Computer Genius Blog :: aka “TheGarage”

For a couple of years now I’ve been doing some forward-looking at the likely new trends in the outsourcing paradigm which will result from the inevitable mass marketing of high-speed, always-on global internet. The virtual provisioning of consumer medical services plays highly into any scenario one can imagine due to the cluster f–k nature of the current system. We are not yet to the point described in the piece linked above, but the free on-line service offered by San Francisco-based Medem Inc. is certainly a move in that direction.

Connie Grimstad doesn’t need to call her doctor’s office when she has a question about the slew of medications she takes daily - the 57-year-old homemaker simply delves into her medical records from her home computer. As the medical industry moves slowly to replace its paper files with electronic versions, people like Grimstad are light years ahead of most doctors.

She’s among about 10,000 Americans who’ve made the leap with a free online service that permits anyone to create their own electronic personal health record - and access it anywhere via the Internet. With a few keystrokes, everything’s there: the details of her prescriptions, health insurance records, diagnoses and surgeries.

It’s coming folks. Hang on to your ass. And not just in the medical industry. Every industry will succumb to the huge savings of outsourcing. The technological advances in the next ten years in secure, high speed telecommunications will bring a lot of changes to our society and culture.

The biggest change being that of devolving the currently centralized power of commerce and government back to the lowest common denominator, the individual. If I can safely and securely acquire quality medical care for a fraction of what the same care costs today, I do not need the government involved in managing health care. Nor do I need to worry so much about the astronomical insurance prices because I won’t need as much insurance. Nor will have to deal with the idiots at the HMO, PPO, or whatever other bureaucracy is currently in charge of my personal well-being.

The economical advantages are huge. Just as organizations purchase computer programming services (brainpower) from places like India, so will the individual begin to acquire goods and services, like computer programming, legal services, and medical consults from less expensive sources overseas.

Outsourcing. Its not just for big companies anymore. Despite the best efforts of those vested in the status quo, such as big government devotees, unions, entrenched medical providers and health insurers, etc, the industrious entrepreneur will not be denied. It is the American way.

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Some interesting Enron trial news:

Enron Internet executives sought another company’s network to sell broadband services on because their own was incapable of delivering such services, a former computer troubleshooter for the company testified Friday.

[snip]

Enron’s network, at the time, could not direct “traffic” or track customers because it did not have the necessary software, Bloomer said in his second day of testimony.

I was the architect and programmer of an important piece of this “necessary software” when the company suddenly folded in 2001. In a period of one week Enron Broadband Services went from hyper-growth to hyper-layoffs. I stayed about a month longer than most of the consultants at EBS because I think they were still hanging on to the hope that one of the big deals they had going could be salvaged. In which case they would need the piece of software I was working on, which was called “Deal Launch”. Heh, heh. Kinda hard to launch a big broadband deal without the piece of software called deal launch, huh?

Funny thing is that the software was basically completed according to the original specification, except the daily meetings kept changing the spec. In other words, they hadn’t quite figured out how to do what it was they needed to do in order to pull off one of these deals if it did land. The last piece and most crucial part of the deal launch puzzle was how to capture and log the actual metrics from the physical execution of the deal, ie, the transmission of content through the EBS network, and compare them against the contractual terms of the service level agreement (SLA) captured in the deal launch database.

We are talking about millions of pieces of information recorded from routers and other network devices for parameters such as latency, throughput, packet lost, etcetera. Very complex, but straightforward in my opinion, which I was giving to them in four hour doses every day in never-ending meetings. Unfortunately for them, they just ran out of time. That last week I was there, it was like walking around in the catacombs of some modern day pharaoh.

Which seems an appropriate analogy for the demise of one of the world’s largest, nongovernmental pyramid schemes ever foisted on society.

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For some people, fame and fortune just isn’t enough.

“American Idol” judge Paula Abdul coached him, dressed him, groomed him - and bedded him - bounced second-season contestant Corey Clark claims in a blockbuster interview airing tonight on ABC.

“She was like, ‘You got to have better song choices, and I want to help you do that. I want to look out after you like I’m your mom,” the 24-year-old Clark tells “Primetime Live.”

“And then it was like ‘more like your sister.’ And then she’s like, ‘well, maybe more like your special friend.’”

What the heck could the dumb twit have been thinking? Even if nothing sexual transpired, the mere suggesting of a better song to sing or different clothes to wear is clearly out of line for a judge. Paula Abdul is gone as soon as the ratings for the scandal play out. She is too stupid to stay.

Corey Clark could actually sue Abdul for sexual harassment. The one phone call is all the proof he would need since there should have been absolutely no contact between the two. There is no question that a judge is in a position of immense power over a contestant. She would have no choice but to settle.

I have never seen American Idol, which is nothing but a wildly popular Gong Show remake, but I don’t think integrity has much to do with any little bit of the production. However, there has to be line drawn somewhere.

On the other hand, I think it would be interesting to watch a show where a gaggle of beautiful young people are brought in and each judge secretly chooses one to win. Then watch the antics fly as the judges try to foil the other judge’s picks as the season progresses. A savvy judge could pretend to play more than one pick to throw off the other judges. A savvy contestant could even play more than one judge to hedge his or her chances. You could have a situation where one of the judges is gay and the straight contestants ar forced to curry favor with him or her. Lots of possibilities here.

Now that would be reality TV.

Who says there is no discrimination against ugly people. Giving clear advantage to the gorgeous is clear discrimination against the ugly.

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