[log in to unmask],Net wrote at 12:21 on 27/09/98
about "Re: It isn't just NHS Net, the doh.gov.uk domain is wobbly":
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><[log in to unmask]> writes
>>This is a trifle alarming.
>>wobbly
>This is bacause the computer system can only be trusted as far as the
>most stupid person involved in its design and use, then a little bit
>less because of the vagaries of any electronic system. Doesn't this
>argue against any single pivotal storage system?
I think you have overstated it a little there, the level of
reliability relates to the dumbest dork involved in maintaining it,
and WRT NHS NEt the problems of those dumb dorks include lack of
time, lack of knowledge, lack of interest, lack of initiative, lack
of being bothered.
But I think we can safely allow users to be as stupid lusers as they
come - they won't take down a decent network.
However, the arguments against single pivotal storage systems even
in individual practices are very valid. Using various sized and
shaped bits of paper manually placed and extracted by people in a
physical filing system with no indexing, and updating records using
a group of workers identified as having unusually poor skills at the
basic action of updating those records
<reference>
Legibility of doctors' handwriting: quantitative comparative study
Ronan Lyons, Christopher Payne, Michael McCabe, and Colin
Fielder
BMJ 1998;317 863-864
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/317/7162/863
</reference>
as a single pivotal system would be truly dumb.
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