The private sector indeed is just as capable at screwing this up. In my own experience doing some moonlighting systems/network consulting, I have come across a Doctor's office that had a wide open network hanging off of a cable modem connecting with a Comcast business account, no firewall, Windows desktops completely open. The home-based DLink router they had as a central hub did actually have some base firewall capabilities, but was a previous consultant thought it was interfering with a software capability to talk to the insurance company, and so thoughtfully turned it off completely.

You would think a hospital with their own full time technical staff might rank better. A prominent Boston area hospital was building out a branch location in the suburbs. I visited to install an Oracle server, and noticed that because of constraints on network cabling at the time, they were using Linksys wireless through-out the office for connectivity, with no encryption. I raised this concern immediately with the director of the office, but was told not to worry, as this was only a "temporary" solution until they could get a cabling vendor in to run something more formal. My largest concern was that this office was still directly tied into the back-end of the main hospital data network, and thus, from the parking lot, it was trivial at best to get onto the hospital network.

I understand these are only two limited examples, but their still lacks any real capabilities to be able to keep medical records secure through-out the chain. Until something akin to PCI for medical records really takes place, complete with audit controls, etc, I don't see the situation changing all that much. PCI itself has flaws, but it is an attempt to actually place controls on credit card data from swipe to credit card company.

I Believe Conner's somewhat contrary to himself in his overall viewpoints. He claims that one of the challenges of Opera is that it is a bit to technical and "gets in the way," implying that it is geared towards a more technical user. However, I am not aware of that many non-technical users who go out looking for alternative browsers.

My own experience thus far has been that without bundling Firefox, it is primarily technical users who are encouraging the non-technical to actually use it. I know my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, etc. all generally use whatever comes with their computer, which is Internet Explorer. They knew nothing about Firefox until I heavily promoted it and provided easy to access download links for them. This was only done because I grew tired of trying to explain why they kept getting infected with malware and viruses through IE. Most did not even know it is possible to browse the web with anything else.

By bundling an alternative, the masses have access to choice. I don't agree with Conner that we should simply expect people to want to go out and research and naturally find Firefox. Bundling does not imply stuffing an alternative down someones throat. It merely provides an easy mechanism towards an alternative. And for the non-technical, just awareness of an alternative is a huge win.

Here in Mass, I just went through a fairly time consuming round of interviews for an open Sr. Linux Admin position I had open. I must have had more than 300 resumes come my way, reviewing about 200 of them, phone interviewed about 25 people, personally interviews another 15, all over the course of the past 5 months. My bosses were having a very difficult time comprehending why I was having such a hard time finding someone in such a market, but frankly, quality people have been tremendously hard to come by. My bosses were getting frustrated that I wasn't getting the position filled fast enough. I stuck to my guns and recently (finally!) found a solid candidate.

It has already been mentioned, but in speaking with a few recruiters, the general opinion was that the company's that are laying off are cleaning house of dead wood for the most part. Those who are good at their jobs are staying put right now until the market seems to show some sense of light at the end of the tunnel. Of course their are casualties at all levels in various orgs, but I'm not yet left with the overwhelming sense that quality IT people are flooding the market looking for work.

I understand your point and personally believe two people in marriage should pay the same identical taxes as if they were single, but just to stimulate the contrary side of why to consider taxing married people less, and government motivation:

- Married people are less of an overall burden on society due to being healthier (not that marriage in and of itself necessarily improves health). So, why not tax them less?

- Less overall risk due to higher statistical stability of someone married, as seen by lower insurance rates. Government loves a stable populous paying their taxes, and less likely to revolt or cause other issues, thus less statistical need to pay for any legal enforcement for them.

- Married people often have children. A country wants children for the sake of competing with other countries in terms of economic nationalism. In fact, gay people whom may not conceive through whatever means may adopt abandoned children in society, actually helping out overall.

Again, I agree with you, but I acknowledge their could be a purpose to encouraging marriage through taxes or however.

I have no issue paying extra money for quality, but truly, I find these days (call me an old man) that it is getting harder and harder to justify the risk of spending the money for a "quality" brand-name.

Toyota quality? Toyota often charges a bit more than many competitors for the name badge. While they generally may historically have offered a reliable product, Google out the recalls on their new FJ Cruisers with less than 15k miles and the front internal engine bay fenders ripping apart for no logical reason. Likewise, Google Toyota pickup trucks that are quietly being repurchased at roughly 120% market value due to internal frame rot and other issues. That may sound fair, but hardly accounts for the already discounted KBB value due to people learning the trucks are not up to quality par in the first place. Why not buy the Hyundai with a 100k warranty for less money?

Sony? My 4 year old Sony flat screen power supply randomly seems to short itself and so often times when powering the TV on or off, I get some bizarre affects. I am confident the entire thing will fail in the next 90 days, as also confirmed by a mom & pop repair shop which indicated it would be $150 to try and repair, while they still said it may not really fix the overall issue. Why wouldn't I just buy the cheaper Vizio if it may fail within the same timeframe?

Maytag washing machine? I've already had the transmission on mine replaced after 2 years due to a recall, and now it appears the replaced transmission also needs to be replaced again.

I'm not an eternal pessimist (really!), but I'm not quite confident, with the popularity of Walmart and other big box stores pushing down overall prices, we may have lost much of our choice to truly purchase a name brand product and justify the extra expense knowing it will be truly reliable.

I want to buy good products that are reliable and last a long time. Yes, I will pay a premium for them, as this creates longer term savings for me, less hassle, and less impact on the environment. I see a genuine opportunity for a company to go back to the well and put out nothing but quality products, charge extra money for the quality nameplate, and earn a nitch in the overall market. The existing Sony's, Toyota's, Maytag's, and many other companies that may have historically fulfilled this need have long left it to compete on price and get their products on the shelves of Walmart, Best Buy, etc.

.. to carry on your thought about bullsh*t, they assume that had 95% not been downloaded illegally, this naturally means that the entire 95% would have been purchased through normalized, legit means. Of that 95%, how many downloads were of people trying to check out a CD or album for free that they weren't sure if they would ever buy? If the music was not what was expected, then the statistic is biased assuming they would have purchased the album anyhow.

I may like one Guns'n'Roses song on their new album and so download a few more to see if I would buy the new album, but this does not mean I would ever have been willing to risk simply buying the album without knowing what was really on it. Yet, counting my evaluation downloads as lost sales is hardly accurate. If anything, perhaps I went out and actually bought the album after finding my appreciation for the new album. So, in fact, their statistic is contrary to true actions.

Basically, these numbers are always notoriously unreliable because they make many assumptions that are statistically impossible to make without interviewing a large sample of these specific downloaders while still providing a reliable value.

Are people pirating? You bet. Let the free market handle this - Charge for good, quality music what it should really cost to make it, and one will still find themselves well enriched.

I hate why individuals feel they are being cheated because they aren't rolling in millions for the result of a popular song. I don't mean to deprive anyone of the right to financially benefit from their own respective work, but a record executive crying foul because he isn't making the profit he thinks he should make off of an artist signed to his company just doesn't quite get my sympathy.

>Why does everyone think as soon as you start to throw up billboards and advertisements that the organization in question has become unethical?

Government, as transparent as it is/should be, is heavily influenced and controlled by corporate America who is willing to fill the coffer's of whomever will advance their own interests. This helps demonstrate that regardless of transparency, it is easily possible for money to influence decision making.

Additionally, there is a long history of advertisers in magazines, newspapers, etc. all eventually receiving preferential treatment at various levels. I, for one, enjoy reading an entry about the Coca-Cola corporation without Pepsi ads all over.

If you believe both of these, then it becomes logical to come to think that the purity of Wikipedia in and of itself will become tainted over time, which is certainly a reasonable assumption, though, as you point out, not an absolute. Others question whether it is in fact even truly pure today, as there certainly are still some interesting mod decisions being made.

I know if Microsoft is paying my own bills, I might be more inclined to make them happy.

While most home burglars are not necessarily the most sophisticated, I have read a few reports of the ease of use of hacking the LaserShield. This basically involves breaking the communication between the base unit and sensors, such as by just having a two way radio turned to the same frequency and sending some noise over it to break reception. The base unit does not seem to regularly poll the remote sensors from what I can tell, and so is unaware of a break in communication. Engadget has a video demonstrating the hack here.

While little security is better than none, I still think its important to understand the risks of poorly designed wireless security system devices versus well designed ones or even more conventional wired security system devices.