This seems pretty cool, as it doesn't require anything floating on the surface to be able to work.
However (and without disregarding the significance of this system), GPS systems designed for use underwater that work in a similar way have been in use by divers and submarines for years, the exception being they rely on a buoy floating above to get it's position from GPS (and then, I believe, calculate the depth/angle from the buoy - which itself is able to get it's own position using GPS for a fairly accurate reading that is trustworthy).
It seems possible even a small buoy floated - even a small one designed to be very difficult to detect - could in theory give away a that a sub was in the area, if it was spotted during the presumably brief period during which it was being floated to take a reading. However, I'm inclined to think the likelyhood of that being a real problem is fairly small and it's not worth giving up the convenience of being able to do that - not forgetting the same approach also allows you to fit a receiver to it that is able to perform other functions like receiving a high bandwith data transmission.
The alternative approach that would be required by the system described in this parent would seem to involve the navy having to go around planting somewhat less transient transmitters on the ocean wherever they are operating in the world - which seems like even more of a giveaway. It also seems they will in any case need to take a reading from the surface before they plant the underwater base station, so while once established in a warzone it could be quite useful for the period the submarine was engaged in operations, you'd need to go and plant it the area in the first place, and presumably it would be fairly easy for the enemy to find and disable - or even just move it and really cause trouble...
Though I don't know what the range is, perhaps it could remain well out of harms way - from a brief reading it seems to outline one method that works over a not-so-useful 10 km, but mentions another that apparently gives accurate readings over thousands of km.
So while it's a neat idea, current technology (float a buoy with a small GPS receiver in it every now and then, maybe do a data transmission at the same time - and have the ability to that from anywhere in the world without having a base station already set up in the area) doesn't seem in need of a pressing replacement.
I should add while I know commercial industry does this (and it's used by divers), but I don't know if military submarines actually use this approach, though I can't see any unsurmountable justification that would prevent them from doing so.
I've just been playing Crackdown for about 4 hours (I just bought it tonight, and not used the X-Box in weeks). I did notice two ads, one for a car and one for a drink. The car advert was indistinct and I actually tried to read it, but I couldn't make out what it was for. The other was for some sort of energy drink I think, I assumed it was actually a fake advert designed to fit in with the urban setting (I remember it as I was using it as a ledge to climb up to get up to the roof of a building), needless to say I didn't think they were distracting.
I did notice and remember the Nokia adverts in GRAW though, but again it's an urban setting so they didn't look out of place - though IMO they were too 'clean' and too prominent, in that they were not placed in a particularly realistic way (they were placed, somewhat unnaturally at times, directly in view of the player - like bad product placement on TV). I don't think it made me more likely to buy a Nokia in future though (I'm always just going to go for the phone I most like the functionality of).
Some adverts are actually pretty effective even when you don't notice them, in fact, this is exactly what some adverts genuinely aim to do - to go by without being consciously recognized (I not not making up crazy paranoid stuff , though I don't know of any online references for this I can point to, it is one approach specifically used in the advertising industry to market some products, particularly things like 'unexciting' household products, so that the brand sinks in to the public consciousness).
Outside things like contemporary urban environments and sports titles I think adverts in games are going to struggle for the most part. Adverts for "Fanta" and "Deuce Bigalow" in the science fiction MMOFPS PlanetSide met with huge opposition and were just plain stupid in context (Billboards for soft drinks in a futuristic warzone on an alien planet? Que?!). Many PlanetSide players objected because not only had they paid for the game up front, but they were still paying a monthly fee too - and yet even though the product was not yet end-of-life, Sony were willing to introduce ads into it too to try and make even more money on top of subscriptions.
Interestingly enough, product placement of this sort is illegal in the UK on TV IIRC (this is enforced by the regulator Ofcom), though I don't know the details. You used to (and sometimes still do) see brand names on drinks/etc. in TV shows blurred out if they were paid adverts (not if a product is shown incidentally in context, but for example if a character in a soap has clearly been asked to hold a beer bottle in an artificial way so that the label is clearly visible to the camera). There are new regulations coming into force here about what sort of advertising can be targeted at shows children are likely to be watching (this has lead to Domino's Pizza stopping it's long standing The Simpsons sponsorship here). I don't think the UK is alone in Europe with regard to this sort of policy - I wouldn't be surprised to see some legislation governing adverts that can be shown in video games in the next 5-10 years.
Are you going to provide them a computer also? I don't think it's as expensive compared to cost of on going internet access as you can get them quite cheaply second hard, from people who are giving them away and even get decent, cheap systems (at least for browsing, email) new from stores like Wallmart.
I often find it funny that very technical people think internet is important to everyone. To a lot of people, it really isn't. Nice to have yes, important no. Here in the UK, and pretty commonly in most other countries in Europe I would imagine (and I bet at least some local government offices in the state operate similar programmes), things like TV's are seen as 'basic fundamental goods everyone ought to have if they want one' just like other household furniture like a sofa, a cooker or a fridge. Even a decent cheap TV (or computer, for that matter) is no more expensive than any of those and it at least gives them access to the news and some form of cheap (free) entertainment, so I don't see why not.
I know some people think of something like a TV as a luxury, but at a 30 USD value, it's not as if a cheap old TV is a grand luxury we ought to be grudge people - especially when you bear in mind how much it's likely to be of value to someone who can't afford other entertainments. It's fair to say they could just go to the library and get some books, but being poor and reading for pleasure are not things than tend to go hand in hand, so for better or worse, you may as well give them a cheap TV than a library card they will never use.
And so, TV's are provided to the poor: single parents with children, those relocating due to domestic abuse, and those coming out of prison to set them up in a new home by local government. Typically furniture given out in this way is collected by donation. I think a computer and internet access is at least as useful as TV.
If you don't think a computer or internet access is important, I think you might be missing the revolution that's happening around you. It's changed the way I bank, pay bills, buy food, buy clothes, buy music, the way I keep in touch with friends and family, the way I work, the way I learn and the way I play. It is beneficial to me socially and economically.
Just because some people don't need it, or don't see how it could be beneficial to them is no reason not to provided it to those who could so easily benefit from it (especially when they are the most in need of any assistance they can get).
There are people in this country right at this moment, without telephone service, or cable-TV, or maybe even enough food or enough money for the rent. Those are real problems. Getting internet, not so much. Just because a small number of people are unable to feed and house themselves despite living in a prosperous western society does not mean that providing internet access to the *working* poor is not worthwhile.
Internet access to young families and the poor is potentially very useful to them, and all the more meaningful because of their circumstances (by which I mean they stand to benefit the most from free access). Added to which, they are the least likely of consumers to spend money on something like 'internet access' in the first place because they are spending what money they do have on immediate needs like food and clothing.
Internet access opens up the means get cheaper goods and services (they can price compare, order good online for less than retail, etc), as well as an excellent educational resource for both informal and formal learning (with a wealth of government funded - and accredited - online learning initiativesm e.g. things like Lean Direct, here in the UK).
Don't wait to lift the bottom 0.01% up out of abject poverty in a western society before you start helping the rest of the bottom 10%. I've got lazy deadbeat relatives in my own family, and they have had all the same opportunities I've had (some more, in fact). Some people just can't be arsed and there is a limit to the patience of others in a reasonable society when it comes to dealing with them - it's not as if they are in a developing nation and have been denied the chance to improve their situations.
Some guy named ocaT rednammoC failed to publish it then. Said something about his cat being dead. Last seen walking backwards through red curtains on a checkerboard floor. My chances of understanding the science involved in this experiment are still greater than my chances of understanding what the hell was going in that show (funny, I thought it was checkerboard too...).
i did a lot of testing[ emphasis added - due skepticism displayed ] in my company that showed that creating large html forms from database content in php is 120% slower than in java. While the VM's used won't have identical performance in all areas, and neither will the database libraries, your claim does not count for a hill of beans, not least given the following:
ever tried to access an oracle db from php? not fun I don't find doing "./configure --with-oracle=/opt/path-to-oracle/" or indeed just copying a module across (if the hooks are already there) all that hard TBH.
in comparison to copying 1.jar file to the server accessing oracle from php is not quick. The only part that's any difference is having to install the Oracle libraries is if you are compiling support into PHP from scratch (i.e. with '--with-oracle='), otherwise it's still "just copy a file across".
If indeed you are building Oracle DB support from source, you'll have to use Oracle to install the libraries so you can link against them of course (the only extra step), but that requirement - and the fact that the installer is a complete PoS is of course entirely Oracle's fault. "apt-get install php5-mysql" (or indeed / "cd/usr/ports/databases/php5-mysql; make install") FTW.
Re:Does Vista have anything we need?
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Is Vista a Trap?
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· Score: 3, Informative
I'm no longer running it because it wasn't very stable (read: Vista and things like Media Center were not stable from a clean install, not the third party software drivers were unstable), but it's pretty good for games, at least it seems like it will be when driver support is there.
For example, I installed the Beta Nvidia drivers, which while giving me over all worse performance because of a lack of SLI support, did actually give a demonstrable and perceptible performance boost (as promised), even though the drivers were not file.
DirectX 10 is the thing that's likely to get me to upgrade again to it, hopefully by the time it's 'mainstream' a service pack or two will be out.
Well unless you purposely turned off Aero (which slows down Vista) and have some really bad hardware, this is simply not possible *snicker* Yeah, completely impossible, could never happen! I must be dreaming it.
Of course that goes for me and everyone else who's had problems with it (even on fresh installs, with supported drivers and without any third party software installed yet).
You do realize you can't rollback to XP Pro, so you mean your reinstalled XP Pro? Oh wait, I was taking you serious again. Apparently it didn't occur to you I have more than one hard disk.
So if you can show me OSX, BSD or Linux pushing 3D information over an Apple Remote or X11 session, I would love to see this. If you "would love to see this" just go and download it, it's not rocket science - works just fine on the pan European network I'm using here (e.g. for running the Netcool UI from a remote host).
The compositing and GL transforms are course obviously done locally and so performance wise it's no different to exporting a normal window with X as any fule kno.
On the flipside, they do hit you pretty hard for the (very) limited amount of hardware they sell to run OS X Server on. It's some pretty bog standard hardware certainly (nothing like a good high end multiple CPU UltraSPARC or Opteron system - only worth while if your software works in such as way that it can justify expenditure really) but it's not far off the list price of similarly spec'd system from the vendors companies would otherwise use (which is in most cases, HP - the DL360 being the most popular computer in the world, ever in terms of units shipped).
So ultimately, you are saving a bundle over using Windows (primarily, as the previous poster points out, because of the reduced licensing costs - though I would also point out how easy it is to manage in comparison, it's reeally simple).
Of course you could in theory save even more by using Dell and Linux/BSD (and in my case, this is what I would do), but issues surrounding TCO come into play there (i.e. if it's a small company who doesn't have at least one person on site all the time who's able to look after it, I'd lean towards recommending Mac OS X Server).
Anyone that has used Windows with an NT base like 2k/XP/Vista knows that 99% of the time you can still 'Close and sometimes Minimize/Move' a crashed application; and in Vista it is 100% of the time on all of the above.
C|N->K! Vista can't even manage to bring up the *task manager* half the time when an application freaks out (so much so, I've rolled my one Windows system back to XP Pro). Even without the eye candy on, it not stable. If if ever accidentally click "Windows Media Center" it would just up and die and prevent me from being able to quit it to regain control about 50% of the time, and that's from a fresh install (on a system with known, and solid components).
XP is a far more usable desktop with regard to stability alone (even once you've disabled all more 'unreliable' features in Vista).
Lets see you run a 3D application on any other Server OS or even Desktop OS 4,000 miles away with hardware acceleration and with a 3D UI with all the glitz. Sure, no problem! Do I get a cookie? You can spin the whole of one desktop on a cube too (rotating it to get the other virtual desktops), mmm pretty (and functional - with dynamic window translucency).
Now, let's see YOU use Windows to bring up another window (just the Window, not the whole desktop any OS can do that!) over a secure tunnel from another Windows desktop (so that the application appears to be running locally). Mmm challengy.
Meanwhile OSX and E17 demonstrate that you can put a glitzy interface on an OS that's quite suitable for server purposes You are kidding right? Have you ever even seen performance numbers comparing Windows 2003 server to OSX Server? While Mac OS X is not exactly the fastest Unix implementation on the planet, it's biggest limitation is the hardware you can run it on (officially) - it's SMP support, for example, is widely regarded as being pretty good. FYI both BSD and Linux will significantly out perform Windows 2003 on high end systems (think, Sun Fire 4600) if you are doing any actual work (anything mildly computationally expensive) on those platforms... and they probably won't be down as often (boom *tish*)!
Multi Core / Multiple CPU performance
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Groovy in Action
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· Score: 1
With all the new cores/gpus available and programming getting complex everyday, we do need much more optimized and easier to use languages.
I am a huge fan of easier to use (and more specifically, maintain), and more 'automatically optimized' languages.
I think Java's syntax (copied by everything from C# & VB.NET and PHP - you write eerily identical code in all four now) is actually pretty great, that doesn't much to do with the efficiency of the implementations though (when it comes to multi core systems). Sun's gcc-workalike C compiler is great for building software target to systems like T2000's, and making use of threads in things like Perl is fairly trivial (let alone something like Ruby) - it's not as if it's significantly easier in Java. In the case of web services apps (particularly with scripting languages), the web server (typically Apache) does much of the work too (at least, if you have designed your software appropriately!).
I don't know that Groovy has anything special to offer in this regard, again I don't see what it has over existing tools in respect to the issues you've raised. For the most part I expect many (not all, but a significant number at the very least) won't even really have a proper awareness of other ways they could be working or other established tools they could be using (frankly, I think because they are not engaged much in the field they have chosen to specialize in, and because most higher educational establishments - where most of them learned how to be code monkeys - don't bother to explore as part of a wider and more rounded curriculum).
All they know is "Java is best thing to use right, because everybody uses it?" and "Sun T2000 must be awesome because it has loads of cores.". Managers also often come to similar conclusions. Same deal with the man-on-the-street and the PS3 really (for not quite identical, but very similar, reasons). In truth, the T2000's, much like the PS3's, are still going to get spanked pretty much every time by less exotic decent (x86/x64) multi core system. I think there are parallels there with approaches to software development too.
In most real world enterprise scenarios an 8 CPU Sun Fire 4600 will spank a 32 CPU Sun Fire E20K. Forget the hype about 'cell processing' you might have read! Half the 'optimization' advice Sun give is around using different *zones* in multiple CPU systems (which is, basically, pointless and a rehash of the blade idea that has failed to catch on, because the cost of ownership isn't very good), and as I've said writing threaded/parallel software is nothing new. In by far the majority of cases, 16 fast (3.0 Ghz AMD) cores will beat 72 slower (crappy UltraSPARC) cores IME, and it's cheaper too.
IMO, write your software to scale horizontally, beware of "new shiny" snake oil and you are some way to being on the right track. Google's systems are a good example in this respect. The enterprise level stuff that most of us are writing on a day to day basis is pretty straight froward to both write in an entirely scalable fashion, it's just that some people manage to make an almighty mess of it and then convince themselves what they are doing is in some way uniquely difficult.
I had to laugh when I read some one having a go at games development programmer on a forum recently "What's the deal with you games programmers anyway? Why do you think what you are doing is so much harder than what other developers are doing?". I do not develop games for a living, but I have - and do - play around with games development for fun. It's several of orders of magnitude more difficult to do well. I just though "Man, these enterprise guys really have no idea how easy the work they are doing is.".
Re:Lets invent yet another language!
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Groovy in Action
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· Score: 1
What I DON'T understand is dismissing Groovy outright because you have no use for it.
In my defense, I'm not outright dismissing or attacking Groovy itself, I'm merely highly skeptical of the suppose benefits of the culture of 'lots of specialist niche languages/frameworks' as I personally feel the sheer number is more harmful than beneficial (certainly when teams decided implement particularly "niche" tools that their team happen to think are 'awesome', but that aren't widely known or supported).
This is intended not to target Groovy specifically, which may or may not be able to reasonably justify it's existance, but with regard to the sort of approach to development common people who often so strongly evangelise tools like Groovy ('glue' for Java software is such as huge 'hot topic' among a lot of Java EE developers - primarily as a kludge to fix the undue verbosity it can entail, which is an issue when you are just trying to some fairly simple stuff).
Which sounds great in theory (or if you have a time machine), but idealism doesn't meet deadlines very well.
I do completely understand where you are coming from (and confess to not perhaps entirely always practicing what I might be regarded as preaching, here - at least not as much as I try to:-). As you rightly say, you do have to meet deadlines (even when that means building dumb solutions to make up for other peoples inadequacies[1]).
As much as I like really do like Java, I've got to say (at the risk of repeating myself), if people didn't try and use it for what seems to be every single enterprise software project under the sun (no pun intended) their lives would be so much easier in the long run (and many things would get done faster, with less people - IMO). I don't think I have any sympathy when people make fundamentally bad decisions as serious as using entirely the wrong language, just because "it's popular" or "it's easier to get management on board with" (man is that one a huge risk area!).
[1] While there is such a thing as 'victim of circumstance' at least 9 times out of 10 I'd say it's demonstrable outright ineptitude on someone's part.:-)
Re:Lets invent yet another language!
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Groovy in Action
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· Score: 2, Insightful
That is a REALLY long post to write without knowing what you're talking about.
I think I know about developing software, YMMV. 8)
You talk about "this sort of thing" and "this sort of stuff", which shows pretty clearly that you haven't used Groovy.
It's just a collective term for systems and behaviours being advocated that I'd just described. What infers that I haven't used Groovy is my lack of descire for for Yet Another Programming Language / Framework (specifically, when those new languages frameworks are of very little value over what exists and is widely used already).
I don't use Groovy because I don't write enterprise software in Java. I do write enterprise software, and I've written a fair bit of stuff in Java (client software and server software), I just don't happen to specifically write enterprise software in Java, for much the same reason as some people evidently want to use glue like Groovy.
I don't create a senario where I have a problem that necessitates something like Groovy to glue my software together, which seems to be a better approach IMO.
Your comparison to... is REALLY missing the point
I rather think it's hitting the nail on the head.
I wouldn't be so proud of your 5-digit Slashdot ID if you don't take the time to know what you're talking about before going on a long rant.
You appear to be suggesting that not buying into to a specific bunch of hoopla means people don't know what they are talking about when it comes to developing software. I have heard that way to many times over the last 10 years (about $latestCoolThingAllThePopularKidsAreUsingNow).
Addendum: I would probably turn round and hassle the other people (be they internal, customers or vendors) to fix their broken system or write a specific class/classes in Java to fix the problem (e.g. load a specific class to extend the primary class to unmangle things) to try and keep the logic in one place (and also because I'm a huge fan of 'get other people to write non broken systems' approach, of course they always do, but that doesn't discourage me any in trying to get rid of it when I see it, I'm often a huge PITA in that respect - not that I mind working round things, but I like to make it clear when someone else has done something stupid and can't/won't fix it:-).
Your example actually reminds me of a similar example someone gave here recently (also a Java developer, who must have been using something very similar to Groovy, if not in fact Groovy itself). So while it's probably not something I would do, I wouldn't say 'never' (I can see the benefit, certainly if you can keep control of it and don't have wacky developers doing dubious things with it down the line:-).
Re:Lets invent yet another language!
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Groovy in Action
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· Score: 1
*snicker*
*hugs Java out of sympathy*
Re:Lets invent yet another language!
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Groovy in Action
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· Score: 1
Hey, thanks for that, that's actually a sane reply that illustrates it's usefulness with a meaningful example.
That usage definitely makes sense to me (and worse - is not entirely unfamiliar!:-).
Re:Lets invent yet another language!
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Groovy in Action
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· Score: 1
you are missing the point about so many things I am just tempted to say *Whooosh* and have done with it.
From your tone you sound like you think you are a good programmer and yet your opinions indicate that you have a real lack of experience. Given the level of inaccuracy of your first statement, you'll forgive me if I don't put much weight in your second.;-)
While I'm not an old man by any stretch actually I have quite a bit of experience (long enough to have a five digit/. UID in at least, which is far from impressively low but it's pre.com at least:-), and I get to design and develop some pretty interesting software (for a household name, for a customer base of millions). I'm pretty sure from my own experience and level of demand for work that I 'get it', I really do. YMMV, but I'm not liable to sweat it if you disagree, as I am pretty well valued and, I genuinely believe, have a solid view of my abilities and limitations.
If you are old and cynical stick with it and hope that there is enough work in whatever specfic thing you are good at until you retire. I don't think being able to write good software and having good fundamentals is "specific" just because I don't care for writing mundane Enterprise software. While those enveloped in it tend to think the modern world revolves entirely around Java[1], "agile methodology" the latest cool frameworks and the latest IDE that's popular with the 'in crowd', such comparatively little really interesting software is written that way.
I can only assume some people just have no aspirations above writing Java EE software (though I do know some very experienced developers that do it on contract for the money, even though they don't really buy in to the hoopla to the degree that many do). That doesn't excuse the level of religious fanaticism displayed about it though, especially when so many partaking in it have so little comparable experience of developing end products they are happy to point to and say "I did that!".
[1] Again, not a dig at Java itself. For the most part I like Java.
Lets invent yet another language!
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Groovy in Action
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· Score: 1, Troll
Caution: Mildly flamey (this is liable to really wind some people up, but I'm sure as many will agree:-)
I don't know where people get the idea that coming up with a new incrementally different languages and ever mote elaborate frameworks, when we have a large number of functional ones already is worthwhile endeavor (outside of academia and research labs). IME, "agile programmers" (the 'paired programming', 'what radical new methodology can we hop on board with this week' variety) are the worst offenders of this sort of thing.
Languages like C (in it's range of distinct flavors), Java, ASP, PHP, Perl, VB.NET are surely enough for what people are typically doing (which for the vast majority of developers basically, is the same old fairly simple stuff over and over again - web services, XML parsers, and database interfaces). It's simple stuff, my mind boggles at the thought of people *PAIRING* for this sort of thing. If you don't know how to write that sort of thing solidly and reliably WITHOUT pairing and unit testing, you probably shouldn't be writing software in the first place.
It's not that I'm against people trying things out and moving forward with new ideas.
For example: It's fair to say that mod_perl is less than ideal (read: pretty kludgy) and people have legitimate reasons for not liking PHP (though with PHP 5's OO support it's getting better) and they have issues with Smalltalk, and so I can see a case for people liking something like Ruby - so I'm not entirely against new languages that only have some fairly incremental improvements over others, as in some cases it's reasonably justifiable (even if I personally don't see the point in Ruby, I can see why other people do).
But this sort of thing? An "agile dynamic language for the Java Platform" to quote the first line of the blurb on it's homepage. To me, that sounds like someone who prefers playing buzzword bingo to just getting on and doing Real Work. From a brief description of it, I can see something of a case for it, or rather I could if people weren't coming up with a myriad of new similarly arguably-incrementally-more-useful-than-whats-gone -before-in-some-circumstances languages. I just don't think the effort involved in people getting to grips with it and having to support what ever is implemented in it is liable to be worth while.
When people implement this sort of stuff, they completely discount that developers who come after the people who write this sort of thing (and Java enterprise development is full of contractors - especially in the so-called 'agile' market) will have to look after the mess that gets created. I am highly skeptical that it's more beneficial to jump on the band wagon of some new language or framework rather than just hire developers who can write proficiently in a small number of common and widely supported languages (e.g. C, Java and Perl/PHP - or say C++/C#, VB.NET and ASP).
It seems these days a large proportion of new developers are primarily one trick Java poneys, with a fondness for frameworks of dubious merit and a lack of appreciation for basic OS fundamentals and established (and functional) scripting languages. Or am I just working in the wrong place? 8)
I didn't realise there was an alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pedohilia these days. There have been groups specifically targeted at post such images for over a decade (I say that because it's common practice for those of us that host widely used Usenet services to be asked to not carry them).
There are several quasi-governmental bodies (independent, but often part state funded, but with close relationships with law enforcement agencies) that maintain such lists and advise service providers accordingly. In regions with resident monopolies, this work is often done by the incumbent provider, who advise smaller service providers on best practice in this regard.
In find it interesting that now Java, C#, and OO PHP5 (which as recently gained some credibility in the "Enterprise" world by Sun throwing their weight behind it in rolling out a Apache+PHP+MySQL - what they are calling an AMP stack) all have the very much the same syntax.
I think it's turned out to be a nice syntax for writing easily maintinable / clear code that people are broadly happy with. It nice not having to deal with wildly differnt syntax when changing languages.
1) Yes, but this contrary to what's being suggested and most people already have those (you seem to have missed the point there).
2) We can all be certain it will cost each tax payer a lot more than 30 GBP every few years (incidentally, that is the quoted figure and is more like 45 Euro than 20, FYI). Any price you pay up front will cover the production of the cards at best, not the backend infrastructure or the development, which is sure to be an enormous disaster with costs that spiral out of control. That is if pretty much every other government IT project is anything to go by. The NHS computer system, various Police and Home Office systems spring to mind. They can't use the information they already have correctly.
3) Yes, they do have huge databases already and as we have seen amazingly they don't know how to use them, let alone cross reference the data in them (as recent scandals have shown). What they should be doing is building XML interfaces that can talk to multiple existing SQL databases. Collecting the same information AGAIN, but indexing it by a different key (say, one linked to the ID on your new "ID card", instead of the one on your "old school" National Insurance card) won't help them use it any better. It will just cost lots of money and be of very little benefit because they will not have the faintest idea how to use the database.
This is the same government that had the Home Office spend months (over a year, IIRC) launch an investigation into how two different Home Office databases could be crossed referenced, and ended the investigation with a conclusion that "it wasn't possible". People on the sex offenders register were being employed by schools. Criminals from overseas were being set free, and paid benefits on release, instead of being deported. They don't have the first idea what they are doing when it comes to information management.
4) See the above for reasons why it's highly unlikely to work (though is stuff I'd expect any UK citizen who pays any attention to the news to have been aware of). The onus is on the government to prove overwhelmingly and beyond reasonable doubt that it would be useful, before spending tax payers money on this sort of folly. This is especially true given the governments very poor track record when it comes to this sort of project, and the fundamental lack of understanding of the technology which they continue to display.
5)Yes, let's just take a moment look at the other European countries that have compulsory ID cards shall we? Hmm, lets see... Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece. Oh look, what a surprise! Belgium and Luxembourg (other architects of the "unified" Europe) are also in the club, again no big surprises there. Personally I'd rather be in the club with Norway, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, the USA in saying "Nein!" to compulsory ID.
As a further reason, it is of note that most governments don't take on huge IT projects that they can't handle, the way the UK government does. For example, they set out to spend 6.2 billion pounds on a new NHS computer system. At that price, it should be an "insanely great" system. It should be able to bend the laws of space and time, make tea ("Earl Grey, hot") and do the washing up. Alas, even after all they had one was to award contracts (to known pocket-stuffing weasels like Accenture) the government came out and said it is expected to overrun and will actually cost at least 20 to 30 billion. Little surprise too that the NHS is the biggest employer in Europe (larger than any other organization - state run or private company).
Letting the government get it's hands on any more money before they have proven they can look after it responsibly is alone reason enough to reject the government proposal for a new system (which in any case does little more than they could do already, if the understood how to use the data they had).
Copyright prevents that, not the GPL. You be in breach of copyright and the GNU Public License if you tried to sell (or give away) a re-branded Red Hat Linux as your own work. Technically selling it without the source-code is not in breach of the GPL, but refusing to provide on requests to anyone who you'd given the software would be.
Up until relatively recently in it's history, most of what Red Hat was doing - e.g. things like the installer - were released under the GPL anyway (this may still be the case). In which case you can still re-sell it without breaching copyright as long as you don't use their name or logo's or assert ownership.
You've obviously never had to wade through the quagmire that is socialized medicine. Where emergency rooms visits can take 7 hours of waiting before a doctor sees you.
For sure, most socialised healthcare systems have long waiting lists (unless say, you've just lost a body part) and are not the most efficient systems. This is true even for many serious or life-quality effecting conditions. You can still go private though, if you want better treatment for less-than-life-threating problems.
I went in with a bad back (non emergency, but really fucked it up badly the previous weekend to the extent I physically couldn't walk for 24 hours) to a central London hospital not long ago, waited 10 min and was seen by a Doctor, who did an exam, gave me some advice and I was on my way. No worry about 'can I afford it this month' or 'will it put my premium up'. Followed it up with some inexpensive private Chiropractic treatment to get long term treatment.
More worryingly, if I was to contract a serious terminal illness (like say, Cancer) with a socialist healthcare system you will at least get treatment, often quite good treatment at that (particularly if it's a common form of Cancer). Under the halthcare system in the US, if you get a terminal illness like Cancer and it's not covered by your insurance (which, even when it is, it is only for a set time frame, after which the insurance fund runs out) then you are out of luck.
In the US, if you have no insurance (or cash) all the local hospitals are obliged to do is make you comfortable in the final stages. The drugs can cost hundreds of USD a week and even though you might stand a good chance of recovery if you had them, if you don't have money, you won't get them and you'll be left for the condition to take it's course (which frankly, is barbaric IMO). People who are hit by illnesses for which they are not covered (typically, extended periods of illness) can end up having to sell their homes and live in trailer parks, just to have the money to pay for the drugs they need to keep them alive. Assuming they own their own house (i.e. they arn't already living in a trailer park in somewhere like New Orleans).
That's why I think the "Governators" proposal of a 'third way' - legally mandated medical insurance - where they state pay it for you, if you can't pay for it yourself - is an excellent idea.
People's health should not take second place to penny pinching on government spending. While I'm in favor of an interventionist policy and a strong armed forces, when it comes to spending on public healthcare I'm reminded of the Paul Weller's line that it's "kidney machines that pay for rockets and guns" from Going Underground (with reference to government spending priorities).
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This seems pretty cool, as it doesn't require anything floating on the surface to be able to work.
However (and without disregarding the significance of this system), GPS systems designed for use underwater that work in a similar way have been in use by divers and submarines for years, the exception being they rely on a buoy floating above to get it's position from GPS (and then, I believe, calculate the depth/angle from the buoy - which itself is able to get it's own position using GPS for a fairly accurate reading that is trustworthy).
It seems possible even a small buoy floated - even a small one designed to be very difficult to detect - could in theory give away a that a sub was in the area, if it was spotted during the presumably brief period during which it was being floated to take a reading. However, I'm inclined to think the likelyhood of that being a real problem is fairly small and it's not worth giving up the convenience of being able to do that - not forgetting the same approach also allows you to fit a receiver to it that is able to perform other functions like receiving a high bandwith data transmission.
The alternative approach that would be required by the system described in this parent would seem to involve the navy having to go around planting somewhat less transient transmitters on the ocean wherever they are operating in the world - which seems like even more of a giveaway. It also seems they will in any case need to take a reading from the surface before they plant the underwater base station, so while once established in a warzone it could be quite useful for the period the submarine was engaged in operations, you'd need to go and plant it the area in the first place, and presumably it would be fairly easy for the enemy to find and disable - or even just move it and really cause trouble...
Though I don't know what the range is, perhaps it could remain well out of harms way - from a brief reading it seems to outline one method that works over a not-so-useful 10 km, but mentions another that apparently gives accurate readings over thousands of km.
So while it's a neat idea, current technology (float a buoy with a small GPS receiver in it every now and then, maybe do a data transmission at the same time - and have the ability to that from anywhere in the world without having a base station already set up in the area) doesn't seem in need of a pressing replacement.
I should add while I know commercial industry does this (and it's used by divers), but I don't know if military submarines actually use this approach, though I can't see any unsurmountable justification that would prevent them from doing so.
This is an interesting point.
I've just been playing Crackdown for about 4 hours (I just bought it tonight, and not used the X-Box in weeks). I did notice two ads, one for a car and one for a drink. The car advert was indistinct and I actually tried to read it, but I couldn't make out what it was for. The other was for some sort of energy drink I think, I assumed it was actually a fake advert designed to fit in with the urban setting (I remember it as I was using it as a ledge to climb up to get up to the roof of a building), needless to say I didn't think they were distracting.
I did notice and remember the Nokia adverts in GRAW though, but again it's an urban setting so they didn't look out of place - though IMO they were too 'clean' and too prominent, in that they were not placed in a particularly realistic way (they were placed, somewhat unnaturally at times, directly in view of the player - like bad product placement on TV). I don't think it made me more likely to buy a Nokia in future though (I'm always just going to go for the phone I most like the functionality of).
Some adverts are actually pretty effective even when you don't notice them, in fact, this is exactly what some adverts genuinely aim to do - to go by without being consciously recognized (I not not making up crazy paranoid stuff , though I don't know of any online references for this I can point to, it is one approach specifically used in the advertising industry to market some products, particularly things like 'unexciting' household products, so that the brand sinks in to the public consciousness).
Outside things like contemporary urban environments and sports titles I think adverts in games are going to struggle for the most part. Adverts for "Fanta" and "Deuce Bigalow" in the science fiction MMOFPS PlanetSide met with huge opposition and were just plain stupid in context (Billboards for soft drinks in a futuristic warzone on an alien planet? Que?!). Many PlanetSide players objected because not only had they paid for the game up front, but they were still paying a monthly fee too - and yet even though the product was not yet end-of-life, Sony were willing to introduce ads into it too to try and make even more money on top of subscriptions.
Interestingly enough, product placement of this sort is illegal in the UK on TV IIRC (this is enforced by the regulator Ofcom), though I don't know the details. You used to (and sometimes still do) see brand names on drinks/etc. in TV shows blurred out if they were paid adverts (not if a product is shown incidentally in context, but for example if a character in a soap has clearly been asked to hold a beer bottle in an artificial way so that the label is clearly visible to the camera). There are new regulations coming into force here about what sort of advertising can be targeted at shows children are likely to be watching (this has lead to Domino's Pizza stopping it's long standing The Simpsons sponsorship here). I don't think the UK is alone in Europe with regard to this sort of policy - I wouldn't be surprised to see some legislation governing adverts that can be shown in video games in the next 5-10 years.
See, three posts in and already people are making with the Star Wars jokes.
I know some people think of something like a TV as a luxury, but at a 30 USD value, it's not as if a cheap old TV is a grand luxury we ought to be grudge people - especially when you bear in mind how much it's likely to be of value to someone who can't afford other entertainments. It's fair to say they could just go to the library and get some books, but being poor and reading for pleasure are not things than tend to go hand in hand, so for better or worse, you may as well give them a cheap TV than a library card they will never use.
And so, TV's are provided to the poor: single parents with children, those relocating due to domestic abuse, and those coming out of prison to set them up in a new home by local government. Typically furniture given out in this way is collected by donation. I think a computer and internet access is at least as useful as TV.
If you don't think a computer or internet access is important, I think you might be missing the revolution that's happening around you. It's changed the way I bank, pay bills, buy food, buy clothes, buy music, the way I keep in touch with friends and family, the way I work, the way I learn and the way I play. It is beneficial to me socially and economically.
Just because some people don't need it, or don't see how it could be beneficial to them is no reason not to provided it to those who could so easily benefit from it (especially when they are the most in need of any assistance they can get).
Internet access to young families and the poor is potentially very useful to them, and all the more meaningful because of their circumstances (by which I mean they stand to benefit the most from free access). Added to which, they are the least likely of consumers to spend money on something like 'internet access' in the first place because they are spending what money they do have on immediate needs like food and clothing.
Internet access opens up the means get cheaper goods and services (they can price compare, order good online for less than retail, etc), as well as an excellent educational resource for both informal and formal learning (with a wealth of government funded - and accredited - online learning initiativesm e.g. things like Lean Direct, here in the UK).
Don't wait to lift the bottom 0.01% up out of abject poverty in a western society before you start helping the rest of the bottom 10%. I've got lazy deadbeat relatives in my own family, and they have had all the same opportunities I've had (some more, in fact). Some people just can't be arsed and there is a limit to the patience of others in a reasonable society when it comes to dealing with them - it's not as if they are in a developing nation and have been denied the chance to improve their situations.
If indeed you are building Oracle DB support from source, you'll have to use Oracle to install the libraries so you can link against them of course (the only extra step), but that requirement - and the fact that the installer is a complete PoS is of course entirely Oracle's fault. "apt-get install php5-mysql" (or indeed / "cd
I'm no longer running it because it wasn't very stable (read: Vista and things like Media Center were not stable from a clean install, not the third party software drivers were unstable), but it's pretty good for games, at least it seems like it will be when driver support is there.
For example, I installed the Beta Nvidia drivers, which while giving me over all worse performance because of a lack of SLI support, did actually give a demonstrable and perceptible performance boost (as promised), even though the drivers were not file.
DirectX 10 is the thing that's likely to get me to upgrade again to it, hopefully by the time it's 'mainstream' a service pack or two will be out.
Of course that goes for me and everyone else who's had problems with it (even on fresh installs, with supported drivers and without any third party software installed yet). You do realize you can't rollback to XP Pro, so you mean your reinstalled XP Pro? Oh wait, I was taking you serious again. Apparently it didn't occur to you I have more than one hard disk. So if you can show me OSX, BSD or Linux pushing 3D information over an Apple Remote or X11 session, I would love to see this. If you "would love to see this" just go and download it, it's not rocket science - works just fine on the pan European network I'm using here (e.g. for running the Netcool UI from a remote host).
The compositing and GL transforms are course obviously done locally and so performance wise it's no different to exporting a normal window with X as any fule kno.
So ultimately, you are saving a bundle over using Windows (primarily, as the previous poster points out, because of the reduced licensing costs - though I would also point out how easy it is to manage in comparison, it's reeally simple).
Of course you could in theory save even more by using Dell and Linux/BSD (and in my case, this is what I would do), but issues surrounding TCO come into play there (i.e. if it's a small company who doesn't have at least one person on site all the time who's able to look after it, I'd lean towards recommending Mac OS X Server).
C|N->K! Vista can't even manage to bring up the *task manager* half the time when an application freaks out (so much so, I've rolled my one Windows system back to XP Pro). Even without the eye candy on, it not stable. If if ever accidentally click "Windows Media Center" it would just up and die and prevent me from being able to quit it to regain control about 50% of the time, and that's from a fresh install (on a system with known, and solid components).
XP is a far more usable desktop with regard to stability alone (even once you've disabled all more 'unreliable' features in Vista). Lets see you run a 3D application on any other Server OS or even Desktop OS 4,000 miles away with hardware acceleration and with a 3D UI with all the glitz. Sure, no problem! Do I get a cookie? You can spin the whole of one desktop on a cube too (rotating it to get the other virtual desktops), mmm pretty (and functional - with dynamic window translucency).
Now, let's see YOU use Windows to bring up another window (just the Window, not the whole desktop any OS can do that!) over a secure tunnel from another Windows desktop (so that the application appears to be running locally). Mmm challengy. Meanwhile OSX and E17 demonstrate that you can put a glitzy interface on an OS that's quite suitable for server purposes You are kidding right? Have you ever even seen performance numbers comparing Windows 2003 server to OSX Server? While Mac OS X is not exactly the fastest Unix implementation on the planet, it's biggest limitation is the hardware you can run it on (officially) - it's SMP support, for example, is widely regarded as being pretty good. FYI both BSD and Linux will significantly out perform Windows 2003 on high end systems (think, Sun Fire 4600) if you are doing any actual work (anything mildly computationally expensive) on those platforms
With all the new cores/gpus available and programming getting complex everyday, we do need much more optimized and easier to use languages.
I am a huge fan of easier to use (and more specifically, maintain), and more 'automatically optimized' languages.
I think Java's syntax (copied by everything from C# & VB.NET and PHP - you write eerily identical code in all four now) is actually pretty great, that doesn't much to do with the efficiency of the implementations though (when it comes to multi core systems). Sun's gcc-workalike C compiler is great for building software target to systems like T2000's, and making use of threads in things like Perl is fairly trivial (let alone something like Ruby) - it's not as if it's significantly easier in Java. In the case of web services apps (particularly with scripting languages), the web server (typically Apache) does much of the work too (at least, if you have designed your software appropriately!).
I don't know that Groovy has anything special to offer in this regard, again I don't see what it has over existing tools in respect to the issues you've raised. For the most part I expect many (not all, but a significant number at the very least) won't even really have a proper awareness of other ways they could be working or other established tools they could be using (frankly, I think because they are not engaged much in the field they have chosen to specialize in, and because most higher educational establishments - where most of them learned how to be code monkeys - don't bother to explore as part of a wider and more rounded curriculum).
All they know is "Java is best thing to use right, because everybody uses it?" and "Sun T2000 must be awesome because it has loads of cores.". Managers also often come to similar conclusions. Same deal with the man-on-the-street and the PS3 really (for not quite identical, but very similar, reasons). In truth, the T2000's, much like the PS3's, are still going to get spanked pretty much every time by less exotic decent (x86/x64) multi core system. I think there are parallels there with approaches to software development too.
In most real world enterprise scenarios an 8 CPU Sun Fire 4600 will spank a 32 CPU Sun Fire E20K. Forget the hype about 'cell processing' you might have read! Half the 'optimization' advice Sun give is around using different *zones* in multiple CPU systems (which is, basically, pointless and a rehash of the blade idea that has failed to catch on, because the cost of ownership isn't very good), and as I've said writing threaded/parallel software is nothing new. In by far the majority of cases, 16 fast (3.0 Ghz AMD) cores will beat 72 slower (crappy UltraSPARC) cores IME, and it's cheaper too.
IMO, write your software to scale horizontally, beware of "new shiny" snake oil and you are some way to being on the right track. Google's systems are a good example in this respect. The enterprise level stuff that most of us are writing on a day to day basis is pretty straight froward to both write in an entirely scalable fashion, it's just that some people manage to make an almighty mess of it and then convince themselves what they are doing is in some way uniquely difficult.
I had to laugh when I read some one having a go at games development programmer on a forum recently "What's the deal with you games programmers anyway? Why do you think what you are doing is so much harder than what other developers are doing?". I do not develop games for a living, but I have - and do - play around with games development for fun. It's several of orders of magnitude more difficult to do well. I just though "Man, these enterprise guys really have no idea how easy the work they are doing is.".
What I DON'T understand is dismissing Groovy outright because you have no use for it.
:-). As you rightly say, you do have to meet deadlines (even when that means building dumb solutions to make up for other peoples inadequacies[1]).
:-)
In my defense, I'm not outright dismissing or attacking Groovy itself, I'm merely highly skeptical of the suppose benefits of the culture of 'lots of specialist niche languages/frameworks' as I personally feel the sheer number is more harmful than beneficial (certainly when teams decided implement particularly "niche" tools that their team happen to think are 'awesome', but that aren't widely known or supported).
This is intended not to target Groovy specifically, which may or may not be able to reasonably justify it's existance, but with regard to the sort of approach to development common people who often so strongly evangelise tools like Groovy ('glue' for Java software is such as huge 'hot topic' among a lot of Java EE developers - primarily as a kludge to fix the undue verbosity it can entail, which is an issue when you are just trying to some fairly simple stuff).
Which sounds great in theory (or if you have a time machine), but idealism doesn't meet deadlines very well.
I do completely understand where you are coming from (and confess to not perhaps entirely always practicing what I might be regarded as preaching, here - at least not as much as I try to
As much as I like really do like Java, I've got to say (at the risk of repeating myself), if people didn't try and use it for what seems to be every single enterprise software project under the sun (no pun intended) their lives would be so much easier in the long run (and many things would get done faster, with less people - IMO). I don't think I have any sympathy when people make fundamentally bad decisions as serious as using entirely the wrong language, just because "it's popular" or "it's easier to get management on board with" (man is that one a huge risk area!).
[1] While there is such a thing as 'victim of circumstance' at least 9 times out of 10 I'd say it's demonstrable outright ineptitude on someone's part.
That is a REALLY long post to write without knowing what you're talking about.
... is REALLY missing the point
I think I know about developing software, YMMV. 8)
You talk about "this sort of thing" and "this sort of stuff", which shows pretty clearly that you haven't used Groovy.
It's just a collective term for systems and behaviours being advocated that I'd just described. What infers that I haven't used Groovy is my lack of descire for for Yet Another Programming Language / Framework (specifically, when those new languages frameworks are of very little value over what exists and is widely used already).
I don't use Groovy because I don't write enterprise software in Java. I do write enterprise software, and I've written a fair bit of stuff in Java (client software and server software), I just don't happen to specifically write enterprise software in Java, for much the same reason as some people evidently want to use glue like Groovy.
I don't create a senario where I have a problem that necessitates something like Groovy to glue my software together, which seems to be a better approach IMO.
Your comparison to
I rather think it's hitting the nail on the head.
I wouldn't be so proud of your 5-digit Slashdot ID if you don't take the time to know what you're talking about before going on a long rant.
You appear to be suggesting that not buying into to a specific bunch of hoopla means people don't know what they are talking about when it comes to developing software. I have heard that way to many times over the last 10 years (about $latestCoolThingAllThePopularKidsAreUsingNow).
Addendum: I would probably turn round and hassle the other people (be they internal, customers or vendors) to fix their broken system or write a specific class/classes in Java to fix the problem (e.g. load a specific class to extend the primary class to unmangle things) to try and keep the logic in one place (and also because I'm a huge fan of 'get other people to write non broken systems' approach, of course they always do, but that doesn't discourage me any in trying to get rid of it when I see it, I'm often a huge PITA in that respect - not that I mind working round things, but I like to make it clear when someone else has done something stupid and can't/won't fix it :-).
:-).
Your example actually reminds me of a similar example someone gave here recently (also a Java developer, who must have been using something very similar to Groovy, if not in fact Groovy itself). So while it's probably not something I would do, I wouldn't say 'never' (I can see the benefit, certainly if you can keep control of it and don't have wacky developers doing dubious things with it down the line
*snicker*
*hugs Java out of sympathy*
Hey, thanks for that, that's actually a sane reply that illustrates it's usefulness with a meaningful example.
That usage definitely makes sense to me (and worse - is not entirely unfamiliar!
From your tone you sound like you think you are a good programmer and yet your opinions indicate that you have a real lack of experience. Given the level of inaccuracy of your first statement, you'll forgive me if I don't put much weight in your second.
While I'm not an old man by any stretch actually I have quite a bit of experience (long enough to have a five digit
I can only assume some people just have no aspirations above writing Java EE software (though I do know some very experienced developers that do it on contract for the money, even though they don't really buy in to the hoopla to the degree that many do). That doesn't excuse the level of religious fanaticism displayed about it though, especially when so many partaking in it have so little comparable experience of developing end products they are happy to point to and say "I did that!".
[1] Again, not a dig at Java itself. For the most part I like Java.
Caution: Mildly flamey (this is liable to really wind some people up, but I'm sure as many will agree :-)
e -before-in-some-circumstances languages. I just don't think the effort involved in people getting to grips with it and having to support what ever is implemented in it is liable to be worth while.
I don't know where people get the idea that coming up with a new incrementally different languages and ever mote elaborate frameworks, when we have a large number of functional ones already is worthwhile endeavor (outside of academia and research labs). IME, "agile programmers" (the 'paired programming', 'what radical new methodology can we hop on board with this week' variety) are the worst offenders of this sort of thing.
Languages like C (in it's range of distinct flavors), Java, ASP, PHP, Perl, VB.NET are surely enough for what people are typically doing (which for the vast majority of developers basically, is the same old fairly simple stuff over and over again - web services, XML parsers, and database interfaces). It's simple stuff, my mind boggles at the thought of people *PAIRING* for this sort of thing. If you don't know how to write that sort of thing solidly and reliably WITHOUT pairing and unit testing, you probably shouldn't be writing software in the first place.
It's not that I'm against people trying things out and moving forward with new ideas.
For example: It's fair to say that mod_perl is less than ideal (read: pretty kludgy) and people have legitimate reasons for not liking PHP (though with PHP 5's OO support it's getting better) and they have issues with Smalltalk, and so I can see a case for people liking something like Ruby - so I'm not entirely against new languages that only have some fairly incremental improvements over others, as in some cases it's reasonably justifiable (even if I personally don't see the point in Ruby, I can see why other people do).
But this sort of thing? An "agile dynamic language for the Java Platform" to quote the first line of the blurb on it's homepage. To me, that sounds like someone who prefers playing buzzword bingo to just getting on and doing Real Work. From a brief description of it, I can see something of a case for it, or rather I could if people weren't coming up with a myriad of new similarly arguably-incrementally-more-useful-than-whats-gon
When people implement this sort of stuff, they completely discount that developers who come after the people who write this sort of thing (and Java enterprise development is full of contractors - especially in the so-called 'agile' market) will have to look after the mess that gets created. I am highly skeptical that it's more beneficial to jump on the band wagon of some new language or framework rather than just hire developers who can write proficiently in a small number of common and widely supported languages (e.g. C, Java and Perl/PHP - or say C++/C#, VB.NET and ASP).
It seems these days a large proportion of new developers are primarily one trick Java poneys, with a fondness for frameworks of dubious merit and a lack of appreciation for basic OS fundamentals and established (and functional) scripting languages. Or am I just working in the wrong place? 8)
There are several quasi-governmental bodies (independent, but often part state funded, but with close relationships with law enforcement agencies) that maintain such lists and advise service providers accordingly. In regions with resident monopolies, this work is often done by the incumbent provider, who advise smaller service providers on best practice in this regard.
In find it interesting that now Java, C#, and OO PHP5 (which as recently gained some credibility in the "Enterprise" world by Sun throwing their weight behind it in rolling out a Apache+PHP+MySQL - what they are calling an AMP stack) all have the very much the same syntax.
I think it's turned out to be a nice syntax for writing easily maintinable / clear code that people are broadly happy with. It nice not having to deal with wildly differnt syntax when changing languages.
1) Yes, but this contrary to what's being suggested and most people already have those (you seem to have missed the point there).
... Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece. Oh look, what a surprise! Belgium and Luxembourg (other architects of the "unified" Europe) are also in the club, again no big surprises there. Personally I'd rather be in the club with Norway, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, the USA in saying "Nein!" to compulsory ID.
2) We can all be certain it will cost each tax payer a lot more than 30 GBP every few years (incidentally, that is the quoted figure and is more like 45 Euro than 20, FYI). Any price you pay up front will cover the production of the cards at best, not the backend infrastructure or the development, which is sure to be an enormous disaster with costs that spiral out of control. That is if pretty much every other government IT project is anything to go by. The NHS computer system, various Police and Home Office systems spring to mind. They can't use the information they already have correctly.
3) Yes, they do have huge databases already and as we have seen amazingly they don't know how to use them, let alone cross reference the data in them (as recent scandals have shown). What they should be doing is building XML interfaces that can talk to multiple existing SQL databases. Collecting the same information AGAIN, but indexing it by a different key (say, one linked to the ID on your new "ID card", instead of the one on your "old school" National Insurance card) won't help them use it any better. It will just cost lots of money and be of very little benefit because they will not have the faintest idea how to use the database.
This is the same government that had the Home Office spend months (over a year, IIRC) launch an investigation into how two different Home Office databases could be crossed referenced, and ended the investigation with a conclusion that "it wasn't possible". People on the sex offenders register were being employed by schools. Criminals from overseas were being set free, and paid benefits on release, instead of being deported. They don't have the first idea what they are doing when it comes to information management.
4) See the above for reasons why it's highly unlikely to work (though is stuff I'd expect any UK citizen who pays any attention to the news to have been aware of). The onus is on the government to prove overwhelmingly and beyond reasonable doubt that it would be useful, before spending tax payers money on this sort of folly. This is especially true given the governments very poor track record when it comes to this sort of project, and the fundamental lack of understanding of the technology which they continue to display.
5)Yes, let's just take a moment look at the other European countries that have compulsory ID cards shall we? Hmm, lets see
As a further reason, it is of note that most governments don't take on huge IT projects that they can't handle, the way the UK government does. For example, they set out to spend 6.2 billion pounds on a new NHS computer system. At that price, it should be an "insanely great" system. It should be able to bend the laws of space and time, make tea ("Earl Grey, hot") and do the washing up. Alas, even after all they had one was to award contracts (to known pocket-stuffing weasels like Accenture) the government came out and said it is expected to overrun and will actually cost at least 20 to 30 billion. Little surprise too that the NHS is the biggest employer in Europe (larger than any other organization - state run or private company).
Letting the government get it's hands on any more money before they have proven they can look after it responsibly is alone reason enough to reject the government proposal for a new system (which in any case does little more than they could do already, if the understood how to use the data they had).
Up until relatively recently in it's history, most of what Red Hat was doing - e.g. things like the installer - were released under the GPL anyway (this may still be the case). In which case you can still re-sell it without breaching copyright as long as you don't use their name or logo's or assert ownership.
You've obviously never had to wade through the quagmire that is socialized medicine. Where emergency rooms visits can take 7 hours of waiting before a doctor sees you.
For sure, most socialised healthcare systems have long waiting lists (unless say, you've just lost a body part) and are not the most efficient systems. This is true even for many serious or life-quality effecting conditions. You can still go private though, if you want better treatment for less-than-life-threating problems.
I went in with a bad back (non emergency, but really fucked it up badly the previous weekend to the extent I physically couldn't walk for 24 hours) to a central London hospital not long ago, waited 10 min and was seen by a Doctor, who did an exam, gave me some advice and I was on my way. No worry about 'can I afford it this month' or 'will it put my premium up'. Followed it up with some inexpensive private Chiropractic treatment to get long term treatment.
More worryingly, if I was to contract a serious terminal illness (like say, Cancer) with a socialist healthcare system you will at least get treatment, often quite good treatment at that (particularly if it's a common form of Cancer). Under the halthcare system in the US, if you get a terminal illness like Cancer and it's not covered by your insurance (which, even when it is, it is only for a set time frame, after which the insurance fund runs out) then you are out of luck.
In the US, if you have no insurance (or cash) all the local hospitals are obliged to do is make you comfortable in the final stages. The drugs can cost hundreds of USD a week and even though you might stand a good chance of recovery if you had them, if you don't have money, you won't get them and you'll be left for the condition to take it's course (which frankly, is barbaric IMO). People who are hit by illnesses for which they are not covered (typically, extended periods of illness) can end up having to sell their homes and live in trailer parks, just to have the money to pay for the drugs they need to keep them alive. Assuming they own their own house (i.e. they arn't already living in a trailer park in somewhere like New Orleans).
That's why I think the "Governators" proposal of a 'third way' - legally mandated medical insurance - where they state pay it for you, if you can't pay for it yourself - is an excellent idea.
People's health should not take second place to penny pinching on government spending. While I'm in favor of an interventionist policy and a strong armed forces, when it comes to spending on public healthcare I'm reminded of the Paul Weller's line that it's "kidney machines that pay for rockets and guns" from Going Underground (with reference to government spending priorities).
You could try playing sports in RL, the graphics are much higher resolution.
Higher resolution yes, but not usually better looking!