You sound like this is a govt. initiative or charity?
Google are building momentum and are most likely choosing the most economical places first. The fact you are under serviced is because....
In my country the government are currently rolling out fibre to the home all over the nation. And guess where they are starting? The cities where they already have high speed ADSL with full coverage. (NB: aside from a couple of wealthy "test" towns in the proof of concept) In the country you are lucky to have ADSL at all or be on a 12 month waiting list for connection to a VERY crappy service. And you want to know the worst of it? The uptake on the fibre in the city areas where its been implemented have been exceptionally low. Why? Because they don't need it!
The problem is the system and until that changes those rights don't exist. Your mugger metaphor is simply not relevant - a mugger is an external force. When its the government that is suppose to be upholding those rights it is a completely different beast.
You say all this with a straight face while Guantanamo bay is still running.
You say this when the "open government" president just shat all over open government and is about to refactor the law and the process to make the NSA's activities "legal" and hidden from view again. (and god help you if the other side gets in)
The US is trying to and has persecuted whistle blowers for exposing their illegal and morally reprehensible actions.
Words and memorials are meaningless symbols we attach so much importance to - sometimes as a replacement for reality.
And I have not even begun to address the "what ifs" of those rights. Currently there is not reason for many rights to be abused, the political cost would outweigh the benefits.
What if that changes? I think the question has already been answered during the occupy movements, iraq/afgan war and other specific scenarios personally. Some of the tea party are calling for revolution. What if the citizens start to agree and organise mass protests and strikes etc etc. How long do you think your rights will last then? Rights are not rights if they only exist due to convenience.
The strength and existence of your rights are ONLY tested when they are hard to swallow such as a child abuse case, a unpopular protest or movement, terrorists who still deserve a fair trial, etc. Or perhaps whistle blowers who exposes the evil of tax payer funder organisations.
You can argue that all you want but those voted in as representatives of this movement say everything that needs to be said about it.
In almost any movement you will find decent people saying reasonable things. That is irrelevant. What matters is what the movement does, stands for and says in PRACTICE. (in that order of importance.) And what some fringe elements say at small meetings? How is that even relevant?!
Could the movement be changed into something else and become a force for good? Of course it could. So could any other movement!
I am commenting on the actual movement and not some fantasy movement that does not exist. I am commenting on their actual representatives which are voting and passing laws not on the joe-shmoes voting them in because they are just generally angry about "stuff".
I am sorry, I just cannot agree with what you have said at all.
You are bordering on being an apologist. I would argue that you are in fact this since the same sort of shit is happening right now with rights being abused and the definitions corrupted.
Just because you can go back decades later and say "tut tut" does not make it any less so. The fact remains that the US government can at any time decide to ignore rights (as it just did recently) and there is little to anything you can do about it at the time or even in time to make any sort of difference. The engine does not have the safeguards to prevent it. The fox is watching the hen house so to speak.
Maybe you can argue and protest and have a long drawn out expensive legal battle for decades afterwards and maybe we can all tut tut and waggle our finger. (Much like the ACLU does.)
But who cares about that?
So you are telling me that rights are things we have to slog through the courts to defend before we are allowed to have them back after they are taken away arbitrarily? A right is anything that will cause enough of a political backlash to cause vote loss?
That is not a "right". They are certainly not inalienable rights.
I would even argue that your current form of govt. simply does not allow "rights" to exist. The reason? Because the people don't run the country any more.
Rights require an entire socio-political framework in which to exist. That ceased some time ago if it ever existed.
The morbidly obese fox now lounges slothfully over the hen house gorging itself whenever it chooses. The farmer is too busy getting drunk and watching sport to care and the toothless, deaf old dog is just about dead anyway.
You should have said "when you are as crazy as American politicians and large organisations".
"Americans" are no longer in control of their country. Yes one could argue its their own fault, but there is little they can do about it now.
You will find that the "average American" is quite personable and decent as you will in almost any country.
You will also find a bunch of rabid, sociopathic assholes just chafing at the bit to take over everything and fuck everyone in the ass for their own benefit. And woe be to you if you let them gain the reins of power.
Calling them WMD is another PR tactic. But is it justified?
I always find it amusing when people discuss global warming as if it is the only major threat we have to worry about.
Superficially he is incorrect about it being the greatest WMD. Every major super power in the world has the ability to initiate a mass extinction event within hours/minutes and has done for some decades now.
But on a deeper level the instantaneous nature of said weapons and the losses the initiator would suffer themselves helps ensure that they are never used. Although this is not 100% guaranteed it has worked so far.
Global warming on the other hand appears to have already been initiated. It will require a huge effort (increasing exponentially every day) to reverse or even significantly mitigate it. By some counts it is already "too late" to stop the worst of it. Add to that we have already demonstrated time and again that our socio-political structures cannot and will not deal with this issue in any significant way. In fact we spent decades in denial and for some of us we still are - such is the power of PR, primal fear and irrational thought. Even our current pie in the sky promises and future initiatives (i.e. never going to happen) fall FAR short of having any significant impact.
We have to face it: As a species we just suck at this stuff.
On a "history of the earth" based time scale the difference between one day and on hundred years is irrelevant - so the immediacy of nuclear weapons is not really a factor.
The only positive thing you say is that global warming will give us more time to adapt and while our society and population will be absolutely devastated and severely reduced we will still continue to survive. With nuclear weapons this may not be the case. Life will almost certainly go on, we may very well not.
And in the end, for those of us who are brave enough to accept it, society MUST be reduced and diminished in some way in the long term future. Our current population and way of life is not sustainable by any measure and its exponential growth rate just makes the idea of sustainable living ridiculous - even with "green" initiatives. Add to this the fact that even whispering about population control is political suicide and you can see that, yet again, the human race is completely incapable of defending itself against large scale, global threats. Even more so while the minority like to talk about being "green", the majority live in exceptionally wasteful ways and could not care one iota for the concept - many become rabid animals at the mere mention of green initiatives. (which I actually agree are ridiculous if you don't address population)
So in the end our current society must fall and fall it will. But it most likely wont be the end and things will continue in some other form. And we will have a lot more science and technology under our belt to help us through this period when it comes.
Call me an idealistic optimist if you must.
But what will that society look like? Who will be running it? What will the average person's quality of life be like? How skewed will the distribution of wealth in this resource-limited world?
These things I am less optimistic about. Hell, I am already cynical about these things now.....
Please don't hold up your constitution as the great example of how rights must be implemented.
I would go into a diatribe about it but George Carlin said it well enough: ref: http://mindofv.blogspot.co.nz/2008/04/excerpt-from-george-carlin-on-rights.html
"Now, if you think you do have rights, I have one last assignment for ya. Next time you're at the computer get on the Internet, go to Wikipedia. When you get to Wikipedia, in the search field for Wikipedia, i want to type in, "Japanese-Americans 1942" and you'll find out all about your precious fucking rights. Alright. You know about it.
In 1942 there were 110,000 Japanese-American citizens, in good standing, law abiding people, who were thrown into internment camps simply because their parents were born in the wrong country. That's all they did wrong. They had no right to a lawyer, no right to a fair trial, no right to a jury of their peers, no right to due process of any kind. The only right they had was...right this way! Into the internment camps.
Just when these American citizens needed their rights the most...their government took them away. and rights aren't rights if someone can take em away. They're privileges. That's all we've ever had in this country is a bill of TEMPORARY privileges; and if you read the news, even badly, you know the list get's shorter, and shorter, and shorter.
Yeup, sooner or later the people in this country are going to realize the government doesn't give a fuck about them. the government doesn't care about you, or your children, or your rights, or your welfare or your safety. it simply doesn't give a fuck about you. It's interested in it's own power. That's the only thing...keeping it, and expanding wherever possible.
Personally when it comes to rights, I think one of two things is true: either we have unlimited rights, or we have no rights at all."
My definition for "Thugs" are people who have authority gained through illegitimate means and use said authority to harass and/or extort and/or intimidate (etc) others.
By that definition thugs is the perfect word for them.
And this article should be a surprise to no one. The UK has quietly been transforming into a police state, just voted in a tory govt to make that transition faster but has escaped much international attention because of all the focus on the US.
You are being completely ridiculous. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with them speaking out against the government.
In fact I personally believe that the ONLY redeeming feature of this group is that they finally stopped swallowing the corporate and republican Kool Aid (the two flavours are indistinguishable) and stood up for themselves. NB: The corporate and democrat Kool Aid is likewise indistinguishable. In the words of Noam Chomsky: They are "two arms of the business party". The democrats are not and never have been a "left" party. (centre-right at best)
The reason they are called names and disrespected by everyday people (political attacks are always irrelevant) is because of who they are, who they are run by (NB: not the same thing) and what they say. Now they may say a few things that could be agreed with but that does not mean you can ignore the tidal wave of other crazy policies that go with it.
The tea party is not and never will be the answer to the problems of the US due to their rabid irrational policies, their inability to relate cause and effect and their complete disdain for analysis, science and research. (those last two are related) Not to mention their bat shit crazy candidates.
The disconnect between who is running that show and who is voting for that show (and it is very much a show) alone make this true.
This is nothing more than a bunch of republicans who are upset with the current republicans and naively thing that being more extreme, cold hearted, and psychotic is the answer to a better America. This all being controlled and run by yet another bunch of billionaires who are only out for themselves and duped the people who vote for them. (So same same as per usual)
But in the same breath I will say good on them for having more backbone than any democrat based group because they have caused major waves and succeeded in reshaping the republican party and effecting real change. The fact that they have given real definition to the republican party has been fantastic. They are also more honest about what they stand for which is why the current republicans don't like them - lying about their true motives was the only way they got in.
If only the same movement came out on the democrats side the US political landscape would be better for it. (although this still would not solve their problems)
Of course personally I don't agree with their policies or the direction - but my single opinion is irrelevant as is anyone else's.
This is not a fund to do anything about climate change. This is a tiny fund to help mitigate the effects after they happen.
The USA's policy on climate change is to do nothing about it and then try to do better than others in dealing with the inevitable effects.
Remember that the wealthy will be mostly ok regardless and that is all policy makers in the US care about nowadays.
I imagine this fund is really just to make sure that the (wage) slaves can be prevented from dying or becoming too sick to work until they can be replaced with worker robots.
Except you would need the world's largest battery pack also and the shark would simply sink to the bottom of the ocean. Or attach a large electrical cable making the shark's ability to swim restricted.
Not to mention that the super heated water being turn to steam next to its head would make for instant shark soup.
Also the shark's complete inability to aim said device or do anything other than freak out and try to remove it.
And I am just getting started, I have not even began to address all the practical limitations...........erm...I meant...sharks with lasers....cool....
I think he was merely pointing out a relevant fact for all the flag waving/pin wearing idiots that are repeatedly posting that this self serving action proves that they were right all along and everybody should vote republican and isn't Obama so evil etc etc. The truth is that while the action in of itself is a highly commendable one, his reasons for doing it are not and both he and the republicans are still who they were before this announcement.
Nothing has changed!
Of cause that would make your angry, nasty comment completely incorrect and a rather ignorant thing to say.
But hey, you can just take one for the team this time.
I personally look forward to he whole fiasco as an opportunity for the two side to make each other look as terrible as they really are. When a shit fight starts everybody ends up covered in shit after all.
It is a naive discussion and not a uncommon or even interesting one. The analogy used actually fits very well but only if you use a comparable wall and not a naive wall such as the one implied in the article.
The main reason you don't do this is because you would incur a massive and wasteful overhead arguing backwards and forwards over things such as what was a bug or change request, who was to blame and by how much. In addition you would have the developers being forced to spend many hundreds of hours in bugs that the customer would not want to fix if they were paying for them but since they are free they do.
Thus the upfront cost of development would soar and/or contracts would reflect (as many of them already do) the standards expected and what to do about bugs. This would hurt everyone. (and has already done so on countless projects who had contracts that used this methodology - typically "waterfall" projects)
The analogy with the builder is in fact EXACTLY THE SAME if you use a SENSIBLE comparison: e.g. A wall that has hundreds of pages of complex requirements and rules surrounding how it gets built. Also the wall would have to be long enough to cut Mexico off from the USA. And then, as the wall was built, the customer would change their mind about what they wanted the wall built out of and attached to it.
And (to be analogous to most software projects) government officials were managing the project and brought all their politics, backhands and inability to do their jobs with them. Also their naive and shallow thoughts on how writing code is the same as building walls.
Slashdot Mirror
I take it back then. I was not aware of this.
In that case you have something to be upset about...but not with google...
lol.
:)
You sound like this is a govt. initiative or charity?
Google are building momentum and are most likely choosing the most economical places first. The fact you are under serviced is because....
In my country the government are currently rolling out fibre to the home all over the nation.
And guess where they are starting? The cities where they already have high speed ADSL with full coverage. (NB: aside from a couple of wealthy "test" towns in the proof of concept)
In the country you are lucky to have ADSL at all or be on a 12 month waiting list for connection to a VERY crappy service.
And you want to know the worst of it? The uptake on the fibre in the city areas where its been implemented have been exceptionally low. Why? Because they don't need it!
WE have something bitch about.
You were always there.
The power of your constitution is only as good as those of western europe - it is a political/PR tool to make the plebs feel safe.
See my other post for my thoughts on this.
I AM denying that process.
In fact I am saying you are living in denial.
The problem is the system and until that changes those rights don't exist. Your mugger metaphor is simply not relevant - a mugger is an external force. When its the government that is suppose to be upholding those rights it is a completely different beast.
You say all this with a straight face while Guantanamo bay is still running.
You say this when the "open government" president just shat all over open government and is about to refactor the law and the process to make the NSA's activities "legal" and hidden from view again. (and god help you if the other side gets in)
The US is trying to and has persecuted whistle blowers for exposing their illegal and morally reprehensible actions.
Words and memorials are meaningless symbols we attach so much importance to - sometimes as a replacement for reality.
And I have not even begun to address the "what ifs" of those rights. Currently there is not reason for many rights to be abused, the political cost would outweigh the benefits.
What if that changes? I think the question has already been answered during the occupy movements, iraq/afgan war and other specific scenarios personally.
Some of the tea party are calling for revolution. What if the citizens start to agree and organise mass protests and strikes etc etc.
How long do you think your rights will last then? Rights are not rights if they only exist due to convenience.
The strength and existence of your rights are ONLY tested when they are hard to swallow such as a child abuse case, a unpopular protest or movement, terrorists who still deserve a fair trial, etc. Or perhaps whistle blowers who exposes the evil of tax payer funder organisations.
And on that count your rights fail miserably.
I agree in principle.
I guess at the heart of my argument is the bit about "everyone".
"Everyone" is not making the decisions any more. Therefore it is not working.
Ok, I see from your two later posts that you are in fact a complete moron. My bad.
Discussion ended.
I have not at all been duped.
You can argue that all you want but those voted in as representatives of this movement say everything that needs to be said about it.
In almost any movement you will find decent people saying reasonable things. That is irrelevant. What matters is what the movement does, stands for and says in PRACTICE. (in that order of importance.)
And what some fringe elements say at small meetings? How is that even relevant?!
Could the movement be changed into something else and become a force for good? Of course it could. So could any other movement!
I am commenting on the actual movement and not some fantasy movement that does not exist. I am commenting on their actual representatives which are voting and passing laws not on the joe-shmoes voting them in because they are just generally angry about "stuff".
I am sorry, I just cannot agree with what you have said at all.
You are bordering on being an apologist. I would argue that you are in fact this since the same sort of shit is happening right now with rights being abused and the definitions corrupted.
Just because you can go back decades later and say "tut tut" does not make it any less so. The fact remains that the US government can at any time decide to ignore rights (as it just did recently) and there is little to anything you can do about it at the time or even in time to make any sort of difference.
The engine does not have the safeguards to prevent it. The fox is watching the hen house so to speak.
Maybe you can argue and protest and have a long drawn out expensive legal battle for decades afterwards and maybe we can all tut tut and waggle our finger. (Much like the ACLU does.)
But who cares about that?
So you are telling me that rights are things we have to slog through the courts to defend before we are allowed to have them back after they are taken away arbitrarily? A right is anything that will cause enough of a political backlash to cause vote loss?
That is not a "right". They are certainly not inalienable rights.
I would even argue that your current form of govt. simply does not allow "rights" to exist. The reason? Because the people don't run the country any more.
Rights require an entire socio-political framework in which to exist. That ceased some time ago if it ever existed.
The morbidly obese fox now lounges slothfully over the hen house gorging itself whenever it chooses. The farmer is too busy getting drunk and watching sport to care and the toothless, deaf old dog is just about dead anyway.
Sucks to be a chicken...
That is very unfair.
You should have said "when you are as crazy as American politicians and large organisations".
"Americans" are no longer in control of their country. Yes one could argue its their own fault, but there is little they can do about it now.
You will find that the "average American" is quite personable and decent as you will in almost any country.
You will also find a bunch of rabid, sociopathic assholes just chafing at the bit to take over everything and fuck everyone in the ass for their own benefit. And woe be to you if you let them gain the reins of power.
Unfortunately...
Fake posturing == PR == politics
Why are people continually surprised by this?
Calling them WMD is another PR tactic. But is it justified?
I always find it amusing when people discuss global warming as if it is the only major threat we have to worry about.
Superficially he is incorrect about it being the greatest WMD. Every major super power in the world has the ability to initiate a mass extinction event within hours/minutes and has done for some decades now.
But on a deeper level the instantaneous nature of said weapons and the losses the initiator would suffer themselves helps ensure that they are never used. Although this is not 100% guaranteed it has worked so far.
Global warming on the other hand appears to have already been initiated. It will require a huge effort (increasing exponentially every day) to reverse or even significantly mitigate it. By some counts it is already "too late" to stop the worst of it.
Add to that we have already demonstrated time and again that our socio-political structures cannot and will not deal with this issue in any significant way. In fact we spent decades in denial and for some of us we still are - such is the power of PR, primal fear and irrational thought.
Even our current pie in the sky promises and future initiatives (i.e. never going to happen) fall FAR short of having any significant impact.
We have to face it: As a species we just suck at this stuff.
On a "history of the earth" based time scale the difference between one day and on hundred years is irrelevant - so the immediacy of nuclear weapons is not really a factor.
The only positive thing you say is that global warming will give us more time to adapt and while our society and population will be absolutely devastated and severely reduced we will still continue to survive. With nuclear weapons this may not be the case. Life will almost certainly go on, we may very well not.
And in the end, for those of us who are brave enough to accept it, society MUST be reduced and diminished in some way in the long term future. Our current population and way of life is not sustainable by any measure and its exponential growth rate just makes the idea of sustainable living ridiculous - even with "green" initiatives.
Add to this the fact that even whispering about population control is political suicide and you can see that, yet again, the human race is completely incapable of defending itself against large scale, global threats.
Even more so while the minority like to talk about being "green", the majority live in exceptionally wasteful ways and could not care one iota for the concept - many become rabid animals at the mere mention of green initiatives. (which I actually agree are ridiculous if you don't address population)
So in the end our current society must fall and fall it will. But it most likely wont be the end and things will continue in some other form. And we will have a lot more science and technology under our belt to help us through this period when it comes.
Call me an idealistic optimist if you must.
But what will that society look like? Who will be running it? What will the average person's quality of life be like? How skewed will the distribution of wealth in this resource-limited world?
These things I am less optimistic about. Hell, I am already cynical about these things now.....
Please don't hold up your constitution as the great example of how rights must be implemented.
I would go into a diatribe about it but George Carlin said it well enough:
ref: http://mindofv.blogspot.co.nz/2008/04/excerpt-from-george-carlin-on-rights.html
"Now, if you think you do have rights, I have one last assignment for ya. Next time you're at the computer get on the Internet, go to Wikipedia. When you get to Wikipedia, in the search field for Wikipedia, i want to type in, "Japanese-Americans 1942" and you'll find out all about your precious fucking rights. Alright. You know about it.
In 1942 there were 110,000 Japanese-American citizens, in good standing, law abiding people, who were thrown into internment camps simply because their parents were born in the wrong country. That's all they did wrong. They had no right to a lawyer, no right to a fair trial, no right to a jury of their peers, no right to due process of any kind. The only right they had was...right this way! Into the internment camps.
Just when these American citizens needed their rights the most...their government took them away. and rights aren't rights if someone can take em away. They're privileges. That's all we've ever had in this country is a bill of TEMPORARY privileges; and if you read the news, even badly, you know the list get's shorter, and shorter, and shorter.
Yeup, sooner or later the people in this country are going to realize the government doesn't give a fuck about them. the government doesn't care about you, or your children, or your rights, or your welfare or your safety. it simply doesn't give a fuck about you. It's interested in it's own power. That's the only thing...keeping it, and expanding wherever possible.
Personally when it comes to rights, I think one of two things is true: either we have unlimited rights, or we have no rights at all."
You are so right.
My definition for "Thugs" are people who have authority gained through illegitimate means and use said authority to harass and/or extort and/or intimidate (etc) others.
By that definition thugs is the perfect word for them.
And this article should be a surprise to no one. The UK has quietly been transforming into a police state, just voted in a tory govt to make that transition faster but has escaped much international attention because of all the focus on the US.
You are being completely ridiculous. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with them speaking out against the government.
In fact I personally believe that the ONLY redeeming feature of this group is that they finally stopped swallowing the corporate and republican Kool Aid (the two flavours are indistinguishable) and stood up for themselves.
NB: The corporate and democrat Kool Aid is likewise indistinguishable. In the words of Noam Chomsky: They are "two arms of the business party". The democrats are not and never have been a "left" party. (centre-right at best)
The reason they are called names and disrespected by everyday people (political attacks are always irrelevant) is because of who they are, who they are run by (NB: not the same thing) and what they say. Now they may say a few things that could be agreed with but that does not mean you can ignore the tidal wave of other crazy policies that go with it.
The tea party is not and never will be the answer to the problems of the US due to their rabid irrational policies, their inability to relate cause and effect and their complete disdain for analysis, science and research. (those last two are related) Not to mention their bat shit crazy candidates.
The disconnect between who is running that show and who is voting for that show (and it is very much a show) alone make this true.
This is nothing more than a bunch of republicans who are upset with the current republicans and naively thing that being more extreme, cold hearted, and psychotic is the answer to a better America. This all being controlled and run by yet another bunch of billionaires who are only out for themselves and duped the people who vote for them. (So same same as per usual)
But in the same breath I will say good on them for having more backbone than any democrat based group because they have caused major waves and succeeded in reshaping the republican party and effecting real change. The fact that they have given real definition to the republican party has been fantastic. They are also more honest about what they stand for which is why the current republicans don't like them - lying about their true motives was the only way they got in.
If only the same movement came out on the democrats side the US political landscape would be better for it. (although this still would not solve their problems)
Of course personally I don't agree with their policies or the direction - but my single opinion is irrelevant as is anyone else's.
Yeah its a troll just because you don't like the message.
Wont make it any less true...
You are way off base.
This is not a fund to do anything about climate change. This is a tiny fund to help mitigate the effects after they happen.
The USA's policy on climate change is to do nothing about it and then try to do better than others in dealing with the inevitable effects.
Remember that the wealthy will be mostly ok regardless and that is all policy makers in the US care about nowadays.
I imagine this fund is really just to make sure that the (wage) slaves can be prevented from dying or becoming too sick to work until they can be replaced with worker robots.
Except you would need the world's largest battery pack also and the shark would simply sink to the bottom of the ocean. Or attach a large electrical cable making the shark's ability to swim restricted.
.... ...erm...I meant...sharks with lasers....cool....
Not to mention that the super heated water being turn to steam next to its head would make for instant shark soup.
Also the shark's complete inability to aim said device or do anything other than freak out and try to remove it.
And I am just getting started, I have not even began to address all the practical limitations....
Ok ok, I see you have very delicate sensibilities and have your under garments in a wad.
Amend it with "Almost any".
Because you are right, there are still a tiny few that are not interesting to the corps but are still significant.
The list is dwindling but they do exist.
"It's not about {INSERT ANY SIGNIFICANT HUMAN ENDEAVOUR}, it's all about money and power.
It's a triumph of the corporate spirit."
FTFY
"It's not about , it's all about money and power.
It's a triumph of the corporate spirit."
FTFY
Not to mention he is completely off base on what drives the engine of almost all societies. (NB: not what is best for the people)
This is a ridiculously naive proposition and will never work.
But that does not mean he cannot propose and discuss it. Dreams are free after all.
I think he was merely pointing out a relevant fact for all the flag waving/pin wearing idiots that are repeatedly posting that this self serving action proves that they were right all along and everybody should vote republican and isn't Obama so evil etc etc.
The truth is that while the action in of itself is a highly commendable one, his reasons for doing it are not and both he and the republicans are still who they were before this announcement.
Nothing has changed!
Of cause that would make your angry, nasty comment completely incorrect and a rather ignorant thing to say.
But hey, you can just take one for the team this time.
I personally look forward to he whole fiasco as an opportunity for the two side to make each other look as terrible as they really are. When a shit fight starts everybody ends up covered in shit after all.
You are being very naive.
A vote for a 3rd party that cannot make the grade is a wasted vote an in effect is supporting the party you were not going to vote for.
How can you tell it is not going to make the grade?
Polls.
Pretending that you cannot tell is not very bright.
ahahahahaahah
How cute.
You still think you can do something about it....
That shop has sailed buddy.
It is a naive discussion and not a uncommon or even interesting one. The analogy used actually fits very well but only if you use a comparable wall and not a naive wall such as the one implied in the article.
The main reason you don't do this is because you would incur a massive and wasteful overhead arguing backwards and forwards over things such as what was a bug or change request, who was to blame and by how much.
In addition you would have the developers being forced to spend many hundreds of hours in bugs that the customer would not want to fix if they were paying for them but since they are free they do.
Thus the upfront cost of development would soar and/or contracts would reflect (as many of them already do) the standards expected and what to do about bugs. This would hurt everyone. (and has already done so on countless projects who had contracts that used this methodology - typically "waterfall" projects)
The analogy with the builder is in fact EXACTLY THE SAME if you use a SENSIBLE comparison:
e.g.
A wall that has hundreds of pages of complex requirements and rules surrounding how it gets built. Also the wall would have to be long enough to cut Mexico off from the USA. And then, as the wall was built, the customer would change their mind about what they wanted the wall built out of and attached to it.
And (to be analogous to most software projects) government officials were managing the project and brought all their politics, backhands and inability to do their jobs with them.
Also their naive and shallow thoughts on how writing code is the same as building walls.
You sound like a very angry individual. I feel sorry for you.
I meant buy something other than a Dell (or HP). Asus have a good record last time I checked which was a while ago.
But in a more general sense don't reward bad companies with repeat business.
In the free market society it is pretty much the only meaningful vote you get.