I feel rationally obligated to distrust anything self-promoted as “Web 2.0″ in the same way I distrust statistics tacked with some vague quality like “40% more kick!” It’s as if those tacks are nailed right in to the body of Science itself, and I feel its pain. I feel it. Nonetheless, as I can be trusted to regularly grease the world economy $3.29 USD every late night caffeine sortie at the 7/11 across the street, there’s nothing physically impairing me from both believing that savant-like super powers wrought at the heights of all human achievement will give me more energy and help my money work for me while simultaneously loathing the idiocy that same electric blue sans-serif salespitch will sap my attention and wallet if only they could brand their goods with some impressive looking number. You know, like science and stuff. It’s as if behind the decimal point lies a secret realm where mere digits morph into runes of ancient magic, drawing the true, terrible power of tenth decimal place into a furious ball of psychogenic witchcraft burned by marketers into every web service and sugary softdrink for their duplicitous intent of short-circuiting my brain —not impairing rational thought itself, merely its ability to keep my money in my pocket and my faith to myself. It’s a near optimal function to illicit self-disgust.

Hey, I have an idea for a radical new financial instrument, it’s called: the hundredth decimal place. With marketing that tight, I may as well be selling soma to cashiers, right? It’s a brave new world out here on the interwebs, and I’ve got the confidence interval for you right anterior to my magic symbol “%.”

What was I talking about? Oh right.

Bertalan Meskó of Science Roll has officially launched Webicina, a service that sells education material and consulting to doctors about using the Internet and helps them launch a website. Regarding doctor blogs: Dr. Steven Murphy said today about his doctor blog, Gene Sherpas: “all they good things that happened to me this year have come from my blog.” Webicina is a valuable service that I endorse that will help your professional career as a medical professional —and it’s fun, too.

Here’s a funny picture of a dancing little boy wearing decimal point on his shirt. I want you think of it every time somebody uses a decimal point or any other statistic without justifying their significant digits or measurement confidence.

PS: I never want to see the expression “Web 2.0″ ever again, and God help you if I see anybody try to peddle *shutter* “Web 3.0.” To a lesser extent, that goes for that “59.5%” penetrance estimate for g2019s LRRK2 report at 23andMe, too.