Matthew's Blog
Leveling Up My Blog’s Tagline
As I approach my 200th blog post, I realize it's time to level-up my blog’s tagline, which currently is: artificial intelligence. health. healthcare. Review my last few dozen posts, this tagline is simply not very good; it neither represents what I have written nor...
Two Good Things About Death
I don’t like thinking about death. Both personally and professionally I’ve seen enough of it to know how horrid it can be, but as a responsible adult, I do periodically think about the practical ramifications of my own death when updating my will or discussing medical...
Are Twitter Hashtags Digital Flags—And Is That A Good Thing?
I am not a big fan of flags. To me, flags are often less about unifying people, as they are about unifying people against “the other.” I suspect this utility of being a tool against the other is based on their first use as a military tool, 5000 years ago, on the...
My 2021 Sophie’s Choice of an Intellectual Hobby
I have one of two intellectual “hobbies” I would like to dive into more fully this year (both of which, oddly enough, involve languages). The first option is to dive deeper into Python programming. I did take a Python Stack course two years ago, reaching a point where...
The Nuance of Black and White Photography
Black & White photography isn’t about the subject matter being either black or white. Rather, it’s about appreciating the infinite shades of gray in between. (Hint: this post is not about photography.)
The Phone Call: A Human Connection During Covid
The other morning I received a text message from a very good physician friend of mine—one who I hadn’t talked to in several months. Within 10 minutes, we exchanged seven text messages, covering topics such as a hip issue I am having, his Covid vaccination status, a...
Twitter—A Race to the Bottom of the Human Psyche?
In the November/December 2020 Writer’s Digest interview with the writing power couple Zadie Smith and Nick Laird—both who are well known to shun social media and smartphones—Mr. Laird said: Twitter is certainly an interesting experiment, but unfortunately, it’s an...
Healthcare AI, Kant’s Deontology, and My Cat
There are various ethical systems that can be used to evaluate artificial intelligence (AI) within healthcare, and for me, the one I find most useful is the Deontological Ethics as discussed by Kant, which I will super-simplify as this: A person should not be treated...
Tweeting angry—nearly
Last week I nearly did something I try my best not to do. Tweeting angry. I've done it before, "calling out" a company who had an employee who was rude to my wife, and I still—years later— feel guilty about it. (Why guilty? Because I had momentarily forgotten...