'This is just going to further encourage someone to take the time to break the format.'
I think that is the point. The format and its security really isn't used for much of anything at this point. If someone takes the bait and cracks the format now they can still make changes to the security to prevent the hack. When someone is actually using the format that won't be an option.
'basically publishing a detail about your security, generally a bad idea.'
Nah, that idea has been debunked time and time again. The concept is security through obscurity and it doesn't work.
If you use a security method that depends upon obscurity then it is doomed to fail. The best security methods are equally secure when all of their details are exposed.
'Such was indeed the hope of logical positivists. No great number of actual mathematicians was ever swayed by their arguments though. To many of us who are concerned with this matter at all (a very small number), the opposite seems to be true: that logic is but a branch of mathematics.'
The argument is one of semantics really. After all, you can convert pretty much all logic to mathematical concepts and mathematical concepts are themselves logical constructs. Math and Logic are two sides of the same coin. If you really want to shake the foundations of your universe try to consider the relation of philophy to the math/logic coin.
'"certainly met the criteria" == "we could have if we had wanted to, but we didn't get round to doing anything about it"'
A nation is a nation, it isn't a matter of 'didn't get around to it'. I listed nations that recognized the colonies by having relations with the colonies. I also listed states that were independent nations when they chose to join the union. More importantly any political entity which is not subject to another is without question a nation and the colonies were all independent political entities.
'And you seemed to do a pretty good job of getting rid of those American Indian nations that you proudly refer to as proof of your long history so that they are now left with parcels of land of your choosing to live on as best they can under your rules.'
Nonsense. 'You' INCLUDES the american indians who are full citizens and are free to live anywhere they choose. In addition to having the same rights every other american has they also have lands in which they have sovereign authority and government subsidies.
'We' are not just the french and english who formed colonies. We includes the american indians, the french settlors, the africans who have chosen to stay here after the slave trade was abolished, political refuges from around the world (including former puritans, jews, chinese, and cubans), and people from throughout the world looking for better fortunes. If you count european nations that really no longer exist because they happened to be in the same places then you have to admit that the 'new world' was only new to Europeans and no matter what Europeans thought at the time the world was not REALLY defined by their awareness.
'But rather than interfere (again) in how foreign countries do things why don't you do something in the one country where you have a right to be heard?'
We aren't discussing internal matters. We are discussing international bodies. Each US state has comparable population, economy, and military power to a European state; I fail to see how they are entitled to a louder voice than comparable entities.
'Start a movement to split it into a much larger number of smaller countries.'
It already is. The United States is multi-state body composed by 50 independent states. Just as the European Union is a multi-state body composed by independent states. The states have combined to form a single government that all lend ear to while retaining independence. Just like the states of the European Union.
Regardless of how you choose to view it, all independent political entities that are not under the jurisdiction of other political entities amount to the same thing. It doesn't matter if you choose to view them differently or call some countries and others states and somehow view them differently. The European Union is a single political entity, it really doesn't matter what degree of autonomy the states retain interally. Either a union of individual states is still to be recognized as individual states FOR THE PURPOSE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (IE, the UN, the WTO, etc) or not. Europe is only one of many regions that participate in these bodies, it really isn't up to Europe.
'you don't have to be an idiot'
Is 'nuh uh' and 'you're an idiot' really the best you can come up with? I will do decent Europeans a favor and assume you don't speak for them.
'I mean no offence to the millions of other decent Americans, but you seem to be one of the exceptions that proves the rule.'
And what rule is that? Those who don't have a chip on their shoulder and subscribe to your variety of bigotry actually don't know what ridiculous assumptions about americans forms the basis of the rule you refer to.
'I honestly think a lot of the hostility, here, towards VB has to do with the fact that now pretty much anyone can write code and that it's from Microsoft.'
You are write but the reason people are upset about pretty much anyone writing code isn't that they want to keep the club elite. Or at least that isn't the right reason to be upset.
VB introduces the same problem many microsoft products do. VB is simple enough for just about anyone to write code but MOST people are not bright enough to be able to write code in a responsible fashion. They write poor programs that companies come to depend on. Those programs might be resource intensive, may not scale, may cause security issues, or a number of other problems. Avoiding these problems requires a solid knowledgebase. A competent programmer could learn BASIC and write relatively decent code (BASIC is not exactly a champion of efficiency) but there are certainly better language choices for an already competent programmer.
For a beginning programmer BASIC is also a bad choice. First because it gives those entering the field a false expectation of their ability to write real code. Second, and more importantly, because the language design supports bad programming habits and the syntax is dissimilar to the popular professional languages that have been in use during the past 10 years. You could justify it when there were many using Pascal but Pascal hasn't been in vogue for awhile now.
'I'm no math whiz but I can write code (in languages other than VB) and so can plenty of others.'
Then you are a math whiz. You are just more comfortable thinking about the math in non-classical terms. All programming is a form of algebra, not just the complex number crunching algorithms. All logic is algebra and in turn, numerical mathmatics is just a branch of algebra. Philosophy aside, all programming is just an abstraction for the mathematical operations being performed by a powerful calculator with lots of memory (AKA a computer). Every line of code you write (regardless of how you think about it logically) is converted into a number of mathematical operations.
In fact, math is nothing more than a branch of logic. You can't seperate computer programming from math for two reasons, programming is nothing but logic and every function is an algebra problem whether you use that form of logic to derive it or not. The other is that the higher level programming used today is nothing but an abstraction of the pure number crunching that is the basic operation of a computer. A computer is a calculator with lots of memory, nothing more.
'each of the member countries, note I did not say states'
Nations are states. The words country, nation, and state are synonymous. The member states of the EU have joined a central government in exactly the same manner as the United States, Canada, and the Soviet Union. Simply because they choose to think of themselves as somehow different than those others central governments does not make it so.
'I would argue that this has nothing at all to do the wonders in the world, but is merely your own politcal rant.'
It is both really. Every nation claiming a wonder whether they actually have one or not is silly. If the tiny 'countries' of the EU are each entitled to a 'wonder' then the US states which individually command military, economic, and human resources comparable to an EU country should also be entitled.
'each of the member countries, note I did not say states, of the EU have a history going back 1000s of years'
That is an interesting and irrelevant piece of data. There are recognized governments that last for only a few years. There are also nations that existed for 1000's of years and no longer exist. It is also misleading. The populace and cultures are various areas in Europe data back for 1000's of years, the actual governments typically do not date much further back than the US. If you are going to use the cultures and peoples then you will find that the native americans that inhabit the united states and represent the oldest of its peoples have a history that challenges europe. After all, european peoples and cultures moving to america certainly aren't its start.
'Were each of the states which now makes up the USA ever recognised as independent countries? If so, by whom?'
I admit I haven't researched the issue but they certainly were indepedent for a short time and met all the criteria to be recognized as independent countries. Undoubtedly the former colonies recognized themselves and one another after winning independence from England. There was a period of time between winning independence and the formation of the central government of the United States during which the individual colonies were recognized. Other individual former English colonies are now also recognized as independent nations. Many of the later states were definately independent for a time and later chose to join the United States, examples being California and Texas.
The revolutionary allies of the colonies certainly recognized them. France as actual ally, and Germany hired itself out in a mercenary capacity. You can't ally or do business with entities you don't recognize to exist.
'and each country should be allowed the opportunity to show off at least one thing that they are all proud of'
I'd agree, so long as we all agree that the European Union is really one large country milking the benefits of pretending its small individual member states are worthy of being called countries. When the states united under a universal government and called it the United States, the rest of the world stop recognizing the individual states as sovereign nations in themselves. When the member states of the Soviet Union were joined under a central government the same occured. This is also true of the states of Canada. The European Union has a centralized government and a centralized bank, why should its member states be recognized globally as if they weren't as much part of a single entity as the states in the US?
And don't bother with the fact that they have individual governments as well. So do the states of the US, the states of canada, and the states of the former soviet union. If the EU gets to have a seat in international bodies like the UN for each of its member states then the individual state governments of the various member states that compose the US should each get a seat. In fact, I think this would better represent the US by far and would eliminate the need for the national government to have a seat or veto powers.
The wilson case is bad on the age marker. I don't care how many daddies with little girls protest otherwise, teenagers are coherent and capable of making decisions. They may lack experience they will gain as they age but adults make bad decisions everyday because they aren't experienced in a given situation.
More importantly, nature declares when boys and girls are ready to have sex. Amazingly, you will never catch your eyes drawn to a little girl who hasn't reached the age of nature's declaration (unless you really are a pedophile) but we've all seen jailbait nature has declared fit. It's easy to tell with girls, they start bleeding and develop a figure.
That is one thing, the worst thing about the wilson case is the aggrevated rape thing. Because it was oral sex and not simply an 'indecent act'? What is this the 1700's? Do we really still live in a naive world where we must pretend there are types of sex that are bad?
Lets be honest. Linux is ready for the desktop, linux sits on numerous desktops already.
In distributions like Ubuntu we finally find the right combination of ease of use and flexibility. You can use a single distro for your desktops and your servers. It has rock solid package management and is built on a massive repository of packages. Dependency issues are a thing of the past and it is a breeze to find and install packages.
We now have a desktop with 3D eye candy that rivals or beats anything you can find on MacOSX or Vista. Linux is actually pretty now! Beryl needs to be stabilized and turned on by default but its coming.
In addition to there being tools that readily communicate with windows networks, whether you need files or printer services you can easily configure communication with simple and intuitive graphical tools.
I know, I know, this sounds like nothing but praise. Where is the challenge? Linux is a very powerful and easy to use desktop but there are applications that stand between many users and the desktop. We can't force developers to port their applications and games to linux but we can lower the barrier for entry.
How do you make life easy for developers? You give them common and stable API's. Off hand I think the most pressing is a common window manager API. This will only work if it developed as a joint effort between the kde and gnome folks. It should be possible to write an application that interacts with common events, renders a window with menus and common inputs, utilizes the clipboard, and otherwise utilizes only the basic functionality a graphical application is going to need; and to expect that application to run on the major window managers using their native widgets. I don't mean that this is all the functionality window managers should support. A compatibility layer between this api and the native toolkit is fine. Hell, it doesn't even need to be written from scratch, there are toolkits that do this already that could probably be used as a base. The important thing is that the major WM teams make a commitment to support the universal API and that developers can depend on.
The other is a gaming API. OpenGL is great for graphics but it is very useful to tie 3D graphics and audio.
These should be published and documented much like the LSB.
I tend to lean toward GPL style licensing for the protections it offers but for something like this maximum compatibility is best. Copyright the API (release it under an open license that requires any extensions or modifications be published) and documentation but release any implementation code into the public domain.
I wish this were something I could just up and do but I don't do any WM work, let alone carry any clout in those circles. That said, let me know if there is anything I can do to help.
'In fact, I was the executive editor for an open source enterprise magazine (circulation of over 500,000 in 140+ countries not counting the numbers for the internal distribution at IBM) for a while. Even had a well reviewed article.'
That is quite an accomplishment. Unfortunately, it fairly firmly establishes that you are NOT a tech (competent or otherwise). As an executive you are probably more intrested in the financial considerations of tech solutions. Your TCO estimates are severely flawed if they do not include the subsequent cost of training users, building new infrastructure, and training that will come when you one day switch to a different solution. After all, since these costs are determined by your existing solution more than your new solution those costs belong in the previous solution's TCO not the TCO of the solution you are moving to.
'Like I said. I use what makes sense. I am a rather practical person.'
I'm glad you think yourself so. Then, while I've yet to meet an executive who does not believe it of themself. I've met few who actually are. Most think no further than justifying following the latest trend in an effort to cover their own arse. There is quite a margin between that and what is best for the business.
So you are saying you just aren't good at your job?
'I use what makes sense. Sometimes that's open source, and sometimes that's propietary.'
I never said proprietary solutions are never the answer. Only that proprietary vs open is a major consideration rather than the minor afterthought that many like to believe.
'part of that TCO is finding people who can maintain'
There are no shortage of people who can maintain open solutions. In fact, competent techs can maintain pretty much any software solution after working with it a couple weeks. If you are an IT decision maker who is looking for techs that already know particular programs rather than hiring the best raw material then you DEFINATELY aren't any good at your job.
I suspect you have a background with a proprietary vendor's solutions yourself (say Microsoft?) and it is your own ignorance of other solutions that influences your decisions.
'As an example, want to know why most places use Word? Because, in addition to being pretty easy to use, most *other* places use Word and being able to send someone a document without having to worry if they can open it is a really nice thing.'
And there are alternative solutions that work quite well for this and provide that same assurance. Further, a claim that word is easy to use for people who don't understand the concept of a shortcut is ridiculous. Word is easy to use for those who already know word. WordPerfect and OpenOffice Writer are both simpler for an inexperienced user to pick up than word, and both offer power and capability beyond what users actually need if using the right tool for the job.
'most *other* places use Word'
At one point most other places used WordPerfect. The current trendy app changes. Again, that goes back to the 'length of time working for a company thing'.
'No, choosing the "other" solution just because it isn't propietary is short sighted and foolish. Just going with a non-propietary solution because it isn't propietary is not doing the business you work for any good. It is, in fact, just a personal little crusade on your part.'
I have actually provided a solid basis for my claims as well as solid logic which you have failed to refute. You are simply making an as yet unfounded statement. Do you have any logic or evidence to back up this opinion or am I and the rest of the world simply supposed to agree because you say its so?
'Spoken like someone who's never really worked for a company.'
Spoken like someone who hasn't spent any real length of time working for a company.
'Competent tech people consider the business requirements and then choose the solution which best meets those needs.'
Competent tech people know that avoiding vendor lockin is one of the most critical business requirements.
'It's business not a moral crusade.'
It has nothing to do with a moral crusade, it has everything to do with versitility and COST. I am not talking about the licensing cost today, I am talking about the expense of being forced to stay with the same vendor tomorrow because of the added expense of moving personel and data away from the propritary system/format. Forced upgrades are bad enough and substantially disrupt business and require additional training but that is managable, propritary solutions inevitably reach end of life and at that point you are basically screwed. Everything is a matter of money of course, if you are a small business you will be screwed but a large business can pay boatloads of cash and get the data converted to something useful, or completely revamp their infrastructure.
Proprietary solutions benefit only the vendor, never the customer. The slightly better integration you might find with them today is never worth the extra costs and problems they bring later. Choosing a proprietary solution when another solution will get the job done is short-sighted at best and negligent at worst.
'You don't need anyone to 'take you seriously' in order to make money.'
You realize that you can't do any of the things you just suggested without a buttload of money. Unless the inventor happens to have some serious cash in his pocket he will have to get someone to take him seriously in order to finance any of those little projects.
'No, that is Medicare which is a separate program as described by the following'
Yes, a seperate program that anyone who qualifies for social security benefits (be they retirement or disability) also qualifies for. In fact, there is even a fixed term after you are awarded disability before you recieve medicare.
'The eligibility criteria may be the same or similar but they are different government programs.'
That is something of a strawman wouldn't you say? I don't recall ever claiming they were the same program. Both are contingent upon the decision of the social security courts, thus it is a moot point.
'Bottom line is, if you've patented your idea, there is absolutely no reason to keep things secret and arrange for elaborate public "demonstrations."'
'If you have no trouble breaking the laws of physics, how are a few patent laws going to stand in your way?'
When you combine the two statements you effectively use your own attitude to prove the GP's (aka my) point. There is no accepted course of action that would lead respected individuals to consider this invention seriously even if it were legitimate. It is sad that this is the farse the passes for science these days but it is. There are no laws in physics, only theories that await the next breakthrough that completely revolutionizes our view of the physical world.
'If these asses are pulling energy from Earth's magnet field (and if it looks like free energy, they probably are), somebody please stop them, we need it.'
We need a magnetic field. But isn't like there is a finite amount of energy stored that you are using up like a battery. The magnetic field is powered by a gravity generator and that generator is going to keep running whether you utilize the energy output or not.
The big question is how much energy would you have to draw from the earth's magnetic field it makes any significant different. When you consider how tiny the global energy demands are compared to the actual energy stored in the stable matter of earth, I have a feeling that the result will be a very substantial amount.
' (aside from the fact that it is supposedly a perpetual energy machine)'
The outlook that makes you put this comment in, assures that governments, militaries, and major corporations wouldn't give you the time of day. They would never know you succeded because they would never look at what you produced in the first place.
Youtube demonstrations and internet articles would likely be the only way you would be able to stir up enough of a buzz to get someone to take you half seriously in the first place.
How does one do that again? My wife worked from the age of 13 and continued for 40 years. During that last year she started becoming fatigued and feeling pain. Her attendence at her place of work suffered and so did mine because I would stay to take care of her when she hurt too badly to get out of bed. This was gradual, first it was what seemed an isolated incedent, then it became every other week. She was seeing a doctor and her diagnosis at that point was lupis.
Finally she had an incident where her leg suddenly lost feeling and she dropped on the stairs at work. She suffered no direct injuries. Wendy was already on final notice for attendance and in too much pain to return. After six months Sony stopped paying her disability benefits and claimed there was nothing wrong with her. She applied for social security disability.
Because there was now one income in the home and not two we couldn't afford to keep the house and lost it. We moved to small town IL with my family. I got a job but Wendy could not. While there I paid cash (her old insurance policy was tied to her employer and no new policy would cover her condition) for her doctors and medications. Her diagnosis became MS and then finally settled on Fibromyalgia.
Predictably the only insurance she had left, Social Security, denied her claim. They had sent her to their doctor, who agreed with her fibromyalgia diagnosis but they denied anyway. She appealed and they denied it on review. She went to a hearing, the judge decided she just had arthritis, which while disabilitating is not one of the conditions approved for disability. Oh yes, the judge also decided she smoked and therefore must be evil.
We appealed on the grounds that the judge was reaching her own medical opinions and not ruling based upon the medical opinions of those actually qualified to reach them. Social security denied the appeal upon review (our lawyer told this that they always do before we even filed it). We filed an appeal to the federal level. Wendy quit smoking. She and I moved back to Florida but kept an address in Illinois to avoid the several month delay that a change of jurisdiction would introduce in the process. She began seeing a specialist, this time the specialist actual wrote the exams the specialists take on Fibromyalgia. This doctor evaluated her independently and also diagnosed her with Fibromyalgia. The federal court has a staff that screens cases, the ruling of the Judge exhibited extreme biased and she played doctor so the federal court summarily sent the case back for retrial without seeing Wendy.
We went back to Illinois again. The judge upheld the previous judges ruling and failed to consider her new doctor, despite him being 'imminently qualified' because he hadn't been seeing her long enough (3 months). Naturally we appealed again, social security denied again, we appealed back to the federal courts, and once again the ruling was deemed bad enough that they simply sent it back for retrial. This time social security sent it back to the same judge who ran the first trial.
That saga is coming soon and we expect another cycle of rinse and repeat. We have appealed to a senator in IL and if the federal court doesn't overturn the ruling this time we will move the jurisdiction to Florida in an attempt to get a fair hearing. It is obvious that social security is biased toward rejecting claims and their judges are also biased toward rejecting them.
Wendy filed her claim six years ago. She worked for 40 years without any interruption of more than 30 days. Her diagnosis has been confirmed by 2 general practicioners and two specialists (including SS doctors). Two social security career experts have said that if the limitations specified by her doctors are correct Wendy would be unable to work any job.
Wendy had a good job, insurance, she had a retirement plan in addition to social security (already burned through paying expenses out of pocket. So you tell me, how was she supp
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'This is just going to further encourage someone to take the time to break the format.'
I think that is the point. The format and its security really isn't used for much of anything at this point. If someone takes the bait and cracks the format now they can still make changes to the security to prevent the hack. When someone is actually using the format that won't be an option.
'basically publishing a detail about your security, generally a bad idea.'
Nah, that idea has been debunked time and time again. The concept is security through obscurity and it doesn't work.
If you use a security method that depends upon obscurity then it is doomed to fail. The best security methods are equally secure when all of their details are exposed.
'Such was indeed the hope of logical positivists. No great number of actual mathematicians was ever swayed by their arguments though. To many of us who are concerned with this matter at all (a very small number), the opposite seems to be true: that logic is but a branch of mathematics.'
The argument is one of semantics really. After all, you can convert pretty much all logic to mathematical concepts and mathematical concepts are themselves logical constructs. Math and Logic are two sides of the same coin. If you really want to shake the foundations of your universe try to consider the relation of philophy to the math/logic coin.
'"certainly met the criteria" == "we could have if we had wanted to, but we didn't get round to doing anything about it"'
A nation is a nation, it isn't a matter of 'didn't get around to it'. I listed nations that recognized the colonies by having relations with the colonies. I also listed states that were independent nations when they chose to join the union. More importantly any political entity which is not subject to another is without question a nation and the colonies were all independent political entities.
'And you seemed to do a pretty good job of getting rid of those American Indian nations that you proudly refer to as proof of your long history so that they are now left with parcels of land of your choosing to live on as best they can under your rules.'
Nonsense. 'You' INCLUDES the american indians who are full citizens and are free to live anywhere they choose. In addition to having the same rights every other american has they also have lands in which they have sovereign authority and government subsidies.
'We' are not just the french and english who formed colonies. We includes the american indians, the french settlors, the africans who have chosen to stay here after the slave trade was abolished, political refuges from around the world (including former puritans, jews, chinese, and cubans), and people from throughout the world looking for better fortunes. If you count european nations that really no longer exist because they happened to be in the same places then you have to admit that the 'new world' was only new to Europeans and no matter what Europeans thought at the time the world was not REALLY defined by their awareness.
'But rather than interfere (again) in how foreign countries do things why don't you do something in the one country where you have a right to be heard?'
We aren't discussing internal matters. We are discussing international bodies. Each US state has comparable population, economy, and military power to a European state; I fail to see how they are entitled to a louder voice than comparable entities.
'Start a movement to split it into a much larger number of smaller countries.'
It already is. The United States is multi-state body composed by 50 independent states. Just as the European Union is a multi-state body composed by independent states. The states have combined to form a single government that all lend ear to while retaining independence. Just like the states of the European Union.
Regardless of how you choose to view it, all independent political entities that are not under the jurisdiction of other political entities amount to the same thing. It doesn't matter if you choose to view them differently or call some countries and others states and somehow view them differently. The European Union is a single political entity, it really doesn't matter what degree of autonomy the states retain interally. Either a union of individual states is still to be recognized as individual states FOR THE PURPOSE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (IE, the UN, the WTO, etc) or not. Europe is only one of many regions that participate in these bodies, it really isn't up to Europe.
'you don't have to be an idiot'
Is 'nuh uh' and 'you're an idiot' really the best you can come up with? I will do decent Europeans a favor and assume you don't speak for them.
'I mean no offence to the millions of other decent Americans, but you seem to be one of the exceptions that proves the rule.'
And what rule is that? Those who don't have a chip on their shoulder and subscribe to your variety of bigotry actually don't know what ridiculous assumptions about americans forms the basis of the rule you refer to.
'I honestly think a lot of the hostility, here, towards VB has to do with the fact that now pretty much anyone can write code and that it's from Microsoft.'
You are write but the reason people are upset about pretty much anyone writing code isn't that they want to keep the club elite. Or at least that isn't the right reason to be upset.
VB introduces the same problem many microsoft products do. VB is simple enough for just about anyone to write code but MOST people are not bright enough to be able to write code in a responsible fashion. They write poor programs that companies come to depend on. Those programs might be resource intensive, may not scale, may cause security issues, or a number of other problems. Avoiding these problems requires a solid knowledgebase. A competent programmer could learn BASIC and write relatively decent code (BASIC is not exactly a champion of efficiency) but there are certainly better language choices for an already competent programmer.
For a beginning programmer BASIC is also a bad choice. First because it gives those entering the field a false expectation of their ability to write real code. Second, and more importantly, because the language design supports bad programming habits and the syntax is dissimilar to the popular professional languages that have been in use during the past 10 years. You could justify it when there were many using Pascal but Pascal hasn't been in vogue for awhile now.
'I'm no math whiz but I can write code (in languages other than VB) and so can plenty of others.'
Then you are a math whiz. You are just more comfortable thinking about the math in non-classical terms. All programming is a form of algebra, not just the complex number crunching algorithms. All logic is algebra and in turn, numerical mathmatics is just a branch of algebra. Philosophy aside, all programming is just an abstraction for the mathematical operations being performed by a powerful calculator with lots of memory (AKA a computer). Every line of code you write (regardless of how you think about it logically) is converted into a number of mathematical operations.
In fact, math is nothing more than a branch of logic. You can't seperate computer programming from math for two reasons, programming is nothing but logic and every function is an algebra problem whether you use that form of logic to derive it or not. The other is that the higher level programming used today is nothing but an abstraction of the pure number crunching that is the basic operation of a computer. A computer is a calculator with lots of memory, nothing more.
'each of the member countries, note I did not say states'
Nations are states. The words country, nation, and state are synonymous. The member states of the EU have joined a central government in exactly the same manner as the United States, Canada, and the Soviet Union. Simply because they choose to think of themselves as somehow different than those others central governments does not make it so.
'I would argue that this has nothing at all to do the wonders in the world, but is merely your own politcal rant.'
It is both really. Every nation claiming a wonder whether they actually have one or not is silly. If the tiny 'countries' of the EU are each entitled to a 'wonder' then the US states which individually command military, economic, and human resources comparable to an EU country should also be entitled.
'each of the member countries, note I did not say states, of the EU have a history going back 1000s of years'
That is an interesting and irrelevant piece of data. There are recognized governments that last for only a few years. There are also nations that existed for 1000's of years and no longer exist. It is also misleading. The populace and cultures are various areas in Europe data back for 1000's of years, the actual governments typically do not date much further back than the US. If you are going to use the cultures and peoples then you will find that the native americans that inhabit the united states and represent the oldest of its peoples have a history that challenges europe. After all, european peoples and cultures moving to america certainly aren't its start.
'Were each of the states which now makes up the USA ever recognised as independent countries? If so, by whom?'
I admit I haven't researched the issue but they certainly were indepedent for a short time and met all the criteria to be recognized as independent countries. Undoubtedly the former colonies recognized themselves and one another after winning independence from England. There was a period of time between winning independence and the formation of the central government of the United States during which the individual colonies were recognized. Other individual former English colonies are now also recognized as independent nations. Many of the later states were definately independent for a time and later chose to join the United States, examples being California and Texas.
The revolutionary allies of the colonies certainly recognized them. France as actual ally, and Germany hired itself out in a mercenary capacity. You can't ally or do business with entities you don't recognize to exist.
'and each country should be allowed the opportunity to show off at least one thing that they are all proud of'
I'd agree, so long as we all agree that the European Union is really one large country milking the benefits of pretending its small individual member states are worthy of being called countries. When the states united under a universal government and called it the United States, the rest of the world stop recognizing the individual states as sovereign nations in themselves. When the member states of the Soviet Union were joined under a central government the same occured. This is also true of the states of Canada. The European Union has a centralized government and a centralized bank, why should its member states be recognized globally as if they weren't as much part of a single entity as the states in the US?
And don't bother with the fact that they have individual governments as well. So do the states of the US, the states of canada, and the states of the former soviet union. If the EU gets to have a seat in international bodies like the UN for each of its member states then the individual state governments of the various member states that compose the US should each get a seat. In fact, I think this would better represent the US by far and would eliminate the need for the national government to have a seat or veto powers.
The wilson case is bad on the age marker. I don't care how many daddies with little girls protest otherwise, teenagers are coherent and capable of making decisions. They may lack experience they will gain as they age but adults make bad decisions everyday because they aren't experienced in a given situation.
More importantly, nature declares when boys and girls are ready to have sex. Amazingly, you will never catch your eyes drawn to a little girl who hasn't reached the age of nature's declaration (unless you really are a pedophile) but we've all seen jailbait nature has declared fit. It's easy to tell with girls, they start bleeding and develop a figure.
That is one thing, the worst thing about the wilson case is the aggrevated rape thing. Because it was oral sex and not simply an 'indecent act'? What is this the 1700's? Do we really still live in a naive world where we must pretend there are types of sex that are bad?
Lets be honest. Linux is ready for the desktop, linux sits on numerous desktops already.
In distributions like Ubuntu we finally find the right combination of ease of use and flexibility. You can use a single distro for your desktops and your servers. It has rock solid package management and is built on a massive repository of packages. Dependency issues are a thing of the past and it is a breeze to find and install packages.
We now have a desktop with 3D eye candy that rivals or beats anything you can find on MacOSX or Vista. Linux is actually pretty now! Beryl needs to be stabilized and turned on by default but its coming.
In addition to there being tools that readily communicate with windows networks, whether you need files or printer services you can easily configure communication with simple and intuitive graphical tools.
I know, I know, this sounds like nothing but praise. Where is the challenge? Linux is a very powerful and easy to use desktop but there are applications that stand between many users and the desktop. We can't force developers to port their applications and games to linux but we can lower the barrier for entry.
How do you make life easy for developers? You give them common and stable API's. Off hand I think the most pressing is a common window manager API. This will only work if it developed as a joint effort between the kde and gnome folks. It should be possible to write an application that interacts with common events, renders a window with menus and common inputs, utilizes the clipboard, and otherwise utilizes only the basic functionality a graphical application is going to need; and to expect that application to run on the major window managers using their native widgets. I don't mean that this is all the functionality window managers should support. A compatibility layer between this api and the native toolkit is fine. Hell, it doesn't even need to be written from scratch, there are toolkits that do this already that could probably be used as a base. The important thing is that the major WM teams make a commitment to support the universal API and that developers can depend on.
The other is a gaming API. OpenGL is great for graphics but it is very useful to tie 3D graphics and audio.
These should be published and documented much like the LSB.
I tend to lean toward GPL style licensing for the protections it offers but for something like this maximum compatibility is best. Copyright the API (release it under an open license that requires any extensions or modifications be published) and documentation but release any implementation code into the public domain.
I wish this were something I could just up and do but I don't do any WM work, let alone carry any clout in those circles. That said, let me know if there is anything I can do to help.
'OK, We're supposed to ask the National Guard (our well trained militia, as it were) to arrest various and sundry government employees?'
No you are supposed to pick up your own military grade arms and band together with your neighbors and storm the offices of the corrupt officials.
'In fact, I was the executive editor for an open source enterprise magazine (circulation of over 500,000 in 140+ countries not counting the numbers for the internal distribution at IBM) for a while. Even had a well reviewed article.'
That is quite an accomplishment. Unfortunately, it fairly firmly establishes that you are NOT a tech (competent or otherwise). As an executive you are probably more intrested in the financial considerations of tech solutions. Your TCO estimates are severely flawed if they do not include the subsequent cost of training users, building new infrastructure, and training that will come when you one day switch to a different solution. After all, since these costs are determined by your existing solution more than your new solution those costs belong in the previous solution's TCO not the TCO of the solution you are moving to.
'Like I said. I use what makes sense. I am a rather practical person.'
I'm glad you think yourself so. Then, while I've yet to meet an executive who does not believe it of themself. I've met few who actually are. Most think no further than justifying following the latest trend in an effort to cover their own arse. There is quite a margin between that and what is best for the business.
'Several years, actually.'
So you are saying you just aren't good at your job?
'I use what makes sense. Sometimes that's open source, and sometimes that's propietary.'
I never said proprietary solutions are never the answer. Only that proprietary vs open is a major consideration rather than the minor afterthought that many like to believe.
'part of that TCO is finding people who can maintain'
There are no shortage of people who can maintain open solutions. In fact, competent techs can maintain pretty much any software solution after working with it a couple weeks. If you are an IT decision maker who is looking for techs that already know particular programs rather than hiring the best raw material then you DEFINATELY aren't any good at your job.
I suspect you have a background with a proprietary vendor's solutions yourself (say Microsoft?) and it is your own ignorance of other solutions that influences your decisions.
'As an example, want to know why most places use Word? Because, in addition to being pretty easy to use, most *other* places use Word and being able to send someone a document without having to worry if they can open it is a really nice thing.'
And there are alternative solutions that work quite well for this and provide that same assurance. Further, a claim that word is easy to use for people who don't understand the concept of a shortcut is ridiculous. Word is easy to use for those who already know word. WordPerfect and OpenOffice Writer are both simpler for an inexperienced user to pick up than word, and both offer power and capability beyond what users actually need if using the right tool for the job.
'most *other* places use Word'
At one point most other places used WordPerfect. The current trendy app changes. Again, that goes back to the 'length of time working for a company thing'.
'No, choosing the "other" solution just because it isn't propietary is short sighted and foolish. Just going with a non-propietary solution because it isn't propietary is not doing the business you work for any good. It is, in fact, just a personal little crusade on your part.'
I have actually provided a solid basis for my claims as well as solid logic which you have failed to refute. You are simply making an as yet unfounded statement. Do you have any logic or evidence to back up this opinion or am I and the rest of the world simply supposed to agree because you say its so?
'Spoken like someone who's never really worked for a company.'
Spoken like someone who hasn't spent any real length of time working for a company.
'Competent tech people consider the business requirements and then choose the solution which best meets those needs.'
Competent tech people know that avoiding vendor lockin is one of the most critical business requirements.
'It's business not a moral crusade.'
It has nothing to do with a moral crusade, it has everything to do with versitility and COST. I am not talking about the licensing cost today, I am talking about the expense of being forced to stay with the same vendor tomorrow because of the added expense of moving personel and data away from the propritary system/format. Forced upgrades are bad enough and substantially disrupt business and require additional training but that is managable, propritary solutions inevitably reach end of life and at that point you are basically screwed. Everything is a matter of money of course, if you are a small business you will be screwed but a large business can pay boatloads of cash and get the data converted to something useful, or completely revamp their infrastructure.
Proprietary solutions benefit only the vendor, never the customer. The slightly better integration you might find with them today is never worth the extra costs and problems they bring later. Choosing a proprietary solution when another solution will get the job done is short-sighted at best and negligent at worst.
Accurate, informative, and insightful. Mods must be on crack to have modded this down.
Yes but COMPETENT tech people avoid proprietary solutions. Unfortunately the market is flooded with incompetent MCSE's.
'You don't need anyone to 'take you seriously' in order to make money.'
You realize that you can't do any of the things you just suggested without a buttload of money. Unless the inventor happens to have some serious cash in his pocket he will have to get someone to take him seriously in order to finance any of those little projects.
Finally I can tell my wife that giving head will make her more intelligent.
'No, that is Medicare which is a separate program as described by the following'
Yes, a seperate program that anyone who qualifies for social security benefits (be they retirement or disability) also qualifies for. In fact, there is even a fixed term after you are awarded disability before you recieve medicare.
'The eligibility criteria may be the same or similar but they are different government programs.'
That is something of a strawman wouldn't you say? I don't recall ever claiming they were the same program. Both are contingent upon the decision of the social security courts, thus it is a moot point.
'Bottom line is, if you've patented your idea, there is absolutely no reason to keep things secret and arrange for elaborate public "demonstrations."'
'If you have no trouble breaking the laws of physics, how are a few patent laws going to stand in your way?'
When you combine the two statements you effectively use your own attitude to prove the GP's (aka my) point. There is no accepted course of action that would lead respected individuals to consider this invention seriously even if it were legitimate. It is sad that this is the farse the passes for science these days but it is. There are no laws in physics, only theories that await the next breakthrough that completely revolutionizes our view of the physical world.
'Social Security does not pay medical expenses.'
Anyone who is on social security also recieves medicare benefits, whether they are disabled or retired.
'If these asses are pulling energy from Earth's magnet field (and if it looks like free energy, they probably are), somebody please stop them, we need it.'
We need a magnetic field. But isn't like there is a finite amount of energy stored that you are using up like a battery. The magnetic field is powered by a gravity generator and that generator is going to keep running whether you utilize the energy output or not.
The big question is how much energy would you have to draw from the earth's magnetic field it makes any significant different. When you consider how tiny the global energy demands are compared to the actual energy stored in the stable matter of earth, I have a feeling that the result will be a very substantial amount.
' (aside from the fact that it is supposedly a perpetual energy machine)'
The outlook that makes you put this comment in, assures that governments, militaries, and major corporations wouldn't give you the time of day. They would never know you succeded because they would never look at what you produced in the first place.
Youtube demonstrations and internet articles would likely be the only way you would be able to stir up enough of a buzz to get someone to take you half seriously in the first place.
'In which case I recommend mitigating the risk.'
How does one do that again? My wife worked from the age of 13 and continued for 40 years. During that last year she started becoming fatigued and feeling pain. Her attendence at her place of work suffered and so did mine because I would stay to take care of her when she hurt too badly to get out of bed. This was gradual, first it was what seemed an isolated incedent, then it became every other week. She was seeing a doctor and her diagnosis at that point was lupis.
Finally she had an incident where her leg suddenly lost feeling and she dropped on the stairs at work. She suffered no direct injuries. Wendy was already on final notice for attendance and in too much pain to return. After six months Sony stopped paying her disability benefits and claimed there was nothing wrong with her. She applied for social security disability.
Because there was now one income in the home and not two we couldn't afford to keep the house and lost it. We moved to small town IL with my family. I got a job but Wendy could not. While there I paid cash (her old insurance policy was tied to her employer and no new policy would cover her condition) for her doctors and medications. Her diagnosis became MS and then finally settled on Fibromyalgia.
Predictably the only insurance she had left, Social Security, denied her claim. They had sent her to their doctor, who agreed with her fibromyalgia diagnosis but they denied anyway. She appealed and they denied it on review. She went to a hearing, the judge decided she just had arthritis, which while disabilitating is not one of the conditions approved for disability. Oh yes, the judge also decided she smoked and therefore must be evil.
We appealed on the grounds that the judge was reaching her own medical opinions and not ruling based upon the medical opinions of those actually qualified to reach them. Social security denied the appeal upon review (our lawyer told this that they always do before we even filed it). We filed an appeal to the federal level. Wendy quit smoking. She and I moved back to Florida but kept an address in Illinois to avoid the several month delay that a change of jurisdiction would introduce in the process. She began seeing a specialist, this time the specialist actual wrote the exams the specialists take on Fibromyalgia. This doctor evaluated her independently and also diagnosed her with Fibromyalgia. The federal court has a staff that screens cases, the ruling of the Judge exhibited extreme biased and she played doctor so the federal court summarily sent the case back for retrial without seeing Wendy.
We went back to Illinois again. The judge upheld the previous judges ruling and failed to consider her new doctor, despite him being 'imminently qualified' because he hadn't been seeing her long enough (3 months). Naturally we appealed again, social security denied again, we appealed back to the federal courts, and once again the ruling was deemed bad enough that they simply sent it back for retrial. This time social security sent it back to the same judge who ran the first trial.
That saga is coming soon and we expect another cycle of rinse and repeat. We have appealed to a senator in IL and if the federal court doesn't overturn the ruling this time we will move the jurisdiction to Florida in an attempt to get a fair hearing. It is obvious that social security is biased toward rejecting claims and their judges are also biased toward rejecting them.
Wendy filed her claim six years ago. She worked for 40 years without any interruption of more than 30 days. Her diagnosis has been confirmed by 2 general practicioners and two specialists (including SS doctors). Two social security career experts have said that if the limitations specified by her doctors are correct Wendy would be unable to work any job.
Wendy had a good job, insurance, she had a retirement plan in addition to social security (already burned through paying expenses out of pocket. So you tell me, how was she supp
'Commuting a sentence is, by definition, selective'
Yes but pardoning is, by definition, total. Legally accepting a pardon also means admitting guilt.