Tuesday, December 30, 2025

Ramping Up

Grok for Med Schoolers

Our take on the Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics tactic of "doing a recall" (closed book) to cement new knowledge: why not add in a prompt and resulting generated image as an aide-mémoire?
 
The above image is quirky enough to stick (you want quirky; cite The Art of Memory, F. Yates): a tired Santa, like a childish belief, is ready to be retired, and is set upon by the guardian macrophages, charged with keeping the red blood cell fleet in good repair. Cull the oldies.

Likewise when doing Knowledge Engineering: keep the toolset up to date. Or think of outdoor gear in a challenging environment. Think Winter Term.
 
The detailed prompt is saved in Flickr (the picture goes there) but is semi-irrelevant in its details; other than to show how one might encapsulate a homework session on the structure and function of the spleen, that small organ at the tip of the pancreas engaged in bloodwork.
 
Screen Shot 2025-12-30 at 11.18.24 AM

The concrete Hs above stem from Grok's misinterpretation of how a Dolos should look. A what? 

Dolosse are concrete elements used in large numbers to build up breakwaters, which are partially submerged barriers to unfettered shore-bashing, during storms or even tsunamis. The ocean's fury is partially absorbed by these artificial reefs.

Crescent City (Cascadia) has such breakwaters made mostly from Tetrapods, an alternative concrete element, a caltrop (as in Quadrays). Related shape: the jack (XYZ).

The analogy we wish to introduce goes back to our Tetrahedron (a grand central) in that opposite edges of a regular Platonic version are mutually perpendicular, yet not touching.

As such these opposite edges akin to the design of the Dolos, and also to the centrioles in the centrosome, that eukaryotic cell organelle responsible for anchoring the cell's cytoskeleton; and in pulling apart the  strands of DNA during mitosis, such that each resulting cell has its copy of the original.
 
Circuit Cycler

The pillar against which the bicycle leans continues the Rust Never Sleeps color palette much of Portland has chosen. Rust, owing to oxidation, is not an irrelevant topic when it comes to hematology and the role of iron in the body.
Rusty O