{"id":106884,"date":"2021-09-15T16:17:07","date_gmt":"2021-09-15T21:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=106884"},"modified":"2021-09-15T16:17:41","modified_gmt":"2021-09-15T21:17:41","slug":"doctor-curmudgeon-social-media-in-times-of-yore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=106884","title":{"rendered":"Doctor Curmudgeon\u00ae Social Media in Times of Yore"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1545664804358300\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block; text-align: center;\" data-ad-layout=\"in-article\" data-ad-format=\"fluid\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1545664804358300\" data-ad-slot=\"8616314829\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=106884\" rel=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=106884\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-75425 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/ubm-photo-201x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"201\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/ubm-photo-201x300.jpg 201w, https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/ubm-photo.jpg 535w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 201px) 100vw, 201px\" \/><\/a>By Diane Batshaw Eisman, M.D. FAAP Doctor Eisman, is in Family Practice in Aventura, Florida with her partner, Dr. Eugene Eisman, an internist\/cardiologist<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As the one-hundredth invitation to be \u201cfriended\u201d overwhelmed my email, I thought about how annoying social media had become.<\/p>\n<p>This reflection caused me to harken back to the good old days of what is most likely the first social media: Morse Code.<\/p>\n<p>It was a few years before my birth, in 1837, when an artist and inventor, Samuel Morse, completed his work on his new method of communication.<\/p>\n<p>More than a century before Twitter and Facebook and linked in, Morse was the real pioneer in telecommunication.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>So simple.<\/p>\n<p>So efficient.<\/p>\n<p>No need for computers, Iphones, Ipads.<\/p>\n<p>No maddening need for IDs, ever changing passwords and two factor identification.<\/p>\n<p>Just a neat machine, electrical current, pencil and paper.<\/p>\n<p>Basically, Morse Code is binary, using two main characters for each of the twenty six letters of the alphabet. Morse Code has the dit and the dah. The dit is a short burst and the dah is three times longer than the dit. Words are separated by a space equal to seven dahs and letters are spaced three dahs apart.<\/p>\n<p>(Editorial comment by Galahad, the Siberian Husky who runs the Curmudgeon household, in addition to his own occupation: \u201cThere are many who consider Morse Code to be ternary or quinary, because the pause is necessary to decode the message, which would mean that the pause is actually a third character. And it could rightfully be designated as quinary as there are both long and short pauses)\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This novel code needed a way to be transmitted. And so, Morse collaborated with a mechanical engineer, Alfred Vail and a physicist, Joseph Henry.<\/p>\n<p>The three of them gave birth to the telegraph. Using electric current to transmit pulses, a message was sent from Washington to Baltimore on May 24, 1844.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to the Morse Code and the telegraph, social communication consisted of hand written messages carried by riders on horseback.<\/p>\n<p>Samuel Morse, Alfred Vail and Joseph Henry changed the way in which people communicated. A decoder at the other end of the telegraph listened to the electric signals and jotted down the text message.<\/p>\n<p>Aaah. So much friendlier. Much more humane. No cluttered up email. No phone spewing forth unending texts.<\/p>\n<p>-.. &#8212; -.-. &#8211; &#8212; .-. -.-. ..- .-. &#8212; ..- -.. &#8211;. . &#8212; -.<\/p>\n<p>The above dots and dashes are not bugs that have been squashed to reach their end on this paper, but a bit of Morse Code. It is not an invitation to be \u201cfriended, but it is an invitation to the reader to decode.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Curmudgeon suggests &#8220;Bitter Medicine\u201d, Dr. Eugene Eisman&#8217;s story of his experiences&#8211;from the humorous to the intense&#8212;as a young army doctor serving in the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n<p>Bitter Medicine by Eugene H. Eisman, M.D. &#8211;on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Bitter-Medicine-Doctors-Year-Vietnam\/dp\/0615874347\">Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Doctor Curmudgeon\u00ae is Diane Batshaw Eisman, M.D., a physician-satirist. This column originally appeared on SERMO, the leading global social network for doctors.<\/p>\n<p>SERMO <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sermo.com\">www.sermo.com<\/a> \u201ctalk real world medicine\u201d<\/p>\n<p>[si-contact-form form=&#8217;2&#8242;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Diane Batshaw Eisman, M.D. FAAP Doctor Eisman, is in Family Practice in Aventura, Florida with her partner, Dr. Eugene Eisman, an internist\/cardiologist As the one-hundredth invitation to be \u201cfriended\u201d overwhelmed my email, I thought about how annoying social media had become. This reflection caused me to harken back to the good old days of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[27417],"class_list":["post-106884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boxing-news","tag-doctor-curmudgeon-social-media-in-times-of-yore"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=106884"}],"version-history":[{"count":-3,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106884\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=106884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=106884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=106884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}