Posts by BenWilson
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Bureaucrats having informal meetings in virtual corridors, on their way to the virtual water cooler? Can't see it. The true joy of the informal meeting is that it is 'off the record'. Which isn't really a possibility if the other person could just cut your entire chat out of a window and keep it to use against you, or push the record button on their workstation. The other part of the point is that you're catching people face-to-face doing something normal humans do, like drinking water. I don't know how many people hang around virtual workplace corridors, and when you meet them you won't be gauging their level of agreement through all the non-verbal cues.
For formal meetings it could work, but I can't see the advantage over Skype or a dozen other mature conferencing packages. I use Skype for international conferences every week, saving a ton of carbon, and most of the time they're still shit-boring and I work during them. Which could be difficult if I have to wander around a virtual world.
As for Africans with no broadband, Skype's excellent. They can IM if the talk don't work, or they could Skype-In or Out and just use POTS.
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Chat doesn't use much bandwidth. Porn does. But I wouldn't accept any figure on usage without evidence. It's not an arena where 'what feels right' is any safe guide to the truth. I don't download many movies or much music, but maybe a lot of other people do, and when they do they use a ton of bandwidth. I'm sure they might be surprised just how much data I download when I need to - when it happens it's typically massive zips of customer data, hundreds of MB at a time, or entire installation DVDs of software.
I would, however, be surprised if the lion's share of bandwidth isn't being soaked up by spam. A lot of that is about porn, if not actually pornographic itself.
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Instead of Second Life, I'd like to see a beefed up Google Earth world.... basically a Second Life style copy of the real world, where I can join you in a 3D copy of your actual office on the other side of the world.
Heh, one day, it will almost be as awesome as actually coming to meet me in my real office. Gagging for it.
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I'm wondering if in a mixed metaphor we could see Hollywood as a tidal wave of corn.
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Porn doesn't need a lobby any more than a tidal wave does.
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When I saw Second Life I thought "How cool - for the owners". Otherwise, it's a chat room. If I'm going to chat, I'll do it for free thx.
I suspect the question was a joke.
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Re: Broadband speeds, I have to say that my #1 concern for the last 5 years has not been the actual speed at all. If you pay enough you can get speed. What is really slack is data caps and charges. Particularly on data that is local in the first place. That still seems like the biggest ripoff that I face regularly.
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I'm kind of in agreement with IP about the wisdom of making political usage of Kiwisaver funds. They should be entities entirely independent of political interference, unless they are being shockingly mismanaged.
It would make very little difference to me how Kiwisaver came by it's profits on my investment UNLESS they blew it on some stupid politically motivated dream. Then I'd be righteously pissed off. And I think investing huge amounts of capital into broadband could be in that category - the return is not certain at all. I'd like having the broadband, sure, but I'd be real bitter on the fact that that investment was not earning me any money for my retirement, like it was meant to, like I signed up for when I started putting into it.
If the government is going to invest in broadband it shouldn't be dominated by the profit-on-the-broadband-itself motive. That should basically pay for itself. It's a good to society as a whole. In that respect I strongly think it would pay off for society, but it won't be in profits to funds.
Fortunately I don't think it's likely either. Kiwisaver doesn't seem to work that way.
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The Whopper is definitely the far superior burger.
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If Hilary gets 2 terms, then they're out for another 2 terms, she'll be well old enough. I wouldn't write off Jeb just yet either, wait and see what Hilary does. I'd be surprised if she can get them out of Iraq. Then Jeb can stand up and say he's going to finally finish what his Dad started, and his brother escalated. By then Iran's nuclear threat may actually be credible, so the panic buttons will probably be going again. Don't forget Jenna and Barbara for the continuance of the Bush Dynasty after Chelsea wins in 2024. By 2030 they'll be plenty old enough too.
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