I didn't know it was still on, but that's mostly because I don't know what's on radio anymore except for the morning news station. I guess I'll just go out back and eat worms.

Most of us don't buy enough hardware to have a good sense of manufacturing defects directly. We get this indirectly from media sources, and human nature amplifies dissatisfaction more than satisfaction. I'm a somewhat recent Apple convert (about 5 years now), and a long time purchaser of computers of all kinds. While there have been some well known issues (the 24 inch screens currently, and I personally had to deal with the "expanding capacitor" issue on my iMac G5), my opinion of Apple is much higher than all the other personal computer manufacturers for build quality, service, and design. Admittedly, Apple doesn't really bother with the low-end market, so comparing the engineering art in an iMac to a mass market Dell desktop isn't a fair fight. But, I think "urban myth" is really too strong a description. My one motherboard issue was superbly handled by Apple Care, and my Apple laptops have lasted much longer than comparable Dell or Sony products I have purchased. I don't think my experience as been atypical, and any other PC manufacturer would have a list of quality snafus to point to - in most cases many more.

It's also interesting to look at the trigger for your comment. Even if you buy into the argument that Apple's quality is the best, comparing it to the quality of Ford is funny. Even the best personal computers last on average three years? Cars sit outside for years and years, have long term warranties, and lots of legislation controlling defect repair. The smallest manufacturing defect (Toyota comes to mind) get magnified into horrible PR nightmares that cost millions and millions to resolve. I'm guessing Apple wouldn't hold up well in a real comparison to Ford, or any other car company.

PS: Great Twain quote.

It has nothing to do with the line in jack. It has to do with the desire to eliminate all jacks except USB/FireWire. Simplifies manufacturing and design costs, maybe? But, lots have disappeared; parallel, serial, keyboard, etc. All replaced with one do-everything digital jack. As others have pointed out, an audio/USB is a $10 purchase and up, depending on your needs.

Which was somewhat similar to another movie which name escapes me. Late 70s? Early 80s? Scanned actors then killed so the studio could use their likenesses without having to pay them. Maybe it was a made for TV movie...

This may change over time. Red Flag rules and other identity theft laws in the US are increasing the liability for whomever is the source of the leak. Holding on to personal identifiers for people you have no active business with is increasing your corporate risk. At some point, most likely after an embarrassing information leak, a bunch of lawsuits that crush a company will cause others to reconsider not purging old information from their databases.

This is bad policy, since many potential hospital "customers" don't have an SSN. Hospitals have to service newborns, visitors, illegals, etc. Using SSN as the unique ID doesn't work, and they usually have work-arounds for this.

I agree with the other reply poster. I'm not sure how this is really any leap past the more traditional projection with a large screen and more common pointing devices. It's sure out of reach for people with mobility issues to stand up and wave their arms around, and leaning over a table obviously only lets a few people look down.

I was thinking "vomit and pregnancy", but same joke I guess...

I believe the problem with Payola (historically, although the "tuning out" may be a current issue) is that record labels essentially froze out smaller artists, since there's only so much air time. As a smaller artists (label or independent), you couldn't get your song on the radio without paying up, since the major promoter was already doing this. An extension of going after monopolistic practices, I guess.

The executive order requires interoperable systems for healthcare data, but does not require EMR applications. It says any system the fed buys must be able to share data with other systems, but not that any particular system is purchased for any purpose.

Also, does not apply to the private sector, although there are obviously many political movements to provide incentives and mandates in this direction.

The OP is a little misleading. The standards are being developed by HITSP (www.hitsp.org), the money is coming from the proposed 20-25B$ Obama wants to spend on this little pork project (and other legislation on the fed and state level similarly).

Your tax dollars at work. Note that the market has largely rejected the current generation of vendor products, since they do little to help the physician in their workflow.

Check Bush's state of the union address from 4 or 5 years ago. A 12 year plan to move to nationwide EMR records for everyone. Established the office of the national coordinator for healthcare IT which is the administrative arm to make this happen. This launched the National Healthcare Infratructure Network project (currently in its second revision), the Healthcare IT Standards Body (to harmonize competing HIT standards and establish new ones), the Certification Commission for HIT (to certify products for operating on the national infrastructure) and a number of other projects.

Obama would be smart to not throw all this out, but the knee jerk reaction is anything Bush did is bad.

Because they couldn't think of a method for making digital signals backward compatible with the analog signals. Since they are separate frequencies, providing both would take up a lot more bandwidth for TV. So, the plan is:

1) Deploy Digital on a separate set of frequencies.
2) Work through a transition period where both are available.
3) Have a cut off date where the old analog signals are shut down.
4) Re-allocate the old frequencies for another purpose.

We've been in step 2 for some time. Step 3 starts next month. Step 4 was decided some time ago through traditional lobbying and political payouts.

I think the heat is coming from:

1) Anything related to the FCC is a sore subject, since it seems like they have been operating at the whim of companies for a while and not in the interests of average citizens.

2) A call to delay the DTV transition seems like a very odd call given the effort and lead up to this point in time (and its priority to other crises, unless the "war on analog transmissions" is on the horizon). To have an announcement like this influenced by someone with a financial stake or friends with a financial stake is problematic.

So, we are judging him for what he does, and his team choices don't quite seem to line up with "change" (unless "change from George Bush" was the only requirement) and some of them seem flat out bad. And, he seems to be getting some bad advice at the same time, which he is acting on which is also concerning.

I'm still waiting for that train...

You don't need a "bar code reading PDA", bar codes can be read with a camera just fine. I just aim the bar codes on a book or CD at my web cam and the catalog software reads the code and sends it to Amazon for the detailed information (Delicious Library is the software, if anyone cares).

So, still not seeing the advantage of this over normal bar codes. I understand color adds some additional "bits" to the info, but bar codes can be printed on any printer and there's a monstrous industry built around small to high cost readers.

I doubt the money is to write new applications from scratch. This is being pushed because the average person outside healthcare doesn't understand why there is all the manual process when compared to banking through an ATM machine (hint, its unlikely your ATM machine will kill you) and there are large companies looking to make a killing dipping into this 25B kitty for the next few years. Since the previous several hundred billion has been thrown down the wall street commission structure without much control, this mountain will be doled out in an accountable and traditional fashion. Most likely free or low cost loans to purchase and train on existing products, probably those certified as EMRs by the federal CCHIT group.

Of course, like all this emergency spending, you have to wonder where all the holes are for the money. Total Health IT spending in the US annually is most likely around 20B, so increasing this means that a lot of new employees need to come into the picture (which is part of the intent, no doubt), but as others have pointed out in this thread there a lot of learning curve out there for EMR products.

So, we'll have a feast for the next few years hiring, training, and implementing the current generation of products which are fully rejected by the market they serve (EMR adoption is http://govhealthit.com/Articles/2008/02/Market-watcher-sees-steady-rise-in-federal-health-IT-spending.aspx and http://govhealthit.com/online/news/350171-1.html) and assuming this is half of healthcare.