First, the article is nothing new. It basically says the same thing as before, "some 22-year old got out of college and worked at Kaiser for 6 months only to find out that, hey, big IT is not perfect." I can't figure out why anyone cares what some dumbass kid is blabbering about. It would be completely different if it was the CIO saying this.
Second, it is true that the medical health system they're implementing is super-complicated but name one that isn't that does what everyone wants. The FBI spent $100m+ on a total failure of a virtual case file system which is far less complicated than an integrated medical health system. Kaiser themselves spent $1B trying to make their own system which was also a failure.
The current implementation is a big-ass system with 8.5 million patients and over 12,000 doctors and a hundred thousand other employees. Frankly, it's a miracle that any system works at all there let alone at 99.2% uptime. Think of all the moving parts! And, yes, I echo someone else's comment that I believe Citrix bears a portion of the blame for the uptime figure -- they kind of suck.
We all have a terminal disease -- it's called life and it's going to end sometime for everyone. Could be next week, a year, 10 years, or maybe 100 years.
You never know what's going to happen so living in the now is the only way to go. My priorities (as someone unlikely to die soon) are:
1. Family 2. Health 3. Work
You're dying right now -- what are you going to do about it?
Umm.. Suppose we build a fairly straightforward pyramid with 45 degree angles for sides. At 500 miles high, that's a 1000 x 1000 mile square base, right? The volume of such a pyramid is 166,666,666 cubic miles.
The Madison-area is one big IT career dead end. I've been up here for a while and the only non dead-end was starting my own consulting business. We ran out of gas on that though and had to get "real" jobs.
I'd like to know what "huge profits" might be found here though.
Has anyone sold a laptop on Ebay? I've sold two used, working laptops on Ebay and had what I would call inordinate interest from Eastern Europe and Hong Kong. I received multiple emails from different buyers asking if I would ship internationally. I said no because my gut was telling me something was wrong here.
What I think is there were one of two things going on:
1. They're buying used laptops and recovering data on them to steal bank account numbers, passwords, etc. 2. They're buying them with someone else's Paypal account or some other money that's not theirs.
I wipe machines using Boot and Nuke but still it creeped me out.
Apparently launching East over water is convenient in case your rocket has a problem. FYI, Sheboygan is on Lake Michigan.
I can think of two other advantages. First it's a lot closer to large population centers than New Mexico which is good assuming you're blowing up over the lake rather than in Milwaukee. People can get to the launch pad a lot easier via ORD or MKE. And second, you have access to nice, fresh Sheboygan bratwurst for sustenance on your space journey.
IANAL, but I think you can only be sued for "actual damages" which means if you only download, you can only be sued for the total retail price of the albums you download.
So unless you've got some kind of compulsive album download behavior, you can only be sued for what you'd normally have purchased at the record store anyway. So what, like they'll sue you for $450? They're going to fly lawyers to Podunk, Wyoming to litigate in small-claims court for your $450? I think not.
Um... my house is entirely covered in relatively thick metal -- aluminum specifically. It doesn't do much with respect to my 802.11 signal getting out. I can still work in my backyard through a layer of aluminum and two walls.
A wee paint layer with some metal in it won't do diddly if my 50s aluminum siding doesn't.
Really. It's not like sitting on top of many tons of pressurized, igniting liquid oxygen and hydrogen is any more dangerous than sitting under a hydrogen blimp.
I bet people just keep thinking of the Hindenberg.
Don't forget that, according to this online info the average human lifespan in 1790 was about 37 years. So a 14 year copyright with a right to renew for 14 years is 75% of the life span of a typical person at the time.
That means, to me at least, that a 58 year copyright is probably not unreasonable (in comparison) as thats 75% of the life span of a typical person today.
Well maybe not the Original Mod but it was definitely something they showed people at the Univ. of Wisconsin CS department. They had a Thinking Machines CM-5 with all these cool blinking LEDs. The department tour always included a viewing of this machine.
Supposedly the LEDs actually represented something. Dunno -- processors working -- error messages -- and so forth.
It was pretty cool back in the day; I mean it oozed computing power despite the fact that it really wasn't that useful a machine.
Wasn't it this guys MO to sue "little guys" who don't have the resources to fly to Alabama and fight it? Doesn't he think he's going to get in trouble suing bigger companies?
I would think they could countersue for some reason like "Mr. Novak is irritating" (say in California) and cost him bundles of $$.
There has been other cheating on the GRE uncovered this summer. AP had a story on how there were Korean and Chinese GRE cheat databases.
I'm sure that it's pretty common especially given the insane scores of some people on the exams. I've seen a lot of CS grad school applications where the scores do not match the person who shows up. I mean there are some seriously stupid people who have 99% on EVERY section of the GRE. Most often, you'd see someone with a 99% on the English portion of the test who'd show up and have an obviously low command of spoken and written English. Typically this was most obvious in Chinese students -- too bad because this is probably one of those "one bad apple" problems.
Of course I disagree with the whole idea of the CS portion of the exam. I mean I remember some stuff on there was just bizarre. Karnaugh maps and crap like that -- who cares?
Re:The Constitution doesn't need amending
on
Want Freedom?
·
· Score: 2
The first amendment doesn't say that, it actually says this inexplicable statement:
Congref shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the pref; or the right of the people peaceably to afemble, and to petition the government for a redref of grievances.
As far as I can tell we don't have a Congref or a pref so it's pretty meaningless...
You might try corundum (sapphire). They come in all sorts of neat colors (red=ruby, blue=sapphire). Bright green, yellow, hot pink, etc.
Diamond engagement rings are a recent (50 years or so) thing. Prior to that, garnets, rubys, and other stones were perfectly acceptable. You can buy a giant, beautiful corundum (though not ruby) for the price of a rather sad-looking diamond.
The other advantage of sapphire is that it's the second hardest gemstone (right behind diamonds). So it'll last her lifetime. Opals and emeralds are shitty stones to wear every day in a ring because they're soft and will disintegrate if whacked about too much.
Keep in mind you have to buy a larger carat size of sapphire than diamond because diamonds have a higher index of refraction so they can be cut thinner and show the same depth and sparkle.
My wife has had a nice yellow sapphire for a while since 6 months salary at the time would have been a wee chip of a diamond. People ask what it is and think it's great. It sparkles (though not as much as an expensive diamond) and is very unique.
Try poking around here; I haven't actually bought from them but they have nice gems and are highly rated as an Ebay seller. Most reputable places will let you order a bunch of stones and return the ones you didn't like.
Seriously, if you get your wife-to-be any kind of ring and she is disappointed, is she really the kind of woman you want to marry?
In my previous tenure as Director of Engineering for, yes, a dot-com, I valiantly tried to utilize sensible ideas from my newly received MBA in software/hardware investment decisions. That was basically useless because I was routinely given directives routed from various department heads to "above me" and back down. These directives ranged from stupid to insane. Most were gigantic wastes of money because everyone making the decisions ignored what we (in engineering) had to say and the decision-makers were completely non-technical.
Salespeople would come in and sell other managers on "this software just plugs right in" -- we would be handed an invoice and a consultant and be expected to "plug it in" with obvious results.
Now my impression is that people might actually care about the value one receives for IT investments. Maybe people will actually listen to IT business experts and review their analyses. Seriously, I think 75% of the waste would have been avoided by just thinking for 5 seconds.
And if you're interested in analyzing and researching IT investments before jumping in, I'm available on a contract basis!
Bills like this point to the fact that Congress and the President are out of touch with the public and reality. It's one thing if Slashdotters are writing about how pissed off they are or the nutty "Free Congress Foundation" (authors of an "Islam is bad and sponsors killing of Christians" article) have their panties in a bunch.
But I think it's interesting when right-wing Christians, ACLU folks, EFFers and who knows who else all agree that something such as the Patriot act and derived laws are illegal and offensive. Even some "regular" people I know living in the heartland of America are getting angry about the disregard for civil liberties and the ability to purchase legislation.
You know how they say history repeats itself? The activism late 60s and early 70s is coming around again in a few years after people can't stand it any more. Only this time it may be many, many different types of people protesting which could result in massive change. As Ben pointed out, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
This is just a trick to distribute digital UN invasion markers that signal their troops and silent, black helicopters with intelligence and locator information. The so-called "Global Civil Society" is really GCS = Geolocation Centralization System. I bet they'll boot up and display the same invasion route markers that you see on the Interstate Highway system signs.
Absolutely true. I've worked with some professional librarians who've told me that some projects are actually printing digital media onto archival paper. Not the picture either -- the bytes that make up the picture. Bizarre but when you realize that paper lasts something like 600 years if taken care of, you can always OCR it back in.
As for me, despite being a tech head, you'll have to pry my analog camera out of my cold dead hand for images I care about. Technology changes so fast that in 10 more years, you WILL NOT be able to read 5.25" floppies unless you have some special equipment (or some really old equipment).
If we just gander all the Paddies, I'm sure we'll really tinder the broadband to the righty mates. Of course wireless broadband really goods the wicker doesn't it?
Can anyone shed any light on the architecture of such a system? Things like cell sizes and # of WAPs, # of users per WAP, connectivity of WAPs to Internet, etc.
I'd like to get a handle on the economics of the project. A 100m radius isn't that big so you're going to need A LOT of WAPs, no? 4 sq. miles = 10359613 sq. meters / 31415 sq. meters per node = 330 nodes minimum, right?
Slashdot Mirror
First, the article is nothing new. It basically says the same thing as before, "some 22-year old got out of college and worked at Kaiser for 6 months only to find out that, hey, big IT is not perfect." I can't figure out why anyone cares what some dumbass kid is blabbering about. It would be completely different if it was the CIO saying this.
Second, it is true that the medical health system they're implementing is super-complicated but name one that isn't that does what everyone wants. The FBI spent $100m+ on a total failure of a virtual case file system which is far less complicated than an integrated medical health system. Kaiser themselves spent $1B trying to make their own system which was also a failure.
The current implementation is a big-ass system with 8.5 million patients and over 12,000 doctors and a hundred thousand other employees. Frankly, it's a miracle that any system works at all there let alone at 99.2% uptime. Think of all the moving parts! And, yes, I echo someone else's comment that I believe Citrix bears a portion of the blame for the uptime figure -- they kind of suck.
MrNovember
We all have a terminal disease -- it's called life and it's going to end sometime for everyone. Could be next week, a year, 10 years, or maybe 100 years.
You never know what's going to happen so living in the now is the only way to go. My priorities (as someone unlikely to die soon) are:
1. Family
2. Health
3. Work
You're dying right now -- what are you going to do about it?
Umm.. Suppose we build a fairly straightforward pyramid with 45 degree angles for sides. At 500 miles high, that's a 1000 x 1000 mile square base, right? The volume of such a pyramid is 166,666,666 cubic miles.
That's a bit of dirt and rocks to move, I think.
The Madison-area is one big IT career dead end. I've been up here for a while and the only non dead-end was starting my own consulting business. We ran out of gas on that though and had to get "real" jobs.
I'd like to know what "huge profits" might be found here though.
Has anyone sold a laptop on Ebay? I've sold two used, working laptops on Ebay and had what I would call inordinate interest from Eastern Europe and Hong Kong. I received multiple emails from different buyers asking if I would ship internationally. I said no because my gut was telling me something was wrong here.
What I think is there were one of two things going on:
1. They're buying used laptops and recovering data on them to steal bank account numbers, passwords, etc.
2. They're buying them with someone else's Paypal account or some other money that's not theirs.
I wipe machines using Boot and Nuke but still it creeped me out.
They should have put this thing in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. People are talking about expanding the experimental suborbital one there.
Apparently launching East over water is convenient in case your rocket has a problem. FYI, Sheboygan is on Lake Michigan.
I can think of two other advantages. First it's a lot closer to large population centers than New Mexico which is good assuming you're blowing up over the lake rather than in Milwaukee. People can get to the launch pad a lot easier via ORD or MKE. And second, you have access to nice, fresh Sheboygan bratwurst for sustenance on your space journey.
Might this be because it's not cost effective?
IANAL, but I think you can only be sued for "actual damages" which means if you only download, you can only be sued for the total retail price of the albums you download.
So unless you've got some kind of compulsive album download behavior, you can only be sued for what you'd normally have purchased at the record store anyway. So what, like they'll sue you for $450? They're going to fly lawyers to Podunk, Wyoming to litigate in small-claims court for your $450? I think not.
Of course a keystroke logger would only record the husband's keystrokes so the other party possibly would not have to be informed.
I really don't understand why I can't tap my own computer and log keystrokes. It's MINE.
Um... my house is entirely covered in relatively thick metal -- aluminum specifically. It doesn't do much with respect to my 802.11 signal getting out. I can still work in my backyard through a layer of aluminum and two walls.
A wee paint layer with some metal in it won't do diddly if my 50s aluminum siding doesn't.
Really. It's not like sitting on top of many tons of pressurized, igniting liquid oxygen and hydrogen is any more dangerous than sitting under a hydrogen blimp.
I bet people just keep thinking of the Hindenberg.
Don't forget that, according to this online info the average human lifespan in 1790 was about 37 years. So a 14 year copyright with a right to renew for 14 years is 75% of the life span of a typical person at the time.
That means, to me at least, that a 58 year copyright is probably not unreasonable (in comparison) as thats 75% of the life span of a typical person today.
Dude, this isn't at all about kiddie porn.
You know that scene in the Man-Month where they're designing the System/360 and they all start farting? That's hilarious!
Well maybe not the Original Mod but it was definitely something they showed people at the Univ. of Wisconsin CS department. They had a Thinking Machines CM-5 with all these cool blinking LEDs. The department tour always included a viewing of this machine.
Supposedly the LEDs actually represented something. Dunno -- processors working -- error messages -- and so forth.
It was pretty cool back in the day; I mean it oozed computing power despite the fact that it really wasn't that useful a machine.
Wasn't it this guys MO to sue "little guys" who don't have the resources to fly to Alabama and fight it? Doesn't he think he's going to get in trouble suing bigger companies?
I would think they could countersue for some reason like "Mr. Novak is irritating" (say in California) and cost him bundles of $$.
There has been other cheating on the GRE uncovered this summer. AP had a story on how there were Korean and Chinese GRE cheat databases.
I'm sure that it's pretty common especially given the insane scores of some people on the exams. I've seen a lot of CS grad school applications where the scores do not match the person who shows up. I mean there are some seriously stupid people who have 99% on EVERY section of the GRE. Most often, you'd see someone with a 99% on the English portion of the test who'd show up and have an obviously low command of spoken and written English. Typically this was most obvious in Chinese students -- too bad because this is probably one of those "one bad apple" problems.
Of course I disagree with the whole idea of the CS portion of the exam. I mean I remember some stuff on there was just bizarre. Karnaugh maps and crap like that -- who cares?
Congref shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the pref; or the right of the people peaceably to afemble, and to petition the government for a redref of grievances.
As far as I can tell we don't have a Congref or a pref so it's pretty meaningless...
You might try corundum (sapphire). They come in all sorts of neat colors (red=ruby, blue=sapphire). Bright green, yellow, hot pink, etc.
Diamond engagement rings are a recent (50 years or so) thing. Prior to that, garnets, rubys, and other stones were perfectly acceptable. You can buy a giant, beautiful corundum (though not ruby) for the price of a rather sad-looking diamond.
The other advantage of sapphire is that it's the second hardest gemstone (right behind diamonds). So it'll last her lifetime. Opals and emeralds are shitty stones to wear every day in a ring because they're soft and will disintegrate if whacked about too much.
Keep in mind you have to buy a larger carat size of sapphire than diamond because diamonds have a higher index of refraction so they can be cut thinner and show the same depth and sparkle.
My wife has had a nice yellow sapphire for a while since 6 months salary at the time would have been a wee chip of a diamond. People ask what it is and think it's great. It sparkles (though not as much as an expensive diamond) and is very unique.
Try poking around here; I haven't actually bought from them but they have nice gems and are highly rated as an Ebay seller. Most reputable places will let you order a bunch of stones and return the ones you didn't like.
Seriously, if you get your wife-to-be any kind of ring and she is disappointed, is she really the kind of woman you want to marry?
In my previous tenure as Director of Engineering for, yes, a dot-com, I valiantly tried to utilize sensible ideas from my newly received MBA in software/hardware investment decisions. That was basically useless because I was routinely given directives routed from various department heads to "above me" and back down. These directives ranged from stupid to insane. Most were gigantic wastes of money because everyone making the decisions ignored what we (in engineering) had to say and the decision-makers were completely non-technical.
Salespeople would come in and sell other managers on "this software just plugs right in" -- we would be handed an invoice and a consultant and be expected to "plug it in" with obvious results.
Now my impression is that people might actually care about the value one receives for IT investments. Maybe people will actually listen to IT business experts and review their analyses. Seriously, I think 75% of the waste would have been avoided by just thinking for 5 seconds.
And if you're interested in analyzing and researching IT investments before jumping in, I'm available on a contract basis!
User: 5
...20 minutes later...
User: 3
User: #
User: 9
User: 9
User: 4
User: 0
Tech Support: All technicians are busy. We value your business. Please continue to wait.
Tech Support: Hello, how can I help you?
User: About a minute after booting up, my computer freezes with a blinking cursor in the corner.
Tech Support: Sir, can you check your power cord? Is it plugged into the wall?
User: Yes, as I said, when I turn it on it freezes up.
Tech Support: Is your computer turned on?
User: Yes.
Tech Support: Is your monitor plugged into both the wall and your computer?
User: Of course.
Tech Support: Is your monitor turned on?
User: Yes yes. That's not the problem.
Tech Support: I see. Do you have your support CD?
User: Yes.
Tech Support: Ok, insert your support CD and press the reset button.
User: Ok.
Tech Support: You should see our logo and several choices.
User: Alright there they are.
Tech Support: Press the one called Reformat and Reinstall Operating System.
User: Uhh...Won't that remove all of my stuff? I mean can't you help me figure the problem out?
Tech Support: Your problem can't be solved without reinitializing your system.
User: But it starts up ok and works for a while.
Tech Support: Sir, can you check your power cord? Is it plugged into the wall?
Bills like this point to the fact that Congress and the President are out of touch with the public and reality. It's one thing if Slashdotters are writing about how pissed off they are or the nutty "Free Congress Foundation" (authors of an "Islam is bad and sponsors killing of Christians" article) have their panties in a bunch.
But I think it's interesting when right-wing Christians, ACLU folks, EFFers and who knows who else all agree that something such as the Patriot act and derived laws are illegal and offensive. Even some "regular" people I know living in the heartland of America are getting angry about the disregard for civil liberties and the ability to purchase legislation.
You know how they say history repeats itself? The activism late 60s and early 70s is coming around again in a few years after people can't stand it any more. Only this time it may be many, many different types of people protesting which could result in massive change. As Ben pointed out, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
This is just a trick to distribute digital UN invasion markers that signal their troops and silent, black helicopters with intelligence and locator information. The so-called "Global Civil Society" is really GCS = Geolocation Centralization System. I bet they'll boot up and display the same invasion route markers that you see on the Interstate Highway system signs.
As for me, despite being a tech head, you'll have to pry my analog camera out of my cold dead hand for images I care about. Technology changes so fast that in 10 more years, you WILL NOT be able to read 5.25" floppies unless you have some special equipment (or some really old equipment).
If we just gander all the Paddies, I'm sure we'll really tinder the broadband to the righty mates. Of course wireless broadband really goods the wicker doesn't it?
Can anyone shed any light on the architecture of such a system? Things like cell sizes and # of WAPs, # of users per WAP, connectivity of WAPs to Internet, etc.
I'd like to get a handle on the economics of the project. A 100m radius isn't that big so you're going to need A LOT of WAPs, no? 4 sq. miles = 10359613 sq. meters / 31415 sq. meters per node = 330 nodes minimum, right?
Thoughts?