Hacked and/or Phished

My Twitter account was hacked yesterday evening. Apparently a very good imitation of me sent out a mass direct message. It read “lmao…omg i am laughing so hard at this pic u i just found” followed by a link to a page which asked you to “sign in” to your Twitter account — obviously a plot to collect usernames and passwords. (Actually, a not-so-good imitation of me: I’m about the last person on earth not to uncapitalize “i” or use “lmao” or “omg” or “u.”)

Of course I fell for it — the page looks just like Twitter login page — and I had just tapped “Enter” when I realized I was being phished.

Damn it all to hell. Password reset hell, that is.

I apologize for any inconvenience to anyone affected. If you’re a trusting soul like me, and was taken in, unfortunately you will need to reset your passwords.

Some tips on securing your Twitter account here.

No Comment

I’ve just realized my comment spam filter is shutting out some of my faithful readers. I apologize. I’ve approved the missing comments, but if you see one of your comments has gone AWOL, email me and I’ll fix it.

However, the number of people telling me the blog is the best they’ve ever read while simultaneously trying to sell me penis enlargement products and to get me to link back to their sites is truly astonishing. Truly, the quality of spam is going to the dogs.

Is Blogging Worth it?

Year-end is sometimes for stock-taking. Dr. D does so in a painfully honest way, and decides to break from blogging for a couple of months for reasons that are heart-rending. (Read the post for the why.) This is what struck me, however:

I love this blog, but it takes a lot of my time. I spend a lot of time thinking on the questions you write me, and writing, re-writing, checking, and formatting a post takes about 6 hours for me. Yeah, I’m that slow!

Going faster would make me put out rambling, useless junk, and I wouldn’t do that to my readers.

So posting every week takes a significant chunk of my free time. So for the next few months I’ve decided to allot more time to my friends and family who are still breathing.

Each point (I think) applies to me and every other blogger I read regularly, and I still put out “rambling, useless” shit frequently. Writing is hard work. It takes commitment. And there is no cure for it. I’m getting a little faster, but still, producing a longish piece, say in the range of 750 – 100 words, still consumes four or five hours — which is why you, dear readers, only see them maybe weekly. I’m frankly in awe of the bloggers who deliver each day long, well-written, 1500-word pieces with the alacrity of  Thomas the Tank Engine moving cargo on the Isle of Sodor. I couldn’t do it. My brain would implode into a space-time singularity leaving an empty husk of a charge nurse robotically telling wandering family members over and over, “These are the ambulance doors, sir. Please use the main entrance.”

Is it worth it? Mostly. There are negatives, yes, in terms of time spent on the computer, and doing annoying crap unrelated to writing but related to blogging (if you can see the difference.) Sometimes writing feels like just another job, but with no pay. Yet I don’t believe my social life has suffered — much — I usually write in the early hours of the morning, when most people are cozied in bed. More positively, my writing and this blog has improved immeasurably, but also I’ve sharpened up my capacity for critical thinking and made some amazing contacts. The discipline of producing something on a nearly daily basis has been tremendous. I don’t watch television anymore — it’s amazing how much time and creative energy the idiot box consumes — and a good thing this is, too.

But I think the ever-growing list of Rigor Mortis blogs on the right-hand blogroll ultimately decided otherwise. It’s tough, making everything balance, and in the Grand Scheme of Things, our little scribblings here don’t count for much. Life, to use a cliché, gets in the way. So Dr. D, I understand. Completely. So good luck, rest up, do what you have to do, and we’ll see you in February.

The First Annual Those Emergency Blues Prize for Writing

I’m starting what I hope will be an annual tradition here at Those Emergency Blues: giving out an award for the Best Writing from a Nurse Blogger in the preceding year.

My aim is simple: I want to encourage and recognize all the exceptional writing by nurse bloggers. I want us to tell our stories in a clear and forceful way.

Apart from the prestige (dubious), and a fancy-pants button for your website (yet to be designed), there are fabulous prizes:

1ST — $50 gift certificate from Amazon

2ND— a gift basket of smelly stuff from the artisans at Cree

3RD — the nurses’ friend: a travel mug.

Rules are simple:

1. Submissions must be written by a nurse. They may be on any topic or any length.
2. Submissions may be made by the author (strongly encouraged) or by anyone who sees a great blog post deserving recognition.
3. Deadline for submission is 2359 ET, 31 December 2010.
4. Winners will be announced in January 2011.

How to Submit a Blog Post: Submissions — I prefer a link to the original post — can be made to me at torontoemergencyrn (at) gmail (dot) com or left in the comments of this post.

This being a one horse operation, submissions will be evaluated by myself, and another judge.

I will occasionally post entries here — with the author’s permission, of course.

Please feel free to reTweet this post or copy it to your own blogs: I really want this disseminated as widely as possible through the Nursosphere!

My Picks: 10 Best Nursing Blogs

In the past year, I have read a lot of nursing blogs, some very good, a few very bad, and covering all points between. As a way to mark the first anniversary of this blog, and something which I intend to become an annual event, I thought I might return a little of the recognition you, my nurse colleagues (and I hope, friends) have given me.

It was a pretty hard deciding who my favourites were. There are many superlative blogs, and undoubtedly I have only seen a fraction of them. The choices are purely subjective and idiosyncratic. I employed no elaborate scoring system to objectify my choices, but I did keep in mind factors of readability, interest/topicality/aptness/etc., and regularity of posting, only one of which, in any case could be realistically measured.

In no particular order, my choices for the best nursing blogs:

• At Your Cervix

My personal blogmother.

• Lost on the Floor

Thoughtful and well-written; unfortunately on summer holiday, and waiting for his return.

• Drawing on Experience

Comics are art, and newly-graduated Will is an artist.

• New Nurse Insanity: Fundus Chop!

No verbal filter, she says, but hugely entertaining, thoughtful and readable nonetheless.

• Die Krankenschwester

Where art meets healing, along (as a bonus) a sister blog, JParadisi RN’s Blog

• Head Nurse

Flat out, the best written.

• NurseXY

Writing his way through nursing school; “Just me,” he says, and my Y chromosome afloat on the estrogen ocean. . .”

• Impacted Nurse

Our blogs should all look so good. Or be so informative and interesting.

• Nursing Ideas

Rob Fraser: “The goal of this website is to share ideas of research, innovation and leadership with nurses.”

• Pee and Sympathy: True Stories from an RN

Terrific, beautifully written stories: on a (hopefully) brief hiatus.