is a commercially available oral liquid preparation sold in Hong Kong that's purported to relieve symptoms of stress. Don't let The Fish convince you otherwise!)

The story goes:

• Hospital wants to push CPOE. (In fact, they want to be able to claim they are the first to do so);
• Hospital gets someone to do a study to show benefits of CPOE;
• Hospital execs and the CPOE vendor run around telling people how great they are;
• Someone with an axe to grind does another study to show death associated with CPOE.

Q1:

So what's the problem with that?

A1:

Both studies are rigged. Both sides are crooks. It's just another Spy vs. Spy episode.

Q2:

Rigged how?

A2:

1. The pro-CPOE study looks at the drop in ADEs. Now the very point of having CPOE installed is to warn the user about ADEs. So what do you prove by looking at ADEs? Only that warning people against doing something makes them less likely to do it.
2. On the other hand, the anti-CPOE study looks at just the CCU. Now CCUs and ICUs are already well-known trouble spots for just about any IT project. So what do you prove when you look at just the CCU? That it is, indeed, a trouble spot, as is already known.

True story. I went to MSN Encarta and asked, "Where does Windows store its registry?" Here's the answer I got:

真人真事。剛才在 MSN Encarta 問了這個問題：「Where does Windows store its registry?」（Windows 把 Registry 儲存在那裡？）得到的答案竟然如此：

One of the most worrying trends nowadays is the severe imbalance of our diets. People eat too much meat and too few vegetables. You might think it's a behavioral problem not technological, but here's an invention that can probably counteract this imbalance:

We all know (well, the Chinese among us do know) that meat goes great with rice. While the vegetable intake of our population is too low, rice consumption doesn't suffer from the same problem. So how about we invent a strain of rice-vegetable hybrid that tastes and feels just like rice but also gives you all the vitamins and fibre that you need?

So, on to the nomenclature for this rice-veggie hybrid. We can't call it "vice", for obvious reasons. How about reggie?

現今世上其中一種最令人擔心的趨勢，就是我們的飲食嚴重地不均衡。我們吃的肉太多、菜太少了。一般人會認為這只是行為上的問題，而不是科技問題。但是，以下提議的這項科學發明，可以解決這種飲食失衡。

我們都知道：肉類與飯同吃，美味無窮。我們吃菜吃的太少，但吃飯卻沒有同樣的問題。既然如此，何不發明一種半飯半菜的新品種，可以吃起來味道和口感像飯，卻可以提供蔬菜的維他命及纖維？

命名方面，既然「菜飯」已經有別的含義，不妨叫「飯菜」。