Stop The Meter!
It turns out that people are turning away from TV to consume news and entertainment on the Internet. Rogers and Bell are taking advantage of their near monopoly position by charging me a fee if I choose to watch movies and other programming using Netflix and/or Youtube. That’s not fair. I can watch as much TV as I want. Why are they limiting my Internet usage?
I invite you to speak up. Sign this petition: Stop the meter.
If you feel that you want to express yourself in your own words, visit the facebook group and have your say: Open Media Facebook Group.
We Canadians pay more to access the Internet, and we pay for an inferior level of service. Canada has some of the poorest-quality broadband among advanced countries. Our Internet services providers are making money hand over foot, but their profits are holding broadband adoption back.
Rogers and Bell don’t get it. Explain it to them.
.NET Productivity Sucks
I am being deliberately provocative in my headline, but a co-worker and I were commenting to each other that we felt that we were becoming less productive in .NET. On the whole, we do not think it is our fault.
Our current project uses the Prism framework. Only one member of our team can claim to be extremely versatile using this framework – the promise is that it allows developers to build applications that are easier to maintain.
Some members of the team are on a learning curve, but it seems to be a challenge for them. I experience the same thing a year ago on another project that was using Model-View-Presenter. In theory, the benefits are clear. In practice, not so clear yet. I find that I spend a lot of time learning and/or teaching, and I wonder what it will be like when we add new or different developers to the team.
I get tired of type errors in .NET – I have felt for a long time that the compiler is trying to protect me from making errors I would never make. But, I do not have have anything coherent to say about that right now. I just want to cite an interesting article that states that developers are more productive using Django than they are using .NET.
I have nothing to add – just want to say: I am feeling less productive in .NET than I used to. I like Python – I used it on a project over the summer. It felt great to deliver working code every day. Is it just me?
Privacy is Not Important
Ok, my headline is deliberately provocative. Privacy is important. But, often it is not. I think we are being very silly over issues of privacy.
It is stupid to spend hours typing information on public websites and to then worry about keeping it private. Facebook was designed to share information. The Web was designed to make information widely available.
Deleting your Facebook account over issues of privacy is like boycotting the local grocery store because people gawk when you pull down your pants. Are you going to tell the grocery store owner that you refuse to return until he or she provides a means to control who sees your bum when your pants are down around your ankles? Or, are you going to refrain from pulling your pants down in public? Which makes more sense?
Facebook is a public place: govern yourself accordingly. Don’t be stupid! If you are having an affair, don’t talk about it on Facebook. If you lied to the boss, said that you were sick, and went golfing instead, don’t put the pictures on Facebook.
Of course, there are real privacy issues, but do not assume that nobody is watching you on the Internet. Break the word down: “Inter”, which means between, among or within; and “net”, which means to catch and ensnare. If your neighbors are laughing behind your back because they saw you naked in front of your window, it is silly to blame that on your landlord. The Internet is a public place. There are better places to be private.
Having said this, there is information that you share online, with a legal understanding that it will not be shared for any other purpose than the purpose you ascribe. That is a contract. Still, sometimes you need a contract, but other times, all you need is common sense.