March 2006 Archives

Here's a neat idea for a fun and short game to kick-off a generally boing information technology meeting. Techno Blabber is the name I gave a game where you show the group technology phrases on screen where some (maybe 30%) of the phrases are totally made up. Some technology phrases a naturally so inane (Distributed Component Object Model, DCOM) or insipid (Technology Without an Interesting Name, TWAIN) that it's really easy to fool people both ways. I used this power point presentation at a "Trading and Training" session I conducted recently with some of our staff. The game itself was fun and the icebreaker set a nice tone for the training. The whole icebreaker thing was unheard of in my group. So, it was refreshing for everyone.

So I was in surgery a few weeks ago at the facility I am currently interning at, doing c-arm (live fluoroscopy/xray imaging) coverage for a ?body part replacement and augmentation? procedure (we will call it that to protect the innocent?..keep this as vague as possible). A company rep from a firm that sells allograph bits to hospitals popped into the room and asked me where the surgeons were in the course of the procedure. I filled her in and she flitted to and fro in the room, showing stuff to the circulating nurse and making sure all of her samples were present and accounted for. BTW: Allograph bits are pieces of sterilized donor tissue, in this case, bone?.solid bone, spongy bone and so forth taken from cadavers. Surgeons use these borrowed bits to encourage strong new growth in their patients, and to shore up the structures around them (like spines).

I took the Educational Testing Service's (ETS) Major Field Test for Computer Science. The test was actually a lot of fun. Like a Highlights activity book for computer nerds. It took about 70 minutes (out of 120 alotted) and covered everything from basic programming to algorithms to automata. I was strongest in pratical programming and algorithms. I was weakest in operating systems (deadlocks, race conditions) and automata because I haven't had those classes yet and only have a hobbyists understanding. I still scored really high. Somewhere in the 93rd or 94th percentile which is a nice pat on the back. You have to take these things with a grain of salt though. It's just a multiple choice test and I'm being compared to a body of people who probably aren't as passionate as me about this stuff and are probably 5 years my youngers. But it was fun and insightful nonetheless.