I totally agree here! I'm sure that some of the people on the streets are really in need, but let me tell you about the streets I walk!
There is this one african-american lady that works the corner of Delaware and Michigan in downtown Chicago (only in summer, mind you). I've seen her arrive at hre "work", and I've seen her leave. As soon as she arrives, she starts crying and begging for money. As soon as she gets enough, she stops crying and goes home. She is there almost every day! Tell you a secret - I don't think she is really all that sad, and I bet she makes more money than you do, and doesn't pay taxes!
People like this make it very difficult to gauge the real problem - and make those of us that live in the city a little bitter about the homeless, when some of them really do need help.
Friends and family are not resources everyone has.
To put it simply, neither is the government (from personal experience).
The alternative is in the hands of companies...
I believe the alternative is non-profit charities, preferably staffed by volunteers. Those are the people I currently support (with dollars, not words).
...your plan falls down on logistics.
No, it doesn't. The government currently gives people more money than they paid back (Earned Income Credit) if they are at minimum wage, so this is not really a huge change fiscally, just a change in timing. Most of the government's income comes from income tax on the almost rich - the guys pulling down lots of money, but still working hard for it. The real rich buy of congress so they don't pay taxes (someone want to explain the logic behind paying less taxes if you are not involved with the company?) - and of course the poor have no money to take anyway.
By the way, this is a very good point (one that practically saved my life!) - and even better are the various religous organizations where everyone involved is a volunteer. They have fewer problems about conflict of interests, etc. because they aren't getting paid anyway.
I was helped out by private organizations, and so I donate at least 10% of my income to the causes that helped me.
I bet that these organizations would be more effective and less costly than any government options!
You philosophy is very harsh. What about invalids? What about the handicapped?
First, a comment on this statement - I was severely handicapped (unable to get out of bed) for several years. During this time I was rejected by social security (presumably because I am not black), and left to my own devices. I survived because of my friends and family, not because of the helpful hand of the government. I overcame my disabilities through hard work.
I firmly believe that welfare should not be in the hands of the government, because it will use politics to decide who gets it. I believe I was a victim of that - but I got over it and am now doing quite well for myself (Except for the sucky not walking bit...)
On another point, I think the minimum wage laws hurt a lot more than they help. People decide to work because it is mutually benefitial. That is the only reason, so most of the contrary arguments fall apart. I think a better idea than welfare and minimum wage would be to combine them:
Have the government pay the first $3/hr of salary paid. That way businesses are encouraged to hire more poeple to do less work, so that the government would pay more of the costs. Most jobs would continue to pay more than that anyway for "skilled labor", but it would provide everyone with a job - and more often than not a job that helps society!
I think this would end up being cheaper to administer, and be more helpful and fair, than the two separate systems we use now.
By the way, the point of all this is partially to show that what they are teaching in schools is known to be wrong by everyone that has studied it or merely believes in creationism. Even assuming that evolution is correct, the evolution being taught in school is incorrect in important ways.
This sort of gets to it, but misses my point a little. In software, the code itself has no will to live so the analogy fails.
Take 3 brothers, ug, zug, and zig. Zig has a mutation that leads his descendants to become human. Ug has a mutation that leads his descendants to become apes. Zug is normal. Why did Zug die? People like zug obviously outnumber the exceptions. People like zug have lived for millions of years. Now, because 1 member of the population has a mutation, suddenly every normal person dies? That deosn't make sense.
Some people have said that it was because a hardship arose that killed off everyone that didn't have the mutation. That could happen, but would be VERY rare, and too rare to explain this (people survive for more than one reason, most of the time - even luck).
The best explainations seem to be that an isolated group (constantly interbreeding) slowly becomes homogenized. So a mutation happens, and then the gene is slowly spread throughout the community if it is advantageous. I'm still not convinced that this would lead to much natural selection - in general even the weak animals get to breed at a certain point.
That is what makes it difficult, of course. For the purposes of this discussion (how the "correct" moral values are chosen), we are a democracy. The exact form is only a second order change. It just happens that one of the morals of our society is not to shove our morals onto other people, except in extreme circumstances (murder is wrong, stealing is wrong, etc.).
The problem with sticking with testable, scientific methods is that there is disagreement about what constitutes a testable method. Many scientists do not believe that palentology is a science. Most scientists do not believe that Psychiatry is a sciences. Others do believe those to be a science... who's "moral" judgment do we go with? In our society, we have said the majority decides (or as you have pointed out, more of a locally weighted majority, but still the majority).
This is not a black and white issue. Honestly, I'm not sure which side of the argument I am really on, I just know it is not a simple argument. I teach my daughter, so I am not really worried about what her teacher at school teaches. But that is not true of others, and there are people that unfortunately believe whatever is told them by those in authority, and there exist teachers that teach evolution as law.
If a parent teaches their child creationism, that is protected by freedom of religion. Teaching a contrary theory (evolution) as the "truth" in school, without at least mentioning the level of dissent in society, would be unethical no matter what you believe. And believe it or not, what is taught in school is accepted as truth by the vast majority.
(Evolution is at the very least an extremely important theory, because it is the only successful theory to violate causality.)
As I said in a previous post, the problem is that what we can see of evolution (bacteria, etc.) always results in a more diverse population, not a less diverse one.
For example, dogs and cats are completely separate animals - there are no half cats. Why? Why are there thousands of breeds of dogs (which all survive), but everything that was half-cat, half-dog died during prior evolution?
Do you not believe in the seperation of church and state?
I believe in it very strongly, and in a perfect world it would not be a problem for all theories to be taught in school, including the theory that NASA uses earthquakes to overrun minor dictators. In that perfect classroom, the teacher would explain all available information, and then teach critical thinking - and let the student interpret the facts.
This perfect classroom is not the norm, however. In most classrooms (and for most students), what the teacher teaches is not to be questioned - it is just to be accepted. This leads to discussions like the one we are having here - where you are convinced that anyone that does not agree with you is wrong, and I am convinced that I am right.
In a democracy, we have decided that moral decisions should be made to favor the majority. The majority does not think that evolution has less "evidence" than deity. The reason you disagree is that you throw out their "spiritual evidence", because you believe it to be faulty. That is your right as a sentient being... however using the courts to overule the decisions of the majority is wrong. Most people believe differently than you do. You think you are right, and everyone else is wrong, fine. But then you try to enforce your superiority on others - that is the ultimate arrogance.
Of course, these comments are not directed to you as a person, more to the group (such as the ACLU) that seems to think the way you do.
Just looking at the theory as I understand it, I cannot figure out where all the half-apes have gone. Survival of the fittest is fine, but the fact is the half-fit and mostly fit also survive most of the time. There should exist animals that have some human qualities, but not all.
For example, why not a humanoid with our brain capacity, but with an apes feet? Why did every animal that got changed feet also get an enlarged brain? It would seem that evolution would lead to a wide spectrum of animals, much like the bluring of dog breeds. When breeding programs are not imposed on dogs by humans, instead of purebred dogs you get mutts (half-breeds). Why then does evolution lead to the survival of separate lines instead of more blurred speicies.
Really, the theory of evolution seems to lead to this. Does anyone know the current theory why it doesn't? Is it the "pockets of change" theory?
Your post is very insightful - either the feature will not be embraced, and having it default to accept license will cause problems - or the feature will be embraced, and to view any content you will have to accept licenses you know nothing about.
Either way, security is gone unless you never download content.
Of course, I would argue that open source is more secure - for 2 reasons.
1. The "many eyes" phenomenom, as everyone points out lots of people look through the code for security holes - and many even report them. College students are even required to look for them to pass some classes! The more closely the code is examined the less errors it has, and the less significant the errors. For example, say someone on Mozilla figures out a new vulnerability in Mozilla's use of some function. Because the code is open, the problem is open, etc. other developers will check their own projects for that particular problem. This type of psuedo-calaboration can't happen without open source and open reporting.
2. Open source inherently leads to a more diverse operational set. How many versions of sendmail are there? Each one has it's own stack offset, etc. Sometimes even a recompile on a different system can break an attack vector! That means that for many exploits, the target audience is greatly reduced.
I don't think processing speed is the real issue - the real issue is trying to make a usefull application that works on 64x64 black and white and 320x240 color, with or without a keyboard, with or without TCP/IP, with or without sound, etc.
The language does a pretty good job of allowing you to write one ap to all these, but what ap could you write?
So why start over with a non-native office suite...
Just one reason: market share. The only thing they can do to improve the Mac's image in the work place is to have a toolset that works better on Mac and has a large market share.
Businesses are moving to Linux, and there is no good Office tool for Linux (Open Office is the best, but still not professional quality in my opinion). By making whatever the Mac solution is open source, it gains market share and credibility. By making it run better on Mac than on Linux, they sell more Macs. Trying to sell office software means going head-to-head against an entrenched competitor (Microsoft). It is much better to go against a commodity market (PC manufacturers) with a diferentiated product.
The main problem is that most CTOs and CEOs, know that MS Office runs best on Windows. If you make your money using Word and Excel, you don't "risk your job" buying a Mac. Of course that is not really true, but perception is reality here. If you tell them to use TextEdit, it better not just run on Macs!
I wasn't really saying use OpenOffice and make it better for Mac - I'm just saying whatever they do will probably meet strategic objectives (not near term financial objectives) better if it is open source.
Well yes, but only because the exploding metal tank was hot enough to melt... hot hydrogen cannot explode, it requires oxygen to burn. No oxygen in tank, no explosion.
Once the tank is "near" its melting point it will weaken though, and could rupture. The tank would probably be empty first though, because of hydrogen's low mass (and therefore high exit velocity).
This small-scale experiment doesn't really do justice to the common saying that hydrogen doesn't burn wildly. What is really meant by this is that burning hydrogen is less likely to kill humans than people seem to think.
After your plastic bag experiment, you think of hydrogen as an explosive. It really isn't, not in large quantities - essentially you will get a longer poof, but not a louder one. The burn rate is limited by the mixing of air with the hydrogen, and that is limitted by the heat created by the burning.
Also, burning hydrogen rises FAST! So it really isn't around long enough to cause harm to humans in most cases - either the leak is major, and the hydrogen is gone before a human can get near it - or the leak is minor, so the burning is not noticed (or at least just gives a small burn).
The dangerous stuff you hear about comes from industrial usage, where you have an essentially infinite source of hydrogen. This is bad, because a major leak does not empty the tank, it just causes extremely hot fires.
Normal users will not have problems. Hydrogen fuel station owners will.
I think embracing and extending Open Office (or even open-sourcing their custom app) would be a better move for Apple. Right now, it is difficult for many businesses to replace PCs with Macs because of Office. The Office version for Mac is more limitted and has some performance and interoperability problems. The only way Apple could break that monoploly would be to release a competing office suite (preferably for free) that runs well on Windows, Linux, and Mac.
The real advantage to that would be to make a Mac the logical upgrade for businesses. They are not a software company, and software is a difficult place to build value right now. Keep the software open, and sell the hardware.
Agreed, but that is a more visionary reason, and less of a "greedy" one. Kennedy didn't do it for the money. Humans need purpose, not money. Look back at past civilizations. The ones that stand out, that everyone knows about, accomplished something hard - Stonehenge, the Pyramids, the moon landing. None of these served a "useful" purpose, but they all served to inspire, elevate, and draw together a people (at least presumably).
I see it differently - Greed is the primary motivator for followers, not leaders. A leader is motivated by something else - he has to be, because his job is to spend, not accrue. Kennedy decided to go to the moon "because it was hard", not to make a buck.
Sometimes I think that the most important thing in our lives is purpose. True leaders give us purpose, then we give them resources which they use to accomplish the purpose.
Well, technically what you say is true only if you limit yourself to sound waves. Light waves still behave like that, even in a vaccum.
For example, take a 10 meter wavelength light wave (commonly called radio) and hide behind the corner of an obilisk in deep space. You will still receive the radio wave, as long as the wavelength is large compared to the size of the obilisk's corner. (Well, it is in fact way more complex than that, but that is the gist of it).
Something neat to do that shows this effect is to take a point light source (as close as you can get to one) as bright as possible, and shine it on a razor blade. The shadow of the razor blade will have alternating light and dark lines, as the light tries to go around the corner of the razor blade. (It can go a little bit around the corner, but only a couple of degrees because the corner is still larger than the wavelength of the light being used.)
I agree that unions have some positive aspects (just like Microsoft's monopoly helped defragment the computer industry), however I think that the problems outweigh the benefits. Anything that removes the basic link between productivity and pay is a problem.
I think that many of the problems that led to unions can now be solved, because of the change in how companies are formed. In the old days (TM), you couldn't form a new company unless you had the right parents, etc. Today, if you think you are underpaid, you realistically can start a new company doing your current job. If you can't do that and make your current salary, you are not underpaid.
In addition to the comments above, what is wrong with a union is that it is a (typically government enforced) monopoly, without the necessary government regulation. Laws have been passed requiring management to respect unions, but no laws have been passed to restrict unions in any way. This is the same problem as Microsoft controlling the software industry - the little guy is squashed, inovation suffers (using computers to improve efficiency is illegal, for example), and reaction time to changing market conditions suffers (how long did it take for MS to make security #1, how long did it take airlines to lower cost structures).
Back when the economy was strong, I made several proposals for IT projects that could have saved millions of dollars. These proposals were shot down by the unions, because higher efficiencies would have lead to fewer jobs.
Why on Earth did we have to get the union's permission for those projects? No wonder Southwest is kicking everyone's butts.
Perhaps you could blame the government (although I believe deregulation - which leads to lower cost airlines - is a good thing in this case), the airline executives fought against deregulation tooth and nail. It essentially made them give up their monopoly, and made them compete in an environment in which they knew they would lose. See Pan American airlines for comparisons.
should read up on what US Airways has done to their pensions, benefits...
That is a common mis-conception. US Airways did not do these things - US Airways is struggling for life, very near death. The market change caused by Southwest and the consumers caused this. There is a simple choice, lose these things via the company cutting them, or lose these things via the company going chapter 7.
The company has only one choice (it cannot kill itself) - it cuts everything that can be cut in an attempt to survive. This means that people would make more doing something else, so they should leave. If they do leave, the company fails and southwest takes up the slack. Jobs move, but the total number of jobs doesn't really change. If they don't leave then that means that for them working at a lower wage is better than being out of work, because they made the choice.
No one is forcing these people to continue working for below minimum wage. There are other places to work, if you are good at what you do. If you are not good at what you do, find something you are good at. That is simply how the world works! (And fighting against that will not change it, and will doom you to failure!)
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I totally agree here! I'm sure that some of the people on the streets are really in need, but let me tell you about the streets I walk!
There is this one african-american lady that works the corner of Delaware and Michigan in downtown Chicago (only in summer, mind you). I've seen her arrive at hre "work", and I've seen her leave. As soon as she arrives, she starts crying and begging for money. As soon as she gets enough, she stops crying and goes home. She is there almost every day! Tell you a secret - I don't think she is really all that sad, and I bet she makes more money than you do, and doesn't pay taxes!
People like this make it very difficult to gauge the real problem - and make those of us that live in the city a little bitter about the homeless, when some of them really do need help.
Friends and family are not resources everyone has.
...your plan falls down on logistics.
To put it simply, neither is the government (from personal experience).
The alternative is in the hands of companies...
I believe the alternative is non-profit charities, preferably staffed by volunteers. Those are the people I currently support (with dollars, not words).
No, it doesn't. The government currently gives people more money than they paid back (Earned Income Credit) if they are at minimum wage, so this is not really a huge change fiscally, just a change in timing. Most of the government's income comes from income tax on the almost rich - the guys pulling down lots of money, but still working hard for it. The real rich buy of congress so they don't pay taxes (someone want to explain the logic behind paying less taxes if you are not involved with the company?) - and of course the poor have no money to take anyway.
...a private charity can stretch a dollar...
By the way, this is a very good point (one that practically saved my life!) - and even better are the various religous organizations where everyone involved is a volunteer. They have fewer problems about conflict of interests, etc. because they aren't getting paid anyway.
I was helped out by private organizations, and so I donate at least 10% of my income to the causes that helped me.
I bet that these organizations would be more effective and less costly than any government options!
You philosophy is very harsh. What about invalids? What about the handicapped?
First, a comment on this statement - I was severely handicapped (unable to get out of bed) for several years. During this time I was rejected by social security (presumably because I am not black), and left to my own devices. I survived because of my friends and family, not because of the helpful hand of the government. I overcame my disabilities through hard work.
I firmly believe that welfare should not be in the hands of the government, because it will use politics to decide who gets it. I believe I was a victim of that - but I got over it and am now doing quite well for myself (Except for the sucky not walking bit...)
On another point, I think the minimum wage laws hurt a lot more than they help. People decide to work because it is mutually benefitial. That is the only reason, so most of the contrary arguments fall apart. I think a better idea than welfare and minimum wage would be to combine them:
Have the government pay the first $3/hr of salary paid. That way businesses are encouraged to hire more poeple to do less work, so that the government would pay more of the costs. Most jobs would continue to pay more than that anyway for "skilled labor", but it would provide everyone with a job - and more often than not a job that helps society!
I think this would end up being cheaper to administer, and be more helpful and fair, than the two separate systems we use now.
Any comments?
By the way, the point of all this is partially to show that what they are teaching in schools is known to be wrong by everyone that has studied it or merely believes in creationism. Even assuming that evolution is correct, the evolution being taught in school is incorrect in important ways.
This sort of gets to it, but misses my point a little. In software, the code itself has no will to live so the analogy fails.
Take 3 brothers, ug, zug, and zig. Zig has a mutation that leads his descendants to become human. Ug has a mutation that leads his descendants to become apes. Zug is normal. Why did Zug die? People like zug obviously outnumber the exceptions. People like zug have lived for millions of years. Now, because 1 member of the population has a mutation, suddenly every normal person dies? That deosn't make sense.
Some people have said that it was because a hardship arose that killed off everyone that didn't have the mutation. That could happen, but would be VERY rare, and too rare to explain this (people survive for more than one reason, most of the time - even luck).
The best explainations seem to be that an isolated group (constantly interbreeding) slowly becomes homogenized. So a mutation happens, and then the gene is slowly spread throughout the community if it is advantageous. I'm still not convinced that this would lead to much natural selection - in general even the weak animals get to breed at a certain point.
Interesting responses, though.
That is what makes it difficult, of course. For the purposes of this discussion (how the "correct" moral values are chosen), we are a democracy. The exact form is only a second order change. It just happens that one of the morals of our society is not to shove our morals onto other people, except in extreme circumstances (murder is wrong, stealing is wrong, etc.).
The problem with sticking with testable, scientific methods is that there is disagreement about what constitutes a testable method. Many scientists do not believe that palentology is a science. Most scientists do not believe that Psychiatry is a sciences. Others do believe those to be a science... who's "moral" judgment do we go with? In our society, we have said the majority decides (or as you have pointed out, more of a locally weighted majority, but still the majority).
This is not a black and white issue. Honestly, I'm not sure which side of the argument I am really on, I just know it is not a simple argument. I teach my daughter, so I am not really worried about what her teacher at school teaches. But that is not true of others, and there are people that unfortunately believe whatever is told them by those in authority, and there exist teachers that teach evolution as law.
If a parent teaches their child creationism, that is protected by freedom of religion. Teaching a contrary theory (evolution) as the "truth" in school, without at least mentioning the level of dissent in society, would be unethical no matter what you believe. And believe it or not, what is taught in school is accepted as truth by the vast majority.
(Evolution is at the very least an extremely important theory, because it is the only successful theory to violate causality.)
You haven't answered my question, why did the apes survive and the humans survive, but the half way points did not?
As I said in a previous post, the problem is that what we can see of evolution (bacteria, etc.) always results in a more diverse population, not a less diverse one.
For example, dogs and cats are completely separate animals - there are no half cats. Why? Why are there thousands of breeds of dogs (which all survive), but everything that was half-cat, half-dog died during prior evolution?
Do you not believe in the seperation of church and state?
I believe in it very strongly, and in a perfect world it would not be a problem for all theories to be taught in school, including the theory that NASA uses earthquakes to overrun minor dictators. In that perfect classroom, the teacher would explain all available information, and then teach critical thinking - and let the student interpret the facts.
This perfect classroom is not the norm, however. In most classrooms (and for most students), what the teacher teaches is not to be questioned - it is just to be accepted. This leads to discussions like the one we are having here - where you are convinced that anyone that does not agree with you is wrong, and I am convinced that I am right.
In a democracy, we have decided that moral decisions should be made to favor the majority. The majority does not think that evolution has less "evidence" than deity. The reason you disagree is that you throw out their "spiritual evidence", because you believe it to be faulty. That is your right as a sentient being... however using the courts to overule the decisions of the majority is wrong. Most people believe differently than you do. You think you are right, and everyone else is wrong, fine. But then you try to enforce your superiority on others - that is the ultimate arrogance.
Of course, these comments are not directed to you as a person, more to the group (such as the ACLU) that seems to think the way you do.
Just looking at the theory as I understand it, I cannot figure out where all the half-apes have gone. Survival of the fittest is fine, but the fact is the half-fit and mostly fit also survive most of the time. There should exist animals that have some human qualities, but not all.
For example, why not a humanoid with our brain capacity, but with an apes feet? Why did every animal that got changed feet also get an enlarged brain? It would seem that evolution would lead to a wide spectrum of animals, much like the bluring of dog breeds. When breeding programs are not imposed on dogs by humans, instead of purebred dogs you get mutts (half-breeds). Why then does evolution lead to the survival of separate lines instead of more blurred speicies.
Really, the theory of evolution seems to lead to this. Does anyone know the current theory why it doesn't? Is it the "pockets of change" theory?
Your post is very insightful - either the feature will not be embraced, and having it default to accept license will cause problems - or the feature will be embraced, and to view any content you will have to accept licenses you know nothing about.
Either way, security is gone unless you never download content.
Of course, I would argue that open source is more secure - for 2 reasons.
1. The "many eyes" phenomenom, as everyone points out lots of people look through the code for security holes - and many even report them. College students are even required to look for them to pass some classes! The more closely the code is examined the less errors it has, and the less significant the errors. For example, say someone on Mozilla figures out a new vulnerability in Mozilla's use of some function. Because the code is open, the problem is open, etc. other developers will check their own projects for that particular problem. This type of psuedo-calaboration can't happen without open source and open reporting.
2. Open source inherently leads to a more diverse operational set. How many versions of sendmail are there? Each one has it's own stack offset, etc. Sometimes even a recompile on a different system can break an attack vector! That means that for many exploits, the target audience is greatly reduced.
I don't think processing speed is the real issue - the real issue is trying to make a usefull application that works on 64x64 black and white and 320x240 color, with or without a keyboard, with or without TCP/IP, with or without sound, etc.
The language does a pretty good job of allowing you to write one ap to all these, but what ap could you write?
So why start over with a non-native office suite...
Just one reason: market share. The only thing they can do to improve the Mac's image in the work place is to have a toolset that works better on Mac and has a large market share.
Businesses are moving to Linux, and there is no good Office tool for Linux (Open Office is the best, but still not professional quality in my opinion). By making whatever the Mac solution is open source, it gains market share and credibility. By making it run better on Mac than on Linux, they sell more Macs. Trying to sell office software means going head-to-head against an entrenched competitor (Microsoft). It is much better to go against a commodity market (PC manufacturers) with a diferentiated product.
The main problem is that most CTOs and CEOs, know that MS Office runs best on Windows. If you make your money using Word and Excel, you don't "risk your job" buying a Mac. Of course that is not really true, but perception is reality here. If you tell them to use TextEdit, it better not just run on Macs!
I wasn't really saying use OpenOffice and make it better for Mac - I'm just saying whatever they do will probably meet strategic objectives (not near term financial objectives) better if it is open source.
got too hot [and] exploded it would be worse.....
Well yes, but only because the exploding metal tank was hot enough to melt... hot hydrogen cannot explode, it requires oxygen to burn. No oxygen in tank, no explosion.
Once the tank is "near" its melting point it will weaken though, and could rupture. The tank would probably be empty first though, because of hydrogen's low mass (and therefore high exit velocity).
This small-scale experiment doesn't really do justice to the common saying that hydrogen doesn't burn wildly. What is really meant by this is that burning hydrogen is less likely to kill humans than people seem to think.
After your plastic bag experiment, you think of hydrogen as an explosive. It really isn't, not in large quantities - essentially you will get a longer poof, but not a louder one. The burn rate is limited by the mixing of air with the hydrogen, and that is limitted by the heat created by the burning.
Also, burning hydrogen rises FAST! So it really isn't around long enough to cause harm to humans in most cases - either the leak is major, and the hydrogen is gone before a human can get near it - or the leak is minor, so the burning is not noticed (or at least just gives a small burn).
The dangerous stuff you hear about comes from industrial usage, where you have an essentially infinite source of hydrogen. This is bad, because a major leak does not empty the tank, it just causes extremely hot fires.
Normal users will not have problems. Hydrogen fuel station owners will.
I think embracing and extending Open Office (or even open-sourcing their custom app) would be a better move for Apple. Right now, it is difficult for many businesses to replace PCs with Macs because of Office. The Office version for Mac is more limitted and has some performance and interoperability problems. The only way Apple could break that monoploly would be to release a competing office suite (preferably for free) that runs well on Windows, Linux, and Mac.
The real advantage to that would be to make a Mac the logical upgrade for businesses. They are not a software company, and software is a difficult place to build value right now. Keep the software open, and sell the hardware.
Agreed, but that is a more visionary reason, and less of a "greedy" one. Kennedy didn't do it for the money. Humans need purpose, not money. Look back at past civilizations. The ones that stand out, that everyone knows about, accomplished something hard - Stonehenge, the Pyramids, the moon landing. None of these served a "useful" purpose, but they all served to inspire, elevate, and draw together a people (at least presumably).
I see it differently - Greed is the primary motivator for followers, not leaders. A leader is motivated by something else - he has to be, because his job is to spend, not accrue. Kennedy decided to go to the moon "because it was hard", not to make a buck.
Sometimes I think that the most important thing in our lives is purpose. True leaders give us purpose, then we give them resources which they use to accomplish the purpose.
Well, technically what you say is true only if you limit yourself to sound waves. Light waves still behave like that, even in a vaccum.
For example, take a 10 meter wavelength light wave (commonly called radio) and hide behind the corner of an obilisk in deep space. You will still receive the radio wave, as long as the wavelength is large compared to the size of the obilisk's corner. (Well, it is in fact way more complex than that, but that is the gist of it).
Something neat to do that shows this effect is to take a point light source (as close as you can get to one) as bright as possible, and shine it on a razor blade. The shadow of the razor blade will have alternating light and dark lines, as the light tries to go around the corner of the razor blade. (It can go a little bit around the corner, but only a couple of degrees because the corner is still larger than the wavelength of the light being used.)
I agree that unions have some positive aspects (just like Microsoft's monopoly helped defragment the computer industry), however I think that the problems outweigh the benefits. Anything that removes the basic link between productivity and pay is a problem.
I think that many of the problems that led to unions can now be solved, because of the change in how companies are formed. In the old days (TM), you couldn't form a new company unless you had the right parents, etc. Today, if you think you are underpaid, you realistically can start a new company doing your current job. If you can't do that and make your current salary, you are not underpaid.
In addition to the comments above, what is wrong with a union is that it is a (typically government enforced) monopoly, without the necessary government regulation. Laws have been passed requiring management to respect unions, but no laws have been passed to restrict unions in any way. This is the same problem as Microsoft controlling the software industry - the little guy is squashed, inovation suffers (using computers to improve efficiency is illegal, for example), and reaction time to changing market conditions suffers (how long did it take for MS to make security #1, how long did it take airlines to lower cost structures).
Back when the economy was strong, I made several proposals for IT projects that could have saved millions of dollars. These proposals were shot down by the unions, because higher efficiencies would have lead to fewer jobs.
Why on Earth did we have to get the union's permission for those projects? No wonder Southwest is kicking everyone's butts.
My only comment on this is about the line:
...wise men in government & airline executives...
Perhaps you could blame the government (although I believe deregulation - which leads to lower cost airlines - is a good thing in this case), the airline executives fought against deregulation tooth and nail. It essentially made them give up their monopoly, and made them compete in an environment in which they knew they would lose. See Pan American airlines for comparisons.
should read up on what US Airways has done to their pensions, benefits...
That is a common mis-conception. US Airways did not do these things - US Airways is struggling for life, very near death. The market change caused by Southwest and the consumers caused this. There is a simple choice, lose these things via the company cutting them, or lose these things via the company going chapter 7.
The company has only one choice (it cannot kill itself) - it cuts everything that can be cut in an attempt to survive. This means that people would make more doing something else, so they should leave. If they do leave, the company fails and southwest takes up the slack. Jobs move, but the total number of jobs doesn't really change. If they don't leave then that means that for them working at a lower wage is better than being out of work, because they made the choice.
No one is forcing these people to continue working for below minimum wage. There are other places to work, if you are good at what you do. If you are not good at what you do, find something you are good at. That is simply how the world works! (And fighting against that will not change it, and will doom you to failure!)