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A Carnival Attraction That Saved Premature Babies (2016)

119 points by pr337h4m 1y ago

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
delichon 1y ago
This reminds me of "The King's Speech". A competent quack isn't necessarily an oxymoron. As a self-taught programmer that's encouraging.
- myself248 1y ago
  I don't think he was a quack, he wasn't selling anything counterfactual or deceptive. He was outside the mainstream, but more in the sense of a specialist than a fraudster. And his novel funding model allowed care when none else could be afforded.
  - krisoft 1y ago
    > he wasn't selling anything counterfactual or deceptive He was saying he is a physician, and by all evidence he wasn't. That's both deceptive and counterfactual.
    - opwieurposiu 1y ago
      I think 6,500 alive babies is probably a better credential then a diploma on a wall.
      - nkrisc 1y ago
        Doesn’t make it not strictly fraudulent.
        afthonos 1y ago
        Don’t worry, the world will never lack for Great Bureaucrats to tut-tut 6500 babies irregularly saved, and to regulate away the likelihood of such atrocities happening on the regular.
      - krisoft 1y ago
        That is the “competent” part from the “competent quack”. Obviously if we can believe his numbers, that is.
- imzadi 1y ago
  It's really amazing how back then people could just come to the US and completely reinvent themselves. William Mulholland was a poor Irish kid with almost no education who became a self-taught engineer and completely reshaped the future of Los Angeles. Stuff like that just can't happen anymore.
  - kkkqkqkqkqlqlql 1y ago
    > Stuff like that just can't happen anymore. Ya sure about that? You can be a fraudster in the UK, have your medical degree revoked, and go to the US as a fraudster without a medical degree... And be a leader! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield
- georgeecollins 1y ago
  So many of the best programmers I have worked with are self taught! The key is if they keep learning as they go, because self education can skip some theory, and every changes too. Somewhere along the way CS became really popular so you'd get people with nice credentials and zero passion to do the actual work. Let's fight that paper ceiling.
  - schwartzworld 1y ago
    I’d go further and say that writing code for a living requires a great deal of self-teaching regardless of your background. CS degrees typically don’t teach you how to build software, and even if they did, the problem space is huge. There is a lifetime of self-teaching to do from the moment you take your first job. I think that my being self-taught helped my career quite a bit. It did make it harder to get in the door, but that was just a one-time problem to solve.
- hammock 1y ago
  People forget that all doctors were quacks (to borrow your meaning, loosely) until 1847 when the AMA was founded to promote medical licensing; and/or until Flexner’s report to Congress that there were too many unlicensed doctors not using enough pharmaceuticals (1910), the standardization of allopathic medicine and founding of the Federation of State Medical Boards (1912)
Aardwolf 1y ago
I hope they could correctly keep track which baby belonged to which parents
- dpassens 1y ago
  Why wouldn't they?
  - codr7 1y ago
    Maybe they didn't exist. Empty city streets, factories run by children. Where were all the adults?
  - Aardwolf 1y ago
    Because the chaotic environment of a fair is combined with multiple babies
matsemann 1y ago
> thinning gray hair, a mustache and a stoop, something he jokingly attributed to a lifetime of bending over babies My granddad always used to say his lack of hair on top of his head was from all his teachers patting him on the head and telling him how a good boy he was when growing up. Knowing him, that's definitely not true, heh. Did all kinds of mostly harmless stuff. Like returned bottles for a deposit, waited until the clerk put them out back, went to fetch them and deposited them again, until getting caught.
alsetmusic 1y ago
> There’s an old apartment building in South Minneapolis that looks totally out of place. It’s in a residential neighborhood with small bungalows and some auto body shops. And in the early 1900s, it used to be part of an amusement park called Wonderland. The park’s biggest attraction wasn’t the roller coaster, or the dance hall, or the log flume. It was a sideshow called “the Infantorium.” Visitors would pay ten cents to enter a spacious room full of glass boxes that were incubators with tiny premature babies on display. But despite how weird this whole concept might seem today, this wasn’t the only place this was happening. 99% Invisible Podcast: [0]The Infantorium 0: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-infantorium/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-infantorium/
LinuxAmbulance 1y ago
In general, licensure is a great tool to hold the pool of practitioners to a high standard, few if any areas being more important than medicine. But if someone has saved 6,500 children from dying, it doesn't make any sense to get hung up on it, especially if other doctors are working with him and have no issues with his methods and ability. Those that are obsessed with process over results make my head hurt. Might as well declare all self-taught programmers as useless when it's clear they're a massive benefit.

119 points by pr337h4m 1y ago

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

This reminds me of "The King's Speech". A competent quack isn't necessarily an oxymoron. As a self-taught programmer that's encouraging.

myself248 1y ago
I don't think he was a quack, he wasn't selling anything counterfactual or deceptive. He was outside the mainstream, but more in the sense of a specialist than a fraudster. And his novel funding model allowed care when none else could be afforded.
- krisoft 1y ago
  > he wasn't selling anything counterfactual or deceptive He was saying he is a physician, and by all evidence he wasn't. That's both deceptive and counterfactual.
  - opwieurposiu 1y ago
    I think 6,500 alive babies is probably a better credential then a diploma on a wall.
    - nkrisc 1y ago
      Doesn’t make it not strictly fraudulent.
      - afthonos 1y ago
        Don’t worry, the world will never lack for Great Bureaucrats to tut-tut 6500 babies irregularly saved, and to regulate away the likelihood of such atrocities happening on the regular.
    - krisoft 1y ago
      That is the “competent” part from the “competent quack”. Obviously if we can believe his numbers, that is.
imzadi 1y ago
It's really amazing how back then people could just come to the US and completely reinvent themselves. William Mulholland was a poor Irish kid with almost no education who became a self-taught engineer and completely reshaped the future of Los Angeles. Stuff like that just can't happen anymore.
- kkkqkqkqkqlqlql 1y ago
  > Stuff like that just can't happen anymore. Ya sure about that? You can be a fraudster in the UK, have your medical degree revoked, and go to the US as a fraudster without a medical degree... And be a leader! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield
georgeecollins 1y ago
So many of the best programmers I have worked with are self taught! The key is if they keep learning as they go, because self education can skip some theory, and every changes too. Somewhere along the way CS became really popular so you'd get people with nice credentials and zero passion to do the actual work. Let's fight that paper ceiling.
- schwartzworld 1y ago
  I’d go further and say that writing code for a living requires a great deal of self-teaching regardless of your background. CS degrees typically don’t teach you how to build software, and even if they did, the problem space is huge. There is a lifetime of self-teaching to do from the moment you take your first job. I think that my being self-taught helped my career quite a bit. It did make it harder to get in the door, but that was just a one-time problem to solve.
hammock 1y ago
People forget that all doctors were quacks (to borrow your meaning, loosely) until 1847 when the AMA was founded to promote medical licensing; and/or until Flexner’s report to Congress that there were too many unlicensed doctors not using enough pharmaceuticals (1910), the standardization of allopathic medicine and founding of the Federation of State Medical Boards (1912)

Aardwolf 1y ago

I hope they could correctly keep track which baby belonged to which parents

dpassens 1y ago
Why wouldn't they?
- codr7 1y ago
  Maybe they didn't exist. Empty city streets, factories run by children. Where were all the adults?
- Aardwolf 1y ago
  Because the chaotic environment of a fair is combined with multiple babies

matsemann 1y ago

> thinning gray hair, a mustache and a stoop, something he jokingly attributed to a lifetime of bending over babies My granddad always used to say his lack of hair on top of his head was from all his teachers patting him on the head and telling him how a good boy he was when growing up. Knowing him, that's definitely not true, heh. Did all kinds of mostly harmless stuff. Like returned bottles for a deposit, waited until the clerk put them out back, went to fetch them and deposited them again, until getting caught.

alsetmusic 1y ago

> There’s an old apartment building in South Minneapolis that looks totally out of place. It’s in a residential neighborhood with small bungalows and some auto body shops. And in the early 1900s, it used to be part of an amusement park called Wonderland. The park’s biggest attraction wasn’t the roller coaster, or the dance hall, or the log flume. It was a sideshow called “the Infantorium.” Visitors would pay ten cents to enter a spacious room full of glass boxes that were incubators with tiny premature babies on display. But despite how weird this whole concept might seem today, this wasn’t the only place this was happening. 99% Invisible Podcast: [0]The Infantorium 0: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-infantorium/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-infantorium/

LinuxAmbulance 1y ago

In general, licensure is a great tool to hold the pool of practitioners to a high standard, few if any areas being more important than medicine. But if someone has saved 6,500 children from dying, it doesn't make any sense to get hung up on it, especially if other doctors are working with him and have no issues with his methods and ability. Those that are obsessed with process over results make my head hurt. Might as well declare all self-taught programmers as useless when it's clear they're a massive benefit.