Disneyland Parade

Woo!  Finally back in Hong Kong after an extended period of travel.  Will upload pictures of our holiday next week but for now, I quickly wanted to wrap up the Disneyland post with some pictures of the parade.

The last time we were in Disneyland, we actually managed to get a great spot to watch the parade.  We were basically right at the front so I decided to see how close up I could get with the zoom on my digital camera.  With that said, its a point and shoot so don't get too excited.
:)

Still, the close ups of the parade are interesting in that it gives a very different feel to looking at the pulled out shots which I have taken in the past.

Love the colours on Minnie's dress

I always feel a great deal of pity for the poor guy in the suit given HK is over 30 degrees and 90% humidity :)

Check out the size of that grin

Can't help but wonder how much their jaws ache after completing one parade

I'm getting younger!

As you know, I play videogames. A lot.

This always seems to surprise people who don't play videogames. They never seem to understand why someone in his mid-thirties would be playing with videogames. Of course, one of the things they don't know is that I am actually in the perfect sweet spot for videogame publishers as I am exactly the same age as the average gamer.

Or at least, I was.

The latest news is that the average age of a gamer is now 37. Which, for the first time that I can recall, makes me younger than the average gamer (but only just). Which means that from now on out, I can expect games to no longer be catered to my tastes but to those old guys who don't have any reaction times worth speaking of.

All joking aside, for the average age to go up at a more rapid rate than my own aging is trending the opposite way to what I expected (assuming this is a trend and not just a statistical anomaly). On one level, there is obviously a pressure on the average age to go up as the people who are playing games get older (like me). However, there is another pressure on the average age to either go down or stay steady as new kids start taking up the hobby.

For the average age to go up more at a more rapid pace than my own aging seems to imply that older gamers are starting to take up the hobby. To be fair, they may not be playing the same AAA reaction based FPS shooter that younger gamers love but that doesn't change the fact that older people are taking up videogames.

Which is pretty frakkin' awesome if you think about it.

DVD Factory Ltd

One of the limitations that the missus and I put on Gerry and Gordon is the amount of time that they can watch TV. Actually, they don't even get to watch TV but rather, we have a stack of kid friendly DVDs that they are allowed to watch for limited periods of time during the day. The problem with this approach is that kids are not particularly good at looking after DVDs and you can expect your nice new DVDs to get scratched, stepped on, bent and thrown around with reckless abandon.

In my dad's day, you would have to just suck it up and spend a ton of money on DVDs (or rather, VHS?) while bringing out the cane to teach those damn kids a lesson about respecting property. Damn kids today are spoilt rotten anyway and could do with a little thrashing ... sorry, where was I?

Oh yes - DVDs.

Luckily, with the wonders of modern technology, I've gotten around this issue by making a backup of the DVD and then giving the backup to the kids while the original DVD goes to a safe location. Anytime a DVD gets too beat up and is no longer playable, I simply burn another DVD and the kids are back in business. As you can imagine, spending less money makes me a happy pappy!

After running this system for a while, I recently realised that there is a downside to this approach. As the backup DVD is simply the DVD+R plus the name of the DVD written on the face, its hard for the kids to find the right DVD that they want to watch. Basically, all they see is a stack of dull looking DVDs with lots of words on them. We needed a way to make it easy for the kids to find their favourite DVD.

Cue the DVD label. Over the weekend, I went out and bought a stack of DVD labels. Coupled with a quick online image search, I've been able to print out labels with different graphics for the different DVDs and I have to admit - the results have been pretty spectacular. Granted, you can tell that they aren't original DVDs as the graphic doesn't always line up perfectly with the disc but at first glance, they look pretty authentic (particularly to kids).

Or another way of looking at it - I now have all the tools to start my own pirate DVD factory...

Sony

You may recall that I am currently boycotting Sony. The main reason for this is that I felt that Sony are an extremely arrogant company which had led to them undertaking either a lot of anti-consumer activities or marketing with an attitude of "you should be privileged to own our product". And frankly, all of that added together just rubbed me the wrong way.

With that in mind, I have to admit that it was with a certain level of glee that I read about all the recent troubles that Sony has been having with hackers. Those news articles also strengthened my conviction to boycott both Ubisoft and Capcom for requiring players to be online to play their games (in short, PS3 owners couldn't play their Ubisoft and Capcom games as PSN was down).

But then, Sony went and did this.

For the first time that I can remember, Sony actually had a pretty good response. Basically, read the blog post from Shamus that I linked to as I can't believe how closely my views aligned with his with regard to Sony.

Could it be that Sony have learnt their lesson? Could it be that Sony are no longer the arrogant behemoth that I despised? Could it be that Sony would be leaving my boycott list?

Or then again, maybe not.

Browser wars

Woot! It looks like wysiwyg editing is back on Blogger!

Anyway, as I mentioned last post, I recently installed Chrome on my PC. Up till then, I had been using Internet Explorer - something which you might not have known or guessed unless you had seen the stats on wikipedia which mentions that approximately 90% of people in China use IE. Wow.

Recently, I had a friend who expressed surprise, and not a little disgust, to hear that I was using IE. What I told him at the time was that I couldn't be bothered downloading a new browser just for the sake of switching. Furthermore, I'd always heard that some websites are only optimised to work with IE which means that even if I installed a new browser, I would still have to keep IE around just in case. Admittedly, this is based on just hearsay as I don't have any actual experience of this.

And then Microsoft released their latest version of IE. Which meant I had to download a new browser anyway. At this point, I also started to question whether it was really the case anymore that some websites only worked with IE.

So with that seed of doubt in my mind, I also downloaded and installed Chrome. And overall, I have to say that I like it. I don't know if this is a problem with the latest release of IE but the new version of IE doesn't look particularly great in terms of its color scheme whereas Chrome actually looks quite nice. In terms of functionality, both seem fairly close although I haven't started to play around with any add-ons yet so I'm not sure how big an impact that would have. And more importantly (from a functionality point of view), I have yet to encounter any website that didn't render properly in Chrome.

Another criteria people often use to compare browsers is speed. However, I don't have any tools to measure this myself so have to rely on other websites which seem to indicate that Chrome is faster than IE.

In short, this blog post brought to you via Google (Blogger and Chrome).

England the new Germany?

I read this article and couldn't help but think that, assuming this isn't the usual case of media misrepresentation, Capello has started to become delusional. In short, after playing several youngsters and only managing a draw against an admittedly impressive Ghana, Capello is in a good mood about the future of England.

To be fair, this is probably an accurate assessment if you were only looking at recent games as England have done well recently. However, Capello goes on to say that he hopes that people will talk about Engalnd the same way that they were talking about Germany after the recent World Cup.

Que? Is this for real?

For starters, this impressive performance by England was in an international friendly. In case you forgot, England generally do well in friendlies and in qualifying competitions. Where England traditionally screw up is when they start playing in big tournaments at which point the players immediately fold and put in awful performances before being knocked out of the competition. By now, this is a pattern which is all too horribly familiar for any England football fan.

Now, lets look at Germany. With a squad of young players, they were able to play attractive attacking football in a major tournament and, although they didn't win the World Cup, they managed to get third place (after being knocked out by the eventual winners).

Is there any surprise that Germany were heaped with praise? There simply is no comparison and to suggest otherwise is insulting to Germany's achievement at the World Cup.

Munchkin

If you have been a nerd as long as I have, then the name Steve Jackson will bring back many happy memories. Steve Jackson is one of the premier develop of geek games and one of the most succesful games he has developed is a card game called Munchkin.

I was first made aware of Munchkin through a post of Wil Wheaton's blog. Although I've never played the game myself, the game sounded really interesting as it was the kind of game where most of the fun seems to derive from the hilarious and ridiculous situations that you can inflict on other players. Having said that, based on just that blog post, I never had a clear idea of how the game actually played.

Good thing then that the clever people at SJ Games have put together a flash demo of the game so that you can get a feel for how it plays! Now all I need are some nerd friends...

How Liverpool tactics have changed

Wow. Things have been a bit hectic lately so I haven't had much time to blog. Hopefully, they will settle down a bit now though so with any luck, I can get back to my regular blogging schedule.

A couple of weeks ago, I briefly mentioned that Liverpool were in an unbelievably poor run of form and that October would be a tough month for them. Unfortunately, things look much bleaker than I would have thought possible (I really thought that we would at least have 3 points courtesy of Blackpool). The only upside in recent times has been that those American owners have finally gone (here's hoping the new American owners are better!).

Now, the key challenge going forward is to improve results on the field. With that in mind, I found this article talking about the way that Liverpool now play under Hodgson to be really fascinating.

The first thing I would say is that I still think we should give Hodgson some time to get things right. Removing him now would do be unfair on Hodgson as he really hasn't had enough time to stamp his own style on the squad and for the squad to adjust to the way he wants to play. However, discussing his tactics is obviously fair game (and ever since I started playing FM2010, I have to admit that I find the whole topic really fascinating)!

The second thing I want to say is that I don't really watch Liverpool games as I just don't have the time. What this means is that I have no real idea if the playing style being adopted is indeed as the author claimed. In other words, I'm taking a lot on faith here!

With all that said, from reading the article, it certainly seems like Hodgson is trying to fit square pegs into round holes. Reading that article reminded me of when I first started to play Football Manager 2010. If you read my gaming blog, you would know that I spent a fair amount of time analysing the players I had and devising some tactics and playing styles to cater to the strengths of the players I had. Fundamentally, my view is that, until you have had time to buy some new players that fit the system you like, your only real tactical option is to play to the your existing strengths.

Granted, this is a game I'm talking about, but I'm pretty sure the principal is true to real life football as well.

Anyway, the biggest concern I have about the current Liverpool tactics is with Torres.

Torres is not and never has been a target man. However, this seems to be the role that he is being asked to fill. As I said above, I don't really watch the matches anymore as I don't have time. However, I have a tendency to believe that he is being asked to play as a target man as many of the match reports I see all mention the fact that he is often left alone up the pitch without any real supply or support. Of course, this may not be a huge problem if Hodgson can buy a traditional target man during the Winter transfer window. At this point, I guess a lot will depend on whether he has any money to spend.

Newfound respect for authors

I have to admit that I have always had a huge amount of respect for authors of fiction. The ability to dream up new worlds or to come up with crazy situations or characters while at the same time making everything seem realistic and possible. Amazing.

That level of creativity is something which I've always struggled with. For some reason, despite not really understanding the rules of grammar, I don't have a huge issue in writing (generally) technically correct English (I can already tell this sentence is going to bite me in the ass at some point down the line!). The problem for me has always been coming up with something interesting to write about and then to make that "thing" engaging to the reader. If anything, this feeling has intensified recently with my attempts to do a bit of fiction on my game blog.

The whole affair started with a series of journals (the so called Aladuchar Journals) tracking one of my characters in a role playing game. I thought that if I didn't have enough creativity to come up with new situations or characters, then I could just "borrow" them from an existing game. In effect, I was doing a fanfic.

However, I soon found that even doing a fanfic is not easy. The problem I found myself facing was that the journals soon became a pretty boring log of what I was doing in the game. And quite frankly, even I found myself bored to tears upon reading them. I can't imagine what anyone else would have been thinking.

As a result of this, I scrapped the journals and decided to do something on a smaller scale. Instead of cataloguing the adventures of a character over the course of a 100+ hour game, I would just catalog one quest. Hopefully, the smaller scale would be easier to manage and keep interesting.

The result was a write-up of the Blood Ties quest in Fallout 3 (part one here and part two here). Overall, although there are a couple of area's which could be improved, I have to say that I'm relatively happy with the results of that writeup. It's also worth mentioning that your enjoyment of the story probably depends completely on knowing about the background of the Fallout universe.

Of the things I learned while writing that story, the most important one is probably the need to plan out the story. When I first started writing, all I was doing was cataloguing what I had actually done in the game while adding in the occasional commentary on events as they unfolded. If I had a proper plan to the story, I would have been able to incorporate some foreshadowing into part one.

In addition, with a proper plan, I would have been able to make the change in tone a bit more consistent. In writing part two, I felt that I had to keep the start of it lighthearted as well so that it had a consistent tone with part one. Having said that, I'm still in two minds about this. Part of me likes the way that the tone suddenly changes at the end of part two as it serves to make you reevaluate all the stuff that came before.

Liverpool 2 Sunderland 2

Dear oh dear oh dear.

I have to admit that recent performances from Liverpool have been unbelievably poor. And when I say poor, I don't even mean the fact that we have shipped 3 goals to both Man Utd and Man City. The fact is that in the Prem so far, the only team that Liverpool have beaten are WBA - and even that was only by 1 goal. And to be honest, if it hadn't been for that freaky first goal, we might not even have had a point from this game.

I don't want to hop onto the bandwagon that is already calling for Hodgson's head as I still think that he should be given more time. Hopefully, things will eventually "click" and the results will come. However, if things don't click soon, we may well find ourselves in the relegation zone as October brings some tough fixtures.

Okay, granted, the first match in October is against Blackpool at Anfield which Liverpool should really be winning. However, after that, we go up against Everton, Blackburn and then Bolton. All three of these sides have shown in prior years that they are not easy sides to beat (although you have to wonder what happened to Everton this year) and if Liverpool continue to play as badly as they have been, a defeat against all three sides is not as far fetched as I would once think.

So far, the only positive this season has been the fact that we have been able to score goals (Stevie G FTW!!!). Still, my pitiful performance in FM2010 doesn't seem so bad now...

Some random links and thoughts

This rant perfectly echoes my thoughts on people who are consistently late. There really isn't much that I can add to that which hasn't already been said. So why am I writing this post if I don't have anything to say?

The truth is that I really wanted to send that link to the missus. However, at the last moment, I chickened out so I'm posting it here instead. If you never hear from me again, then I want you to know one thing - the missus did it.

*********************************************************

Also - Oh, how I wish this didn't resonate with me so much.

Werewolves

Short post today as I'm linking to entries on someone elses blog which are really worth reading.

In my travels through the interwebz, I sometimes come across some really interesting stuff that I wish I had the time to partake in. The online forum game of werewolves is one such circumstance as it sounds like a perfect mix of paranoia, psychology and dumb luck.

If you want to know what Werewolves is, then you should check out this post which gives a good introduction to the rules while also giving you a pretty good gameplay example. And if you have the time, I seriously suggest you read the gameplay example (which lasts for a couple of posts).

The level of paranoia, downright sneakiness and all round back-stabbing which goes on during a game of Werewolves sounds deliciously delightful. It also convinces me that I would be an awful Werewolves player as I would probably be way too trusting. Probably a good thing that I don't have the time to get involved in a game.

British citizenship

The other thing on my to-do list which I have been researching is whether my grandkids would be eligible for British citizenship. And after a fair amount of research, my conclusion is that a greater morass of uncertainty and confusion has yet to be devised in the history of mankind.

Naturally, the first place I went to was the website for the British Consul in HK. I guess I should have known what I was getting myself in for when the only information they had on this was to ask you to contact the consul!

So much for the British Consul in HK. But, where else could I go? Well, it turns out that there are a raft of different options. As a quick aside, isn't it sad that the clearest indication of whether my grandkids can claim British Citizenship comes from a wiki? Anyway, I wouldn't particularly recommend that you read through all of that in detail unless you have a lot of spare time...

So, after all that laborious reading, I have finally come to the conclusion that my grandkids aren't likely to get British citizenship as Gerry and Gordon are British Citizens by descent i.e. their British Citizenship is gained through their parents (or more particularly - me!). As pointed out in the glossary of terms for By descent:

"British citizenship gained through your parents. This type of citizenship cannot normally be passed on to your own children."

It goes without saying that this only applies if Gerry and Gordon don't become eligible for British Citizenship status via some other means (such as becoming naturalised themselves). It does go without saying, right?

How to cure my cold

People who have known me for a long time will know that I have a really sensitive nose and that I tend to pick up the common cold very easily. Various remedies have been tried for this over the years. Some of them simple (drinking vitamin C regularly) and some of them less so (regular nasal spray). For various reasons, nothing has really worked.

However, there is hope that a solution has finally been found!

Actually, to be completely honest, I don't think this solution will work either. Having said that, the method certainly sounds like it has merit so I don't intend to stop anytime soon.

PS Just realised that I haven't actually said what the solution is yet. Well, check out number 3 on this list!
:D

University tuition rates

I've said before that one of the advantages of growing up in the UK was that the British Government paid for my education. However, in researching whether this benefit will be available to my kids, I came across an interesting realisation - that first statement of mine may not be true for all UK citizens.

First off, I should say that all comments below are based on my current research. I have no idea what the position was like when my brother and I went to University (I guess I can ask my dad next time I talk to him).

So, it turns out that the proper terminology for the different University tuition fees are "home" rates and "overseas" rates. Growing up in Scotland like I did, I would have been paying the "home" rate. In the case of my alma mater (ie the University of Strathclyde), the "home" rate is actually zero for Scottish-domiciled students (whereas Sassenach's will need to pay a fee).

Which makes me wonder if my brother, who went to some posh University in England, actually had to pay a tuition fee? Or, as is more likely, whether my dad had to pay a fee?

Not quite the free ride I initially thought. Still, considering the heavy discount on "home" rates compared to "overseas" rates, the British Government is footing the majority of the bill so still highly generous.

Anyway, the bigger question behind all this is whether my kids will be able to enjoy "home" tuition rates. Unfortunately, the answer would appear to be no. Rules for determining eligibility for "home" rates in England, Wales or Northern Ireland is here while the rules for those studying in Scotland is here.

While there are two different sets of rules, the broad themes are the same. In particular, there appear to be two major stumbling blocks to my kids claiming "home" tuition rates.

First, they would have to be ordinarily resident in the UK for the full three years prior to the start of the course. Unless my kids go to school in the UK, this criterion isn't likely to be met. In addition, during that 3 year period, the main purpose of residence in the UK must not have been for the purpose of receiving full-time education. In other words, even if the kids went to school in the UK, they would still not be legible for "home" rates if they were only in the UK for the purpose of going to school.

So, as I said above, it seems likely that my kids won't be able to claim "home" tuition rates.

Pity.

My to do list

I currently have three very important tasks on my to do list.

1) Find out if Gerry and Gordon can attend University in the UK for free
One of the benefits of growing up in the UK was that my education was paid for by the British Government (or the British people depending on your point of view).  However, will Gerry and Gordon be able to avail themselves of this benefit if they decide to study in the UK?  Is British citizenship enough for them to get a free pass or are there other requirements?

2) Check out the classified section of the newspaper for job listings
I need to identify some nice jobs that Gerry may be interested in based on his current interests and find out the skill set that those jobs require.  With this in mind, we can then start planning the kind of extra-curricular activities that Gerry should get involved in.  This will allow us to "sell" him on those activities early so that he can have a head start in building up certain key skills which will be relevant to him in future.  For example, getting him involved in speech competitions will help build his presentation skills which is important no matter which career he ultimately chooses.

3) Find out whether my grandkids are eligible for British citizenship
Both Gerry and Gordon can claim British citizenship on the basis that I am a British citizen (and in fact, Gerry has already done so).  However, in some countries, this only applies for one generation - so if the UK follows this rule, then my grandkids would not be eligible for British citizenship.  What I need to do is find out if the UK follows this rule and if so, what we can do to counter it.



Oh - one last point.  One of the above tasks is a joke - can you guess which one?

Measuring cost and benefit

Quick question. What benefit do you (as in you personally) get from donating to charity?

If you answered "none", then you may be interested in reading articles like this one from Terry Savage who may have a similar mentality to yourself.

In brief, while in an "upscale neighborhood", the author drove past 3 children who had setup a lemonade stand. Upon finding out that the children were giving away the lemonade for free, she then proceeded to lecture the children about how they should charge for the lemonade in order to cover the cost of the lemonade. She then goes from this to extrapolate that the problem with the US is that people expect a "free lunch" which is demonstrated by the kids giving away lemonade.

Yes, really. No, I'm not making this up - you can read the article for yourself if you don't believe me.

My issue with the article (but with a major caveat which I'll go into later) is how badly she savages basic economic theory. In this case, the cost vs benefit comparison. The basic mistake being made is that she did an income vs expense comparison instead of doing a cost vs benefit comparison. Cost vs benefit isn't just about money and also takes into account other factors.

What other factors are there? Good question - lets do a lazy brain dump and see what I can come up with off the top of my head.

Cost
The author says that the children don't have a spirit of giving as they aren't giving away their own things - they are giving away their parents things. The problem is that this only applies if the parents don't know what the kids are doing. As an example, if I give some food to Gerry and he decides to share it with other people, I don't consider this as him giving away my stuff.

Also, assuming the parents gave the kids the ingredients and cups, then the monetary cost to the kids is zero. The cost vs benefit analysis of this to the parents is beyond the scope of this article...
:)

Benefit
Clearly the benefit to the children isn't just the amount of money for which they are selling the lemonade for. The biggest benefit which the children may be getting is the feel good factor from giving away lemonade. Maybe the kids view it as a form of charity. Maybe they view it as them giving back to the community (now, there's a novel thought - wanting to give something back to the community in which you live!). Heck - maybe they just view it as a way of practicing their lemonade making skills!

The reality is that there are lots of reasons for people to do things for free. It has long been established that money is not always a particularly great motivator (anyone with a business degree should be able to tell you that money is not a motivator in itself but a hygiene factor). If nothing else, the growth of wiki's and open source software should tell you that. And, just to tie this into the original question at the beginning of this post, the whole act of giving to charity (either with a cash donation or with volunteer work) is done with no expectation of monetary reward.

Bear in mind that this incident occurred in an "upscale neighborhood". For children living in an upscale neighborhood, lack of money may not be a particularly huge issue for them so you have to consider that they are getting some other benefit out of this.

Caveat
I think by now, I've established why I think the author made a mistake in saying that the kids should charge money for the lemonade. So what is this caveat that I mentioned earlier then?

The thing is - the author is a finance columnist and a published author of best-seller finance books. With that in mind, I find it hard to believe that she would make what seems to be such a basic mistake. I find it more likely that she wanted to make a comment on people expecting free government handouts and used this story as a lead in without really thinking about what she was saying.

Either that or she put the story in just to get people talking about her and her column. Dayamn! I think I just been played!


PS I just love her tagline at the end - And that's the Savage Truth!

Would you know if the person next to you is drowning?

Read this post to find out.

In essence, if you were expecting a Hollywood style mad splashing and screaming then you probably wouldn't recognise someone drowning. The reality is that people who are drowning aren't able to scream or splash (for reasons which are fully explained in the article) and may simply look like they are treading water if you aren't paying attention.

Which is really useful for me to know particularly now that Gerry is learning to swim.

Granted, at the moment, Gerry doesn't spend any time in water in which he can't stand up. However, sooner or later, he is going to graduate to swimming in deeper water and at this point, it will be important to know how to spot the danger signs (did you know that people who drown tend to be swimmers as non-swimmers, like me, will avoid deep water).

Some of the people posting in the comments are former lifeguards and they posted some really great tips as well. I particularly like the Reach, Throw, Row, Go mnemonic. To quote his post:

"That translates to the preference of trying to assist the person with a reach (either just by hand from poolside or with a rescue crook or other long pole) first, a throwable flotation device (preferably on a line) second, then assisting with a boat, and only swimming out to provide manual assistance as a last resort."

Of course, if you aren't a proper lifeguard, then I guess the first thing you should do is scream for help at the top of your voice!

Vote of confidence

Rafa Benitez is apparently complaining about the lack of public support from Liverpool leadership. Which I find highly amusing for a couple of reasons.

First, Rafa "guaranteed" that Liverpool would finish fourth. The reality is that Liverpool aren't going to get fourth and may even end up in seventh place. Frankly, for a club of Liverpool's stature, that is execrable. I'm not placing too much blame on Rafa for this as I know Liverpool don't have strength in depth and really suffered with injuries this year. However, he has to know that his head is on the block considering his earlier "guarantee".

Secondly, did he seriously just ask his boss for the dreaded vote of confidence?

Lifehacker plug

One of the links on my blog (on the right hand side of the screen) is a link to Lifehacker. Lifehacker is a blog which focuses on tips, hacks and shortcuts for working and playing smarter and more efficiently.

As you can imagine with such a site, there are loads of tech tips and plenty of tips which I have taken on board and use. Granted, not every tip on the site is good as sometimes recommendations will be based on what is popular. However, there is enough good stuff there that I ensure that I read the titles of all tips just to see if anything useful comes up. Which makes me surprised to find that I haven't actually blogged about lifehacker till now.

Anyway, a post went up on lifehacker talking about ways to access blocked sites. Particularly relevant considering that just last week, I talked about how I don't watch much TV anymore. This is a great post which shows why I read lifehacker on a daily basis. It also illustrates perfectly why so many people are dumping TV.

In a nutshell, as broadband gets more and more pervasive, it will allow people to access content in a manner convenient to the user. The old business models adopted by the old media moguls will no longer work in the new world and it will be a case of adapt or die (or lobby to get a government granted monopoly). Power is shifting to the user and increasingly, it is companies that know how to do business in a world where information is abundant which will thrive.

And yes, I probably have been reading too much techdirt.