Magazines Come and Go

Watsonville, CA - “Hundreds of new magazines are launched every year in the United States and Canada but most cover the same topics as what's already available on the newsstand,” according to a study by Wooden Horse Publishing reveals.
"Magazine publishers seem content to follow each other like lemmings," remarked Meg Weaver, owner of the Wooden Horse Magazines Database, an online magazine resource for publicists, writers and researchers with information on over 2,000 US and Canadian consumer and trade publications. "And over the proverbial cliff most of them go as 60% of all new magazines fail in the first year."

U.S Hospitals Ignore Vital Data

Study: Sleepy doctors a liability for hospitals

PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (Reuters) -- A study cited early last year reveals that “overworked, sleepy doctors-in-training who hit the road after work are as much a hazard as drunk drivers, a finding that could unleash a wave of lawsuits against U.S. hospitals…”

“According to a study in this week's New England Journal of Medicine, medical interns who worked shifts lasting 24 hours or more were twice as likely to be involved in serious crashes after work than doctors who put in fewer hours. Just as bartenders are now being held liable for accidents caused by drunk customers, hospitals, which routinely schedule interns to work double, triple or quadruple shifts, may soon find themselves sued for motor vehicle accidents caused by exhausted staff, one of the researchers said.”

"The medical profession should be a leader in accident prevention, yet it's requiring its medical trainees to work marathon shifts and lets them drive home in this impaired condition in which they're unfit to drive," said Harvard Medical School's Charles Czeisler, a sleep expert. "That's akin to letting someone get behind the wheel when you know they're drunk."

Despite years of research showing sleep-deprived workers are more prone to errors, the U.S. medical community has been slow to cut back on trainees' hours. The European Union has imposed a 13-hour limit on daily shifts for physicians, with some exceptions.

Ads Now Saturate TV Shows

Here’s a telling report from WaynesThisandThat.com on “How Much TV Commercial Length has Grown over the Years:

“We all accept commercials as a necessary evil because they pay for the shows we love to watch. But, how much is reasonable to accept? This question was answered for me while watching a 2004 episode of Star Trek Enterprise. The commercials came so often and lasted so long that is was almost impossible to maintain a sense of continuity with the show.

This situation got me wondering how much the percentage of time given to a show is lost to commercials has increased over the years. Thanks to the availability of video recordings of past shows, this was easy to determine. Scouring my video library I found shows ranging from 1964 to the present, 2004. Here's what I discovered:

* 1964 - 17.8 percent of the time devoted to commercials

* 1977 - 17.8 percent

* 1994 - 24.5 percent

* 2004 - 30.0 percent

These were all for main line shows aired during prime time hours. So, how did the show that kicked this little study off do? Would you believe that a full 35 percent of the air time given to Star Trek Enterprise in 2004 was sacrificed to commercials? It was. To make matters worse the end credits were pushed into the far right margin to make room for a side bar ad, the station logo was continually displayed in the lower right hand corner of the screen, and twice an annoying pop up ad appeared in the left hand corner of the screen during the show. Taking these into account the total effective commercial time was crowding 38 percent.

Who Needs More Paper?

In the summer of 1963, when my brother and I were just becoming baseball fans, my father took us to see a Mets-Dodgers game at Shea Stadium in Flushing Meadows, New York.

We arrived at the field early, which was a treat for us, and we got to see the players warm-up. Our box seat was rather back from the field, but with hardly anyone in the stands, we ran down to front the railing where John Roseboro, the Dodger's starting catcher, was standing. He spoke to us for a minute or so, and then my brother asked, "Can I touch your glove?" Roseboro said sure.

I can't remember whether or not we asked him for an autograph, but touching his glove, the one with which he caught the fastballs and curveballs of Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale was a big enough reward. The strength of that memory surpasses any autograph we might have obtained.

Jeff's MICO Presentation

The benefits you will receive from attending Jeff Davidson's presentation on Managing Information and Communication Overload:

[ ] maintain a clear desk
[ ] become better able manage all email files
[ ] have more productive workdays, day in and day out
[ ] manage incoming information to prevent information overload
[ ] minimize the deluge of information and communication from all directions
[ ] establish information management standards and procedures

[ ] stay more focused, more often
[ ] determine if you're a meglomaniac or infomaniac
[ ] organize your files, folders, documents, papers, and everything in between
[ ] manage your email inbin like a pro
[ ] quickly assess and allocate information received via paper, e-mail, voice mail
[ ] make faster, guilt-free decisions on what to retain and what to recycle or toss

[ ] adopt a potent filing system that's fast, easy, and rewarding
[ ] have more energy at the end of the workday
[ ] more easily share vital information with bosses, co-workers, or staff
[ ] use your copier, printer, scanner, and computer to diminish paper clutter
[ ] send faxes by fax/modem to eliminate paper handing on your end
[ ] employ scanning when it help to resolve your paper glut

[ ] avoid storing information in places where you'll "lose" it
[ ] have a more harmonious relationship among office staff
[ ] feel better about your job, career, and company
[ ] safeguard your office environment
[ ] be able to quickly peruse any book and find what you can use
[ ] stay on top of a several projects at once

[ ] save time by avoiding misdirection
[ ] gain a clear idea of what publications to receive and which not to receive
[ ] learn practical tips for staying off of junk mail and spam lists
[ ] break down semi-permanent piles
[ ] reclaim your desktop and other flat surfaces
[ ] vanquish the information glut, and keep it down to a dull roar

[ ] stay abreast of the latest information management tools
[ ] achieve clarity of thought
[ ] learn how to finish work on time
[ ] get your name off of junk mail lists
[ ] prevent piles and files from building up in the first place
[ ] coordinate on-line, on-disk and hard copy files

Scientific Info for 460 Years

"As we go from grade school to high school we learn only a billionth of what there is to learn. There is enough scientific information written every day to fill seven complete sets of Encyclopedia Britannica; there is enough scientific information written every year to keep a person busy reading day and night for 460 years!" Source B. L. Siegel, Vital Speeches of the Day, 4/15/84!!

What Info they ARE taking in?

Makes you wonder what information they are taking in:

American's Understanding of Science: From the National Science Foundation's biennial report issued on April 30, 2002 on the state of science understanding, research, and education, of 1,574 adults surveyed:

* 60% agreed or strongly agreed that some people possess psychic powers or extrasensory perception, a premise yet unproven.

* 30% believe that some reported objects are vehicles from other civilizations.

* 43% read the astrology charts at least occasionally in the newspaper.

Also:

* 54% knew long it takes the Earth to orbit the sun. (One year.)

* 45% knew that lasers work by focusing light.

* 51% knew that antibiotics kill bacteria but not viruses.

* 48% knew that the earliest humans didn't live at the same time as the dinosaurs.