Monday, May 08, 2006

"deal or no deal" is on in the background while i'm writing this. quite possibly the most annoying show on tv. i haven't really watched it before and i'm happy about that now. it's not helping that there's a drama queen ("not that there's anything wrong with that") guy who's the contestant. really annoying. "take that deal, gary!"

more annoying or rather frustrating is a case i saw over the weekend: guy who came in with increasing bilirubin levels, now up to almost 17 mg/dL, mostly conjugated (direct). jaundiced like a mofo. alt's normal, ast ~3x upper limit of normal (odd, i know), normal alk phos. all scans normal except small amount of fluid around the liver and ? small ductal dilation. no fever but wbc count increasing significantly with bandemia. any ideas with this limited history??????? guy's a little demented at baseline, nursing home patient, so of course the family refused ercp.

Sunday, May 07, 2006

this link might only work for a limited time before it expires and you have to pay for the article but check out this latest tidbit: philips has filed a patent for a dvr that won't let you fast-forward through commercials and a tv that won't let you change channels during commercials! free tv won't be free anymore. apparently, the only reason we can record shows and movies is based on the "fair use" exemption passed in a supreme court decision in 1984. it only passed 5-4 and would likely not pass today because that decision was made at a time when fast-forwarding through commmercials on a large, clunky machine wasn't reasonable and its basis was that the commercial value of the copyrighted work was not harmed. oh well, better watch as many episodes of law & order as i can.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/business/yourmoney/07digi.html