A lot of people watch TV. Should they be required to know how the TV actually works behind the screen? Once upon a time computers were complicated black boxes and required specialists to build, program, and operate. However over the years it has become easier and easier to use computers for a variety of tasks (including basic administration). The hardcore CLI admins just get pissed off because any halfway smart user can navigate through a GUI and eventually provide the same results without years of command line pounding.
Ultimately computers are for USERS not the builders or technicians actually building them. Layers of abstraction have increased ten fold as different types of technology have advanced. It's gotten to the point where even professional software developers utilize layers upon layers of abstraction when creating todays complicated apps. The OO programming model is built on abstraction (ie.Hiding the details) to reduce the amount of detail the developer needs to deal with when building an app. Making a few extra mouse clicks when you don't happen to have all the command line flags and parms memorized is not the end of the world.
I am assuming you are talking about smart phones sales versus PC sales. Pretty much all PC's come with a desktop of some kind. Smart Phones are a rather recent new tech where as the PC is pretty much old tech that no one get's to excited about anymore. Plus Smart Phones are cheap to obtain when compared to a PC. The consumer can sign up with one of the communication service providers and pretty much get the phone for free if they are willing to commit to a multi-year service contract. I have not seen and Internet providers give away free PC's just for signing up for their service.
The desktop is far from being irrelevant. There are a substantial number of companies, big and small, that have developed internal and unique desktop applications. I have worked with a lot of large companies over the past 20 years and its been my experience that they tend to be very conservative when it comes to making wholesale changes to their application base. They have spent a lot of money and time building these internal applications and they are in no hurry to re-write those applications just because they want to deploy their apps in a non-desktop environment. Converting custom desk-top apps into web based apps is a large and expensive process and most corporate IT managers need a good reason to convert their desktop apps when those apps are already providing the functionality they require. And of course MS Office is still a going concern which will ensure the desktop hangs around a bit longer. And without a desktop most developers would have to replace their favorite IDE and development tool sets with something else.
No, You should just not try to judge Googles open source and patent policies without taking into account their buisness objectives. They are not a software technology company so I would expect their policies to be a little different than a company who derives their revenue solely from software or hardware products. Context is everything.
Real value is what puts food on the table and pays the bills not something to teach basic programming skills. And I am pretty sure Google is getting some real value out of everything they do whether that be generating more revenue or producing effective "love me" propaganda in the tech and business community.
It is in Googles interest to use software patents or lack there of to imped those companies that depend heavily on technology sales because that in turn keeps those companies out of Googles main area of interest which is data collection and dissemination, not technology. You notice that Google might contribute to the Android and Linux communities but I have never seen them open up their proprietary database and search algorithm technology.
Google is not a software or a technology company so promoting open source is not hurting their profits. They are a marketing and information collection and management company that just happens to use some of the newest technology available. They are sitting on an advanced and solid infrastructure collecting information from every conceivable place they can get access to. Who really gives a shit about their stance on software patents? Their business model is perfect for the open source development model. They can get access to anyone else's work, improve upon on it, deploy it, and release their changes back to the community. By the time anyone else can take advantage of any changes they contributed Google will have reaped the benefits and moved on to something else. It's their policies on data collection and profiling everyone on the damn plant and using that information for profit any way they see fit that should give you a pause.
Tell me again, when did that ever work out for the better and how exactly is it morally justifiable?
---
Pay attention. Preemptive attack was very successful for the Israeli's in 67. You know the conflict the last 300 posts have discussed. As far as morals go who are you to decide what was moral in this situation unless you were living in Israel at the time? It's easy for people to criticise others when their life and property was never being threatened.
I might not see any practical results from this research but I am just glad there are people who work on projects such as this. That includes both the intelligent scientists, engineerss, and the people who fund this type of research knowing themselves that they may never see any results in their lifetime either but continue to support this type of research anyway.
War by definition is killing and blowing shit up. As long as you make an effort to avoid civilian or non-combatant deaths that should be enough.The terrorists make no effort at all to spare civilians. In fact they purposely target non-combatants as a rule. The setup artillary, ammunition dumps, and rocket launchers in schools, mosques, and hospitals to make sure civilians get killed so the lefty international progressive hand wringing society have something to bleat about in the public forums.
Drones are susceptible to losing their signal input but that can be addressed with pre-programmed flight plans stored on the craft itself for use if comm is interrupted. Drones are also a lot cheaper to build and maintain when compared against a F-22 for example. Drones can be mass produced and used in swarms that communicate in real time with each other during the operation to prevent duplicate targeting and provide redundancy for any drones that get destroyed. I think the AF is already working on a system like this called Constellation.
The only way that UN resolution would ever pass is through military enforcement. The "Palestinians" had their chances and lost repeatedly. They have been after a do-over for 30 years. International borders are drawn in blood. The Palestinians have as much a chance of getting their own country as Mexico has of regaining the US southwest.
Isreal will continue supporting hard line leaders because they are surrounded by people who have been trying to kill them for 60 years and have not been shy in announcing it. Isreal is safer with a hawk instead of a dove. Just look what happened when the Isreali leaders started to soften their approach towards the Arabs in 73 and Syrian and Egyption armies came running over the borders in attack mode.
I didn't say they shouldn't have attacked I am saying they should have taken the time to understand the strenghts and weaknesses of the Jews instead of assuming it would be a walk over. As far as the neighboring countries go the current "Palestinian" territory was divided up between Egypt, Jordan, and Syria at time. There were no Palestinian passports floating around until after the Arabs were defeated in 48. The entire Palestinian home land is a construct the losing Arab countries have created and used as a propaganda weapon for the past 40+ years since their military attacks were unsuccessful. The people claiming to be Palestinians today are being used and sacrificed by the surrounding arab countries. And of course the Palestinians themselves have taken every opportunity to miss every opportunity to end this conflict. From backing Sadaam Hussien's invasion of Kuwait to the happy faces displayed on 9/11.
The basic aerodynamics of the existing jets and UAV's are pretty well understood. The advances will be in the area of computer technology, satellite and earth based communications, and exotic material designs.
They have pretty much reached the pinnacle of manned fighter jet design, the future is remote drones. Unmanned vehicles are cheaper, require less support in the form of maintenance, aircraft carriers, fuel efficiency, and pilot lives. The current F22 and F35 airframes already leave a fair amount of performance on the table because of the limits of a human pilot. So unless someone comes up with an inertial compensating system we have reached the point where the fighter jet technology has surpassed our ability to use it.
Statements like yours is big reason why this conflict is still raging. As long as the conspiracy theories, omission of facts, and outright lies continue to circulate the level of animosity will continue to grow. Until the Arab's stop threatening Israel's existence there will be no peace. The Arab's initiated this conflict in 48 and then got their asses handed to them in 67 and again in 73. It was in 48 when the Arabs repudiated the UN decision to create the state of Israel and then evacuated most of the Arab's in the expected area of conflict with promises they could come back in a few days after they finished killing all the Jews. Everyone knows how that turned out. The Arab's should have paid lip service to the UN decision at least long enough to work out some type of plan before rushing the war. I'll admit I don't know whether the UN resolution was a good decision or not but time has made that irrelevant today. The fact is the resolution was passed and Israel does exist and I seriously doubt the Israeli's are going to pack up and leave anytime soon. In 48 the world was still recovering from war and the horrors associated with war. The discovery of the death camps was fresh in every ones mind at that time and that generated a lot of sympathy for the Jews and I have to believe that sympathy made a big impact when it came to passing the resolution.
And who defines what is enough? When a company first goes into business the successful ones usually try to create products or services that are better than their competitors offerings. The principals use a combination of hard work, good ideas, long hours, and out right aggression to make the company successful and beat your competitors. If the company starts to succeed in gaining market share and growing their revenue stream it is hard to just stop and proclaim well were good enough now so we can just start to relax and try to maintain the status quo. Striving for mediocrity is usually not the way to run a buisness.
Money is usually required on your journey to your goal. Money is not the end it is often just the means. How much money you need depends on what your goal is.
I believe there are app config settings where you can alter the way programs are executed if you want to. You can also configure the user permissions to limit any potential damage. The biggest security risk in any OS is the user. Trying to lock down the entire OS can also cancel out some of the legitimate functionality.User vigilance and awareness is the best protection against getting a virus. The people creating the viruses and bots are really good at identifying OS weaknesses even when you are running an anti-virus program.
Can you site the source of your opinion about the efficiency and higher standards a Japanese built car has over US manufacturers. The last time I remember this coming up was back in the late 80's when Japan was beating US based companies in both categories but that only spurred the US automakers to radically improve their performance and products. Around this time I was looking to buy a new car and did not even look at the US brands at first because the last time I purchased a new car the US autos were of lower quality. When I did check out the US models I was surprised at the improved quality and ended up actually buying the US model. Everyone is always saying that the US manufacture nothing today and as a result has lost manufacturing jobs to other countries but the US is still the worlds leader in manufacturing.
A reasonable explanation and plan until you step into the real world and out of the idealistic sandbox your suggestions live in. And I am still not sure which freedoms I have lost over my lifetime but that is another topic for another day. Just because you have a shitty life (I'm not talking about you personally) doesn't mean it's because of some governmental conspiracy or wholesale breakdown of society. How do envision all of your suggested changes bieng put in place without destroying and killing a substantial amount of the global population resulting in pushing our civilization back to the 18th century? Your idea of freedom sounds more like anarchy and if that's what you think is best then more power to you. Just don't come bitching once the wars start. The sad fact is that there has not been any governmental and large scale societal changes without large scale unrestrained violence. People who say violence has never solved anything important are living in la-la land. Look at human history, peace is just a timeout between wars to re-build and re-arm. People like to equate our technological acheivements with progress on changing basic human nature but that is pure BS. We are not more civilized just because of the ever expanding features on our cell phones. Your reply also seems to suggest that there is a priviledged class running the world and you are probably right but not to the extremes that some people believe. In the US we waste our time and energy complaining about the politicians when it is the corporations and their leaders who should be put under the microscope. Re-focus our attention to the wealth producing entities instead of the politicians who are really no more than employees of those companies. CEO's and corporate board members have a real low threshold when it comes to public scrutiny so why don't we take advantage of that. Incorporated companies are required by law to produce detailed information on the finances of the company for stockholders so the information is there for the taking. Even non-public corporate information is easilly obtainable today. Just look at Wikileak like sites and all the successful intrusions into corporate computer systems. Financial dealings leave trails if you look hard enough. Financial records can be the factual evidence you need to go to war against a corporation. If you want to change our country or the world for the better why not pick the right targets to go after instead of tearing down the entire societal framework we are living under and trying to start over from scratch? No matter what form a government you have whether it is democratic, socialist, marxist, communist, or any other variant they all have the same priviliged class running the show. This class of people have the resources to make a better society if they really wanted and they also have the most to lose but no one is putting them in the spotlight and forcing the issue. Take all the animus thrown at Bush,Obama,Palin, or any other politcal hack ofyour choice and package it up, and re-target it on the people who can actually do something worthwhile. You could start with the oil companies, communication companies, armament companies, and large financial institutions. Since the corporate hiearchy today is mvoving closer toward consolidation the number of potential targets are getting smaller. A "million man" march against any of these companies combined with boycotts have a better chance of intiating change than going after government representatives or politicians. There are protections and recourse in our legal system that can be very useful when confronting a corporation.
We are living in an era when nobody takes any personal responsibility for their own decisions and instead they look to blame a 3rd party like their own government or the most popular excuse going today of just blaming the US for everything that is wrong in the world. Most of the problems happening today could be solved but a start would be instituting commonsense population controls. This would help conserve our natural resources long enough for alternatives to become viable and reduce the strain on the global economic system.
And after we destroy the current system what do we replace it with? Do we just kill all current leaders and wealthy and when that is done the do the survivors get together for a big group hug? The biggest problem with the countries having their revolutions is that nobody has really thought about what happens afterward. Internal conflicts tend to get very personal and it takes a long time for the hate to dissapate. Is our current system so bad that you would be willing put up with 20 years of bloody conflict. Would this conflict involve states declaring themselves independent of the federal government? It is the cohesivness of the US states that have provided stablity and enabled the country to survive as a whole. The Civil War was more about preventing balkanization of the US land mass then about slavery. In a fight over resources the states would most likely be in a state of continual hostility. The US constitution and bill of rights were written by white, wealthy, landowners with little input from the common man and somehow they managed to do a pretty good job. Look at all the issues covered in the constitution and bill of rights and ask yourself could any such document be created today without about 50 years political infighting. It's not enough to complain and use emotional laden descriptions like "facist" if you cannot replace it with something better.
You are right. No matter what the US does it ends up getting hammered. This has gone on for so long that people all around the world never take a minute to really look at the situation in question to actually determine the US position with facts. Any country on the on the planet, big or small, has an immediate excuse for their own problems because everyone all ready knows it's always the US who is responsible for their troubles. The good thing about this behavior is that the US population is finally starting to believe that other peoples problems are just that their problems. It won't be a matter of cost or deficits that limits US involvement it will be it's citizens who are tired of listening to the non-stop bitching.
There are a lot of things you can criticize MS about but their development tools have been first rate, not counting SourceSafe of course. I know the pre.NET Visual Basic offends everyone on this site but that one product was responsible for giving a lot of marginal developers a way to grind out apps quickly. What better way to promote their OS then make it as easy as possible for people to develop apps for that OS? Free Visual Studio is just another way to lure developers to their platform.
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A lot of people watch TV. Should they be required to know how the TV actually works behind the screen? Once upon a time computers were complicated black boxes and required specialists to build, program, and operate. However over the years it has become easier and easier to use computers for a variety of tasks (including basic administration). The hardcore CLI admins just get pissed off because any halfway smart user can navigate through a GUI and eventually provide the same results without years of command line pounding. Ultimately computers are for USERS not the builders or technicians actually building them. Layers of abstraction have increased ten fold as different types of technology have advanced. It's gotten to the point where even professional software developers utilize layers upon layers of abstraction when creating todays complicated apps. The OO programming model is built on abstraction (ie.Hiding the details) to reduce the amount of detail the developer needs to deal with when building an app. Making a few extra mouse clicks when you don't happen to have all the command line flags and parms memorized is not the end of the world.
I am assuming you are talking about smart phones sales versus PC sales. Pretty much all PC's come with a desktop of some kind. Smart Phones are a rather recent new tech where as the PC is pretty much old tech that no one get's to excited about anymore. Plus Smart Phones are cheap to obtain when compared to a PC. The consumer can sign up with one of the communication service providers and pretty much get the phone for free if they are willing to commit to a multi-year service contract. I have not seen and Internet providers give away free PC's just for signing up for their service.
The desktop is far from being irrelevant. There are a substantial number of companies, big and small, that have developed internal and unique desktop applications. I have worked with a lot of large companies over the past 20 years and its been my experience that they tend to be very conservative when it comes to making wholesale changes to their application base. They have spent a lot of money and time building these internal applications and they are in no hurry to re-write those applications just because they want to deploy their apps in a non-desktop environment. Converting custom desk-top apps into web based apps is a large and expensive process and most corporate IT managers need a good reason to convert their desktop apps when those apps are already providing the functionality they require. And of course MS Office is still a going concern which will ensure the desktop hangs around a bit longer. And without a desktop most developers would have to replace their favorite IDE and development tool sets with something else.
No, You should just not try to judge Googles open source and patent policies without taking into account their buisness objectives. They are not a software technology company so I would expect their policies to be a little different than a company who derives their revenue solely from software or hardware products. Context is everything.
Real value is what puts food on the table and pays the bills not something to teach basic programming skills. And I am pretty sure Google is getting some real value out of everything they do whether that be generating more revenue or producing effective "love me" propaganda in the tech and business community.
It is in Googles interest to use software patents or lack there of to imped those companies that depend heavily on technology sales because that in turn keeps those companies out of Googles main area of interest which is data collection and dissemination, not technology. You notice that Google might contribute to the Android and Linux communities but I have never seen them open up their proprietary database and search algorithm technology.
Google is not a software or a technology company so promoting open source is not hurting their profits. They are a marketing and information collection and management company that just happens to use some of the newest technology available. They are sitting on an advanced and solid infrastructure collecting information from every conceivable place they can get access to. Who really gives a shit about their stance on software patents? Their business model is perfect for the open source development model. They can get access to anyone else's work, improve upon on it, deploy it, and release their changes back to the community. By the time anyone else can take advantage of any changes they contributed Google will have reaped the benefits and moved on to something else. It's their policies on data collection and profiling everyone on the damn plant and using that information for profit any way they see fit that should give you a pause.
Tell me again, when did that ever work out for the better and how exactly is it morally justifiable? --- Pay attention. Preemptive attack was very successful for the Israeli's in 67. You know the conflict the last 300 posts have discussed. As far as morals go who are you to decide what was moral in this situation unless you were living in Israel at the time? It's easy for people to criticise others when their life and property was never being threatened.
I might not see any practical results from this research but I am just glad there are people who work on projects such as this. That includes both the intelligent scientists, engineerss, and the people who fund this type of research knowing themselves that they may never see any results in their lifetime either but continue to support this type of research anyway.
War by definition is killing and blowing shit up. As long as you make an effort to avoid civilian or non-combatant deaths that should be enough.The terrorists make no effort at all to spare civilians. In fact they purposely target non-combatants as a rule. The setup artillary, ammunition dumps, and rocket launchers in schools, mosques, and hospitals to make sure civilians get killed so the lefty international progressive hand wringing society have something to bleat about in the public forums.
Drones are susceptible to losing their signal input but that can be addressed with pre-programmed flight plans stored on the craft itself for use if comm is interrupted. Drones are also a lot cheaper to build and maintain when compared against a F-22 for example. Drones can be mass produced and used in swarms that communicate in real time with each other during the operation to prevent duplicate targeting and provide redundancy for any drones that get destroyed. I think the AF is already working on a system like this called Constellation.
The only way that UN resolution would ever pass is through military enforcement. The "Palestinians" had their chances and lost repeatedly. They have been after a do-over for 30 years. International borders are drawn in blood. The Palestinians have as much a chance of getting their own country as Mexico has of regaining the US southwest.
Isreal will continue supporting hard line leaders because they are surrounded by people who have been trying to kill them for 60 years and have not been shy in announcing it. Isreal is safer with a hawk instead of a dove. Just look what happened when the Isreali leaders started to soften their approach towards the Arabs in 73 and Syrian and Egyption armies came running over the borders in attack mode.
I didn't say they shouldn't have attacked I am saying they should have taken the time to understand the strenghts and weaknesses of the Jews instead of assuming it would be a walk over. As far as the neighboring countries go the current "Palestinian" territory was divided up between Egypt, Jordan, and Syria at time. There were no Palestinian passports floating around until after the Arabs were defeated in 48. The entire Palestinian home land is a construct the losing Arab countries have created and used as a propaganda weapon for the past 40+ years since their military attacks were unsuccessful. The people claiming to be Palestinians today are being used and sacrificed by the surrounding arab countries. And of course the Palestinians themselves have taken every opportunity to miss every opportunity to end this conflict. From backing Sadaam Hussien's invasion of Kuwait to the happy faces displayed on 9/11.
The basic aerodynamics of the existing jets and UAV's are pretty well understood. The advances will be in the area of computer technology, satellite and earth based communications, and exotic material designs.
They have pretty much reached the pinnacle of manned fighter jet design, the future is remote drones. Unmanned vehicles are cheaper, require less support in the form of maintenance, aircraft carriers, fuel efficiency, and pilot lives. The current F22 and F35 airframes already leave a fair amount of performance on the table because of the limits of a human pilot. So unless someone comes up with an inertial compensating system we have reached the point where the fighter jet technology has surpassed our ability to use it.
Statements like yours is big reason why this conflict is still raging. As long as the conspiracy theories, omission of facts, and outright lies continue to circulate the level of animosity will continue to grow. Until the Arab's stop threatening Israel's existence there will be no peace. The Arab's initiated this conflict in 48 and then got their asses handed to them in 67 and again in 73. It was in 48 when the Arabs repudiated the UN decision to create the state of Israel and then evacuated most of the Arab's in the expected area of conflict with promises they could come back in a few days after they finished killing all the Jews. Everyone knows how that turned out. The Arab's should have paid lip service to the UN decision at least long enough to work out some type of plan before rushing the war. I'll admit I don't know whether the UN resolution was a good decision or not but time has made that irrelevant today. The fact is the resolution was passed and Israel does exist and I seriously doubt the Israeli's are going to pack up and leave anytime soon. In 48 the world was still recovering from war and the horrors associated with war. The discovery of the death camps was fresh in every ones mind at that time and that generated a lot of sympathy for the Jews and I have to believe that sympathy made a big impact when it came to passing the resolution.
And who defines what is enough? When a company first goes into business the successful ones usually try to create products or services that are better than their competitors offerings. The principals use a combination of hard work, good ideas, long hours, and out right aggression to make the company successful and beat your competitors. If the company starts to succeed in gaining market share and growing their revenue stream it is hard to just stop and proclaim well were good enough now so we can just start to relax and try to maintain the status quo. Striving for mediocrity is usually not the way to run a buisness.
Money is usually required on your journey to your goal. Money is not the end it is often just the means. How much money you need depends on what your goal is.
I believe there are app config settings where you can alter the way programs are executed if you want to. You can also configure the user permissions to limit any potential damage. The biggest security risk in any OS is the user. Trying to lock down the entire OS can also cancel out some of the legitimate functionality.User vigilance and awareness is the best protection against getting a virus. The people creating the viruses and bots are really good at identifying OS weaknesses even when you are running an anti-virus program.
Can you site the source of your opinion about the efficiency and higher standards a Japanese built car has over US manufacturers. The last time I remember this coming up was back in the late 80's when Japan was beating US based companies in both categories but that only spurred the US automakers to radically improve their performance and products. Around this time I was looking to buy a new car and did not even look at the US brands at first because the last time I purchased a new car the US autos were of lower quality. When I did check out the US models I was surprised at the improved quality and ended up actually buying the US model. Everyone is always saying that the US manufacture nothing today and as a result has lost manufacturing jobs to other countries but the US is still the worlds leader in manufacturing.
A reasonable explanation and plan until you step into the real world and out of the idealistic sandbox your suggestions live in. And I am still not sure which freedoms I have lost over my lifetime but that is another topic for another day. Just because you have a shitty life (I'm not talking about you personally) doesn't mean it's because of some governmental conspiracy or wholesale breakdown of society. How do envision all of your suggested changes bieng put in place without destroying and killing a substantial amount of the global population resulting in pushing our civilization back to the 18th century? Your idea of freedom sounds more like anarchy and if that's what you think is best then more power to you. Just don't come bitching once the wars start. The sad fact is that there has not been any governmental and large scale societal changes without large scale unrestrained violence. People who say violence has never solved anything important are living in la-la land. Look at human history, peace is just a timeout between wars to re-build and re-arm. People like to equate our technological acheivements with progress on changing basic human nature but that is pure BS. We are not more civilized just because of the ever expanding features on our cell phones. Your reply also seems to suggest that there is a priviledged class running the world and you are probably right but not to the extremes that some people believe. In the US we waste our time and energy complaining about the politicians when it is the corporations and their leaders who should be put under the microscope. Re-focus our attention to the wealth producing entities instead of the politicians who are really no more than employees of those companies. CEO's and corporate board members have a real low threshold when it comes to public scrutiny so why don't we take advantage of that. Incorporated companies are required by law to produce detailed information on the finances of the company for stockholders so the information is there for the taking. Even non-public corporate information is easilly obtainable today. Just look at Wikileak like sites and all the successful intrusions into corporate computer systems. Financial dealings leave trails if you look hard enough. Financial records can be the factual evidence you need to go to war against a corporation. If you want to change our country or the world for the better why not pick the right targets to go after instead of tearing down the entire societal framework we are living under and trying to start over from scratch? No matter what form a government you have whether it is democratic, socialist, marxist, communist, or any other variant they all have the same priviliged class running the show. This class of people have the resources to make a better society if they really wanted and they also have the most to lose but no one is putting them in the spotlight and forcing the issue. Take all the animus thrown at Bush ,Obama,Palin, or any other politcal hack ofyour choice and package it up, and re-target it on the people who can actually do something worthwhile. You could start with the oil companies, communication companies, armament companies, and large financial institutions. Since the corporate hiearchy today is mvoving closer toward consolidation the number of potential targets are getting smaller. A "million man" march against any of these companies combined with boycotts have a better chance of intiating change than going after government representatives or politicians. There are protections and recourse in our legal system that can be very useful when confronting a corporation.
We are living in an era when nobody takes any personal responsibility for their own decisions and instead they look to blame a 3rd party like their own government or the most popular excuse going today of just blaming the US for everything that is wrong in the world. Most of the problems happening today could be solved but a start would be instituting commonsense population controls. This would help conserve our natural resources long enough for alternatives to become viable and reduce the strain on the global economic system.
And after we destroy the current system what do we replace it with? Do we just kill all current leaders and wealthy and when that is done the do the survivors get together for a big group hug? The biggest problem with the countries having their revolutions is that nobody has really thought about what happens afterward. Internal conflicts tend to get very personal and it takes a long time for the hate to dissapate. Is our current system so bad that you would be willing put up with 20 years of bloody conflict. Would this conflict involve states declaring themselves independent of the federal government? It is the cohesivness of the US states that have provided stablity and enabled the country to survive as a whole. The Civil War was more about preventing balkanization of the US land mass then about slavery. In a fight over resources the states would most likely be in a state of continual hostility. The US constitution and bill of rights were written by white, wealthy, landowners with little input from the common man and somehow they managed to do a pretty good job. Look at all the issues covered in the constitution and bill of rights and ask yourself could any such document be created today without about 50 years political infighting. It's not enough to complain and use emotional laden descriptions like "facist" if you cannot replace it with something better.
You are right. No matter what the US does it ends up getting hammered. This has gone on for so long that people all around the world never take a minute to really look at the situation in question to actually determine the US position with facts. Any country on the on the planet, big or small, has an immediate excuse for their own problems because everyone all ready knows it's always the US who is responsible for their troubles. The good thing about this behavior is that the US population is finally starting to believe that other peoples problems are just that their problems. It won't be a matter of cost or deficits that limits US involvement it will be it's citizens who are tired of listening to the non-stop bitching.
There are a lot of things you can criticize MS about but their development tools have been first rate, not counting SourceSafe of course. I know the pre .NET Visual Basic offends everyone on this site but that one product was responsible for giving a lot of marginal developers a way to grind out apps quickly. What better way to promote their OS then make it as easy as possible for people to develop apps for that OS? Free Visual Studio is just another way to lure developers to their platform.