Dr. X's Free Associations

My Hotspot

I really like this.

I had been using a Clear 4G USB stick, but after receiving an IPad with only a Lightening port, I swapped the stick for a 4G hotspot. It functions as a broadband WiFi router that can connect to as many as eight devices at once. I leave it powered on in my coat pocket and my WiFi connection follows me everywhere. The Hotspot holds a charge for at least 6 hours and, if necessary, can plug into an AC outlet or USB to recharge while in use.

Pedantic Observation of the Day

AP headline:

Psychiatric test for suspect in NYC subway death

No. There will be a psychiatric or psychological evaluation. No doubt, more than one. If tests are employed in the evaluation, they will be psychological tests. Psychometrics is us, not them. It isn't just a turf question. Psychiatrists don't study or train to be psychometricians.

The author of the article didn't get it wrong. The headline writer made the error. That happens.

Subway Platform Shoving

I always keep my distance from the edge of the el/underground platform, waiting until the front of the first car passes before moving closer. On Thursday evening, I saw a young woman standing with feet right up against the blue strip at the edge of the platform. Moments after I thought: don't stand there, some guy barked at her: don't stand there. She told him not to worry because she always checks carefully to see who is standing behind her.

I was behind her. By a few feet, but I was behind her. Apparently I don't look like a subway shover.

How the price of a drug invented in the 1950s went from $50 to $28,000 a vial

Is the drugmaker recouping a huge R&D investment?  No. They didn't invent the drug. They bought the patent for $100,000, 50 years after the drug was invented. Now they're marketing it for uses that have little evidentiary support. They can do this because the drug was approved before the FDA required evidence that a drug is effective for particular conditions.

The NY Times has the story.

The Lowline Underground Park

Meghan O'Rourke:

[T]he idea is simple, if also complicated: new technology makes it possible for us to gather light and funnel it underground. And while New York City may be short on land, it has an abundance of underground space that’s not being used by the city’s transit authority, the M.T.A. (If you’ve spent any time on the subway, you’ve surely had the delirious experience of staring out a dark window only to be surprised by a renegade art project in an abandoned station—a graffiti mural, say, that shifts and moves as you hurtle by.) The Lowline concept, developed by Dan Barasch (formerly of PopTech) and James Ramsey of RAAD Studio, is to take one of the M.T.A.’s abandoned stations—the old Williamsburg Bridge Trolley Terminal, which opened in 1903 and closed in 1948, after streetcars stopped running—and turn it into a public park.

Vintage Christmas: 1925

Mexican Embassy Christmas Party. Washington D.C. National Photo Company.

Quote of the Day

A list of the best books related to human nature, lying, and cheating would be nowhere without Freud and the explanatory power of rationalization. I know I should choose just one of them, but I’m not at home and can’t look through my books, and it’s been so long since I’ve read them, and I think I lost my notes… Dan Ariely listing books he likes to read.

Intern Just Happens To Be Beautiful 22-Year-Old Woman

It's true.

A Murderer Remembered, Sort of Fondly

A Chicago loan shark and mob hitman, Frank Calabrese Sr, died in prison on Christmas Day. The Tribune article about his death struck me as odd. It seems to me that a brief article about a coldblooded killer's death should leave out any fond remembrances, even if they're tempered by realism.

Separating Eggs

NMC posted a crowd-pleasing egg nog recipe. Looks good, but I'd definitely use pasteurized eggs.

And, via commenter Henderson, here's a helpful tip for separating the eggs.