What a load of gatekeeping BS.

When I was a GIMP user, there was a huge dustup over someone creating a fork (IIRC "GimpShop") with a better UI. There was huge resistance to 16bit/channel color, because the devs unilaterally decided it wasn't necessary.

"Code it yourself" is useless advice. Human civilization is built on specialization. If everyone has to meet your "l33t haxx0r" standards, nothing will get done.

It's easy to spend someone else's time and money.

I've dealt with some small businesses with obsolete hardware/software/OS. They don't have an IT department, often it's one non-IT person doing extra duty. (And yes, things get messy when they leave/transfer). There's no one to handle the upgrade, because everyone's time is 100% committed.

Sometimes they -can't- upgrade easily. The software doesn't run on the latest OS. Licensing costs or hardware requirements have changed. Retraining staff will take the business offline for several days and/or increase the risk of significant errors.

Throwing stones is easy, but I've worked with people in this situation. They're not "computer people" but they know their professions well.

So that's why the young people say birds aren't real! /s

No worries! My biases are showing as well; I've encountered too much debate that comes from the "If someone doesn't like something, no one should have it" attitude.

Your point is true for all IT, not just healthcare IT. I've seen large companies effectively cease operations for days while major systems were down. Most times it was planned (major upgrades or transitions), but a few were unplanned and even more painful.

That's like saying you only eat raw, unwashed food because you don't trust that newfangled "fire" or "water". In case you're not a moronic troll, I'll explain it.

Paper records can't be transferred quickly or easily. They require dedicated staff to locate, curate, and move the records. If the medical records staff are busy - or it's not a 24x7 site - your medical records are completely offline. In the Bad Old Days, getting one's records sent to a new provider could take weeks.

The scale for even a small medical practice is massive. Imagine thousands (or tens of thousands) of manilla or hanging folders, each stuffed with dozens of pages. They consume a massive amount of space and require specialized filing solutions. Backups are effectively impossible due to scale and the dynamic nature of the data. Incorrectly-filed records effectively cease to exist. Physical damage (fire, water, wear and tear, etc) means the record is lost without backup.

Any kind of calculation, trending, or automatic highlighting irregular values is lost with paper.

If you live in a one traffic-light town and never wander into the big scareeeey world, paper records are fine for you. The 21st century benefits from proper IT systems. Now get off my internet and troll your local newspaper.

Source: I've worked in healthcare IT, and I'm old enough to remember the not-so-good ol' days.

As a "how bad could it go", consider government-sanctioned encryption: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I'm glad to hear GIMP is improving!

I used it ~20 years ago, and GIMP's UI (at that time) was poor. The Photoshop ecosystem (plugins, documentation, and training) was a lot more accessible. When I switched to Photoshop (CS5 I think), it was moving towards a non-destructive workflow, which was appealing to a beginner.

Photoshop isn't perfect. While I don't like the subscription model, $120US/year is a reasonable price for professional-grade software.

I'm going to assume you mean Photoshop CS5... which was released _literally_ 15 years ago. That's a pretty unreasonable comparison.

The bigger question is whether or not GIMP _correctly_ renders those difficult files...

"It's just mouse clicks and button pushes!" - every middle manager and computer n00b

Using _any_ program well takes practice. Photoshop can have multiple paths to achieve the same thing, but users can paint themselves into a corner (pun intended) with the wrong approach. Photoshop has multiple forms of automation that power users would need to rebuild, plus an ecosystem that -might- work with other programs. Adobe is usually fairly quick to support RAW formats from new cameras, while other software companies can have months of lag.

I don't like the subscriptions, but I understand why (stable income stream and American tax law).

Disclaimer: not a professional creative, just an enthusiast.

I'm Gen-X and have had to make major career shifts within my tech career.

The first piece of software I used in my software developer career was purchased by their competitor. It stopped being a viable career path within a few years.

"Just learn a new product/language" is the /. mantra, but knowledge and certifications don't convey -experience-. Anyone searching for a tech job knows how much of a hurdle that can be.

I made a pivot to something less hands-on... but the whole IT department was off-shored. The same thing happened at the next company after a few years.

I'm now tech-adjacent in MIS. My developer skills are still useful occasionally, but if I'd started in MIS I'd have a resume dating back to the 90's, instead of just the past few years.

I object when they're irresponsible and asocial...

... like you are with your assumptions.

Thanks for digging your heels in and refusing to have a discussion.

I have an invisible disability (from birth) that prevents me from riding a bike. OTOH, I can drive a car without issues.

For a few months I was medically unable to drive, and discovered how unreliable public transit could be. My options were to either miss healthcare appointments, arrive 2-3 hours early (and wait another 1-2 hours for pickup), or ask friends to take time off work to drive me in their personal vehicles.

Biker "etiquette" toward foot traffic is a significant problem. I've nearly been hit multiple times. I've been screamed at for being on "their" path, despite having legal right of way. Most will pass without pedestrians without any kind of warning (bell, "on your left", etc). I've even encountered bicycle riders blasting their music, just like obnoxious car drivers.

Maybe everyone should be on foot?

There's a problem with your question: you don't define "intelligent".

There are a number of nonhuman species (elephants, octopi, etc) on Earth that display some degree of intelligence, but wouldn't meet the "conventional" definition (technologically advanced civilization-builders).

"The problems that life has had to encounter here are not so different from the problems that life has had to encounter elsewhere."

That's not necessarily true. Earth has a lot of things going for it. Our star has stable energy output and a long lifespan. Our gas giants swept the solar system clean of potential Earth-impact objects, but aren't so large as to disrupt the inner planets' orbits. Our day/night cycle is independent of our year. Plate tectonics and vulcanism allow for a surface that changes and renews over time - and bring heavier elements to the crust. In general, there's enough water to mitigate daily temperature extremes. We have a geomagnetic field shielding us from the solar wind.

There have been decades of biological bit-rot, courtesy of "tobacco". Smoking used to be the norm in America. Even if not actively smoking, the tobacco smell gets everywhere, blocking out others.

Agreed 100%. Many of the "security" questions could be answered by immediate family or Facebook friends. Poorly written questions are ambiguous, leading to mistakes by the correct user. (And don't get me started on case and whitespace sensitivity!)

Not all bad actors are l33t haxxors. Toxic friends and family can do just as much damage if they can reset passwords.

My answers are a random word, stored in the "notes" section of my password manager.