** The kinda sorta flip side is that quality newspapers (or blogs or whatever) will win... once there is no "free lunch" on news, pretty much all news will have to be for-pay again. **

I'm 40. I have never read a newspaper and had an interest in most of it. I would struggle for 3-4 articles (?3%). But if I buy a newspaper I buy it all.

It might be quality reporting (on the fact that some inbreds are having twins | Victoria's secret is no longer secret | the christian right follows jesus, etc) but its mainly worthless drivel that does not contribute the prosperity or well being of the human race as a whole.

"...will actually vouch for the work of their reporters..."

Please don't get me wrong - I agree with the need for reliable sources, but:

* Have you been on Facebook? A billion Sheeple will repost without any investigation of facts. Surely that means that their belief is strong or interest diminished in the junk they post. Perception is reality.

* Should we trust news? Really? Ever? Without going to look up a few facts?

Oh OK - you mean stuff you could do with rsync / bash / cron in a heartbeat?

Are you retarded?????

"....I don't think anyone could argue that the Catholic Church doesn't do an amazing amount of good for impoverished African states....."

AIDS + no condoms????

"...'Our tolerance must never extend to tolerating religious hatred.'...."

Fuck you Julia I'm an atheist and the whole concept of religious tolerance revolts me to my core. I do it because I don't think people are ready yet to en masse face the realities of the universe and life without religion (aka one less thing to worry about).

I don't stir the pot actively but if a religious person injects themselves in my life I have zero tolerance. Having an official state that religion is on the agenda for Australia is piss weak. We don't have an official religion.

".......keeping others from doing me harm......"

Like killing you and your children by perpetuating bad lifestyle choices on the basis of "your rights"?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIwrV5e6fMY

"...she has six years to live...."

".... It was also heavily criticized for its National Intelligence Estimate in 2002, which supported claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction...."

So basically an idea to sell to the crowd that it is listening to their feedback. I doubt it. I am pretty sure that any intel agency with a budget is aware of most of the important stuff before we are.

The BBC is touting some tripe as to what the people across the pond are doing? It seems more like a way to soften their failures in light of the agenda to preserve their incursions into citizen monitoring.

By choosing a level that you are aiming your app at and testing it on said versions / platforms / etc.

The other part is to use plain old HTML instead of AJAX everything and pick your compatibility battles where you have the high ground

I normally take the middle path and only use generic and robust techniques for the core of an application.

Also if you are selling a viable business application you can say things like IE9+ compatible to avoid such hell. Granted if you are writing for Joe Public then you have to be more mindful of older browsers but compatibility is not that hard (I haven't suggested HTML 5 I'm just suggesting using the appropriate level of language to solve your business case. )

If the client want HTML5 features to work on an old browser then they are already making a choice to either have multiple versions of a web application or have a structure fails gracefully for each one....sounds like divorcing your cousin - things are a bit fucked up to start with

When it comes down to it I would use a web app for most things. It scales better and you have a central point of debugging. You also aviod the hell of client OS/ library updates that your app depends on.

What's broken with JavaScript?

In a few years we've gone from scratching out code by hand to a wealth of JQuery libraries that make my web development easier. I've only used js as something to help the functionality of web pages at the client level / make AJAX calls. Whilst I realise it can be used for other things it seems to fit this need quite well.

So my question: It seems to produce the required outcome in its most prolific implementations so why the need to change it? Who benefits?

See sub. ;-)

If you look up stuff on the Internet or watch mainstream media and choose to remember the stories then you get a pretty clear picture of "Blood for Oil" and "Too big to fail" stories. You balance that out with candidates saying money for influence and the massive disproportion in wealth in the US and it paints a grim picture.

A few people with a disgusting amount of money make decisions that impact the rest of the world and none of them are elected.

The bad part is that we know all this already and no doubt when troops hit the ground in Iran, Somalia, etc, we will continue to rage on the Internet while ours sons go and kill someone else's sons......Wikileaks rocks but unless we are using the information at our disposal for change then what's the point?

Just an idea - if you tax and legalise a gateway drug like marijuana you make it a "big step" for kids to go from being kids to addicts without being part of your gateway.

Most kids don't take up smoking these days because they get education that says - its a fucking mindless idea to smoke - because educators can talk about that with authority. Give educators the same powers with weed and you go from seeing drugs as "I'll just try a joint cos its like a strong cigarette" to "wft? I have to take a pill that some junkie made or put some hardcore up my nose???"

Its only hardcore because kids experience gateway drugs which build up the expectation of a high and in some cases have addictive personalties that lead them into the deeper world of drugs.

Sorry to spoil your point but I just couldn't help myself....