How involved should the government be with computers and electronics?

it doesn't create more carbon dioxide than it takes in over it's life, it's not low carbon because at the point of burning it produces less CO2 than burning petrol, it's low carbon because over the course of the life of the plant it draws in CO2 from the atmosphere, then releases similar amounts of CO2...
of course the same can be said of fossil fuels, they were plants once, just so long ago...

Harvesting, transporting and processing the corn into ethanol creates more carbon dioxide emissions-- tractors, etc. don't run on ethanol (yet).
 
"The PC gaming industry is behind most of the advancements in computer hardware over the past two decades." I was given to understand the opposite was true. Interesting.

"Manufacturers would optimize their hardware to score well on the government test, but still run crappy in real-world applications." Is there a basis for this statement? Have there been similar situations in the past?

""The PC gaming industry is behind most of the advancements in computer hardware over the past two decades." After a review, there are two meanings I can attach to this statement so I apologize if I attached the wrong one.
 
The best government is the one that governs the least. Im sure there are 11 year olds who know more about computers than most people in the us government.
 
I think both can be true. Government intervention and Free-Market.

For Example: The internet was created for the military use. An early form of it anyway. It was the free-market who would take it to the next level.

Also...must we point out NASA, and virtually everything we have today has come out of NASA or has been improved by NASA?

Also, Nuclear tech was based off of the research for the bomb. Way before people started talking about Energy... Sometimes it is the government who does things strictly for military purposes that enter our free-market world.
 
I think both can be true. Government intervention and Free-Market.

For Example: The internet was created for the military use. An early form of it anyway. It was the free-market who would take it to the next level.

Also...must we point out NASA, and virtually everything we have today has come out of NASA or has been improved by NASA?

Also, Nuclear tech was based off of the research for the bomb. Way before people started talking about Energy... Sometimes it is the government who does things strictly for military purposes that enter our free-market world.

"Also...must we point out NASA, and virtually everything we have today has come out of NASA or has been improved by NASA?" Including the microwave and Tang from my understanding.
 
I think both can be true. Government intervention and Free-Market.

For Example: The internet was created for the military use. An early form of it anyway. It was the free-market who would take it to the next level.

Also...must we point out NASA, and virtually everything we have today has come out of NASA or has been improved by NASA?

Also, Nuclear tech was based off of the research for the bomb. Way before people started talking about Energy... Sometimes it is the government who does things strictly for military purposes that enter our free-market world.

Let's clarify this a bit. Innovation and technological advance in the overwhelming majority of recorded human history were accomplished through war research (let us not forget that NASA is a cold-war relic).

This is not exclusively a government enterprise, but in the US it pretty much is.
 
Depends what government you're talking about.

Take the Japanese government - they're, as a whole, very clued up in terms of technology. A lot of technological systems there are pretty ground breaking, from the trains that are never, ever late to the systems which held up most of Tokyo despite the magnitude 9 earthquake. I don't usually rush to congratulate any government but in terms of technology, they are in my mind very good. So should they have an involvement in the computer / electronic industry? Sure, I think they do a great job.

Now take the UK government. Oh dear. We have an IT syllabus that exclusively teaches the use of things people never, ever use in the real world (Access anyone?) a rail network that was privatised and has been getting worse ever since, only just thinking about upgrading to IE7 when the rest of us are on version 9 or running different browsers altogether, laws that are being bankrolled by record companies who can simply brainwash the MPs with any crap they choose, almost a complete ignorance of the broadband network until recently, STILL a complete ignorance of IPv6 despite the fact we've basically run out of IPv4 addresses, confusion over basic terminology from "experts" in recent reports... need I go on? The answer to them is a definite no.

So all in all it depends - if a government knows what they're on about and has the potential to make some great changes then yes. If they're just a bunch of layabouts with no interest or clue about technology at all, then definitely not.
 
Depends what government you're talking about.

Take the Japanese government - they're, as a whole, very clued up in terms of technology. A lot of technological systems there are pretty ground breaking, from the trains that are never, ever late to the systems which held up most of Tokyo despite the magnitude 9 earthquake. I don't usually rush to congratulate any government but in terms of technology, they are in my mind very good. So should they have an involvement in the computer / electronic industry? Sure, I think they do a great job.

Now take the UK government. Oh dear. We have an IT syllabus that exclusively teaches the use of things people never, ever use in the real world (Access anyone?) a rail network that was privatised and has been getting worse ever since, only just thinking about upgrading to IE7 when the rest of us are on version 9 or running different browsers altogether, laws that are being bankrolled by record companies who can simply brainwash the MPs with any crap they choose, almost a complete ignorance of the broadband network until recently, STILL a complete ignorance of IPv6 despite the fact we've basically run out of IPv4 addresses, confusion over basic terminology from "experts" in recent reports... need I go on? The answer to them is a definite no.

So all in all it depends - if a government knows what they're on about and has the potential to make some great changes then yes. If they're just a bunch of layabouts with no interest or clue about technology at all, then definitely not.

"If they're just a bunch of layabouts with no interest or clue about technology at all, then definitely not." Funny, here in the US, civil service workers have that reputation. I can add the government on the federal and state level does have much catching up to do too.

I think that any government should provide leadership, but not to the extent of dominance.
 
Harvesting, transporting and processing the corn into ethanol creates more carbon dioxide emissions-- tractors, etc. don't run on ethanol (yet).
but they could run on biodiesel... (I wonder if this could be extracted from the corn before the fermentation process to get ethanol?).

teaches the use of things people never, ever use in the real world (Access anyone?)
aside from the fact that access is used in the real world, in some horrible little corners of the corporate world, teaching access, (at least when I learned it) wasn't so much about using the program as it was learning how to construct relational databases.

it's a lot easier to teach this in a graphical tool than it would be to teach school kids SQL.


Though if I'm honest I think that the use of paid for software pretty much shouldn't be in use at all in public institutions/education. honestly think of how many computers that there are in an average school, even with educational discounts, and bulk buy discounts how much money could be saved by just switching to open office?
how much by switching to Linux?

almost a complete ignorance of the broadband network until recently, STILL a complete ignorance of IPv6 despite the fact we've basically run out of IPv4 addresses
not basically, have, the last address block was assigned earlier this year. We have run out of ipv4 addresses.

only just thinking about upgrading to IE7 when the rest of us are on version 9 or running different browsers altogether
to be fair that's due to a glut of applications written for ie6 that won't work on newer browsers, so the government has chosen to not spend to redevelop apps until now...

and if they have a closed system that's not connected to the internet then running ie6 is probably fine. (though not if they have machines connected to the internet). (am I right in thinking that ie6 also means either windows 2000 or xp but pre sp2?).
 
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