Category: Politics, Religion & Money

Sherlock’s Woke America

On my Kindle e-reader I’m progressing through a complete collection of Sherlock Holmes stories. I also have a book that reproduces all of the stories as they originally appeared in The Strand magazine, with illustrations by Sidney Paget. The first two novels, “A Study in Scarlet” and “The Sign of Four,” were published elsewhere.

Years ago, when I first read “A Study in Scarlet,” I was quite surprised that much of it is not only a Western that takes place in America, it’s a scathing portrayal of the violence associated with the early Mormons. Doyle’s interest in the United States appears again in the story I’m currently reading.

From “The Five Orange Pips,” by Arthur Conan Doyle, published November, 1891:

“Have you never — ” said Sherlock Holmes, bending forward and sinking his voice — “have you never heard of the Ku Klux Klan?”

“I never have.” [Replied Doctor Watson]

Holmes turned over the leaves of the book upon his knee. “Here it is,” said he presently:

“Ku Klux Klan. A name derived from the fanciful resemblance to the sound produced by cocking a rifle. This terrible secret society was formed by some ex-Confederate soldiers in the Southern states after the Civil War, and it rapidly formed local branches in different parts of the country, notably in Tennessee, Louisiana, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. Its power was used for political purposes, principally for the terrorizing of the negro voters and the murdering and driving from the country of those who were opposed to its views.”

Would the MAGA hat crowd think that reading this story in a classroom is an example of teaching Critical Race Theory? A clever cartoon adaptation of “The Five Orange Pips” makes no mention of the KKK, but prejudice and social integration remain a theme.

Finger Prick Fool’s Gold

If I were on the jury of the Elizabeth Holmes trial I’d vote to convict. But my guess is she has conned the jury the way she convinced investors to back her. I predict she will be acquitted of fraud or, if there is a juror who sees through her act, they will be unable to reach a verdict.

Holmes had an undeniably worthwhile idea, but she wasn’t unique in that vision. She talked a good game but lacked the ability to deliver on her promises. The irony for Holmes is that another company, Genalyte, has quietly succeeded where she failed so spectacularly. Yahoo Finance has an excellent, comprehensive documentary on Holmes and her failed company Theranos.

From HIS to EHR to EMR

It’s been more than ten years since the HITECH program within the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act began offering incentive payments to hospitals and doctors to encourage the use of electronic medical records. Medical providers that were already using electronic systems also received these payments when switching vendors.

The end result was that President Obama distorted the well-established and competitive medical information software market. This paved the way for a single privately-held company — Epic Systems — to become dominant in the market, despite its products being, by far, the most expensive.

Marketplace covers the recent acquisition of Cerner by database giant Oracle, but with no mention of Epic. Cerner has the government contracts for hospitals within the Department of Defense and, separately, the Veteran’s Administration.

The fact is, medical records within Epic’s huge installed base can be shared seamlessly between providers, if they so choose. I have seen this for myself, and appreciate the convenience. With Epic on track to eventually manage 75% of all non-military medical records in the United States, the government might want to consider an antitrust case against the company it helped to promote.

Ultimately, the solution is to force a standard format for medical records that can be shared between medical providers using different software systems. How likely is it the government will pursue that route to level the playing field, rather than a direct antitrust case? I see neither happening anytime soon.

Three Christmas Gifts in Five Parts

Last year at this time I pointed out a book I had read, Brian Sibley’s Joseph and the Three Gifts: An Angels Story.

Dickens’ Agnostic Christmas

This year the book has been adapted as a BBC Radio 4 play. I can’t embed it here, so it’s linked on this picture.

A young girl in trouble, needing a husband, and he marries her knowing the child is not his. That’s as human as it gets.

From the New Revised Standard Version:

The Birth of Jesus the Messiah
18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah[i] took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

23 “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,”

which means, “God is with us.” 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son;[j] and he named him Jesus.

Cassette Assets

This is a blog post about cassettes, with no mention of the Sony Walkman, except here. The Compact Cassette was developed by a Belgian team of engineers at Philips, and introduced under the Norelco brand in 1963. Two years later, to promote the new format, Philips gave portable cassette decks to EMI for the Beatles to try.

Upstairs at EMI Studio 2, 1965. Engineer Norman “Hurricane” Smith is on the left.

Christmas, 1969, I received a Panasonic RQ-204S cassette deck. It was rugged, with very good sound that could be played loud without breaking up, even at full volume.

I used the Panasonic deck to record WBCN radio and some records, but especially to exchange voice letters with my friend Greg, back in Connecticut. Long distance phone calls were out of the question, but a cassette could be mailed with a couple of stamps.

Norwalk, Connecticut, January, 1969

I first learned about cassettes as a computer software medium upon meeting one of my college roommates, named Brad. Before starting at Westfield State, Brad spent a year aboard the Atlantis II research ship, out of Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

The Atlantis II is best known for hosting the Alvin deep-ocean submarine, and for being used to locate the Titanic. The year when my friend Brad was aboard, scientists were conducting the early research into Continental Drift. I recall the project ended up being featured in National Geographic.

Brad was a math whiz just out of high school, working as a Fortran programmer on the Atlantis II. Cassettes were used to load programs and for data storage. When we met, Brad had a large collection of cassettes from the ship that he had mostly repurposed from data to music, with his very expensive, high-end portable Sony deck. Ten years later, working with Brad at a software company, the sound of the 300 baud modems we used was indistinguishable from what I heard playing data cassettes.

Which brings me to what this blog post is really about — Radiolab’s Mixtape series, and their Cassetternet segment from a month ago. The first part is about cassettes used for software. The second part returns to cassettes as a means of human communication; specifically, their influence in bringing about the Islamic Revolution in Iran.