If only that were the case. As usual, let's go with the car analagy. A person gets a ticket for speeding. That may slow them down for a week or two, but they will enevitably be speeding again when they are in a rush, or old habits take over. Fines are a slight deterrent, but they are in no way the most effective discipline method.

Now, on to corporations. They are trying to make money. they want the lowest price. In fact, they are basically required to get it in most situations. They are told constantly by their investors that they need to maximize shareholder value. That means doing the most with the least. Actually, this doesn't just apply to corporations, here in America, I work with bidding to a lot of schools. I may do far better work, but if my price is $10 over the other guys, he wins, and does his shoddy install. This is maximizing their "investor" value (taxpayers).

They are certainly not going to fund their own internal small web development team. Let's add up the prices. Let's say there are 2 people in it and a new manager. We'll say that the two devs make $50K/year, and the manager makes $60K. Then we tack on $25K per person for taxes and benefits. That's $185,000.00 per year for team, every single year. No way is that going to fly, if they only get fined $250,000.00 once per every 10 years or something.

So, no, fines will not change things in corporate culture. It is a nice dream, but a dream nonetheless.

I agree that would be far better. However, in reality, it sometimes fails. This can be due to feature creep, overly high workloads (esp at some sweatshop web companies, like HIT/Heritage used to be - I dealt with them once, and wish I could have run away, but it wasn't my money), a library that got changed, or even some junior developer committing his code by mistake and having it appear in production when he meant to send it to his super.

SQL injection still appears to happen almost constantly, even though most web languages have very good safeguards against it, and high profile places still show vulnerabilities, so it is still high on the list of security flaws next to XSS.

I've been on both sides - times when I have the time to write good clean code, which has everything completely buttoned up. But I've also been a victim of those times I echoed a variable in testing and it appeared in production when just the right situation arose. I'm not proud of it, but no one is perfect. Being up all night hunting down an obscure bug means sometimes you don't clean things out the way you should.

I wish I had the leisure to take my time at it. However, reality can be the boss and the client screaming their heads off, as you try to fix a showstopper in a feature or form that was added last minute by sales due to a miscommunication, or unseen need. Companies are less people do more work, not the other way around.

So, a web developer that was hired from outside screwed up his code. That happens almost every day. If not far more often.

Seriously, if companies were to get fined for every bad piece of code or stupid bobby tables vulnerability (obligatory xkcd reference), they would all go out of existence. Mistakes and bad code happen, especially with outside contactors. Are they going to start fining companies for not encrypting hard drives too?

20 people COULD have been affected, and this is supposedly big news. However, thousands of people were affected by the far more intrusive credit card breaches that seem to happen almost monthly. I think the ICO should be focusing their resources elsewhere.

You haven't been keeping up. This is still easily attacked, as discussed here last month.

http://it.slashdot.org/story/12/03/14/1353230/multiword-passwords-secure-or-not

Still more clear than 4K digital at that size. In this case, analog has it's benefits.

Not Really... I just raised one in New England two weeks ago. We had 13 people up top pulling, 10 more below helping to pull, and numerous other people who were assisting below to keep the screen surface raised as much as possible. There easily need to be that many, as the screen is extremely heavy and difficult to pull up as a dead load. Additionally, ours had a silver surface for 3D, which means you can't touch the screen or you will ruin it.

Then there was the joy of bringing a 60' box holding the screen through a mall, raising it 2 stories in a food court all night, and then raising up the screen itself...

Tell them that they will open source the code with their name pegged to it. Better yet, tell them you will send it to their college professors and any company that calls asking for employment verification...

I write a very small codebase, but it is used in webpages, so I know that others will see it. The embarrassment of ugly and badly commented code alone makes me keep my documentation up to date.

I use netbeans, and I have no issues with dependency hell...

Impressive. Only Steve Jobs could pull off the final "One More Thing" after the most recent Apple announcements. It was as timely as could be, and it's sad to see a true visionary go.

He brought an artistic sense to the usually boxy engineering and computer world, and aethetics can make a big difference.

Good on you Steve. Thanks for giving as much as you did.

Within minutes of each other, we have one story here that says they will duke it out, and TechCrunch saying that they are now scared and are going to settle (http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/26/htc-warms-up-to-settlement-talks-with-apple/).

Seriously, there is way too much speculative journalism and hot shot CEOs all trying to put a good spin on where they stand.

In the end: Patents are killing everything, and we all lose. If it doesn't get under control soon, it will just be a big royal rumble cage match where everyone is covered in blood. And the cost of our devices will shoot through the roof due to lawyers fees.

Of course, it takes so long for Congress or the courts to do anything, that in the meantime, we all have to just duck and cover.

Seriously, I thought growing up I was supposed to have all the stuff shown on the Jetsons...

And politicians and society as a whole are more than happy to spend other people's money to make these things happen. As soon as it becomes about their money though, few want to do it.

I'll just put this up there with the perpetual motion machine, because there is always something that breaks any time it comes to energy, nothing is fully renewable. Entropy rules all in the end. I'll believe it when I see it.

If the stock market crashes, gold will do you no good. People will be bartering for food, gas, and other staples. Gold will not do a thing for you. Look at any economy after a natural disaster or crash - people will give anything for clean water.

Gold will drop just as well as anything else. It is not a safe place for investing.

Well, it is an interesting response for a few reasons:

1. It is best to have a number of defense options in court. You'd be surprised what a jury can allow to happen, especially in a civil situation, where it can only require a liklihood that it is true.

2. A person on a jury can be sympathetic to a person's percieved ailment. A lot of people have had pain they can't prove, and the man in this case could say it is too hard to prove he doesn't have the symptoms, so to err on the side of not making the man suffer. However, many people find that what they do in their own homes is inviolate, within reason, so it switches the focus from pity on the sick to trying to retain our rights which many feel are eroding anyway. It is a good response to percieved ailments that hits at the visceral level.

3. Yup, you can go wired. But, why should he have to? If one can prove the the strength of the signal erodes as quickly as it does, then why should he not be allowed to use his laptop in any room he wants. And who's to say the man's microwave isn't far worse for him?

I appreciate you playing devil's advocate. I agree - internet access is not a core right to be human (no matter what the Dutch say). But it can be an effective litigation strategy.

I didn't say the article had merit, I'm just letting you know it is getting a lot of attention lately in more than the usual places (although a different person is featured in the popsci article - I guess this is the new cool psychosis).

The right to control what you do in your own home certainly is, and some may say that the pursuit of happiness may include youtube, etc.

Many use cell phones and remote internet access to do work, so being able to work to do your job is likely a right.

The concern comes when rights intersect - Playing loud music, putting a billboard in your yard, windfarm on the cape.... The issue here is that unless he can prove his malady, it is frivolous, and frankly, the power companies are going to be sued next, and they are going to contest this to death.

So, yes, being able to use your laptop in your own home can be considered a right that on your property, you can do what you want.

And didn't the Netherlands just say internet access was a basic human right?