I like to have developers bring in some code they've written and go through it. It's amazing how many developers are just not good at interviewing... until we start looking at code. Oh, and the fakers, well, they seem to never bring code to the interview.
As far as tests go, we use them for people fresh out of school because there is a huge difference between passing a CS class and actually being able to apply that knowledge.
If you like GTD, the best organizer ever is Emacs Org Mode. Because Org Mode uses plain text files for storage, you can use git for storage and have very meaningful history tracking and sync across devices. There are even tools for syncing to third party calendars (i.e. Google) and devices.
There is no difference in parties in how they sell their platforms. Republicans use fear of foreign powers, fear of government, fear of immigrants and fear of loss of financial independence. Democrats use fear of racists, fear of religious institutions, fear of loss of government subsidies and fear of foreign powers.
The biggest difference really is how they view government: Republicans pander to those that fear government and Democrats pander to those that fear the lack of government. The message of fear was beaten by a guy selling hope.
The open source world just hasnt' evolved the maturity to make a universal desktop OS **that people use**
It is more likely that people have not yet evolved to use an open source desktop.
On developers never having access to production:
In many cases, developers are the only people who understand the full application, and in many cases are the only people who can actually troubleshoot a botched install or figure out why things aren't working right in production. Yes, you are suposed to have some kind of QA or staging environment and you are not supposed to deploy bad code, but sometimes things go sideways. In these cases, only a developer who knows the code and any integration issues will be able to figure out what went wrong. Acting like developers should *never* have access to production is a lot like saying "the mechanic should never have access to my car's engine, ever". It makes sense 99.9% of the time, but there is a
On Developers and Access Rights:
There are a lot of developers who don't understand the computer they are developing software on. Usually, they are very BAD developers. Take for instance, a webdev who doesn't know Apache. Instead of using built in tools like mod_rewrite, the developer will build their own tools to do what is built in to apache. Good developers know their platform, often at a level that is much deeper because they take time to read code or API and config documentation so they understand the toolbox they are working with. Often a single line of configuration is more powerful than 1000's of line of code. Developers need to be administrators on at least their developement environments... usually extended to staging there is a large difference in scale between development (a VM on my laptop) to staging (multiple servers) and production (hundreds of servers).
On installer driven software:
It doesn't matter if you use installshield, roll your own RPMs or use Salt, Chef or Puppet. Any way you go you should do everything you can to automate installation. When you automate you reduce the chance of human mistakes in installation process. If you do installation automation right, then a deploy to production can be triggered by anyone with appropriate authority or any automated process with appropriate authority. Having people sit at the console and install software manually should be a red flag that the software you are buying sucks or is incomplete.
In Enterprise-Grade software:
Installatioin should be automated to the maximum extent possible, using the appropriate operating system installation tools. Documentation for the upgrade and install should be clear enough that a non-developer can successfully install and test the installation. Install activity should be logged, so that if something does go wrong, it can be figured out later.
Even if they met all the requirement to bill as emergency band-aid application, you still feel it's fraudulent? You're not a fan of rule-of-law, are you
The intent of the emergency band-aid is to compensate for the difference in cost between the emergency room and a primary care physician's office. Very rarely would a primary care office meet the requirements of being an emergency room... but the descriptions of the procedure may be the same.
I'm actually a big fan of the rule of law. The problem with healthcare billing is that is too easy for care providers to deceive the payer.
An increase of 85% just scratches the surface.
If there are two legal, legitimate ways to code for a given procedure, why would a clinic not bill for the more expensive of the two? Medicare - not the hospitals - sets the reimbursement rates and defines the codes. If they didn't intend for the higher code to be billable, they should have written the definition so that it wasn't.
If a care provider is doing additional services with the only objective being getting paid more and not treating the patient, it is fraud - even if it just five percent extra.
The ones that really get me are where the care provider does a little creative coding:
Doctor applies band-aid to cut. Bills as primary care band-aid application. Is authorized $26.
Doctor applies band-aid to cut. Bills as emergency band-adi application. Is authorized $921.
The problem with all of this is that doctors are being paid for proceedures instead of being paid to make people better. If you pay for proceedures, there is a reverse incentive to make people well (or in other words, keeping people sick is good for business).
If that's what they're doing it's easily detectable.
If only someone was really looking... and there was the will to prosecute people for fraud.
Now, the Australian company you declined to work for, they seem like the kinds of scum who hospital administrators might hire to commit wholesale fraud. That obviously would give rise to increased billing rates. If there's still a sliver of justice in the world, they'll go to jail for falsifying records.
Both the company providing the service and people enriched by using that service need to be held accountable.
The issue is changing from an E&M to an intensive care E&M. Same procedure, higher payout. Same goes for taking a common tests that are bundled and breaking them into smaller component tests. A few wears ago I met with an Ausie founder of a startup that was talking about how revolutionary their software was that would optimize billing codes to ensure maximum revenue per procedure by basically scanning a billing batch and re-coding it using more lucrative codes for the same procedures. I waked on doing any development for them.
a) Call me back when the state supreme court rules. A county court ruling has a long way to go before it is anywhere near over, especially when there are many other court rulings in favor of the law.
b) Trying to recall a governor and having the governor stay is a faiure. No spin about it.
c) Protests are not credible evidence of anything other than the protestors being unhappy. Election > Protest.
... Because that worked so well in Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, the result of the protests were:
* The teacher's union being flat out broken. The state won.
* A failed recall effort.
* A complete loss of support from many parent for the teachers. Demanding more money when people are struggling is never a hit.
I know it sounds maudlin, but it really did hurt to see PJ now doing, without realizing it, what Darl/Enderle/Didio/Florian did so many times in the past--I just couldn't stand to continue.
Nah, it just sounds looney because what you say is happening is not happening.
Seriously, don't you notice that their comments disparaging the jury (who spent 3 weeks listening all day to the details of this stuff, far more than any of us will ever know about it) sound like SCO or Oracle disparaging their respective juries???
Joke: Florian, is that you? Seriously: Groklaw's track record is very good on covering these sorts of trials. We'll see how it really plays out as the motions start flying next week. Groklaw's coverage is typical: here are the things that Samsung's lawyers might raise and here are the grounds for doing so. What is clear is that there is a lot more to go in this trial... and it is too early to pick a winner.
8 Catfish = 1 Octo-puss
