is the fact that we are beginning to accept the term "app" as a distinctly different category/delivery method of software, rather than whatever poor comparisons/facts of the original story. We are now getting to the point where Steam/ITunes/et cetera et al. have become a distinct category of media, even though each one is an "app" in the original sense of the word.

Seems to me that this trend is essentially inevitable, whether it's the game industry or any other category of computer software. Simply put, not having to create, manufacture, and distribute physical media is cheaper, faster, and easier for everyone, and as the percentage of people with acceptable "broadband" speeds (which is pretty low, because it's very likely you'd put up with a 6 hour download of a big game in the background) increases, the drive to move away from physical media benefits everyone.

So, move along, no real story here, just some journalist looking to get paid by the word to repeat the obvious.

You know, I scanned the first 75 replies or so and I cannot recall a single one being from someone who actually claimed to have a kid in a school. So here's my take on the situation, as someone who has had 5 kids in school.

1) This isn't news. This has been going on for a long time now, as school districts strive to stop handling money. As a parent, I would *FAR* rather write a check every few months (or, better yet, this year they take Paypal!) to pay for my kids lunches, than try to find the exact damn change every day for my six year old.

2) I have a child who has struggled with weight issues from birth. Seeing as how she has two rail thin sisters (and they eat the same things), we have been working with her for about a year to emphasize better food choices and controlled portions. However, the simple fact is that schools do have choices in the cafeterias, especially starting in middle school. As such, I consider it a good tool for me to keep track of all my kids *SPENDING* and eating habits. I can tell if my high school freshman is guzzling down four packages of twinkies a day, or eating a real meal.

3) What, exactly, does anyone believe the schools will do with this information? They are already legally restricted in terms of dietary requirements (by state and federal regulation) and they are already legally restricted from divulging personal information of students. So, does anyone her seriously believe that they will start selling Hostess the names and eating habits of every child? Or that they will start writing contracts with companies simply to, what? Increase profit margins? Violate laws by bringing in unhealthy foods? Sorry, it won't happen.

I think that the bottom line here is that this really isn't a privacy violation. It's a tool to allow parents to control diet and spending of kids who might not be able to make the best decisions about such issues.

Bill

I'm the parent of 3 youngsters, and we go there all the time. Without a doubt it is one of the most engaging and fun places to take a kid in St. Louis. My kids play to exhaustion every time they go. As a matter of fact, so do I. We always comment (or hear people around us commenting) on how amazing it is that, considering the risk, they have the sort of place where nothing is off limits, and if you can get to it, you can go and climb on it and play on it. Is there danger? Yes, but you can drown in a bucket of water if you try hard enough, and the fun more than outweighs any problems.

I'm just amazed by how little the WSJ article actually said about the place, seeing as how they only mentioned 1/10 of the things you can do there. And they were incorrect about the big slide. It's actually about 9 stories tall, going from the 10th floor to the 1st. Bah, the state of journalism.

Anyway, cool place. Visit if you can.

I think you are over-simplifying this just a tad. While I agree with the general direction and ideas, there are two poignant facts that you seem to be overlooking in this.

First, every other universal health care system is nearly an order of magnitude smaller than the US. The ones that are continually compared to the US (particularly Britain and Canada) are much more manageable due to the much smaller size. I've been watching our government for years, and I cannot fathom the bureaucratic cock-ups that will inevitably occur in any system we may implement, whether its the current bill, or a public-option, or any other.

Second, based on current experience with both government run health systems, and with other entitlement programs (particularly Social Security), I have little faith that the US government (no matter who is in charge, they are both guilty) will manage to correctly run any implemented system. I have a lot of friends who are veterans, and without exception they all believe that the VA system is fundamentally broken. And look at the cock-up that is Medicare/Medicaid. Do you seriously believe that any government which has legally forgone it's right to negotiate prices (in the case of drugs) or that continually screws up procurement (google Medicare and powered wheel chair pricing) is in any way capable of running a health system of *ANY* sort? I'm sorry, but I don't buy that. Look at how the money taken for Social Security has been used as a slush fund for 50 years. Had it not, Social Security would in all likelihood be solvent today.

I'm sorry, but this isn't better than nothing, if only because the basic tenet, health care "reform" is false. We are not reforming health care. We're doing a backhanded deal with the insurance companies, who, by the way, are spending $1.4 million per day on lobbying and advertising. How much health care could $400 million dollars buy?

I have five kids, ranging from two college graduates to a kindergartner, and I am not at all surprised. At the risk of sounding like someone who sits on his front porch and reminisces about the good old days and walking uphill to school both ways, while waiting for kids to touch my property so I can yell at them, I firmly and insistently blame primary schools. Over the years, somehow, phonics has increased in teaching, encouraging kids to try and spell more complex words (which is fine), but does not in any way penalize them for misspelling or bad grammar. My 2nd grader routinely turns in papers with words that would be a challenge for a 6th grader, yet I don't see any red ink or corrections, telling them how to spell the word correctly. I can only attribute this three ways: 1) the teacher doesn't have the time to do it (WTF?!?!?) or 2) they don't want to actually make someone feel bad for messing up (WTF?!?!?) or 3) they just don't care. Probably a combination of all three. This is especially prevalent with my 8th grader, whose grammar is only corrected for English class, but anything else she turns in for any other class is remarkably devoid of red ink to correct spelling and grammar.

With a lack of consistent reinforcement of the basics in every class and in every setting, is it any wonder that the kids can't spell when they get to college? I recall getting points marked down in all my classes (including science classes) for misspellings, and I am stunned by the fact that somehow proper spelling and grammar is not considered something that anyone other than an English teacher should be concerned about when grading.

Recently, we allowed our teenager to get a Facebook account, with the proviso that we remain her friends and that we have access to the account. I reply to every post she makes abusively correcting her piss-poor grammar.

Any way you cut it, a consistent use of proper red ink would likely solve this issue quickly, even for high-school aged children who have learned bad habits.

Bill

1) Start Web 2.0 web site utilizing every buzzword you can find
2) Desparately woo users until you get large enough to matter
3) Sit down a year or more later to desperately figure out a revenue model
4) Provide Spammers a way to proliferate
5) Sue them!
6) PROFIT$$$$$$$

Not only that, but this also avoids the usual problem in Slashdot business plans in that there is no question marks in either steps 3 or 4.

Anyone got a good idea?

Remember, most piracy is reported by pissed off employees. In an effort to do the right thing, as other posters have pointed out, first inventory everything you can. Next, figure out the extent of the problem. Then go to your boss, or the owner, and let them know your concerns, as well as the legal ramifications. Do this in the best possible fashion for you, of course. And then let them know how much of a risk they are at, in terms of financial impact. All it takes in this environment (or any, for that matter) is one fired or layed off employee (yourself for instance, but I wouldn't mention that, all things being equal) to cost them far more in productivity, time, money, and embarassment than finding solutions.

The response should dictate your further actions. However, if worse comes to worse, you can always report them yourself, should they vindictively attack you over this.

Also keep in mind that the previous IT guy might very well be much better connected if he's still there. Do what you need to do to avoid embarrassment for all parties.

Bill

Documentation is critical to business success, no matter what the business. The reality is not about "protecting" your job or keeping the PHB's from mucking with things. The reality is that it may not be what you do, but what the other guy has in his head that is critical information for your business.

In other words, what happens when a critical employee has a heart attack, or gets hit by a bus. What do you do then? If everyone has their little piece in their head, no one else benefits, and the business overall loses. Or, even more simply, what happens when someone goes on vacation? Or when you go on vacation? Do you (or does the business) suffer because there isn't a way to replicate what that person does?

In this day and age, business processes are perhaps the most valuable thing a business owns. Knowledge can be learned, information can be looked up. But utilizing information in a business is *NOT* as simple as having that information. How information is applied to the business is the key. And documenting that information is the *ONLY* way to get it out of someone's head and into the general domain.

I've had this discussion recently both as part of my business (an IT Services vendor) and as part of my customers businesses. In every case the answer is the same. The processes are the most valuable asset for any company, no matter what the size or business. In fact, the smaller the business, the more valuable, because the likelihood is that in a smaller company there are more concentrations of knowledge, more key people who, if hit by the hypothetical bus, would take with them the day to day processes that run that business.

There are many ways to approach the problem. From embedding processes into a help desk program, to external solutions such as Wiki's, to professional programs that are specifically designed to collect knowledge, flowchart it, and also align it to your business processes.

One of the products that my company handles is specifically designed for this: aligning IT processes to business processes. While this is generally a new concept, and a tough sell, when you can map out what you do in your IT department, and also see the business reasons for why you do it, not to mention see the business impact if you don't do it, the value can be staggering. This is one of the greatest untapped barriers to IT becoming part of the larger business, and demonstrating its value. Far too often IT does things because they need doing, but they don't understand how what they do affects the business, or what value their day-to-day activities actually have in the larger business. And the reverse holds true as well: the business doesn't understand how their needs and requests impact IT, or why they cannot simply "make a wish" and have things their way.

Control of your business processes is the single best way to ensure that IT is doing things the right way for the business, and to clearly demonstrate the value (monetary and otherwise) of their jobs to the PHB's and accountants and other ickey people on the business side.

Documenting processes might be the best way to protect yourself, and save yourself grief. Its only a very narrow and stupid point of view that sees this as being a way to protect themselves, and make themselves "valuable" to the business.

Bill

Its very simple, really, and there is nothing sinister or state-regularted about it (which, in some minds, might be the same thing...

Charter grew up like every other cable provider: acquisition. Cable franchises are granted on a city (or county) by city (or county) basis. In other words, Charter (or a company it acquired) negotiated at some point with the municipalities in question and bought the rights to provide service.

So, they bought those cities.

Note that rural areas are generally much cheaper for a cable company to expand into. Two reasons: one, franchises are cheaper, because of the lower number of potential subscribers, and two, in a rural area the costs associated with building a system are *RADICALLY* cheaper. For instance, in the county of Charters HQ (St. Louis, County, Missouri) the average cost per foot (inclusive) to lay fiber is about $8/foot. (Okay, this was the cost in 2002, but it will suffice for this discussion.) However, if you across the river from St. Louis, into Southern Illinois (also Charter territory) the cost per foot averages about $2 per foot. (also 2002 figures). In other words, a sparsely populated, more rural or rural area *CAN* be a cheap acquisition and buildout for a provider. Obviously, this is dependent on simple cost-ratios, and there will come a point where an area is simply too underpopulated to cost-effectively support.

Also, you have to look at Charter's history to understand why they have lots of rural populations under their belts. The original founders, headed up by Jery Kent, all lived in rural areas of Missouri. When Paul Allen bought into the company, he had completely and totally bought into the "wired world" concept. As a result, between the founders (who desparately wanted service in areas nearly and hour from the edges of St. Louis), Jerry Kent, and the relative cheapness of such systems, there was a gold-rush mentality on these outlying systems that no one wanted.

So Charter ended up in lots of smaller systems and areas.

Not necessarily a bad business plan, just one they screwed up with some unrelated decisions much later.

Bill

Quote: "If I were to be the CEO of Google or the founders of Google I would be very [displeased] that the best search engine in the world continues to provide as a first link, Wikipedia," he said."Is this the best they can do? Is this the best that [their] algorithm can do?"

I don't know...maybe that's because a few hundred million people visit Wikipedia every year, and maybe because someone like me, who remembers when Lynx was the only web browser available, has never actually gone to Brittanica's website? Just maybe? Perhaps if they resolved their rectal-cranial inversion and made an accessible, easy to use, accurate product their PageRank might improve?

Bill