Re: Error correction was worse
I agree. The canned "we apologise for the inconvenience" follow-up is crass. Inconvenience??
How about "we apologise for the worry and concern that the email could have caused" or similar?
25 publicly visible posts • joined 2 Mar 2018
Yes, that's how I read it.
A DS1500 is completed by a medical professional, not the patient. So it's not telling the patient they've got cancer, and if I'd got the message, I would have realised it wasn't intended for me.
*However* - I'm reading this as someone married to a GP, who's used to reading this sort of stuff. I can quite understand the upset this would have caused for a patient receiving it.
In reply to other comments. I regularly get texts from my practice, never with anything confidential, but reminding me of appointments, or to check for results if I've got my NHS app. All very useful.
As others have pointed out - why send out a "Merry Christmas" message anyway? Just a chance for things to go wrong - as has been demonstrated.
I've told this before but hey.
Many moons ago (1980s), my wife was travelling to Tanzania carrying X-Ray film, as the hospital she was going to be working at needed new supplies.
Arrived at security.
1. "This can't go through that X-Ray machine, as it contains X-Ray film"
2. "No madam, this machine won't damage film"
Repeat 1 and 2 above several times.
Eventually, she had to change her approach.
"Look carefully, X-RAY FILM on this packet. X-RAY MACHINE in front of us, get the connection?" (yes even aged 24, she wasn't fazed by authority).
They eventually took he packet (and her, I fear!) into a darkened room to fumble with the packet (the packet I said) to check it wasn't going to explode, and she was allowed through.
Well, from the book or podcast on it (can't remember which). There's at least one patient who suffered as a result.
A lady who'd suffered at least 2 miscarriages. Theranos result showed she was going to lose her current baby. Doctor flummoxed by results, had reliable reputable test done, all OK.
Just think of the distress that mother went through.
At the time we were living in New Zealand.
We'd gone out early 1992, and returned late 1993. We bought a boat for $23,000 (IIRC) July 1992 and sold it for less when we left, around late 1993.
However, when converted back to sterling, we got more back than we'd taken out with us.
For once...
My wife, as a very young medic, was travelling by air with x-ray film in her hand baggage
Got to the security gate (smart readers may see where this is going).
Wife: "I've got x-ray film in here, it can't go in the x-ray machine"
Security guard:"It's ok madam, it doesn't harm film"
Wife: "It's x-ray film, it will harm this"
(Repeat above several times)
Wife: "Look" holds package saying "x-ray" on it up near x-ray machine. "x-ray film, and x-ray machine".
Eventually the penny dropped for the guard, and they went into a darkened room (those were the days) where the guard fumbled with the package to make sure it didn't contain stuff which might go bang.
Except it's not a simple as that.
It wasn't promoted as MLM - more like a revolution which would 'Bank the unbanked' - making it attractive to people who weren't financially literate and who were outside what we consider a normal banking system.
Coupled with the immense cult-like marketing and following it garnered, as is often the case, those least able to afford to lose money were drawn in and lost their houses (literally in some cases).
The scheme was powered by MLM and yes some of the people at the top of the pyramid did make money out of it.
But a huge number of ordinary people were taken in by the promises of the returns, and have lost money which they could not afford to lose. As is often the case, it's those with the most to lose and the least resources to pursue justice who suffer.
The BBC podcast 'The Missing Crypto Queen' is an interesting and depressing listen. Try listening to the Ugandan asking the BBC presenter if he's got good news for his mother, who spent all her savings - earmarked for opening a maize store - on OneCoin. That money's never coming back.
Visited a small engineering company last week, to review their request for an order management system.
The current system is using Lotus Approach - the about screen showing 1998 and references to 'Year 2000 updates' (from memory - seems a bit early to be thinking of 2000). So it's been in use for 20 years.
It's still running and the advice was "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".
To be fair - it is running on a Windows 7 machine - so something has been updated in the meantime.
We are going to fix it though - they use QuickBooks and there are add-ons which do all they want, integrated into QuickBooks. So recommendation is to move to this.
Progress!
I'm not on Facbook for all the above reasons.
My wife is happy to use Facebook and doesn't care if they're harvesting all her activity and her friends' activity and details. She says "So what - I've got nothing to hide, and I don't care that they are doing this".
Has anyone got a good argument against this? Apart from my stock "But they just shouldn't be doing it, 'cos it's evil" response. I really need to give her a proper reasoned argument.
Responses here or links welcome!
This is a quick reference to internal and external commands.
Some really honest descriptions in here:
EDLIN
Ridiculous editor
The infamous background file printing utility which
fools you into thinking MS-DOS can do something it
really can't.
CONFIG.SYS
A special file which will do all sorts of wonderous
things when the system is booted.
So these will allegedly be safer than helicopters?
Guess what, helicopters don't fall out of the sky just because a single component fails. (Or at least it's very very rare).
And the wonderful idea that auto control is better than pesky pilots... no time to get into that discussion.