Auggie's Blog

The final project required us to research, present, and write about a controversial information technological/ social issue. For this we chose Computerized Medical Records: CMR, EMR, EHR; all are a different abbreviation for the same topic. It was my duty to write the socio-technical analysis of the final deliverable and present the findings I made through this blog.

"The American Health Information Community (the Community) recommended that Electronic Health Records (EHR) adoption be its top priority."

The American Health Information Community was chartered in 2005 as a federal advisory body that would make recommendations to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This community was formed in response to President Bush’s goal to create accessible EHR to the American people by 2014. Subsequently, AHIC has recommended that EHR adoption be its top priority.

It is estimated that EHR systems increase overall efficiency by 6% per year.

Like any IT system, there is a large risk of information loss. It happens to the Fed too believe it or not.

Laws are made that enforce security and privacy policy, like this one.

This is an aggregation of most of the facts I have found throughout my research.

Happy summer everybody!

 


 

I know it has been a long time since I have posted a blog entry. There is probably a strong correlation with it being nice outside and my lack of motivation to do anything other than avoid my computer. As for my roommates, who are league gamers, they remain indoors. We all play Team Fortress 2. The game was released in October and I began playing on the release day. Roommate A started playing in November. Roommate B started playing in December. Steam, the video game service provided by Valve, records how much time you have spent playing games (on those developed by Valve).

Roommate A: 2.60 Weeks
Roommate B: 2.48 Weeks
Me: 0.76 Weeks

This data was accurate as of April 9. Go have a bbq.

For the fourth directed blog post we were assigned the task to read from a collection of writings called “The Daedalus Project” (TDP), a web blog dedicated to the research and findings pertaining to  MMORPGs.  The site is operated by Nick Yee of the Palo Alto Research Center’s PlayOn research group.

“The PlayOn project at PARC is an investigation into the social dimensions of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) and virtual worlds…”

In addition to TDP, the PlayOn site will also be a source of critical thinking in this entry. The PlayOn site, another blog, is the site maintained by the PARC research group.

The content of both sites is comparable. TDP and PlayOn both provide incredible insight into the social and psychological mechanics of the MMO machine. Considering there are over ten million World of Warcraft players alone, the research in this area is valuable. These two sites are excellent sources of this kind of information. From first glance at the site you are exposed to scientific studies on this type of subject matter. I had previously never guessed that this kind of work was being done, and the information that is presented in these sites is interesting. Articles cover lofty issues such as how we virtually project ourselves in a virtual world, to more serious topics like therapy and dependency of MMOGs. How we keep ourselves motivated to play these games, and questioning the stereotypes of gamers (anti-social, gender, age).

A primary objective of understanding apparent in TDP is learning what motivates us. Why is it that we spend seemingly wasted time in virtual worlds accomplishing little recognized by the outside world? Dr. Yee creates an empirical framework to answer this question. In his study titled “MMORPG Demographics, Motivations, and Experiences”, Yee surveys 6,000+ players of the game Ever Quest to discover what draws them to the game. The survey construed the following terms for motivating factors: relationships, manipulation, immersion, escapism, achievement, and learning. Female players were driven by the relationship factor, while male players found their motivation in achievement and manipulation. Furthermore, the study indicates that these experiences created genuine relationships, and practical leadership skills. This study seems incredibly reliable considering the size of the dataset.

As an adult gamer myself it is not uncommon to be compared to a child for playing video games. =( Sad yes, but true? No. And the data collected from the above study supports me and my feelings. The gender distribution was nearly 50/50. Shocking, I guess. But in this case we can question the validity of these figures. Consider that the dataset was provided by one game, in one slice of the gaming genre. Average gaming age was 27, another reality check. Once again, the old stereotypes are not exactly met here. Unfortunately, nobody said that these stereotypes were designed for MMO players, just players in general.When it comes to ingame stereotypes, and I mean stereotypes that are built into the game, they exist. Apparently it isn't easy to find every ethnic hairstyle you want.

Thursday morning, 8:45 AM, in the IST building. Where else would I ever be on such a fine day (everyday)? And as I'm sitting here dying for inspiration, I'm inspired by the troublesomeness of the web brower I'm using: IE 7.0. About 5 years ago light shined into my life. Firefox walked through the door and introduced many innovative features that today I cannot live without. Some of these features microsoft has implemented, like tabbed browsing, but hundreds of thousands of others MS has not.

Mozilla just announced that in June they will be shipping the final version of Firefox, version 3.0. I declare June to be Firefox appreciation month.

The most difficult game of all time.

Synopsis: You are this little man with the potential to be the guy. Will you be? No. If you can get to the second screen, you're lucky and dedicated. The game is an ode to a long list of classic old school games: earthbound, mario, tetris, kirby, street fighter, and so on. However in the most saddistic, cruel, and frustrating compilation ever known to mankind. Because I know if you download the game you will quit after 10-15 deaths (that will take about 2 minutse tops), below is one persons' "best run". Watch it and appreciate the fact that getting that far probably took many months of trial and error.

 

My roommate has been using the same p.o.s. compaq since 2003, with minor additions since then. Last week he made the decision that it was time to upgrade, from the ground up. So I put it upon myself to find some beefy parts, and personally build it for him, because I'm a nice guy.

Here's the parts list I came up with.

ABIT IP35 Pro ATX Intel Motherboard

EVGA GeForce 8800GTX 768-P2-N831-AR Video Card

A-DATA 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Memory

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor

ZALMAN 9500A 92mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler

Acer P223Wwd Glossy White 22" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor

All in all the computer is a tank. A very quiet one. It cuts through Team Fortress 2 and COD4 like a warm knife through butter.

I began assembling the computer promptly when I got home from class, 5:30P. It took 9 hours to assemble the damn thing and troubleshoot a handful of problems we were having with the MB and the optical drive.

Problem 1: the MB wasn't getting enough juice. Reason, I forgot to plug one power cable in (supplementary PCIex). Total time to deduce: 3 hours.

Problem 2: You can't clean install from SATA drives. At least this motherboard didn't let us. We had to scrounge up an old IDE cd drive to install the OS, windows, which leads to our third problem. Total time to deduce: 1.5 hours.

Problem 3: Windows doesnt have built in USB drivers during the installation process. This is a problem when your keyboard and mouse are manufactured after the year 1932. Solution, use old keyboard (luckily we had one).

I finally crashed around 3 AM. Mission accomplished. One last note, I have to thank Alex T for helping. Two heads are definitely better than one semi drunk head (me).  

Today in class we discussed the glory of massively multiplayer online gaming. In particular, World of Warcraft.

Lately out of spiritual self loathing I've been reading a lot about Ghandi and Zen Buddhism. No, the two topics aren't exactly related, but still it's given me the opportunity to think about things from different perspectives.

It's a common philosophical debate about computers and consciousness. Does a computer have a consciousness, at least in the most fundamental sense? A biological organism is a macrocosm of organization. It's what makes an amoeba different than a text book. It's what makes living beings so fascinating. But if an amoeba is conscious, is a computer? I'm not asking if the computer has sentience.

And from the Buddhist perspective. Everything has Buddha nature. And if computers evolve intelligence, can it achieve enlightenment? And what about the internet? Has it Buddha nature?

Looking back at spring break I've come to a sad conclusion. No, I'm not ashamed to admit it, but yes it is somewhat saddening.I spent the whole week playing COD4. Why, do you say? The game is digital heroin. Injecting pure adrenaline into your eyesockets, the game never ceases to excite. Also, 99% of my friends, and my woman left town. I'm a towny.

What sort of insight can I provide from my experience? None. This is the result of not actively using my brain all break. Playing the game has reached the point where little thought is required at all. I just sit there going through the motions. And I suppose you could also attest the lack of insight to the frequent 40 oz..  I would often self medicate to dull the boredom.