I'm sorry, we must live in a different universe. Even Apple was more open than MSWindows. (I mean, here, Apple ][, ][+, LC, LC+, etc. up through System 7.5. I can't speak of after that.) MS not only failed to properly document their system for developers, they lied about what they did. (Possibly it was just LOTS and LOTS of mistakes.)
If you compare MSWind to what came before, then it exhibits a truly paranoid degree of closed-ness. Also if you compare it to either BSD or Linux, or even the proprietary Unixes. Apple, however, has become nearly as closed as MS...but I've stopped developing for them, so I don't know if they lie about their specs. Actually, I don't know if MS still lies about it's specs, as I stopped developing for them, too. Now I develop on Linux, and if it runs on MS, great. If not, sorry, I don't have a system to test it on. (It's often Java, Python, or Ruby, so it *SHOULD* run everywhere. This, of course, doesn't mean it does.) (If I ran into trouble with a BSD implementation, I'd install a BSD partition or VM. Hasn't happened.)
N.B.: My development environments are nominally cross-platform. But you know what that means. Things usually work. If I can get it to work under Wine, that's as much MSWind support as I'll handle. (I read EULAs.)
Sorry to disagree here, but it's a problem in any area if one business is MUCH more successful than all it's competitors. What the correct solution is isn't clear, and may differ from case to case, but whenever that happens a problem exists that threatens to become much worse.
To reiterate one of my continual themes, monopolies are always bad. Always. Inevitably. Sometimes the alternatives are worse (e.g., unbearably expensive), but that doesn't make the monopoly good.
Note that it's not power that causes corruption, it's the lack of accountability for what you do. This causes even minor bureaucrats at a monopoly to become grit in the gears of society. And this causes large businesses to feel that they can get away with help desk lines that keep you on hold for hours, and then drop you because "business hours are over". If there weren't a monopoly (or duopoly, or cartel oligopoly), then this kind of behavior would be answered by customers fleeing to competition. But if there isn't any competition...whether by eliminating the competition or by agreement...then the customers are left without viable options.
(And, yes, it's actually more complex than that. It also depends on the customer being able to find out who's shafting them, e.g., but that's a reasonable synopsis.)
Monopolies are always bad, though sometimes unavoidable (at reasonable cost). That said, I'd rather trust Google in the catbird seat than MS. MS has been shown to be an extremely abusive monopolist. (Not the worst, by any means, but still extremely abusive.) Google hasn't shown that. It may no longer live up to the slogan "Do no evil", but doing evil isn't it's reason for existing. With MS I'm not always sure that's true.
So if you're arguing that search engine is a "natural monopoly" (You might be right.), then I'd definitely prefer Google over MS. I'd also prefer a lot of restrictions on how they could use their monopoly, emphasizing that they couldn't favor some users over others. (I have no evidence that they are doing so at the time, but monopolies inherently lead to corrupt behavior.)
Sorry, but the FBI agent's report *is* officially acknowledged. Most of the other evidence would have to count as "hear-say", or circumstantial. But what evidence would you *expect* to find?
If a foreign secret intelligence warns the US that a terrorist act is planned, what evidence would you expect to find? If a person identified as a spokesman for such an agency claims after the fact that they warned us, what evidence would you expect to find? So it's "Who do you trust?", and, frankly, the way the US govt. was acting at that point, I'd sooner have believed MS. (Though not SCO. They weren't quite that bad.)
N.B.: Usually there's no way to tell whether a govt. it lying to you, so most of the time, if they're at all careful, you can't be certain that you're being lied to. At that time the US govt. was making about a statement a week that was an obvious lie. You might not (usually wouldn't) be able to tell what the truth was, but it was clear that the govt. was lying.
An analogy, if I may - if someone wants to tell me that the Bush admin had relevant info prior to the 9/11 attacks which they chose to ignore, I'd say it's unlikely but at least plausible. I...
Why would you say that's unlikely? That much is clearly documented by official government testimony. Now why the FBI refused to listen to it's agent's reports isn't known, and must be regarded as speculation, but that they were told is official record.
I happen to regard it as at least curious that a long piece of subversive legislation appeared within two days. Far to short a period to have written it. So it is my belief that the government had an expectation that something of that nature was about to happen. How much they knew is beyond the point of certainty. I wouldn't be surprised if they funded the entire affair, but there isn't any reasonable evidence that that's what happened, so they may just have known what kind of thing was in the wind, and taken maximal advantage of it. It's fairly certain that they didn't act to discourage it. Why know is a matter of speculation.
(The FBI Agent is only one of the advance sources of information that were ignored, but it *IS* on admitted official record.)
They *might* not, but that's not the way to bet. Remember, these are the folk who reportedly avoided cell-hone communication because it would too easily reveal their location. Could be they were just paranoid...and possibly about the wrong things. Could be they didn't trust the official government propaganda about how secure our communications were. (Apparently correctly.)
At the cost of cell phones, it clearly wasn't because they couldn't afford them.
The mouse wasn't obvious, exactly, but the idea, rather than the device, wasn't a major innovation. People knew what the problems with the light pen were.
So it was a minor innovation with important after-effects. (If you check the internals, you'll see that the modern mouse doesn't owe much, if anything, to the mechanical design of the original.)
At the time I'd have been all in favor of Xerox getting a patent on the mouse. I just wouldn't be in favor of the patent still being valid. It's been too long, even if they had been a major seller of mice. The implementation of the mouse wasn't THAT significant a step. The light pen got us most of the way there. (And the rewards for the mouse should have been shared with the innovators of light-pens.)
Since that's not the way the laws work, I'd be just as happy if the mouse was ruled trivially obvious. It wasn't, but it was that's closer to true than saying that it is worth all the reward for innovation in user interfaces involving gestures. (Except for touch pads/tablets/etc.)
For my personal preference, the best gesture reading tool was the original Felix. The later models ruined the original design, and the original design was seriously hampered by driver problems, but it solved many of the problems that a mouse has. It was essentially a touchpad enclosed in a box with a stick on tracks above it. You didn't need to move your arm at all to traverse the entire screen. It could all be done with finger motions. It wasn't successful because of implementation problems, and because my tastes aren't universal. And because the later designs de-optimized it to make it look slicker (I presume). OTOH, the original design only had one button. (It was for a Mac. Probably OS 3.5.) There might have been trouble adapting it to three buttons, but it didn't last that long.
I don't really think that highly of mice. They're better than many of the alternatives, but that doesn't make them a good design. I should probably give a trackball another try. But I haven't encountered a good trackball with three buttons. (A wheel is a lousy substitute for a third button, but it "sort of" works, and some interfaces are actually starting to make use of it as a wheel. Whether one can design a good trackball that uses a wheel is, to me, an unanswered question.
Basically mice are popular because they are popular. Other choices would have worked as well. Each has it's own particular strength and weakness. And the mouse wasn't THAT innovative, even at the time.
But Utilities have transmission line losses and costs. It may be cheaper to cart methane around. (And if they're using methane rather than butane, propane, etc. one wonders why.)
One possibility is that it's possible to ferment methane locally...at your local sewage plant. You've just got to convince the sewage company that it's worth their while to collect it and recycle it. Lots of local customers might do that.
That, indeed, is what I'm wondering about. If they've found a way to replace platinum in fuel cells, then this is going to FLY!
It's not surprising that the prototype models are expensive. And there are probably several places where even at the current cost they are worthwhile. But if they've gotten rid of the need for a platinum catalyst.... Then one real target for this is automobile mufflers. (Though 1000 C? That might be too high for practical application to the muffler market.)
Actually that temperature has me wondering what the limitation of this are going to be. It sounds like the smaller you get, the more fantastically good your insulation is going to need to be. A lunchbox sized version would probably need to be in a thermal vacuum bottle. With a fire-brick stopper. (Remember 1000 C is about 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. [Yeah, that's a rough conversion. I doubt that the 1000 C is all that accurate.])
But, just wondering, how many watts COULD a lunchbox sized version put out? (I'm not including the methane tank in the size. Just the fuel cell.) It would be nice if I could compare it to, say, gel-pack batteries. (I know, the batteries aren't a primary source. But I can count on being able to charge them, for some uses, so it's a reasonable comparison.)
This depends on which interpretation of Quantum Mechanics you believe in. You seem to be a Copenhagen Interpretation guy. Many Worlds [EGW] would agree with you on results, but disagree on reasoning. Hidden Variables has been having some trouble in the last decade or so, but may recover. He would disagree with you. Super Determinism would also disagree, and has been doing quite well, thank you, even if he's not very popular. And Solipsism... well, what can one say about him. He's consistent, but nobody else believes in him.
Then there's the Virtual Worlds hypothesis (which, I suppose, is a variant on Hidden Variables that HASN'T run into any problems).
None of these say that you can predict the result, but some of them disagree about it being random. And some of them waffle.. Super Determinism and Hidden Variables don't even say that there won't ever be any way to make a prediction. At least not clearly enough to be understood.
Of all these interpretations, only Copenhagen unreservedly states that the results are random. (Many Worlds agrees with him, but so redefines the term that they are in essential disagreement.)
What they *could* do that would be "fair" is offer lower rates and preferential access to those who will post a high damage deposit.
Unfortunately, landlords have abused that ploy to ALWAYS claim that there is substantial damage so that they can keep the deposit.
Additionally, that's still discriminating against the poor. If there *is* a fair solution, I don't see it. Crooks on all sides have ruined anything that depends on trust. So people depend on profiling instead...and that's KNOWN to be unfair, but unfair to someone besides the profiler.
On the average, women do appear to make better parents then men. There are lots of exceptions, but that's the average. Believing it isn't something that is socially harmful.
OTOH, believing that ANYONE can be a decent parent and also hold down a full time job IS both a false and socially harmful. The only possible exceptions are jobs that allow one to work at home...and those had better allow for frequent interruptions. So the job will suffer, or the kid will suffer.
<digression>N.B.: This used to be less true. When people lived in less densely populated environments, and when transportation was considerably slower, and streets were less populated by it... i.e., in villages without cars, then it was reasonably safe to allow kids to wander around unsupervised a large part of the time. Even during the 1950's when I was growing up things were a lot safer. I could ride a bicycle unsupervised, and the traffic on most streets that weren't through-fares (I don't mean just thoroughfares, also arterial streets. etc.) was light enough and slow enough that it was reasonably safe. By the time I had gotten to college in the early 1960's the traffic had become a lot denser. I still rode a bicycle, but I paid a LOT more attention to the traffic around me. By the 1970's I judged that the traffic had gotten so bad that I gave up my bicycle. (Falling off it in traffic had something to do with this decision. Fortunately I'd just turned onto a side street.) Today... people who ride in today's traffic are taking their lives in their hands.</digression>
Europe is already significantly ahead of the US in many ways. (They'd be better, but their government isn't that much better. It's just differently bad.)
China has it's problems. But economically, it's already in the dominant position. The reason China doesn't kill the dollar is that it OWNS much of the US.
You didn't specify your area, so I've got no idea as to whether your schools are, indeed, overfunded, or just poorly implemented. I could pretty much guarantee the poorly implemented part, though.
Around where I live (SF Bay Area) the public schools are drastically underfunded, as well as being poorly implemented. Enough money wouldn't solve everything, but it should mean that the schools didn't run out of toilet paper part way through the year.
P.S.: My mother was a teacher, and she says that she wouldn't go back to teaching under the rules that the schools use these days. They're drastically worse than the rules of the 1960's. I wasn't a teacher, so I know more about the 1950's, and they had their problems, but it wasn't anything like the current school problems. And a large part is that teachers can no longer get rid of disruptive students.
And be SURE that it's a distribution that you'd be comfortable using. Because you'll need to be using it for at least a week, and possibly for a year or so, so that you'll be able to quickly answer the questions that you'll bet. The description of the errors is likely to be a bit vague, and given in terms of either what they intended to have been doing (but weren't) of in terms of how the screen looked.
As I understand it, Mint was based on Debian, switched over to being based on Ubuntu, and then switched back to being based on Debian. So what it's based on depends on which version you get.
N.B.: As I understand it, Mint is a shallow alteration of either Debian or Ubuntu. A bit of eye-candy change, a few codecs, etc. When it's based on Debian it's based on either unstable or testing (forget which) and then hand tuned.
I used one release for a week, but I didn't notice any major improvement over Debian (I think that was what I'd been using) and switched back. Perhaps if I'd been into audio or video I'd have noticed more difference.
It's quite probable that 56% of the real estate taxes SHOULD go to the school. But the schools are doing a lousy job of spending it appropriately and effectively.
The reason that the schools deserve proper support is that is where our future citizens are taught how to behave. But what they are being taught is that being unethical is the best way to succeed, that studying hard isn't worth the effort, etc. Doing well on a test ONLY results in the students being stigmatized by their peers. There aren't any positive benefits...at least not for years. Disrupting the class results in the students being allowed to wander around at will.
Some of this is because of government regulations. Some is because of too many students per teacher. Some is because parents won't support the teachers (they're more likely to threaten them). This shouldn't be tolerated, but fixing it wouldn't be cheap. And laptops are a silly expensive frill. If the school actually has money to waste that way (below high school junior level...possibly senior) then you're right, taxes are too high. But I suspect that it's just funds being improperly allocated.
If you re-process it to recover fuel, then yeah. But we aren't doing that. So I expect it's still a viable heat source.
N.B.: There are lots of kinds of weapons. A dynamite based bomb enclosed in radioactive dust would be a weapon. It might not kill very many people, but it could reduce property values by a tremendous amount for a long time. And it could scare people a LOT for a short period of time. (OTOH, when the proper mind set it in place, talcum powder can scare people. That happened a few times during the anthrax scare awhile back.... I wonder who cause THAT.... All the signs point to a US lab where everyone with access to the anthrax has clearance. IIRC, they found someone to blame, but whether he was either an actor or the originator or perpetrator of the plot seems unclear.)
considering that to go that tiny bit faster you need a much more powerful engine and a lot more fuel... other consumables seem a much less significant limit.
P.S.: I'm dubious about the Bussard Ramjet. The estimates I've seen says that it will encounter too much resistance to work properly above around 0.5 C. (Perhaps that should be "to work properly", but I can't remember where that study was, and what it's assumptions were. So I compromised.)
OTOH, there's a guaranteed way to make the Bussard Ramjet work properly, but it requires carting along a large quantity of antimatter.
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Windows open?!?!?
I'm sorry, we must live in a different universe. Even Apple was more open than MSWindows. (I mean, here, Apple ][, ][+, LC, LC+, etc. up through System 7.5. I can't speak of after that.) MS not only failed to properly document their system for developers, they lied about what they did. (Possibly it was just LOTS and LOTS of mistakes.)
If you compare MSWind to what came before, then it exhibits a truly paranoid degree of closed-ness. Also if you compare it to either BSD or Linux, or even the proprietary Unixes. Apple, however, has become nearly as closed as MS...but I've stopped developing for them, so I don't know if they lie about their specs. Actually, I don't know if MS still lies about it's specs, as I stopped developing for them, too. Now I develop on Linux, and if it runs on MS, great. If not, sorry, I don't have a system to test it on. (It's often Java, Python, or Ruby, so it *SHOULD* run everywhere. This, of course, doesn't mean it does.) (If I ran into trouble with a BSD implementation, I'd install a BSD partition or VM. Hasn't happened.)
N.B.: My development environments are nominally cross-platform. But you know what that means. Things usually work. If I can get it to work under Wine, that's as much MSWind support as I'll handle. (I read EULAs.)
Sorry to disagree here, but it's a problem in any area if one business is MUCH more successful than all it's competitors. What the correct solution is isn't clear, and may differ from case to case, but whenever that happens a problem exists that threatens to become much worse.
To reiterate one of my continual themes, monopolies are always bad. Always. Inevitably. Sometimes the alternatives are worse (e.g., unbearably expensive), but that doesn't make the monopoly good.
Note that it's not power that causes corruption, it's the lack of accountability for what you do. This causes even minor bureaucrats at a monopoly to become grit in the gears of society. And this causes large businesses to feel that they can get away with help desk lines that keep you on hold for hours, and then drop you because "business hours are over". If there weren't a monopoly (or duopoly, or cartel oligopoly), then this kind of behavior would be answered by customers fleeing to competition. But if there isn't any competition...whether by eliminating the competition or by agreement...then the customers are left without viable options.
(And, yes, it's actually more complex than that. It also depends on the customer being able to find out who's shafting them, e.g., but that's a reasonable synopsis.)
Monopolies are always bad, though sometimes unavoidable (at reasonable cost). That said, I'd rather trust Google in the catbird seat than MS. MS has been shown to be an extremely abusive monopolist. (Not the worst, by any means, but still extremely abusive.) Google hasn't shown that. It may no longer live up to the slogan "Do no evil", but doing evil isn't it's reason for existing. With MS I'm not always sure that's true.
So if you're arguing that search engine is a "natural monopoly" (You might be right.), then I'd definitely prefer Google over MS. I'd also prefer a lot of restrictions on how they could use their monopoly, emphasizing that they couldn't favor some users over others. (I have no evidence that they are doing so at the time, but monopolies inherently lead to corrupt behavior.)
Sorry, but the FBI agent's report *is* officially acknowledged. Most of the other evidence would have to count as "hear-say", or circumstantial. But what evidence would you *expect* to find?
If a foreign secret intelligence warns the US that a terrorist act is planned, what evidence would you expect to find? If a person identified as a spokesman for such an agency claims after the fact that they warned us, what evidence would you expect to find? So it's "Who do you trust?", and, frankly, the way the US govt. was acting at that point, I'd sooner have believed MS. (Though not SCO. They weren't quite that bad.)
N.B.: Usually there's no way to tell whether a govt. it lying to you, so most of the time, if they're at all careful, you can't be certain that you're being lied to. At that time the US govt. was making about a statement a week that was an obvious lie. You might not (usually wouldn't) be able to tell what the truth was, but it was clear that the govt. was lying.
It's a bit different firing a gun up in the woods and in the city. But MOST of the time it would still be safe.
It's still a silly analogy, though.
An analogy, if I may - if someone wants to tell me that the Bush admin had relevant info prior to the 9/11 attacks which they chose to ignore, I'd say it's unlikely but at least plausible. I...
Why would you say that's unlikely? That much is clearly documented by official government testimony. Now why the FBI refused to listen to it's agent's reports isn't known, and must be regarded as speculation, but that they were told is official record.
I happen to regard it as at least curious that a long piece of subversive legislation appeared within two days. Far to short a period to have written it. So it is my belief that the government had an expectation that something of that nature was about to happen. How much they knew is beyond the point of certainty. I wouldn't be surprised if they funded the entire affair, but there isn't any reasonable evidence that that's what happened, so they may just have known what kind of thing was in the wind, and taken maximal advantage of it. It's fairly certain that they didn't act to discourage it. Why know is a matter of speculation.
(The FBI Agent is only one of the advance sources of information that were ignored, but it *IS* on admitted official record.)
A guilt trip rarely convinces anyone of anything, except to stop talking to you, or to lie.
I'm not saying your basic point is wrong. I rather agree with it. But your way of expressing it is counterproductive.
I wonder how hard it would be to "set someone up". Could be that jumping to conclusions was a bit dangerous.
They *might* not, but that's not the way to bet. Remember, these are the folk who reportedly avoided cell-hone communication because it would too easily reveal their location. Could be they were just paranoid...and possibly about the wrong things. Could be they didn't trust the official government propaganda about how secure our communications were. (Apparently correctly.)
At the cost of cell phones, it clearly wasn't because they couldn't afford them.
Unh... Apple PAID Xerox for the tech they used. Check your history.
The mouse wasn't obvious, exactly, but the idea, rather than the device, wasn't a major innovation. People knew what the problems with the light pen were.
So it was a minor innovation with important after-effects. (If you check the internals, you'll see that the modern mouse doesn't owe much, if anything, to the mechanical design of the original.)
At the time I'd have been all in favor of Xerox getting a patent on the mouse. I just wouldn't be in favor of the patent still being valid. It's been too long, even if they had been a major seller of mice. The implementation of the mouse wasn't THAT significant a step. The light pen got us most of the way there. (And the rewards for the mouse should have been shared with the innovators of light-pens.)
Since that's not the way the laws work, I'd be just as happy if the mouse was ruled trivially obvious. It wasn't, but it was that's closer to true than saying that it is worth all the reward for innovation in user interfaces involving gestures. (Except for touch pads/tablets/etc.)
For my personal preference, the best gesture reading tool was the original Felix. The later models ruined the original design, and the original design was seriously hampered by driver problems, but it solved many of the problems that a mouse has. It was essentially a touchpad enclosed in a box with a stick on tracks above it. You didn't need to move your arm at all to traverse the entire screen. It could all be done with finger motions. It wasn't successful because of implementation problems, and because my tastes aren't universal. And because the later designs de-optimized it to make it look slicker (I presume). OTOH, the original design only had one button. (It was for a Mac. Probably OS 3.5.) There might have been trouble adapting it to three buttons, but it didn't last that long.
I don't really think that highly of mice. They're better than many of the alternatives, but that doesn't make them a good design. I should probably give a trackball another try. But I haven't encountered a good trackball with three buttons. (A wheel is a lousy substitute for a third button, but it "sort of" works, and some interfaces are actually starting to make use of it as a wheel. Whether one can design a good trackball that uses a wheel is, to me, an unanswered question.
Basically mice are popular because they are popular. Other choices would have worked as well. Each has it's own particular strength and weakness. And the mouse wasn't THAT innovative, even at the time.
But Utilities have transmission line losses and costs. It may be cheaper to cart methane around. (And if they're using methane rather than butane, propane, etc. one wonders why.)
One possibility is that it's possible to ferment methane locally...at your local sewage plant. You've just got to convince the sewage company that it's worth their while to collect it and recycle it. Lots of local customers might do that.
That, indeed, is what I'm wondering about. If they've found a way to replace platinum in fuel cells, then this is going to FLY!
It's not surprising that the prototype models are expensive. And there are probably several places where even at the current cost they are worthwhile. But if they've gotten rid of the need for a platinum catalyst.... Then one real target for this is automobile mufflers. (Though 1000 C? That might be too high for practical application to the muffler market.)
Actually that temperature has me wondering what the limitation of this are going to be. It sounds like the smaller you get, the more fantastically good your insulation is going to need to be. A lunchbox sized version would probably need to be in a thermal vacuum bottle. With a fire-brick stopper. (Remember 1000 C is about 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. [Yeah, that's a rough conversion. I doubt that the 1000 C is all that accurate.])
But, just wondering, how many watts COULD a lunchbox sized version put out? (I'm not including the methane tank in the size. Just the fuel cell.) It would be nice if I could compare it to, say, gel-pack batteries. (I know, the batteries aren't a primary source. But I can count on being able to charge them, for some uses, so it's a reasonable comparison.)
This depends on which interpretation of Quantum Mechanics you believe in. You seem to be a Copenhagen Interpretation guy. Many Worlds [EGW] would agree with you on results, but disagree on reasoning. Hidden Variables has been having some trouble in the last decade or so, but may recover. He would disagree with you. Super Determinism would also disagree, and has been doing quite well, thank you, even if he's not very popular. And Solipsism ... well, what can one say about him. He's consistent, but nobody else believes in him.
Then there's the Virtual Worlds hypothesis (which, I suppose, is a variant on Hidden Variables that HASN'T run into any problems).
None of these say that you can predict the result, but some of them disagree about it being random. And some of them waffle.. Super Determinism and Hidden Variables don't even say that there won't ever be any way to make a prediction. At least not clearly enough to be understood.
Of all these interpretations, only Copenhagen unreservedly states that the results are random. (Many Worlds agrees with him, but so redefines the term that they are in essential disagreement.)
What they *could* do that would be "fair" is offer lower rates and preferential access to those who will post a high damage deposit.
Unfortunately, landlords have abused that ploy to ALWAYS claim that there is substantial damage so that they can keep the deposit.
Additionally, that's still discriminating against the poor. If there *is* a fair solution, I don't see it. Crooks on all sides have ruined anything that depends on trust. So people depend on profiling instead...and that's KNOWN to be unfair, but unfair to someone besides the profiler.
Because older people are more likely to have lawyers on retainer.
N.B.: It's also common to discriminate against the poor, but rare to discriminate against the rich. (Except when legally mandated.)
On the average, women do appear to make better parents then men. There are lots of exceptions, but that's the average. Believing it isn't something that is socially harmful.
OTOH, believing that ANYONE can be a decent parent and also hold down a full time job IS both a false and socially harmful. The only possible exceptions are jobs that allow one to work at home...and those had better allow for frequent interruptions. So the job will suffer, or the kid will suffer.
<digression>N.B.: This used to be less true. When people lived in less densely populated environments, and when transportation was considerably slower, and streets were less populated by it ... i.e., in villages without cars, then it was reasonably safe to allow kids to wander around unsupervised a large part of the time. Even during the 1950's when I was growing up things were a lot safer. I could ride a bicycle unsupervised, and the traffic on most streets that weren't through-fares (I don't mean just thoroughfares, also arterial streets. etc.) was light enough and slow enough that it was reasonably safe. By the time I had gotten to college in the early 1960's the traffic had become a lot denser. I still rode a bicycle, but I paid a LOT more attention to the traffic around me. By the 1970's I judged that the traffic had gotten so bad that I gave up my bicycle. (Falling off it in traffic had something to do with this decision. Fortunately I'd just turned onto a side street.) Today ... people who ride in today's traffic are taking their lives in their hands.</digression>
And just when is this "eventually"?
Europe is already significantly ahead of the US in many ways. (They'd be better, but their government isn't that much better. It's just differently bad.)
China has it's problems. But economically, it's already in the dominant position. The reason China doesn't kill the dollar is that it OWNS much of the US.
So just when is this "eventually"?
You didn't specify your area, so I've got no idea as to whether your schools are, indeed, overfunded, or just poorly implemented. I could pretty much guarantee the poorly implemented part, though.
Around where I live (SF Bay Area) the public schools are drastically underfunded, as well as being poorly implemented. Enough money wouldn't solve everything, but it should mean that the schools didn't run out of toilet paper part way through the year.
P.S.: My mother was a teacher, and she says that she wouldn't go back to teaching under the rules that the schools use these days. They're drastically worse than the rules of the 1960's. I wasn't a teacher, so I know more about the 1950's, and they had their problems, but it wasn't anything like the current school problems. And a large part is that teachers can no longer get rid of disruptive students.
And be SURE that it's a distribution that you'd be comfortable using. Because you'll need to be using it for at least a week, and possibly for a year or so, so that you'll be able to quickly answer the questions that you'll bet. The description of the errors is likely to be a bit vague, and given in terms of either what they intended to have been doing (but weren't) of in terms of how the screen looked.
As I understand it, Mint was based on Debian, switched over to being based on Ubuntu, and then switched back to being based on Debian. So what it's based on depends on which version you get.
N.B.: As I understand it, Mint is a shallow alteration of either Debian or Ubuntu. A bit of eye-candy change, a few codecs, etc. When it's based on Debian it's based on either unstable or testing (forget which) and then hand tuned.
I used one release for a week, but I didn't notice any major improvement over Debian (I think that was what I'd been using) and switched back. Perhaps if I'd been into audio or video I'd have noticed more difference.
You haven't properly identified the problem.
It's quite probable that 56% of the real estate taxes SHOULD go to the school. But the schools are doing a lousy job of spending it appropriately and effectively.
The reason that the schools deserve proper support is that is where our future citizens are taught how to behave. But what they are being taught is that being unethical is the best way to succeed, that studying hard isn't worth the effort, etc. Doing well on a test ONLY results in the students being stigmatized by their peers. There aren't any positive benefits...at least not for years. Disrupting the class results in the students being allowed to wander around at will.
Some of this is because of government regulations. Some is because of too many students per teacher. Some is because parents won't support the teachers (they're more likely to threaten them). This shouldn't be tolerated, but fixing it wouldn't be cheap. And laptops are a silly expensive frill. If the school actually has money to waste that way (below high school junior level...possibly senior) then you're right, taxes are too high. But I suspect that it's just funds being improperly allocated.
If you re-process it to recover fuel, then yeah. But we aren't doing that. So I expect it's still a viable heat source.
N.B.: There are lots of kinds of weapons. A dynamite based bomb enclosed in radioactive dust would be a weapon. It might not kill very many people, but it could reduce property values by a tremendous amount for a long time. And it could scare people a LOT for a short period of time. (OTOH, when the proper mind set it in place, talcum powder can scare people. That happened a few times during the anthrax scare awhile back. ... I wonder who cause THAT. ... All the signs point to a US lab where everyone with access to the anthrax has clearance. IIRC, they found someone to blame, but whether he was either an actor or the originator or perpetrator of the plot seems unclear.)
Don't you need to be sponsored by the Puppeteers before they'll even deign to talk to you?
Well, unless you develop your own starseed lure.
considering that to go that tiny bit faster you need a much more powerful engine and a lot more fuel ... other consumables seem a much less significant limit.
P.S.: I'm dubious about the Bussard Ramjet. The estimates I've seen says that it will encounter too much resistance to work properly above around 0.5 C. (Perhaps that should be "to work properly", but I can't remember where that study was, and what it's assumptions were. So I compromised.)
OTOH, there's a guaranteed way to make the Bussard Ramjet work properly, but it requires carting along a large quantity of antimatter.