You've been modded insightful, but you're plain wrong. The game has very high stakes and so it has strict rules. It must be played by the rules — even if today we think the rules are not right any more. If that's the case, we can change the rules until they reflect our current standards, but you can't say: "Well, the rules weren't followed properly, but we got the result I think is more proper, so we ignore the rules".
In 2000 Bush won because someone said "well, let's stop playing the game now and whoever's in front, wins". That's not right. In 2004, Bush might've won because someone said "let's make sure Bush wins Ohio, even if he's not supposed to". Neither of those are the right way to play the game — there's thousands of reasons for that, and one of the most important is that it's divisive. If everyone agrees that the winners won fair and square — then, well the losers might reckon every else is dumb, or that the winners didn't play fair in the campaign, but at least the system works. They go home and lick their wounds and say "aren't they such meanies?" until they decide they want to begin fighting the next election. If there's any reason to believe your team was cheated, you won't forget this easily. And you must not. (In the end, the right thing to do in 2000 was probably for Bush to win, even though Gore won the popular vote; that or invalidate the election results and hold a new election in Florida with ballots designed according to a national standard that is demonstrably easy to read and follow, and with such novel voting tools as pens — things that are not black boxes and not likely to fail without the voter understanding that.)
You cannot drop this. Giving the election to the team you thought has a moral justification for winning, in spite of not winning based on the rules, is a step on the road to totalitarianism. The rules must be followed and the must reflect moral justifications that the general public upholds.
I also think I should point out that whether or not winning the national popular vote is the entitling criteria to winning the election is a matter of opinion. Many people honestly believe that votes should be weighted according to some standard (like states or land area, to give isolated people a bigger vote). Some people honestly believe that the best government can only occur when someone was born and brought up to be ruler from their youth. I myself think any system that doesn't result in me being the indisputable overlord of the whole world is flawed. So this is another reason why the question of national popular vote is completely irrelevant
You are allowed to say: "The rules are bad. We must fix the rules." But you cannot say: "The rules are bad. We must ignore them." The first election after the system switches from an electoral collage to a single popular electorate, then a team can claim victory solely on the basis of the popular vote. Until that day, there are no excuses.
(And to fairly disclose my bias: I'm not American, and I think Bush was a horrible mistake and I wish he'd never been elected. But more than that I want rules to be followed.)
All my life I've always put foodscraps into a chook bucket (either for chooks or compost as the case may be); the idea that anyone might throw food into the bin strikes me as an unconsciousable waste. And of course all recyclables are recycled. But we've still always managed to produce a lot of rubbish; there's plenty of unrecyclable waste from e.g. dirty food wrappers from fresh or processed food both
I rarely drive to the shops, so it doesn't help me to have any bags in my car.
But the wasted plastic is mostly the bags you use to put your rubbish in now. You can't buy bags as thin or appropriately-sized as the ones you get from the supermarket for free. In fact, they're almost optimum for the task, and better than what you pay for.
All our rubbish goes into plastic grocery sacks, yet we have a large plastic bag full of hundreds of smaller bags that we've accumulated over the years.
Well yeah; having a choice between proper cheap plastic bags (not the silly disposable kind they normally give you when you have to pay 20c for them which you've no way of tying up) and true reusable bags (as in, that you can use for a year without them falling apart) is a good thing. But completely phasing out plastic bags, which too many people advocate, or replacing them with the silly kind you can use twice but you can't use as a bin bag --- silliness.
Our trash output (as opposed to recycling) is probably the lowest of anyone I know; it takes our family of 4 two weeks to fill a 30 gallon garbage bag (with smaller bags). It gets kind of irritating in the summer; I have to pay my $1.50 to get rid of only half a bag, or let the garbage sit for 2 weeks (stinky).
In Australia you have the option to have up to three accounts on one card: Credit (which is credit or debit — as long as it's Visa, Mastercard, Amex or formerly Bankcard, an old Australia/New Zealand credit card); Savings and Cheque. The latter two are eftpos. In fact, they don't necessarily have to be separate accounts — I've got a card attached to by usual bank account which I can access by Credit (and I pay no fees but the merchant does) or Savings (and I pay a fee and the merchant doesn't, but I can get cash out); they are both draw money from the same account. My actual credit card used to have savings and cheque accounts, drawing from the three accounts I then had with that bank.
It's very useful. Well, having to make the choice between paying for free (via Mastercard) or being able to get cash out (by eftpos) is irritating, but if they're actual separate accounts and draw money from separate sources, it's useful.
And it's not at all nasty if you lose the card; because you will normally have two cards (a Visa/Mastercard that can also access your savings account; an an eftpos card that can only access your savings account), you can leave one at home and if you lose your wallet all you need to do is tell your bank, your driver licensing body, and any other bodies that might've given you ID, and buy a new wallet and a new train ticket — but at least you can get money out for all of these things straight away, just by going home and picking up your spare card. Because seriously, how often would you lose just one card, as opposed to your whole wallet?
If you don't get regular plastic bags free with your shopping, you end up buying bigger, thicker plastic bags wrapped in another plastic bag to throw out your rubbish. Plus obviously you've gotta buy a bag to put your shopping in. How is that more environmentally friendly? You probably use up two or three times the amount of plastic.
C# is very much tied to the.NET framework. It's also worth noting that there's no such thing as a cross-platform user interface. Every program that claims to have one is either written for one platform and looks and feels out of place on other platforms or has a separate UI implemented. GObject works on all major platforms, so if you write the backend in Vala GObject and the frontend in the platform's preferred language and toolkit, you incur no more cost that you should've in any circumstance.
You might disagree, but you won't easily convince me of your position. People shouldn't switch platforms to use the same programs; they should switch because they don't like their current ones.
I love Gnome and I understand Mono is a somewhat simpler (than C++) way to build programs for it, but is it really necessary?
Of course not. If Python's not to your liking, check out Vala, which is a programming language influenced by C# and designed for Gtk+. Kinda like a free software "embrance, extend", only done properly and without the traditionally implied ", extinguish".
Actually I drive to work because there's no shower at my destination (and also nowadays because I'm too far from work — but I only moved here because I couldn't ride anyway). I've always been going to move overseas shortly (and now I actually am, at the end of the month), so the idea of changing work never seemed practical. I don't enjoy driving though, and I think the personal cost of doing so is much greater than just the costs of released carbon or the amount of money I pay.
The danger of injury is in fact one of the main reasons why providing more roadspace to cyclists will increase the number of cyclists — as long as this is done properly (and not by painting a white lane and green coloring on the road). In fact, I think it's one of their explicit points: If we have a critical mass of cyclists, it will become safe and as normal as cars.
As for the rest, these can generally be changed, for instance the building code here nowadays requires new or significantly renovated workplaces to have a shower, so if I were working in a newer building I would be able to ride to work. These changes won't be cheap, easy or fast, but they will be necessary, and/because they will benefit users of public transport and pedestrians just as much as cyclists. But it isn't really possible for Critical Mass, using their methods, to advocate these changes... they ride in a big group to point out the benefit of doing it, but they don't exist in any meaningful sense (or so they say) when they're not riding together. So advocating the other changes, it's a job for other people (and/or the same people in a different situation in groups with different names).
The way I expressed myself in my earlier post did make it sound like I believe more space and better route options are a sufficient condition for massively increasing bike ridership. I know that's not true. Although it will probably increase ridership on its own by a small amount, it is definitely a necessary condition — but not a sufficient condition — for the massive increases possible. I got confused between reporting my own beliefs and reporting more-or-less the only thing Critical Mass can say.
But that doesn't change my main point: The fact that bike commuting is not possible for most people is something we've done and so it's something we can change. In most cities this will be a hideously expensive and lengthy process but I do think it will become necessary in the near future.
Although that's generally true, it's not always — and these cases are the more noticeable for the harm they cause. Pidgin is an excellent case in point. The developers have actively removed features and refused to even consider adding them, even though the new methods are completely unusable for many people.
This, plus a few other programs I've updated in the last few months — Mozilla's gecko to the Firefox 3-based version, Gnome's power manager are two of the most prominant — have also changed in ways that have made my computer go from being invisible and useful to getting in my way. Aside from switching from Thunderbird to Balsa and adding a few new programs like Skype and unclutter, I haven't changed my environment in years. It's a shame that it looks like I might have to rework my computer if it's going to be useful, and not the detestable chore most Windows users computers seem to be.
Why would that be the cherry on top? If a crime was committed it's always desirable for the guilty party to be tried and found guilty. If someone walks because the cops who did this didn't do the right thing, they should get to walk in the pile of shit they've made, and they should have to answer to any victims.
I don't understand the point of your post. This is the reason advocacy groups like Critical Mass and others are formed — because conditions are deliberately inadequate and because these conditions can be changed.
Yeah, well. For a while then it looked like Apple mightn't be too bad in that regard. They quickly showed their true colors, but Steve Jobs's reality distortion field even affects slashdoters. (As someone who tried to switch from Linux to Mac OS X, I can honestly say that Apple's OS is only useful if you wish to adapt to your tools.)
The fact that so much roadspace is dedicated to cars, and so little to bikes, that it discourages people from using bikes. Instead of bikes being viewed as a perfectly normal means of transport excellent for short- and medium-distance travel, they're viewed as dangerous, for greenies or for fanatics. If there was a larger proportion of roadspace dedicated for bikes, many, many more people would be riding.
(You might be inclined to bring up creekside paths or tiny bike lines on the roads; such things would never be considered adequate for car commuters, so why should the be considered adequate for bike commuters? Take a look at bike lanes in Copenhagen for an idea of where we should be. A nice wide lane — letting faster cyclists pass slower ones — separated from both pedestrians and cars, with minimal or no risk of being hit by a car door or stray vehicle and travelling along streets i.e. destinations.)
I don't know how effective their protesting methods are. I do know that in my city more and more bike facilities are being built, particularly on roads that had too much space. I'm sure every bike advocacy group wants to take the credit for this, and I'm sure most of them deserve at least some.
As for me: From what I can see cycling is usually only a poor choice in unusual circumstances and when cities have been built expecting people to drive everywhere. It will be a long and tiresome process to fix this, but it is also very likely to be necessary — and if not, then I still think it's desirable.
Slashdot has a bias towards free software. Always has and probably always will. And it's not just Slashdot: Notice how Opera never got a huge adoption campaign a la Firefox.
Now, I can't say I particularly like Firefox — in fact, it's given me nothing but grief, but Gecko browsers are my only practical choice. But that's the way things are and should be, and complaining about it won't help.
Are you planning on give me the $23 billion? Because if so, then hell yes. A piecemeal approach will get the same result in the end but have the advantage of charm because buildings won't all be built at the same time (well, I think variety and inconsistency is charming in a city). I would prefer to be able to compulsorarily acquire properties around the planned subway stations (at the prevailing rate assuming no subway is to be built) so I can minimise my losses, but if building owners would prefer to split any additional profits or have another suggestion, I'm happy to look at other options.
I've already described the basic principles of what I want. I can't and won't get into specifics because, as I've said, some of the money will go into doing a study to find the specifics out.
The problem of transport is bad at the moment because people pack themselves like sardines into trains which are full when they're still 20 km away from their destination. The government and train companies regularly remind us that the lines themselves are running at or almost at capacity and there is little scope for adding trains; the fact that many many more people were able to take trains during the World Wars was because the trains ran much shorter distances. Hence, according to their logic (I don't have the 23 billion dollars right now so it's a legitimate deference — if Microsoft had given it to me on Sunday as I'd asked, I would've launched an appropriate study in the topic)... according to their logic, increased density would help matters.
In any case, you almost certainly don't know which city I'm referring to, nor even if you did would you have any idea what the problems facing it are. Finding cities with a higher population density than mine is pretty much child's play. We had a very extensive public transport system early on, encouraging people to live in independent houses almost as soon as the city was necessarily too big to walk across. Unfortunately no new public transport has been built since the second world war, aside from minor extension to trams and trains — but these do not make up for the parts that have been lost in that time.
Not only that but the city centre is where a majority (plurality if not absolute) work and travel to every day, so we presently have a problem of moving people from everywhere to a very dense core; for most of these driving to work is already impossible. If people lived near enough by, more people could walk or ride to work, and a greater proportion would be in trains going in the other direction. Some of the transport problem could be solved by spreading work around to other parts of the city, but nothing short of higher densities will solve the housing shortage.
I didn't say I would do it to all houses (I doubt 23 billion dollars would be enough for that anyway), and if I did it without government approval I don't have the power of compulsory acquisition so I pretty much have to wait till they're selling. In any case, the housing crisis really is very acute and chronic. The problem needs to be solved much like pulling a tooth out: there'll be a bit of pain, but in the end we'll gain.
To be perfectly honest if they gave me 23 billion dollars, I'd go start building the tunnels needed for decent public transport in this city whether the government wanted it or not. That, or buy up some of the single storey houses in the inner suburbs and replace them with mid-rise buildings—we have an accomodation crisis that no-one wants to solve here, or so says the papers. Money, as you say, isn't everything, so the people it came from aren't that important. I definitely have no idea what I'd do with 23 billion if I didn't spend it fixing the government's screwups.
It's my understanding that they've deliberately been getting rid of their excess money beacuse their shareholders weren't happy with it — after all, it's really their money and it was just sitting their waiting for a rainy day that's probably never going to come. Microsoft could give all their money to me tomorrow (and I hope they do!), and the company would have more money than they know what to do with before you say "Microsoft shareholders have launched a lawsuit against their board for 'irresponsibly' donating all their money to a very worthwhile Slashdotter".
Slashdot Mirror
You've been modded insightful, but you're plain wrong. The game has very high stakes and so it has strict rules. It must be played by the rules — even if today we think the rules are not right any more. If that's the case, we can change the rules until they reflect our current standards, but you can't say: "Well, the rules weren't followed properly, but we got the result I think is more proper, so we ignore the rules".
In 2000 Bush won because someone said "well, let's stop playing the game now and whoever's in front, wins". That's not right. In 2004, Bush might've won because someone said "let's make sure Bush wins Ohio, even if he's not supposed to". Neither of those are the right way to play the game — there's thousands of reasons for that, and one of the most important is that it's divisive. If everyone agrees that the winners won fair and square — then, well the losers might reckon every else is dumb, or that the winners didn't play fair in the campaign, but at least the system works. They go home and lick their wounds and say "aren't they such meanies?" until they decide they want to begin fighting the next election. If there's any reason to believe your team was cheated, you won't forget this easily. And you must not. (In the end, the right thing to do in 2000 was probably for Bush to win, even though Gore won the popular vote; that or invalidate the election results and hold a new election in Florida with ballots designed according to a national standard that is demonstrably easy to read and follow, and with such novel voting tools as pens — things that are not black boxes and not likely to fail without the voter understanding that.)
You cannot drop this. Giving the election to the team you thought has a moral justification for winning, in spite of not winning based on the rules, is a step on the road to totalitarianism. The rules must be followed and the must reflect moral justifications that the general public upholds.
I also think I should point out that whether or not winning the national popular vote is the entitling criteria to winning the election is a matter of opinion. Many people honestly believe that votes should be weighted according to some standard (like states or land area, to give isolated people a bigger vote). Some people honestly believe that the best government can only occur when someone was born and brought up to be ruler from their youth. I myself think any system that doesn't result in me being the indisputable overlord of the whole world is flawed. So this is another reason why the question of national popular vote is completely irrelevant
You are allowed to say: "The rules are bad. We must fix the rules." But you cannot say: "The rules are bad. We must ignore them." The first election after the system switches from an electoral collage to a single popular electorate, then a team can claim victory solely on the basis of the popular vote. Until that day, there are no excuses.
(And to fairly disclose my bias: I'm not American, and I think Bush was a horrible mistake and I wish he'd never been elected. But more than that I want rules to be followed.)
All my life I've always put foodscraps into a chook bucket (either for chooks or compost as the case may be); the idea that anyone might throw food into the bin strikes me as an unconsciousable waste. And of course all recyclables are recycled. But we've still always managed to produce a lot of rubbish; there's plenty of unrecyclable waste from e.g. dirty food wrappers from fresh or processed food both
I rarely drive to the shops, so it doesn't help me to have any bags in my car.
But the wasted plastic is mostly the bags you use to put your rubbish in now. You can't buy bags as thin or appropriately-sized as the ones you get from the supermarket for free. In fact, they're almost optimum for the task, and better than what you pay for.
All our rubbish goes into plastic grocery sacks, yet we have a large plastic bag full of hundreds of smaller bags that we've accumulated over the years.
Well yeah; having a choice between proper cheap plastic bags (not the silly disposable kind they normally give you when you have to pay 20c for them which you've no way of tying up) and true reusable bags (as in, that you can use for a year without them falling apart) is a good thing. But completely phasing out plastic bags, which too many people advocate, or replacing them with the silly kind you can use twice but you can't use as a bin bag --- silliness.
Our trash output (as opposed to recycling) is probably the lowest of anyone I know; it takes our family of 4 two weeks to fill a 30 gallon garbage bag (with smaller bags). It gets kind of irritating in the summer; I have to pay my $1.50 to get rid of only half a bag, or let the garbage sit for 2 weeks (stinky).
That's impressive. How do you manage it?
In Australia you have the option to have up to three accounts on one card: Credit (which is credit or debit — as long as it's Visa, Mastercard, Amex or formerly Bankcard, an old Australia/New Zealand credit card); Savings and Cheque. The latter two are eftpos. In fact, they don't necessarily have to be separate accounts — I've got a card attached to by usual bank account which I can access by Credit (and I pay no fees but the merchant does) or Savings (and I pay a fee and the merchant doesn't, but I can get cash out); they are both draw money from the same account. My actual credit card used to have savings and cheque accounts, drawing from the three accounts I then had with that bank.
It's very useful. Well, having to make the choice between paying for free (via Mastercard) or being able to get cash out (by eftpos) is irritating, but if they're actual separate accounts and draw money from separate sources, it's useful.
And it's not at all nasty if you lose the card; because you will normally have two cards (a Visa/Mastercard that can also access your savings account; an an eftpos card that can only access your savings account), you can leave one at home and if you lose your wallet all you need to do is tell your bank, your driver licensing body, and any other bodies that might've given you ID, and buy a new wallet and a new train ticket — but at least you can get money out for all of these things straight away, just by going home and picking up your spare card. Because seriously, how often would you lose just one card, as opposed to your whole wallet?
If you don't get regular plastic bags free with your shopping, you end up buying bigger, thicker plastic bags wrapped in another plastic bag to throw out your rubbish. Plus obviously you've gotta buy a bag to put your shopping in. How is that more environmentally friendly? You probably use up two or three times the amount of plastic.
C# is very much tied to the .NET framework. It's also worth noting that there's no such thing as a cross-platform user interface. Every program that claims to have one is either written for one platform and looks and feels out of place on other platforms or has a separate UI implemented. GObject works on all major platforms, so if you write the backend in Vala GObject and the frontend in the platform's preferred language and toolkit, you incur no more cost that you should've in any circumstance.
You might disagree, but you won't easily convince me of your position. People shouldn't switch platforms to use the same programs; they should switch because they don't like their current ones.
I love Gnome and I understand Mono is a somewhat simpler (than C++) way to build programs for it, but is it really necessary?
Of course not. If Python's not to your liking, check out Vala, which is a programming language influenced by C# and designed for Gtk+. Kinda like a free software "embrance, extend", only done properly and without the traditionally implied ", extinguish".
Actually I drive to work because there's no shower at my destination (and also nowadays because I'm too far from work — but I only moved here because I couldn't ride anyway). I've always been going to move overseas shortly (and now I actually am, at the end of the month), so the idea of changing work never seemed practical. I don't enjoy driving though, and I think the personal cost of doing so is much greater than just the costs of released carbon or the amount of money I pay.
The danger of injury is in fact one of the main reasons why providing more roadspace to cyclists will increase the number of cyclists — as long as this is done properly (and not by painting a white lane and green coloring on the road). In fact, I think it's one of their explicit points: If we have a critical mass of cyclists, it will become safe and as normal as cars.
As for the rest, these can generally be changed, for instance the building code here nowadays requires new or significantly renovated workplaces to have a shower, so if I were working in a newer building I would be able to ride to work. These changes won't be cheap, easy or fast, but they will be necessary, and/because they will benefit users of public transport and pedestrians just as much as cyclists. But it isn't really possible for Critical Mass, using their methods, to advocate these changes ... they ride in a big group to point out the benefit of doing it, but they don't exist in any meaningful sense (or so they say) when they're not riding together. So advocating the other changes, it's a job for other people (and/or the same people in a different situation in groups with different names).
The way I expressed myself in my earlier post did make it sound like I believe more space and better route options are a sufficient condition for massively increasing bike ridership. I know that's not true. Although it will probably increase ridership on its own by a small amount, it is definitely a necessary condition — but not a sufficient condition — for the massive increases possible. I got confused between reporting my own beliefs and reporting more-or-less the only thing Critical Mass can say.
But that doesn't change my main point: The fact that bike commuting is not possible for most people is something we've done and so it's something we can change. In most cities this will be a hideously expensive and lengthy process but I do think it will become necessary in the near future.
Thanks for the less sarcastic reply.
Although that's generally true, it's not always — and these cases are the more noticeable for the harm they cause. Pidgin is an excellent case in point. The developers have actively removed features and refused to even consider adding them, even though the new methods are completely unusable for many people.
This, plus a few other programs I've updated in the last few months — Mozilla's gecko to the Firefox 3-based version, Gnome's power manager are two of the most prominant — have also changed in ways that have made my computer go from being invisible and useful to getting in my way. Aside from switching from Thunderbird to Balsa and adding a few new programs like Skype and unclutter, I haven't changed my environment in years. It's a shame that it looks like I might have to rework my computer if it's going to be useful, and not the detestable chore most Windows users computers seem to be.
Why would that be the cherry on top? If a crime was committed it's always desirable for the guilty party to be tried and found guilty. If someone walks because the cops who did this didn't do the right thing, they should get to walk in the pile of shit they've made, and they should have to answer to any victims.
You keep straw in your office?
I don't understand the point of your post. This is the reason advocacy groups like Critical Mass and others are formed — because conditions are deliberately inadequate and because these conditions can be changed.
You rest your case? You haven't made a case. You've just posted a made-up anecdote meant to represent a survey that's probably never even happened.
Yeah, well. For a while then it looked like Apple mightn't be too bad in that regard. They quickly showed their true colors, but Steve Jobs's reality distortion field even affects slashdoters. (As someone who tried to switch from Linux to Mac OS X, I can honestly say that Apple's OS is only useful if you wish to adapt to your tools.)
The fact that so much roadspace is dedicated to cars, and so little to bikes, that it discourages people from using bikes. Instead of bikes being viewed as a perfectly normal means of transport excellent for short- and medium-distance travel, they're viewed as dangerous, for greenies or for fanatics. If there was a larger proportion of roadspace dedicated for bikes, many, many more people would be riding.
(You might be inclined to bring up creekside paths or tiny bike lines on the roads; such things would never be considered adequate for car commuters, so why should the be considered adequate for bike commuters? Take a look at bike lanes in Copenhagen for an idea of where we should be. A nice wide lane — letting faster cyclists pass slower ones — separated from both pedestrians and cars, with minimal or no risk of being hit by a car door or stray vehicle and travelling along streets i.e. destinations.)
I don't know how effective their protesting methods are. I do know that in my city more and more bike facilities are being built, particularly on roads that had too much space. I'm sure every bike advocacy group wants to take the credit for this, and I'm sure most of them deserve at least some.
As for me: From what I can see cycling is usually only a poor choice in unusual circumstances and when cities have been built expecting people to drive everywhere. It will be a long and tiresome process to fix this, but it is also very likely to be necessary — and if not, then I still think it's desirable.
Slashdot has a bias towards free software. Always has and probably always will. And it's not just Slashdot: Notice how Opera never got a huge adoption campaign a la Firefox.
Now, I can't say I particularly like Firefox — in fact, it's given me nothing but grief, but Gecko browsers are my only practical choice. But that's the way things are and should be, and complaining about it won't help.
If you believe my high school, which uses one as a logo, Unicorns are a symbol of masculinity. This is because all Unicorns are male.
The other thing to remember about them, which makes them so fitting for Slashdot, is that all Unicorns are infertile.
No doubt why they're so popular amongst girls.
Don't worry, the way things are going you'll involuntarily stop soon enough.
Are you planning on give me the $23 billion? Because if so, then hell yes. A piecemeal approach will get the same result in the end but have the advantage of charm because buildings won't all be built at the same time (well, I think variety and inconsistency is charming in a city). I would prefer to be able to compulsorarily acquire properties around the planned subway stations (at the prevailing rate assuming no subway is to be built) so I can minimise my losses, but if building owners would prefer to split any additional profits or have another suggestion, I'm happy to look at other options.
I've already described the basic principles of what I want. I can't and won't get into specifics because, as I've said, some of the money will go into doing a study to find the specifics out.
The problem of transport is bad at the moment because people pack themselves like sardines into trains which are full when they're still 20 km away from their destination. The government and train companies regularly remind us that the lines themselves are running at or almost at capacity and there is little scope for adding trains; the fact that many many more people were able to take trains during the World Wars was because the trains ran much shorter distances. Hence, according to their logic (I don't have the 23 billion dollars right now so it's a legitimate deference — if Microsoft had given it to me on Sunday as I'd asked, I would've launched an appropriate study in the topic) ... according to their logic, increased density would help matters.
In any case, you almost certainly don't know which city I'm referring to, nor even if you did would you have any idea what the problems facing it are. Finding cities with a higher population density than mine is pretty much child's play. We had a very extensive public transport system early on, encouraging people to live in independent houses almost as soon as the city was necessarily too big to walk across. Unfortunately no new public transport has been built since the second world war, aside from minor extension to trams and trains — but these do not make up for the parts that have been lost in that time.
Not only that but the city centre is where a majority (plurality if not absolute) work and travel to every day, so we presently have a problem of moving people from everywhere to a very dense core; for most of these driving to work is already impossible. If people lived near enough by, more people could walk or ride to work, and a greater proportion would be in trains going in the other direction. Some of the transport problem could be solved by spreading work around to other parts of the city, but nothing short of higher densities will solve the housing shortage.
I didn't say I would do it to all houses (I doubt 23 billion dollars would be enough for that anyway), and if I did it without government approval I don't have the power of compulsory acquisition so I pretty much have to wait till they're selling. In any case, the housing crisis really is very acute and chronic. The problem needs to be solved much like pulling a tooth out: there'll be a bit of pain, but in the end we'll gain.
To be perfectly honest if they gave me 23 billion dollars, I'd go start building the tunnels needed for decent public transport in this city whether the government wanted it or not. That, or buy up some of the single storey houses in the inner suburbs and replace them with mid-rise buildings—we have an accomodation crisis that no-one wants to solve here, or so says the papers. Money, as you say, isn't everything, so the people it came from aren't that important. I definitely have no idea what I'd do with 23 billion if I didn't spend it fixing the government's screwups.
It's my understanding that they've deliberately been getting rid of their excess money beacuse their shareholders weren't happy with it — after all, it's really their money and it was just sitting their waiting for a rainy day that's probably never going to come. Microsoft could give all their money to me tomorrow (and I hope they do!), and the company would have more money than they know what to do with before you say "Microsoft shareholders have launched a lawsuit against their board for 'irresponsibly' donating all their money to a very worthwhile Slashdotter".