I'm an RN in an OR myself. My cynicism is from experience.
hob42, I'm one of the "IS guys" who comes to fix things (sometimes in the ORs) when they break. I've got a lot of respect for the work that you guys do.
Being in IS, I get to see the solutions that are on the radar and the stuff we are going to be working-on in the coming 12-24 months. I think the "asset location services" is going to be a big step for our organization.
Yes, the hospitals I support have wireless networks and we have laptops in use everywhere in the hospitals (even in the ORs themselves). I spent quite a few hours very early this morning sitting by myself in various ORs working on laptops that are used by surgical staff. As you know, the only time us "IS guys" can get into an OR to work on things like this is in the middle of the night.
I have watched surgical procedures through the glass (I was invited into an OR once while a surgery was in progress but I said 'I think I'll wait out here':^) ) and all I've got to say is you guys have a really difficult job and you do really good work. I don't think that most people on the street appreciate what goes on in an OR. Seeing it on TV is just not the same as real life.
One item that I didn't see mentioned in this discussion is the factor of "time" when a patient in on the table. Some Slashdotters have asked "Duh, why don't you just stop and count everything? Car mechanics do it all the time." Well, there is a huge difference between a guy working under the hood of your car and a surgeon working on a patient. Time is a huge factor when someone's skin and tissue are open, when blood flow is stopped to a surgical site, etc.
A recent visit to a hospital nursery revealed that they're now equipping newborns with anti-theft devices. Sort of a cross between a LoJack and a department store anti-shoplifting tag, the device is secured around the baby's ankle and removed when parents and child leave for home. Presumably this would help in the event of an attempted abduction both by alerting people to the fact that somebody was leaving the floor with an unauthorized baby, and by allowing said baby to be tracked. It's not such a bad idea--too bad they are needed.
We have that system in the hospitals that I support. As a matter of fact, it went off earlier this week while I was walking through that area checking the signal on wireless access points in that wing. When that alarm goes off, EVERYONE stops what they are doing and no one is allowed to leave until the cause of the alarm is found. There is a big computer monitor that displays a floor plan of the wing with all exits marked. The sensor that was tripped is indicated on the display so the staff know exactly where to respond.
In the case that happened a few days ago while I was walking through that wing, a mom and dad were walking with their baby AND some contractors happened to be working on one of the exit doors in that area. Mom and Dad got too close to the open door and the system triggered.
Yes, it's sad that systems like this are needed but they work quite well.
How about doing your FUCKING JOB PROPERLY instead of abusing technology to make up for your stupidity?
The doctors who are performing the surgery as well as the highly skilled nurses and other O.R. staff *ARE* doing their jobs properly. They are putting your body back together at 2:30am after the fire department used the Jaws of Life to cut-open your car (which you wrapped around a light pole on the way home from the bar) and extricate your close-to-dead ass from the wreckage.
How about showing a little gratitude that these profesionals are on-call and ready to save your life because you decided to have a few too many Long Island Iced Teas and then drive home? These people are *very* good at what they do. They are highly trained and have well-documented policies and procedures to follow.
Intead of spouting-off about the people who may save your life someday, put on some scrubs (or a "bunnysuit") and watch a surgery in person. The amount of tools and materials used in an operation as well as the coordination between the various specialists is amazing.
If someone can develop a piece of technology that will make a rare "event" in the OR even more rare, why not use it?
Even if you don't appreciate the work that these professionals (some of whom have posted in this discussion today) do, they will still save your life anyway.
This is going to draw some "Flamebait" moderations. Oh well...
You're trusting the counting ability of the same industry that spawned health insurance and HMOs, and tacks an extre $30 to your bill if you ask for a Tylenol?
Part of the reason that Tylenol costs you $30 is because there are a large number of patients who use a hospital's ER as their primary care office. They don't see a "family doctor" for small things like colds or backaches, but instead come to a hospital ER on a Saturday afternoon with non-urgent symptoms/issues. Those same people don't have insurance and don't pay for the services they use. Some of that cost is written-off by the hospital and some of that cost is passed-along to the people who *do* pay their bills.
Imagine going to your favorite fancy restaurant and finding out that a good percentage of the people who eat there don't pay for the food they consume. The restaurant management is going to increase the prices on the menu so the people who *do* pay their bills offset the dine-and-dash crowd.
Or do what prisons do and have them outlined so they are put back in the spot they need to be in.
Believe it or not, ORs are not lined with massive sheets of pegboard that have the outlines of every single implement or consumable that may be used in an operation. The ORs I was in this morning (as well as other ORs on previous occassions) keep tools and supplies in rolling cabinets (think Craftsman tool chest) and wall-mounted cabinets with glass doors.
The tools and supplies are not always kept *in* the OR. Before the surgery begins, a number of people bring the items needed for that surgery into the room.
It's not as simple as looking at the empty spot on the pegboard hanging on the wall and saying "Gee, Wally, it looks like someone didn't return the adhesive mixing tool for knee replacement to its correct spot on the wall".
But hospitals aren't going to go for something this elaborate and expensive for patient safety alone.
Riiiight. What is cheaper? Implementing this system to make sure no surgical implements are left inside a patient or paying a MEGA lawsuit when something is left inside a patient (and the resulting negative publicity in the local press)?
Also, we (I work in healthcare) are seeing a bigger push for an asset tracking system that would be able to instantly display the location of certain "assets" that like to disappear in the hospital. Not stuff that is being stolen but items that are taken to a room and used and the next person who wants to use that device can not find it. An example would be: "Show me the current location of all of our infusion pumps."
The assets we want to track would have a small tag attached. A wireless (not necessarily 802.11) infrastructure would be able to use triangulation to determine the location of devices and display them on a floor plan. The bigger shops already have this. Implementing this service is on our To Do list.
Things that A) improve patient safety or B) save us money stand a very strong chance of getting implemented.
shouldn't they be using a three piece access system?
That is usually called "three-factor authentication".
In your example, you would have:
1) Something you are
2) Something you have
3) Something you know
Those are the three factors.
SecurID is usually called "two-factor authentcation". It is Something You Have (the RSA token, hard or soft) and Something You Know (the PIN that goes with the token).
Teachers are in a constant state of feeling threatened, because they know that at any time, the world at large could discover they are essentially babysitters with no idea of how to get children to learn anything useful.
Really? I think the kid who made the icon (and all of the other kids in his school) have just learned a very valuable lesson that they will be able to use later in life.
I do not want to be doing one that is going to be going to some mega-corp where it gets patented tomorrow and sold to us for 349843904893 dollars in a week.
Fortunately, my co-pay on name brand drugs is only $25.:^):^)
And like the lottery you have to be in it to win it.
I have never purchased a lottery ticket yet I "win" every year.
When I pay my property tax bill each December, there is a small credit that comes from the lottery (in Wisconsin).
So I am very grateful for all you schmucks who buy lottery tickets at gas stations hoping to "hit it big". You reduce the amount of property taxes I have to pay each year. Keep up the good work.:^)
I think his point was that he just doesn't want the CPU running at 100% all the time.
Why not? If the distributed computing process has been properly 'nice'd, why don't you want your CPU util at 100%?
I don't understand your comment. Please provide more details on why you don't want your CPU running at 100%.
You do realize that you or someone you love will more than likely be afflicted by cancer. Meanwhile, I hope you find the prime you're looking for.
I am sorry that I pissed-away my mod points a couple of days ago. I would definitely have modded you up for your comment. There is nothing that will impact your life as much as loved one becoming gravely ill (well, except when the sick person is *you*).
Unless someone is using large prime numbers to design new MRI machines or invent new drugs, I agree with your stance that the original poster has his/her priorities screwed-up.
>$120 a year is a significant amount of money for a lot of people.
I take home more than that every weekday. What is your point? And there are people who take home a lot more than me.
I don't think $120 per year is a significant amount for a lot people. Hell, casual smokers probably spend that much on smokes in a year.
FWIW, I run Stanford's folding client on my MythTV box 24 x 365 (Fedora Core 4). I don't mind the little bump in my electric bill because the folding data is used for medical research. Maybe some big pharma will develop a new blockbluster drug based on the work units my PVR has been crunching. I don't care if they profit enormously from the drug. As long as the folding research benefits future generations, I will pay the "folding tax" each month on my utility bill.
Re:What to take with you: *two* towels?
on
Back to the Bunker
·
· Score: 1
"The plans even spell out what evacuees should take with them (recommended items: a combination lock, a flashlight, two towels and a small box of washing powder)."
All that?
How about 1 towel and a book with "Don't Panic!" on the cover?
At least they're right about the importance of a towel, but I can't figure out what the combination lock is for.
A padlock wrapped in a towel would make a formidable weapon indeed. Very handy for dealing with those "Dawn of The Dead" zombies who may be around after the bomb goes off.
Why did you waste your time posting that URL? I checked-out "FreeVMS" and found the web page hasn't been updated in three years.
Most of the vital parts of the OS are "not started - people needed".
I used to make a very good living managing OpenVMS systems so I'm pretty familiar with that OS. I wouldn't waste ten seconds downloading that piece of crap (freevms).
3) Anti-lock brakes. I won't get into this because people here do not agree that increased friction between the road and tires with centrifugal force increases the likelihood of a rollover and fatal accident.
Ok, I'll bite. Give us your full theory on why anti-lock brakes are worse than not having anti-lock brakes. Where does the centrifugal force come into play? This should be interesting...
So, even though everyone in the US is complaining about $3 gas (I know you guys on the coasts are getting hit worse than that), trying to reduce air pollution and trying to find alternative fuels like biodiesel and ethanol, we have DOUCHEBAGS who drive a big truck around all day burning fuel for no good reason. They aren't doing anything useful - they just drive around all-day adding to the number of vehicles on the road and burning-up our precious fuel.
If you know of one pissed up yob who would refrain from fighting just because of a camera up on a mast then please do tell me.
1) WTF is a 'yob'?
2) When you say 'pissed', do you mean 'intoxicated'? Here in 'The Colonies' (or whatever you call the U.S.), 'pissed' has a slightly different meaning.
When I read the article (yeah, I know, that goes against Slashdot policy), I encounted this phrase:
the residents of Haberdasher Estate are expected to shop any yobs that they catch on camera.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm an RN in an OR myself. My cynicism is from experience.
:^) ) and all I've got to say is you guys have a really difficult job and you do really good work. I don't think that most people on the street appreciate what goes on in an OR. Seeing it on TV is just not the same as real life.
hob42, I'm one of the "IS guys" who comes to fix things (sometimes in the ORs) when they break. I've got a lot of respect for the work that you guys do.
Being in IS, I get to see the solutions that are on the radar and the stuff we are going to be working-on in the coming 12-24 months. I think the "asset location services" is going to be a big step for our organization.
Yes, the hospitals I support have wireless networks and we have laptops in use everywhere in the hospitals (even in the ORs themselves). I spent quite a few hours very early this morning sitting by myself in various ORs working on laptops that are used by surgical staff. As you know, the only time us "IS guys" can get into an OR to work on things like this is in the middle of the night.
I have watched surgical procedures through the glass (I was invited into an OR once while a surgery was in progress but I said 'I think I'll wait out here'
One item that I didn't see mentioned in this discussion is the factor of "time" when a patient in on the table. Some Slashdotters have asked "Duh, why don't you just stop and count everything? Car mechanics do it all the time." Well, there is a huge difference between a guy working under the hood of your car and a surgeon working on a patient. Time is a huge factor when someone's skin and tissue are open, when blood flow is stopped to a surgical site, etc.
A recent visit to a hospital nursery revealed that they're now equipping newborns with anti-theft devices. Sort of a cross between a LoJack and a department store anti-shoplifting tag, the device is secured around the baby's ankle and removed when parents and child leave for home. Presumably this would help in the event of an attempted abduction both by alerting people to the fact that somebody was leaving the floor with an unauthorized baby, and by allowing said baby to be tracked. It's not such a bad idea--too bad they are needed.
We have that system in the hospitals that I support. As a matter of fact, it went off earlier this week while I was walking through that area checking the signal on wireless access points in that wing. When that alarm goes off, EVERYONE stops what they are doing and no one is allowed to leave until the cause of the alarm is found. There is a big computer monitor that displays a floor plan of the wing with all exits marked. The sensor that was tripped is indicated on the display so the staff know exactly where to respond.
In the case that happened a few days ago while I was walking through that wing, a mom and dad were walking with their baby AND some contractors happened to be working on one of the exit doors in that area. Mom and Dad got too close to the open door and the system triggered.
Yes, it's sad that systems like this are needed but they work quite well.
Gotta feed the troll:
How about doing your FUCKING JOB PROPERLY instead of abusing technology to make up for your stupidity?
The doctors who are performing the surgery as well as the highly skilled nurses and other O.R. staff *ARE* doing their jobs properly. They are putting your body back together at 2:30am after the fire department used the Jaws of Life to cut-open your car (which you wrapped around a light pole on the way home from the bar) and extricate your close-to-dead ass from the wreckage.
How about showing a little gratitude that these profesionals are on-call and ready to save your life because you decided to have a few too many Long Island Iced Teas and then drive home? These people are *very* good at what they do. They are highly trained and have well-documented policies and procedures to follow.
Intead of spouting-off about the people who may save your life someday, put on some scrubs (or a "bunnysuit") and watch a surgery in person. The amount of tools and materials used in an operation as well as the coordination between the various specialists is amazing.
If someone can develop a piece of technology that will make a rare "event" in the OR even more rare, why not use it?
Even if you don't appreciate the work that these professionals (some of whom have posted in this discussion today) do, they will still save your life anyway.
Anyway put the patient on a non-metallic table and run a metal detector over them.
How would your plan work if someone had their knee replaced?
http://www.bonesmart.org/knee_replacement.php
Notice what the implants are made of? Metal.
Metal screws, plates and wires are used in surgeries. Using a simple metal detector just isn't going to work.
This is going to draw some "Flamebait" moderations. Oh well...
You're trusting the counting ability of the same industry that spawned health insurance and HMOs, and tacks an extre $30 to your bill if you ask for a Tylenol?
Part of the reason that Tylenol costs you $30 is because there are a large number of patients who use a hospital's ER as their primary care office. They don't see a "family doctor" for small things like colds or backaches, but instead come to a hospital ER on a Saturday afternoon with non-urgent symptoms/issues. Those same people don't have insurance and don't pay for the services they use. Some of that cost is written-off by the hospital and some of that cost is passed-along to the people who *do* pay their bills.
Imagine going to your favorite fancy restaurant and finding out that a good percentage of the people who eat there don't pay for the food they consume. The restaurant management is going to increase the prices on the menu so the people who *do* pay their bills offset the dine-and-dash crowd.
Or do what prisons do and have them outlined so they are put back in the spot they need to be in.
Believe it or not, ORs are not lined with massive sheets of pegboard that have the outlines of every single implement or consumable that may be used in an operation. The ORs I was in this morning (as well as other ORs on previous occassions) keep tools and supplies in rolling cabinets (think Craftsman tool chest) and wall-mounted cabinets with glass doors.
The tools and supplies are not always kept *in* the OR. Before the surgery begins, a number of people bring the items needed for that surgery into the room.
It's not as simple as looking at the empty spot on the pegboard hanging on the wall and saying "Gee, Wally, it looks like someone didn't return the adhesive mixing tool for knee replacement to its correct spot on the wall".
But hospitals aren't going to go for something this elaborate and expensive for patient safety alone.
Riiiight. What is cheaper? Implementing this system to make sure no surgical implements are left inside a patient or paying a MEGA lawsuit when something is left inside a patient (and the resulting negative publicity in the local press)?
Also, we (I work in healthcare) are seeing a bigger push for an asset tracking system that would be able to instantly display the location of certain "assets" that like to disappear in the hospital. Not stuff that is being stolen but items that are taken to a room and used and the next person who wants to use that device can not find it. An example would be: "Show me the current location of all of our infusion pumps."
The assets we want to track would have a small tag attached. A wireless (not necessarily 802.11) infrastructure would be able to use triangulation to determine the location of devices and display them on a floor plan. The bigger shops already have this. Implementing this service is on our To Do list.
Things that A) improve patient safety or B) save us money stand a very strong chance of getting implemented.
shouldn't they be using a three piece access system?
That is usually called "three-factor authentication".
In your example, you would have:
1) Something you are
2) Something you have
3) Something you know
Those are the three factors.
SecurID is usually called "two-factor authentcation". It is Something You Have (the RSA token, hard or soft) and Something You Know (the PIN that goes with the token).
-s
What this guy did with functioning brain tissue is just plain Way Cool. I hope someone figures out how something like that takes eighteen years
;^)
4 9
;^)
Yeah, it would be great if the researchers had an army of computers that could be used to research medicals problems and cures...
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/28/05562
Nah, it makes more sense to search for large prime numbers and E.T.
Teachers are in a constant state of feeling threatened, because they know that at any time, the world at large could discover they are essentially babysitters with no idea of how to get children to learn anything useful.
Really? I think the kid who made the icon (and all of the other kids in his school) have just learned a very valuable lesson that they will be able to use later in life.
I do not want to be doing one that is going to be going to some mega-corp where it gets patented tomorrow and sold to us for 349843904893 dollars in a week.
:^) :^)
Fortunately, my co-pay on name brand drugs is only $25.
And like the lottery you have to be in it to win it.
:^)
I have never purchased a lottery ticket yet I "win" every year.
When I pay my property tax bill each December, there is a small credit that comes from the lottery (in Wisconsin).
So I am very grateful for all you schmucks who buy lottery tickets at gas stations hoping to "hit it big". You reduce the amount of property taxes I have to pay each year. Keep up the good work.
I think his point was that he just doesn't want the CPU running at 100% all the time.
Why not? If the distributed computing process has been properly 'nice'd, why don't you want your CPU util at 100%?
I don't understand your comment. Please provide more details on why you don't want your CPU running at 100%.
You do realize that you or someone you love will more than likely be afflicted by cancer. Meanwhile, I hope you find the prime you're looking for.
I am sorry that I pissed-away my mod points a couple of days ago. I would definitely have modded you up for your comment. There is nothing that will impact your life as much as loved one becoming gravely ill (well, except when the sick person is *you*).
Unless someone is using large prime numbers to design new MRI machines or invent new drugs, I agree with your stance that the original poster has his/her priorities screwed-up.
>$120 a year is a significant amount of money for a lot of people.
I take home more than that every weekday. What is your point? And there are people who take home a lot more than me.
I don't think $120 per year is a significant amount for a lot people. Hell, casual smokers probably spend that much on smokes in a year.
FWIW, I run Stanford's folding client on my MythTV box 24 x 365 (Fedora Core 4). I don't mind the little bump in my electric bill because the folding data is used for medical research. Maybe some big pharma will develop a new blockbluster drug based on the work units my PVR has been crunching. I don't care if they profit enormously from the drug. As long as the folding research benefits future generations, I will pay the "folding tax" each month on my utility bill.
"The plans even spell out what evacuees should take with them (recommended items: a combination lock, a flashlight, two towels and a small box of washing powder)." All that? How about 1 towel and a book with "Don't Panic!" on the cover? At least they're right about the importance of a towel, but I can't figure out what the combination lock is for.
:^)
A padlock wrapped in a towel would make a formidable weapon indeed. Very handy for dealing with those "Dawn of The Dead" zombies who may be around after the bomb goes off.
For greater stopping power, upgrade to a pillow case containing cans of soda.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085210/
I'll be the first to register http://www.angry.mob/
Well, don't forget:
"http://www.flash.mob"
and
"http://www.pitchforkwielding.mob"
But I guess they want something like 500$ for each
;^)
Well...that's the trouble with tribbles.
"Employees not recognizing your authority at the office?"
:^)
I think you'd be better served by the *lights* from the "How many lights do you see!?!?!" episode.
Like free vms? http://freevms.free.fr/indexGB.html
Why did you waste your time posting that URL? I checked-out "FreeVMS" and found the web page hasn't been updated in three years. Most of the vital parts of the OS are "not started - people needed".
I used to make a very good living managing OpenVMS systems so I'm pretty familiar with that OS. I wouldn't waste ten seconds downloading that piece of crap (freevms).
It's nothing to worry about. It's just a standard side-effect of alien-abduction.
:^)
You forgot the link:
http://www.coasttocoastam.com/
but if I were you, I'd wait until daylight to do it.
:^)
Bah! I'm not afraid of Guinea Worms. Jimmy Carter almost has 'em wiped out!
3) Anti-lock brakes. I won't get into this because people here do not agree that increased friction between the road and tires with centrifugal force increases the likelihood of a rollover and fatal accident.
Ok, I'll bite. Give us your full theory on why anti-lock brakes are worse than not having anti-lock brakes. Where does the centrifugal force come into play? This should be interesting...
I wonder if advertisers will pay people to carry large signs as they walk through town?
Here in the good old US of A, we've already got a better solution. We have ads plastered on the sides of big trucks that drive around all day long.
http://www.streetblimps.com/services.htm
So, even though everyone in the US is complaining about $3 gas (I know you guys on the coasts are getting hit worse than that), trying to reduce air pollution and trying to find alternative fuels like biodiesel and ethanol, we have DOUCHEBAGS who drive a big truck around all day burning fuel for no good reason. They aren't doing anything useful - they just drive around all-day adding to the number of vehicles on the road and burning-up our precious fuel.
1) WTF is a 'yob'?
2) When you say 'pissed', do you mean 'intoxicated'? Here in 'The Colonies' (or whatever you call the U.S.), 'pissed' has a slightly different meaning.
When I read the article (yeah, I know, that goes against Slashdot policy), I encounted this phrase:
What in the world does "shop any yobs" mean?