Terry Pratchett isn't asking for suicide to be legal, or in other words to be allowed to kill himself. That isn't what he wants. He wants it to be legal for someone to help him kill himself. Said another way he wants it to be legal for someone to kill him at his supposed request.
Ok so assisted suicide becomes legal. I go to court as a family member and get the courts to say your not legally competent to handle your own affairs. The judge eventually agrees, and I become your legal guardian, power of attorney legally and medically and all that stuff. I then announce that you told me if this ever happened that you wanted to die because clearly you would have lost your mind. There is no way to prove what you said. You might even say you don't want to die now but your not competent any more. So do I get to kill you being legally an assisted suicide? Don't think this will happen? We see similar type of things with families putting people in mental wards, shuffling them off to nursing homes where they don't have to deal with them, etc. You legalise assisted suicide and it will be abused. People will abuse anything they possibly can for a whole host of different reason.
More to the point. I want you dead so I kill you by knocking you out then injecting air into your bloodstream. When the police show up I wave a piece of paper that I forged your signature on or had you sign without you knowing what exactly you signed. I show this to the police and say hey he wanted to die so I just helped him. I say, he told me he had some really messed up disease and didn't want to die in pain and without dignity from it, so I helped him. Police say he was healthy I respond well I don't know what to tell you other than what he told me and this paper he signed saying he wanted to die and needed my help to do it. I could even come up with some other sob story about why you said you wanted to die.
The fact that people have already mentioned well if we allow you it you need to sign something...no that won't work....you need to see a judge....no that might not work either. They are clearly admitting once it is allowed it will be abused as much as people can get away with.
Do we allow assisted suicides for anyone who wants them or just specific cases? Who gets to decide the specific cases and why can't other people in different situations decide when they want to die? If we let anyone decide when they want to die without trying to stop them, then all the people with serious clinical depression will be free to kill themselves simply because they don't want to live any more. So where do you draw the line and who gets to decide where the line is drawn and why do they get to decide where the line is draw rather than each person themselves?
Guess what....welcome to euthanasia decided by the state for who gets to live and who gets to die. If you put any kind of limit on it at all then someone must decide what the limit is and the state will always say they have the last and final word on it. The state will then get to create guild-lines that cover when your not able to decide for yourself, all in the name of personal dignity. Soon the state will say you can die when your going to leave the family with a financial burden. The state will then say that such an important matter can't be handled by the family because they are too close to it and too emotional so the state must decide. The state will change the reasoning over and over until the state decides whatever it wants. It will all be done and promoted as doing what is best for the person and society. So the state ends up saying who lives and who dies. I sure don't want the state to decide who gets to live and die, that is worse than the position we are in now.
If someone wants to kill themselves then just do it. They don't need someone else to help them if it is a planned and rational decision. A couple of boxes of sleeping pills will do the trick and it won't hurt at all. Just go peacefully to sleep and die. You don't need someone to help you for that. If your ser
So the US is harshest against human rights because suicide is illegal in most states. Yes it is a crime to kill yourself in most of the United States. Wow I didn't realise that the US was as bad as China, Cuba, Iran or any of those other countries on the human rights watch lists.
Does Germany have some secret plan to replace all their their nuclear power plants with a huge pile of Bloom fuel cells stashed all around the country taking a load off the main power grid? I would love to see mass production of these fuel cells so that everyone or at least every apartment complex would have one and reduce the load on the power grid and reduce the miles of power lines needed to provide power. The amount of power lost due to power lines over a large distance isn't insignificant. Not to mention in the US so many power lines are not buried, so weather and other disasters cause problems with the power lines.
They are not pie-in-the-sky. E-bay, Google and a few other silicon valley companies are already using them to help reduce their load on the power grid. Not to mention I would assume reduce electrical costs as well.
I am waiting for one of the micro nuclear power plants to become a reality. I would also love too see the Bloom fuel cells become far more affordable and prevalent on the power grid. It would reduce our need to huge power plants and miles of power lines to feed the grid.
No they are not pie in the sky. Google is using a few of them, EBay is using a few of them as well as few other companies in Silicon Valley as way to reduce their load on the grid and get power cheaper. I am sure they would need to make a hundred million of them before they could be affordable for homes, but it would be very cool when/if they get to that point.
Don't tell me your one of those global warming..oh wait...climate change, or whatever they are calling themselves this week, people. I am hardly worried about a 0.6C increase in temperature over 50-60 years. I do not trust the scientist who screamed in the 70's that we were headed for an Ice Age and the same ones now screaming we are headed for global warming when they have been found to be screwing with all the climate databases across the world. Even NASA admits scientist screwed with their climate databases and they are worthless. NOAA is the only one who might have a good database of climate data but they have also announced that they have found problems with their own database as well, no idea how sever it is. I am also not worried when it was hotter in the middle ages than it is today.
Comeback when there is real science that hasn't screwed with the databases. Let me know when they don't find serious problems with their statistical models like the hockey graph model that produces a hockey graph no matter what random data you put in it. Let me know when the scientist aren't under legal investigate and then I might believe some of it. Let me know when they stop admitting they lied or exaggerated their claims and data which the scientists admit they did with their UN reports for the IPCC.
Until then this whole idea of global warming and climate changes falls into the category of voodoo science that is driven more by political manoeuvring, and pure greed for the money from a carbon exchange market that isn't needed or required.
You sure about that? You sure that the damage done to the environment by coal mining and coal power plants is not worse than nuclear power? You might want to check out exactly what living around a coal mine is like and what it does to the environment. You might want to see the damage that coal plants do to the environment around them and that is when they are operating without any issues. The damage that coal does is just as long term damaging as what nuclear power accidents do, only coal does it when everything is working correctly. When it isn't working correctly it gets even worse. You need to look at coal production in China and see how much damage they do which is far worse than any nuclear power plant disaster. Here is just one example and this happens far more often than most people know.
Coal is nasty yet one of the most common forms of power in use. Before you go after Nuclear Power plants perhaps you might want to look at the issues with coal.
Show me a single example of where this has worked out great and lead to an enconomic powerhouse or at least a great economy. I can point to dozens in history where it has always turned out very badly for everyone involved.
Yes because central planning and overriding market forces has worked so well for so many countries in the past right? I mean you do have a country with central planning to hold up as a shinning beacon example for everyone to follow, right? Yes, Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Honecker all worked out such great economies. I guess Russia is a shinning example of central planning...well maybe not. Greece, Portugal and Spain who have central planning they have such strong and robust economies....we not exactly given how far in debt they are. So what exact was your point how central planning is great and the savour of countries? Hopefully you see how silly and uninformed your statement is now. You only need to look to history to see what has been tried and doesn't work. Central planning is one of those things that was tried and history shows us that it doesn't work. If you don't learn from the mistakes of history you are doomed to repeat them.
No oil? Say good-bye to plastic, textiles and scores of other things that actually have oil in them. Never mind the oil needed for the production process of products. Get rid of those things and the medical services available are suddenly much smaller, and the life span of the population goes down and the standard of living will drop as well. Good luck with that you will need it. You will never be able to eliminate our need for oil and our need to pull it out of the ground and use it.
Your one of those people who is anti-capitalist and is all for wealth reassignment. That is exactly what you are proposing and you might as well switch to pure socialism and call it a day. It's definitely faster that way to get to the point. We also know how well that has turned out in the past. Good luck with that, you'll need it.
Remember some of the studies from a few years back. The US can not produce enough corn to make bio-gas a realistic option for the US. If we went that route there would not be enough corn for the gas, even if we added more corn farms, and what would that due to the food supply given we feed corn to so many animals and use corn syrup in so many foods.
Try living around a coal mine and a coal power plant then get back to me on how that is so much better than Chernobyl and that is when coal mines and coal power plants are operating at normal levels, not disaster levels.
The number of people killed by nuclear power is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of people killed by coal production and burning. The amount of damage that nuclear power does to the environment is again a drop in the bucket compared to the damage that coal production and burning does to the environment. If nuclear power is bad then coal power must be the greatest evil on earth that must be stamped out immediately. Your reacting from an emotional position and not a well thought out logical and reasoned position. Do the research find out for yourself.
So tell me exactly how much farmland was in use, how much was going to fall out of use because of farmers going bankrupt? Exactly how much production did they have and how much production do the larger farm conglomerates that now exist that didn't exist back then? What is the total production rate of current farms and how does that compare with total production rate before? How much farm land is lost each year due to population expansion so it really doesn't matter to count that amount since it would have been lost anyway?
Your making blanket statements without any facts to back them up. Your also trying to reduce a very complex issue in to a simple one. Your taking an emotional stance of see that's bad, rather than a reasoned and well thought out argument. I will gladly take, lets be generous, 1 million deaths under an accident compared to coal industry reports of 500 a year dead just in the US from the mining of coal, and thousands per year in China let alone the rest of the world. Not to mention the average of 10,000 a year in the US dying from the burning of coal and that is when the plant is working correctly with no problems. There is also the amount of damage coal mining does to the environment around it. The burning of coal really screws up the environment around the coal plants as well. Nuclear power averages 400 a year world wide based on the accidents so far. I'll take those numbers any day.
That doesn't even bring in to account the coal mine fires either. There is an area in the US that is basically unliveable because the coal mine below ground still burns to this day that started back in 1962. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania
You can then throw in the huge number of coal mine fires that China has. So by and far Nuclear power is far safer and cleaner than coal could ever be and it is the most common source of power. If you added up the total amount of environmental damage done by ever nuclear power accident and then compared it to every coal mine and coal power plant disasters and accidents and all the environmental problems coal mines and coal power plants produce, you would find nuclear power is a far better deal than coal and far better for the environment.
Do the research yourself and see. It will surprise you the serious issues with coal.
Yes because coal is so clean and doesn't cause serious health problems for the people who mine the coal. It doesn't cause serious problems for people who live around the coal plant. Coal doesn't drop tons of crap in the air. Coal doesn't drop tons of crap around the plant making it nearly impossible to live around one and definitely impossible to farm or have a water plant or a whole list of other things. Yea let's switch to wind power that there is no way in hell it could provide enough power for the whole country let alone an entire state. Yea lets switch to tidal power that hasn't proven it can generate a decent level of power compared to the level of energy and cost to build a tidal plant. We could always go to solar power that won't work in a large number of states because of the low number of clear sunny days to provide a level of power to power any significant portion of a state or even a city. Don't even talk to me about hydro power in the US. The west and south west have droughts. Everyone else is getting flooded from too much water on a semi-regular basis and a hydro dam that blocks up the water would make things even worse, not to mention seriously screw the ecosystem by changing the amount of water that flows and frequency of it. Hydro power is not realistic for most of the US and causes more problems than it solves. You screw with the water system in the mid-west and you are seriously screwing with food production for most of the US. You start damming up rivers and now you are messing with shipping too.
The green energy people are morons who are freaking dreaming. Green energy can not replace any significant level of power production for the US without putting a large portion of the country in the dark and raising the cost of energy to 20 times it's current level. We might as well go back 50 years technologically and medically. Nuclear power is a rational and reasonable power source that has far few problems than any other form of energy we have today and at a much lower cost. But hey if you want the cost of everything to rise due to increased energy costs and a serious economic downward trend then go ahead and push for green power but when the people riot in the streets because of seriously increased costs don't say I didn't warn you. Oh and in case you didn't catch it during the campaign Obama said energy was too cheap and we needed energy to cost more at least 5 times more than it does so we can add green energy to the mix. Yea way to hose the economy over by wanting energy costs to skyrocket. Obama is an idiot and should scare the hell out of you if you really listen to what he says and what he wants everything to become.
It is very much a socialist type response. The idea that a business is too big to fail and therefore must be bailed out is by the very fact of messing with the free market system and saying that the government knows better than the free market and even better than the public or the company owners, so it must take action. There is absolutely no such thing as a company that is too big fail. The idea that the government needs to prop-up or take control of a company is at the heart of it, socialism. It is saying everyone needs this and it doesn't matter that they screwed up and put themselves out of business we are going to step into the market place and not allow it to self correct, but instead we are going to make everyone pay for this for the good of everyone. The reality is that it is better for the company to fail and allow either another market force to take its place or another company to step in and take their place that is better run and more reactive to the market and their customers. The second the government steps in and says they know better than the marketplace and better than the buying public, who spends their hard earned cash, is the moment the government begins the march toward socialism.
Free Markets absolutely work and they work extremely well. They absolutely punish the crap companies and reward the inventive and companies who are proactive to market changes. The problem is the US does not have free markets. The government is involved in every market to create artificial barriers to entry. Every time the government regulates a market, they screw with the free market and create artificial barriers to enter the market. You want good competition to drive prices down to allow consumers to be able to buy more with their dollars then you must remove artificial barriers. That does not mean allow companies to make and sell unsafe products that the public has no idea they are unsafe. The free market is about allowing consumers to make informed choices. The most common example of this is the Ford Pinto. The question/problem isn't that Ford didn't spend another $15 for a different gas tank to stop rear-end accidents causing fires. The problem is that Ford did not fully disclose all the risks of their product allowing consumers to be fully informed and to choose what level of risk they are comfortable with and at what price. If I make a toaster that only works 40% of the time and disclose that and sell it for $5, then I should absolutely have the right to sell such a product and if you think the risks (not working all the time) at that given price is worth it to you, then you should be able to buy it as well. If the marketplace thinks that sucks and no one buys then I go out of business, just like I should. That is the free market, the consumer decides what fails and what lives in the marketplace, not the government or anyone else. If your business model doesn't allow you to react to the changes in the market and consumer's buying habits that change, well then that company absolutely should go out of business no matter it's size or how many people it employs. The government absolutely can not be in the business of propping up failed business models, nor can the government be using the courts and legal system to freeze the hands of time and allow companies to operate without taking into account the market and public's changes. Perfect example of this is copyright holders. Consumer's want to buy entertainment online so they can buy whatever they want, whenever they want. If entertainment companies can't adjust to this change in the market then they absolutely should go out of business and the government should not step in and try to turn back the time of the marketplace to something in the past, just because a company made more money 5-10 years ago compared to now. Companies either give consumers what they want at a fair price or they go out of business and that is exactly the way it should be. Banks make stupid loans, they absolutely should go out of business for being stupid with their money. Banks sell mor
So what. The corporation pushing them to do things is no reason for complete incompetence and inability to read a screen telling them exactly how many they need to order and who they are going to. I know they can do this because I have asked them how many pre-orders they had for specific games. So the fault is in them being too stupid to actually run a video game store, let alone deal with pre-orders which they hose up on a regular basis. I have friends who have had the same exact problems so many times they just quit going there or bothering to pre-order from them.
I had the exact same thing happen when I pre-ordered a deluxe version of a game. I came in to get it and they didn't have it, in fact they said they only ordered 2 copies and they were already gone. I pulled out my reciept and asked for an explanation of why mine wasn't there and they couldn't. They just sat there staring at each other with no clue what to do now since they couldn't get any more of the deluxe versions of the game. I cancelled my order, got my money back and went and bought it at best buy across the street. I don't bother to buy anything from them any more. If they can't even read their computer screens for how many they need to order and who is suppose to get them, then there is absolutely no hope for the store and they should just close their doors and call it over.
I am not a researcher or a scientist and I can tell you about security problems that I see just going about my daily business in my city. If terrorists can't see the same exact issues then they are completely stupid. I have long talked about how vulnerable our food supply is, and our power grids. I have seen myself how easy it would be to take out huge sections of the power grid. How easy it would be to mess with the water supply and tons of other things that would be so easy to mess with. The Internet has several points that if you took them out would cut off large sections of the Internet. These are not secret, a few traceroutes and seeing who owns that equipment tells you a lot not to mention how things are named. Everyone who has any level Internet technological knowledge knows that there are a number of centralised points for the Internet here in the US.
The most common example of our country being completely stupid about security is at airports. They scan and molest everyone saying that it adds to security and makes things safe. How about the fact that I can drive my car right out on to the runway without anyone stopping me? How about I can easily walk right out to the airport tarmac and planes at the gates. If they were serious about real security, rather than the illusion of security, they would tighten security around the airport properties. They would also make sure that every guard could identify every worker on sight to prevent someone from trying to walk on or sneak on to the property.
Not a single bit of this is secret. All of this could be figured out by someone with half a brain and determination o do damage or just plain terrorise the public. The computer industry has taught us if you don't expose security problems then companies will not deal with them, and that the bad guys already know about the security problems and already uses them to do whatever they want to do. Not talking about security issues has never ever made them go away and it has never ever made things more secure.
To say not to talk about these issues is the height of arrogance and is offensive. They are saying people are stupid and can't see these issues without being told. The authors do not have some special brain that lets them figure things out and see issues that no one else can. Figuring out what to blow up or attack isn't rocket science and so easy to figure out. It isn't hard to say how many people use this or would be effected by it not being available, and how hard would it be to make it unusable. That will tell you instantly which targets are the best ones because of highest impact and lowest effort to effect the target.
You might want to do some more research on "Code Pink" and see their ties to Hammas and how they have railed against Israel and supported the terrorists who attack Israel. They gave
How about them deciding they know better than book stores and creating more work for book store workers who just want to do their job and get paid. Instead they have to clean up "Code Pink's" mess. http://www.codepink4peace.org/article.php?id=5607
How about turning Egypt into a radical Muslim state that will go after atheists and Christians and basically anyone who isn't Muslim under sharic law, which is exactly what the Muslim Brotherhood wants to do. Yep supporting the opposition to US allies who are trying to maintain stability in the area is such a great idea, not really. Because you know getting right in the middle of a civil war is always a good thing to do. The Muslim Brotherhood is banned in Egypt and Code Pink has worked with them many times in the past and worked with them in Egypt. http://www.codepink4peace.org/article.php?id=5693
This is just the type of the iceberg with these people. They are radical and aren't afraid of being violent either to get what they want. Just do your own research and look at what they do and what they themselves say.
So much of what you post here is wrong that I don't even know where to start. This line:
"That's why the "small government" right helped give us the Department of Homeland Security and the "civil libertarian" left pushed along the Patriot Act."
Makes absolutely no sense at all. Let me get this straight a group who wants smaller government supports making the government bigger by creating a whole new billion dollar agency with hundred of thousands of workers and bureaucrats. That doesn't even make any sense and it isn't true. The small government people stood up and said hey just retrain what we already have and let the airports deal with security like they already do. We don't need a bigger government and the government has never ever done anything better than the private sector can do it. That has been a point for the "smaller government" people for years and years. Remember Ronald Regan said "The government is not the solution, it is part of the problem." It seems you have some basic misunderstanding about what "small government" actually means and what people mean when they say it. It isn't a matter of if, but rather when if we don't change. You can't keep making government bigger and bigger telling more people how to run their lives and spending more than you make forever. At some point it becomes fascism and the country goes broke because it can't pay for it all and it can't borrow any more either. At that point you either print more money, massive inflation, or the country crumbles and something else takes its place, which is what happens anyway with massive inflation.
"Civil Libertarians" screamed bloody murder when the Patriot Act was pulled out and pushed through. Anyone ever wonder how something so huge just appeared a few months after 9-11? It's because they crafted it 6+ months before but knew there was no way in hell it would pass given how far reaching and how many rights were trampled on. They couldn't get anyone major to sponsor it, when 9-11 happened that gave them the perfect excuse to push it through. Most who voted for it never read the whole thing and never knew how bad it was. Just like Obamacare was shoved through, and Obama's outrageous budget in 2009 rammed through at the last minute before Christmas. Civil Libertarians are screaming about the COICA right now. I know don't confuse you with the facts. Civil libertarians say and have said if you give up your rights for security then you don't deserve either. There is absolutely no reason that anyone should be forced to give up their rights except when convicted of a crime. Civil libertarians have even complained about police DUI and citizen check roadblocks because they have no proof and are just searching hoping to find someone breaking the law with absolutely no idea if the person is actually breaking the law and not even a hint to think they are breaking the law.
I don't know where you got your information but your sentiment is exactly what the Tea Party is all about. I know suprise someone was trying to convince you the "Tea Party" are wacko's with no understanding of reality. People say that because the Tea Party is a threat to the status-quo and those in power are scared to death that they may have woken the sleeping public and may have to pay for it. So they are doing whatever it takes to put them back to sleep and make them docile.
Do your own research talk with these people yourself and learn what it is that several of these groups believe and not just one. You will learn what is being reported is far from the reality of who they are. You can try and define what each of these groups stand for in hopes to make them look crazy or something but all it does is make you look bad. You can't change what something means just because you don't understand it or don't like it and have no clear idea how to fight against it. November elections showed that change is coming. People can get on board or at least stay out of the way or they can get run over, its their choice. Thing must change in this country from how they are done now. If we don't change then this country is headed for serious disaster like the great depression only worse.
As I said earlier. The problem isn't exotic hardware or whiz-bang factors. The largest problem for all consoles is a great tool chain and development environment. You screw that up and it makes developers lives hell to have to build the tool chain all by themselves.
The problem is/was that Sony dropped the ball big time. When the PS1 was in development Sony spent a huge amount of time talking with developers and making a great tool set for developers to use to make their lives easy. Sony then kind of the same thing on the PS2 but not as big of a hard push to make things easier for developers. When the PS3 came out Sony fell on their ass. Their development tools were not easy, they were not put together well and things were not documented all that great. All of that meant that developers had to work a lot harder to program for the PS3 which is something most developers don't like. They don't want to worry about how the underlying hardware works. Developers just want a great and well documented API that they can just call to do what they need. The PS3 didn't have that before launch so developers were having to create a lot of their own tool sets which made their lives a lot harder. Microsoft used a well established API (basically DirectX) which is very well documented and well known by developers. It didn't matter that the hardware underneath was different from what DirectX ran on before because Microsoft worked to hide most of that to make developers lives simpler. A great tool chain will always beat out better hardware because a great tool chain means you can use the system to the max easier.
This is one of the problems that Linux has faced for game development. There is not a great tool chain with extremely well documented APIs for developers. Until someone develops a great tool chain and documents it to the n-th degree then Linux will always have problems because it becomes basically like the PS3, not the easiest thing to develop for. Linux is more powerful because you have access to everything, source code wise, from the hardware/bare iron all the way up. That means you can know exactly how everything works and change anything that you might need or want to change. That should make Linux the best platform to develop for, but as we all know it isn't about the best but about the easiest to use or at least well documented. SDL is/was an attempt to try and resolve this issue, but the problem is that SDL is not documented to the n-th degree and the tool chain for game developers is just not there or at least not unified like game developers are use to using. Don't get me wrong, I love Linux and use it as my main system. I just know from having talked with indie developers who have tried to port to Linux that things are not well documented and it isn't easy to find what documentation that is available. I think Loki Games was pushing hard in that area and they came up with some great stuff, Loki Installer, SDL, etc. The problem is we need someone out there to finish that type of work and drive it home and bring it to the level of other gaming development environments. Only when it is as easy to develop for Linux as anything else will we see a lot of Linux ports/versions. If developers move to development environments that are designed to be one system for all platforms then it is much easier to slide Linux there along side everyone else. Again Linux can slide in there only when it is well documented from the developers point of view, and no reading the source code does not count. My understanding though is that developers don't do one code base for all systems, but instead make for one system then fork the code for another system and on and on. So development houses end up with 2, 3 even 4 different versions of the same code base. That drives development costs up and results in development houses having to limit the number of platforms they can release for. Since Linux isn't a snap and/or well documented from their view point, it isn't something they even think about. If it only took say...10 hours to port over to Linux then every development house would do it, since no matter how few users there are it doesn't take many sales to pay for that 10 hours and get profit after that point.
It has never been about selling just the hardware. Until the Wii came out consoles were lost leaders and video game manufacturers made their profits on the license fees for game developers to create and sell games for their system. As this article points out that was especially true for the PS3. It was usually only later in the life of a console that they would finally be able to manufacture the console for less than what they sold for allowing them to make a profit.
I suspect if this case were appealed that the judge would be over-turned because of the unreasonable scope of the ruling. I have never ever seen a court enforce a non-complete globally. That is just outrageous and it is punitive to the employee and might even be a violation of his Constitutional rights to pursue happiness through employment in his field. I seriously doubt he is irreplaceable. He might be hard to find a replacement but there is someone out there perfectly capable of doing the same exact job. Microsoft isn't going to eliminate the position just because this guy is leaving. They are clearly admitting that he is replaceable. How far down the organizational chart is this guy? He doesn't even manage a group of people does he? If he is such a threat to Microsoft that he might seriously damage their business by going to work for their competitor then clearly they see his skill set as extremely valuable and should pay him for the time they are making him sit out of the workforce in his field. The fact that he could sling burgers doesn't matter. The issue is the restriction of trade by Microsoft on the employee.
Positional salary is not enough to warrant barring him from his field of work. If a company is so threatened by a VP leaving that they give them a parachute/exit package to make sure they go to another field, then they can do the exact same thing for this guy.
I would love to see this case fought and over turned. The more cases a judge has over turned the worse the judge looks and the harder it becomes for the judge to stay on the bench. Ruling in such a harsh fashion in favor of the corporation is such crap. In my opinion she basically gave the employee a legal bitch slap. The US legal system and Constitution is all about protecting the minority and the little guy and this judge could use a good legal smack of an over-turned case to remind her of that. Microsoft may make the argument that every software company is their competitor, so none of their employees should be allowed to work for any software for 1-2 years.
That right there is complete crap, and is more of illegal monopolistic attitudes that Microsoft got smacked down for by the DOJ. Microsoft needed to have their corporate back broken in half by the DOJ as punishment, rather than the light tap on the wrist that they got. Microsoft did significant damage as well as long term damage to the computer industry and they should have had to pay dearly for it. Microsoft didn't become a monopoly by playing fair and having the best products. If you believe that you need to read some of the history of the computer industry. Microsoft isn't as bad as it was in the past, but they still show those attitudes and ideals most of the time. I would have broken the company up in to 3 groups, OS group, Application Group, and Hardware Group, with the highest rate/price they can charge other companies, being what they charge each other for products and services. If you don't put a limit like that in place they will just sell to each other ar dirt cheap rates and effectively be one company again.
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Terry Pratchett isn't asking for suicide to be legal, or in other words to be allowed to kill himself. That isn't what he wants. He wants it to be legal for someone to help him kill himself. Said another way he wants it to be legal for someone to kill him at his supposed request.
Ok so assisted suicide becomes legal. I go to court as a family member and get the courts to say your not legally competent to handle your own affairs. The judge eventually agrees, and I become your legal guardian, power of attorney legally and medically and all that stuff. I then announce that you told me if this ever happened that you wanted to die because clearly you would have lost your mind. There is no way to prove what you said. You might even say you don't want to die now but your not competent any more. So do I get to kill you being legally an assisted suicide? Don't think this will happen? We see similar type of things with families putting people in mental wards, shuffling them off to nursing homes where they don't have to deal with them, etc. You legalise assisted suicide and it will be abused. People will abuse anything they possibly can for a whole host of different reason.
More to the point. I want you dead so I kill you by knocking you out then injecting air into your bloodstream. When the police show up I wave a piece of paper that I forged your signature on or had you sign without you knowing what exactly you signed. I show this to the police and say hey he wanted to die so I just helped him. I say, he told me he had some really messed up disease and didn't want to die in pain and without dignity from it, so I helped him. Police say he was healthy I respond well I don't know what to tell you other than what he told me and this paper he signed saying he wanted to die and needed my help to do it. I could even come up with some other sob story about why you said you wanted to die.
The fact that people have already mentioned well if we allow you it you need to sign something...no that won't work....you need to see a judge....no that might not work either. They are clearly admitting once it is allowed it will be abused as much as people can get away with.
Do we allow assisted suicides for anyone who wants them or just specific cases? Who gets to decide the specific cases and why can't other people in different situations decide when they want to die? If we let anyone decide when they want to die without trying to stop them, then all the people with serious clinical depression will be free to kill themselves simply because they don't want to live any more. So where do you draw the line and who gets to decide where the line is drawn and why do they get to decide where the line is draw rather than each person themselves?
Guess what....welcome to euthanasia decided by the state for who gets to live and who gets to die. If you put any kind of limit on it at all then someone must decide what the limit is and the state will always say they have the last and final word on it. The state will then get to create guild-lines that cover when your not able to decide for yourself, all in the name of personal dignity. Soon the state will say you can die when your going to leave the family with a financial burden. The state will then say that such an important matter can't be handled by the family because they are too close to it and too emotional so the state must decide. The state will change the reasoning over and over until the state decides whatever it wants. It will all be done and promoted as doing what is best for the person and society. So the state ends up saying who lives and who dies. I sure don't want the state to decide who gets to live and die, that is worse than the position we are in now.
If someone wants to kill themselves then just do it. They don't need someone else to help them if it is a planned and rational decision. A couple of boxes of sleeping pills will do the trick and it won't hurt at all. Just go peacefully to sleep and die. You don't need someone to help you for that. If your ser
So the US is harshest against human rights because suicide is illegal in most states. Yes it is a crime to kill yourself in most of the United States. Wow I didn't realise that the US was as bad as China, Cuba, Iran or any of those other countries on the human rights watch lists.
Does Germany have some secret plan to replace all their their nuclear power plants with a huge pile of Bloom fuel cells stashed all around the country taking a load off the main power grid? I would love to see mass production of these fuel cells so that everyone or at least every apartment complex would have one and reduce the load on the power grid and reduce the miles of power lines needed to provide power. The amount of power lost due to power lines over a large distance isn't insignificant. Not to mention in the US so many power lines are not buried, so weather and other disasters cause problems with the power lines.
http://www.fastcompany.com/1557348/bloombox-bloom-box-fuel-cell-60-minutes-kleiner-perkins-kr-sridhar-green-energy-google
They are not pie-in-the-sky. E-bay, Google and a few other silicon valley companies are already using them to help reduce their load on the power grid. Not to mention I would assume reduce electrical costs as well.
I am waiting for one of the micro nuclear power plants to become a reality. I would also love too see the Bloom fuel cells become far more affordable and prevalent on the power grid. It would reduce our need to huge power plants and miles of power lines to feed the grid.
http://www.fastcompany.com/1557348/bloombox-bloom-box-fuel-cell-60-minutes-kleiner-perkins-kr-sridhar-green-energy-google
No they are not pie in the sky. Google is using a few of them, EBay is using a few of them as well as few other companies in Silicon Valley as way to reduce their load on the grid and get power cheaper. I am sure they would need to make a hundred million of them before they could be affordable for homes, but it would be very cool when/if they get to that point.
Don't tell me your one of those global warming..oh wait...climate change, or whatever they are calling themselves this week, people. I am hardly worried about a 0.6C increase in temperature over 50-60 years. I do not trust the scientist who screamed in the 70's that we were headed for an Ice Age and the same ones now screaming we are headed for global warming when they have been found to be screwing with all the climate databases across the world. Even NASA admits scientist screwed with their climate databases and they are worthless. NOAA is the only one who might have a good database of climate data but they have also announced that they have found problems with their own database as well, no idea how sever it is. I am also not worried when it was hotter in the middle ages than it is today.
Comeback when there is real science that hasn't screwed with the databases. Let me know when they don't find serious problems with their statistical models like the hockey graph model that produces a hockey graph no matter what random data you put in it. Let me know when the scientist aren't under legal investigate and then I might believe some of it. Let me know when they stop admitting they lied or exaggerated their claims and data which the scientists admit they did with their UN reports for the IPCC.
Until then this whole idea of global warming and climate changes falls into the category of voodoo science that is driven more by political manoeuvring, and pure greed for the money from a carbon exchange market that isn't needed or required.
You sure about that? You sure that the damage done to the environment by coal mining and coal power plants is not worse than nuclear power? You might want to check out exactly what living around a coal mine is like and what it does to the environment. You might want to see the damage that coal plants do to the environment around them and that is when they are operating without any issues. The damage that coal does is just as long term damaging as what nuclear power accidents do, only coal does it when everything is working correctly. When it isn't working correctly it gets even worse. You need to look at coal production in China and see how much damage they do which is far worse than any nuclear power plant disaster. Here is just one example and this happens far more often than most people know.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_power_in_the_People's_Republic_of_China
Coal is nasty yet one of the most common forms of power in use. Before you go after Nuclear Power plants perhaps you might want to look at the issues with coal.
Show me a single example of where this has worked out great and lead to an enconomic powerhouse or at least a great economy. I can point to dozens in history where it has always turned out very badly for everyone involved.
Yes because central planning and overriding market forces has worked so well for so many countries in the past right? I mean you do have a country with central planning to hold up as a shinning beacon example for everyone to follow, right? Yes, Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Honecker all worked out such great economies. I guess Russia is a shinning example of central planning...well maybe not. Greece, Portugal and Spain who have central planning they have such strong and robust economies....we not exactly given how far in debt they are. So what exact was your point how central planning is great and the savour of countries? Hopefully you see how silly and uninformed your statement is now. You only need to look to history to see what has been tried and doesn't work. Central planning is one of those things that was tried and history shows us that it doesn't work. If you don't learn from the mistakes of history you are doomed to repeat them.
No oil? Say good-bye to plastic, textiles and scores of other things that actually have oil in them. Never mind the oil needed for the production process of products. Get rid of those things and the medical services available are suddenly much smaller, and the life span of the population goes down and the standard of living will drop as well. Good luck with that you will need it. You will never be able to eliminate our need for oil and our need to pull it out of the ground and use it.
Your one of those people who is anti-capitalist and is all for wealth reassignment. That is exactly what you are proposing and you might as well switch to pure socialism and call it a day. It's definitely faster that way to get to the point. We also know how well that has turned out in the past. Good luck with that, you'll need it.
Remember some of the studies from a few years back. The US can not produce enough corn to make bio-gas a realistic option for the US. If we went that route there would not be enough corn for the gas, even if we added more corn farms, and what would that due to the food supply given we feed corn to so many animals and use corn syrup in so many foods.
Try living around a coal mine and a coal power plant then get back to me on how that is so much better than Chernobyl and that is when coal mines and coal power plants are operating at normal levels, not disaster levels.
The number of people killed by nuclear power is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of people killed by coal production and burning. The amount of damage that nuclear power does to the environment is again a drop in the bucket compared to the damage that coal production and burning does to the environment. If nuclear power is bad then coal power must be the greatest evil on earth that must be stamped out immediately. Your reacting from an emotional position and not a well thought out logical and reasoned position. Do the research find out for yourself.
So tell me exactly how much farmland was in use, how much was going to fall out of use because of farmers going bankrupt? Exactly how much production did they have and how much production do the larger farm conglomerates that now exist that didn't exist back then? What is the total production rate of current farms and how does that compare with total production rate before? How much farm land is lost each year due to population expansion so it really doesn't matter to count that amount since it would have been lost anyway?
Your making blanket statements without any facts to back them up. Your also trying to reduce a very complex issue in to a simple one. Your taking an emotional stance of see that's bad, rather than a reasoned and well thought out argument. I will gladly take, lets be generous, 1 million deaths under an accident compared to coal industry reports of 500 a year dead just in the US from the mining of coal, and thousands per year in China let alone the rest of the world. Not to mention the average of 10,000 a year in the US dying from the burning of coal and that is when the plant is working correctly with no problems. There is also the amount of damage coal mining does to the environment around it. The burning of coal really screws up the environment around the coal plants as well. Nuclear power averages 400 a year world wide based on the accidents so far. I'll take those numbers any day.
That doesn't even bring in to account the coal mine fires either. There is an area in the US that is basically unliveable because the coal mine below ground still burns to this day that started back in 1962.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania
You can then throw in the huge number of coal mine fires that China has. So by and far Nuclear power is far safer and cleaner than coal could ever be and it is the most common source of power. If you added up the total amount of environmental damage done by ever nuclear power accident and then compared it to every coal mine and coal power plant disasters and accidents and all the environmental problems coal mines and coal power plants produce, you would find nuclear power is a far better deal than coal and far better for the environment.
Do the research yourself and see. It will surprise you the serious issues with coal.
Yes because coal is so clean and doesn't cause serious health problems for the people who mine the coal. It doesn't cause serious problems for people who live around the coal plant. Coal doesn't drop tons of crap in the air. Coal doesn't drop tons of crap around the plant making it nearly impossible to live around one and definitely impossible to farm or have a water plant or a whole list of other things. Yea let's switch to wind power that there is no way in hell it could provide enough power for the whole country let alone an entire state. Yea lets switch to tidal power that hasn't proven it can generate a decent level of power compared to the level of energy and cost to build a tidal plant. We could always go to solar power that won't work in a large number of states because of the low number of clear sunny days to provide a level of power to power any significant portion of a state or even a city. Don't even talk to me about hydro power in the US. The west and south west have droughts. Everyone else is getting flooded from too much water on a semi-regular basis and a hydro dam that blocks up the water would make things even worse, not to mention seriously screw the ecosystem by changing the amount of water that flows and frequency of it. Hydro power is not realistic for most of the US and causes more problems than it solves. You screw with the water system in the mid-west and you are seriously screwing with food production for most of the US. You start damming up rivers and now you are messing with shipping too.
The green energy people are morons who are freaking dreaming. Green energy can not replace any significant level of power production for the US without putting a large portion of the country in the dark and raising the cost of energy to 20 times it's current level. We might as well go back 50 years technologically and medically. Nuclear power is a rational and reasonable power source that has far few problems than any other form of energy we have today and at a much lower cost. But hey if you want the cost of everything to rise due to increased energy costs and a serious economic downward trend then go ahead and push for green power but when the people riot in the streets because of seriously increased costs don't say I didn't warn you. Oh and in case you didn't catch it during the campaign Obama said energy was too cheap and we needed energy to cost more at least 5 times more than it does so we can add green energy to the mix. Yea way to hose the economy over by wanting energy costs to skyrocket. Obama is an idiot and should scare the hell out of you if you really listen to what he says and what he wants everything to become.
It is very much a socialist type response. The idea that a business is too big to fail and therefore must be bailed out is by the very fact of messing with the free market system and saying that the government knows better than the free market and even better than the public or the company owners, so it must take action. There is absolutely no such thing as a company that is too big fail. The idea that the government needs to prop-up or take control of a company is at the heart of it, socialism. It is saying everyone needs this and it doesn't matter that they screwed up and put themselves out of business we are going to step into the market place and not allow it to self correct, but instead we are going to make everyone pay for this for the good of everyone. The reality is that it is better for the company to fail and allow either another market force to take its place or another company to step in and take their place that is better run and more reactive to the market and their customers. The second the government steps in and says they know better than the marketplace and better than the buying public, who spends their hard earned cash, is the moment the government begins the march toward socialism.
Free Markets absolutely work and they work extremely well. They absolutely punish the crap companies and reward the inventive and companies who are proactive to market changes. The problem is the US does not have free markets. The government is involved in every market to create artificial barriers to entry. Every time the government regulates a market, they screw with the free market and create artificial barriers to enter the market. You want good competition to drive prices down to allow consumers to be able to buy more with their dollars then you must remove artificial barriers. That does not mean allow companies to make and sell unsafe products that the public has no idea they are unsafe. The free market is about allowing consumers to make informed choices. The most common example of this is the Ford Pinto. The question/problem isn't that Ford didn't spend another $15 for a different gas tank to stop rear-end accidents causing fires. The problem is that Ford did not fully disclose all the risks of their product allowing consumers to be fully informed and to choose what level of risk they are comfortable with and at what price. If I make a toaster that only works 40% of the time and disclose that and sell it for $5, then I should absolutely have the right to sell such a product and if you think the risks (not working all the time) at that given price is worth it to you, then you should be able to buy it as well. If the marketplace thinks that sucks and no one buys then I go out of business, just like I should. That is the free market, the consumer decides what fails and what lives in the marketplace, not the government or anyone else. If your business model doesn't allow you to react to the changes in the market and consumer's buying habits that change, well then that company absolutely should go out of business no matter it's size or how many people it employs. The government absolutely can not be in the business of propping up failed business models, nor can the government be using the courts and legal system to freeze the hands of time and allow companies to operate without taking into account the market and public's changes. Perfect example of this is copyright holders. Consumer's want to buy entertainment online so they can buy whatever they want, whenever they want. If entertainment companies can't adjust to this change in the market then they absolutely should go out of business and the government should not step in and try to turn back the time of the marketplace to something in the past, just because a company made more money 5-10 years ago compared to now. Companies either give consumers what they want at a fair price or they go out of business and that is exactly the way it should be. Banks make stupid loans, they absolutely should go out of business for being stupid with their money. Banks sell mor
So what. The corporation pushing them to do things is no reason for complete incompetence and inability to read a screen telling them exactly how many they need to order and who they are going to. I know they can do this because I have asked them how many pre-orders they had for specific games. So the fault is in them being too stupid to actually run a video game store, let alone deal with pre-orders which they hose up on a regular basis. I have friends who have had the same exact problems so many times they just quit going there or bothering to pre-order from them.
I had the exact same thing happen when I pre-ordered a deluxe version of a game. I came in to get it and they didn't have it, in fact they said they only ordered 2 copies and they were already gone. I pulled out my reciept and asked for an explanation of why mine wasn't there and they couldn't. They just sat there staring at each other with no clue what to do now since they couldn't get any more of the deluxe versions of the game. I cancelled my order, got my money back and went and bought it at best buy across the street. I don't bother to buy anything from them any more. If they can't even read their computer screens for how many they need to order and who is suppose to get them, then there is absolutely no hope for the store and they should just close their doors and call it over.
I am not a researcher or a scientist and I can tell you about security problems that I see just going about my daily business in my city. If terrorists can't see the same exact issues then they are completely stupid. I have long talked about how vulnerable our food supply is, and our power grids. I have seen myself how easy it would be to take out huge sections of the power grid. How easy it would be to mess with the water supply and tons of other things that would be so easy to mess with. The Internet has several points that if you took them out would cut off large sections of the Internet. These are not secret, a few traceroutes and seeing who owns that equipment tells you a lot not to mention how things are named. Everyone who has any level Internet technological knowledge knows that there are a number of centralised points for the Internet here in the US.
The most common example of our country being completely stupid about security is at airports. They scan and molest everyone saying that it adds to security and makes things safe. How about the fact that I can drive my car right out on to the runway without anyone stopping me? How about I can easily walk right out to the airport tarmac and planes at the gates. If they were serious about real security, rather than the illusion of security, they would tighten security around the airport properties. They would also make sure that every guard could identify every worker on sight to prevent someone from trying to walk on or sneak on to the property.
Not a single bit of this is secret. All of this could be figured out by someone with half a brain and determination o do damage or just plain terrorise the public. The computer industry has taught us if you don't expose security problems then companies will not deal with them, and that the bad guys already know about the security problems and already uses them to do whatever they want to do. Not talking about security issues has never ever made them go away and it has never ever made things more secure.
To say not to talk about these issues is the height of arrogance and is offensive. They are saying people are stupid and can't see these issues without being told. The authors do not have some special brain that lets them figure things out and see issues that no one else can. Figuring out what to blow up or attack isn't rocket science and so easy to figure out. It isn't hard to say how many people use this or would be effected by it not being available, and how hard would it be to make it unusable. That will tell you instantly which targets are the best ones because of highest impact and lowest effort to effect the target.
You might want to do some more research on "Code Pink" and see their ties to Hammas and how they have railed against Israel and supported the terrorists who attack Israel. They gave
Here they are interrupting a speech slamming Israel for protecting themselves.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQj4uG0eJME&feature=player_embedded
http://www.codepink4peace.org/article.php?id=5845
How about them deciding they know better than book stores and creating more work for book store workers who just want to do their job and get paid. Instead they have to clean up "Code Pink's" mess.
http://www.codepink4peace.org/article.php?id=5607
How about turning Egypt into a radical Muslim state that will go after atheists and Christians and basically anyone who isn't Muslim under sharic law, which is exactly what the Muslim Brotherhood wants to do. Yep supporting the opposition to US allies who are trying to maintain stability in the area is such a great idea, not really. Because you know getting right in the middle of a civil war is always a good thing to do. The Muslim Brotherhood is banned in Egypt and Code Pink has worked with them many times in the past and worked with them in Egypt.
http://www.codepink4peace.org/article.php?id=5693
This is just the type of the iceberg with these people. They are radical and aren't afraid of being violent either to get what they want. Just do your own research and look at what they do and what they themselves say.
So much of what you post here is wrong that I don't even know where to start. This line:
"That's why the "small government" right helped give us the Department of Homeland Security and the "civil libertarian" left pushed along the Patriot Act."
Makes absolutely no sense at all. Let me get this straight a group who wants smaller government supports making the government bigger by creating a whole new billion dollar agency with hundred of thousands of workers and bureaucrats. That doesn't even make any sense and it isn't true. The small government people stood up and said hey just retrain what we already have and let the airports deal with security like they already do. We don't need a bigger government and the government has never ever done anything better than the private sector can do it. That has been a point for the "smaller government" people for years and years. Remember Ronald Regan said "The government is not the solution, it is part of the problem." It seems you have some basic misunderstanding about what "small government" actually means and what people mean when they say it. It isn't a matter of if, but rather when if we don't change. You can't keep making government bigger and bigger telling more people how to run their lives and spending more than you make forever. At some point it becomes fascism and the country goes broke because it can't pay for it all and it can't borrow any more either. At that point you either print more money, massive inflation, or the country crumbles and something else takes its place, which is what happens anyway with massive inflation.
"Civil Libertarians" screamed bloody murder when the Patriot Act was pulled out and pushed through. Anyone ever wonder how something so huge just appeared a few months after 9-11? It's because they crafted it 6+ months before but knew there was no way in hell it would pass given how far reaching and how many rights were trampled on. They couldn't get anyone major to sponsor it, when 9-11 happened that gave them the perfect excuse to push it through. Most who voted for it never read the whole thing and never knew how bad it was. Just like Obamacare was shoved through, and Obama's outrageous budget in 2009 rammed through at the last minute before Christmas. Civil Libertarians are screaming about the COICA right now. I know don't confuse you with the facts. Civil libertarians say and have said if you give up your rights for security then you don't deserve either. There is absolutely no reason that anyone should be forced to give up their rights except when convicted of a crime. Civil libertarians have even complained about police DUI and citizen check roadblocks because they have no proof and are just searching hoping to find someone breaking the law with absolutely no idea if the person is actually breaking the law and not even a hint to think they are breaking the law.
I don't know where you got your information but your sentiment is exactly what the Tea Party is all about. I know suprise someone was trying to convince you the "Tea Party" are wacko's with no understanding of reality. People say that because the Tea Party is a threat to the status-quo and those in power are scared to death that they may have woken the sleeping public and may have to pay for it. So they are doing whatever it takes to put them back to sleep and make them docile.
Do your own research talk with these people yourself and learn what it is that several of these groups believe and not just one. You will learn what is being reported is far from the reality of who they are. You can try and define what each of these groups stand for in hopes to make them look crazy or something but all it does is make you look bad. You can't change what something means just because you don't understand it or don't like it and have no clear idea how to fight against it. November elections showed that change is coming. People can get on board or at least stay out of the way or they can get run over, its their choice. Thing must change in this country from how they are done now. If we don't change then this country is headed for serious disaster like the great depression only worse.
As I said earlier. The problem isn't exotic hardware or whiz-bang factors. The largest problem for all consoles is a great tool chain and development environment. You screw that up and it makes developers lives hell to have to build the tool chain all by themselves.
The problem is/was that Sony dropped the ball big time. When the PS1 was in development Sony spent a huge amount of time talking with developers and making a great tool set for developers to use to make their lives easy. Sony then kind of the same thing on the PS2 but not as big of a hard push to make things easier for developers. When the PS3 came out Sony fell on their ass. Their development tools were not easy, they were not put together well and things were not documented all that great. All of that meant that developers had to work a lot harder to program for the PS3 which is something most developers don't like. They don't want to worry about how the underlying hardware works. Developers just want a great and well documented API that they can just call to do what they need. The PS3 didn't have that before launch so developers were having to create a lot of their own tool sets which made their lives a lot harder. Microsoft used a well established API (basically DirectX) which is very well documented and well known by developers. It didn't matter that the hardware underneath was different from what DirectX ran on before because Microsoft worked to hide most of that to make developers lives simpler. A great tool chain will always beat out better hardware because a great tool chain means you can use the system to the max easier.
This is one of the problems that Linux has faced for game development. There is not a great tool chain with extremely well documented APIs for developers. Until someone develops a great tool chain and documents it to the n-th degree then Linux will always have problems because it becomes basically like the PS3, not the easiest thing to develop for. Linux is more powerful because you have access to everything, source code wise, from the hardware/bare iron all the way up. That means you can know exactly how everything works and change anything that you might need or want to change. That should make Linux the best platform to develop for, but as we all know it isn't about the best but about the easiest to use or at least well documented. SDL is/was an attempt to try and resolve this issue, but the problem is that SDL is not documented to the n-th degree and the tool chain for game developers is just not there or at least not unified like game developers are use to using. Don't get me wrong, I love Linux and use it as my main system. I just know from having talked with indie developers who have tried to port to Linux that things are not well documented and it isn't easy to find what documentation that is available. I think Loki Games was pushing hard in that area and they came up with some great stuff, Loki Installer, SDL, etc. The problem is we need someone out there to finish that type of work and drive it home and bring it to the level of other gaming development environments. Only when it is as easy to develop for Linux as anything else will we see a lot of Linux ports/versions. If developers move to development environments that are designed to be one system for all platforms then it is much easier to slide Linux there along side everyone else. Again Linux can slide in there only when it is well documented from the developers point of view, and no reading the source code does not count. My understanding though is that developers don't do one code base for all systems, but instead make for one system then fork the code for another system and on and on. So development houses end up with 2, 3 even 4 different versions of the same code base. That drives development costs up and results in development houses having to limit the number of platforms they can release for. Since Linux isn't a snap and/or well documented from their view point, it isn't something they even think about. If it only took say...10 hours to port over to Linux then every development house would do it, since no matter how few users there are it doesn't take many sales to pay for that 10 hours and get profit after that point.
It has never been about selling just the hardware. Until the Wii came out consoles were lost leaders and video game manufacturers made their profits on the license fees for game developers to create and sell games for their system. As this article points out that was especially true for the PS3. It was usually only later in the life of a console that they would finally be able to manufacture the console for less than what they sold for allowing them to make a profit.
I suspect if this case were appealed that the judge would be over-turned because of the unreasonable scope of the ruling. I have never ever seen a court enforce a non-complete globally. That is just outrageous and it is punitive to the employee and might even be a violation of his Constitutional rights to pursue happiness through employment in his field. I seriously doubt he is irreplaceable. He might be hard to find a replacement but there is someone out there perfectly capable of doing the same exact job. Microsoft isn't going to eliminate the position just because this guy is leaving. They are clearly admitting that he is replaceable. How far down the organizational chart is this guy? He doesn't even manage a group of people does he? If he is such a threat to Microsoft that he might seriously damage their business by going to work for their competitor then clearly they see his skill set as extremely valuable and should pay him for the time they are making him sit out of the workforce in his field. The fact that he could sling burgers doesn't matter. The issue is the restriction of trade by Microsoft on the employee.
Positional salary is not enough to warrant barring him from his field of work. If a company is so threatened by a VP leaving that they give them a parachute/exit package to make sure they go to another field, then they can do the exact same thing for this guy.
I would love to see this case fought and over turned. The more cases a judge has over turned the worse the judge looks and the harder it becomes for the judge to stay on the bench. Ruling in such a harsh fashion in favor of the corporation is such crap. In my opinion she basically gave the employee a legal bitch slap. The US legal system and Constitution is all about protecting the minority and the little guy and this judge could use a good legal smack of an over-turned case to remind her of that. Microsoft may make the argument that every software company is their competitor, so none of their employees should be allowed to work for any software for 1-2 years.
That right there is complete crap, and is more of illegal monopolistic attitudes that Microsoft got smacked down for by the DOJ. Microsoft needed to have their corporate back broken in half by the DOJ as punishment, rather than the light tap on the wrist that they got. Microsoft did significant damage as well as long term damage to the computer industry and they should have had to pay dearly for it. Microsoft didn't become a monopoly by playing fair and having the best products. If you believe that you need to read some of the history of the computer industry. Microsoft isn't as bad as it was in the past, but they still show those attitudes and ideals most of the time. I would have broken the company up in to 3 groups, OS group, Application Group, and Hardware Group, with the highest rate/price they can charge other companies, being what they charge each other for products and services. If you don't put a limit like that in place they will just sell to each other ar dirt cheap rates and effectively be one company again.