New Writing Gig: IT Pro Server and Network sections

It's official - we can now announce the new writing gig I've been hinting at.

From the start of September marypcb and I will be looking after the Server and Networking sections of IT Pro. Not only that, we'll also be running a joint blog on the IT Pro site.

On a more formal note, we'll be doing several news stories a week, and a similar number of features a month - so we'll be looking for plenty of press releases and people to talk to.

Any PRs with relevant clients, please, get in touch - we're starting to work on September right now!

We're not dropping any of our other regular writing. We'll just be busier...

Cross-fertilisation (or, "Let's Play Doctors and Mechanics")

Surgeons from Great Ormond Street Hospital are working with Ferrari's pit crew, to see if the high-speed surgery of the Formula 1 team can help them improve their emergency room procedures.

The Ferrari people filmed the doctors at work, then dissected the images with them. "For years we've been convinced that we were doing things pretty well, but seeing the tape it was shocking to notice our lack of coordination", says Nick Pigott of the intensive-care unit.

TEDBlog also mentions how IDEO have been taking US emergency room surgeons to NASCAR pits:

Time is of essence in both the ER and a car race, and "doctors were impressed by the high level of preparation and coordination of the pit team". Tom explained that while the Nascar teams are perfectly synchronized and approach the car from planned directions and carrying all the necessary tools and parts on them, doctors often enter the ER just to start asking nurses to gather, every time anew, the necessary tools and machines and drugs.

Fascinating stuff, and a look at just how we can learn from many difference places.

TEDblog has gone straight onto my blogroll.

Free Bryce

(at least until the 6^th of September 2006)

Pop along to the Daz web site and download Bryce 5.0 from the link there. Macintosh and Windows versions are available...

It may not be the latest version, but it's still one of the best landscape generating and rendering tools around...

[Update fromautopope: "Does not run under Mac OS/X 10.4 and above".]