The twitter account in question is using a photo of Donal Blaney taken from his blog, creating the impression that it's his account. I'd imagine he's asserting copyright over his photo?

As soon as I posted, I realised that I'd probably overstated by mentioning copyright on the name of the blog ... and just knew that would be the subject of the first reply: geeks will be geeks ;-)

The twitter account in question is @blaneysblarney, which is the name of Mr Blaney's blog. The account photo is copied from Mr Blaney's blog. The first post of @blaneysblarney says "Comrades, I thought I would set up a more political twitter and keep my other twitter account for more personal stuff."

So it seems he's trying to prevent someone using his photo and the name of his blog to pass off their words as his. I'm guessing he's asserting copyright on his photo and the name of his blog, which seems reasonable.

Or indeed any topic. I guess I'd assumed that "critical thinking" would, of itself, *require* the facts & figures: argument without supporting evidence may be fun, but it isn't science.

obligatory xkcd: http://xkcd.com/263/

In "The Demon Haunted World", Carl Sagan recalls a taxi driver who professed to be very interested in science ... then asked Sagan about flying saucers, Atlantis, etc.

Sagan describes his sadness at having to tell the guy that so many of his interests are "baloney" ... and his anger at an educational system that didn't equip the guy with the knowledge to distinguish science from pseudo-science.

A couple of decades later, school science teaching still seems to be less about critical thinking and more about absorbing facts handed down from on high. I imagine that most science *teachers* wish it were otherwise, but are bound by the curriculum.

I've no idea about the real costs of servers and their maintenance, but as for re-purposing old computers: last time I saw someone (our department secretary) have their computer replaced before it died - or was stolen - was 2001!

As you say, all that's really required is a dumb terminal that can run XP with IE6 (or even IE5!) ... but that just reduces the cost of replacements for dead machines. There's no incentive to upgrade from existing machines, so few older models to repurpose.

I can't speak for the US or private medicine but I've seen numerous electronic record systems piloted in the NHS.

My colleagues would love to have fast access to up-to-date clinical notes rather than play pass-the-parcel (or more often, hide & seek) with a patient's paper case-file(s), but wards tend to have one or two computers per ward and community services may have one computer between three to five staff. So at the end of a shift, when ward staff would be writing their notes, there'd be a queue for the computer. Similarly, before setting out on their visits at the start of the day and after returning from their visits at the end of the day, all community staff want access to the computer at the same time. Also, security dictates that as little information as possible is stored on the user's machine, so the intranet is swamped at these times and users face frustrating lags (I've been unable to access records in time for an appointment as the system was "oversubscribed").

To increase computer access to usable levels in my former service would have required a 3-400% increase in the number of computers provided to healthcare staff. I have no idea what the resource implications would have been for the service's intranet, but I imagine that a commensurate increase in server capacity (and in the IT department staffing, to take care of all of this) wouldn't be cheap. As a health service manager, having to decide between enough hospital beds or enough computers, which do you suppose is more likely to keep you in your job?