No. Of course you need one if you want to use the App Store, but it's certainly not required to use the phone. So, when you have no clue what you're talking about, maybe you should keep your mouth shut instead of making shit up ;-)

Because it's not true ;-)

After that it starts to feel kind of disturbing.

Good point. Especially about the generator.

So, for $13,000 up front, I can save at most about $80/month, maybe less, depending on the particular battery technology and how deeply the batteries can be safely discharged. (Yes, I used actual numbers.) It's a first step, but assuming that the capacity is 10KWh as mentioned in earlier articles, it's not really any cheaper than existing solutions. Now maybe Tesla will ramp up capacity and make them more available, or maybe it will actually be higher capacity, or maybe the price will come down substantially as volume increases. Because at 1/2 the $/KWh it would start to be really interesting, but right now, it's kind of marginal--at least for me at ~$0.15/KWh peak; obviously, in a state, CA for instance, where peak power prices are higher, the economics are better.

So, it will be totally impossible to create software to decrypt these video streams? They now have an algorithm which can be implemented in hardware, but not in software? Yeah, right...

Well, maybe that's kind of true in San Fran... But there are places (and times) in the world that when you see a Prius, you should assume that the driver is a total moron...

Sure it did. We've had portability of health insurance for a long time now--where portability simply meant that once you had health insurance, you could keep getting it...

If you have a decent 401(k), you should have a similar range of investment options, with similar costs.

You're the one who is ignorant of the issue. I deal with it all the time. And, frustrating as it is, I, unlike you, am aware of the history of the various attempts, and the reasons they have failed. Primarily, you have absolutely zero concept of the overwhelming complexity of the data involved, how rapidly it evolves, and the cost to society if we retard that evolution via regulation. (The example I gave was a deliberately simple one, the simplest imaginable, so that anyone could understand it.)

And, oh, by the way. There are standards for the simple little things you mentioned in your initial post--reluctance to connect to those devices is rooted at least in part in fear of regulations. But those simple little things are the tiniest most infinitesimal part of what a universal data standard would encompass.

In the miasma of bullshit jargon that permeates this industry, an Electronic Medical Record is that thing your doctor uses to keep his records about you. An Electronic Health Record is that mythological thing that contains your complete life-long history and is shared--instantly, seamlessly, yet with complete privacy protection--between all your medical providers.

Long-outdated programming practices were traditionally merely the norm in EMRs. But now thanks to subsidies, Meaningful Use requirements, and certification procedures, they are effectively mandated by the federal government.

Really? And let's say that instead of a normal adult visit, we're talking about a pediatric visit for a child or infant with a congenital heart defect. Will the oxygen-level gauge transmit whether the reading was from a finger or a toe? Will the manometers also transmit: 1) what side the pressure was taken from, 2) whether the pressure was taken from the arm or leg, 3) whether the patient was sitting, standing, or supine?

Yeah, that's the thing. When the /. crowd starts saying there should be a "single standard" for medical records, those of us who actually work in the industry just roll our eyes... You have no idea of the complexity of the problem, nor of how fast things change on the cutting edge of the specialties.

It's worse than that: 1) There's not even anything at all regarding usability, not even the most vague amorphous pablum; 2) Many of the regulations have the unintended side effect of pushing things toward poor usability.

Really. ZOMG! LAWYERS!

In the case mentioned, the patient suffered permanent damage because he did not receive appropriate care. It doesn't really matter whether it was the doctor, or a nurse, or improperly maintained equipment, or a frickin' janitor's laziness, or the EMR--the hospital is responsible for providing appropriate treatment to patients.

Yes, I'm sure there's a small number of sleazy lawyers who will latch onto harmless mistakes in the EMR to try to invent a case where there is none, just as they have always done with all mistakes, long before EMRs existed.

But the real problem is not the lawyers. The real problem is the byzantine UIs of these monstrous "Enterprise Medical Record" systems, if you get my pun ;-) After all, some data entry mistakes do cause actual harm.