About two years after high school, I started working for a local office supply business as a low-level manager. The owners, all of the upper staff, and most everyone else were Scientologists. They never SAID anything about the training manuals being Scientology, but that is exactly what they were, and, of course, we were forced to study them and pass the tests. They never actively tried to recruit me or make me go to one of their churches/meetings/whatever (though it was mentioned politely a couple times) and didn't discuss it too much, but the manuals were enough to make it clear: Scientology was the way to move up in the company. I played the game for a while and did well there while managing to not become brain-washed, but, eventually, I had to bail. I'm a patient, easy going guy, but I could only take so much of their pseudo-scientific, pseudo-psychological, pseudo-religious cult junk before blowing a fuse.
What I want to know is, if Scientology was the key to success, why then did the business fail? That company no longer exists.:)
This must be why so much of the artwork we see depicting the future shows people wearing spandex, nylon, rubber, leather, or vinyl. You have to wear non-conductive clothing to prevent sparking!
While it can easily be said that many professionals haven't a clue about the activities of their unions nor about Linux, fanatical support of union directives IS part of the problem in many areas, including this one. Here in California, the Teachers' Union hates the Governator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) because he wants to bring accountability to educators and because he was forced by circumstances beyond anybody's control into cutbacks. My aunt, who is a very intelligent, very astute, very successful teacher, doesn't really 'do' politics (like many people); she listens to what her union says and decides to hate Arnold based solely on that.
Microsoft learned something from Apple: give the schools your product, and the kids will grow up to want it in their professional lives. The difference is, MS is more than a little heavy-handed about it. Go with the company line, or lose all support. Period. End of story.
Cap that with the afore-mentioned cluelessness about Linux, or tech in general really, and the student may as well have been handing out crack, porn, or candy canes.
You might thing its fun to set up variable names so they end up with a humorous function combination but they're fuck-all hard on maintenance when someone else to figure out what's going on during maintenance.
Absolutely correct! Using strange names for variables isn't an Easter Egg, it's a pain in the butt. I've cursed many coders when trying to figure their crappy variable names out. It's one thing when, back in the day, network admins named the printers after Roman gods and the servers after Greek gods. Cool. The mappings rarely showed that to the lay-people. But we need to be able to read the code and know what the variables are.
No software is going to ship bug free so trying the argument of 'explain why you did that when X is happening' isn't valid. You may not have worked on X or even knew that it was being done. But if your easter egg just happens to come up in close proximity to X breaking you know who they're going to blame.
That is the most valid counter to my favorable statement on Easter Eggs yet, and you're correct. The blame-game can be easily lost by a coder who has something like this found anywhere near the fault, be it involved or not. However, the troubleshooting process usually goes through step by step and doesn't set the Easter Egg off and the Easter Egg is usually one of many subroutines tucked away in the code. Odds are, it won't be looked at in a normal trouble shooting process, but is very likely to be found during a full audit of the code.
No it's not. That invalid statement is the reason there is so much duplicate and crappy code in the world.
So you're saying every programming problem must be solved in the same way every time; every function must be written exactly the same each time it is used; every program (for a given functionality) written exactly like every other. That is quite untrue. Each problem frequently has many possible solutions. Each little piece of a problem has several possible bits of code that handle the requirements with equal aplomb. The science and engineering of coding is getting it to do as is required in a stable and efficient manner. The artistry is choosing among the possible paths to get there, not to mention the presentation, how the UI looks and feels. In every science, there is artistry, just as in every art, there is science.
My personal take on this is to go ahead. First, the world NEEDS to step back from the super-serious attitude, but still be polite. Second, coding is as much art as science and I think your paintings, songs, code, engineering, etc should all have your personal mark, something to make it identifiably yours. Third (kinda goes with the first) doing so can be a moral booster for you AND those who discover it.
However, there are issues to keep in mind. You must keep it professional, so no vulgarity, rudeness, or jokes about loss of data. Certainly, you should avoid all the '-isms' like the plague. And, just as important, it should be clear that the Easter Eggs do not break security in any way.
In short, make it secure, polite, fun and it should be cool.
Like you, I don't care if I have it or not, but I certainly don't mind others being alerted to my approach. However, with the way drivers ignore basic traffic laws and markings, I don't expect this to provide much more than a little passing help to those who already pay some attention. As a rider, the real problem I have is with silly (and extremely dangerous) little details they miss. For example, just today, I was almost sideswiped (well, I saw it coming before the driver made the move and was out of the way) because he ignored the very clear markings on the road indicating that his lane goes straight while mine goes either straight or onto the freeway... and he aimed for the freeway. This idea of Honda's, while good and at least somewhat helpful, does nothing for these more numerous situations.
You don't pay to build it. The municipality sells bonds to pay for the construction, then leases out bandwidth/pipe space to interested companies. The income from this pays back the bonds and pays for the maintenance of the infrastructure.
You pay for access to the leased space, at a markup of course. You are paying for the content: water; natural gas; telephone; IP address, connectivity, and bandwidth.
I'm also very much in favor of small government, but the municipality should own the power lines, com lines, data lines, fiber, sewage pipe, gas pipe (natural, maybe others if there is a need; plan ahead), and water pipes. These transmission mediums are then leased out to providers who sell water, gas, sewage disposal, com bandwidth for a profit. Hell, Arrowhead or Sparklets could lease pipe space and sell their water that way! Your subscription to these various services allows the commercial enterprise to pay the lease from the muni, which can then pay for the maintenance. And before anyone complains that they can't even take care of the roads (which would generally be true, I agree), the difference here is the income stream from the commercial enterprises to the muni. Properly written, the bi-laws of this 'civic company' would go a long way towards making sure the income is sufficient and is properly spent on upkeep. True, no plan, especially a government plan, is perfect, but the companies don't always spend well either.
Notice that I indicated leasing pipe space to the water vendor (and other, similar products). Some communities own their own water company and/or power company. Infrastructure would be a separate division (because it handles much more than just power lines and water/sewage pipes), so that division bills the water and power divisions for the leases. This is already how similar things happen. (We have construction going on at our local library. The electrical was handled 'in house', IE: by the city's maintenance division, electrical sub-division. They bill the library division for the work. The money may only shift from one account to another, but it's proper accounting.) The reverse would be the power company being the contractor for taking care of the power lines and the water company doing so for the water lines. Assuming that they are low-bid/best-deal/best-track-record.
While competition would still be minimal for providers of hard goods/services like water and sewage disposal, probably still non-existent, it could happen under this design. The power, com, data stuff is just so much bandwidth, so can be planned for and expanded as needed, so competition is virtually automatic. You could sign up for Charter while your neighbor chooses AT&T Uverse.
Maintenance contracts might sometimes be handed out to the very companies that lease space. I could see AT&T being paid to keep all the data/fiber/com lines and related equipment running. Transparency would be a requirement so that the public can be sure there is no malfeasance such as kick backs, bribery, etc influences the contracting.
This whole plan asks a lot of our muni governments, but nothing more than we should already be demanding: proper planning, including foresight; fiscal responsibility; openness; and dedication to us, the people they serve. It is also not a complete plan as much research would need to be done to see how best to implement it, and what items would be included in this new infrastructure ideal. Let's get the debate started!
Here in the US, we joke rather constantly about France, despite our being friends and allies. Much of it has to do with surrendering during wars and battles (which is really only partially true and don't ever forget the very tough French Resistance) and the consistent electing of week governments. (Actually, the two are related: week governments surrender, but many of the French citizenry are tough, hence the tough Resistance.) I've frequently hypothesized that the French prefer to keep electing week governments to protect their freedoms without having to have yet another revolution. As our own government stomps all over our rights and freedoms here and I see the Brits losing theirs as well, I begin to wonder if the French have been right all along. Our government was built on the premise of a week federal system with strong states' rights and even stronger individual rights, but we keep electing strong (success/failure, peace/war, smart/stupid not related to this) governments and our rights have eroded. How little or how much have the rights of the French eroded? I honestly don't know and would like some input on this.
And VERY MUCH like Joe Lieberman, the Democrat-turned-Independent Senator: A tax & spend liberal who wants to bring religion and censorship into politics.
There have been plenty of good comments here, but there are several that follow a certain theme: "What do you expect for free support?"
I am (as are most of us, I believe) talking about enterprise level support, as in pay up front for a guaranteed level of service. This has nothing to do with the free support sometimes offered for those who use the OS for free. Two very different beasts, so I wanted to clear that up.
Very true. And this has been an ongoing issue with Linux adoption... I have a friend who runs mega-million-dollar, mission-critical systems and they've had to move off of Linux in favor of (Sun? Don't remember right now). It isn't about functionality. It isn't about open source. It's about support. Red Hat, et. al. want to be enterprise systems, and claim to offer enterprise support. But they don't perform enterprise support. As indicated here, change something to fix a bug, and you don't get support for that piece anymore. More, they won't support a system that doesn't have the latest updates, which is a problem on mission-critical systems. We don't update needlessly, and we certainly don't update to 'today's' patch. We have to wait and be sure the patch is stable and provides an improvement without risking our mission.
Until the players selling support realize all of this, Linux will be a difficult sell for such key systems (and the PHBs all think ALL their systems are mission-critical).
Keep in mind, I say this lovingly.... I want Linux to succeed and prefer it over the popular alternative.
You are very correct. There are, unfortunately, two major difficulties.
First, the electorate (that would be us voters) must band together and DEMAND this from our elected officials and MAKE the elected officials perform or get out. Unfortunately, this requires educating the voters to this cause and getting them to spend precious attention-time (seemingly in drastically short supply) becoming familiar with the issue (reading!!!) and spend what really only amounts to brief moments at a time, extended through their entire life, keeping abreast of the issues and making their representatives do their due. It's hard enough to get people to become familiar with the issues and their representation beyond the party-provided sound-bites. Getting them to keep at it... oooh... that new show is on....
Second, while the tech certainly exists, the time doesn't. It would require new staff to be able to handle the deluge that ~could~ result, even if it was run Slash Dot style (which I think could work for this). The representative couldn't do anything remotely close to all of the work, not even answering all of the emails and/or blog postings. This would have to fall to, say, the communications manager. If the rep performed even half of this work, s/he would never make it to legislative sessions.
This is all doable, and advisable, but it won't come easy.
(True)Openness does to corruption what distance does to gravity.
Now, if the city is smart, has the population density, and can make the budget work, the ideal solution is to build an underground utility system. Then everything is out of sight; but most of these problems are happening out west where everyone has their yard and lives 30 minutes to 2 hours from anything.
That's a pretty big "IF"! Most communities have a budget that's too small as is, let alone adding this to the mix. And the utilities would claim (rightly??) a need to raise prices if the costs were passed on to them.
But I do agree with you. I've long advocated the installation of 'utility tunnels" throughout major communities. The 'big tube' itself would be sewage, with large conduits suspended high on either side (and a walkway above the gunk) for power, gas, water, telco/cable, etc. The utility and telco-cable companies would pay a usage fee. And yes, that would be passed on to the consumer. Nothing is free. Adding new telcos would be easy since they could just run new wire/fiber in leased space in the conduits.
Another idea that goes with this is keeping the telcos and utilities de-regulated, but the community owning the wire. The community would lease 'space' (bandwidth) to the providers and maintain the lines. This would give the advantage of almost any provider being able to compete because they don't have to roll out the infrastructure.
You have a point. It can, and usually is, like herding cats. Cats with each their own self (frequently selfish) interest. Hence the concept (I forget the philosopher) of a people deserving the government they have. Yet another reason I fear it might one day come to this. It would be a bloody, messy, horrible affair to say the least.
Get involved in your local party politics; grassroots efforts are the only peaceful way to pull this off, and changing from within the system seems to be the best method. Or get involved and try to grow a third party to where they can take a seat in congress.
I agree entirely: people need to get out there and get involved. When the system is breaking, fix it from within, not through violence.
That said, it seems that politicians become corrupt or unable to fight the corruption after joining the ranks of other politicians. Say you become a Congressman. You have a plan, and there is no compromise! Ya, sure. You realize that, to get anything done, you have to compromise, you have to trade favors. Not long after, you find compromise to be easy. A little longer still, and you become compromised yourself. Now, you are part of the problem. I don't say this to discourage (OK, maybe I say it because I'm discouraged), but to show the limits of what can happen. For a political uprising to work, it must truly be an uprising, involving all walks of life in this (US) country. Not a few disgruntled partisans, not one minority, but universal.
Back to my agreeing with your statement, this means the grass roots efforts must involve people from the suburbs, the inner cities, and the country-side; it must involve the blue collar and white collar workers; it must involve the many religions and the non-believers.
Failing that, then yes, it must involve guns. I hope it never comes to that. I fear that it might.
And some of them will take what they witness while spying on Joe Schmoe and write a book, TV series, or movie, rake in the money, and retire... only to become one of those being spied on (if s/he wasn't already).
Or use the "Darken" bookmarklet: javascript:(function(){var%20newSS,%20styles='*%20{%20background:%20black%20!%20important;%20color:%20grey%20!important%20}%20:link,%20:link%20*%20{%20color:%20#0000EE%20!important%20}%20:visited,%20:visited%20*%20{%20color:%20#551A8B%20!important%20}';%20if(document.createStyleSheet)%20{%20document.createStyleSheet(%22javascript:'%22+styles+%22'%22);%20}%20else%20{%20newSS=document.createElement('link');%20newSS.rel='stylesheet';%20newSS.href='data:text/css,'+escape(styles);%20document.getElementsByTagName(%22head%22)[0].appendChild(newSS);%20}%20})();
Slashdot Mirror
About two years after high school, I started working for a local office supply business as a low-level manager. The owners, all of the upper staff, and most everyone else were Scientologists. They never SAID anything about the training manuals being Scientology, but that is exactly what they were, and, of course, we were forced to study them and pass the tests. They never actively tried to recruit me or make me go to one of their churches/meetings/whatever (though it was mentioned politely a couple times) and didn't discuss it too much, but the manuals were enough to make it clear: Scientology was the way to move up in the company. I played the game for a while and did well there while managing to not become brain-washed, but, eventually, I had to bail. I'm a patient, easy going guy, but I could only take so much of their pseudo-scientific, pseudo-psychological, pseudo-religious cult junk before blowing a fuse.
What I want to know is, if Scientology was the key to success, why then did the business fail? That company no longer exists. :)
This must be why so much of the artwork we see depicting the future shows people wearing spandex, nylon, rubber, leather, or vinyl. You have to wear non-conductive clothing to prevent sparking!
While it can easily be said that many professionals haven't a clue about the activities of their unions nor about Linux, fanatical support of union directives IS part of the problem in many areas, including this one. Here in California, the Teachers' Union hates the Governator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) because he wants to bring accountability to educators and because he was forced by circumstances beyond anybody's control into cutbacks. My aunt, who is a very intelligent, very astute, very successful teacher, doesn't really 'do' politics (like many people); she listens to what her union says and decides to hate Arnold based solely on that.
Microsoft learned something from Apple: give the schools your product, and the kids will grow up to want it in their professional lives. The difference is, MS is more than a little heavy-handed about it. Go with the company line, or lose all support. Period. End of story.
Cap that with the afore-mentioned cluelessness about Linux, or tech in general really, and the student may as well have been handing out crack, porn, or candy canes.
Absolutely correct! Using strange names for variables isn't an Easter Egg, it's a pain in the butt. I've cursed many coders when trying to figure their crappy variable names out. It's one thing when, back in the day, network admins named the printers after Roman gods and the servers after Greek gods. Cool. The mappings rarely showed that to the lay-people. But we need to be able to read the code and know what the variables are.
That is the most valid counter to my favorable statement on Easter Eggs yet, and you're correct. The blame-game can be easily lost by a coder who has something like this found anywhere near the fault, be it involved or not. However, the troubleshooting process usually goes through step by step and doesn't set the Easter Egg off and the Easter Egg is usually one of many subroutines tucked away in the code. Odds are, it won't be looked at in a normal trouble shooting process, but is very likely to be found during a full audit of the code.
So you're saying every programming problem must be solved in the same way every time; every function must be written exactly the same each time it is used; every program (for a given functionality) written exactly like every other. That is quite untrue. Each problem frequently has many possible solutions. Each little piece of a problem has several possible bits of code that handle the requirements with equal aplomb. The science and engineering of coding is getting it to do as is required in a stable and efficient manner. The artistry is choosing among the possible paths to get there, not to mention the presentation, how the UI looks and feels. In every science, there is artistry, just as in every art, there is science.
My personal take on this is to go ahead. First, the world NEEDS to step back from the super-serious attitude, but still be polite. Second, coding is as much art as science and I think your paintings, songs, code, engineering, etc should all have your personal mark, something to make it identifiably yours. Third (kinda goes with the first) doing so can be a moral booster for you AND those who discover it.
However, there are issues to keep in mind. You must keep it professional, so no vulgarity, rudeness, or jokes about loss of data. Certainly, you should avoid all the '-isms' like the plague. And, just as important, it should be clear that the Easter Eggs do not break security in any way.
In short, make it secure, polite, fun and it should be cool.
Ever vote for %POLITICIAN%?
Wait... Let's just make that, "Ever vote?" I still vote, but... wow.
So now you have a little something-something on the side?
Like you, I don't care if I have it or not, but I certainly don't mind others being alerted to my approach. However, with the way drivers ignore basic traffic laws and markings, I don't expect this to provide much more than a little passing help to those who already pay some attention. As a rider, the real problem I have is with silly (and extremely dangerous) little details they miss. For example, just today, I was almost sideswiped (well, I saw it coming before the driver made the move and was out of the way) because he ignored the very clear markings on the road indicating that his lane goes straight while mine goes either straight or onto the freeway... and he aimed for the freeway. This idea of Honda's, while good and at least somewhat helpful, does nothing for these more numerous situations.
The rest are designed to work with MS IE.
You don't pay to build it. The municipality sells bonds to pay for the construction, then leases out bandwidth/pipe space to interested companies. The income from this pays back the bonds and pays for the maintenance of the infrastructure.
You pay for access to the leased space, at a markup of course. You are paying for the content: water; natural gas; telephone; IP address, connectivity, and bandwidth.
I'm also very much in favor of small government, but the municipality should own the power lines, com lines, data lines, fiber, sewage pipe, gas pipe (natural, maybe others if there is a need; plan ahead), and water pipes. These transmission mediums are then leased out to providers who sell water, gas, sewage disposal, com bandwidth for a profit. Hell, Arrowhead or Sparklets could lease pipe space and sell their water that way! Your subscription to these various services allows the commercial enterprise to pay the lease from the muni, which can then pay for the maintenance. And before anyone complains that they can't even take care of the roads (which would generally be true, I agree), the difference here is the income stream from the commercial enterprises to the muni. Properly written, the bi-laws of this 'civic company' would go a long way towards making sure the income is sufficient and is properly spent on upkeep. True, no plan, especially a government plan, is perfect, but the companies don't always spend well either.
Notice that I indicated leasing pipe space to the water vendor (and other, similar products). Some communities own their own water company and/or power company. Infrastructure would be a separate division (because it handles much more than just power lines and water/sewage pipes), so that division bills the water and power divisions for the leases. This is already how similar things happen. (We have construction going on at our local library. The electrical was handled 'in house', IE: by the city's maintenance division, electrical sub-division. They bill the library division for the work. The money may only shift from one account to another, but it's proper accounting.) The reverse would be the power company being the contractor for taking care of the power lines and the water company doing so for the water lines. Assuming that they are low-bid/best-deal/best-track-record.
While competition would still be minimal for providers of hard goods/services like water and sewage disposal, probably still non-existent, it could happen under this design. The power, com, data stuff is just so much bandwidth, so can be planned for and expanded as needed, so competition is virtually automatic. You could sign up for Charter while your neighbor chooses AT&T Uverse.
Maintenance contracts might sometimes be handed out to the very companies that lease space. I could see AT&T being paid to keep all the data/fiber/com lines and related equipment running. Transparency would be a requirement so that the public can be sure there is no malfeasance such as kick backs, bribery, etc influences the contracting.
This whole plan asks a lot of our muni governments, but nothing more than we should already be demanding: proper planning, including foresight; fiscal responsibility; openness; and dedication to us, the people they serve. It is also not a complete plan as much research would need to be done to see how best to implement it, and what items would be included in this new infrastructure ideal. Let's get the debate started!
Here in the US, we joke rather constantly about France, despite our being friends and allies. Much of it has to do with surrendering during wars and battles (which is really only partially true and don't ever forget the very tough French Resistance) and the consistent electing of week governments. (Actually, the two are related: week governments surrender, but many of the French citizenry are tough, hence the tough Resistance.) I've frequently hypothesized that the French prefer to keep electing week governments to protect their freedoms without having to have yet another revolution. As our own government stomps all over our rights and freedoms here and I see the Brits losing theirs as well, I begin to wonder if the French have been right all along. Our government was built on the premise of a week federal system with strong states' rights and even stronger individual rights, but we keep electing strong (success/failure, peace/war, smart/stupid not related to this) governments and our rights have eroded. How little or how much have the rights of the French eroded? I honestly don't know and would like some input on this.
And VERY MUCH like Joe Lieberman, the Democrat-turned-Independent Senator: A tax & spend liberal who wants to bring religion and censorship into politics.
Google being a web services company that makes web apps, do we still need FF or IE to navigate to Chrome so we can then surf the net with it?
Probably bad form to reply to myself, but...
There have been plenty of good comments here, but there are several that follow a certain theme: "What do you expect for free support?"
I am (as are most of us, I believe) talking about enterprise level support, as in pay up front for a guaranteed level of service. This has nothing to do with the free support sometimes offered for those who use the OS for free. Two very different beasts, so I wanted to clear that up.
Very true. And this has been an ongoing issue with Linux adoption... I have a friend who runs mega-million-dollar, mission-critical systems and they've had to move off of Linux in favor of (Sun? Don't remember right now). It isn't about functionality. It isn't about open source. It's about support. Red Hat, et. al. want to be enterprise systems, and claim to offer enterprise support. But they don't perform enterprise support. As indicated here, change something to fix a bug, and you don't get support for that piece anymore. More, they won't support a system that doesn't have the latest updates, which is a problem on mission-critical systems. We don't update needlessly, and we certainly don't update to 'today's' patch. We have to wait and be sure the patch is stable and provides an improvement without risking our mission.
Until the players selling support realize all of this, Linux will be a difficult sell for such key systems (and the PHBs all think ALL their systems are mission-critical).
Keep in mind, I say this lovingly.... I want Linux to succeed and prefer it over the popular alternative.
You are very correct. There are, unfortunately, two major difficulties.
First, the electorate (that would be us voters) must band together and DEMAND this from our elected officials and MAKE the elected officials perform or get out. Unfortunately, this requires educating the voters to this cause and getting them to spend precious attention-time (seemingly in drastically short supply) becoming familiar with the issue (reading!!!) and spend what really only amounts to brief moments at a time, extended through their entire life, keeping abreast of the issues and making their representatives do their due. It's hard enough to get people to become familiar with the issues and their representation beyond the party-provided sound-bites. Getting them to keep at it... oooh... that new show is on....
Second, while the tech certainly exists, the time doesn't. It would require new staff to be able to handle the deluge that ~could~ result, even if it was run Slash Dot style (which I think could work for this). The representative couldn't do anything remotely close to all of the work, not even answering all of the emails and/or blog postings. This would have to fall to, say, the communications manager. If the rep performed even half of this work, s/he would never make it to legislative sessions.
This is all doable, and advisable, but it won't come easy.
I love this statement of yours!
Just don't ever confuse me with a NIMBY! I hate those people!
That's a pretty big "IF"! Most communities have a budget that's too small as is, let alone adding this to the mix. And the utilities would claim (rightly??) a need to raise prices if the costs were passed on to them.
But I do agree with you. I've long advocated the installation of 'utility tunnels" throughout major communities. The 'big tube' itself would be sewage, with large conduits suspended high on either side (and a walkway above the gunk) for power, gas, water, telco/cable, etc. The utility and telco-cable companies would pay a usage fee. And yes, that would be passed on to the consumer. Nothing is free. Adding new telcos would be easy since they could just run new wire/fiber in leased space in the conduits.
Another idea that goes with this is keeping the telcos and utilities de-regulated, but the community owning the wire. The community would lease 'space' (bandwidth) to the providers and maintain the lines. This would give the advantage of almost any provider being able to compete because they don't have to roll out the infrastructure.
Just a few ideas, take them with a grain of salt.
I don't see what the problem is. My neighbor has one in his yard, and I don't mind at all.
You have a point. It can, and usually is, like herding cats. Cats with each their own self (frequently selfish) interest. Hence the concept (I forget the philosopher) of a people deserving the government they have. Yet another reason I fear it might one day come to this. It would be a bloody, messy, horrible affair to say the least.
Ah, TV... truly the opiate of the masses!
I agree entirely: people need to get out there and get involved. When the system is breaking, fix it from within, not through violence.
That said, it seems that politicians become corrupt or unable to fight the corruption after joining the ranks of other politicians. Say you become a Congressman. You have a plan, and there is no compromise! Ya, sure. You realize that, to get anything done, you have to compromise, you have to trade favors. Not long after, you find compromise to be easy. A little longer still, and you become compromised yourself. Now, you are part of the problem. I don't say this to discourage (OK, maybe I say it because I'm discouraged), but to show the limits of what can happen. For a political uprising to work, it must truly be an uprising, involving all walks of life in this (US) country. Not a few disgruntled partisans, not one minority, but universal.
Back to my agreeing with your statement, this means the grass roots efforts must involve people from the suburbs, the inner cities, and the country-side; it must involve the blue collar and white collar workers; it must involve the many religions and the non-believers.
Failing that, then yes, it must involve guns. I hope it never comes to that. I fear that it might.
And some of them will take what they witness while spying on Joe Schmoe and write a book, TV series, or movie, rake in the money, and retire... only to become one of those being spied on (if s/he wasn't already).
Or use the "Darken" bookmarklet:
javascript:(function(){var%20newSS,%20styles='*%20{%20background:%20black%20!%20important;%20color:%20grey%20!important%20}%20:link,%20:link%20*%20{%20color:%20#0000EE%20!important%20}%20:visited,%20:visited%20*%20{%20color:%20#551A8B%20!important%20}';%20if(document.createStyleSheet)%20{%20document.createStyleSheet(%22javascript:'%22+styles+%22'%22);%20}%20else%20{%20newSS=document.createElement('link');%20newSS.rel='stylesheet';%20newSS.href='data:text/css,'+escape(styles);%20document.getElementsByTagName(%22head%22)[0].appendChild(newSS);%20}%20})();
And people wonder why you're A) single or B)in a lousy relationship with someone as bitter as you.