So, it depends on what you're looking for, and who needs it.

I like Garrett's Elements of User Experience for a nice on ramp and introduction
I like Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think and Rocket Surgery titles for understanding basics of usability and usability testing.
I like Unger's Project Guide to UX Design for an overall step by step.
I like Wodtke and Govella's Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web for a less prescriptive overall design process
I like Brown's Communicating Design for a great take on UX documentation
I like Kuniavsky's Observing the User Experience for a great take on ux research
I like Young's Mental Models for task focused research & great visualization & alignment of project functionality with user behavior
I like Norman's Design of Everyday Things for shifting the way you see usability and user experience in everyday life (and apply that to work)
Looking forward to Wroblewski's Mobile First, but it's not out for a couple weeks
Josh Clark's Tapworthy is a decent mobile design guide if you're only up for nuts and bolts instead of understanding internal combustion ;-)

Rosenfeld Media is a publisher that focuses exclusively on user experience and has some fantastic titles, including the mental model book already mentioned.
http://rosenfeldmedia.com/

And of course there's tons of great online resources and events - look for local UX Camps, local UX Bookclubs (http://uxbookclub.org)

If I had to choose just one? Design of Everyday Things changed how I see the world.

Exactly how to you talk to the government? Are you talking with policy experts? Politicians? Government healthcare researchers? Government funded healthcare workers? In what capacity? What jurisdiction? What department?

I know that for most people, government is government is government. That's cool - government is at its best when it just takes care of things so well you don't notice it (rare but possible).

But if you're going to make a claim that the government intentionally plans for a 2-3 year period where hospital care is nearly impossible to get (and as a result thousands of people die) then you need to have a little more specificity than "I've heard from the government".

Something you may have heard from the health policy side: With the demographic curve of aging boomers, Western healthcare systems will have to become incredibly efficient in the next couple decades to keep the same level of care (older people need more care, we have more older people...). If we don't get those efficiencies, then we will likely see a period where hospital care is more difficult to get because of those increased pressures on the system.

You're right - a faceted system would be much more powerful (think the guided navigation at your favorite ecommerce store with choices to narrow search by brand, price range, star rating, and type of gear - each of those is a facet).

It's just math - a system with five facets with 10 choices in each facet gives 100,000 unique descriptions vs. having to write out hundreds of thousands of possibilities.

For these healthcare codes, looking at facets like type of injury, location of injury, the activity involved, the object involved (turtle or otherwise) etc. would give far better coverage with less complexity.

cz

All those conversations about "prior art" that we love to throw around here? Whooosh....all gone. Prior art only matters in "first to invent" instead of first to file.

Just like the Rapture dude, having a specific date makes it more credible. Kurzweil is nothing if not a master manipulator of credibility...

We'll have to see if this is any less vaporware than the Skycar
http://www.moller.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=50&Itemid=58

Yes, the fact that you are on a flight from O'Hare to SFO and paid $234 while the person ahead of you paid $428 and the person beside you paid $173...yeah, people will loooove that model brought to Steam.

SteamAir, coming in 2013....

Alki's startup FilmOn streamed over-the-air broadcasts online without any licenses...and was sued successfully by CBS and the other networks.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704369304575632643263718292.html

cz

>What, exactly, are they winning? Less viewers???

If they win they get more viewers and more money.

MORE VIEWERS
That's one of the points of TFA - Nielsen screws shows that allow streaming. By the measures that matter to them, they will actually win *more* viewers, because streaming isn't counted by Nielsen. Since tablet streaming cannibalizes views on a traditional TV, their Nielsen ratings will get worse if their show is a runaway success with ipad streaming households. Which sounds like they should be suing / working with Nielsen rather than the cableco.

MORE MONEY
It's not just about ratings, it's about revenue. Shareholders& the execs that answer to them demand growth, and here's a potential new source. They're hungry and implacable and not very thoughtful--something like zombies, or brain-sucked minions of Cthulu. The fact that a cable subscriber can already sit down, turn on the TV and watch the exact same paid-for content that TimesWarner now lets them stream in their house doesn't matter one bit to the crowd of shambling shareholders marching towards media innovation, drooling and murmuring "Grroowwwwth. Growwwwtthttthhhhh".

Like the title says, thought I'd check out the parent's book recommendation: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8993