As a "Real American" (born and raised here) and one of the "Techno crowd" but having grown up camping (old school, dig your latrine style) I can empathize with both sides. Creature Comforts are nice, but so is "roughing it". There is a time and place for both. Wisdom is not shoehorning everyone into one side or the other. But then again the whole Red vs Blue, (R) vs (D), us vs them false dichotomy is part of the problem.
There is a lot of grey between the black and white.
Finland is a small country in Europe. The USA is a big country, comparable to the size of all of Europe and then some more. Comparing what you have for internet in Finland is like comparing what is found in New York City (or one of the other larger cities in the US) (population wise) and then having a few million (3) left over. Yeah, your beloved Finland is smaller than New York City (population).
I'm sick of people in Europe figuring what works for their dinky small country will work here in America. Stop doing it, or we'll start comparing how things run in Wyoming to how things work in your crappy country (e.g. Open Carry gun laws). One size fits all mentality is small thinking.
The US is a big place, with a varied population density that is quite broad. What works for a small country doesn't work here. Go figure.
That is the problem with guns, they don't, and can't, tell you how many crimes were prevented by people who carry guns. But let us consider Washington DC which as banned guns, and the gun crimes there. Banning Guns does not stop gun crimes, and in fact may actually INCREASE crime.
Also, blaming guns for crimes is like blaming a spoon because you're fat.
You're assuming there are enough laws on the books to put people into jail for causing harm to others, intentionally or not.
Every case you give has clear implications of causing harm (real or economic) to others, which there are already laws on the books for, we don't need more laws, just enforce the ones we have. We don't need more laws, just ones we can enforce.
If you have a masters degree in some useless field, it doesn't mean you should be getting six figure incomes doing some useless job for some government agency. Perhaps you're only other qualification is flipping burgers at McD's. Last time I checked, McD's has a steady stream of available positions.
Even if you can't find a job, working for some evil corporation or the government, if you truly wanted work, you'd find something useful to do for someone else, who is willing to pay you for it. But then again, perhaps the government is so involved in every minutia of businesses, that actually hiring a useless twit with a useless Masters degree in some liberal studies program is actually counter productive.
I'm not a Teabagger nor am I a useless dope smoking OWSer. But from where I sit, if the two actually got together, they would find that they have a lot of the same complaints. The difference between them is one thinks that government has all the solutions, while the other doesn't.
And it was the OWSers that were upset with all the begging/homeless that showed up at meal time. Sorry, but your rage is misplaced. LIberals love to tout how empathetic they really are, however few actually act that way when it is their turn to share. They want people to share, just other people, not themselves.
In other words, there is plenty of information out there that clearly shows how inefficient government is at creating jobs. Governments can't help people get jobs, it only gets in the way of people getting jobs. Want to create jobs, let businesses hire people without regulatory red tape and high costs (taxes).
Social programs to help those that, as you claim, are fully incapable of supporting themselves, is such a small number of people. Your argument is lost on me when you start looking at all the people gaming the system because they are in fact lazy and do not want to work. I know plenty of people who are on government welfare of one kind or another who could be working but instead are not.
Even those people who cannot work at "capacity" can do something, and requiring that they do nothing instead is insane. Lets identify people and their disability and help them reach their potential, while not ignoring their needs. The problem with most social programs, is that they are designed to do neither, but rather are designed for the efficiency of government.
I suspect that if you ask most "teabaggers" the same thing, they will give you a similar response. They are not opposed to helping the truly needy. But there is always the anecdotal outliers that people like you will always bring up as evidence of heartlessness.
Hard to keep tabs on government when the lazy and the idiots keep electing people like Reid, Pilossi, GWB, Obama, and Santorum.
Taxes for infrastructure is such a small number, that I think most people would be willing and happy to pay them, and we already do (fuel taxes etc). I don't have a problem for government doing what private sector cannot, like infrastructure and a standing army. I oppose taxes for social engineering and feel good/do good liberal causes. There was a recent study that showed that of the government programs designed to help people get jobs, the only real jobs those programs actually helped with were for the people running the programs. However it is impossible to cut those worthless programs off, because some liberal somewhere will claim that "the evil _____ doesn't want people to get jobs", so we are left with worthless programs that don't actually do anything. It would be better and easier and less expensive to just give the money to people who needed it.
Government is supposed to be of the people, for the people and by the people. It is supposed to be the glue for society, not fix all societal ills.
Liberty is avoiding the tyranny of the majority. If you like majority rule so much, then you should be happy about things like California voting to define marriage as between one man, and one woman. That is what the majority wants, and is defining something legally. Liberty is the state not caring what two adults do, as long as it harms nobody else. Not favoring, not punishing people for their choices in life, and letting the people enjoy the blessings or suffer the curses of their choices. Government's role should not be to rescue the idiots from their idiocy.
If gay people want to get married, why should I care. Let them suffer the consequences of divorce and property laws like the rest of us;)
Want to fix the problem with international corporations? Easy, tax wealth transfers between legal entities. It is easy to calculate, audit, etc, and you'll end up with tax structure that has almost no way of being anything but transparent.
Here's how it would work. First, we eliminate ALL corporate income taxes, as they are too easy to avoid (e.g. GE). Then we set up a system where wealth transfers by corporations to other corporations are taxed, perhaps at %.5 (half percent). Then when Entity A transfer wealth (payment for services, products or licensing) to Entity B the transfer is taxed. This will eliminate the need for shell corporations used to avoid paying taxes. Basically, you'll be taxing the velocity of capitalism. This will cause the government to support all sorts of reforms designed to increase the velocity of wealth so that they will increase revenue in the process. This will in turn get the economy rolling to maximum efficiency and there is no penalty for success, nor reward for failure.
Government should have no role in the economy, it is too easy for politicians to curry favor via tax policy and economic incentives (Solyndra) to garner campaign contributions.
The problem for you is that you want to tax corporations for no other reason to raise revenue for government tyrants, who then benefit you with their blessings in the form of things you should be willing and have to work for. Government cannot create private sector jobs. Period. They only thing government can do is take from the productive and give it to those that are not productive. And as nice as that sounds, it does nobody any good, other than career politicians who increase the public benefits and raise taxes to keep getting elected. Both the (R) and (D) do this, and I"m sure that other countries have their variations of the same thing.
If I had one opportunity to make a constitutional amendment, it would be to limit politicians to no more than 20 years of elected office, all levels combined (local, county, state, national), for their entire life. Anyone that has 20 years (or more) of elected office, cannot run or hold any elected office, ever. By eliminating career politicians, perhaps we might start looking at statesmen for public elected office.
Taxes are regressive, and politicians use them to curry favor and pay out benefits to keep getting elected.
Is it the role of government to raise taxes or to provide essential services that CANNOT be provided any other way? The problem with most government structures, is that they think they are in the role of raising taxes so that they can give people what the people should be getting from the private sector.
My point, all taxes are regressive. IF we assume this position then it becomes clear that the people are willing to endure taxes for things like education, police and fire, roads and other infrastructure. However people are not willing to pay extreme taxes, and will avoid paying them whenever possible by moving to lower taxed areas.
It is the role of government to guide society, not force society towards the common good, and deal with the assholes who violate the public trust. The problem here is that many (if not most) politicians are the very same people who should NOT be guiding society, as they are the very assholes government should be dealing with.
So, you have assholes who see their role as ever expanding the role of government force, and needing to raise taxes to fund their tyranny. Taxes are a form of necessary evil, and should be as low as possible, to provide just the basics that government should be providing. Any other policy, no matter how well intentioned, is just foolish naivete.
A physical keyboard on a phone? HAHAHA Really, all you get are smallish buttons that are too easy to mash together as you try to type. Having come from a phone with a "keyboard" (Blackberry) and currently using a Droid w/o Keyboard, I can assure you that I know a thing or two about both.. And by far, I can type much faster with the swype keyboard than hunt n pecking with my fat thumbs.
But that is the great thing about opinions, neither one of us is "wrong" we just have different opinions.
I'm always curious as to how people like you would answer the question. At what point do you stop opposing the violent solution.
Is it when the government starts executing its citizens without a trial? Because that has already happened. And Obama has signed an order saying that they can do it anytime they want, without court review.
And the liberals think GWB was bad. Where are they now that BHO has topped everything Bush did in eight years in only three short years? Oh right, BHO is THIEIR kind of tyrant.:-/
Which is why we live in a democratic republic, supposedly bound by a constitution that limits what government can and cannot do. The problem is, the slippery slope is indeed a slow ride to tyranny. Today, we have people advocating all sorts of intrusive legislation that demands all sorts of things upon people who just want to live without a bunch of rules. You know, like how much soda one can drink and whether you want to take your kids to Mc'D's to get a happy meal with a toy.
That's right, the bedroom is sacred, but the kitchen is not. The many of the very same people who complain about a woman's right to kill their unborn child, are the same ones that support all sorts of other intrusive government restrictions upon the lives of the populace.
Liberty is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner, and the sheep is armed with two guns (one for each wolf). There is a reason for the second amendment, and it has nothing to do with "hunting".
companies are never there for your benefit. never.
Yes they are. I invest in companies, companies pay my salary, pay taxes, invest in research that improves lives. My retirement fund is filled with companies working on maximizing profit and I don't mind any of that, because it will make my retirement better.
Companies make things and provide services that I pay money for, because if I were to make those things or do those services, they are more expensive and not done as well.
WHAT I don't like is when companies cross from amoral (no morals, good or evil) into the realm of immoral. However since what is or what isn't immoral is relative and subjective, I have to choose the companies I do business with, with care. The problem is, too many people don't care enough to be bothered.
Example: Walmart used to be a decent company. Now, it is nothing more than a machine that forces crappier and crappier products and services upon the unsuspecting and uncaring people. I agree with SNAPPER, and instead of buying a cheap lawnmower from Walmart, I now specifically will buy Snapper, because they are uncompromising. A rare feat in today's business.
What may work in Sweden probably won't work in the US, because we have completely different demographics and geography. Take Population, Sweden has a total population of just shy of 9.5 million people. New York City, for comparison is 8.1 Million People. That is just one city. Oh, and your fairly stable population is suddenly growing and those aren't blonde hair babies. You have a problem, you just don't know how bad it is yet.
Land Size... Sweden 173,745 Sq Mi, California 163,696 (slightly smaller) Population of California 37 Million
Sweden is starting to have immigration problems where the whole Swedish Culture is being threatened by people who are not European, let alone Scandinavian. Multiculturalism is killing your distinctiveness. Over half of all Swedes believe that Islam is a threat to what it is to be a Swede. And the Muslims are out breeding Swedes at an alarming pace.
Good luck being Sweden in 25 years. Let me know how your smugness works when you're under Sharia Law.
English was and always will be a language of universal communication. The origins of the language comes from taking words from other languages and making use of them. That is why we have phrases like "cease and desist" and "breaking and entering", which are not sets of two different things, but phrases to denote that they have the exact same meaning. We have just lost the original understanding of the phrases.
The end result is that you can Yoda Speak and completely understand it, even though it seems awkward: "Away put your weapon". It is also why English is such a hard language to learn for a second language.
Staff? You're kidding me? This will be automated with scripts. You're nuts if you're depending on a human to hit "submit" button on website for a high value domain name. Scripts, properly executed, will be within milliseconds (ie, margin of error) of the exact time needed. This solves NOTHING.
It only took some forty years to discredit. In the meantime it was taught as fact and people even got their PhD's on the subject. My point wasn't that it was eventually refuted, but rather it fit your description of "religion" and yet was held as "science" for YEARS. It took nearly 80 years to rid textbook references to Piltdown Man as evidence of evolution. In fact, there are plenty of textbooks that contain what we now know are errors, but haven't been corrected, and are still being taught as fact. Heck, gravity is still taught as a "law" even though it only works only most of the time (outliers are such a bitch).
I'm not arguing for creationism, but rather against the smugness of many who hold the science view, as being perfect and void of errors. Even your reply here completely ignores that I was making a direct comparison between your previous point and obvious errors (lies) in science.
AGW is a perfect case of not having the actual data and basing all knowledge held by a very very select few, who have been caught manipulating the data and "cherry picking". According to various experts, the earth is much cooler than predicted by most of their models. And if AGW is true, and Al Gore is a prime promoter of it, then why did he just buy a beach house? He either doesn't believe what he is peddling or he is crazy. I'll let you figure out which.. His carbon footprint is much larger than mine.
Well, Network Security/NetOps isn't anywhere close to minor software development in terms of skills. Perhaps you really need to fill two positions. Trying to find the magic person that can do both seems improbable at best. If that position was filled previously, you should have paid them more (and kept them happy) because of how rare those skills were.
I know that my skills are such that anything requiring "minor software development" is a no go. I don't like coding (and hence, not good at it), and have long since stopped trying to stay up on the latest programming languages. However, I can tell those that do like coding exactly what I want/need because I at least understand the concept of what it takes to actually code.
Trying to mix unrelated skills is going to be a tough nut to crack. You may have to hire the primary job, and ignore the secondary. If you've lived 6 months without both, you're in trouble.. or you don't need either. Figure it out.
The problem is falsely representing what a theory is in the first place, before beginning to criticize it.
Piltdown Man. -- falsely representing a theory in the first place. People were correct to criticize it, from the beginning, as it was false from the beginning. The problem is, your over simplification is still wrong. Care to try again? How can one begin to understand that it was wrong when only a few had access to ALL the data on the damn thing?
In this case, your example is wrong, because it is not applicable. Mandarin has a known structure and grammar, however I'm sure there is Chinese Poetry that violates normative structure / grammar, as much poetry often does. THIS is the outlier that says there are exceptions. And it would be right to criticize the grammar of the poetry, but also one must understand that it violates the normative grammar and such with a purpose.
This is the same problem with UEA and AGW debate, only a few had access to the information and yet we are supposed to have faith that they are representing the data accurately, and not fudging it along the way (which they were caught doing). Again the problem isn't the data, it is the access to the data, and who "controls it". Science loves to live in ivory towers, above the "common man".
And then, there is you, who didn't even answer any actual points raised, only reiterating a flawed analogy.
The problem with Blackberry is that it required (at one point) a server component for Enterprise. And it was EXPENSIVE (at the time). Meanwhile Apple used ActiveSync and now Android does as well, which allows for "security" that most enterprises actually need.
However, what is MISSING that Blackberry had YEARS ago was app management that is still better than anything Apple or Google offer. We are actively looking at MDM that can manage Apple and/or Android and so far, we've got nothing worthwhile to choose from. Apple's MDM is pretty good, but it is based on Apple's model, and not any enterprise.
If HP or any other company wanted the Enterprise market for Smart Devices, they could be had in a second. My guess, is the market is too fluid to build anything that will work in three years.
That, and the whole BYOD in the enterprise is really starting to take off. Why pay for smartphones when your employees will buy something else anyways (and not want what you bought)?
Slashdot Mirror
As a "Real American" (born and raised here) and one of the "Techno crowd" but having grown up camping (old school, dig your latrine style) I can empathize with both sides. Creature Comforts are nice, but so is "roughing it". There is a time and place for both. Wisdom is not shoehorning everyone into one side or the other. But then again the whole Red vs Blue, (R) vs (D), us vs them false dichotomy is part of the problem.
There is a lot of grey between the black and white.
Finland is a small country in Europe. The USA is a big country, comparable to the size of all of Europe and then some more. Comparing what you have for internet in Finland is like comparing what is found in New York City (or one of the other larger cities in the US) (population wise) and then having a few million (3) left over. Yeah, your beloved Finland is smaller than New York City (population).
I'm sick of people in Europe figuring what works for their dinky small country will work here in America. Stop doing it, or we'll start comparing how things run in Wyoming to how things work in your crappy country (e.g. Open Carry gun laws). One size fits all mentality is small thinking.
The US is a big place, with a varied population density that is quite broad. What works for a small country doesn't work here. Go figure.
My Kingdom for Mod Points. Classic.
That is the problem with guns, they don't, and can't, tell you how many crimes were prevented by people who carry guns. But let us consider Washington DC which as banned guns, and the gun crimes there. Banning Guns does not stop gun crimes, and in fact may actually INCREASE crime.
Also, blaming guns for crimes is like blaming a spoon because you're fat.
You're assuming there are enough laws on the books to put people into jail for causing harm to others, intentionally or not.
Every case you give has clear implications of causing harm (real or economic) to others, which there are already laws on the books for, we don't need more laws, just enforce the ones we have. We don't need more laws, just ones we can enforce.
If you have a masters degree in some useless field, it doesn't mean you should be getting six figure incomes doing some useless job for some government agency. Perhaps you're only other qualification is flipping burgers at McD's. Last time I checked, McD's has a steady stream of available positions.
Even if you can't find a job, working for some evil corporation or the government, if you truly wanted work, you'd find something useful to do for someone else, who is willing to pay you for it. But then again, perhaps the government is so involved in every minutia of businesses, that actually hiring a useless twit with a useless Masters degree in some liberal studies program is actually counter productive.
I'm not a Teabagger nor am I a useless dope smoking OWSer. But from where I sit, if the two actually got together, they would find that they have a lot of the same complaints. The difference between them is one thinks that government has all the solutions, while the other doesn't.
And it was the OWSers that were upset with all the begging/homeless that showed up at meal time. Sorry, but your rage is misplaced. LIberals love to tout how empathetic they really are, however few actually act that way when it is their turn to share. They want people to share, just other people, not themselves.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-green-tech-program-that-backed-solyndra-struggles-to-create-jobs/2011/09/07/gIQA9Zs3SK_story.html
http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2009/12/07/cost-benefit-analysis-of-jobs-stimulus/
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/jeffreeves/2011/09/03/cbo_cost_per_job_between_$196,750_and_$562,000
http://investinginkids.net/2011/08/24/cost-effective-short-term-job-creation-policies/
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/why-government-cant-create-jobs/
In other words, there is plenty of information out there that clearly shows how inefficient government is at creating jobs. Governments can't help people get jobs, it only gets in the way of people getting jobs. Want to create jobs, let businesses hire people without regulatory red tape and high costs (taxes).
Social programs to help those that, as you claim, are fully incapable of supporting themselves, is such a small number of people. Your argument is lost on me when you start looking at all the people gaming the system because they are in fact lazy and do not want to work. I know plenty of people who are on government welfare of one kind or another who could be working but instead are not.
Even those people who cannot work at "capacity" can do something, and requiring that they do nothing instead is insane. Lets identify people and their disability and help them reach their potential, while not ignoring their needs. The problem with most social programs, is that they are designed to do neither, but rather are designed for the efficiency of government.
I suspect that if you ask most "teabaggers" the same thing, they will give you a similar response. They are not opposed to helping the truly needy. But there is always the anecdotal outliers that people like you will always bring up as evidence of heartlessness.
Hard to keep tabs on government when the lazy and the idiots keep electing people like Reid, Pilossi, GWB, Obama, and Santorum.
Taxes for infrastructure is such a small number, that I think most people would be willing and happy to pay them, and we already do (fuel taxes etc). I don't have a problem for government doing what private sector cannot, like infrastructure and a standing army. I oppose taxes for social engineering and feel good/do good liberal causes. There was a recent study that showed that of the government programs designed to help people get jobs, the only real jobs those programs actually helped with were for the people running the programs. However it is impossible to cut those worthless programs off, because some liberal somewhere will claim that "the evil _____ doesn't want people to get jobs", so we are left with worthless programs that don't actually do anything. It would be better and easier and less expensive to just give the money to people who needed it.
Government is supposed to be of the people, for the people and by the people. It is supposed to be the glue for society, not fix all societal ills.
Liberty is avoiding the tyranny of the majority. If you like majority rule so much, then you should be happy about things like California voting to define marriage as between one man, and one woman. That is what the majority wants, and is defining something legally. Liberty is the state not caring what two adults do, as long as it harms nobody else. Not favoring, not punishing people for their choices in life, and letting the people enjoy the blessings or suffer the curses of their choices. Government's role should not be to rescue the idiots from their idiocy.
If gay people want to get married, why should I care. Let them suffer the consequences of divorce and property laws like the rest of us ;)
Want to fix the problem with international corporations? Easy, tax wealth transfers between legal entities. It is easy to calculate, audit, etc, and you'll end up with tax structure that has almost no way of being anything but transparent.
Here's how it would work. First, we eliminate ALL corporate income taxes, as they are too easy to avoid (e.g. GE). Then we set up a system where wealth transfers by corporations to other corporations are taxed, perhaps at %.5 (half percent). Then when Entity A transfer wealth (payment for services, products or licensing) to Entity B the transfer is taxed. This will eliminate the need for shell corporations used to avoid paying taxes. Basically, you'll be taxing the velocity of capitalism. This will cause the government to support all sorts of reforms designed to increase the velocity of wealth so that they will increase revenue in the process. This will in turn get the economy rolling to maximum efficiency and there is no penalty for success, nor reward for failure.
Government should have no role in the economy, it is too easy for politicians to curry favor via tax policy and economic incentives (Solyndra) to garner campaign contributions.
The problem for you is that you want to tax corporations for no other reason to raise revenue for government tyrants, who then benefit you with their blessings in the form of things you should be willing and have to work for. Government cannot create private sector jobs. Period. They only thing government can do is take from the productive and give it to those that are not productive. And as nice as that sounds, it does nobody any good, other than career politicians who increase the public benefits and raise taxes to keep getting elected. Both the (R) and (D) do this, and I"m sure that other countries have their variations of the same thing.
If I had one opportunity to make a constitutional amendment, it would be to limit politicians to no more than 20 years of elected office, all levels combined (local, county, state, national), for their entire life. Anyone that has 20 years (or more) of elected office, cannot run or hold any elected office, ever. By eliminating career politicians, perhaps we might start looking at statesmen for public elected office.
Taxes are regressive, and politicians use them to curry favor and pay out benefits to keep getting elected.
Is it the role of government to raise taxes or to provide essential services that CANNOT be provided any other way? The problem with most government structures, is that they think they are in the role of raising taxes so that they can give people what the people should be getting from the private sector.
My point, all taxes are regressive. IF we assume this position then it becomes clear that the people are willing to endure taxes for things like education, police and fire, roads and other infrastructure. However people are not willing to pay extreme taxes, and will avoid paying them whenever possible by moving to lower taxed areas.
It is the role of government to guide society, not force society towards the common good, and deal with the assholes who violate the public trust. The problem here is that many (if not most) politicians are the very same people who should NOT be guiding society, as they are the very assholes government should be dealing with.
So, you have assholes who see their role as ever expanding the role of government force, and needing to raise taxes to fund their tyranny. Taxes are a form of necessary evil, and should be as low as possible, to provide just the basics that government should be providing. Any other policy, no matter how well intentioned, is just foolish naivete.
A physical keyboard on a phone? HAHAHA Really, all you get are smallish buttons that are too easy to mash together as you try to type. Having come from a phone with a "keyboard" (Blackberry) and currently using a Droid w/o Keyboard, I can assure you that I know a thing or two about both.. And by far, I can type much faster with the swype keyboard than hunt n pecking with my fat thumbs.
But that is the great thing about opinions, neither one of us is "wrong" we just have different opinions.
I'm always curious as to how people like you would answer the question. At what point do you stop opposing the violent solution.
Is it when the government starts executing its citizens without a trial? Because that has already happened. And Obama has signed an order saying that they can do it anytime they want, without court review.
And the liberals think GWB was bad. Where are they now that BHO has topped everything Bush did in eight years in only three short years? Oh right, BHO is THIEIR kind of tyrant. :-/
Which is why we live in a democratic republic, supposedly bound by a constitution that limits what government can and cannot do. The problem is, the slippery slope is indeed a slow ride to tyranny. Today, we have people advocating all sorts of intrusive legislation that demands all sorts of things upon people who just want to live without a bunch of rules. You know, like how much soda one can drink and whether you want to take your kids to Mc'D's to get a happy meal with a toy.
That's right, the bedroom is sacred, but the kitchen is not. The many of the very same people who complain about a woman's right to kill their unborn child, are the same ones that support all sorts of other intrusive government restrictions upon the lives of the populace.
Liberty is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner, and the sheep is armed with two guns (one for each wolf). There is a reason for the second amendment, and it has nothing to do with "hunting".
Yes they are. I invest in companies, companies pay my salary, pay taxes, invest in research that improves lives. My retirement fund is filled with companies working on maximizing profit and I don't mind any of that, because it will make my retirement better.
Companies make things and provide services that I pay money for, because if I were to make those things or do those services, they are more expensive and not done as well.
WHAT I don't like is when companies cross from amoral (no morals, good or evil) into the realm of immoral. However since what is or what isn't immoral is relative and subjective, I have to choose the companies I do business with, with care. The problem is, too many people don't care enough to be bothered.
Example: Walmart used to be a decent company. Now, it is nothing more than a machine that forces crappier and crappier products and services upon the unsuspecting and uncaring people. I agree with SNAPPER, and instead of buying a cheap lawnmower from Walmart, I now specifically will buy Snapper, because they are uncompromising. A rare feat in today's business.
What may work in Sweden probably won't work in the US, because we have completely different demographics and geography. Take Population, Sweden has a total population of just shy of 9.5 million people. New York City, for comparison is 8.1 Million People. That is just one city. Oh, and your fairly stable population is suddenly growing and those aren't blonde hair babies. You have a problem, you just don't know how bad it is yet.
Land Size ... Sweden 173,745 Sq Mi, California 163,696 (slightly smaller) Population of California 37 Million
Sweden is starting to have immigration problems where the whole Swedish Culture is being threatened by people who are not European, let alone Scandinavian. Multiculturalism is killing your distinctiveness. Over half of all Swedes believe that Islam is a threat to what it is to be a Swede. And the Muslims are out breeding Swedes at an alarming pace.
Good luck being Sweden in 25 years. Let me know how your smugness works when you're under Sharia Law.
English was and always will be a language of universal communication. The origins of the language comes from taking words from other languages and making use of them. That is why we have phrases like "cease and desist" and "breaking and entering", which are not sets of two different things, but phrases to denote that they have the exact same meaning. We have just lost the original understanding of the phrases.
The end result is that you can Yoda Speak and completely understand it, even though it seems awkward: "Away put your weapon". It is also why English is such a hard language to learn for a second language.
Staff? You're kidding me? This will be automated with scripts. You're nuts if you're depending on a human to hit "submit" button on website for a high value domain name. Scripts, properly executed, will be within milliseconds (ie, margin of error) of the exact time needed. This solves NOTHING.
It only took some forty years to discredit. In the meantime it was taught as fact and people even got their PhD's on the subject. My point wasn't that it was eventually refuted, but rather it fit your description of "religion" and yet was held as "science" for YEARS. It took nearly 80 years to rid textbook references to Piltdown Man as evidence of evolution. In fact, there are plenty of textbooks that contain what we now know are errors, but haven't been corrected, and are still being taught as fact. Heck, gravity is still taught as a "law" even though it only works only most of the time (outliers are such a bitch).
I'm not arguing for creationism, but rather against the smugness of many who hold the science view, as being perfect and void of errors. Even your reply here completely ignores that I was making a direct comparison between your previous point and obvious errors (lies) in science.
AGW is a perfect case of not having the actual data and basing all knowledge held by a very very select few, who have been caught manipulating the data and "cherry picking". According to various experts, the earth is much cooler than predicted by most of their models. And if AGW is true, and Al Gore is a prime promoter of it, then why did he just buy a beach house? He either doesn't believe what he is peddling or he is crazy. I'll let you figure out which .. His carbon footprint is much larger than mine.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/17/photos-al-goree-new-8875_n_579286.html#s91253
Actually, the best option is to edit the EULA before agreeing to it. One sided contracts are not contracts.
Well, Network Security/NetOps isn't anywhere close to minor software development in terms of skills. Perhaps you really need to fill two positions. Trying to find the magic person that can do both seems improbable at best. If that position was filled previously, you should have paid them more (and kept them happy) because of how rare those skills were.
I know that my skills are such that anything requiring "minor software development" is a no go. I don't like coding (and hence, not good at it), and have long since stopped trying to stay up on the latest programming languages. However, I can tell those that do like coding exactly what I want/need because I at least understand the concept of what it takes to actually code.
Trying to mix unrelated skills is going to be a tough nut to crack. You may have to hire the primary job, and ignore the secondary. If you've lived 6 months without both, you're in trouble .. or you don't need either. Figure it out.
Piltdown Man. -- falsely representing a theory in the first place. People were correct to criticize it, from the beginning, as it was false from the beginning. The problem is, your over simplification is still wrong. Care to try again? How can one begin to understand that it was wrong when only a few had access to ALL the data on the damn thing?
In this case, your example is wrong, because it is not applicable. Mandarin has a known structure and grammar, however I'm sure there is Chinese Poetry that violates normative structure / grammar, as much poetry often does. THIS is the outlier that says there are exceptions. And it would be right to criticize the grammar of the poetry, but also one must understand that it violates the normative grammar and such with a purpose.
This is the same problem with UEA and AGW debate, only a few had access to the information and yet we are supposed to have faith that they are representing the data accurately, and not fudging it along the way (which they were caught doing). Again the problem isn't the data, it is the access to the data, and who "controls it". Science loves to live in ivory towers, above the "common man".
And then, there is you, who didn't even answer any actual points raised, only reiterating a flawed analogy.
The problem with Blackberry is that it required (at one point) a server component for Enterprise. And it was EXPENSIVE (at the time). Meanwhile Apple used ActiveSync and now Android does as well, which allows for "security" that most enterprises actually need.
However, what is MISSING that Blackberry had YEARS ago was app management that is still better than anything Apple or Google offer. We are actively looking at MDM that can manage Apple and/or Android and so far, we've got nothing worthwhile to choose from. Apple's MDM is pretty good, but it is based on Apple's model, and not any enterprise.
If HP or any other company wanted the Enterprise market for Smart Devices, they could be had in a second. My guess, is the market is too fluid to build anything that will work in three years.
That, and the whole BYOD in the enterprise is really starting to take off. Why pay for smartphones when your employees will buy something else anyways (and not want what you bought)?