>It would enable vehicles to transmit their location, speed, direction and other information 10 times per second.
So my car is supposed to take another car's word about what it is doing? How long until someone else figures out how to make their car "lie" to watch the fun? It's guaranteed to happen. And will companies be continually updating these things, or are you just up a creek once your car is "obsolete" (aka when the warranty has expired and they want you to buy a new one).
I honestly wonder if we should start removing some data and keeping it in offline or non-instantaneous storage. Or maybe some sort of distributed storage. Honestly, there is no reason for some company to have everyone's SSNs and other data readily available 24/7. Certain relevant pieces could be kept online for easy access, but what if any access of the data required accessing it from some sort of offline/nearline storage. Or even just a time delay to retrieve the data from the system (and not just a bulk dump of database contents). Even if it took just 1 minute for a credit bureau to access your data, the ability to harvest millions of records would be severely reduced. And there should be a physical limitation to how many request these systems handle. So if there are 10,000 requests happening during a time when only 1000 typically happen, there should be alarms going off.
Have you looked at Project Fi, Google's MVNO service provider? It's got all of the same features as Google Voice, and depending on data usage, can be pretty cheap too.
We're living in a time where we're building critical infrastructure expected to last decades and integrating it with IT equipment with a lifespan of a few years. So the options are to perform major infrastructure upgrades every few years (which is expensive) or run seriously outdated software (possibly dangerous).
Web browsers today have UIs that are worse than the early Mosaic and Netscape Navigator UIs.
That may be true, but having a web browser crash today is a rare occurrence. I'll take the cluttered UI over the numerous daily browser crashes from the old browsers.
I think this is a symptom of a larger problem of technology literacy. I recently read an article (sorry, can't remember where) which stated that we've currently raised a generation of kids that have never had to figure out the technology. Whenever a new piece of technology was acquired (new game system, phone, tablet, etc), many grew up in a house where "dad would handle it". While many in the work force grew up in an age where the kids were the ones who figured out the technology, we've now have the flip side where the adults are the ones who handle it. While they can use all of the new flashy technology, they're completely clueless as to what happens when the technology doesn't work.
I recently was talking to a friend who was telling me about his struggle of reinstalling the operating system on his son's laptop. His son is a high school junior. I couldn't help but think that when I was in high school, I would not have asked my dad (or anyone else for that matter) to reinstall the OS on my laptop. I would have done it myself. And my friend was ultimately just as clueless as his son as to how to do it, but he got online, did the research, and was able to do it himself. And honestly, it's all stuff his son is just as capable of doing, but he's grown up in a world where you let the adults handle the technology.
I already get almost all of this with Project Fi. I can receive calls on any computer; calls are forwarded to any other numbers I want; and so on. The only thing I can't easily do is get temporary numbers. And all of these features don't cost anything extra.
24 months? I'm currently writing this on a mid-2009 13" Macbook Pro. Upgraded the RAM to 8 gigs 4 years ago. New battery and SSD 2 years ago. Performance is still great. Currently looking for a replacement though because hardware is starting to die. Odd video glitches and wireless hardware will randomly disappear (sometimes causing a full system freeze if in use when the hardware randomly vanishes). I want another machine that can last like this one has. These new ones don't sound like they will fit the bill though.
It's not quite as simple. There are actually different code lists for different countries. To my knowledge, it's based on the same structure, but the US version may possibly have more codes.
Also, there are many "unknown" and "unspecified" codes. But take something like S68.119 - complete amputation of unspecified finger. There's a very good chance that will be rejected by an insurance company because if you are the physician and you actually saw the patient, then YOU KNOW which finger it was, so it needs to be coded. So that turns into a separate code for each individual finger (and then even a code for "other" finger.
Is there any reason you couldn't buy multiple single-board computers capable of running a minimal XP install? You could set each device up so that it could boot, and directly initiate the software update. You could then just plug it up to a pump, start it up, and then move on to opening up the next pump and starting the next units. I'd be that with only 5 or so units, by the time you get to the 6th pump, the first unit would be finished with an update.
And I think this would probably take less time than it would take to open up and wire up all of the pumps to do it at once.
I graduated in 2001 with a CS degree. There was ONE female student in the program when I was there that I can remember (and maybe 5 female faculty members). And there were NO African American students or faculty. The lack of diversity in tech workforces is no surprise to anyone who has a degree in a technology field.
Every time I see some of the stuff with EMRs, it just makes me smack my head. I'm not sure if it's ignorance or laziness that is the cause of some of this. Here's some great examples that I personally dealt with THIS WEEK:
I had to get some blood work done today, and the facility uses EPIC. They're using a machine for check-in. Problem # 1 - Whomever thought that a self-service machine for check-in with a bunch of old people trying to use it needs to be shot. They had a paid employee babysitting the machine because most of the people trying to use it were clueless. Problem 2 - Even when you're knowledgeable about technology, it's still not easy. You type your first and last name, and then click the button. Fine, seems easy enough. Except once you click the button, the screen refreshes, and it gives you no indication whatsoever that you successfully checked in. The only reason I knew was because the babysitter told me that it went through.
I decided to download my medical record from the online interface out of curiosity, to see what it looks like. In the file, there was a "human readable" PDF, which used an insane bitmap font that was anything but readable. And looking through the XML file, there was a crazy amount of bogus data (such as fake names and addresses) in addition to my real data.
It all really scares me. Human error is limited in scope, but human error with a technology multiplier (and probably will) wipe all of us out.
Re:Auto-save is NOT your friend
on
Goodbye, Ctrl-S
·
· Score: 1
Had auto-save not been there, I would have manually saved it several times. But autosave makes you think that you don't need to worry about manually saving.
Auto-save is NOT your friend
on
Goodbye, Ctrl-S
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Sometimes, I don't want to save. I will open a document with the explicit purpose of making changes that I don't want saved. Even Gmail's autosave has burned me pretty badly. I spent an hour typing out a very long email. Toward the end of it, something happened, and the whole body of text was gone. I'm still not really sure if it was a keyboard shortcut I inadvertently triggered, browser bug, or what. But I just thought "no biggie... I'll just go back to the auto-saved version". So I open up the autosaved version, and the latest auto-save happened AFTER the email body was deleted.
So much for autosave @#$!#$@!!!!
No, "We", have not forgotten. This was the FIRST THING on my mind when I read the post. The problem is the "they" who HAVE forgotten and design all of these other systems that we rely on.
In high school ('93-'97), I took every AP class I could (CS, English, Chemistry, History, etc). Each class had about 20 to 30 people in it, and I don't think a single one of us took the AP exam. AP wasn't so much about being able to take an exam to get college credit, but was more about being challenged. For me, I specifically did it to better prepare me for college. And honestly, it made college easier, and I did better overall than I would have otherwise.
I suspect this guy does not have the intelligence to give you the correct time of day, let alone the US's views on tourture. There may be others who share his beliefs, but I'm sure their IQs are all in the single digit range.
I can see it now. My phone displays a message stating something to the effect of "It seems like you're having a bad day. Why don't you take a break and relax", shortly before I throw it at the wall as hard as possible.
Then I quickly get a new phone without the new "feature".
This assumes that people who couldn't order something from Amazon right at that moment will immediately go order it somewhere else. I'd bet that most people would just try again later and order what they want.
The Lisa was ahead of its time, and many people don't know that. I grew up with a Lisa (later upgraded to Macintosh XL). For YEARS, my dad would complain how the Lisa could do more than the Macintosh operating system. Even the difference in desktop paradigms (where the Lisa was a document centric system, and the Mac is an application centric system).
However, my dad's investment in the Lisas and their quick demise led him to curse Apple and Steve Jobs for a long time.
We've still got 1 or 2 systems sitting in an attic somewhere. And I recall a few years ago having come across the whole set of system manuals for the original Lisa (with Twiggy drives).
You won't understand this until you've worked as a government contractor. When you are a contractor, the government employees are god (or at least that's what they think). In 90% of the projects that I have worked on for the government, it's the government employees who cause most of the problems. You are not given the authority to tell them "NO", and you must live with their idiotic decisions, even when you know that it will just cause more problems.
Slashdot Mirror
They are the BEST (Barely Educated Slow Thinkers)!
>It would enable vehicles to transmit their location, speed, direction and other information 10 times per second.
So my car is supposed to take another car's word about what it is doing? How long until someone else figures out how to make their car "lie" to watch the fun? It's guaranteed to happen. And will companies be continually updating these things, or are you just up a creek once your car is "obsolete" (aka when the warranty has expired and they want you to buy a new one).
I honestly wonder if we should start removing some data and keeping it in offline or non-instantaneous storage. Or maybe some sort of distributed storage. Honestly, there is no reason for some company to have everyone's SSNs and other data readily available 24/7. Certain relevant pieces could be kept online for easy access, but what if any access of the data required accessing it from some sort of offline/nearline storage. Or even just a time delay to retrieve the data from the system (and not just a bulk dump of database contents). Even if it took just 1 minute for a credit bureau to access your data, the ability to harvest millions of records would be severely reduced. And there should be a physical limitation to how many request these systems handle. So if there are 10,000 requests happening during a time when only 1000 typically happen, there should be alarms going off.
Have you looked at Project Fi, Google's MVNO service provider? It's got all of the same features as Google Voice, and depending on data usage, can be pretty cheap too.
We're living in a time where we're building critical infrastructure expected to last decades and integrating it with IT equipment with a lifespan of a few years. So the options are to perform major infrastructure upgrades every few years (which is expensive) or run seriously outdated software (possibly dangerous).
Web browsers today have UIs that are worse than the early Mosaic and Netscape Navigator UIs.
That may be true, but having a web browser crash today is a rare occurrence. I'll take the cluttered UI over the numerous daily browser crashes from the old browsers.
I think this is a symptom of a larger problem of technology literacy. I recently read an article (sorry, can't remember where) which stated that we've currently raised a generation of kids that have never had to figure out the technology. Whenever a new piece of technology was acquired (new game system, phone, tablet, etc), many grew up in a house where "dad would handle it". While many in the work force grew up in an age where the kids were the ones who figured out the technology, we've now have the flip side where the adults are the ones who handle it. While they can use all of the new flashy technology, they're completely clueless as to what happens when the technology doesn't work. I recently was talking to a friend who was telling me about his struggle of reinstalling the operating system on his son's laptop. His son is a high school junior. I couldn't help but think that when I was in high school, I would not have asked my dad (or anyone else for that matter) to reinstall the OS on my laptop. I would have done it myself. And my friend was ultimately just as clueless as his son as to how to do it, but he got online, did the research, and was able to do it himself. And honestly, it's all stuff his son is just as capable of doing, but he's grown up in a world where you let the adults handle the technology.
I already get almost all of this with Project Fi. I can receive calls on any computer; calls are forwarded to any other numbers I want; and so on. The only thing I can't easily do is get temporary numbers. And all of these features don't cost anything extra.
24 months? I'm currently writing this on a mid-2009 13" Macbook Pro. Upgraded the RAM to 8 gigs 4 years ago. New battery and SSD 2 years ago. Performance is still great. Currently looking for a replacement though because hardware is starting to die. Odd video glitches and wireless hardware will randomly disappear (sometimes causing a full system freeze if in use when the hardware randomly vanishes). I want another machine that can last like this one has. These new ones don't sound like they will fit the bill though.
It's not quite as simple. There are actually different code lists for different countries. To my knowledge, it's based on the same structure, but the US version may possibly have more codes. Also, there are many "unknown" and "unspecified" codes. But take something like S68.119 - complete amputation of unspecified finger. There's a very good chance that will be rejected by an insurance company because if you are the physician and you actually saw the patient, then YOU KNOW which finger it was, so it needs to be coded. So that turns into a separate code for each individual finger (and then even a code for "other" finger.
Is there any reason you couldn't buy multiple single-board computers capable of running a minimal XP install? You could set each device up so that it could boot, and directly initiate the software update. You could then just plug it up to a pump, start it up, and then move on to opening up the next pump and starting the next units. I'd be that with only 5 or so units, by the time you get to the 6th pump, the first unit would be finished with an update. And I think this would probably take less time than it would take to open up and wire up all of the pumps to do it at once.
I graduated in 2001 with a CS degree. There was ONE female student in the program when I was there that I can remember (and maybe 5 female faculty members). And there were NO African American students or faculty. The lack of diversity in tech workforces is no surprise to anyone who has a degree in a technology field.
Problem # 1 - Whomever thought that a self-service machine for check-in with a bunch of old people trying to use it needs to be shot. They had a paid employee babysitting the machine because most of the people trying to use it were clueless.
Problem 2 - Even when you're knowledgeable about technology, it's still not easy. You type your first and last name, and then click the button. Fine, seems easy enough. Except once you click the button, the screen refreshes, and it gives you no indication whatsoever that you successfully checked in. The only reason I knew was because the babysitter told me that it went through.
It all really scares me. Human error is limited in scope, but human error with a technology multiplier (and probably will) wipe all of us out.
What on earth could you possibly have against M??? A Case of the MUMPS
Had auto-save not been there, I would have manually saved it several times. But autosave makes you think that you don't need to worry about manually saving.
Sometimes, I don't want to save. I will open a document with the explicit purpose of making changes that I don't want saved. Even Gmail's autosave has burned me pretty badly. I spent an hour typing out a very long email. Toward the end of it, something happened, and the whole body of text was gone. I'm still not really sure if it was a keyboard shortcut I inadvertently triggered, browser bug, or what. But I just thought "no biggie... I'll just go back to the auto-saved version". So I open up the autosaved version, and the latest auto-save happened AFTER the email body was deleted. So much for autosave @#$!#$@!!!!
No, "We", have not forgotten. This was the FIRST THING on my mind when I read the post. The problem is the "they" who HAVE forgotten and design all of these other systems that we rely on.
In high school ('93-'97), I took every AP class I could (CS, English, Chemistry, History, etc). Each class had about 20 to 30 people in it, and I don't think a single one of us took the AP exam. AP wasn't so much about being able to take an exam to get college credit, but was more about being challenged. For me, I specifically did it to better prepare me for college. And honestly, it made college easier, and I did better overall than I would have otherwise.
I suspect this guy does not have the intelligence to give you the correct time of day, let alone the US's views on tourture. There may be others who share his beliefs, but I'm sure their IQs are all in the single digit range.
I can see it now. My phone displays a message stating something to the effect of "It seems like you're having a bad day. Why don't you take a break and relax", shortly before I throw it at the wall as hard as possible. Then I quickly get a new phone without the new "feature".
And it's an oxymoron.
Were there any things that you blended where the outcome was not what you expected?
This assumes that people who couldn't order something from Amazon right at that moment will immediately go order it somewhere else. I'd bet that most people would just try again later and order what they want.
The Lisa was ahead of its time, and many people don't know that. I grew up with a Lisa (later upgraded to Macintosh XL). For YEARS, my dad would complain how the Lisa could do more than the Macintosh operating system. Even the difference in desktop paradigms (where the Lisa was a document centric system, and the Mac is an application centric system). However, my dad's investment in the Lisas and their quick demise led him to curse Apple and Steve Jobs for a long time. We've still got 1 or 2 systems sitting in an attic somewhere. And I recall a few years ago having come across the whole set of system manuals for the original Lisa (with Twiggy drives).
You won't understand this until you've worked as a government contractor. When you are a contractor, the government employees are god (or at least that's what they think). In 90% of the projects that I have worked on for the government, it's the government employees who cause most of the problems. You are not given the authority to tell them "NO", and you must live with their idiotic decisions, even when you know that it will just cause more problems.