Posts by E.

LOHAN slips BRA over BOOBIES in ballocket backronym buffoonery

PIPPA - more classy

Pyro

Ignition

Performed at

Precise

Altitude

BOFH: Dawn raid on Fort BOFH

Why is it just *a* box

It's boxes (very plural) here. I think there's a set of NT3.51 install discs in one of them somewhere, still sealed in original bag. At least two of the boxes contain nothing but cables that "might be useful one day".

2012 Games Preview

Diablo 3, rFactor 2, Tomb Raider

Doesn't that cover the important genres?

El Reg in email address blunder

Wouldn't have happened with the Moderatrix still there to keep you all in check

Yes! It's the Reg Top 5 FUTURISTIC GUNS Thanksgiving Roundup!

But still no...

...BFG 9000.

Paris, because she knows the value of a big weapon.

A third of online shops undermine consumer rights

Varied experiences

Scan: (as already mentioned) hahahahaha. Never again. Got an email from them once telling me about someone elses warranty repair (and associated charges).

Aria: Also never again. Keen to get your money. Flat refusal to support and receive back. Wasn't worth the time or emotional investment to chase hard, so bought a (<£20) replacement from someone else and will never buy from Aria again.

Misco: had one drive in an array go down. Misco replaced the entire array, which had been bought as part of a system from them, since the originals had been spec'd as matched drives. No direct replacement for failed drive available, so whole new array to maintain matching. Outstanding.

Paris: because she'd understand that customer service doesn't have to suck.

TrafficMaster sells clients' location info to UK.gov

Easier workround...

...just emmigrate. Get away from the whole stinking mess.

Be kind to your stomach: eat chilies

I might as well be the first...

...assuming this is first in the moderation queue.

"More capsaicin meant less inflammation..." in the *stomach* cells. In other areas more ingested chillies tend to lead to more inflammation - or at least if feels like it.

Ck.

Britannia triumphs over Johnny Metric

Amateurs, all of you...

...talking about a _pint_ (or any other quantity) of anything in the pub. You're just not doing it right unless you can slur to the barmaid (are they getting younger or is it just me?) "the usual" and get the right measure of the right substance.

Public rejoices at new 'green' nukes

Just another example...

...of biassed surveys and leading questions.

It puts into my mind the equally bullshit and leading question they asked on the ID cards which was something like: "would you support the fight against benefit fraud and id theft (by the introduction of id cards)?". With only the minority carrying out such crime not really wanting these things to be fought, most people answered "yes" which was promptly and incorrectly interpreted as "majority approves of id cards".

Maybe one of us should stand for parliament at the next elections with the message "emigration: the only remaining option".

Patch Tuesday update triggered Skype outage

@People are lazy

If you're too lazy to turn your computer off at night and save the electricity, then I'll find myself too lazy to walk to the shops, and I'll drive instead. Lets save the planet together shall we?

London NHS paper reveals plans to share patient data

Re: They can't do that can they?

Since they're parts of the knee-jerk government hell bent on curtailing civil liberties and doing it in the name of the war on terror if it can't be squeezed through any other way, wanna bet?

Legislation: easy come, easy go.

Paris Hilton walks to freedom

Why was God in prison?

Re: Apparently she found God - Why he was banged up in a female prison is unclear

For offering redemption to celebutards like her?

Patientline results prompt share meltdown

Daft business model

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not about to defend some of the frankly astronomical costs for using the PatientLine services, but examine how much they've had to spend in order to get the services to the bedside.

Most of the hospitals in this once-great country (and I don't expect much disagreement with this bit) are woefully underfunded, old, and not designed with electronic services to the bedside in mind. Lucky patients get an alarm buzzer for summoning a dis-interested non-english speaking care assistant who can't or won't perform the job being asked. Luckier patients also get a headset for the hospital radio - which even today can sometimes be no more than an air tube to each ear. The technology is perhaps on par with a cheap kids stethoscope.

(Side note: the idea of a bedside phone in one of my local hospitals is a payphone (one per ward) mounted to a wheeled trolly with a damn long extension lead back to the nurses station.)

Given this, the cost to PatientLine of purchasing/leasing and installing all the bedside sets, all the wiring that goes with it, and the central services to drive it, is not a cheap or easy proposition. It is only reasonable that as a business they want to make money from the investment, with the perceived way being to raise prices to what is essentially a captive audience.

Since this approach is clearly going to be a suicidal public relations exercise, causing complaints and investigations, I would hope that it's the last resort. Saddled with big debt from the installations, probably locked into provider contracts with no hint of a reduction in prices if underlying costs fall, with the banks almost certainly getting grumpy, it seems clear that their business models are flawed and that someone needs firing for validating the assumptions.

Possibly the only way out for them now is for the banks to close them down, sell the kit and infrastructure to the highest bidder who can put together a decent business case, and get call costs back down to where they should be.

(Or the government could step in and save another rubbish business - under which circumstances you just know that the health minister would advertise this as major investment in patient services rather than propping up yet another failed enterprise.)

As a side note, and to close, any excuses or rationale which includes (electronic) patient records is lunatic and grasping at straws. Patient records aren't fully in electronic form yet, haven't been fully rolled out, may not even be legal, are way over budget, and perhaps most importantly for this one, contain nothing at all of any relevance to PatientLine.

Windows Vista aligned with good management practice

Alternative alternative interpretation

Re: "We did this recently with a _management level_ survey..."

Sooo... which part of the results lend themselves to reality then?