Sunday, November 11, 2012

The Progress of New Terminology and Technology

Reading Notice CP-686 on the forthcoming use of MIDAS with GIS for acreage reporting, replacing CARS. 

Two terms new to me: "subfield" and "cross-over commodity".

Remembering the fiasco of the ASCS-578 in 1985 (and 86, and 87) I wish them luck.  Actually, I hope over the years the number of problems has been reduced, but acreage reporting was probably the  area where the conflict between national standards and local conditions was most obvious. Before computers, much of the conflict was hidden from the national office; State and county offices made things work.  Introduce the computer and local variation becomes a problem.

I suspect, without any evidence whatsoever, that part of the resistance to "electronic health records" on the part of doctors and others is based on this sort of thing. 

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