"That's all it does now, and who says that information in and as of itself can't be sold and abused. Called the cancer hotline? I'm sure your insurance company would love to know."
That is the only realistic fear you posted, but the bill specificly mentions limits for personal privacy, so for a government agency to resell your luds they would be in huge trouble.
"Been associating with known (your old friend, unknown to you) criminals? Time to put you under close surveilance and institute a tax audit."
Do you think there are an army of green men reviewing every connection all the time? No. The primary reason for this bill is to determine social networks of people under investigation. So yes, if your old friend is a wanted criminal, and the police pull up his call history for the last 2 year and find your number, then may want to ask you some questions about your relationship.
"Visiting warez or keygen sites?"
Again, this is traffic history tracking, not content, all they could tell is that you dialed up a phone line owned by an ISP and stayed connected for 3 hours. No idea where you went. The bill doesn't have a single reference to the internet or ISPs in it, it will not require ISPs to record web activity for 2 years.
"If I call my friend up to chat about the old college days I absolutely have a right to privacy. What I talk to an old friend is ABSOLUTELY none of the governments business."
If you call up your spouse, lawyer, doctor or spiritual advisor (excluding Ms. Cleo) you have a RIGHT to privacy. When you talk to your old friend you have the EXPECTATION of privacy. If you tell your old friend that you beat your wife, make kiddie pron, burried your boss's dead body in the basement, etc... Your friend has no legal requirement to not tell any one, and your government has the right to tap your line (given a judicial review), record your phone calls, arrest you, and use those recordings against you in a court of law.
In this case the point is mute though at the new law (If I read it correctly) only states that the time of the call, the caller's number, the number called, whether or not the call was answered, and the length of the call must be tracked. Big Bro doesn't know what you told your old friend, just that you called him friday afternoon, he answered and you talked for 3 minutes and 40 seconds. Nothing more fancy then pulling the luds on a number here in the states except that the lists must now be maintained for 2 years.
I'd say just the opposite. As a non-gamer, betas and stress tests are the WORST way to find out what's up with the game. If you are not a fanatic, wait 3 months from launch before buying, that way you can catch some decent reviews, miss the inevitable launch issues and initial down time, and there will be more experienced players that can help you in game.
AJAX is not ment to replace a well designed HTML site. It is designed to be a tool for web applications. If you replace the tried and true web navigation system with AJAX, yes, you will break the "tried and true" method. But if you use AJAX to keep on page data constantly updated (say like a stock ticker, statistics, logging, etc) where you only have one page, it will be a great tool.
Like everyone else say, if you use the wrong tool for the job, your going to wind up with crap.
It the moment it just sounds like you can play multiple games on one client. But You have to wonder if the individual game developers would want to make client changes that would break that compatibility. Anyway, if the were to make it possible to 'travel' from one game to the next you could wind up with a really interesting Spell Jammer like multiverse. That could be entertaining.
He doesn't have to break a law. He has breached his contract with the school. The constitution doesn't ensure free speech, it ensures that the government will not make laws preventing free speech. So a public/Tax funded college would not be able to do this. But at a private school, you signed the contract.
It's just like any other behavioral contract. Soda/Beer deliverers can not drink competitors' beverages. Knowledge workers sign NDA. CEOs sign ethical agreements. Break the contract and you're out a job.
Lets say on your day off you bought a motherboard with a warenty.
After a week the board dies.
You contact the manufacturer, they refuse to refund/replace your purchase.
You sue for a new board AND for the litigation costs because they are unwilling to work with you out side of court. You're still screwed for your day off of work.
Or not. There is nothing elegant about the Java flow layout manager. Nor is there any redeaming value of the N/S/E/W/C layout system.
"However, "click and drag" interfaces are riddled with many hidden pitfalls..."
You say Many, but you site only 1. What are the others?
"once your app gets on a screen resolution that is smaller than the one you developed on, your interface goes out the window."
2 items: Industry Standard Resolutions apply whether you're in Java or.Net, and dynamic sizing controls make resizing a breaze.
"To do that with VBx, VB.NET, C# etc... you are either forced to buy third party components that do it for you (usually in a poor and slow way), or you have to write your own (bleeaahh)."
Or you use the built in functionality, set anchors, and use splitters and have a form that is more elegant, easier to build and faster to impliment then the Java equivilant.
I hate ripping on Java. Java is a great language with some fields that it owns the market. But user interfaces (from my last experiences) are one of its weakest points.
I'm confused on that one. VB5-6 had a very intuitive (click and drag) layout builder..Net added anchoring and splitters (making resizing simple as can be).
Last time I worked with Java(1.4 about 1-2 years ago) I had strong urges to poke my eyes out while dealing with layout managers and the whole cardinal direction crap. It was a nightmare. A buddy from that class built a VS imitation layout manager builder for his final project. It was an app that would allow you to click and drag GUI objects around the form and then spat out the code for the custom layout manager for your form.
(Props to the Wifi-Squirrels/Team Depricated if they find this post)
Abstraction. This is what the OS is for, the OS needs to be dynamic enough to determine the number/type of cores and make the calls appropriately. Then the software can be designed to use OS level threads. Save's the product developers from having to code low level thread control and what not.
"That's like saying "how about making people learn to drive better" instead of making cars with seatbelts and guard rails for roads... at least the way i see it..."
Yes, and if every US internet user had to take a 6 week course, 20 hours of simulated net usage, 20 hours hands on instructor guided net usage, then had to pass both a written and prac app test, then spend two years on a probationary net use license... Yes, then I could see sinking a huge investment into making software perfect.
Yes, becuase getting 50 programmers form 20 different companies and organizations to design perfect software that integrates flawlessly with out increasing the budget or time line is soooo simple. We'll just send them off to a week long training seminar! And then they can design interfaces that not only are of a perfect coding standard, but are also designed so that no user could ever create a situation that would put their computer at risk.
Then I put a bit more thought in on it. I would be okay with this if it was constantly monitored and I could be absolutely sure that none of the "non-accelerated" site's performance was degraded. Hypothetical: if we get ~100ms pings from both Google and Yahoo now, then Yahoo buys the 'optimization' and Yahoo's ping drops to ~80ms and Google's stays at ~100ms, then I'm fine with this. But if Google's pings start suffering, to say ~110ms, then they are degrading their service, and the system has to go.
Also, how much performance improvement is available? I mean, at this point most of the lag I experience browsing the web is server side. Most game related lag is uplink side. And internet TV issues are usually a matter of pipe size.
And lastly, as someone else mentioned, would charging for faster service invalidate the companies standing as a common carrier?
What I find interesting is that the government has not quashed the lawsuit. Look at those 3 guys with the underwater lazer coupler. They were just trying to get their due from a large military contractor and their lawsuit was quashed on grounds of national security. If the goverment use of the black berry is large enough, why not do the same? Just quash the lawsuit, let RIM get off easy and continue on with business.
"Also, "normal" people don't know what headers are nor do they know how to read them"
My wife, who I would consider computer literate (26 years old, non-IT related work) has no problem checking links. Those are the dead give away, the "Visit Citibank Mutual Now" links that are href to Citibank.SomeDomainName.com. She doesn't look through header info, but she can still pick out the phishers. And like many net savey people, she knows better then to click on a link from an email and just goes directly to the company's page.
That test is a waste. The 'emails' are image files, so you can't see where the actual links point to, you can't see the email header or the true from address. Anyone who nails 100% is more lucky then savey.
I disagree with your disagreement;) And I raise you one technical issue! Copyrights can be extended, so the owner could literally argue to unlimited copyright. The question then is how do you handle public domain, more specificly content that changes from copyrighted material to public domain. I see two clear posibilities; Option #1 is to set up the DRM to phone home to a CR/PD list and verify the rights of the consumer. This has a few major flaws, it requires internet access (not available in cars/home sterios) it also posses the risk of tracking by the list provider (ack!). Option #2 is to require the USPTO(or a new Digital Media Copy Rights Office) to maintain an online library of all public domain digital material (obviously, since current media is unDRM'd, they wouldn't have to maintain it). The obvious flaw here is the lack of current historical material and hosting costs. Historical material is easy enough to convert, but the hosting costs is something the poloticians can hammer out.
You see, this entire conversation could be copyrighted and published (technicalities a side). Even with a DRM it could be distributed, and the idea's, faults, and possibilities would get passed on. But if someone patents the idea, they could sue anyone who attempts to market a similar solution, thus stifling innovation and making a hand full of lawyers very rich. DRMs Good, Patents Good when correctly applied, Lawyers Bad.
Best bet, get Google, Apple, and Sony together. Tell them the solution must be an open standard, source can be open/closed as the like, but it must be an open standard, it must work on all hardware (new car head units, home theaters, PCs, boom boxes), and must not get in the way of a definable list of acceptable customer activities (ie: loan to a friend). And watch what happens.
Slashdot Mirror
"That's all it does now, and who says that information in and as of itself can't be sold and abused. Called the cancer hotline? I'm sure your insurance company would love to know."
That is the only realistic fear you posted, but the bill specificly mentions limits for personal privacy, so for a government agency to resell your luds they would be in huge trouble.
"Been associating with known (your old friend, unknown to you) criminals? Time to put you under close surveilance and institute a tax audit."
Do you think there are an army of green men reviewing every connection all the time? No. The primary reason for this bill is to determine social networks of people under investigation. So yes, if your old friend is a wanted criminal, and the police pull up his call history for the last 2 year and find your number, then may want to ask you some questions about your relationship.
"Visiting warez or keygen sites?"
Again, this is traffic history tracking, not content, all they could tell is that you dialed up a phone line owned by an ISP and stayed connected for 3 hours. No idea where you went. The bill doesn't have a single reference to the internet or ISPs in it, it will not require ISPs to record web activity for 2 years.
-Rick
"If I call my friend up to chat about the old college days I absolutely have a right to privacy. What I talk to an old friend is ABSOLUTELY none of the governments business."
If you call up your spouse, lawyer, doctor or spiritual advisor (excluding Ms. Cleo) you have a RIGHT to privacy. When you talk to your old friend you have the EXPECTATION of privacy. If you tell your old friend that you beat your wife, make kiddie pron, burried your boss's dead body in the basement, etc... Your friend has no legal requirement to not tell any one, and your government has the right to tap your line (given a judicial review), record your phone calls, arrest you, and use those recordings against you in a court of law.
In this case the point is mute though at the new law (If I read it correctly) only states that the time of the call, the caller's number, the number called, whether or not the call was answered, and the length of the call must be tracked. Big Bro doesn't know what you told your old friend, just that you called him friday afternoon, he answered and you talked for 3 minutes and 40 seconds. Nothing more fancy then pulling the luds on a number here in the states except that the lists must now be maintained for 2 years.
-Rick
I'd say just the opposite. As a non-gamer, betas and stress tests are the WORST way to find out what's up with the game. If you are not a fanatic, wait 3 months from launch before buying, that way you can catch some decent reviews, miss the inevitable launch issues and initial down time, and there will be more experienced players that can help you in game.
-Rick
AJAX is not ment to replace a well designed HTML site. It is designed to be a tool for web applications. If you replace the tried and true web navigation system with AJAX, yes, you will break the "tried and true" method. But if you use AJAX to keep on page data constantly updated (say like a stock ticker, statistics, logging, etc) where you only have one page, it will be a great tool.
Like everyone else say, if you use the wrong tool for the job, your going to wind up with crap.
-Rick
"Is it just history repeating or the kids didn't pay attention to the last couple of decades?"
Yes because we've all seen what a failure Bill Gates and Microsoft have been over the last 20 years.
-Rick
It the moment it just sounds like you can play multiple games on one client. But You have to wonder if the individual game developers would want to make client changes that would break that compatibility. Anyway, if the were to make it possible to 'travel' from one game to the next you could wind up with a really interesting Spell Jammer like multiverse. That could be entertaining.
-Rick
Odd enough I have a Jewish friend who graduated from Marquette with a degree in Polytheism. I always found that Ironic.
-Rick
He doesn't have to break a law. He has breached his contract with the school. The constitution doesn't ensure free speech, it ensures that the government will not make laws preventing free speech. So a public/Tax funded college would not be able to do this. But at a private school, you signed the contract.
It's just like any other behavioral contract. Soda/Beer deliverers can not drink competitors' beverages. Knowledge workers sign NDA. CEOs sign ethical agreements. Break the contract and you're out a job.
-Rick
I for one agree. Give me a standard API library that interfaces with their system and let me build my own user interface on what ever OS I want.
-Rick
Not Quite.
Lets say on your day off you bought a motherboard with a warenty.
After a week the board dies.
You contact the manufacturer, they refuse to refund/replace your purchase.
You sue for a new board AND for the litigation costs because they are unwilling to work with you out side of court. You're still screwed for your day off of work.
-Rick
.Net's drag and drop is pretty nice, and the code it produces is very streamline and available for modification.
-Rick
Or not. There is nothing elegant about the Java flow layout manager. Nor is there any redeaming value of the N/S/E/W/C layout system.
.Net, and dynamic sizing controls make resizing a breaze.
"However, "click and drag" interfaces are riddled with many hidden pitfalls..."
You say Many, but you site only 1. What are the others?
"once your app gets on a screen resolution that is smaller than the one you developed on, your interface goes out the window."
2 items: Industry Standard Resolutions apply whether you're in Java or
"To do that with VBx, VB.NET, C# etc... you are either forced to buy third party components that do it for you (usually in a poor and slow way), or you have to write your own (bleeaahh)."
Or you use the built in functionality, set anchors, and use splitters and have a form that is more elegant, easier to build and faster to impliment then the Java equivilant.
I hate ripping on Java. Java is a great language with some fields that it owns the market. But user interfaces (from my last experiences) are one of its weakest points.
-Rick
"(decent layout managers for instance)"
.Net added anchoring and splitters (making resizing simple as can be).
I'm confused on that one. VB5-6 had a very intuitive (click and drag) layout builder.
Last time I worked with Java(1.4 about 1-2 years ago) I had strong urges to poke my eyes out while dealing with layout managers and the whole cardinal direction crap. It was a nightmare. A buddy from that class built a VS imitation layout manager builder for his final project. It was an app that would allow you to click and drag GUI objects around the form and then spat out the code for the custom layout manager for your form.
(Props to the Wifi-Squirrels/Team Depricated if they find this post)
-Rick
Abstraction. This is what the OS is for, the OS needs to be dynamic enough to determine the number/type of cores and make the calls appropriately. Then the software can be designed to use OS level threads. Save's the product developers from having to code low level thread control and what not.
-Rick
"That's like saying "how about making people learn to drive better" instead of making cars with seatbelts and guard rails for roads... at least the way i see it..."
Yes, and if every US internet user had to take a 6 week course, 20 hours of simulated net usage, 20 hours hands on instructor guided net usage, then had to pass both a written and prac app test, then spend two years on a probationary net use license... Yes, then I could see sinking a huge investment into making software perfect.
-Rick
Yes, becuase getting 50 programmers form 20 different companies and organizations to design perfect software that integrates flawlessly with out increasing the budget or time line is soooo simple. We'll just send them off to a week long training seminar! And then they can design interfaces that not only are of a perfect coding standard, but are also designed so that no user could ever create a situation that would put their computer at risk.
Cha right. And monkies might fly from my ass.
-Rick
Troll? Hardly, this is redundant. Troll would imply that the poster is trying to irk someone into an arguement. There's nothing to argue here.
-Rick
Craig lost his health insurance?
-Rick
Okay, my gut reaction was, OMGWTFITMT?!?!?
Then I put a bit more thought in on it. I would be okay with this if it was constantly monitored and I could be absolutely sure that none of the "non-accelerated" site's performance was degraded. Hypothetical: if we get ~100ms pings from both Google and Yahoo now, then Yahoo buys the 'optimization' and Yahoo's ping drops to ~80ms and Google's stays at ~100ms, then I'm fine with this. But if Google's pings start suffering, to say ~110ms, then they are degrading their service, and the system has to go.
Also, how much performance improvement is available? I mean, at this point most of the lag I experience browsing the web is server side. Most game related lag is uplink side. And internet TV issues are usually a matter of pipe size.
And lastly, as someone else mentioned, would charging for faster service invalidate the companies standing as a common carrier?
-Rick
What I find interesting is that the government has not quashed the lawsuit. Look at those 3 guys with the underwater lazer coupler. They were just trying to get their due from a large military contractor and their lawsuit was quashed on grounds of national security. If the goverment use of the black berry is large enough, why not do the same? Just quash the lawsuit, let RIM get off easy and continue on with business.
-Rick
Because it's the only one you aren't using to snork off during work ;)
-Rick
"Also, "normal" people don't know what headers are nor do they know how to read them"
My wife, who I would consider computer literate (26 years old, non-IT related work) has no problem checking links. Those are the dead give away, the "Visit Citibank Mutual Now" links that are href to Citibank.SomeDomainName.com. She doesn't look through header info, but she can still pick out the phishers. And like many net savey people, she knows better then to click on a link from an email and just goes directly to the company's page.
-Rick
That test is a waste. The 'emails' are image files, so you can't see where the actual links point to, you can't see the email header or the true from address. Anyone who nails 100% is more lucky then savey.
-Rick
I disagree with your disagreement ;) And I raise you one technical issue! Copyrights can be extended, so the owner could literally argue to unlimited copyright. The question then is how do you handle public domain, more specificly content that changes from copyrighted material to public domain. I see two clear posibilities; Option #1 is to set up the DRM to phone home to a CR/PD list and verify the rights of the consumer. This has a few major flaws, it requires internet access (not available in cars/home sterios) it also posses the risk of tracking by the list provider (ack!). Option #2 is to require the USPTO(or a new Digital Media Copy Rights Office) to maintain an online library of all public domain digital material (obviously, since current media is unDRM'd, they wouldn't have to maintain it). The obvious flaw here is the lack of current historical material and hosting costs. Historical material is easy enough to convert, but the hosting costs is something the poloticians can hammer out.
You see, this entire conversation could be copyrighted and published (technicalities a side). Even with a DRM it could be distributed, and the idea's, faults, and possibilities would get passed on. But if someone patents the idea, they could sue anyone who attempts to market a similar solution, thus stifling innovation and making a hand full of lawyers very rich. DRMs Good, Patents Good when correctly applied, Lawyers Bad.
-Rick
Best bet, get Google, Apple, and Sony together. Tell them the solution must be an open standard, source can be open/closed as the like, but it must be an open standard, it must work on all hardware (new car head units, home theaters, PCs, boom boxes), and must not get in the way of a definable list of acceptable customer activities (ie: loan to a friend). And watch what happens.
-Rick