Thanks for that; I was going to say the same thing but yours is so much better.
The only other thing I could add, is that we are so far beyond 1.5 earths just because the majority of food is made possible because of consuming fertilizer... which is made using natural gas.
I think we are in the catapult and pressed so tightly against the spoon that we will barely see the ground rushing towards us.
you can take a look at Election Buddy - it would probably do what you are asking for. http://electionbuddy.com/ I'm not sure what you mean by 'not enough bandwidth', but 200 web pages isn't that much.
Holy crap, I never go e-mail of *any kind* until the late 1980s. And here I thought I was pretty hip! I never imagined that somebody would have me beaten by over 80 years!
Duh! Aliens had email well before we did... 1800s! Try 4000 BC with the popular pyramids! Clearly you didn't see the "Tired of moving stone by slave hand? Get your stone moving ray gun - click here" what a scam that was!
** disclaimer - I didn't try to hard to find something supporting the claim
Simple, clear laws are best. Ones that lawyers can't understand because they are too straight forward.
There are 2 things I think it must protect, and should be enforceable.
1) an ISP cannot determine where a customer can and where a customer cannot go on the internet - i.e. all IPs are accessible at all times 2) an ISP cannot charge a customer extra to visit any particular end-point (IP) - including ports.
Whatever legislation that the FCC is proposing *may* cover these 2 things. If so, great. If not, shame!
I can imagine no rules about: * volume of data - charging me more for high volume, I can understand that. False advertising falls under other laws, along with contract law. If I agree that anything over 50 GB produces an extra charge, and that is what I agreed to, and therefore I expect a charge. However, that means a measurement should also be presented/available at all times if I'm interested... proof and track-ability is essential then. * bandwidth guarantees - paying for ensuring that I have minimum bandwidth, I can understand paying extra too. Again false advertising falls under other laws. * connections that occur in other countries are not guaranteed. i.e. if China blocks you from accessing their end-points from the US, tough luck. Your ISP is not involved.
We don't need crazy laws that a child cannot understand.
I seriously don't understand why these concepts are so difficult to accept de facto. It has essentially been this way for a long time. Forcing it to not change would be relieving. I would imagine that the ISPs would be able to use legislation like this to play nice with each other too. i.e. "you can't, ISP A block ISP B because you will be causing a violation of law X"
not true - Even sirens are difficult to identify where emergency vehicles are coming from -- sirens -- which is why they have multiple tones, etc. coming from it... and that doesn't work all that well... thus the lights, plus.
Think of it this way - if you have 4 or more cars emitting tones say 440Hz at an intersection, you wouldn't have a clue if it was coming from the right, left on falling from the sky. You might know that it is getting oddly darker around you, but nothing more.
wouldn't it be awesome with everyone driving around with a siren? OOh ya!
Putting extra noise makers on a car is solving a problem that doesn't exist. This screams of over-thinking a non-problem, and smells of crap between the ears.
I hate to see the day that laws are brought in like this, i.e. before one person is hit *because* he/she couldn't hear it.
PS: My car will have cannon sounds coming from it, between periods of deathly silence.
I'm still confused why the people that are supposed to be for a smaller government would be nay saying evidence that big government is doing horrible things behind our backs.
I think you missed the subtext of the smaller government => bigger military.
They are doing the right thing to seek it out. I wonder what it would be like if more people could implement their own ideas.
If it were possible, though, the world would be full of smart people with interesting things to say.
We'd have rainbows everywhere with butterflies flying through the field. there would be no need for governments or lawyers because everything would be wonderful.
Oh and chocolate rivers and strawberry mountains...
Most likely is that the Canadian scientists involved are not allowed to talk about anything they are doing, ( gag order ), especially this new stuff. But if one can get the information from other sources, the CBC can let the Canadians know that Canadians are involved in science still, although we're not allowed to talk about that either.
I regret getting an ATI for my desktop at work. (yes Linux) - Using 2 monitors is sketchy at best... the performance dropped with the 2nd monitor. 3D support is OK on one monitor, but not so good on dual. I miss the cube. Xinerama or separate desktops?! that's crap ATI! Twinview is better from NVidia. - I have frequent system crashes because of the proprietary video driver (once a week is frequent), and have to hand configure the xorg.conf to remove crap from the display, etc. Waste of time.
The OSS for the video card worked for 2D, but not 3D. If that's all you need, the OSS driver is great.
On the other hand, my NVidia works great at home. No performance problems. Haven't had a crash related to graphics in a long, long time. Of course I'm using the proprietary driver too.
I play games -- yes 3D -- and there are many more than 2 -- (that I've purchased... recently too). Use Wine as well to play several that way. NVidia is solid for me. Reliable. I don't know about how they [nvidia] screwed up lately with the newer cards and drivers for Linux, but I don't want to spend time configuring a system to do 3D. ATI doesn't just do that yet... to me, it is pain. NVidia still is faster to set up and way more stable.
I'm sure the network you set up on Mars will be as quick as on Earth. Wait, are you setting it up?
Hell, you might not even have to water cool your computers.
But seriously... the network to Earth would be a secondary issue. Setting up a remote Google with ba-gi-gabytes of cache would be much more useful, for example. Ooo... how exciting. And Fedex to Mars... And a good cnc.
I'm already thinking what a huge thing it would be to get all that going.
I think you meant to say, "we all live in the past." The present just hasn't reached our consciousness yet. As for the future, well, that's another story.
we could have sent up thirty Hubble telescopes ($5B).
Just sayin'.
Though I get what you are sayin', I don't think that would be true. Iff there were no ISS, there probably would be a huge increase in how much it would cost to put people up into space. For one, maintaining the shuttle program for the Hubble would not have happened, so it might be the $50B Hubble telescope, or the nice idea that never was.
The ISS kept (keeps) the space program in operation, and without it, I doubt there would be much drive to keep going back into space. The ISS is more than just NASA too. Don't forget about ESA, that probably wouldn't have existed, the CSA that barely is, in Canada, and the RSFA (Russia) that would be much worse off without it.
This is a big deal throughout the world, and is a significant contribution to space exploration, etc.
If you don't care about space exploration, then fine. $100B is a bunch of money. But then we can compare with other big recent expenses like oil spills, $3 billion for the BP disaster in the gulf canada.com -- which arguably didn't help humanity in any good way. Or, $750B for the Iraq war and the $300B for the Afghanistan war and the $28B for higher security (at airports? really?)... Then a $100B starts looking like the good looking sister. infoplease.com
Numbers at these huge values are always deceiving on what they bring and value they produce. Saying that spending x on y would do better is nonsense... it would bring something equally increased, but, also, something completely different. Spend it on oil spills and we'd have great oil pick up technology and nothing for space... Or maybe we would have some really nice houses and crappy oil pick up technology still, and nothing for space. It looks like the $30B for security brought us much better civic spying technology. I wonder if that is improving humanity? Maybe not as much as the ISS after all.
1) The deal - apparently - precludes using OSS. This is bad no matter how you look at it. This means something perfectly useful - and productive - won't be allowed. 2) I've used the MS Virtualization software and it really didn't work well at all. It was certainly the worst of the bunch.
Why anyone would really choose that kind of agreement is beyond foolish to me. Good luck to them.
I have to agree that a mix of different software makes tons of sense. AD is hard to beat -- and makes sense to use it. Exchange is hard to match, but there are reasonable alternatives... and I think everything else is a question mark.
- The lucky guy or gal could spend 3 billion dollars to hire 6,000 people at an average of $50,000 a year for 10 years to build a monument of themselves.
It's time for them to pay up, I have a monument or two just dying to spring forth!
I watch a show - if it is 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p, or whatever is in a theater... I watch a show. If it stinks, I feel shafted. If it is entertaining, I'm pretty happy.
3D, resolution, whatever are just enhancements of the presentation of the story we enjoy... if there is one. From children to nearly-deads, this is the fact. Story over video quality. Resolution is an enhancement.
Since you are a videophile, your life revolves around the gimmicks. I make games -- same thing. But for every (insert technology)-phile there are 1000 don't cares, and 100 wish they could tell the difference.
I certainly won't go out and buy a 3D tv... unless my current one explodes by accident. It does 1080i and it is pretty nice (I've had it since before 1080p existed). Can I tell the difference between 1080i and 1080p?... not usually - especially when watching a story. Can I tell the difference between 480i and 1080i, yup. Does it make my life miserable? nope.
The real question is, "is it enhancing the story?" If it is nearly always 'yes', then its needed and will sell, but sadly, it is nearly always 'no'. Gimmick.
Lets face it, 3D tvs are about as useful as a kick to the balls. I'm not going to be wearing shutter glasses in the kitchen while I cook and watch some lame ass 3D show to fill in my waiting periods. And at 30-40 feet, a 1080p show looks no better than a 480i tv show.
Don't get me wrong - I love HD, but to claim it isn't a gimmick? it certainly is. Is it better? yup. Is it enhancing the story 9x? no. I'd estimate, maybe 10% better. I still go to the movie theater because it is completely engulfing me, but the video quality in a theater, isn't the reason I go.
I was walking down the street yesterday and I heard the tires and bits of stuff being squashed and I looked up and it was a car... wait - it was an electric car going about 10 km/h
It was not silent. There is no need for this blathering noise. If they were playing their radio, I would have heard that too.
It will be fantastic not to have the enormously loud sound of engines all the time, let alone some insane other winy noise. If I get hit, it's not going to be because electric cars are more quiet than gas cars, it will be because someone is texting or talking on their iphone/clone.
Always, always remember: Games are meant to be FUN first and everything else second. This means that there is real limits to the realism, the complexity, the kind of game play and so on and so forth if the game is to be a success. Some things just aren't fun, even if they are interesting, and games are made to be fun. That is what draws people to them.
Games are meant to be simply challenging and you have FUN mastering them. There are tons of opinions on what is fun. For example, some people like to have realistic portrayal of life, and that becomes fun. Some people like to have abstract ideas with rules, and that becomes fun. And then there are some people who like tons of rules and that becomes fun.
Every time I hear someone say games are supposed to be fun first, I roll my eyes.
In my opinion, games that are simple (few rules) and are abstract gain the most traction. That means games like chess, poker, and tag will be what are generally the most fun. When you start to think about games with these 3 in mind, you will start to notice that they are pretty much all derivatives of these. For example, all FPS are tag.
When a war is boiled down to tag, you lose quite a bit. When you boil a war down to chess, you lose quite a bit. When you boil a war down to poker, you lose quite a bit.
I’m posting those excerpts because I’m concerned that we’re lionising wikileaks and forgetting that critical analysis that pretty much every other media outlet invites.
I think you are missing something really unique about wikileaks which other outlets "don't invite". That is specifically that it is raw information. i.e. do what you will with it.
The fact that there is no critical analysis per se on the data released is what makes this information especially informative. Other outlets can use this information to do analysis and spin, but they are not going to be able to fully slant the analysis to imply or simply state things that the raw information doesn't support. They could, I suppose, but not without offering up other raw information to support it. That, indeed, means the government too... the mega-hoarder of redacted information.
These other non-governmental agencies are not above reproach as well. The information exposed could be of great help in understanding the world better.
In the end, Wikileaks may be something that can strengthen a responsible government and encourage people to do what they say they will do. Then again, perhaps it is a drop in the bucket and no one really cares if there is justice, meaning, or lies.
At the same time, they are pushing their Rogers on Demand service to all their customers too. http://www.rogersondemand.com/
Which means either charging people to watch TV content by 'downloading' it, or maybe, will they give a break to people who are on their network to use their service?
This is precisely why net neutrality is important and required.
Smarter people will use the internet to be smarter and lazier Dumber people will use the internet to be amused and lazier The rest of the people will use the internet for something in-between... amused and smarter and lazier
The internet can't make you dumber -- When you start at the bottom, there is only up.
I worked for a company that rewrote the same application three times in different technology. 2 time using MS.net tech - aspx,.net desktop, and 3rd with PHP.
The first incarnation was a disaster from a performance/scalability point of view, but we did learn the (surprisingly complex) business requirements very well. The second incarnation was good, developed quickly, but missed the target market -- nobody wanted a desktop app The third performed much better than either predecessor, was simpler to maintain, and actually made money... still is.
There was some desire to rewrite it a fourth time, but that has been abandoned in favor of extending the existing system has been the current methodology.
The lesson here is "if it sucks, rewrite it". And more often than not, it is too costly to not rewrite it. Specifically, if the system was not rewritten a third time, the company could not (and would not) exist. As it sits, the product is quite good at what it does. The balance is looking 5 or 10 years forward and looking 1 year forward. If the system you are using won't last 1 year forward, let alone 10, a rewrite may be needed, duh!
The second lesson is "if it is not perfect, fix it". (In the third case it would last a year, but fixing it would maybe make it last 3 or 5 -- it's going on 5 now, and is looking good for another 5)
What this person seems to be faced with is the same thing as that of COBOL... asp is old tech, nobody really wants to work with it, and it definitely is not perfect. A rewrite is the only sensible thing. (And yes, anything in COBOL should be rewritten too.)
prone to error, but hey, who can knock the living dead?
All hail zombies everywhere!
But seriously, I just talked with my (old) parents about this recently as a relative passed away a short while ago. It seems that the primary reason my parents get the newspaper is for the obits. Even then the funeral homes in their area supply a web site with better obituaries, I think, for no extra charge with the service.
To me, the idea of buying a paper to find out if, perchance, someone died is absurd.
In this case, I found out by email and looked online at the obituary (at the time I was living 600k away).
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for that; I was going to say the same thing but yours is so much better.
The only other thing I could add, is that we are so far beyond 1.5 earths just because the majority of food is made possible because of consuming fertilizer... which is made using natural gas.
I think we are in the catapult and pressed so tightly against the spoon that we will barely see the ground rushing towards us.
you can take a look at Election Buddy - it would probably do what you are asking for. http://electionbuddy.com/
I'm not sure what you mean by 'not enough bandwidth', but 200 web pages isn't that much.
Holy crap, I never go e-mail of *any kind* until the late 1980s. And here I thought I was pretty hip! I never imagined that somebody would have me beaten by over 80 years!
Duh! Aliens had email well before we did... 1800s! Try 4000 BC with the popular pyramids!
Clearly you didn't see the "Tired of moving stone by slave hand? Get your stone moving ray gun - click here"
what a scam that was!
** disclaimer - I didn't try to hard to find something supporting the claim
Simple, clear laws are best. Ones that lawyers can't understand because they are too straight forward.
There are 2 things I think it must protect, and should be enforceable.
1) an ISP cannot determine where a customer can and where a customer cannot go on the internet - i.e. all IPs are accessible at all times
2) an ISP cannot charge a customer extra to visit any particular end-point (IP) - including ports.
Whatever legislation that the FCC is proposing *may* cover these 2 things. If so, great. If not, shame!
I can imagine no rules about:
* volume of data - charging me more for high volume, I can understand that. False advertising falls under other laws, along with contract law. If I agree that anything over 50 GB produces an extra charge, and that is what I agreed to, and therefore I expect a charge. However, that means a measurement should also be presented/available at all times if I'm interested... proof and track-ability is essential then.
* bandwidth guarantees - paying for ensuring that I have minimum bandwidth, I can understand paying extra too. Again false advertising falls under other laws.
* connections that occur in other countries are not guaranteed. i.e. if China blocks you from accessing their end-points from the US, tough luck. Your ISP is not involved.
false advertising law explained
We don't need crazy laws that a child cannot understand.
I seriously don't understand why these concepts are so difficult to accept de facto. It has essentially been this way for a long time. Forcing it to not change would be relieving. I would imagine that the ISPs would be able to use legislation like this to play nice with each other too. i.e. "you can't, ISP A block ISP B because you will be causing a violation of law X"
not true - Even sirens are difficult to identify where emergency vehicles are coming from
-- sirens -- which is why they have multiple tones, etc. coming from it... and that doesn't work all that well... thus the lights, plus.
Think of it this way - if you have 4 or more cars emitting tones say 440Hz at an intersection, you wouldn't have a clue if it was coming from the right, left on falling from the sky. You might know that it is getting oddly darker around you, but nothing more.
wouldn't it be awesome with everyone driving around with a siren? OOh ya!
Putting extra noise makers on a car is solving a problem that doesn't exist. This screams of over-thinking a non-problem, and smells of crap between the ears.
I hate to see the day that laws are brought in like this, i.e. before one person is hit *because* he/she couldn't hear it.
PS: My car will have cannon sounds coming from it, between periods of deathly silence.
I'm still confused why the people that are supposed to be for a smaller government would be nay saying evidence that big government is doing horrible things behind our backs.
I think you missed the subtext of the smaller government => bigger military.
FTFY
They are doing the right thing to seek it out. I wonder what it would be like if more people could implement their own ideas.
If it were possible, though, the world would be full of smart people with interesting things to say.
We'd have rainbows everywhere with butterflies flying through the field.
there would be no need for governments or lawyers because everything would be wonderful.
Oh and chocolate rivers and strawberry mountains...
yawn!
sleepy time.
Most likely is that the Canadian scientists involved are not allowed to talk about anything they are doing, ( gag order ), especially this new stuff. But if one can get the information from other sources, the CBC can let the Canadians know that Canadians are involved in science still, although we're not allowed to talk about that either.
I regret getting an ATI for my desktop at work. (yes Linux)
- Using 2 monitors is sketchy at best... the performance dropped with the 2nd monitor. 3D support is OK on one monitor, but not so good on dual. I miss the cube. Xinerama or separate desktops?! that's crap ATI! Twinview is better from NVidia.
- I have frequent system crashes because of the proprietary video driver (once a week is frequent), and have to hand configure the xorg.conf to remove crap from the display, etc. Waste of time.
The OSS for the video card worked for 2D, but not 3D. If that's all you need, the OSS driver is great.
On the other hand, my NVidia works great at home. No performance problems. Haven't had a crash related to graphics in a long, long time. Of course I'm using the proprietary driver too.
I play games -- yes 3D -- and there are many more than 2 -- (that I've purchased... recently too). Use Wine as well to play several that way.
NVidia is solid for me. Reliable. I don't know about how they [nvidia] screwed up lately with the newer cards and drivers for Linux, but I don't want to spend time configuring a system to do 3D. ATI doesn't just do that yet... to me, it is pain. NVidia still is faster to set up and way more stable.
Bring your LAN party with you!
I'm sure the network you set up on Mars will be as quick as on Earth. Wait, are you setting it up?
Hell, you might not even have to water cool your computers.
But seriously... the network to Earth would be a secondary issue. Setting up a remote Google with ba-gi-gabytes of cache would be much more useful, for example. Ooo... how exciting. And Fedex to Mars... And a good cnc.
I'm already thinking what a huge thing it would be to get all that going.
Fun!
I think you meant to say, "we all live in the past." The present just hasn't reached our consciousness yet. As for the future, well, that's another story.
we could have sent up thirty Hubble telescopes ($5B).
Just sayin'.
Though I get what you are sayin', I don't think that would be true. Iff there were no ISS, there probably would be a huge increase in how much it would cost to put people up into space. For one, maintaining the shuttle program for the Hubble would not have happened, so it might be the $50B Hubble telescope, or the nice idea that never was.
The ISS kept (keeps) the space program in operation, and without it, I doubt there would be much drive to keep going back into space. The ISS is more than just NASA too. Don't forget about ESA, that probably wouldn't have existed, the CSA that barely is, in Canada, and the RSFA (Russia) that would be much worse off without it.
This is a big deal throughout the world, and is a significant contribution to space exploration, etc.
If you don't care about space exploration, then fine. $100B is a bunch of money. But then we can compare with other big recent expenses like oil spills, $3 billion for the BP disaster in the gulf canada.com -- which arguably didn't help humanity in any good way. Or, $750B for the Iraq war and the $300B for the Afghanistan war and the $28B for higher security (at airports? really?)... Then a $100B starts looking like the good looking sister. infoplease.com
Numbers at these huge values are always deceiving on what they bring and value they produce. Saying that spending x on y would do better is nonsense... it would bring something equally increased, but, also, something completely different. Spend it on oil spills and we'd have great oil pick up technology and nothing for space... Or maybe we would have some really nice houses and crappy oil pick up technology still, and nothing for space. It looks like the $30B for security brought us much better civic spying technology. I wonder if that is improving humanity? Maybe not as much as the ISS after all.
There are 2 things further
1) The deal - apparently - precludes using OSS. This is bad no matter how you look at it. This means something perfectly useful - and productive - won't be allowed.
2) I've used the MS Virtualization software and it really didn't work well at all. It was certainly the worst of the bunch.
Why anyone would really choose that kind of agreement is beyond foolish to me. Good luck to them.
I have to agree that a mix of different software makes tons of sense. AD is hard to beat -- and makes sense to use it. Exchange is hard to match, but there are reasonable alternatives... and I think everything else is a question mark.
- The lucky guy or gal could spend 3 billion dollars to hire 6,000 people at an average of $50,000 a year for 10 years to build a monument of themselves.
It's time for them to pay up, I have a monument or two just dying to spring forth!
such clarity!
awesomeness.
This is how it works:
I watch a show - if it is 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p, or whatever is in a theater... I watch a show. If it stinks, I feel shafted. If it is entertaining, I'm pretty happy.
3D, resolution, whatever are just enhancements of the presentation of the story we enjoy... if there is one. From children to nearly-deads, this is the fact. Story over video quality. Resolution is an enhancement.
Since you are a videophile, your life revolves around the gimmicks. I make games -- same thing. But for every (insert technology)-phile there are 1000 don't cares, and 100 wish they could tell the difference.
I certainly won't go out and buy a 3D tv... unless my current one explodes by accident. It does 1080i and it is pretty nice (I've had it since before 1080p existed). Can I tell the difference between 1080i and 1080p?... not usually - especially when watching a story. Can I tell the difference between 480i and 1080i, yup. Does it make my life miserable? nope.
The real question is, "is it enhancing the story?"
If it is nearly always 'yes', then its needed and will sell, but sadly, it is nearly always 'no'. Gimmick.
Lets face it, 3D tvs are about as useful as a kick to the balls. I'm not going to be wearing shutter glasses in the kitchen while I cook and watch some lame ass 3D show to fill in my waiting periods. And at 30-40 feet, a 1080p show looks no better than a 480i tv show.
Don't get me wrong - I love HD, but to claim it isn't a gimmick? it certainly is.
Is it better? yup.
Is it enhancing the story 9x? no. I'd estimate, maybe 10% better. I still go to the movie theater because it is completely engulfing me, but the video quality in a theater, isn't the reason I go.
Not quite. This is a term from ancient Egypt Dedi or Djedi - Lucas probably got Jedi from this and perhaps the idea of a wizard like person.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedi
Funny - I don't have to imagine it.
I was walking down the street yesterday and I heard the tires and bits of stuff being squashed and I looked up and it was a car... wait - it was an electric car going about 10 km/h
It was not silent. There is no need for this blathering noise. If they were playing their radio, I would have heard that too.
It will be fantastic not to have the enormously loud sound of engines all the time, let alone some insane other winy noise. If I get hit, it's not going to be because electric cars are more quiet than gas cars, it will be because someone is texting or talking on their iphone/clone.
This is the stupid in stupid ideas.
first you need a rocking chair, preferably wooden. The gun is optional.
Always, always remember: Games are meant to be FUN first and everything else second. This means that there is real limits to the realism, the complexity, the kind of game play and so on and so forth if the game is to be a success. Some things just aren't fun, even if they are interesting, and games are made to be fun. That is what draws people to them.
Games are meant to be simply challenging and you have FUN mastering them. There are tons of opinions on what is fun. For example, some people like to have realistic portrayal of life, and that becomes fun. Some people like to have abstract ideas with rules, and that becomes fun. And then there are some people who like tons of rules and that becomes fun.
Every time I hear someone say games are supposed to be fun first, I roll my eyes.
In my opinion, games that are simple (few rules) and are abstract gain the most traction. That means games like chess, poker, and tag will be what are generally the most fun. When you start to think about games with these 3 in mind, you will start to notice that they are pretty much all derivatives of these. For example, all FPS are tag.
When a war is boiled down to tag, you lose quite a bit. When you boil a war down to chess, you lose quite a bit. When you boil a war down to poker, you lose quite a bit.
I’m posting those excerpts because I’m concerned that we’re lionising wikileaks and forgetting that critical analysis that pretty much every other media outlet invites.
I think you are missing something really unique about wikileaks which other outlets "don't invite". That is specifically that it is raw information. i.e. do what you will with it.
The fact that there is no critical analysis per se on the data released is what makes this information especially informative. Other outlets can use this information to do analysis and spin, but they are not going to be able to fully slant the analysis to imply or simply state things that the raw information doesn't support. They could, I suppose, but not without offering up other raw information to support it. That, indeed, means the government too... the mega-hoarder of redacted information.
These other non-governmental agencies are not above reproach as well. The information exposed could be of great help in understanding the world better.
In the end, Wikileaks may be something that can strengthen a responsible government and encourage people to do what they say they will do. Then again, perhaps it is a drop in the bucket and no one really cares if there is justice, meaning, or lies.
At the same time, they are pushing their Rogers on Demand service to all their customers too. http://www.rogersondemand.com/
Which means either charging people to watch TV content by 'downloading' it, or maybe, will they give a break to people who are on their network to use their service?
This is precisely why net neutrality is important and required.
Smarter people will use the internet to be smarter and lazier
Dumber people will use the internet to be amused and lazier
The rest of the people will use the internet for something in-between... amused and smarter and lazier
The internet can't make you dumber -- When you start at the bottom, there is only up.
I worked for a company that rewrote the same application three times in different technology. 2 time using MS .net tech - aspx, .net desktop, and 3rd with PHP.
The first incarnation was a disaster from a performance/scalability point of view, but we did learn the (surprisingly complex) business requirements very well.
The second incarnation was good, developed quickly, but missed the target market -- nobody wanted a desktop app
The third performed much better than either predecessor, was simpler to maintain, and actually made money... still is.
There was some desire to rewrite it a fourth time, but that has been abandoned in favor of extending the existing system has been the current methodology.
The lesson here is "if it sucks, rewrite it". And more often than not, it is too costly to not rewrite it. Specifically, if the system was not rewritten a third time, the company could not (and would not) exist. As it sits, the product is quite good at what it does. The balance is looking 5 or 10 years forward and looking 1 year forward. If the system you are using won't last 1 year forward, let alone 10, a rewrite may be needed, duh!
The second lesson is "if it is not perfect, fix it". (In the third case it would last a year, but fixing it would maybe make it last 3 or 5 -- it's going on 5 now, and is looking good for another 5)
What this person seems to be faced with is the same thing as that of COBOL ... asp is old tech, nobody really wants to work with it, and it definitely is not perfect. A rewrite is the only sensible thing. (And yes, anything in COBOL should be rewritten too.)
I too have worked at a game company or two and it can happen if you have a game that is already built, functioning and playable.
there are many game engines out there to make the work easier. Garage Games, Unity 3D are great, for example.
prone to error, but hey, who can knock the living dead?
All hail zombies everywhere!
But seriously, I just talked with my (old) parents about this recently as a relative passed away a short while ago. It seems that the primary reason my parents get the newspaper is for the obits. Even then the funeral homes in their area supply a web site with better obituaries, I think, for no extra charge with the service.
To me, the idea of buying a paper to find out if, perchance, someone died is absurd.
In this case, I found out by email and looked online at the obituary (at the time I was living 600k away).