My wife loves scrabble and we have played every version hasbro has released on CD. ABSOLUTELY ABYSMAL. Hasbro has managed to get an ok game but the network play is FUCKING ABSOLUTELY HORRENDUS. And thats putting it midly.
I'm surprised that your wife plays Scrabble only on-line. Has she ever tried it as a board game? It's actually pretty good. My wife and I play it from time to time and it's very social. More so than online gaming certainly.
I think Hasbro has done the typical thing here. I also think they've made the same mistake. But most people won't care.
Would this have been reasonable: require escrabble to provide a banner ad (top) on each page for hasbro products or hasbro scrabble.
There doesn't seem to be much symbiosis in corporations these days. At least not in American markets.
The last thing you can do as a proposed solution is to introduce another layer of complexity to the process of package release management to Debian. What I am hoping to contribute to this whole discussion is some experience with the Debian packages and the other distribution package/release processes.
In order for Debian to release anything it has to pass through three levels of testing an confirmation: Unstable, Testing, Stable. But technically that's wrong since they've also introduced Experimental to the process.
The problem with all the proposals to bring in additional layers and variations to the Debian release architecture is that they add more conditions that have to be met in order to reach the final Stable version. And the bitch that everyone has against Debian is that it takes forever to reach a Stable release.
At each level (Unstable, Testing, Stable) you end up hinging pachages upon dependencies of other packages. With 16,000+ packages out there, running into dependencies is relatively common. When you end up with a dependency that hangs a segment of the release tree, it can take quite some time for that final dependency or combination of dependencies to clear a release branch. For example, perl 5.8 took a very long time to reach Testing. If you were to add another layer of release cycle to the process, you will only serve to delay reaching the Stable architecture.
Using this example, the effective outcome of adding another architectural layer to the process is this: It takes even longer for a package to reach Stable, making it even less likely that someone will use it, even for a server.
The net outcome is that your efforts to better Debian has made it only worse.
And regarding the arguement that there should should be a Workstation and a Server platform in parallel to each other, who is going to be the arbitrator of what constitutes packages for a Server and packages for a Workstation?
Creating a delineation between the two necessitates two classes of users, Administrators and Users. Linux doesn't have to work like that. If you believe that is should work like that, then I would prefer to see you choose a different distribution that supports this abitration of packages belonging to Workstations, Servers, Enterprise, and whatever.
One of the finest qualities that Debian has, in my opinion, is that there is no discrimination between the Server and Client user installations and they have what I believe is the finest release architecture designed and in practice to date, Open Source or Private.
When the discussion starts up on a place like Slashdot that someone needs to make Debian better by adding release variations to the process, I say to them that they need to better examine the performance of Debian and better understand what works and what does not work in Debian and use that information to cite your evidence supporting your proposals to fix Debian by adding variations to support.
So what does a stable release of 2002 really mean? Not much. At least it works.
My reason for sticking with Debian was because of their sane release cycles. It is based on 'Release when Ready' not because of some calendar hype. This is one of the core values of Debian. Please don't fuck it up unless you want to look and smell just like any other distro out there.
I guess the real questions should be along the lines of, what currently prevents debian from releasing faster and what can be done to address those specifics? I think the architecture is the only consistent tangible I've heard of.
Adding another branch to manage would only make things slower. The last thing Debian needs is more branches to the process.
Before you recommend this, why don't you prove that the current system does not work and then identify why it doesn't actually work. This is an arbitrary statement not based on fact.
I do agree with the suggestion to drop many of the hardware branches in Debian or at least put them all onto their own release cycles and then lockstep only the best four (arbitrary number) and let the rest die off by attrition. There is evidence that some delays come from coordinating architecture. There is also evidence that this is not the only problem but coordinating so many packages is hard.
To put it into perspective. At work I still use Windows 2000 and at my previous job I used Windows NT 4 up to the year 2000 when I switched.
I for one am very glad that Debian does not take your advice. The differences between Enterprise, Personal, Exxtreme are arbitrary and subject to interpretation by the user and mardetroids.
My desktop might be your extreme. Who are you to tell me what my installation is?
Yeah, and I shouldn't have to work for a living. I'm sorry, I didn't make the rules, I just play by them because I don't want to starve to death.
OK, you have a point and I didn't express that very well.
But what I found insightful to this post wasn't the issue of the the developers, but the risk that MSFT is putting themselves into here.
They are taking some of their very dedicated developers and forcing them into a position of choosing a new language. Today there might be an increased risk that they will reconsider their developing platform and move away from MSFT entirely. This might be as simple as Java on Windows or worse.
Sun will only open source enough to hedge their bets against eroding their market foothold. And not a penny more.
Their stock sucks. From a Wall Street point of view, they are not a very healthy company. They are trying very hard to sell and re-sell themselves as a capable Enterprise solution for corporations. But it's getting harder to do.
At the high end, they are being eroded by the other high end hardware available through HP and IBM. Their reliability of hardware has suffered badly in the last decade and that's costing them market share in related products as people start moving to other platforms.
Erosion is also happening at the low end of the market by the likes of Linux where x86 architecture can compete.
If they make the use of JVM, through JRE, easy to use on the low end, they have some chance of getting a foothold on small companies before they turn into large corporations. This path is what they don't want because as a company grows, they may try to make their existing platform (PHP, Perl, Python) work in their more demanding environment.
This results in a drop in the market for Java developers.
This also affects the developer environment as well. If you have a linux box and want to write some code, you aren't very likely to spend an entire weekend trying to get some sofware running when you already have several good tools to choose from. One of the reasons I never really took up Java development was because of issues related to getting things working correctly at the JVM level on my distro of choice.
That being the case, developers will look to other platforms, starving the Java Market of designer resources.
Releasing JRE into a open license agreement addresses the issue of keeping the market space viable, but it doesn't address the issue of developing resources. Of course, with schools pushing Java hard and everyone older than 12 years old in India learning Java, they may not have to.
Perhaps it all makes sense in their grand scheme of world domination?
Perl wins... But this isn't supposed to be a Python/Perl flame war.
while ()
@file_contents = ()
Can't beat that for ease of use.
But that really doesn't matter.
Personally I'm sick of Java and would really appreciate it if Java was taken down a few notches in it's status. This is especially applicable for big mega corps. I'm tired of every problem being solved by java code and absolutely nothing else.
You're arguing two points: that the programmers shouldn't have to learn a new language (false, IMHO), and that old but working programs shouldn't be dropped (true, IMHO). Compounding that, both of these are over generalized opinions, which could easily change whether they are right or wrong based on the circumstances.
They shouldn't have to learn new languages. And your analogy to 100+ year old tools to modern tools is a bit lame. We aren't talking about generations of developers here.
But what is interesting here is that they have no choice in the matter. The troops have been considered as Expendable.
Microsoft wants to own it all, and they want you and I to pay for what they own. If these programmers really want to revolt, then join the ranks of the Open Source movement rather than bellyaching about how mean their ruler is.
But isn't this the first step?
In order to get the MVP status, you must have some dedication to get there and keep it. And they have.
You are missing the point behind this that is so very significant. Even the faithful are getting burned by the practices. Sure you can rant and bitch about bellyaching whiners and evil corporations. But you're still missing the point. Now the practices are affecting their followers in a way that is forcing them to make a change that would have never been considered 5 years ago. To Stay with Microsoft or to GO!!
I can almost see SPARC, but I would think that ARM would still be a highly potential platform for development.
However, it should be pointed out that these other Architectures are not being dropped from the development tree, just not being held to the same release cycle as the primary four mentioned in the article.
I suppose it is inevitable, but I would have taken a different approach. Like drop the worse four of the bunch and then see what effect that has on the remaining Architectures and the effect it has, if any, on the hardware.
For a minute there I was worried that they dropped the Apple, that would be catastrophic.
They do have a valid point despite your vitriolic rantings.
Consider this: How long has VB6 been around? Given the they will no longer be promoting VB6 as a viable language, how would you feel if $SOMEONE were to declare your favorite language (perl, python, java, bash, C, C++) was no longer a viable language and that you would have to learn a completely new one.
In ten years, how many people do you think will still be writing code in Perl 5 instead of Perl 6?
I think they are entirely justified in their revolt. It's not about them and their lack of willingness to learn a new language. I am willing to give them some credit. Rather this is indicative of the common historical practice of turning everything over every 5 years.
When I worked in MS Access I started on Access 2.0. When everthing migrated to Access 95/98 it was a complete rewrite of everything that we had done. With the Access 2000 it's another complete rewrite of the applications involved and we are finding some bugs that simply cannot be circumvented.
The point I'm hoping to make is that even Fortran code can still be run under Unix if you have no need to change it. But to simply drop a programming language and move on is an unnecessary cost to the company and society.
Look at the mousetrap. How long has that thing been around without a design change from Victor? Sure, there are other newer methods and mousetraps that have come along, but the old tried and true model is still around and doing well. Similarly, VB6 applications, if they work well and do the job, should not be forced into obsolescence in this manner.
I use a single Epie 533 for my mail and web server. It's great. It does everything I could need with room to spare and at
When I have a power outage, the UPS runs for several hours... Time enough for me to casually shut it down.
With a dual CPU, this would make an excellent server platform. The video is typically poor for many functions, but a cheap video card would do well for this type of box. At least you could get some 3D support.
Don't scoff at this too much, it's surprisingly good at performance if you aren't GUI dependent.
There is a size limit, but I don't remember exactly what it is. I have several 80GB drives that are great. I have a 200GB drive that periodically clicks for about 10 seconds and then stops. There is a cut-off on this behavior. I'm not sure, it might be at 160GB.
I first found this posted on the internet on the general topic of TiVO Hacks and what to watch out for. Seagate Barracuda's are popular with silent PC people and Tivo users, but there are a number of comments on the 200GB plus sizes.
I read the paragraph and I don't think that they did anything that was specifically stuffing. Rather they were trying to be consistent and concise. Maybe I'm missed something but sometimes you will have a lot of words repeated frequently in order to express an idea.
This is especially true if you are talking about a noun representing a complex idea. Think about how many times you find the words Thread, Socket, Interface in a technical article on networking code examples...
This has helped for me on some of the past few weeks.
But seriously, this much time on your ass is going to have some serious affects on your health. If you can't get a solution, you probably really should consider some alternatives. But it's not for us to tell you go somewhere else someplace else for work.
But my point would be to run some plan for hourly exercise, however modest, just to get moving around a bit. I would also consider checking into keeping some weights in your office for part of your hourly plan.
Now I can listen to the religiousl zealotry of the Microsoft Shills when 5 years ago it was the fanatic ravings of the Linux Lunatics that dominated Slashdot so much.
I guess we've really turned the corner on Linux being accepted. I'm encouraged by this post.
I don't agree with much of what he has done with Microsoft, but Bill Gates is absolutely correct on this assessment. The American High School and the entire Educational system of America is severly broken. There is no doubt to this in my mind as I watch my children grow up today.
They are learning more about conflict resolution and other essentially socialistic concerns than they are basic math, science, english skills. They can't solve problems. They don't know science. Yet they are 4.0 students in one of the better schools in the area.
We have before us a generation of sissies and sheep.
How did we get here? This is the question that must be understood in order to fix it.
I suspect that much of this is the results of liberal/socialist movements to include everyone, including the No Child Left Behind mantra of Bush. Darwin would disagree with this statement and tell you that it's very likely that children will be left behind and it's up to the children and the parents to make sure they do their very best to ensure that their children are not left behind.
Unfortunately, since everyone is so bent on double income lifestyles, we have ignored the most important job for the future. Who is raising the children? The teachers or the parents? The teachers do not have the level of interest in the children that the parents do and are have their hands too tied down with legal concerns and paperwork.
Is it becomming difficult to allow the teachers simply fail children who do not perform adequately? Is this the future of our No Child Left Behind tempered by the educational systems costs upon the teachers when they do fail children in terms of hearings, paperwork, and even lawsuits?
Education is the single most important investment we can make in the United States today. If we fail to regain the technological edge that carried us through the years of the cold war, then we must recognize that this nation is no longer capable of being a world leader. Historically, having a big army doesn't make you a world leader for very long. The United States of America is facing a turning a point where our lack of educational rigor and structure that carried us to the point where we where in the 1980's and 1990's is pushing us behind the leading edge of science, technology, and hence business, economy, and overall position in the world.
I've worked plenty long enough to know that there are certain risks people are willing to take. But anyone who has enough business experience knows that to bank their business on unsecured internet servers is not how to do business.
Sure there are always going to be cases where someone didn't do it right or depended upon some in-laws nephew. But they deserve exactly what they pay for.
As for the wet dream prices... that was a long time ago. And I still say you get what you pay for. But at the same time there was a lot of over pricing in the dot-com era.
Slashdot Mirror
And Hasbro has the option to change the rules of engagement at any time. As does e-scrabble.
I'm surprised that your wife plays Scrabble only on-line. Has she ever tried it as a board game? It's actually pretty good. My wife and I play it from time to time and it's very social. More so than online gaming certainly.
I think Hasbro has done the typical thing here. I also think they've made the same mistake. But most people won't care.
Would this have been reasonable: require escrabble to provide a banner ad (top) on each page for hasbro products or hasbro scrabble.
There doesn't seem to be much symbiosis in corporations these days. At least not in American markets.
The last thing you can do as a proposed solution is to introduce another layer of complexity to the process of package release management to Debian. What I am hoping to contribute to this whole discussion is some experience with the Debian packages and the other distribution package/release processes.
In order for Debian to release anything it has to pass through three levels of testing an confirmation: Unstable, Testing, Stable. But technically that's wrong since they've also introduced Experimental to the process.
The problem with all the proposals to bring in additional layers and variations to the Debian release architecture is that they add more conditions that have to be met in order to reach the final Stable version. And the bitch that everyone has against Debian is that it takes forever to reach a Stable release.
At each level (Unstable, Testing, Stable) you end up hinging pachages upon dependencies of other packages. With 16,000+ packages out there, running into dependencies is relatively common. When you end up with a dependency that hangs a segment of the release tree, it can take quite some time for that final dependency or combination of dependencies to clear a release branch. For example, perl 5.8 took a very long time to reach Testing. If you were to add another layer of release cycle to the process, you will only serve to delay reaching the Stable architecture.
Using this example, the effective outcome of adding another architectural layer to the process is this: It takes even longer for a package to reach Stable, making it even less likely that someone will use it, even for a server.
The net outcome is that your efforts to better Debian has made it only worse.
And regarding the arguement that there should should be a Workstation and a Server platform in parallel to each other, who is going to be the arbitrator of what constitutes packages for a Server and packages for a Workstation?
Creating a delineation between the two necessitates two classes of users, Administrators and Users. Linux doesn't have to work like that. If you believe that is should work like that, then I would prefer to see you choose a different distribution that supports this abitration of packages belonging to Workstations, Servers, Enterprise, and whatever.
One of the finest qualities that Debian has, in my opinion, is that there is no discrimination between the Server and Client user installations and they have what I believe is the finest release architecture designed and in practice to date, Open Source or Private.
When the discussion starts up on a place like Slashdot that someone needs to make Debian better by adding release variations to the process, I say to them that they need to better examine the performance of Debian and better understand what works and what does not work in Debian and use that information to cite your evidence supporting your proposals to fix Debian by adding variations to support.
Get a clue. What would you put in between stable and testing...
The more layers you add to the process, the slower the process will become and the worse the problem will be.
Try being part of the solution and not part of the problem.
I still use Windows 2000 at work.
So what does a stable release of 2002 really mean? Not much. At least it works.
My reason for sticking with Debian was because of their sane release cycles. It is based on 'Release when Ready' not because of some calendar hype. This is one of the core values of Debian. Please don't fuck it up unless you want to look and smell just like any other distro out there.
I guess the real questions should be along the lines of, what currently prevents debian from releasing faster and what can be done to address those specifics? I think the architecture is the only consistent tangible I've heard of.
Adding another branch to manage would only make things slower. The last thing Debian needs is more branches to the process.
Before you recommend this, why don't you prove that the current system does not work and then identify why it doesn't actually work. This is an arbitrary statement not based on fact.
I do agree with the suggestion to drop many of the hardware branches in Debian or at least put them all onto their own release cycles and then lockstep only the best four (arbitrary number) and let the rest die off by attrition. There is evidence that some delays come from coordinating architecture. There is also evidence that this is not the only problem but coordinating so many packages is hard.
To put it into perspective. At work I still use Windows 2000 and at my previous job I used Windows NT 4 up to the year 2000 when I switched.
I for one am very glad that Debian does not take your advice. The differences between Enterprise, Personal, Exxtreme are arbitrary and subject to interpretation by the user and mardetroids.
My desktop might be your extreme. Who are you to tell me what my installation is?
Yeah, and I shouldn't have to work for a living. I'm sorry, I didn't make the rules, I just play by them because I don't want to starve to death.
OK, you have a point and I didn't express that very well.
But what I found insightful to this post wasn't the issue of the the developers, but the risk that MSFT is putting themselves into here.
They are taking some of their very dedicated developers and forcing them into a position of choosing a new language. Today there might be an increased risk that they will reconsider their developing platform and move away from MSFT entirely. This might be as simple as Java on Windows or worse.
Sun will only open source enough to hedge their bets against eroding their market foothold. And not a penny more.
Their stock sucks. From a Wall Street point of view, they are not a very healthy company. They are trying very hard to sell and re-sell themselves as a capable Enterprise solution for corporations. But it's getting harder to do.
At the high end, they are being eroded by the other high end hardware available through HP and IBM. Their reliability of hardware has suffered badly in the last decade and that's costing them market share in related products as people start moving to other platforms.
Erosion is also happening at the low end of the market by the likes of Linux where x86 architecture can compete.
If they make the use of JVM, through JRE, easy to use on the low end, they have some chance of getting a foothold on small companies before they turn into large corporations. This path is what they don't want because as a company grows, they may try to make their existing platform (PHP, Perl, Python) work in their more demanding environment.
This results in a drop in the market for Java developers.
This also affects the developer environment as well. If you have a linux box and want to write some code, you aren't very likely to spend an entire weekend trying to get some sofware running when you already have several good tools to choose from. One of the reasons I never really took up Java development was because of issues related to getting things working correctly at the JVM level on my distro of choice.
That being the case, developers will look to other platforms, starving the Java Market of designer resources.
Releasing JRE into a open license agreement addresses the issue of keeping the market space viable, but it doesn't address the issue of developing resources. Of course, with schools pushing Java hard and everyone older than 12 years old in India learning Java, they may not have to.
Perhaps it all makes sense in their grand scheme of world domination?
Perl wins... But this isn't supposed to be a Python/Perl flame war.
while ()
@file_contents = ()
Can't beat that for ease of use.
But that really doesn't matter.
Personally I'm sick of Java and would really appreciate it if Java was taken down a few notches in it's status. This is especially applicable for big mega corps. I'm tired of every problem being solved by java code and absolutely nothing else.
You're arguing two points: that the programmers shouldn't have to learn a new language (false, IMHO), and that old but working programs shouldn't be dropped (true, IMHO). Compounding that, both of these are over generalized opinions, which could easily change whether they are right or wrong based on the circumstances.
They shouldn't have to learn new languages. And your analogy to 100+ year old tools to modern tools is a bit lame. We aren't talking about generations of developers here.
But what is interesting here is that they have no choice in the matter. The troops have been considered as Expendable.
Microsoft wants to own it all, and they want you and I to pay for what they own. If these programmers really want to revolt, then join the ranks of the Open Source movement rather than bellyaching about how mean their ruler is.
But isn't this the first step?
In order to get the MVP status, you must have some dedication to get there and keep it. And they have.
You are missing the point behind this that is so very significant. Even the faithful are getting burned by the practices. Sure you can rant and bitch about bellyaching whiners and evil corporations. But you're still missing the point. Now the practices are affecting their followers in a way that is forcing them to make a change that would have never been considered 5 years ago. To Stay with Microsoft or to GO!!
No it hasn't. Check your facts.
I guess this means that RISC will lose support.
I can almost see SPARC, but I would think that ARM would still be a highly potential platform for development.
However, it should be pointed out that these other Architectures are not being dropped from the development tree, just not being held to the same release cycle as the primary four mentioned in the article.
I suppose it is inevitable, but I would have taken a different approach. Like drop the worse four of the bunch and then see what effect that has on the remaining Architectures and the effect it has, if any, on the hardware.
For a minute there I was worried that they dropped the Apple, that would be catastrophic.
No it does not. They are distinctly different. IP is Patent Law, not CopyRight.
They do have a valid point despite your vitriolic rantings.
Consider this: How long has VB6 been around? Given the they will no longer be promoting VB6 as a viable language, how would you feel if $SOMEONE were to declare your favorite language (perl, python, java, bash, C, C++) was no longer a viable language and that you would have to learn a completely new one.
In ten years, how many people do you think will still be writing code in Perl 5 instead of Perl 6?
I think they are entirely justified in their revolt. It's not about them and their lack of willingness to learn a new language. I am willing to give them some credit. Rather this is indicative of the common historical practice of turning everything over every 5 years.
When I worked in MS Access I started on Access 2.0. When everthing migrated to Access 95/98 it was a complete rewrite of everything that we had done. With the Access 2000 it's another complete rewrite of the applications involved and we are finding some bugs that simply cannot be circumvented.
The point I'm hoping to make is that even Fortran code can still be run under Unix if you have no need to change it. But to simply drop a programming language and move on is an unnecessary cost to the company and society.
Look at the mousetrap. How long has that thing been around without a design change from Victor? Sure, there are other newer methods and mousetraps that have come along, but the old tried and true model is still around and doing well. Similarly, VB6 applications, if they work well and do the job, should not be forced into obsolescence in this manner.
I use a single Epie 533 for my mail and web server. It's great. It does everything I could need with room to spare and at
When I have a power outage, the UPS runs for several hours... Time enough for me to casually shut it down.
With a dual CPU, this would make an excellent server platform. The video is typically poor for many functions, but a cheap video card would do well for this type of box. At least you could get some 3D support.
Don't scoff at this too much, it's surprisingly good at performance if you aren't GUI dependent.
It's not about COPYRIGHT, it's about INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY and PATENT LAW PROTECTION.
There is a huge difference between these and you had better learn it before you start pimping your artistic wares.
There is a size limit, but I don't remember exactly what it is. I have several 80GB drives that are great. I have a 200GB drive that periodically clicks for about 10 seconds and then stops. There is a cut-off on this behavior. I'm not sure, it might be at 160GB.
I first found this posted on the internet on the general topic of TiVO Hacks and what to watch out for. Seagate Barracuda's are popular with silent PC people and Tivo users, but there are a number of comments on the 200GB plus sizes.
I read the paragraph and I don't think that they did anything that was specifically stuffing. Rather they were trying to be consistent and concise. Maybe I'm missed something but sometimes you will have a lot of words repeated frequently in order to express an idea.
This is especially true if you are talking about a noun representing a complex idea. Think about how many times you find the words Thread, Socket, Interface in a technical article on networking code examples...
take a walk
Up some flights of stairs if you can find them.
This has helped for me on some of the past few weeks.
But seriously, this much time on your ass is going to have some serious affects on your health. If you can't get a solution, you probably really should consider some alternatives. But it's not for us to tell you go somewhere else someplace else for work.
But my point would be to run some plan for hourly exercise, however modest, just to get moving around a bit. I would also consider checking into keeping some weights in your office for part of your hourly plan.
It's not as great here as it was 10 years ago.
Wow. I like this trend although it's very OT.
Now I can listen to the religiousl zealotry of the Microsoft Shills when 5 years ago it was the fanatic ravings of the Linux Lunatics that dominated Slashdot so much.
I guess we've really turned the corner on Linux being accepted. I'm encouraged by this post.
I don't agree with much of what he has done with Microsoft, but Bill Gates is absolutely correct on this assessment. The American High School and the entire Educational system of America is severly broken. There is no doubt to this in my mind as I watch my children grow up today.
They are learning more about conflict resolution and other essentially socialistic concerns than they are basic math, science, english skills. They can't solve problems. They don't know science. Yet they are 4.0 students in one of the better schools in the area.
We have before us a generation of sissies and sheep.
How did we get here? This is the question that must be understood in order to fix it.
I suspect that much of this is the results of liberal/socialist movements to include everyone, including the No Child Left Behind mantra of Bush. Darwin would disagree with this statement and tell you that it's very likely that children will be left behind and it's up to the children and the parents to make sure they do their very best to ensure that their children are not left behind.
Unfortunately, since everyone is so bent on double income lifestyles, we have ignored the most important job for the future. Who is raising the children? The teachers or the parents? The teachers do not have the level of interest in the children that the parents do and are have their hands too tied down with legal concerns and paperwork.
Is it becomming difficult to allow the teachers simply fail children who do not perform adequately? Is this the future of our No Child Left Behind tempered by the educational systems costs upon the teachers when they do fail children in terms of hearings, paperwork, and even lawsuits?
Education is the single most important investment we can make in the United States today. If we fail to regain the technological edge that carried us through the years of the cold war, then we must recognize that this nation is no longer capable of being a world leader. Historically, having a big army doesn't make you a world leader for very long. The United States of America is facing a turning a point where our lack of educational rigor and structure that carried us to the point where we where in the 1980's and 1990's is pushing us behind the leading edge of science, technology, and hence business, economy, and overall position in the world.
I've worked plenty long enough to know that there are certain risks people are willing to take. But anyone who has enough business experience knows that to bank their business on unsecured internet servers is not how to do business.
Sure there are always going to be cases where someone didn't do it right or depended upon some in-laws nephew. But they deserve exactly what they pay for.
As for the wet dream prices... that was a long time ago. And I still say you get what you pay for. But at the same time there was a lot of over pricing in the dot-com era.