Writing anything major in assembly is difficult and bug-prone. I believe BeOS had a kernel written in assembly, but most kernels are written in C.
The main reason is pretty simple; there aren't many modern languages that can produce code that works directly with the bare metal. Even C has two modes - hosted (i.e. system libraries are available) and non-hosted, and you can only implement a kernel in non-hosted mode, which basically means you get to create all the functions you'll need yourself. Writing C in non-hosted mode isn't too far from writing in assembly, really - it's just a lot more readable.
If you do, say, file I/O in most languages, they produce code that issues syscalls to the kernel. In order for the kernel to do file I/O, it has to issue commands to the hardware via I/O addresses, trigger IRQs, set up DMA channels, and generally shove a lot of data into a lot of addresses via a lot of pointers, and then read the result via more pointers. C can do that. Pascal can do that. Most other languages can't - they're just not designed for that kind of low-level work.
If past rude and evil behavior of the corporation which spawned a language is a reason to avoid the language, WTF are you doing using C?
I'd argue that the reason isn't that the language was created by a rude and evil corporation, but that it is controlled by a rude and evil corporation.
AT&T may have created C, but it didn't control it in any meaningful way. Yeah, the standard for years was "whatever the AT&T compiler will compile", but AT&T as a company didn't care about it. They weren't allowed to sell software because of the monopoly agreement they had with the government. By the time they were allowed to sell it, the cat was already out of the bag, and they focused their efforts on the whole SysV vs. BSD war.
Microsoft views.NET as a tool for lock-in. They intentionally sabotaged Java on Windows for years while they played catchup - hence why Java never really caught on as a language for full applications. Java's no better, really - Sun tried the same thing, more or less.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't use C# or Java or whatever - I don't really care. Just bear in mind these languages were not designed with the goal of creating programs - they were designed to control programmers.
The platinum group of metals is much more common in asteroids than it is in the Earth's crust. I heard somewhere that all the platinum in the crust, put together and melted down, would fill an olympic-sized swimming pool about four inches.
Platinum is used for a lot of things, and could be used for a lot more if it wasn't so expensive.
I'm not saying it would be worth it to mine asteroids for it, but if you're going to mine an asteroid anyway, it'd probably be worth packaging up and sending back down the gravity well.
The bulk of the energy required to move in space isn't as much as you seem to think it is, unless you're trying for a significant percentage of lightspeed. The problem we have is that our most developed technology for getting to space is horribly inefficient.
Solve the problem of leaving the gravity well cheaply, and space manufacturing, recreation, and colonies become possible, at least in the local neighborhood (Earth orbit). Yeah, we'll never see martian wine at the local liquor store, but we might use medicines and electronics assembled in microgravity, and the middle class could probably afford a three day vacation in a space hotel.
Mining may be profitable, at least as a long-term operation, even with the high cost of chemical rockets - not today, sure, but as robotics technology advances and the rare elements (platinum group, etc.) become rarer, it might work. There's all sorts of good stuff in the mantle, but it's easier and more economical to get it from space. There's one major advantage to space mining - you don't have to lift ore out of the gravity well if you're going to use it in space. Need iron to build an orbital factory? Lift a smelter into space, and process the iron there. This will have to happen if we want habitats, because mass is the only reliable way to shield people from radiation.
That's all engineering and economics. Eventually, some group will think it's worth it economically to build a space elevator or launch loop or whatever, just like we thought it was worth it to go to the moon. Once you can get to orbit cheaply, space becomes accessible to all kinds of things.
Physics gets you in the end, but not with energy. It's the scale of space, and the limitations on speed, that kill any idea of some kind of "Star Trek" future. Economics is (currently) keeping us from leaving the Earth, but physics will keep us from leaving the solar system. Fortunately, there's plenty here for us to work with.
As an aside, I completely agree with you that there will be no mass population relocations to space, but not because of energy cost. The logistics simply won't support it. Even if you built five space elevators and kept them running 24/7 bringing people to space, you'd have a hard time keeping up with the birth rate. The CIA factbook estimates in 2009 there was a population increase (not just births, but births - deaths) of around 211,000 people every day. Even if you could get them all into space, you'd have to build habitats for them.
We will not see this in our lifetime, but that doesn't mean we can't be a part of the development.
None of the major distros use vanilla kernel.org kernels, so most Linux users won't be affected either way. Their update programs get kernel updates from their distro's servers, not from kernel.org. The distros are usually a few versions behind, so most won't be affected by this at all.
You can bet there's people at Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat, etc. who are taking this very seriously. They aren't going to take any chances.
The only users out there who are potentially in danger are the ones that use kernel.org source directly, the ones who run bleeding edge distros (like Debian Sid), or the ones that use a distro that automatically downloads and compiles kernel.org code. These guys should already know the risk they're taking.
Anyway, as far as your second question - what OS could act as a drop-in replacement for the Linux kernel - check out kFreeBSD. Sure, it's not exactly the same - FreeBSD has always had different priorities than Linux, and it's reflected in what the kernels support - but it's close enough for the important stuff.
You could call NT POSIX conforming, if you had a requirements sheet that needed POSIX for no good reason. POSIX used to be specified by a lot of general regulations for government and military machines back in the day. There wasn't any real need for it in most cases, so having a POSIX API layer was good enough to get around the requirements.
Microsoft never really supported it, and it wasn't really useful in any case - after all, if NT was actually POSIX compliant, you could run Unix code natively on it. Cygwin didn't even use it, because it was so crippled it may as well have not been there. Once the government changed their operating system requirements, Microsoft discontinued it altogether - hence why Win2k didn't have a POSIX layer.
The post above was brought to you by a bitter, stubborn neckbeard who works on computer systems for sewage treatment plants.
So... he's got a specialized job in the computer field? Kind of like how I used to work on computer systems for military installations, or a friend of mine maintained Novell systems for a refrigeration company?
He even abbreviates Unix as 'nix for no reason
What's wrong with that? Linux != Unix, but they're similar enough that some people use 'nix or *nix or whatever as a generic term. Unix has AT&T source code in it. 'nix is anything POSIX conforming.
and refers to PCs as "boxes."
And you refer to them as "PCs". I usually refer to them as "workstations", "systems", "machines", or, yes, "boxes". I certainly wouldn't consider my Sun or DEC systems "PCs", but they're boxes (or boxen, if I'm talking to other geeks).
Wow, you know, if you ever went outside, you might find people who talk different languages and perform all kinds of jobs. That would really blow your gasket, eh?
You think we wouldn't have rampant unemployment if the Republicans had won?
Seriously, stop drinking the Kool-Aid. We'd have the same unemployment no matter what. You like living in a capitalist society, you have to get used to the idea that the government has no direct control over the economy. You want a communist government for that.
People need to get used to the fact that recessions happen, and there's not much you can do about it. Sure, regulation can affect them, and dampen the damage somewhat, but they're going to happen no matter what. The politicians use them as excuses to show how bad the other guys are, and you're falling for it.
What is there about the libertarian philosophy that would be attractive to musicians?
Tech types, I can sort of see, if you're the type that believes in the whole 'trickle down' economy, but musicians are generally poor, can't afford health care, and have no investments. Sure, your day job might pay all right, but the more time your day job takes up, the less time you can spend on your art. Many musicians are people who don't fit into the normal flow of the workplace, and end up working low paying jobs. The Democrats are much better suited for that type of person.
Funny? No, it's silly to use the kernel as an example. You can bet that if zlib has a security issue, the kernel guys will incorporate the fix pretty much immediately, and your distro (unless you're running something really obscure) will issue a security fix.
The kernel isn't hosted like a regular program. It doesn't have access to the standard C library, much less zlib.so, so it has to use its own version of the library.
This is a design decision going back to Linus' decision to go with a monolithic kernel architecture (the argument with Dr. Tannenbaum is well known, search for it if you're curious). If you don't like it, switch to something like Hurd where most of the kernel runs in userspace.
The vast majority of Linux programs use system-wide libraries on most distros.
Generally, Linux programs only include libraries when there are issues with the system version on certain flavors of Unix. They're useful on commercial Unix systems, but on Linux they're rarely necessary and most maintainers won't use them. There are exceptions, of course (there's always exceptions), but it's hardly the DLL hell that Windows puts you through.
Well, yeah, and certain RPM distros with puny repositories that force you to download RPMs from all over the 'net tend to do this as well, but if you're using one of those, then it's hardly the worst of your problems.
Yeah, mp3 players in the unix world seem to have all caught itunes-itis or something and turned twelve kinds of confusing.
Audacious is a lot like the older winamp (or older xmms), if that's more your style. I don't know if it lets you edit id3v2 tags, but I don't see why it wouldn't - after all, it was written to be a modern version of the old style xmms, and id3v2 has been out for quite a while.
I edit mine with the command-line program id3v2. All my mp3s have a consistent naming standard so I wrote a short perl script that uses it to set the tags for entire directories at once.
All that stuff under "on the other hand" is rare, and can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
Parents assaulting teachers? Press charges for assault. Kids bringing in arsenals/handguns? That's illegal, expel them and turn them over to the cops. Kindergarteners with crack? Call child services.
Most schools aren't inner city hellholes. There's a few troublemakers and a bunch of regular kids. The regular kids make poor judgments sometimes, sure, but there are punishments available if required. You can apply those same punishments to the troublemakers for a while, then expel their asses and make them go to alternative school (or whatever it is in your district). The alternative school can have cops if need be.
A 6th grade reading level isn't adequate. Try filling out insurance forms for a hospital visit, or a tax form, or a contract for a service with a 6th grade reading level. Try comprehending an MSDS if you accidentally swallow some expanding foam at your factory job.
Math at the 6th grade level is also inadequate for daily life. By 6th grade, you've learned the concepts, but you haven't had the practice.
Before anyone mentions a 6th grader they know who can read Shakespeare and comprehend him, bear in mind that the idea of a 6th grade reading level is average. For every 6th grader like that, there's one that can't read Dr. Suess without sounding everything out. Guess which type would be most likely to drop out?
There are plenty of those already. NetBIOS is an example of a non-TCP/IP peer-to-peer filesharing protocol (I'm talking LANMAN style NetBIOS, not NetBIOS over TCP/IP). It doesn't route outside your local network though. There's the good ol' IPX/SPX, which can actually be routed if your router supports them - while not filesharing protocols in themselves, they do support some very well-established filesharing protocols. You could probably adapt bittorrent to work on IPX/SPX.
The problem is we can't even get IPv6 routed on the internet, much less some obscure non-IP protocol. Hell, we never even really got all of IPv4 - multicast would have been great for streaming video if anyone had bothered to set up their routers for it.
That being said, you don't need to use TCP and UDP. You can create new protocols to run over IP, and the internet will generally pass them (your local firewall might be a different story). They'll stick out like a sore thumb to anyone searching for them, though.
A.) They're already banned on general purpose roads in most states. There are certain roads that are considered "truck routes" and most states only allow you within a mile of one, to go to a terminal or access truck services (fuel, rest stops, etc.). Guess what? It can't be enforced, because businesses who utilize trucks often build more than a mile away from a truck route, and a cop can't tell if the driver is on legitimate business without stopping every truck and looking at their bill of lading.
B.) Trucking companies pay their share of road taxes. IFTA keeps track of fuel usage in every state and doles out the fuel tax accordingly (my truck gets between five and six miles to the gallon). Trucks have to have all kinds of permits and licenses to operate, which adds to the amount of tax paid in. They also pay much higher tolls on toll roads (the highest toll on the Pennsylvania Turnpike is upwards of $800, although I usually end up paying around $70 for the part I drive).
C.) Bulk freight travels on rail. Coal, grain, flour, oil, Coca-Cola syrup, etc. travels by rail. Garage doors (what I usually haul) don't - it's not cost effective. I imagine your local Wal-mart doesn't have a railhead next to the building either. There are a few companies like Triple Crown that specialize in truck-to-rail operations, but the logistics of that sort of thing is a nightmare for most shipping. Container transport suffers the same difficulties.
A note about rail transport: emphasizing rail transport would really only lower the amount of trucks on the interstate system. The freight still has to get to the receiver, and the vast majority of the time rail won't get it there. It would still have to be trucked, so you'd still see trucks all over your town, delivering and picking up freight.
From a safety perspective, trucks are actually pretty safe. Yeah, you're screwed if you hit one of us head on, but you're much, much more likely to hit another car than a truck. We do this for a living, and those of us that last more than a year or so tend to be very good at it. Everyone has a story about how a truck cut them off (it happens), but few have a relative who actually had a serious accident with one of us. When it happens, it's bad - but it doesn't happen very often.
Ah, but then you're getting into free will territory, which is a big mess all by itself. Churches have schismed over stuff like that.
The divine inspiration of scripture is different than the whole "God made everything and knows everything" argument. Most churches believe in it, and some, like the Catholics, believe it applies to later church doctrine as well. I don't buy it myself, but both of my senators do.
The religious argument is that God put the contents of the books in the heads of the people who wrote them down. It's basically the same as someone dictating to their secretary. That would make God the copyright owner, not the actual "authors" - it's considered the actual word of God.
Nietzsche reported that God was dead in 1882, so the copyright should be expired by now.
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Writing anything major in assembly is difficult and bug-prone. I believe BeOS had a kernel written in assembly, but most kernels are written in C.
The main reason is pretty simple; there aren't many modern languages that can produce code that works directly with the bare metal. Even C has two modes - hosted (i.e. system libraries are available) and non-hosted, and you can only implement a kernel in non-hosted mode, which basically means you get to create all the functions you'll need yourself. Writing C in non-hosted mode isn't too far from writing in assembly, really - it's just a lot more readable.
If you do, say, file I/O in most languages, they produce code that issues syscalls to the kernel. In order for the kernel to do file I/O, it has to issue commands to the hardware via I/O addresses, trigger IRQs, set up DMA channels, and generally shove a lot of data into a lot of addresses via a lot of pointers, and then read the result via more pointers. C can do that. Pascal can do that. Most other languages can't - they're just not designed for that kind of low-level work.
If past rude and evil behavior of the corporation which spawned a language is a reason to avoid the language, WTF are you doing using C?
I'd argue that the reason isn't that the language was created by a rude and evil corporation, but that it is controlled by a rude and evil corporation.
AT&T may have created C, but it didn't control it in any meaningful way. Yeah, the standard for years was "whatever the AT&T compiler will compile", but AT&T as a company didn't care about it. They weren't allowed to sell software because of the monopoly agreement they had with the government. By the time they were allowed to sell it, the cat was already out of the bag, and they focused their efforts on the whole SysV vs. BSD war.
Microsoft views .NET as a tool for lock-in. They intentionally sabotaged Java on Windows for years while they played catchup - hence why Java never really caught on as a language for full applications. Java's no better, really - Sun tried the same thing, more or less.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't use C# or Java or whatever - I don't really care. Just bear in mind these languages were not designed with the goal of creating programs - they were designed to control programmers.
The platinum group of metals is much more common in asteroids than it is in the Earth's crust. I heard somewhere that all the platinum in the crust, put together and melted down, would fill an olympic-sized swimming pool about four inches.
Platinum is used for a lot of things, and could be used for a lot more if it wasn't so expensive.
I'm not saying it would be worth it to mine asteroids for it, but if you're going to mine an asteroid anyway, it'd probably be worth packaging up and sending back down the gravity well.
It's smaller, but much more massive.
We've never tried to push anything that massive around space before. The theory is simple, but the engineering has to be done.
The bulk of the energy required to move in space isn't as much as you seem to think it is, unless you're trying for a significant percentage of lightspeed. The problem we have is that our most developed technology for getting to space is horribly inefficient.
Solve the problem of leaving the gravity well cheaply, and space manufacturing, recreation, and colonies become possible, at least in the local neighborhood (Earth orbit). Yeah, we'll never see martian wine at the local liquor store, but we might use medicines and electronics assembled in microgravity, and the middle class could probably afford a three day vacation in a space hotel.
Mining may be profitable, at least as a long-term operation, even with the high cost of chemical rockets - not today, sure, but as robotics technology advances and the rare elements (platinum group, etc.) become rarer, it might work. There's all sorts of good stuff in the mantle, but it's easier and more economical to get it from space. There's one major advantage to space mining - you don't have to lift ore out of the gravity well if you're going to use it in space. Need iron to build an orbital factory? Lift a smelter into space, and process the iron there. This will have to happen if we want habitats, because mass is the only reliable way to shield people from radiation.
That's all engineering and economics. Eventually, some group will think it's worth it economically to build a space elevator or launch loop or whatever, just like we thought it was worth it to go to the moon. Once you can get to orbit cheaply, space becomes accessible to all kinds of things.
Physics gets you in the end, but not with energy. It's the scale of space, and the limitations on speed, that kill any idea of some kind of "Star Trek" future. Economics is (currently) keeping us from leaving the Earth, but physics will keep us from leaving the solar system. Fortunately, there's plenty here for us to work with.
As an aside, I completely agree with you that there will be no mass population relocations to space, but not because of energy cost. The logistics simply won't support it. Even if you built five space elevators and kept them running 24/7 bringing people to space, you'd have a hard time keeping up with the birth rate. The CIA factbook estimates in 2009 there was a population increase (not just births, but births - deaths) of around 211,000 people every day. Even if you could get them all into space, you'd have to build habitats for them.
We will not see this in our lifetime, but that doesn't mean we can't be a part of the development.
More like how current estimates place world population over nine billion by 2050.
The population is still rising globally. The highest rates are in Africa and the Middle East.
None of the major distros use vanilla kernel.org kernels, so most Linux users won't be affected either way. Their update programs get kernel updates from their distro's servers, not from kernel.org. The distros are usually a few versions behind, so most won't be affected by this at all.
You can bet there's people at Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat, etc. who are taking this very seriously. They aren't going to take any chances.
The only users out there who are potentially in danger are the ones that use kernel.org source directly, the ones who run bleeding edge distros (like Debian Sid), or the ones that use a distro that automatically downloads and compiles kernel.org code. These guys should already know the risk they're taking.
Anyway, as far as your second question - what OS could act as a drop-in replacement for the Linux kernel - check out kFreeBSD. Sure, it's not exactly the same - FreeBSD has always had different priorities than Linux, and it's reflected in what the kernels support - but it's close enough for the important stuff.
You could call NT POSIX conforming, if you had a requirements sheet that needed POSIX for no good reason. POSIX used to be specified by a lot of general regulations for government and military machines back in the day. There wasn't any real need for it in most cases, so having a POSIX API layer was good enough to get around the requirements.
Microsoft never really supported it, and it wasn't really useful in any case - after all, if NT was actually POSIX compliant, you could run Unix code natively on it. Cygwin didn't even use it, because it was so crippled it may as well have not been there. Once the government changed their operating system requirements, Microsoft discontinued it altogether - hence why Win2k didn't have a POSIX layer.
The post above was brought to you by a bitter, stubborn neckbeard who works on computer systems for sewage treatment plants.
So... he's got a specialized job in the computer field? Kind of like how I used to work on computer systems for military installations, or a friend of mine maintained Novell systems for a refrigeration company?
He even abbreviates Unix as 'nix for no reason
What's wrong with that? Linux != Unix, but they're similar enough that some people use 'nix or *nix or whatever as a generic term. Unix has AT&T source code in it. 'nix is anything POSIX conforming.
and refers to PCs as "boxes."
And you refer to them as "PCs". I usually refer to them as "workstations", "systems", "machines", or, yes, "boxes". I certainly wouldn't consider my Sun or DEC systems "PCs", but they're boxes (or boxen, if I'm talking to other geeks).
Wow, you know, if you ever went outside, you might find people who talk different languages and perform all kinds of jobs. That would really blow your gasket, eh?
You think we wouldn't have rampant unemployment if the Republicans had won?
Seriously, stop drinking the Kool-Aid. We'd have the same unemployment no matter what. You like living in a capitalist society, you have to get used to the idea that the government has no direct control over the economy. You want a communist government for that.
People need to get used to the fact that recessions happen, and there's not much you can do about it. Sure, regulation can affect them, and dampen the damage somewhat, but they're going to happen no matter what. The politicians use them as excuses to show how bad the other guys are, and you're falling for it.
Musicians vote libertarian?
What is there about the libertarian philosophy that would be attractive to musicians?
Tech types, I can sort of see, if you're the type that believes in the whole 'trickle down' economy, but musicians are generally poor, can't afford health care, and have no investments. Sure, your day job might pay all right, but the more time your day job takes up, the less time you can spend on your art. Many musicians are people who don't fit into the normal flow of the workplace, and end up working low paying jobs. The Democrats are much better suited for that type of person.
Funny? No, it's silly to use the kernel as an example. You can bet that if zlib has a security issue, the kernel guys will incorporate the fix pretty much immediately, and your distro (unless you're running something really obscure) will issue a security fix.
The kernel isn't hosted like a regular program. It doesn't have access to the standard C library, much less zlib.so, so it has to use its own version of the library.
This is a design decision going back to Linus' decision to go with a monolithic kernel architecture (the argument with Dr. Tannenbaum is well known, search for it if you're curious). If you don't like it, switch to something like Hurd where most of the kernel runs in userspace.
The vast majority of Linux programs use system-wide libraries on most distros.
Generally, Linux programs only include libraries when there are issues with the system version on certain flavors of Unix. They're useful on commercial Unix systems, but on Linux they're rarely necessary and most maintainers won't use them. There are exceptions, of course (there's always exceptions), but it's hardly the DLL hell that Windows puts you through.
Well, yeah, and certain RPM distros with puny repositories that force you to download RPMs from all over the 'net tend to do this as well, but if you're using one of those, then it's hardly the worst of your problems.
Yeah, mp3 players in the unix world seem to have all caught itunes-itis or something and turned twelve kinds of confusing.
Audacious is a lot like the older winamp (or older xmms), if that's more your style. I don't know if it lets you edit id3v2 tags, but I don't see why it wouldn't - after all, it was written to be a modern version of the old style xmms, and id3v2 has been out for quite a while.
I edit mine with the command-line program id3v2. All my mp3s have a consistent naming standard so I wrote a short perl script that uses it to set the tags for entire directories at once.
You did read that this is in Texas, right?
Liberals had nothing to do with this.
This is just another of the 1000s of examples of why limited gov works
No, it's not. It's an example of why big government doesn't work. There's a difference.
No it doesn't. The Hitler Youth program was like a racist Boy Scouts that emphasized physical fitness and political indoctrination.
All that stuff under "on the other hand" is rare, and can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
Parents assaulting teachers? Press charges for assault.
Kids bringing in arsenals/handguns? That's illegal, expel them and turn them over to the cops.
Kindergarteners with crack? Call child services.
Most schools aren't inner city hellholes. There's a few troublemakers and a bunch of regular kids. The regular kids make poor judgments sometimes, sure, but there are punishments available if required. You can apply those same punishments to the troublemakers for a while, then expel their asses and make them go to alternative school (or whatever it is in your district). The alternative school can have cops if need be.
A 6th grade reading level isn't adequate. Try filling out insurance forms for a hospital visit, or a tax form, or a contract for a service with a 6th grade reading level. Try comprehending an MSDS if you accidentally swallow some expanding foam at your factory job.
Math at the 6th grade level is also inadequate for daily life. By 6th grade, you've learned the concepts, but you haven't had the practice.
Before anyone mentions a 6th grader they know who can read Shakespeare and comprehend him, bear in mind that the idea of a 6th grade reading level is average. For every 6th grader like that, there's one that can't read Dr. Suess without sounding everything out. Guess which type would be most likely to drop out?
Castle Laws basically mean you can use deadly force to defend yourself in your home.
I live in Oklahoma. If you come to my house and attack me, I can kill you and be justified in doing so.
(Please don't try, though. I keep the firing pins separate from the rifles, and I'm no good with knife fighting or hand-to-hand.)
There are plenty of those already. NetBIOS is an example of a non-TCP/IP peer-to-peer filesharing protocol (I'm talking LANMAN style NetBIOS, not NetBIOS over TCP/IP). It doesn't route outside your local network though. There's the good ol' IPX/SPX, which can actually be routed if your router supports them - while not filesharing protocols in themselves, they do support some very well-established filesharing protocols. You could probably adapt bittorrent to work on IPX/SPX.
The problem is we can't even get IPv6 routed on the internet, much less some obscure non-IP protocol. Hell, we never even really got all of IPv4 - multicast would have been great for streaming video if anyone had bothered to set up their routers for it.
That being said, you don't need to use TCP and UDP. You can create new protocols to run over IP, and the internet will generally pass them (your local firewall might be a different story). They'll stick out like a sore thumb to anyone searching for them, though.
But then, no one in Texas would have a license.
Hrm. Maybe that's not a bad idea...
A.) They're already banned on general purpose roads in most states. There are certain roads that are considered "truck routes" and most states only allow you within a mile of one, to go to a terminal or access truck services (fuel, rest stops, etc.). Guess what? It can't be enforced, because businesses who utilize trucks often build more than a mile away from a truck route, and a cop can't tell if the driver is on legitimate business without stopping every truck and looking at their bill of lading.
B.) Trucking companies pay their share of road taxes. IFTA keeps track of fuel usage in every state and doles out the fuel tax accordingly (my truck gets between five and six miles to the gallon). Trucks have to have all kinds of permits and licenses to operate, which adds to the amount of tax paid in. They also pay much higher tolls on toll roads (the highest toll on the Pennsylvania Turnpike is upwards of $800, although I usually end up paying around $70 for the part I drive).
C.) Bulk freight travels on rail. Coal, grain, flour, oil, Coca-Cola syrup, etc. travels by rail. Garage doors (what I usually haul) don't - it's not cost effective. I imagine your local Wal-mart doesn't have a railhead next to the building either. There are a few companies like Triple Crown that specialize in truck-to-rail operations, but the logistics of that sort of thing is a nightmare for most shipping. Container transport suffers the same difficulties.
A note about rail transport: emphasizing rail transport would really only lower the amount of trucks on the interstate system. The freight still has to get to the receiver, and the vast majority of the time rail won't get it there. It would still have to be trucked, so you'd still see trucks all over your town, delivering and picking up freight.
From a safety perspective, trucks are actually pretty safe. Yeah, you're screwed if you hit one of us head on, but you're much, much more likely to hit another car than a truck. We do this for a living, and those of us that last more than a year or so tend to be very good at it. Everyone has a story about how a truck cut them off (it happens), but few have a relative who actually had a serious accident with one of us. When it happens, it's bad - but it doesn't happen very often.
Ah, but then you're getting into free will territory, which is a big mess all by itself. Churches have schismed over stuff like that.
The divine inspiration of scripture is different than the whole "God made everything and knows everything" argument. Most churches believe in it, and some, like the Catholics, believe it applies to later church doctrine as well. I don't buy it myself, but both of my senators do.
The religious argument is that God put the contents of the books in the heads of the people who wrote them down. It's basically the same as someone dictating to their secretary. That would make God the copyright owner, not the actual "authors" - it's considered the actual word of God.
Nietzsche reported that God was dead in 1882, so the copyright should be expired by now.