With the overreaction to HIPAA rules driving everyone to distraction, I doubt open source software is going to gain much traction in the U.S. What guarantee (from a manager's or director's point of view) is the software HIPAA compliant? What the hell does that mean, anyway? Buy it from a vendor and it's their fault if something goes wrong (again, from a manager's viewpoint), download it from the Internet and something goes wrong... important people are in trouble!
HIPAA madness has hit a major teaching hospital that will remain nameless. They're rolling out an expensive new HIPAA-compliant (certified! --of course) Health Information Management System. It's replacing an existing infrastructure that works perfectly, and is completely paid for (except for maintenance contracts). 400+ people have to be retrained on the new software, new hires have to learn both systems as they'll both be operating over the 2 month roll-out.
"Get a life... will ya, people? I mean, for cryin' out loud, it's just a TV show." -- William Shatner
Sure, I wouldn't mind seeing Shatner on Enterprise. If he's reprising his role as Kirk or playing Kirk's (great?) grandfather, then I'm going to be angry.
Looking at the Nielsen ratings and that Enterprise is moving to the "Friday Evening Timeslot of Certain Cancellation," I'd like the last season to be better than a retread of the Berman/Braga bag-o-tricks of propping up hack creativity with a cameo of a favorite character.
Yes, you save money on gas and insurance, while at the same time risking becoming a peel-off hood ornament for some cellphone toting asshole's SUV penis extension and, incidentally, spewing out 20 times the amount of pollution of an automobile per mile. I see people reading the newspaper while eating breakfast on their way to work in their SUVs. Drive a motorcycle in rush hour traffic? No thank you, I'll take the bus as long as the driver doesn't smell of alcohol.
Who would have guessed that China would lead the way in green transportation?
Electricity is not generated by magical pixies. In China, it's primarily generated by Coal-fired generating plants with the kind of pollution controls that only Dick Cheney would love. Mmmm, smell the "clean" power!
People who think e-bikes are good for the environment probably also think the same of hydrogen power cells. Trouble is, do you know what the source of your generating plant is?
Wanna save the environment? Don't drive an SUV when you could drive a car. Don't drive a car when you can ride a bus/train. Ride a bike or walk to work.
I've dealt with setups like that. Started with a password nobody would ever guess, and it gradually got weaker and weaker every time I was forced to change it. Now I just toggle back and forth between two weak passwords.
More than two dozen accounts here, only 7 different passwords, sad to say. Once they all had different passwords, but then I lost my slip o' paper from my wallet and had to change them all at the same time. It's easier to have a few passwords and change them regularly on a particular day. Though I did have the idea for a relatively simple hash that I could do in my head to generate a password for each system. Still had to have a slip o' paper for IDs, and had to spend time thinking up the password. Not too much of a time waster til you have to ssh 5 systems deep...
YOU MUST CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD EVERY 30 DAYS PASSWORD MUST HAVE AT LEAST 6 ALPHA AND 2 NUMERIC/OTHER CHARACTERS New Password: password
PASSWORD MUST HAVE AT LEAST 6 ALPHA AND 2 NUMERIC/OTHER CHARACTERS New Password: password01
OK... (February) User: Tim Password: password01
YOU MUST CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD EVERY 30 DAYS PASSWORD MUST HAVE AT LEAST 6 ALPHA AND 2 NUMERIC/OTHER CHARACTERS New Password: password01
THIS PASSWORD HAS BEEN USED RECENTLY YOU MUST CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD EVERY 30 DAYS PASSWORD MUST HAVE AT LEAST 6 ALPHA AND 2 NUMERIC/OTHER CHARACTERS New Password: password02
OK... (March) User: Tim Password: password02
YOU MUST CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD EVERY 30 DAYS PASSWORD MUST HAVE AT LEAST 6 ALPHA AND 2 NUMERIC/OTHER CHARACTERS New Password: password03
You're basically screwed. The government isn't called "The Government" for nothing. They've got tons of checks and balances to make sure that it's virtually impossible for them to correct their mistakes, much less admit to them. Even if you could get the government to do something, you'll have to get the credit reporting bureaus to do something, too. Have you ever been damned to spend eternity pushing a boulder uphill only to have it roll back down?
The rest of this isn't very helpful, but what the heck...
Scenario #1: Do something
A) Keep poking at various three letter organizations til you get the end result of scenario #2.
B) Get a new SSN. Find out that you're still on watch lists, and will be forever. Don't plan on travelling by plane or Amtrak.
C) Leave the country... permanently.
D) Since you're only 19, you haven't paid much into Social Security, which won't be there anyway when you retire, so, manufacture a new identity with a new SSN. It's much easier than you might think. I leave this as an exercise to the reader. Do a Google search.
Scenario #2: Do nothing, or annoy the gummint. Sooner or later you'll be going on an all expenses paid permanent Carribean vacation.
*bad dream sequence* Khan, reprising his role as Ricardo Montalban reprising his role as Mr. Roarke, dressed in olive drab will greet you at the debarkation point. "Welcome to Fantasy Isl -- er, Guantanamo Bay Mr. Allen, or should I say Mr. Bin al-Shibh? We hope that you will find the amenities (waves hand at razor wire) to your liking. Sgt. Tattoo will take you to your cage. Don't worry about your rights, we'll take good care of them for you during your stay.
Sgt. Tattoo. Sgt. Tattoo!! Get out of that Cordoba and take this man to his new home."
Compare that to configuring a public computer so that it won't show porn to children... I'm afraid I don't see your point of view.
But they're not just blocking porn. They're using software with "encrypted" databases that have been proven to block more than just porn. People are prevented from decrypting these filtering programs by the government thanks to the DMCA. This is an end run around censorship laws, though I will grant that it doesn't give the government the power they want to block all opposing viewpoints. Only those companies who have an agenda, or are just plain lazy and wildcard anatomical references or strong language.
I suppose that the libraries can just develop their own software, but where's the money going to come from?
As U.S. Ambassador Richard Williamson prepares to introduce a resolution at the U.N. Human Rights Commission to censure the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) government for increasing 'repression of its people using the Internet
Somewhat ironic given that U.S. companies are profiting by selling censorship software to China. And of course, the U.S. requiring (or trying to require) libraries to censor the Internet, for the children, of course.
Even Windows has a built in RAM disk, although you have to define it in the boot files. So changing the size requires a reboot unfortunately.
You mean the DOS driver ramdrive.sys? That isn't installed by default (does it exist anymore?) in XP. If I remember correctly, wasn't there a 256MB limit anyway? Perhaps not an issue if you've got 3GB of real RAM...
A solid state disk drive you shove into a PCI slot with a bunch of SDRAM on it: Priceless
For everything else, there's, Hey! Why would I pay more than a grand for a PCI bandwidth capped solid state drive when I can fill my memory slots and use RAMDrive at DDR bandwidth?
After a hard day's shaking babies and kissing hands, I think it's time to tell you where I stand on the issues.
Firstly, I'm a uniter, not a divider. Whether it's the rich 'Pioneers' that will get me elected, or the multinational Alphaville companies that I owe my allegiance to, I will have your best interests in mind.
I will create a tax break for all Alphaville residents that spend more than 60 hours online each week, repealing the crippling monthly charges that so many of our nation building contributors must shoulder. This will create jobs for those who have to build digital exercise machines, paintings, stoves and so forth.
But all is not well in Alphaville. An insidious enemy is at work behind the scenes. The axis of Maxis must be stopped. As president, I will abduct all suspected enemies, and wall them up in Guantanamo House until they either confess or die.
All voting is electronic, and with my friends at AlphaBold, you're "voting" for me one way or the other.
Wiring is cheap at this point in the building process. Pull some Cat5e and fiber and be done with it.
Or do you want to make it easier for your neighbors to spy on that nasty little pr0n habit you have? While those signals will have trouble getting from one corner of the house to the next (especially between floors) you can bet someone will be able to eavesdrop easily. Wireless security isn't very secure. Parabolic antenna not included. Quiet Ashcroft, I'm typing here...
Sorry, anyway. Wired is more secure, faster, and you can always add a wireless node or two for the laptop when doing non-sensitive browsing. I would firewall that connection from my LAN. Don't want that cheezy windows laptop being a vector for attacks, eh?
Look, people, it doesn't get any clearer than this!
"Mission controllers said they were also considering the possibility that Beagle 2 simply crashed onto the surface of Mars because its atmosphere was less dense than expected."
We must act now to shut down Mars' mass destruction program (codenamed "ground"). Our probes simply cannot survive such an unequal mass collsion. Once we have established a permanent base on the Moon, we will be able to strike back at these terrorists.
We, and the stakeholders, thank you for dramatically increasing public interest in our addictively fun game of death, destruction, and mayhem. Slow sales have been a bit of a problem, but now, young adults everywhere are lusting after the (almost) unattainable beauty that is Manhunt for PS2. Coming soon for Xbox and PC.
Look, I'ma War President [smirk]. It's obvious that the previous post was an attempt by Al Queda and evil Slashdot hackers using my account to spread facts that just aren't supported by the administration.
Fortunately, a God-fearing Republican moderator took it upon itself to censor the embarrassing facts (which the CIA has assured me is not important) surrounding the ease with which a closed source, non-auditable code, no-paper trail, non-repairable by anyone but the issuing company electric voting machine can be tampered with by outsiders and even by the very companies which have strong Republican ties to me and my party.
Once again, dear moderator, thank you for helping us keep this information from people who are too stupid to understand the bigger picture!
Look, I'ma War President [smirk]. Since 9/11, we realized we can't sit around waiting for things to happen. We need to act now. Al Queda operatives are trying to destroy America. Saddam was a dangerous evil dictator. By hurting big business, the terrorists will win. Democrats want to let the terrorists win, tax corporations and put "Queer Eye" reruns on C-Span. These are things we know.
Now, I don't know about you, but that last election? Where people say I didn't win [lip curl], even though the U.S. Supreme Court had run out the clock to make sure I did [grin]? Well, I felt bad when I heard those poor old, octogenarian Jews in Palm Beach County get all confused over the Butterfly ballots.
Now, with those electric voting machines? We can just flip a switch and turn those confused votes into the proper votes. We don't have time to wait around for the machines to be modified to keep paper records. At least not until after the re-election [smirk].
Interestingly enough, Sweden does have the death penalty for defacing Swedish meatballs. This from the Swedish Chef
Kookin' der yummee-yummers, ya. Kookin' der deleeciuoos Svedeesh meetbells is ookey, boot deffeceeng zeem fur zee poorpuses oozeer thun ieteeng is pooneesheble-a by deet.
Look, I'ma War President [smirk]. Since 9/11, we realized we can't sit around waiting for things to happen. We need to act now. Al Queda operatives are trying to destroy America. Saddam was a dangerous evil dictator. By hurting big business, the terrorists will win. These are things we know. We haven't yet proven a link between Al Queda and these evil scientists, but rest assured, when we do find it, I will act upon that intelligence.
Slashdot Mirror
With the overreaction to HIPAA rules driving everyone to distraction, I doubt open source software is going to gain much traction in the U.S. What guarantee (from a manager's or director's point of view) is the software HIPAA compliant? What the hell does that mean, anyway? Buy it from a vendor and it's their fault if something goes wrong (again, from a manager's viewpoint), download it from the Internet and something goes wrong... important people are in trouble!
HIPAA madness has hit a major teaching hospital that will remain nameless. They're rolling out an expensive new HIPAA-compliant (certified! --of course) Health Information Management System. It's replacing an existing infrastructure that works perfectly, and is completely paid for (except for maintenance contracts). 400+ people have to be retrained on the new software, new hires have to learn both systems as they'll both be operating over the 2 month roll-out.
"Get a life ... will ya, people? I mean, for cryin' out loud, it's just a TV show." -- William Shatner
Sure, I wouldn't mind seeing Shatner on Enterprise. If he's reprising his role as Kirk or playing Kirk's (great?) grandfather, then I'm going to be angry.
Looking at the Nielsen ratings and that Enterprise is moving to the "Friday Evening Timeslot of Certain Cancellation," I'd like the last season to be better than a retread of the Berman/Braga bag-o-tricks of propping up hack creativity with a cameo of a favorite character.
Yes, you save money on gas and insurance, while at the same time risking becoming a peel-off hood ornament for some cellphone toting asshole's SUV penis extension and, incidentally, spewing out 20 times the amount of pollution of an automobile per mile. I see people reading the newspaper while eating breakfast on their way to work in their SUVs. Drive a motorcycle in rush hour traffic? No thank you, I'll take the bus as long as the driver doesn't smell of alcohol.
Who would have guessed that China would lead the way in green transportation?
Electricity is not generated by magical pixies. In China, it's primarily generated by Coal-fired generating plants with the kind of pollution controls that only Dick Cheney would love. Mmmm, smell the "clean" power!
People who think e-bikes are good for the environment probably also think the same of hydrogen power cells. Trouble is, do you know what the source of your generating plant is?
Wanna save the environment? Don't drive an SUV when you could drive a car. Don't drive a car when you can ride a bus/train. Ride a bike or walk to work.
Couldn't you consider this an attack on America and use it as an excuse to invade India :)?
Never pick a fight with a country that believes in reincarnation and has nuclear weapons.
I've dealt with setups like that. Started with a password nobody would ever guess, and it gradually got weaker and weaker every time I was forced to change it. Now I just toggle back and forth between two weak passwords.
More than two dozen accounts here, only 7 different passwords, sad to say. Once they all had different passwords, but then I lost my slip o' paper from my wallet and had to change them all at the same time. It's easier to have a few passwords and change them regularly on a particular day. Though I did have the idea for a relatively simple hash that I could do in my head to generate a password for each system. Still had to have a slip o' paper for IDs, and had to spend time thinking up the password. Not too much of a time waster til you have to ssh 5 systems deep...
(January)
...
...
...
User: Tim
Password: NEWUSER
YOU MUST CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD EVERY 30 DAYS
PASSWORD MUST HAVE AT LEAST 6 ALPHA AND 2 NUMERIC/OTHER CHARACTERS
New Password: password
PASSWORD MUST HAVE AT LEAST 6 ALPHA AND 2 NUMERIC/OTHER CHARACTERS
New Password: password01
OK
(February)
User: Tim
Password: password01
YOU MUST CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD EVERY 30 DAYS
PASSWORD MUST HAVE AT LEAST 6 ALPHA AND 2 NUMERIC/OTHER CHARACTERS
New Password: password01
THIS PASSWORD HAS BEEN USED RECENTLY
YOU MUST CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD EVERY 30 DAYS
PASSWORD MUST HAVE AT LEAST 6 ALPHA AND 2 NUMERIC/OTHER CHARACTERS
New Password: password02
OK
(March)
User: Tim
Password: password02
YOU MUST CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD EVERY 30 DAYS
PASSWORD MUST HAVE AT LEAST 6 ALPHA AND 2 NUMERIC/OTHER CHARACTERS
New Password: password03
OK
repeat ad nauseum
You're basically screwed. The government isn't called "The Government" for nothing. They've got tons of checks and balances to make sure that it's virtually impossible for them to correct their mistakes, much less admit to them. Even if you could get the government to do something, you'll have to get the credit reporting bureaus to do something, too. Have you ever been damned to spend eternity pushing a boulder uphill only to have it roll back down?
The rest of this isn't very helpful, but what the heck...
Scenario #1: Do something
A) Keep poking at various three letter organizations til you get the end result of scenario #2.
B) Get a new SSN. Find out that you're still on watch lists, and will be forever. Don't plan on travelling by plane or Amtrak.
C) Leave the country... permanently.
D) Since you're only 19, you haven't paid much into Social Security, which won't be there anyway when you retire, so, manufacture a new identity with a new SSN. It's much easier than you might think. I leave this as an exercise to the reader. Do a Google search.
Scenario #2: Do nothing, or annoy the gummint. Sooner or later you'll be going on an all expenses paid permanent Carribean vacation.
*bad dream sequence*
Khan, reprising his role as Ricardo Montalban reprising his role as Mr. Roarke, dressed in olive drab will greet you at the debarkation point. "Welcome to Fantasy Isl -- er, Guantanamo Bay Mr. Allen, or should I say Mr. Bin al-Shibh? We hope that you will find the amenities (waves hand at razor wire) to your liking. Sgt. Tattoo will take you to your cage. Don't worry about your rights, we'll take good care of them for you during your stay.
Sgt. Tattoo. Sgt. Tattoo!! Get out of that Cordoba and take this man to his new home."
Compare that to configuring a public computer so that it won't show porn to children... I'm afraid I don't see your point of view.
But they're not just blocking porn. They're using software with "encrypted" databases that have been proven to block more than just porn. People are prevented from decrypting these filtering programs by the government thanks to the DMCA. This is an end run around censorship laws, though I will grant that it doesn't give the government the power they want to block all opposing viewpoints. Only those companies who have an agenda, or are just plain lazy and wildcard anatomical references or strong language.
I suppose that the libraries can just develop their own software, but where's the money going to come from?
As U.S. Ambassador Richard Williamson prepares to introduce a resolution at the U.N. Human Rights Commission to censure the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) government for increasing 'repression of its people using the Internet
Somewhat ironic given that U.S. companies are profiting by selling censorship software to China. And of course, the U.S. requiring (or trying to require) libraries to censor the Internet, for the children, of course.
Even Windows has a built in RAM disk, although you have to define it in the boot files. So changing the size requires a reboot unfortunately.
You mean the DOS driver ramdrive.sys? That isn't installed by default (does it exist anymore?) in XP. If I remember correctly, wasn't there a 256MB limit anyway? Perhaps not an issue if you've got 3GB of real RAM...
An old, surplus, dedicated swap drive on its own channel: $0.00
A RAMdrive from system memory: Under $100
A solid state disk drive you shove into a PCI slot with a bunch of SDRAM on it: Priceless
For everything else, there's, Hey! Why would I pay more than a grand for a PCI bandwidth capped solid state drive when I can fill my memory slots and use RAMDrive at DDR bandwidth?
After a hard day's shaking babies and kissing hands, I think it's time to tell you where I stand on the issues.
Firstly, I'm a uniter, not a divider. Whether it's the rich 'Pioneers' that will get me elected, or the multinational Alphaville companies that I owe my allegiance to, I will have your best interests in mind.
I will create a tax break for all Alphaville residents that spend more than 60 hours online each week, repealing the crippling monthly charges that so many of our nation building contributors must shoulder. This will create jobs for those who have to build digital exercise machines, paintings, stoves and so forth.
But all is not well in Alphaville. An insidious enemy is at work behind the scenes. The axis of Maxis must be stopped. As president, I will abduct all suspected enemies, and wall them up in Guantanamo House until they either confess or die.
All voting is electronic, and with my friends at AlphaBold, you're "voting" for me one way or the other.
Wiring is cheap at this point in the building process. Pull some Cat5e and fiber and be done with it.
Or do you want to make it easier for your neighbors to spy on that nasty little pr0n habit you have? While those signals will have trouble getting from one corner of the house to the next (especially between floors) you can bet someone will be able to eavesdrop easily. Wireless security isn't very secure. Parabolic antenna not included. Quiet Ashcroft, I'm typing here...
Sorry, anyway. Wired is more secure, faster, and you can always add a wireless node or two for the laptop when doing non-sensitive browsing. I would firewall that connection from my LAN.
Don't want that cheezy windows laptop being a vector for attacks, eh?
Look, people, it doesn't get any clearer than this!
"Mission controllers said they were also considering the possibility that Beagle 2 simply crashed onto the surface of Mars because its atmosphere was less dense than expected."
We must act now to shut down Mars' mass destruction program (codenamed "ground"). Our probes simply cannot survive such an unequal mass collsion. Once we have established a permanent base on the Moon, we will be able to strike back at these terrorists.
Dear Ontario Film Review Board,
We, and the stakeholders, thank you for dramatically increasing public interest in our addictively fun game of death, destruction, and mayhem. Slow sales have been a bit of a problem, but now, young adults everywhere are lusting after the (almost) unattainable beauty that is Manhunt for PS2. Coming soon for Xbox and PC.
Sincerely,
Rockstar Games
Look, I'ma War President [smirk]. It's obvious that the previous post was an attempt by Al Queda and evil Slashdot hackers using my account to spread facts that just aren't supported by the administration.
Fortunately, a God-fearing Republican moderator took it upon itself to censor the embarrassing facts (which the CIA has assured me is not important) surrounding the ease with which a closed source, non-auditable code, no-paper trail, non-repairable by anyone but the issuing company electric voting machine can be tampered with by outsiders and even by the very companies which have strong Republican ties to me and my party.
Once again, dear moderator, thank you for helping us keep this information from people who are too stupid to understand the bigger picture!
Look, I'ma War President [smirk]. Since 9/11, we realized we can't sit around waiting for things to happen. We need to act now. Al Queda operatives are trying to destroy America. Saddam was a dangerous evil dictator. By hurting big business, the terrorists will win. Democrats want to let the terrorists win, tax corporations and put "Queer Eye" reruns on C-Span. These are things we know.
Now, I don't know about you, but that last election? Where people say I didn't win [lip curl], even though the U.S. Supreme Court had run out the clock to make sure I did [grin]? Well, I felt bad when I heard those poor old, octogenarian Jews in Palm Beach County get all confused over the Butterfly ballots.
Now, with those electric voting machines? We can just flip a switch and turn those confused votes into the proper votes. We don't have time to wait around for the machines to be modified to keep paper records. At least not until after the re-election [smirk].
I have been assured by all the electric voting systems companies, all great supporters of the Republican Party, that their machines are in perfect working order and don't need audits or a paper trail to mess things up. Don't let the terrorists win!
Interestingly enough, Sweden does have the death penalty for defacing Swedish meatballs. This from the Swedish Chef
Kookin' der yummee-yummers, ya. Kookin' der deleeciuoos Svedeesh meetbells is ookey, boot deffeceeng zeem fur zee poorpuses oozeer thun ieteeng is pooneesheble-a by deet.
Look, I'ma War President [smirk]. Since 9/11, we realized we can't sit around waiting for things to happen. We need to act now. Al Queda operatives are trying to destroy America. Saddam was a dangerous evil dictator. By hurting big business, the terrorists will win. These are things we know. We haven't yet proven a link between Al Queda and these evil scientists, but rest assured, when we do find it, I will act upon that intelligence.