Matthew's Blog
I Am An Average Writer
I am an average writer. I am comfortable saying this for two reasons. First, I say it because it is true. There are some things which I do well, and there are some things which I do poorly. Writing, for me, is neither. Second, I say it because I aspire to become a...
Hiding Your Superpowers At Work?
I wonder if Clark Kent was frustrated at his yearly performance review? I believe most employers don’t want you using your superpowers at work, and I am sure the Daily Planet would fire Clark Kent if he showed up in his Superman tights, suddenly using all of his...
The Post Hoc Fallacy
“Post hoc ergo propter hoc.” Which, directly translated is: “After this, therefore because of this.” It suggests, often (but not always) incorrectly, that if Event B follows Event A, then Event A caused B. This is also known as the Post Hoc Fallacy, and it is the most...
The Dangerous Anatomy Of A Viral Retweet
The other day I retweeted a post (see below) that went viral. My Twitter Stream usually generates less than 5,000 impressions per day, based on 3-5 tweets and retweets per day. However, this particular retweet generated greater than 100,000 impressions in 51 minutes,...
My Photography-Blogging Relationship
I find the creative relationship between some of my blog posts and photography interesting. For example, in the blue heart photo, used in the post A Flaw in NLP-Enabled EHRs?, I am using the stone's central scratch to highlight the concept of a flaw. In the chain...
My Most Valuable Writing Instrument
In the upper half of the image above, you see my MontBlanc Mechanical Pencil. I've had it for about ten years, and I use it every day. It's my go-to morning journaling pencil. Although this particular model is out of production, the replacement cost for the new...
Time to Change My Covid-based Twitter Pinned Tweet?
I'm getting ready to change my pinned tweet (see below). I’ve had it up since January 26, 2020—the week I recognized that CoVid was going to dominate healthcare for at least the entire year. (As an aside, the reason I knew CoVid was going to be huge that early was...
Health Isn’t Precious
Health isn't precious, at least in the sense that a string of pearls is precious—a piece of jewelry which my wife might wear to the symphony once or twice a year. Rather health is much more like a can opener, something which is essential daily, or at least every day...
The Bradbury Approach To Editing
Here's one of my favorite writing quotes: “Love what you do and do what you love. Don't listen to anyone else who tells you not to do it. You do what you want, what you love. Imagination should be the center of your life.”― Ray Bradbury It's an inspirational quote...