ExTechOps

I heard an intersting new phrase used in a drug commercial. American drug ads are highly formulaic (probably due to regulations), so they almost always end with the phrase “Ask your doctor if X is right for you.”

However, a recent Ambien CR TV ad used the phrase “ask your prescriber” instead of doctor. Apparently, the phrase has been in use since last year, and was the result of petitioning by nurse practitioners (who can also prescribe some drugs).

Of course, it could also be because the Lake Superior State University placed “Ask your Doctor” on its 2007 list of banished words, describing the phrase as “The chewable vitamin morphine of marketing.”

Amusingly, another common phrase using “prescriber” is “prescriber profiling” – the practice of drug companies buying prescription data from pharmacies in order to customize sales pitches for individual doctors, and then track the effect of the promotions.

Discussions about the recent high oil prices have often revolved around the question of whether speculators are responsible, as apposed to Peak Oil or political instability.

Oddly, no one seems to ask the inverse. Weren’t speculators at least partially responsible for the 20 year run of low oil prices?

In the late 70’s and 80’s, speculators put money into off-shore platforms, arctic drilling, long pipelines and exotic extraction technologies. These investments resulted in a large surplus of oil, often resulting in losses for the speculators (for example, George W. Bush).

Welcome to ExTechOps. ExTechOps stands for Experimental Technical Operations. The term is derived from (and in homage to) the EXTECHOP department of S.H.E.I.L.D. from the graphic novel “Elektra: Assassin” by Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz. I made OPS plural since it seems more natural and matches Sandbagger terminology such as D-Ops.

This blog will be a place for me to store musing, rants, and small code experiments – anything that isn’t a Habilis software tool.