Remember this post regarding the trainwreck that is the NHS National Programme for IT? In it, we discussed the institutional factors that made it a trainwreck, and specifically the way demands for commercial secrecy made it impossible to involve the users in designing the system. Well, now there’s a discussion at Kevin Drum’s about how…
Read More HOWTO Build a Healthcare Computing SystemBring back the Office of Technology Assessment, say the Hoofnagles at Scienceblogs. Good point; for about thirty years, the US Congress had its own staff of scientists and engineers whose task it was to provide the legislature with independent technical advice, until it got zapped by Newt Gingrich. I’m sure it would do them some…
Read More Office of Technical AssessmentAnbar? Here’s your salvation. This frankly terrifies me; didn’t anyone think to restrain the commander guy? This was about the only counterinsurgency success they’ve had, and it’s been pissed away for the sake of a good TV picture-with-the-sound-off. Seriously. Once Bush shook hands with him on live television, he was as dead as if he’d…
Read More WhackedThe commander of Iraqi special forces (i.e. the Badr Corps, ex-36th ICDC Battalion, ex-1st Brigade ING…) in Basra is clear about the threat facing British employees in the city; far clearer than the Government. “All the interpreters have to leave Basra because these militia will never let them rest. They will kill everybody they know…
Read More We stand down, they stand upHere is Hewlett Packard Labs’ Cloudprint, a service that allows you to print your documents to a server in their network and receive a shortcode (which can be distributed to any number of people at the same time). Then, when you need the docs, you send the code from your mobile phone and specify a…
Read More Materialise that, will you?OK, then; remember the beef I had with the Indy about THE RAYS!! and THE BEES! ? Well, we now know what the problem is with the bees; they caught a virus. Interestingly, Australian bees are immune to it; I recall beekeepers on the Web back in February suggesting that this might be so. So,…
Read More Independent of FactsIn my last “there will be no war with Iran” post, I asked if there were any other indicators I ought to be watching. Having given it some thought, I have indeed been looking at some others; for a start, I would expect that before such a strike the US Government’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve would…
Read More Any Other IndicatorsA question that the Chinese-hacker thing brought to mind: why are so many countries that censor the Internet for political speech also riddled with commercial, or just vandalistic, network abuse? Russian Business Network, the well-known all-purpose dodgynet, is a case in point. My own theory is that, especially in China, this may reflect a choice;…
Read More Communication of the unconsciousThis Spyblog post, regarding the Grauniad’s splash story yesterday that the TITAN RAIN inquiry into alleged Chinese hackers attacking the US government had spread to attacks on the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, raises some interesting questions. For a start, like all Chinese-hacker stories, it’s based heavily on semi-military sources and quotes from doctrinal publications. What,…
Read More A Mystery, Wrapped in Cat-5 Cable..So, there’s this new Kyrgyz airline called Galaxy Air; started by people from TAPOAvia in 2006. It’s been on the EU blacklist since March, 2007, and it ain’t coming off any time soon. On the 29th of August, its Ilyushin-18 EX-786 was seized by the Pakistani authorities in Islamabad. Why? Well, the 142 passengers, of…
Read More Pass Down The Plane, Please