One of the key issues IIRC was that the swedish supreme court made a case law some time in the late 90s/early 00s where they explicitly allowed linking to mp3s etc. This case law was connected to a previous version of the copyright law and e-trading regulations, so I guess it was only valid for a few years, but nothing has changed in principle as far as I know.
No, accessory does exist, but an accessory cannot be sentenced to more than the main culprit and in order to be sentenced by being an accessory, there must be a main crime; the verdict does discuss those points, but the points it makes in those parts are very vague and does not feel very solid.
If you are not an EU-citizen you need to have a job offered in Sweden in order to move, and I think you need to show that there is no local person that can do the job.
The other way would be to claim asylum or refugee status, but I doubt that a US citizen would qualify. European rules also prevents the extradition of people who risks the death penalty... not that I want to give you any ideas though.
The constitution of Sweden say what powers the state have and what fundamental rights the citizens have.
You cannot violate the constitution as a person, however the state can make laws that are not compliant with it. In which case the supreme court woud most likely decide that the laws are unconstitutional when they are tried in court and effectively nullify them through case law.
The lack of a constitutional court makes the process very long however, and it is not possible to ask a court to try the legitimacy of a law, except by having a concrete case of breach of the unconstitutional law and a lot of patience to have the case being appealed all the way up to the supreme court.
The commission is appointed by the council, but subject to the scrutiny and approval / disproval by the parliament.
The commission does not have lawmaking rights in general (they do in two small areas, but have basically only used that power twice in 30 years or so).
From wikipedia: ------------------- The Commission can adopt laws on its own initiative concerning monopolies and concessions granted to companies by Member States (Article 86(3)) and concerning the right of workers to remain in a Member State after having been employed there (Article 39(3)(d)). Two directives have been adopted using this procedure: one on transparency between Member States and companies[16] and another on competition in the telecommunications sector. -------------------
So, two cases where the commission unilaterally did something in 30 years or so.
The telecom directive in question here is probably the capping of roaming fees, but that is typically not something that would go under law, but rather regulation of law (which is not necessarily handled by an elected body anyway) in the member states, so I cannot really see that they stepped over the line in that case, but yeah... in theory they have the power.
The important thing from the start of this post, is that the commission needs the approval of the EP, if the loose that approval, they can no longer remain in office.
No one in Europe elects their government directly, typically the prime minister is appointed by the head of state that may or may not be elected, but this is only a rubber stamp and the head of state has to appoint a prime minister that in term will name his ministers and then get the approval of the parliament for his government.
So I really cannot see the difference between how the commission is appointed and how each member states government is appointed. So blaming the commission for being unelected is a bit strange I think if you at the same time does not criticise all the parliamentary systems in Europe for having the same flaw.
The main problem as said is the council, but in many cases, the system of the Union gets a lot more critique than it has earned, and for the commission this is certainly so. Because, people does not really bother about checking the facts about how things work. If you criticise something, then make sure that you know how things actually work and you can make some concrete suggestions for improvements.
Well, if the council changes it, the new proposal has to pass through the parliament again (they cannot just change the directive and be done with it (they could in the 80s, but the world have changed since then and the EP have a lot more power)):
I think that they just finished point 9. This means that the EP must take the councils amendments and their common position into account and vote again, the parliament have all the rights to reintroduce the amendment that was dropped by the council.
If they do, they are putting a clear message to them that the amendment is critical and the directive will not pass without it.
This is why you have a bicameral system. You cannot just remove the points by the other camber and be done with it.
Although the EU legislative system has it's flaws, it is often criticized today for how it worked in the 80's at which point it was still an international organisation (and a lot of the critics believe it still works as in the 80s).
There are problems for sure, such as that the council is not appointed as a separate body, but it consists of the member states governments (i.e. it would be better with senators that do not have a foot in the member states' governments since the council would then be accountable to Europe and you could in theory fire the entire council, but any way... I am drifting of my main points now).
I do not like the council, but it is not really as bad as you think. Please write your parliamentarian and ask them what they will do for the second reading.
Yes, that is true, but Sweden is more. Sweden consist of a few distinct groups of people:
* Cute blondes * Chefs * Furniture designers * Hockey players * Angry men wearing horned helmets (most of them are working as hockey players these days though, and the pillaging and looting is only done occasionally. Ahh... how I miss the good old days when you could just take your ship and go looting and burning down villages...).
That is really all there is to this place... really... and we have polar bears walking on the streets of Stockholm during the winter which last from late July to early June (from June to July there is summer and last I looked the average temperature during the summer was almost approaching something ridiculously warm like -10 C).
Umm... can't think of anything else... was a while ago since I left the place. The reason that I left was that I got to tired of having to fight polar bears with my bare hands on the way to and from work and that I like brunettes.
Although while I do in principle agree, let us take another example of a similar situation.
Some years ago a Swedish citizen of Kurdic origin was murdered by her brothers (also Swedish citizens) while they where visiting their families in Irak. The brothers where tried in the Kurdic courts for murder and where acquitted because they where "only protecting he family honour".
Fast forward a little time, and the brothers are back in Sweden and friend of the girl who had witnessed the entire thing went to the Swedish authorities, that had the brothers arrested and sentenced to life in prison.
Now, the crimes in this case was a bit more severe and both parties where Swedish citizens, but the principle is the same.
Person in country A commits crime against law in country B and is sentenced in country B.
The case here clearly illustrates that sentencing people for crimes abroad against your citizens is reasonable. The tricky part is drawing the line of which crimes this is reasonable for.
I just left a job where I was writing Ada on full time. And I am entirely convinced that it is virtually impossible to get a good Ada compiler working. We were using a special version of GNAT that had been certified with the ESA.
During my work on the project I was involved in, I managed to isolate around 10 bugs in the compiler, of which two where resulting in that incorrect code was being generated when compiling.
There are two reasons for this: Ada is overly complex as a language, and I don't know a single person who know the entire language by heart.
Note that C++ is also to complicated, but that binds in to the second reason: Ada does not have a critical mass to ensure that as much work goes into say GNAT or one of its derivates as goes into C++ compilers.
C is a very simple language, especially from a runtime point of view.
Of all the system programming languages that I have played around with, the only one that I have been able to find that is actually reasonably safe, but also giving you productivity is D. I hope that D will catch on, because it is actually quite a nice language and it has a simple syntax, relatively simple runtime (as far as an OO language can have), and it allows you to go down and mess with the bare metal as you can in C.
A "european directive" is a European law telling each state to implement the rules in it as local law. It must be approved by both the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers.
It is called a "directive" because it is a directive for the member states to implement the points in local legislation.
Saying that nothing happens if the parliament rejects a proposal is wrong. This was perhaps the case earlier, when the parliament had a purely consultative role, but things have changed since then; after all, the EP has had a legislative power for at least as long as the EU has existed (early 90s).
In some areas (e.g. common foreign policy), the parliament still have only a consultative role, and for those areas, then you are correct in theory, but often the parliaments opinions are respected, but in those cases, even if the Parliament is ignored, the Council must still approve the measures.
Saying that nothing happens if the EP votes no, is wrong, miss-informed, and simply shows that you have no idea of how the EU is working at the moment (did you perhaps learn of the EC in school 20 years ago and think nothing has changed?).
For your information, the process for introducing a directive is basically as follow:
1. Commission propose a directive 2. Parliament and Council must approve with majority vote (in some cases qualified majority). 3. If the directive does not pass, the Commission has the right to make changes to the directive and for the second time ask the Parliament and Council whether they will aprove the directive. 4. If the Parliament and / or Council still does not approve during the second round, the directive fails and is thrown into the dustbin; if it passes the second round, the directive is made into law.
Compare this to:
1. Government X propose law to parliament 2. Parliament rejects law for reason Y 3. Government X amend their proposition and hand it back to parliament, so that Y is addressed 4. Parliament now happy or still unhappy with the law votes again
Can you tell me the difference, in terms of how much influence the respective parliaments have? I thought not, because in both cases the parliament have the power to reject the proposition.
A concrete example is the SW patents directive, it was proposed by the Commission, and was approved by the Council and then rejected by the Parliament. The commission made some minor modifications and handed the directive back to the Council that approved it, and when it ended up in the EP, the EP rejected it with a massive majority. The directive was thus not made into law and we do at this moment not have a directive making software patents legal in Europe.
The point here being that the parliament stopped the directive by voting NO.
You can appoint your representatives in the Council by voting in your state's local elections (in my opinion, the council is not really appointed in the most optimal way for democracy), and the EP in the parliamentary elections every 5 years (at which time you also receive a new Commission that must have the approval of the EP, last elections the EP singeled out the rather controversial proposed commissioner from Italy and refused to have him in the Commission).
Next elections for the Parliament are in early summer next year, I suggest you use your right as a European citizen and vote. And, in my opinion you also have a civic duty to learn how the system actually works, and what rights the parliament have. The wikipedia article on the EU had some good pictures with flowcharts of how directives are passed last time I looked.
I have always been a big supporter for Turkey in the EU. Turkey's way forward is in the Union.
However, they still have a lot of work to do, previously I thought that 2015 might be a reasonable timeframe, but this is clearly not the case.
We are probably looking on a 2020-2030 date now (at least). But a lot can happen in that timeframe.
I don't think I have met a single person who thinks that Turkey is eligible for joining the EU now, but the people supporting Turkey in the EU do this as a longterm goal. Because, Turkey is predominantly a European state, but with a lot of current issues that must be addressed before joining.
The knee-jerk response that Turkey should not join is based on the current state of Turkey; and by all means, would Turkey not reform, they should not be let in to the Union. The point is, that a reformed and more European Turkey is good for Europe and also for the US. And a fully reformed Turkey in the EU would be able to contribute a lot to European society in general.
The Commission does not have any legislative right. It sounds like you are describing the Council with both executive and legislative power, though the Council does not have any executive rights in the EU, but in the members do in the individual states.
The Commission does have the right to propose directives and regulations in certain areas, but any new law PROPOSED by the Commission IS NOT LAW UNLESS PASSED AND POSSIBLY AMENDED BY THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT (and/or the Council depending on area).
If the parliament votes no, then the law is not passed if the law falls in the EUs competence areas (and if not, it is not something the Commission would have the right to propose any laws about; see the software patents directive for an example that was voted down in the EP).
The Commission does not have the power to force laws which the parliament refused to pass (in some cases, the Council can do so by claiming that it was in an area reserved for the Council).
Get your facts right, the Commission CANNOT make any laws without the VOTING and APPROVAL by either the EP or the COUNCIL depending on the area of the law. It sounds like you either learn about the EU in UKIP propaganda or the Sun (which is equally enlightened).
I agree that the system is far from perfect, but you are pointing fingers on the wrong place.
The commission is appointed by the governments in the member states and must be approved by the european parliament.
Compare this with how the local governments are appointed: The prime minister is appointed by the parliament and he elects ministers that must be approved by the parliament.
Just how much less democratic is the commission compared to you local government? Probably not that much. And (as have already happened), if the commission misbehaves, the entire commission may be forced to resign.
Now, the real problem in the EU is the council of ministers that is composed by the ministers from the different states. But if the council misbehaves, they will still be there, as their misbehaviour will not affect the state-governments. They are also not directly elected and have legislative rights in the EU and executive rights in their own states.
There are problems with the EU, but the commission is hardly one of them. They do get a lot of blame, but about 95% of it is completely unfounded and just based on a false notion that the commission is unelected (like the cabinets of each member-states would be any more elected).
In a representative and parliamentarian democracy that we have here in Europe, it is very uncommon to elect the executive body, but the lawmakers are elected by the people. And the commission have no right to make new laws (they can propose law in some areas (much like in the state-governments), but those laws have to pass through the parliament and the council).
Don't blame the commission for the problems with the Union, they are clearly not to blame when the system works as it does.
In principle, the only way to make the Union fully democratic is to substantially reform the Council, but all the ideas that are at least somewhat constructive and that want to bring power to the EP are usually very quickly dismissed as being federalistic; which is true to some extent, but federalism is the only way to have a properly working supranational body without a democratic deficit (any other idea, please tell me, because I have heard of no such concrete proposal).
Unit testing a kernel like linux is close to impossible. I just finished the delivery of a piece of embedded software. We had requirements to test 100% of the code.
Although, this worked fine for those that wrote the application software in the system; I was working on the parts managing the network layers, and although I was able to finish testing to 100% coverage, the tests are more or less unmaintainable due to the complexity of the thing (and, not to forget that I had no access to the target hardware for doing the testing, so it was simulators and stubs for all the directly hw interacting parts).
The problem here is, that there is a level of diminishing returns on the tests: I guess that 90% of the test code was just for chasing coverage and making sure that there where stubs and virtual hardware to work with. 10% of the test code actually made sense.
In a kernel it is even more difficult. The only way to reach the same level of confidence is to make the kernel small enough to be understood by one person (i.e. a microkernel), for such a kernel you can also develop a more formal model so you can prove mathematically that the design is correct.
No, it could not have been done cheeper with automatic probes at that time. The state of art artificial intelligence was not on level of what would be required for good scientific value to be brought back.
You could have built a machine to bring back rocks, yes, but at that time, AI was not even close to be able to find rocks of interest. It is approaching that level today though. So... you basically needed 30-40 years of investments in computer science and AI in order to approach a level of technology that could accomplish the scientific values that was brought back by humans from the moon.
Now, tell me whether paying X people developing man rated modules for the moon or if paying Y people developing AI and computer science and technology was cheeper?
Sending up a geologist (which they did), brought in situ intelligence that could investigate interesting targets of opportunity (which they did).
Today, the situation is maybe a bit different with respect to AI and advanced computer systems, and it is maybe possible to find the interesting rocks autonomously. But, when the moon voyages was taking place, this was not the case.
So, while the arguments may be applicable with respect to the current state of the art and exploration of Mars (I am not saying I agree, but anyhow) (the firm I am currently on is developing an autonomous robotic scientist for future Mars missions), they can hardly be applied to the early manned missions to the moon.
There are plenty of resources in space that may prove profitable to mine. He-3 on the moon is probably the best example at this time, but there are several other bodys out there that can provide resources for humankind.
Sending probes to Mars is inherently useful since it helps us understand the origin of the solar system and to prepare humankind for the problems involved with long duration space travel. It also gives us very important information necessary for future colonisation of Mars (I mean, you really need to see the place before you send in the settlers).
But in order to go back to the resource wasting, yes Columbus did go after trade routes, but, in essence it was a very high risk undertaking. Waste of resources though would also be any fundamental research and sciences conducted ever. Why, well, because a lot of the fundamental research has had ZERO economic gain from them directly, but a lot of fundamental research has in the long term led to an easier life and to profits.
Just because something at the moment only have a direct value in knowledge; it doesn't mean that you should stop doing it as you can never be sure about what the applications will be in a hundred years.
I would say that a better liking to the Mars exploration being carried out now than the crossing of the Atlantic that I mentioned (note, that there were more points there) is for example some of the early scientific investigations of for example temperature. Understanding temperature or other fundamental properties did in the early days not give any return of investment, so what was the point, well now we have refrigerators, airconditioning systems, engines et.c. et.c.
So, the point here is that the accumulation of knowledge will in many cases lead to a better life and wealth maybe a 100 years after the initial research.
In the specific case of Mars, there are a lot of interesting things with the planet, especially since the history of Earth and Mars are so similar. Understanding Mars is understanding our own past.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the key issues IIRC was that the swedish supreme court made a case law some time in the late 90s/early 00s where they explicitly allowed linking to mp3s etc. This case law was connected to a previous version of the copyright law and e-trading regulations, so I guess it was only valid for a few years, but nothing has changed in principle as far as I know.
No, accessory does exist, but an accessory cannot be sentenced to more than the main culprit and in order to be sentenced by being an accessory, there must be a main crime; the verdict does discuss those points, but the points it makes in those parts are very vague and does not feel very solid.
The same holds in Sweden. The appearance of impropriety part exists in order to uphold the public belief in the court system.
The judge has just failed in that exercise.
If you are not an EU-citizen you need to have a job offered in Sweden in order to move, and I think you need to show that there is no local person that can do the job.
The other way would be to claim asylum or refugee status, but I doubt that a US citizen would qualify. European rules also prevents the extradition of people who risks the death penalty... not that I want to give you any ideas though.
The parliament has no right to change a court decision, have you heard of something called separation of powers?
The constitution of Sweden say what powers the state have and what fundamental rights the citizens have.
You cannot violate the constitution as a person, however the state can make laws that are not compliant with it. In which case the supreme court woud most likely decide that the laws are unconstitutional when they are tried in court and effectively nullify them through case law.
The lack of a constitutional court makes the process very long however, and it is not possible to ask a court to try the legitimacy of a law, except by having a concrete case of breach of the unconstitutional law and a lot of patience to have the case being appealed all the way up to the supreme court.
Damn robots, they took our jobs!
I disagree, Nemesis was a very good movie. I really dont get it why people dislike the movie.
Yes, it was very dark and not the normal Trek, but it was still good and explored some interesting questions (i.e. who am I, what is a person?).
Considering that many aircrafts will have software built with some derivative of GCC, she is pretty much screwed on that part...
When I lived in the UK this was actually a thing that annoyed me a lot.
I am a free man and citizen, not a bloody subject to anyone.
The commission is appointed by the council, but subject to the scrutiny and approval / disproval by the parliament.
The commission does not have lawmaking rights in general (they do in two small areas, but have basically only used that power twice in 30 years or so).
From wikipedia:
-------------------
The Commission can adopt laws on its own initiative concerning monopolies and concessions granted to companies by Member States (Article 86(3)) and concerning the right of workers to remain in a Member State after having been employed there (Article 39(3)(d)). Two directives have been adopted using this procedure: one on transparency between Member States and companies[16] and another on competition in the telecommunications sector.
-------------------
So, two cases where the commission unilaterally did something in 30 years or so.
The telecom directive in question here is probably the capping of roaming fees, but that is typically not something that would go under law, but rather regulation of law (which is not necessarily handled by an elected body anyway) in the member states, so I cannot really see that they stepped over the line in that case, but yeah... in theory they have the power.
The important thing from the start of this post, is that the commission needs the approval of the EP, if the loose that approval, they can no longer remain in office.
No one in Europe elects their government directly, typically the prime minister is appointed by the head of state that may or may not be elected, but this is only a rubber stamp and the head of state has to appoint a prime minister that in term will name his ministers and then get the approval of the parliament for his government.
So I really cannot see the difference between how the commission is appointed and how each member states government is appointed. So blaming the commission for being unelected is a bit strange I think if you at the same time does not criticise all the parliamentary systems in Europe for having the same flaw.
The main problem as said is the council, but in many cases, the system of the Union gets a lot more critique than it has earned, and for the commission this is certainly so. Because, people does not really bother about checking the facts about how things work. If you criticise something, then make sure that you know how things actually work and you can make some concrete suggestions for improvements.
Well, if the council changes it, the new proposal has to pass through the parliament again (they cannot just change the directive and be done with it (they could in the 80s, but the world have changed since then and the EP have a lot more power)):
Look at: http://ec.europa.eu/codecision/stepbystep/diagram_en.htm
I think that they just finished point 9. This means that the EP must take the councils amendments and their common position into account and vote again, the parliament have all the rights to reintroduce the amendment that was dropped by the council.
If they do, they are putting a clear message to them that the amendment is critical and the directive will not pass without it.
This is why you have a bicameral system. You cannot just remove the points by the other camber and be done with it.
Although the EU legislative system has it's flaws, it is often criticized today for how it worked in the 80's at which point it was still an international organisation (and a lot of the critics believe it still works as in the 80s).
There are problems for sure, such as that the council is not appointed as a separate body, but it consists of the member states governments (i.e. it would be better with senators that do not have a foot in the member states' governments since the council would then be accountable to Europe and you could in theory fire the entire council, but any way... I am drifting of my main points now).
I do not like the council, but it is not really as bad as you think. Please write your parliamentarian and ask them what they will do for the second reading.
Yes, that is true, but Sweden is more. Sweden consist of a few distinct groups of people:
* Cute blondes
* Chefs
* Furniture designers
* Hockey players
* Angry men wearing horned helmets (most of them are working as hockey players these days though, and the pillaging and looting is only done occasionally. Ahh... how I miss the good old days when you could just take your ship and go looting and burning down villages...).
That is really all there is to this place... really... and we have polar bears walking on the streets of Stockholm during the winter which last from late July to early June (from June to July there is summer and last I looked the average temperature during the summer was almost approaching something ridiculously warm like -10 C).
Umm... can't think of anything else... was a while ago since I left the place. The reason that I left was that I got to tired of having to fight polar bears with my bare hands on the way to and from work and that I like brunettes.
Although while I do in principle agree, let us take another example of a similar situation.
Some years ago a Swedish citizen of Kurdic origin was murdered by her brothers (also Swedish citizens) while they where visiting their families in Irak. The brothers where tried in the Kurdic courts for murder and where acquitted because they where "only protecting he family honour".
Fast forward a little time, and the brothers are back in Sweden and friend of the girl who had witnessed the entire thing went to the Swedish authorities, that had the brothers arrested and sentenced to life in prison.
Now, the crimes in this case was a bit more severe and both parties where Swedish citizens, but the principle is the same.
Person in country A commits crime against law in country B and is sentenced in country B.
The case here clearly illustrates that sentencing people for crimes abroad against your citizens is reasonable. The tricky part is drawing the line of which crimes this is reasonable for.
I just left a job where I was writing Ada on full time. And I am entirely convinced that it is virtually impossible to get a good Ada compiler working. We were using a special version of GNAT that had been certified with the ESA.
During my work on the project I was involved in, I managed to isolate around 10 bugs in the compiler, of which two where resulting in that incorrect code was being generated when compiling.
There are two reasons for this: Ada is overly complex as a language, and I don't know a single person who know the entire language by heart.
Note that C++ is also to complicated, but that binds in to the second reason: Ada does not have a critical mass to ensure that as much work goes into say GNAT or one of its derivates as goes into C++ compilers.
C is a very simple language, especially from a runtime point of view.
Of all the system programming languages that I have played around with, the only one that I have been able to find that is actually reasonably safe, but also giving you productivity is D. I hope that D will catch on, because it is actually quite a nice language and it has a simple syntax, relatively simple runtime (as far as an OO language can have), and it allows you to go down and mess with the bare metal as you can in C.
A "european directive" is a European law telling each state to implement the rules in it as local law. It must be approved by both the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers.
It is called a "directive" because it is a directive for the member states to implement the points in local legislation.
Saying that nothing happens if the parliament rejects a proposal is wrong. This was perhaps the case earlier, when the parliament had a purely consultative role, but things have changed since then; after all, the EP has had a legislative power for at least as long as the EU has existed (early 90s).
In some areas (e.g. common foreign policy), the parliament still have only a consultative role, and for those areas, then you are correct in theory, but often the parliaments opinions are respected, but in those cases, even if the Parliament is ignored, the Council must still approve the measures.
Saying that nothing happens if the EP votes no, is wrong, miss-informed, and simply shows that you have no idea of how the EU is working at the moment (did you perhaps learn of the EC in school 20 years ago and think nothing has changed?).
For your information, the process for introducing a directive is basically as follow:
1. Commission propose a directive
2. Parliament and Council must approve with majority vote (in some cases qualified majority).
3. If the directive does not pass, the Commission has the right to make changes to the directive and for the second time ask the Parliament and Council whether they will aprove the directive.
4. If the Parliament and / or Council still does not approve during the second round, the directive fails and is thrown into the dustbin; if it passes the second round, the directive is made into law.
Compare this to:
1. Government X propose law to parliament
2. Parliament rejects law for reason Y
3. Government X amend their proposition and hand it back to parliament, so that Y is addressed
4. Parliament now happy or still unhappy with the law votes again
Can you tell me the difference, in terms of how much influence the respective parliaments have? I thought not, because in both cases the parliament have the power to reject the proposition.
A concrete example is the SW patents directive, it was proposed by the Commission, and was approved by the Council and then rejected by the Parliament. The commission made some minor modifications and handed the directive back to the Council that approved it, and when it ended up in the EP, the EP rejected it with a massive majority. The directive was thus not made into law and we do at this moment not have a directive making software patents legal in Europe.
The point here being that the parliament stopped the directive by voting NO.
You can appoint your representatives in the Council by voting in your state's local elections (in my opinion, the council is not really appointed in the most optimal way for democracy), and the EP in the parliamentary elections every 5 years (at which time you also receive a new Commission that must have the approval of the EP, last elections the EP singeled out the rather controversial proposed commissioner from Italy and refused to have him in the Commission).
Next elections for the Parliament are in early summer next year, I suggest you use your right as a European citizen and vote. And, in my opinion you also have a civic duty to learn how the system actually works, and what rights the parliament have. The wikipedia article on the EU had some good pictures with flowcharts of how directives are passed last time I looked.
I have always been a big supporter for Turkey in the EU. Turkey's way forward is in the Union.
However, they still have a lot of work to do, previously I thought that 2015 might be a reasonable timeframe, but this is clearly not the case.
We are probably looking on a 2020-2030 date now (at least). But a lot can happen in that timeframe.
I don't think I have met a single person who thinks that Turkey is eligible for joining the EU now, but the people supporting Turkey in the EU do this as a longterm goal. Because, Turkey is predominantly a European state, but with a lot of current issues that must be addressed before joining.
The knee-jerk response that Turkey should not join is based on the current state of Turkey; and by all means, would Turkey not reform, they should not be let in to the Union. The point is, that a reformed and more European Turkey is good for Europe and also for the US. And a fully reformed Turkey in the EU would be able to contribute a lot to European society in general.
The Commission does not have any legislative right. It sounds like you are describing the Council with both executive and legislative power, though the Council does not have any executive rights in the EU, but in the members do in the individual states.
The Commission does have the right to propose directives and regulations in certain areas, but any new law PROPOSED by the Commission IS NOT LAW UNLESS PASSED AND POSSIBLY AMENDED BY THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT (and/or the Council depending on area).
If the parliament votes no, then the law is not passed if the law falls in the EUs competence areas (and if not, it is not something the Commission would have the right to propose any laws about; see the software patents directive for an example that was voted down in the EP).
The Commission does not have the power to force laws which the parliament refused to pass (in some cases, the Council can do so by claiming that it was in an area reserved for the Council).
Get your facts right, the Commission CANNOT make any laws without the VOTING and APPROVAL by either the EP or the COUNCIL depending on the area of the law. It sounds like you either learn about the EU in UKIP propaganda or the Sun (which is equally enlightened).
I agree that the system is far from perfect, but you are pointing fingers on the wrong place.
The commission is appointed by the governments in the member states and must be approved by the european parliament.
Compare this with how the local governments are appointed: The prime minister is appointed by the parliament and he elects ministers that must be approved by the parliament.
Just how much less democratic is the commission compared to you local government? Probably not that much. And (as have already happened), if the commission misbehaves, the entire commission may be forced to resign.
Now, the real problem in the EU is the council of ministers that is composed by the ministers from the different states. But if the council misbehaves, they will still be there, as their misbehaviour will not affect the state-governments. They are also not directly elected and have legislative rights in the EU and executive rights in their own states.
There are problems with the EU, but the commission is hardly one of them. They do get a lot of blame, but about 95% of it is completely unfounded and just based on a false notion that the commission is unelected (like the cabinets of each member-states would be any more elected).
In a representative and parliamentarian democracy that we have here in Europe, it is very uncommon to elect the executive body, but the lawmakers are elected by the people. And the commission have no right to make new laws (they can propose law in some areas (much like in the state-governments), but those laws have to pass through the parliament and the council).
Don't blame the commission for the problems with the Union, they are clearly not to blame when the system works as it does.
In principle, the only way to make the Union fully democratic is to substantially reform the Council, but all the ideas that are at least somewhat constructive and that want to bring power to the EP are usually very quickly dismissed as being federalistic; which is true to some extent, but federalism is the only way to have a properly working supranational body without a democratic deficit (any other idea, please tell me, because I have heard of no such concrete proposal).
It isn't since the only heat dissipation in space is by radiation.
Unit testing a kernel like linux is close to impossible. I just finished the delivery of a piece of embedded software. We had requirements to test 100% of the code.
Although, this worked fine for those that wrote the application software in the system; I was working on the parts managing the network layers, and although I was able to finish testing to 100% coverage, the tests are more or less unmaintainable due to the complexity of the thing (and, not to forget that I had no access to the target hardware for doing the testing, so it was simulators and stubs for all the directly hw interacting parts).
The problem here is, that there is a level of diminishing returns on the tests: I guess that 90% of the test code was just for chasing coverage and making sure that there where stubs and virtual hardware to work with. 10% of the test code actually made sense.
In a kernel it is even more difficult. The only way to reach the same level of confidence is to make the kernel small enough to be understood by one person (i.e. a microkernel), for such a kernel you can also develop a more formal model so you can prove mathematically that the design is correct.
Must... not make... goatse joke
If your CD is damaged, you could install the Keynote Demo (http://www.apple.com/iwork/trial/) and just type in your license key...
This assumes that you where using the latest Keynote, but it is probably possible to get a demo for an old release somewhere.
No, it could not have been done cheeper with automatic probes at that time. The state of art artificial intelligence was not on level of what would be required for good scientific value to be brought back.
You could have built a machine to bring back rocks, yes, but at that time, AI was not even close to be able to find rocks of interest. It is approaching that level today though. So... you basically needed 30-40 years of investments in computer science and AI in order to approach a level of technology that could accomplish the scientific values that was brought back by humans from the moon.
Now, tell me whether paying X people developing man rated modules for the moon or if paying Y people developing AI and computer science and technology was cheeper?
Sending up a geologist (which they did), brought in situ intelligence that could investigate interesting targets of opportunity (which they did).
Today, the situation is maybe a bit different with respect to AI and advanced computer systems, and it is maybe possible to find the interesting rocks autonomously. But, when the moon voyages was taking place, this was not the case.
So, while the arguments may be applicable with respect to the current state of the art and exploration of Mars (I am not saying I agree, but anyhow) (the firm I am currently on is developing an autonomous robotic scientist for future Mars missions), they can hardly be applied to the early manned missions to the moon.
There are plenty of resources in space that may prove profitable to mine. He-3 on the moon is probably the best example at this time, but there are several other bodys out there that can provide resources for humankind.
Sending probes to Mars is inherently useful since it helps us understand the origin of the solar system and to prepare humankind for the problems involved with long duration space travel. It also gives us very important information necessary for future colonisation of Mars (I mean, you really need to see the place before you send in the settlers).
But in order to go back to the resource wasting, yes Columbus did go after trade routes, but, in essence it was a very high risk undertaking. Waste of resources though would also be any fundamental research and sciences conducted ever. Why, well, because a lot of the fundamental research has had ZERO economic gain from them directly, but a lot of fundamental research has in the long term led to an easier life and to profits.
Just because something at the moment only have a direct value in knowledge; it doesn't mean that you should stop doing it as you can never be sure about what the applications will be in a hundred years.
I would say that a better liking to the Mars exploration being carried out now than the crossing of the Atlantic that I mentioned (note, that there were more points there) is for example some of the early scientific investigations of for example temperature. Understanding temperature or other fundamental properties did in the early days not give any return of investment, so what was the point, well now we have refrigerators, airconditioning systems, engines et.c. et.c.
So, the point here is that the accumulation of knowledge will in many cases lead to a better life and wealth maybe a 100 years after the initial research.
In the specific case of Mars, there are a lot of interesting things with the planet, especially since the history of Earth and Mars are so similar. Understanding Mars is understanding our own past.