Musings: Med School Seating Chart by Maturity Level

Musings: Chinese Restaurants

David and Kevin's Musings - A Visual Series

Comic: Hard of Hearing

David quantifies his inanity

To those who know me, it's probably not a big surprise that I waste a lot of time talking about things that are completely meaningless and most likely offer zero benefit to anyone. To illustrate, I offer the following example. Recently, we have been studying childhood development. One important topic in the study of infants and toddlers is a milestone, a certain ability a child acquires at a certain age which is important in his or her development. Some one of these milestones involve how many blocks a kid can stack at, say, 20 months versus 24 months (only four at 20, but a whopping 4-5 at 24). This is important because it indicates the child's motor and cognitive skills are progressing appropriately.

Instead of taking this concept at face value, my friend and I launched into a 30 minute discussion about how exactly these block values are ascertained. Is there a block laboratory where babies perform thousands of stacking trials? Are there internationally standardized blocks sold by Welch Allyn? If there aren't, what's the point? A toddler might be able to toddle his way to a stack of 10 really stable blocks, but if one weighed 5lbs he probably wouldn't be able to add number two. What exactly is the limiting factor? Is there just an increasing error accumulation that is insurmountable once four blocks are reached? And perhaps most importantly, how much more awesome would we be at block-stacking than those little kids? If we had a crane and a really tall indoor space with virtually no airflow, couldn't we be an unstoppable block-stacking force the likes of the which the world has never seen?

As sad as it seems, I have at least 2-3 of these sorts of conversations per day. This one was sort of long, but if we assume I have 2.5 conversations at 15min per, and take about two weeks of vacation time to rest my rambling muscles, I waste over 9.1 full days on this nonsense annually ((15/[60*24])*2.5*350). That may not seem like a lot, but since I plan on saving at least 300 lives per day as a doctor, and the economic value of a statistical life has been argued to be about $5million*, my inanity will cost the world billions by the time I die. Good to know I'm making a difference...


*This is actually true, but don't expect me to cite any sources here.

Comic: Oops

David wins epic battle against co-walker

(Kevin recently contracted bird fru, so I will become the prolific scorer I always knew I was and continue to pick up the slack.)

Yesterday, I was walking towards my car with a jaunty spring in my step after managing to stay in class for two hours before calling it a day. A few minutes away from the parking lot, another random guy (RG) started walking alongside me, and initially I thought nothing of it. Normally, I’d give RG the patented Dave speed burst and launch ahead on the way to bigger and better things. Alternatively, I could’ve played it Mav style, hitting the brakes, letting him fly right by, then switching immediately to missile lock (or guns, if he remained too close). For some reason, I opted against either go-to strategy. The path was pretty wide, I was still happy about all the learning I’d just done, so I decided to let things play out naturally.

After a while, it became painfully obvious to both of us that we had been walking almost side by side for several minutes. Still, as is the case with 99% of my choices, inertia won out and we remained in relative lock-step. By the time we reached the parking lot, which is pretty large as public parking lots go, more than a few awkward side-glances had been exchanged, yet still no one made a move to take the lead or fall behind. And based on his body language, I’m almost completely certain he was thinking about our strange traveling dynamic as well. About fifteen rows in, we approached my car, and I veered off to the side appropriately. RG, seemingly confused, shifted almost instinctively in my direction before stutter-stepping and then finally grinding to a complete stop. Clearly disoriented, he looked around awkwardy and then started walking in the other direction. In my car, I watched as RG backtracked a few rows and proceeded to walk up and down each of them searching vainly for his car. Perhaps you had to be there, but watching him wander about for several minutes, potentially aware that I might be watching since I hadn’t left yet, was oddly mesmerizing. At one point, it appeared as though he was contemplating exiting the parking lot entirely so he could return with tabula rasa and try again. Or maybe he was thinking about giving up entirely and taking the bus home or buying a new car. In any case, after another minute or so, I finally forced myself to leave. Needless to say, I emerged the clear victor…