Kickoff For September 9, 2024
Lately, I've been getting quite a bit of spam email. Some of it about this letter — mainly from SEO and social media firms wanting to work with me to get The Monday Kickoff more exposure. You know what? I'm not interested in any of that. Like my blogs, I see The Monday Kickoff as a numbers station transmitting information to a small group who get what I'm trying to do here. And it's going to stay that way.
With that out of the way, let's get Monday started with these links:
The return of pneumatic tubes — Wherein get a peek into how a venerable technology for communication and material transfer is surviving and thriving in many a hospital.
From the article:
The pneumatic systems have also gone through major changes in structure in recent years, evolving from fixed routes to networked systems. “It’s like a train system, and you’re on one track and now you have to go to another track,” says Steve Dahl, an executive vice president at Pevco, a manufacturer of these systems.
Dung, the Cradle of Diversity — Wherein we learn more than we probably ever thought we'd learn about dung beetles — including how they navigate and how they work with the substance they're named after to help agriculture.
From the article:
Those services aren’t limited to farms, Noriega said. They apply to forests, savannahs, grasslands, and other biomes, too. In fact, natural ecosystems might even have added benefits—ones that have earned dung beetles the title of ecosystem engineer.
The Simple Pleasures of Bananas and Cream — Wherein Jamie Betesh Carter reminisces about a snack she made, and ate, with her grandmother as a child, and recounts her explorations into the origins of the dish.
From the article:
I’m not exactly sure how bananas and cream came to be as a dish, or why it vanished. But I know why my grandparents used sour cream and why they used bananas.
Could reading instruction manuals become a thing of the past? — Wherein we learn about something that's been mooted for decades (people not using supplied documentation), and about the nightmare of many a professional technical writer: AI tools that can automatically generate instructions.
From the article:
Yet while it’s OK for a consumer to skip the user guide, this isn’t the case in the world of industry, where engineers have to know exactly how the machinery or computer system they look after works. This is especially the case if a problem arises that they need to fix as quickly as possible.
Frank Zappa’s kids are still grappling with his legacy — and each other — Wherein we learn about the complicated dynamics of the relationships (if you want to call them that) between the late musician's children, and how a lot of acrimony stems from, as it often does in cases like this, the handling of their parents' estate.
From the article:
That’s the Zappa family these days. A delicate mix of personal connections and professional obligations that they’re still trying to work out.
Jackson Hole Teton Pass Collapse: What happened to the most economically unequal county in the country once the road in closed down — Wherein we learn about the problems driving people away from scenic Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and why the collapse of a key road into the town could and should help solve those problems.
From the article:
The pass was never meant to be a corridor that propped up a community such as the one Jackson has become. As with many struggling resort towns, Teton County’s problems are human-caused. But here, it’s no longer possible for it to build out of its crisis; to do so would only further imperil the renowned ecosystem that is ostensibly the attraction—the heart of the only intact ecosystem in the temperate Western Hemisphere.