I should just ignore that last line there as at this point it's got to be flamebait...but just in case you're really still that ignorant of what vb.net is at this point....

C# and VB.NET are one and the same at this point, really just wrappers for the CLR that have syntactic differences, but share all the features of the other. Sure, at any given point one or the other is slightly ahead in terms of feature set, but that flips back and forth constantly.

What's really a problem with your statement however is the implication that vb is anything even remotely similar to vb.net. This is dangerously naive at best. Place where I work has a lot of old school vb6 devs. Myself and a few other new devs are rebuilding the core system in .Net. Management really wants this done in vb.net so that the other devs will be able to easily migrate into the new environment. I'm still fighting this, it's the WORST mistake they could make. See, at least if they start off in the new system using c#, then they will know for sure that things are different, and adjust accordingly. But if it looks like vb, and they can turn off all those flags like option strict, then it will behave like vb too! Oh joy!

You see, there really are two vb.net languages, the proper one, and the one that imports the VisualBasic namespace and turns off all the compile time type checking measures meant to hand-hold those few remaining vb6 devs on their way into the land of .net. Unfortunate as this does lead to mistaken ideas about what vb.net is.

Personally, I actually prefer both for certain things. C# for plumbing and back end work, intricate lambdas, things like that...syntax is just cleaner for this kind of stuff. Vb.Net for front end work, it's just quicker, and in some cases somewhat clearer about what exactly you're doing with events etc. Besides, the not quite as good devs will tend to stop at the c# line and come ask for help instead of diving in to muck stuff up.

Yes, Teksavvy does have their own backbone and have been growing as fast as possible in the past few years. I've been just waiting for them to come to my area so I could switch to them, they are a great company...er, were.

This decision kills Teksavvy. Teksavvy does use Bell's copper for last-mile. They have to. Bell has a granted monopoly on this. And now for this use of JUST that bit of copper, they will be forced to pay MORE than Bell's own customers do for overage fees over their entire network!

This is completely and utterly despicable. These small competitors in Canada have been fighting upstream without a paddle for a decade now against the big 3, and succeeding! And now in one fell swoop they are to be washed away. We'd be better off in Canada tomorrow across the board if the big 3 simply ceased to exist at the end of business today.

You are missing the crux of the problem. If these costs were indeed what the market would bear, and here's the key point, _given an open and competitive market_, then so be it.

At the immediate moment you don't have to go with Rogers or Bell in Canada. You can pay a lot less for a whole lot more from one of the other smaller players.

This removes the competition allowing the big boys who already have a monopoly on the infrastructure to _force_ all their competition to charge a certain price point. No more free and open competition. _That_ is the problem here, and it is a very big problem.

You know, once upon a time a person could make a mistake or do something they regretted that would be forgotten and never become an issue. You really want that pic that some 'friend' took at a college party and posted tagged with your name to still pop up on searches when you're 40 something looking for a new job?

Is it no longer OK to make mistakes and have them forgotten?

The number of posts in this thread that are basically saying 'be perfect all the time and you'll have nothing to worry about, or else suck up the consequences' is absolutely shocking.

Sure, if _I_ choose to post something online about myself then I will live with the consequences of doing so. But that is not what this is about. Not even a little bit. (Is it just me or is this thread getting very Orwellian?)

Problem here specifically is that there is this online social community out there that a ton of people use. A lot of people carry out all forms of conversations on it. Sometimes two people will even have a conversation between themselves discussing someone else with the intent that the someone else won't be able to see it, at least that's the way it was the other day when they had the conversation. Now lo and behold, for example, your SO knows all about the exciting trip you have planned as a surprise for the weekend! (See, doesn't have to be about getting fired over some drunken party pic now does it?)

Kids today, so used to their freedoms being given away by the powers that be that they take it for the norm and now are totally willing, or worse, expect that, privacy is to be given away or be non existent as well!

Anyways, for my own self, just another tick on the reasons not to Facebook list.

Not convinced that that is the case. On first read, that is what I thought too...but they are not very clear and after reading it again I'm inclined to think they actually mean that it can currently only recognize 16 interactive zones.

Sure, of course that's the situation, and that's probably unlikely to change.

But, which is more secure? Physical patient files on desks, at the foot of beds, hanging on doors, rooms full of them...or electronic files that have at least the potential to require appropriate credentials to be accessed? Yes, both can be broken or abused, but one has the potential to be more secure.

Good points.

Any system can only be as good as the people that use it. I can't help but feel while reading 'The Data Model That Nearly Killed Me' that the problems encountered actually had very little to do with the electronic record system at all. It seemed more like an incompetent system was in place as a whole. The data model didn't seem to do anything wrong, it was the people using it, or not using it. Not saying whether it is actually a good electronic system or not, impossible to tell...but enough people had enough direct access to critical information, without even thinking about the electronic system, that this guy should not have had the problems he had.

Is it really the data model's fault that not only did no one use information provided on entry to the er, they didn't even READ it? Sounds to me like the real problem is that new systems were put in place without new processes or training being put in place...and then on top of that the users of the system failed to even fall back on the logical concept of direct communication!

I do not for one second believe that this situation wouldn't (Or for that matter hasn't) have happened even with the use of standard physical medical charts instead of the electronic record system in place. There is really nothing at all in the story that makes the problem specific to the system or the model being used in that system. Can't believe that had a physical medical chart been used that the same mistakes the medical staff made in this case would have somehow miraculously NOT been made on paper as well.

Basically, what I take as most important from this guy's story, is that that is NOT a medical facility I ever want to step foot into under any circumstances, electronic records or not!