Slashdot Mirror

matthewg writes "According to the New York Times the federal government has developed an open-source medical records system. It was originally developed for the Department of Veterans Affairs, and doctors started obtaining it under FOIA requests. Some good information on the process of converting it from an internal project to a deployable system exists, and how its open nature has made the system better is available at the WorldVista site." From the article: "Medicare has not estimated what its software giveaway is worth. But Duncan Pringle, chief Vista technologist at Perot Systems, said that each doctor in a practice paid about $20,000 to $25,000 to get started with a commercial system, including costs of software, a license fee charged to each doctor, installation and servicing."

matthewg writes: "This week's New York Times Magazine (free registration required) consists primarily of a special feature, The Year In Ideas. Subtitled 'An encyclopedia of innovations, conceptual leaps, harebrained schemes, cultural tremors, & hindsight reckonings that made a difference in 2001,' the feature describes 80 different "notions, inventions, conceptual swerves and philosophical leaps that mattered this year and may well continue to matter in years to come" in between a couple of paragraphs and half a page. Complete with illustrations which range from informative to whimsical, it covers a lot of interesting ideas, many of which will probably be new to you. The article's subjects include such Slashdot-fodder as software as speech, steganography Goes Digital, and collaborative composition, as well as a plethora of intriguing new ideas, such as new ideas in basic rights and global warming lawsuits. And, of course, the solution to every Slashdotter's woes."

Darren wrote in to blatantly plug his 'Darren's Penguin Habitat' which aims to be a newbie Linux site. g8orade wrote in to say that Applix has Applix Anywhere which is apparently a Java compatible suite of mail, word processing, presentation, and spreadsheet software. jimw wrote in to tell us about Vintage Computer Festival if you're into that old stuff, and near Santa Clara. yack0 warned us that Elijah Wood will be Frodo Baggins in the upcoming Lord of the Rings Trilogy of movies. Verne "Mini-Me" Troyer is also rumored to have a part. rawlink sent us a URL with some Hi Res Fractals that prove Rob' First Law of Art: All art is better if you can use it as your background image. An anonymous reader wrote in to plug these Y2k Posters which actually look surprisingly sweet if you're into those classic movie type posters. I dig 'em. Abe Zuckerman sent us pictures of the new Rios (hint: Butt ugly) Randy Rathbun wrote in to note that several new pictures of the empeg have appeared on their website. Mikey LeBeau us pix of a metallic hand-crafted aluminum Palm case for those of us who are entertained by shiny objects. Scooter sent us a report on how offensive South Park the Movie is. Absolutely Hilarious. Finally, matthewg pointed us to After Y2K which pokes some fun at Hemos, Martha Stewert, and Me.