Sunday, January 20, 2013

Dumb. Given any indication that a patient may use that gun (suicide, rage, whatever) it could save lives to get this question answered. How does this improve healthcare?
By Dissent, January 19, 2013 1:46 pm
I’ve previously noted a Florida law that prohibited doctors from inquiring whether there was a gun in a patient’s home. In my opinion, the Firearm Owners ‘Privacy Act was, and is, a terrible law, and interferes with health care professionals’ attempts to routinely screen for environmental factors that may, at some point, become a safety risk for the patient or others. The law made an exception for health care professionals inquiring if there was a specific concern, but otherwise, the law tried to tie healthcare professioanls’ hands from inquiring and recording such information.
The law was put on hold last year by a federal court, and now in the wake of the Newtown tragedy, there’s an attempt to repeal it altogether. Michael Peltier reports:


No attempt to justify this based on a need to ensure the “head count” is correct.
J.D. Tuccille writes:
Rare though they are, horrific events like the Newtown shooting inevitably provoke a variety of responses. The intent is to head off a recurrence of the sort of crime that, truth be told, very likely can’t be completely prevented, if for no other reason than that so many of the perpetrators seemingly have little interest in surviving their deeds. But some of the responses, like encouraging people to take responsibility for defending themselves and those around them, offer the possibility of reducing the damage done by rampage killers. Some responses, like gun restrictions and video-game censorship, put widespread civil liberties at the mercy of opportunistic control freaks. And some responses seem designed to turn public schools into replica prisons. On that last point, I’m talking about Albuquerque’s scheme for multi-school surveillance, centrally monitored at the Albuquerque Public Schools Police headquarters dispatch center.
Read more on Reason.
I suspect many of this blog’s readers do not realize the extent to which surveillance was already being used in public schools prior to the Newtown tragedy. Perhaps an illustration will help:
Several years ago, one of my patients was having a problem in school. Well, many of my patients have problems in school, so that’s nothing new for me, but what was new for me was when the school administrator offered to show me footage. It seems that their surveillance system had captured one incident that they felt was proof/evidence that my patient was engaging in willful conduct.
So I went to the school and with the administrator, viewed the footage (with the parents’ and patient’s consent and release).
I won’t discuss the clinical aspects (suffice to say that the school’s interpretation was not supported by the video), but simply note that I was shocked at the extent of the video surveillance system and wondered how many parents (and students) realized that the students were being captured on video and that those videos might be stored for indefinite amounts of time, depending on the school’s needs – which might have nothing to do with school safety or crime.
Do you know what surveillance is in place in your child’s school? Do you know whether it’s video or video + audio? Do you know who has access to the surveillance and what the retention policies are? Do you know under what conditions the school may share that surveillance evidence with law enforcement?
If not, start asking questions.

(Related) Good timing on a provocative blog post. If surveillance fails to achieve any of these “goals” should it be allowed? Do we at last have an outline for “good surveillance?”
Enlightened surveillance?
… In this post, I’m not going to suggest how to achieve enlightened surveillance (a 360 degree surveillance would be a small start, for instance), but just outline some of the positive good we could get from it. We all know the negatives; but what good could come from corporations, governments and neighbours being able to peer continually into your bedroom (and efficiently process that data)? In the ideal case, how could we make it work for us?


Is this the ultimate business model for “Cloud Storage?” (Have the RIAA and MPAA been hoist on their own petards?)
Mega Launches Its Cloud Storage And File Sharing Service As ‘The Privacy Company’, ‘Thousands Of Registrations Per Minute’


In English, "transform" means change. If I'm translating correctly, in legalese "transformative" means to take the original and improve it for a particular purpose. Is this the right point to argue here?
January 19, 2013
EFF Amicus Brief Argues for Protection of Transformative Uses to Protect News Tracking Services
EFF: "In Associated Press v. Meltwater, AP claims its copyrights are infringed when Meltwater, an electronic news clipping service, includes excerpts of AP stories in search results for its clients seeking reports of news coverage based on particular keywords. In its argument, AP asks the court to accept an extraordinarily narrow view of fair use – the doctrine that allows for the use of copyrighted material for purposes of commentary, criticism, or other transformative uses – by claiming that Meltwater's use of copyrighted excerpts cannot be "transformative" fair use unless they are also "expressive." In an amicus brief filed [January 18, 2013], EFF argues that AP's theory would restrict the use and development of services that allow users to find, organize, and share public information."


Reporters apparently don't understand logic (or recognize illogic) why should we expect them to know then the basic principles of Economics are violated?
"Broadcasting Cable reports on comments from Former FCC chairman Michael Powell (now president of the U.S. cable industry's trade association) confirming what many have long suspected: data caps on internet service aren't just about network congestion, but rather about 'pricing fairness.' [Not a word found in my Ecomonic textbooks Bob] 'Asked by MMTC president David Honig to weigh in on data caps, Powell said that while a lot of people had tried to label the cable industry's interest in the issue as about congestion management. "That's wrong," he said. "Our principal purpose is how to fairly monetize a high fixed cost." [Try to get as many users as possible by lowering the price Bob] He said bandwidth management was part of it, though a more serious issue with wireless.' Powell went on to say that ISPs had huge up-front costs which had to be allocated out to consumers, and those consumers were familiar with usage-based fees from paying their power bill or buying food. [But not “$X for the first ton, with all proces rising if you go over that... Bob] He was part of a panel with three other former FCC chairs. Dick Wiley agreed with his cost argument, adding that the marketplace was responding better than new legislation could. [Like sheep rather than shepards Bob] Michael Copps thought the FCC could question data caps a bit more, but wasn't opposed in principle. Reed Hundt said he wants the FCC to focus on getting better, faster, cheaper internet to 100% of the population."


Vive les illusion! (long live your delusions) I really doubt this one. If Google blocked access to users of this ISP how long would it survive? If it too is a monopoly, just “adjusting” the seraches to return “Ask Orange at 09 69 36 39 00” See how they feel after a few million calls...
"The head of French telecoms operator Orange said on Wednesday it had been able to impose a deal on Google to compensate it for the vast amounts of traffic sent across its networks. Orange CEO Stephane Richard said on France's BFM Business TV that with 230 million clients and areas where Google could not get around its network, it had been able to reach a 'balance of forces' with the Internet search giant. Richard declined to cite the figure Google had paid Orange, but said the situation showed the importance of reaching a critical size in business. Network operators have been fuming for years that Google, with its search engine and YouTube video service, generates huge amounts of traffic but does not compensate them for using their networks. An editorial piece at GigaOm says Google is abandoning its principles and giving Orange 'the incentive to demand the same from other content providers.'"


Perspective. Why do I need a cable provider selling me 400 channels (most of which I never watch) when I can get everything I do want to watch over the Internet for far less money? Is Cable as doomed as big newspapers are?
How To Ditch Your Cable Internet Provider Forever
[Note: This article talks mainly about faster Internet options. I'm seeing existing Smartphone options as “good enough” Bob]


Tools for information gathering and sharing?
January 18, 2013
Comparison of Curation Platforms
Via SocialCompare: "Curation Platforms are tools enabling you to select manually content online, to edit and share it. This comparison table is part of a French IT news article about (original article) Curation Tools: "Le Guide de la Curation". For more details about products and criteria, please read to the original article. This comparison is associated to another one about the automatic publishing tools, that automatically select content.
You are free to update this comparison and rate your favorite tools!"


For my Website students. Feel free to copy any website you like, but your grade is based on MY list of requirements.
Do you have an amazing idea on how to make Facebook better? If yes, then instead of providing that idea to Facebook as your feedback, you should try your hand at creating your own online social network like Facebook but with your amazing idea incorporated. This is exactly how websites are made, with developers asking themselves questions like “What if site XYZ had ABC features?”
To make your new website happen, you could start working from scratch – a highly time consuming and tiresome process. Or you could start off with a clone script for the popular website that inspired you. For this latter option, you will find Clone Scripts to be very helpful.
Clone Scripts is a user-friendly web service that provides you with scripts that can clone many popular websites. When you visit the visit, you can find multiple clone scripts for many popular websites. These websites include Pinterest, AdSense, Freelancer, Twitter, Elance, Amazon, Answers, and many more. The scripts you see have all detailed information listed including the site language, whether or not the script is free, developer, and description.

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