AFRO-NETS> Supercourse Newsletter, December 27 2002

[Ron LaPorte <super1+@pitt.edu>]

Supercourse Newsletter, December 27 2002
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http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/

Dear Friends,

This has been a wonderful week of holidays and Supercourses! 

Thank You, BMJ

The article in the BMJ took a most interesting twist. In the article 
(http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/325/7378/1478) we argued that re-
search communications was soon to be taken over by the mighty danger-
ous PowerPoint. We appreciate all of you who wrote in response to the 
article, and who compared the PowerPoint presentation with the arti-
cle itself. It would be wonderful if many others of you could review 
the article and comments. It was rather funny, the first 5-6 letters 
came back saying that we did not mention anything about quality con-
trol. In the final proofs, we had about 2 paragraphs on quality con-
trol. Maxine Clarke, one of the editors of Nature mentioned the same 
thing, what about quality control? We went back to the article in the 
web, and surprisingly 40% of the article was vaporized, all of our 
discussion of quality control was out of control . It was so funny as 
this showed once again, how much better the existing journal system 
is to PowerPoint!! The BMJ is wonderful, and could not have done any-
thing better for us than vaporizing the guts of our paper!!! A few 
days later the paragraphs were found, and inserted back. Thank good-
ness for the web!!

CD distribution:

The first report of our CD touching down was in California on Dec. 
23, the first report of someone receiving the CD outside the US was 
from Japan on Dec. 26. If you have not received the CD, you will 
shortly receive it.

We decided that we might want to include a 3rd condition for receiv-
ing the CD, besides no selling it, and cloning the CD for all of your 
libraries and friends. This is a very simple concept. The Supercourse 
is giving you, for free 1038 lectures by the world s experts, FOR 
FREE. This is not a gift as we have said. We would like to make a 
deal with you. We will give you 1038 lectures by Nobel Prize winners, 
heads of CDC, grandfathers of preventive medicine and the Internet. 
All we would like in return is just one, thin, beautiful lecture of 
yours. It seems like quite a deal, doesn't it? Where could you trade 
in a dollar and get $1000 in return? Where could you trade in your 
1948 Lada, and get 1000 Mercedes in return? It is quite a deal. We 
think that you probably do not feel like you are a part of the teach-
ers club, or part of the global health network - but you can, for one 
thin lecture of yours. What a deal!!

When you get the lecture in the mail, sit back and think that the 
world wants to help YOU out - what about the other way around? You 
helping the world? It would be great.
 
I am sure for all of you these are the top 5 New Years resolutions:

5. Lose 10 kilos
4. Publish in the BMJ (minus 40%)
3. Stop smoking cigars
2. Run a KM a day

And the Top Resolution for 2003 is:

1. Send a lecture to the Supercourse

Thanks so much for a wonderful year. Let us know when you receive 
your CD. You can copy it, and put one of the copies in a picture 
frame above your bed.

Last night we had most fun. Soni Dodani from Pakistan held a meeting 
at AKU with some leaders at 8:30 in the morning (10:30 Pittsburgh 
time). We called into her meeting and gave a short introduction. If 
you would like us to do this at any of your meetings, we would gladly 
call and say hello to everyone from Pittsburgh. It was a wonderful 
way to get to know people.

Happy New Year:

At New Year's eve in Buffalo, NY, USA, we eat blind robins . These 
are smoked, stinky fish, which if you eat them you will have good 
luck all next year. We ate some last year, and look what great luck 
the Supercourse has had. If it is customary to make a wish for the up 
coming year, forget about getting rich, getting a handsome/pretty 
spouse, or the death of your boss. Feel free to wish for the Super-
course!!! We need all the good wishes we can get, as last you was an 
enormous year! This year we want to do better with you. We would love 
your ideas of what you think we should do this year.

If you have ideas of what we should do next year, send a note:
mailto:ronlaporte@aol.com

We wish you the best blind robins money can buy, and the best of luck 
in 2003. Thanks for being a part of the Supercourse.

Ron, Faina, Mita, Eugene, Julia, Soni, Wendy, Beatriz, Tom, Abed, 
Akira, Rania, Deb, Fred
mailto:super1+@pitt.edu

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