Posts by robarm

Think about being in one of those systems

Anything evolving around one of the stars being created in the wake of that galaxy will inhabit a star system in intergalactic space. Talk about being alone in the dark...

Long-term goals - Wildly optimistic goals and outright faff we lifted from David Brin/Stephen Fry in an attempt to appear as if we can predict the future. Presented secure in the knowledge that by the time they are proven wrong a different board will be in place to take the blame for not delivering the promised rosy future.

I think you answered your own question (at leats in part)

I agree that the average American is unlike to sit staring at their blank Netflix screen. However, as you mentioned, most people (readers of El REg aside) don't realize the internet is a network of networks, which means that their understanding of how the content gets to their screens is hazy at best. When they go to watch something on Netflix (or Hulu or any other OTT provider) and the content is slow or non-existent, they will likely just chalk it up to "my crappy internet service" and move on to something else. Do that enough times and they'll just drop their subscription to the OTT company. If they are able to find the content on a site owned by the ISP, they won't consider the larger ramifications, they'll just sit back and enjoy their show, and again eventually drop the subscription to the OTT company.

If we had real 'last mile' competition then things might be different - instead of just getting used to "crappy internet service' we might be incentivised to switch providers, but that just isn't an option at the moment and isn't likely to be for he foreseeable future.

Another SciFi sighting

A display much like Google's Glass (along with a wearable computer) also makes an important appearance in Neal Stephenson's Snowcrash, being worn by the hero - Hiro. And apparently they are in common enough use that a disparaging nick name (Gargoyles) has been applied to people wearing them.

Why are you storing passwords in your browser?!?!?

For God's sake, use a password keeper. Hell, write them down and lock them up. Either way is safer and more secure that storing them in an application with zero-factor authentication like a browser. Having said that, should they be displayed in plaintext? Probably not, but encrypting them will require another password that the user is likely to forget.

The perfect solution

A friend and I came up with the ideal solution to this dilemma: get Zynga to create a new game - ServerFarmVille. Players take on the role of DataCenter admins. Instead of growing plants or zombies, they get points for solving trouble tickets such as disk space increases and virtual server moves. What they don't realize is that their in-game actions have real effects on the underlying infrastructure.