I should have said "much of the complexity of a gas engine", not "all". My bad:)
What is amazing is just how simple a well-designed all-electric vehicle can be compared to a gas vehicle. No radiator. No brakes (regenerative instead). No sparkplugs or ignition. No injection system and pumps. Usually no transmission (which can be as complex as a gas engine, itself). No oil or filters. No alternator. No intake system nor air filter not valves. Possibly no hydraulic systems. No starter. No gas tank & evap canister. No exhaust system nor muffler. No catalytic converter.
Those components are all replaced by a larger battery system, a charger, and a few sealed motors.
I have often thought of that. I am guessing that most home owners that don't have a garage but do have a driveway can just use an extension cord and plug on the house. For those with no driveway, they might opt to just bury a power cord and have a controlled outlet near the street. It really isn't that complex and probably not very expensive (although going under a sidewalk could be an issue). Put a power switch in or near the house to prevent someone from stealing your power and you are ready to go. Might need some type of sensing gadget to protect children from messing with the outlet or shorts.
Of course, for people who don't have their own street frontage, it does become a problem. I suppose a city could address that with city-supplied and metered power outlets. It would be expensive, but streets usually have power already running down at least one side.
Step/assumption 1- scrap the SUV and get an electric car (doesn't have to be tiny, just reasonable). Step/assumption 2- a rage of 100+ miles per charge. Step/assumption 3- you need to buy a replacement vehicle because it is time to replace the old one, not just to make the switch. Step/assumption 4- electric cars have a large battery replacement expense after several years, but it might be about the same costs as gas engine car maintenance over the long term (gas engines are FAR more complex)
With those assumptions, if you were driving even 30 miles to work and back every day and for errands and trips on the weekend and your current SUV gets a respectable 15MPG, that is 2 gal of gas a day. If gas were around $3/gal (which is not unreasonable, and it will get MUCH more expensive over the years), that is $2,190 in gas costs per year. With electricity, that cost would be about $250/year; a savings of $1,940 per year, or $9,700 per 5 years. If gas jumps to $6/gal (again, not completely unrealistic in several years), that 5 year savings could be $19,400.
So.... it kinda depends on how much you drive and how much more an electric vehicle costs vs. a non-electric vehicle to purchase. For many people, the savings would be great, for others (like me, who drives very little) it would cost *MORE* to own/operate an electric car. And, still, for others, it will be a break-even.
But in the long run, it is the right thing to do. Electric cars are more reliable, quieter, simpler, potentially higher performance, easier to maintain, and pollute far, far less. Let's hope consumers have some real options soon.
It doesn't matter *WHAT* was used to generate the electricity, it will *still* be cheaper and cleaner than burning gas in cars. Large power plants are tremendously more efficient and clean because they have the scale... even burning coal (as long as they are modern plants). Don't focus just on coal & oil. Throw in natural gas, solar, geothermal, nuclear, hydro, and wind... they already account for a huge percent of electricity production and increasing each year.
And using electricity means that everyone has a fuel source right at home, ready to go. No new infrastructure. No hazardous or explosive alternative fuels (like hydrogen or LP gas). No special equipment or training. Plug it in... Done.
The Tesla and Aero are interesting, but waaaaaaaaay out of normal price range. And most of the other electric cars don't cut it. This is what I want, and probably what most consumers want:
1) A real sized car, not a tiny econobox with motorcycle-sized tires 2) Range of at least 100+ miles per charge (I am guessing 80% of people are within a 20 mile round trip to work, 90% within 30 miles, and 95% within 40 miles; so other than occasional, long road trips, that is a lot of coverage). 3) Ability to charge with regular home voltage/current (don't care if it takes several hours to charge overnight) 4) Real performance- at least as fast (accel & top speed) as a gas car (like a 3 liter V6, not a 2 liter 4cyl) 5) Features- full A/C, heat, heated seats, auto climate control, GPS, cruise, auto lights, auto windows, defroster, etc 6) Safety- comparable to a quality conventional car- crumple zones, airbags, seatbelt tensioners 7) Reasonable price- comparable to a quality conventional car, although many of us are willing to spend more for the advantage of electric... but not 50%+ more
When that happens, I am betting people will flock to them. Hybrids (plugin or not) are just too complicated; they have all the complexity of a gas engine (cooling, emissions control, transmission, lube, injection, etc) with all the added cost of electric (motors, batteries, charging systems).
X86 going out of fashion fast??? Get real! Apple switched to X86. Even Sun switched some of it's stuff to X86. 99.9+% of all desktops are X86. We have gone from a time of lots of different architectures to fewer and fewer and fewer.... not more.
Sure, there ARE other processors... few that will run MS-Windows, many that will run Linux. But case-in-point, Flash runs on the Nokia Tablets, which all run Linux and none of them are X86.
Not really. Although I thought about that before posting. Don't you hate car analogies?:) We always seem to revert to them, since it is something people can relate to... they just don't always fit quite right.
As far as I am aware, no, you cannot directly use Visio objects in OpenOffice. However, there are lots of objects available if you don't want to draw them yourself. For example:
Will hardware vendors release their objects/stencils in something non-proprietary? As you said- not likely for now. But that doesn't mean OpenOffice Draw isn't perfectly capable of creating nice diagrams. In fact, people tend to grossly underestimate what can be done in OpenOffice Draw; mostly because many of the powerful features aren't immediately obvious and/or it is positioned more as a vector drawing program and not a diagramming program.
OK, I probably shouldn't have said "all distros", perhaps "most distros" or "the major distros". Having used Fedora, SuSe, Mandriva, Debian, and Ubuntu; I can pretty confidently say all THOSE are nearly 99% the same, especially after installation.
>OOo Draw is like creating stick figures, its not even remotely a replacement for visio, any more than MS Paint is a replacement for visio.
Obviously you have not *really* USED OOo Draw's flowcart and diagramming features before; it is certainly no "Visio" but:
1) It is object oriented, and vector based 2) Objects can be labeled, grouped, scaled, etc 3) Objects can be connected with various connector types 4) Objects can be moved while retaining connections to other objects 5) Template objects can be created and used 6) Controlling styles can be used across objects
So comparing OOo Draw to MS-Paint is *far* more insulting than comparing MS-Visio to OOo Draw.
Here we go again with another example of the word "Ubuntu" being used in the title instead of "Linux", which would be more appropriate. In general, the subject of the article (more of a blog) is about using Linux instead of MS-Windows. It is not specifically about using Ubuntu.
If MS-Windows were (generically) a car, and Linux were a motorcycle, it would be like titling an article "Jumping from driving a car to a Kawasaki". This trend can be extremely annoying to fellow Linux users that don't use Ubuntu, and somewhat of an insult to the thousands of people who contribute time and money to non-Ubuntu distros and even Linux and Linux-related FOSS projects in general. There is nothing wrong with using, liking, or even promoting Ubuntu; but give credit where credit is due. Distros are all about 99% the same, the real difference that matters is MS-Windows vs. Linux vs. MacOS....
It is science fiction now, but why would you say it will never happen? We can't know that. It might seem like "magic" now, but my scenario is based on current science experiments. I am sure a lot of the technology we use now was science fiction to people just 50 years ago.
Absolutely. Quantum computing aside, the idea of wireless communications via entanglement is absolutely fascinating. It could lead to instant communication with anyone, just about anywhere in the universe! No towers, no RFI, and absolutely secure from point to point. The major downside is that you probably have to have a centralized "entanglement switchboards" to actually relay the communications from one person to another, since you can't entangle every device to every other possible device. So that would be the weak point for security and reliability (and big brother spying).
Anyway, I can imagine a day when my portable computer/communications device, whatever form that takes, can talk to just about anything, without ever having to think about where I am, and possibly with unimaginable runtime and unimaginable bandwidth.
Oh well, back to the wonderful world of cell towers and WiFi....
The night is young...OK, OK.... I just did. But, if they can hold the course for 8 or maybe 10 years like this, I will be willing to consider partial forgiveness their some of their numerous past evil doings and resend the "isatrap" on this one.
Besides, this is much less of "isatrap" than Silverlight.
Like BhaKi says below- "a fight between two evils".
Except that Flash:
1) Has been around a lot longer 2) Works on all major browsers (Firefox, IE, Safari, Konqueror, Opera, Seamonkey, etc) 3) Works on all the major operating systems, and natively (MS-Windows, Linux, Mac, Solaris) 4) Is self-contained 5) Has development tools for most platforms
I have no great love of Flash, but at least it works and works on all the machines I need for it to work. I can't say that about Silverlight. And based on MS's history, Silverlight seems very much "isatrap".
I would feel much better about Flash if Adobe would just get over itself and open source the client- they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Time is ticking... open sourcing it NOW might be their own weapon against Silverlight.
We have SCA RAID arrays. I had lots of drives. And they got used up over the years. Hard drive models change constantly, it wasn't long before we couldn't buy 36GB 15,000 RPM Cheetah drives anymore. So when we only had a few left, we purchased two new, recent, expensive 15,000 RPM SCA drives recently to work as backups for our RAID arrays on our Linux servers. Called Seagate *FIRST* to verify compatibility, as well as with Adaptec. Then a few months later when we needed to use one to replace a failed drive, it would NOT negotiate properly, making those drives useless.
Hours on the phone with Seagate we FINALLY get confirmation that there is a "firmware problem" with the drives we have and we should "upgrade the firmware". We go through the crap of getting a "key" and being sent the firmware only to find that their self-booting program would not run on our servers. Their suggestion? Find some other SCSI SCA machine just lying around and try it there. WE DON'T HAVE any such machines. We asked if we could mail the expensive, useless drives to them so THEY could upgrade the firmware. The response was "you can send in the drives for exchange, but we can't guarantee the drives sent back will have the firmware you need". This is support?????
I then had to go on a quest to buy identical *used* spares off Ebay/etc while we are still trying to get the newer models fixed by Seagate; thank goodness I found some, because the last old one failed just as I got the used ones in.
I couldn't possibly agree more. This is why I voted Libertarian, even though it is a hopeless cause. The political system is setup for two and only two parties; without runoff voting and abolishment of the electoral college, there will never be any real change.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government gets more and more and more powerful. Each generation gives up more freedom in the name of safety, not understanding what was already given up.
The United Federal State of America. Quite depressing. The founding fathers would be horrified.
> once information is out in the open, you never going to get it back in.
Actually, it is worse than that. Once information is *collected* you can never be assured it will remain private or used appropriately.
>From what I've seen myself, and heard from family members etc. that appears to be the default - to keep patient, and medical data on that patient, in separate places. But why ??? Can anyone from the medical profession enlighten us what's wrong with patients studying their own X-rays, reviewing lists of drugs to be used in the course of a (planned) operation, or re-reading a diagnosis?
The patient has the absolute RIGHT to see anything they want in the record. But the provider also has an OBLIGATION to ensure that the information is kept secure and not disclosed except to the proper people and through the proper channels.
But I can also tell you that 98+% of the population would not be able to properly understand and interpret the information in the record. From a practical standpoint, that does create a tremendous drag on the healthcare professionals who have to explain and "justify" it all; people that normally have barely enough time to just provide the care. Furthermore, there is rarely any payment for time used to explain things, which is why you often find that doctors will set up additional [reimbursable] "appointments" to discuss things, when the patient needs more time than "typical" to discuss care and records.
So you are correct that there is a real tension between providing and restricting information.
Um, yeah. Social Security numbers are not universal ID numbers. They should be used solely for, get this, Social Security.
Unfortunately, the medical industry uses SS# on just about everything. In most facilities, they even try to use it as the Medical Record Number! Try to get appropriate care without giving them your SS# and see what happens (I have tried... good luck). And now just about every industry has some excuse as to why they *have* to have access to your SS#. Credit of any kind. Drivers license. Movie rental. Home insurance. You name it.
Anyway, SS#'s are the #1 way that information about you is tracked, "shared", associated, identified, etc. It is a huge security and privacy problem. There is a reason that when the Social Security Number was invented, it included laws about it was *NOT* to be used for any other purpose but Social Security. You can see just how effective those laws were.
Unfortunately, from what I can tell, VistA is horribly written, is huge, and in an ancient/obscure language (MUMPS). It also appears to be difficult to implement under only open-source tools and even *requires* the use of proprietary MS-Windows for all the desktop front ends (unless you really think WINE is a solution). Plus, it is only acute-care oriented yet seems to have no centralized patient record.
EMR is a good goal, but only as it helps a facility reduce paper, prevent mistakes, and provide faster and more useful information to clinicians. Unfortunately, all the talk about EMR by the Fed seems to be more oriented toward "sharing" of records from one facility to another. But more likely it is "sharing" it with policy makers, insurance companies, employers, and other entities that probably should not have access to such information.
EMR should not be a way to tear apart one of the last and most important privacy areas.
Anyway, there is a reason only a relatively small percent of facilities fully use an EMR: it is *extremely* expensive to install, setup, configure, maintain, backup, test, make accessible, secure, and provide continuous user training (in an industry with lots of nursing/CNA turnover). If the Fed wanted to "help", then they should provide funds to one or more of the newer, open-source EMR projects like PatientOS http://www.patientos.org/ which runs on a *variety* of front end and back end systems/OS's and can be implemented with 100% open source tools, all the way to the desktop/client. This could help to cut some of the overall cost, spur cooperative development, and lead to more innovation.
Yes, choice, variety, and competition are horrible things aren't they? Certainly we should have all been stuck with only SLS Linux or perhaps only Redhat Linux..... hell, why even have Linux at all; why couldn't the status quo of MS-Windows or MS-DOS sufficed?
There were distros just as good (or better in different ways) before Ubuntu existed. There are distros just as good (or better in different ways) than Ubuntu now. There will probably be other distros later- maybe of which will be just as good or better, too.
The practice of generally substituting the word "Ubuntu" for "Linux" in postings, comments, stories, etc, is not only annoying, it is insulting to the many thousands of people who have contributed to Linux (GNU/Linux) and all the non-Ubuntu distributions.
And since Ubuntu = Linux and Linux = Ubuntu, it is Linux's fault, right?
Or was this issue specific to Ubuntu and not other distros? (Yes, believe it or not, there ARE other distros; although it is hard to tell since so many stories and postings say "Ubuntu" in place of the word "Linux" or "Linux distribution")
Slashdot Mirror
Those are good points.
I should have said "much of the complexity of a gas engine", not "all". My bad :)
What is amazing is just how simple a well-designed all-electric vehicle can be compared to a gas vehicle. No radiator. No brakes (regenerative instead). No sparkplugs or ignition. No injection system and pumps. Usually no transmission (which can be as complex as a gas engine, itself). No oil or filters. No alternator. No intake system nor air filter not valves. Possibly no hydraulic systems. No starter. No gas tank & evap canister. No exhaust system nor muffler. No catalytic converter.
Those components are all replaced by a larger battery system, a charger, and a few sealed motors.
I have often thought of that. I am guessing that most home owners that don't have a garage but do have a driveway can just use an extension cord and plug on the house. For those with no driveway, they might opt to just bury a power cord and have a controlled outlet near the street. It really isn't that complex and probably not very expensive (although going under a sidewalk could be an issue). Put a power switch in or near the house to prevent someone from stealing your power and you are ready to go. Might need some type of sensing gadget to protect children from messing with the outlet or shorts.
Of course, for people who don't have their own street frontage, it does become a problem. I suppose a city could address that with city-supplied and metered power outlets. It would be expensive, but streets usually have power already running down at least one side.
Step/assumption 1- scrap the SUV and get an electric car (doesn't have to be tiny, just reasonable). Step/assumption 2- a rage of 100+ miles per charge. Step/assumption 3- you need to buy a replacement vehicle because it is time to replace the old one, not just to make the switch. Step/assumption 4- electric cars have a large battery replacement expense after several years, but it might be about the same costs as gas engine car maintenance over the long term (gas engines are FAR more complex)
With those assumptions, if you were driving even 30 miles to work and back every day and for errands and trips on the weekend and your current SUV gets a respectable 15MPG, that is 2 gal of gas a day. If gas were around $3/gal (which is not unreasonable, and it will get MUCH more expensive over the years), that is $2,190 in gas costs per year. With electricity, that cost would be about $250/year; a savings of $1,940 per year, or $9,700 per 5 years. If gas jumps to $6/gal (again, not completely unrealistic in several years), that 5 year savings could be $19,400.
So.... it kinda depends on how much you drive and how much more an electric vehicle costs vs. a non-electric vehicle to purchase. For many people, the savings would be great, for others (like me, who drives very little) it would cost *MORE* to own/operate an electric car. And, still, for others, it will be a break-even.
But in the long run, it is the right thing to do. Electric cars are more reliable, quieter, simpler, potentially higher performance, easier to maintain, and pollute far, far less. Let's hope consumers have some real options soon.
It doesn't matter *WHAT* was used to generate the electricity, it will *still* be cheaper and cleaner than burning gas in cars. Large power plants are tremendously more efficient and clean because they have the scale... even burning coal (as long as they are modern plants). Don't focus just on coal & oil. Throw in natural gas, solar, geothermal, nuclear, hydro, and wind... they already account for a huge percent of electricity production and increasing each year.
And using electricity means that everyone has a fuel source right at home, ready to go. No new infrastructure. No hazardous or explosive alternative fuels (like hydrogen or LP gas). No special equipment or training. Plug it in... Done.
The Tesla and Aero are interesting, but waaaaaaaaay out of normal price range. And most of the other electric cars don't cut it. This is what I want, and probably what most consumers want:
1) A real sized car, not a tiny econobox with motorcycle-sized tires
2) Range of at least 100+ miles per charge (I am guessing 80% of people are within a 20 mile round trip to work, 90% within 30 miles, and 95% within 40 miles; so other than occasional, long road trips, that is a lot of coverage).
3) Ability to charge with regular home voltage/current (don't care if it takes several hours to charge overnight)
4) Real performance- at least as fast (accel & top speed) as a gas car (like a 3 liter V6, not a 2 liter 4cyl)
5) Features- full A/C, heat, heated seats, auto climate control, GPS, cruise, auto lights, auto windows, defroster, etc
6) Safety- comparable to a quality conventional car- crumple zones, airbags, seatbelt tensioners
7) Reasonable price- comparable to a quality conventional car, although many of us are willing to spend more for the advantage of electric... but not 50%+ more
When that happens, I am betting people will flock to them. Hybrids (plugin or not) are just too complicated; they have all the complexity of a gas engine (cooling, emissions control, transmission, lube, injection, etc) with all the added cost of electric (motors, batteries, charging systems).
X86 going out of fashion fast??? Get real! Apple switched to X86. Even Sun switched some of it's stuff to X86. 99.9+% of all desktops are X86. We have gone from a time of lots of different architectures to fewer and fewer and fewer.... not more.
Sure, there ARE other processors... few that will run MS-Windows, many that will run Linux. But case-in-point, Flash runs on the Nokia Tablets, which all run Linux and none of them are X86.
So I would say both parts of your "6)" are wrong.
Not really. Although I thought about that before posting. Don't you hate car analogies? :) We always seem to revert to them, since it is something people can relate to... they just don't always fit quite right.
As far as I am aware, no, you cannot directly use Visio objects in OpenOffice. However, there are lots of objects available if you don't want to draw them yourself. For example:
http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2006/10/custom_openoffi.html
http://lautman.net/mark/coo/index.html
Or, you can convert many Visio VSS files into objects that *can* be read by other programs, such as OpenOffice. For example:
http://www.gnome.ru/fileformats/stencils.html
Will hardware vendors release their objects/stencils in something non-proprietary? As you said- not likely for now. But that doesn't mean OpenOffice Draw isn't perfectly capable of creating nice diagrams. In fact, people tend to grossly underestimate what can be done in OpenOffice Draw; mostly because many of the powerful features aren't immediately obvious and/or it is positioned more as a vector drawing program and not a diagramming program.
OK, I probably shouldn't have said "all distros", perhaps "most distros" or "the major distros". Having used Fedora, SuSe, Mandriva, Debian, and Ubuntu; I can pretty confidently say all THOSE are nearly 99% the same, especially after installation.
>OOo Draw is like creating stick figures, its not even remotely a replacement for visio, any more than MS Paint is a replacement for visio.
Obviously you have not *really* USED OOo Draw's flowcart and diagramming features before; it is certainly no "Visio" but:
1) It is object oriented, and vector based
2) Objects can be labeled, grouped, scaled, etc
3) Objects can be connected with various connector types
4) Objects can be moved while retaining connections to other objects
5) Template objects can be created and used
6) Controlling styles can be used across objects
So comparing OOo Draw to MS-Paint is *far* more insulting than comparing MS-Visio to OOo Draw.
Here we go again with another example of the word "Ubuntu" being used in the title instead of "Linux", which would be more appropriate. In general, the subject of the article (more of a blog) is about using Linux instead of MS-Windows. It is not specifically about using Ubuntu.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=344745&cid=21176921
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1095787&cid=26502007
If MS-Windows were (generically) a car, and Linux were a motorcycle, it would be like titling an article "Jumping from driving a car to a Kawasaki". This trend can be extremely annoying to fellow Linux users that don't use Ubuntu, and somewhat of an insult to the thousands of people who contribute time and money to non-Ubuntu distros and even Linux and Linux-related FOSS projects in general. There is nothing wrong with using, liking, or even promoting Ubuntu; but give credit where credit is due. Distros are all about 99% the same, the real difference that matters is MS-Windows vs. Linux vs. MacOS....
I don't normally post about grammar, but since we are speaking of education...
>And if you borrow these notes to someone else to learn from them?
You can't "borrow" notes to someone. You can, however, *lend* them to someone and someone can borrow them from you.
> give you a clue why Europeans are either laughing their heads
And yes, I was taught English in an American school system.
It is science fiction now, but why would you say it will never happen? We can't know that. It might seem like "magic" now, but my scenario is based on current science experiments. I am sure a lot of the technology we use now was science fiction to people just 50 years ago.
Absolutely. Quantum computing aside, the idea of wireless communications via entanglement is absolutely fascinating. It could lead to instant communication with anyone, just about anywhere in the universe! No towers, no RFI, and absolutely secure from point to point. The major downside is that you probably have to have a centralized "entanglement switchboards" to actually relay the communications from one person to another, since you can't entangle every device to every other possible device. So that would be the weak point for security and reliability (and big brother spying).
Anyway, I can imagine a day when my portable computer/communications device, whatever form that takes, can talk to just about anything, without ever having to think about where I am, and possibly with unimaginable runtime and unimaginable bandwidth.
Oh well, back to the wonderful world of cell towers and WiFi....
The night is young...OK, OK.... I just did. But, if they can hold the course for 8 or maybe 10 years like this, I will be willing to consider partial forgiveness their some of their numerous past evil doings and resend the "isatrap" on this one.
Besides, this is much less of "isatrap" than Silverlight.
Like BhaKi says below- "a fight between two evils".
Except that Flash:
1) Has been around a lot longer
2) Works on all major browsers (Firefox, IE, Safari, Konqueror, Opera, Seamonkey, etc)
3) Works on all the major operating systems, and natively (MS-Windows, Linux, Mac, Solaris)
4) Is self-contained
5) Has development tools for most platforms
I have no great love of Flash, but at least it works and works on all the machines I need for it to work. I can't say that about Silverlight. And based on MS's history, Silverlight seems very much "isatrap".
I would feel much better about Flash if Adobe would just get over itself and open source the client- they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Time is ticking... open sourcing it NOW might be their own weapon against Silverlight.
We have SCA RAID arrays. I had lots of drives. And they got used up over the years. Hard drive models change constantly, it wasn't long before we couldn't buy 36GB 15,000 RPM Cheetah drives anymore. So when we only had a few left, we purchased two new, recent, expensive 15,000 RPM SCA drives recently to work as backups for our RAID arrays on our Linux servers. Called Seagate *FIRST* to verify compatibility, as well as with Adaptec. Then a few months later when we needed to use one to replace a failed drive, it would NOT negotiate properly, making those drives useless.
Hours on the phone with Seagate we FINALLY get confirmation that there is a "firmware problem" with the drives we have and we should "upgrade the firmware". We go through the crap of getting a "key" and being sent the firmware only to find that their self-booting program would not run on our servers. Their suggestion? Find some other SCSI SCA machine just lying around and try it there. WE DON'T HAVE any such machines. We asked if we could mail the expensive, useless drives to them so THEY could upgrade the firmware. The response was "you can send in the drives for exchange, but we can't guarantee the drives sent back will have the firmware you need". This is support?????
I then had to go on a quest to buy identical *used* spares off Ebay/etc while we are still trying to get the newer models fixed by Seagate; thank goodness I found some, because the last old one failed just as I got the used ones in.
I couldn't possibly agree more. This is why I voted Libertarian, even though it is a hopeless cause. The political system is setup for two and only two parties; without runoff voting and abolishment of the electoral college, there will never be any real change.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government gets more and more and more powerful. Each generation gives up more freedom in the name of safety, not understanding what was already given up.
The United Federal State of America. Quite depressing. The founding fathers would be horrified.
> once information is out in the open, you never going to get it back in. Actually, it is worse than that. Once information is *collected* you can never be assured it will remain private or used appropriately.
>From what I've seen myself, and heard from family members etc. that appears to be the default - to keep patient, and medical data on that patient, in separate places. But why ??? Can anyone from the medical profession enlighten us what's wrong with patients studying their own X-rays, reviewing lists of drugs to be used in the course of a (planned) operation, or re-reading a diagnosis?
The patient has the absolute RIGHT to see anything they want in the record. But the provider also has an OBLIGATION to ensure that the information is kept secure and not disclosed except to the proper people and through the proper channels.
But I can also tell you that 98+% of the population would not be able to properly understand and interpret the information in the record. From a practical standpoint, that does create a tremendous drag on the healthcare professionals who have to explain and "justify" it all; people that normally have barely enough time to just provide the care. Furthermore, there is rarely any payment for time used to explain things, which is why you often find that doctors will set up additional [reimbursable] "appointments" to discuss things, when the patient needs more time than "typical" to discuss care and records.
So you are correct that there is a real tension between providing and restricting information.
Um, yeah. Social Security numbers are not universal ID numbers. They should be used solely for, get this, Social Security.
Unfortunately, the medical industry uses SS# on just about everything. In most facilities, they even try to use it as the Medical Record Number! Try to get appropriate care without giving them your SS# and see what happens (I have tried... good luck). And now just about every industry has some excuse as to why they *have* to have access to your SS#. Credit of any kind. Drivers license. Movie rental. Home insurance. You name it.
Anyway, SS#'s are the #1 way that information about you is tracked, "shared", associated, identified, etc. It is a huge security and privacy problem. There is a reason that when the Social Security Number was invented, it included laws about it was *NOT* to be used for any other purpose but Social Security. You can see just how effective those laws were.
Unfortunately, from what I can tell, VistA is horribly written, is huge, and in an ancient/obscure language (MUMPS). It also appears to be difficult to implement under only open-source tools and even *requires* the use of proprietary MS-Windows for all the desktop front ends (unless you really think WINE is a solution). Plus, it is only acute-care oriented yet seems to have no centralized patient record.
EMR is a good goal, but only as it helps a facility reduce paper, prevent mistakes, and provide faster and more useful information to clinicians. Unfortunately, all the talk about EMR by the Fed seems to be more oriented toward "sharing" of records from one facility to another. But more likely it is "sharing" it with policy makers, insurance companies, employers, and other entities that probably should not have access to such information.
EMR should not be a way to tear apart one of the last and most important privacy areas.
Anyway, there is a reason only a relatively small percent of facilities fully use an EMR: it is *extremely* expensive to install, setup, configure, maintain, backup, test, make accessible, secure, and provide continuous user training (in an industry with lots of nursing/CNA turnover). If the Fed wanted to "help", then they should provide funds to one or more of the newer, open-source EMR projects like PatientOS http://www.patientos.org/ which runs on a *variety* of front end and back end systems/OS's and can be implemented with 100% open source tools, all the way to the desktop/client. This could help to cut some of the overall cost, spur cooperative development, and lead to more innovation.
Yes, choice, variety, and competition are horrible things aren't they? Certainly we should have all been stuck with only SLS Linux or perhaps only Redhat Linux..... hell, why even have Linux at all; why couldn't the status quo of MS-Windows or MS-DOS sufficed?
There were distros just as good (or better in different ways) before Ubuntu existed. There are distros just as good (or better in different ways) than Ubuntu now. There will probably be other distros later- maybe of which will be just as good or better, too.
The practice of generally substituting the word "Ubuntu" for "Linux" in postings, comments, stories, etc, is not only annoying, it is insulting to the many thousands of people who have contributed to Linux (GNU/Linux) and all the non-Ubuntu distributions.
Oh, silly me: http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=344745&cid=21176921
It is almost deja-vu!
And since Ubuntu = Linux and Linux = Ubuntu, it is Linux's fault, right?
Or was this issue specific to Ubuntu and not other distros? (Yes, believe it or not, there ARE other distros; although it is hard to tell since so many stories and postings say "Ubuntu" in place of the word "Linux" or "Linux distribution")