My understanding was that we're not sure about that yet. We do know that various toxins can be dissolved in fat cells, which can then cause cancer or other diseases as they are slowly (or quickly, ironically whilst one is losing weight by burning it off) reabsorbed into the rest of the body. And while there is still a lot we don't yet know about the role of antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides, and hormones in the food supply, all that we do know to date suggests that all of these are very, very bad. These are among the things we eat too much of, and many of them do get deposited in fat tissue. The one thing we do know reasonably for sure: a varied, nutrient-dense, minimally processed diet is best for most people.
It ceases to be a free market when government, under the guise of "regulation," can be lobbied by the already-successful to harm new or existing competitors. Google "regulatory capture" if you wish to learn more. Regulation almost always protects the existing players. It almost never protects the public. Those who argue for more of it, are arguing for more corporatism, whether they realize it or not. A better solution would be rule of law, where businesses are free to do as they wish, *except* to harm people without their consent, and all of them, big or small, play on the same, level playing field without obvious mechanisms for the largest ones to tilt it in their own favor.
Except, even knowing MANY Republicans (I'm not, but most of my friends are), I've never met even a single one who wants to screw anyone else over. I've never met one who did not give either time or money to help those less fortunate than himself or herself. I've also never met one who did not believe that the best way to help the less fortunate was to empower him or her to help himself or herself. I've met a few who were racist, but most are not. (Many are anti-Islam, but not necessarily anti-Muslim.) The stereotypes of "eeeevil Republicans" simply do not match my experience. The self-professed "liberals" I know however . . . and I can count them on the fingers of both hands . . . are, to a fault, either malevolent, or willfully ignorant. Usually both. They may have deluded themselves into thinking that the welfare state, public indoctrination, forced vaccination, wage floors, "Social Services," etc. truly help the needy, and that by supporting these things they are helping them. But, to the very last, each of them is smart and informed enough to know that they are all pure bullshit. They, unlike my more conservative friends, simply have found a way to rationalize their unwillingness to give a flying fuck about anyone besides themselves and those around them and those sufficiently like them. Yet, even while denying this huge fault in themselves, they project it onto their opponents. We, the non-Bolshevists of the world, are the ones who are greedy and cruel and heartless for wanting a world in which as many people as possible can prosper. Not them, for wanting a world in which they and the rest of their privileged few can control everyone else by selectively granting or withholding the stolen largesse of others. Fuck them, and if you are going to defend them, then fuck you too.
Would mod up, but already commented. Question: at least in reasonable climates, it should be very easy to improve ventilation by adding that latest of late high-tech wonders: a fan. Costs a few bucks, will greatly improve results and may even save lives. Why wouldn't they do that?? I realize it might cost more during extreme weather, but if airflow is as bad as the article suggests, IMO, it should be done anyway, to maintain airflow comparable to what would be expected in any other indoor structure, bad weather or not.
I agree. It is highly insulting to people with reduced mental functioning, to compare them with leftists (of either the bolshevist or fascist variety - each sucks worse than the other), who choose not to use whatever mental faculties they have in the first place, but instead allow themselves to be ruled by emotion, and, worse, demand that all others do likewise and that the dwindling handful of responsible and productive people left in our society pay for their unsustainable foolishness. A person does not choose the intelligence he or she is born with, but DOES choose whether to use it or not.
I became *very* maternal - and I'm a guy - when at age 18 I suddenly became the primary caretaker of a 9 month old girl who was more or less abandoned, physically by one parent and emotionally by the other. The experience changed me a great deal. To this day, I melt around babies and small children. I just want to hold them and play with them and to protect them from any harm . . . sometimes mildly embarrassing myself by jumping into their path if I see them approaching an uncovered electrical outlet or other potential danger. In my own family unfortunately I'm not very well liked or respected, for a variety of understandable reasons, so I don't get the time with my own kids that I'd like. But even though I get to see them nearly every day, some days I miss them so much when I'm away that I cry and can't really think about, or do, much else. I don't know how much is hormones, how much is personality, how much is instinct. But I know I am not even remotely the same as I would have been without this experience.
As for women, I find them attractive, or not, based primarily not on physical appearance but whether they are kind and compassionate and decent. Whether or not they would be good moms basically. Looks fade over time, but character, if it's real, doesn't. It only improves.
I don't see how Facebook is worth 1/100th of what it is.
Then you probably do not understand the value Facebook can offer to its customers (advertisers, not you or me) by virtue of its unique understanding of people's social relationships, networks, knowledge, skills, and likes. Only Google can come close.
I'm severely depressed, due to severe guilt and shame over things that happened in the past, although I've learned ways to hide this from most of those who don't know me. Drugs have never worked (over a 20+ year period of trying many). And frankly I don't expect to live long because I don't want to live long. My depression is at least as much a burden to my family as it is to me. They are relatively young and deserve a fresh start, with someone better than me. Though I lack the courage to end my life quickly, and though I fear the possibility of becoming even more disabled and thus even more of a burden, I do manage to live in ways that I know will increase my risk of dying sooner rather than later. This is NOT something I'd recommend to other depressed people, as most depression can be treated and some of it results from unmet needs (love, affection, attention, etc.) which are endemic in the sick "culture" of the U.S. and other Anglophone countries, but can change. Also I am not a burden merely because I'm depressed, but for a variety of other reasons as well, not germane to this discussion. So I'm not suggesting that others follow my lead, but that they get the help they need (not just medical but also societal) as much as they can. But as for myself, it is not any great mystery that I'm going to die reasonably young. I eat crap, too much of it and too infrequently. I drink the strongest alcohol I can stand and lots of it. Lots of caffeine too, often on an empty stomach. I take on a great deal of stress, so as to reduce the stress in the lives of others I care about. I work very hard and save every penny I can, and have as much life insurance as I can reasonably afford. I purposely drink unfiltered water even though we have filtered water available, and expose myself to carcinogens at every opportunity (though not other toxins necessarily, and I take great pains not to expose others). I volunteer for every bit of dangerous or dirty work I can. I sleep only enough to be able to work (and just barely). I never see the doctor, and have instructed those around me not to consent to any medical treatment if I am not conscious. I realize it might happen anyway, but only against my explicit wishes, and only for as long as it takes for me to wake up. I have untreated sleep apnea, GERD, high blood pressure, possible diabetes, and probable early-stage renal failure. In the short term I keep myself reasonably healthy and able to work, since my role as a human ATM is the only useful one I have, but, over a longer period of time, I understand that my risk of death from stroke, heart disease, diabetes, liver failure, renal failure, and cancer is much higher than normal, and I will not consent to treatment for any of the above, so, once one of these hits me, it is more likely than not that my death will ensue reasonably quickly, freeing my family from the burden of putting up with me, and making the world a much better place in the process.
It does bother me. Sugar and high-glycemic carbs trigger hormonalchanges which trigger overeating in both animals and humans.
What does bother me is consuming all the preservatives in out food, and all the unnatural sweeteners that are included.
Agreed.
I wonder if high fructose corn syrup, calorie free sweeteners, and to a lesser extend, regular corn syrup....
HFCS is uniquely nasty, even more than sugar and other high-glycemic carbs, because it is absorbed more rapidly, metabolized primarily in the liver (as is the fructose in table sugar, only more slowly), often is contaminated by toxic levels of heavy metals, and also is usually contaminated by enzymes used in its production, which have the lovely side effect of continuing to convert starches in the digestive tract into more fructose, and also damage the intestinal flora which are now known to be a vital part of the immune system.
The "calorie free sweeteners" are almost uniformly awful, although some are more awful than others. Pure stevia is the only one with a reasonable safety record, and even that is usually adulterated with much less safe substances such as maltodextrin, sugar alcohols (which trigger moderate to severe GI distress in many people), or silicon dioxide (sand - supposedly, generally regarded as safe, but known to cause lung cancer if aspirated).
try going 2 weeks without any sugar except for naturally occurring sugars in fruits and the like... you'll get your actual sense of sweetness back
Agreed. I've tried it and it absolutely does work, but, beyond just losing a lot of the "sweet tooth" which is really an addiction, one will generally feel much better as well, and one's appetite also will gradually return to normal (most of us who consume excess sugar do NOT have normal appetites, and never will, short of eliminating sugar and other toxic sweeteners from our diets.)
I would say most Americans' health would benefit more by greatly reducing sugar and HFCS, if not eliminating them outright, than by any other single lifestyle change. But in addition to this, I strongly suggest:
minimizing trans fats ("partially hydrogenated" anything);
filtering one's drinking water (carbon filter and/or reverse osmosis);
avoiding huge excesses of any single food;
eating a varied, nutrient-dense diet;
insofar as one can, avoiding pesticides and herbicides (e.g., wash fruit and veggies, try to buy organic or free range when possible, etc.); and
supplementing carefully. Most of us can't get optimal amounts of vitamins C or D from our diets. Cheap multivitamins are known to do more harm than good, but judicious use of high-quality supplements, tailored to one's specific situation, is something I do, and recommend.
We do all these things, and, although I'm still overweight, I'm losing maybe 1-2 pounds a year, and none of us are hardly ever sick, even when exposed to other kids who are.
So it's perfectly ok with you that thousands of people die in avoidable accidents, and BILLIONS die because they don't have the energy they need to eat, work, stay warm, get the medicines they need, and so forth? Well, fuck you too.
Something like that is part of the federal rules of civil procedure, as well as those of most if not all states. Unfortunately it is up to the judge to enforce and many judges simply won't, unless the prosecution has done something to piss him or her off. Collusion between cops, prosecutors, and judges is very common, as in the end they all work for the same system and have much to gain and little to lose by cooperating.
-1. Offended.:) Seriously, though, your point is noted, and valid, not in every case, but in far too many. Many FLOSS projects, including some I like a lot, suffer from poor, outdated, or no documentation. I am often still willing to use it myself, if I can figure out how. But I'm reluctant to use it to build software for clients, knowing someone else without my familiarity with these projects may have to maintain it. PostgreSQL and (although I dislike it for other reasons) PHP have decent documentation which I believe has contributed to the popularity of both projects. These are a few good examples. There are plenty of bad ones as well. Generally, it is hard to feel good about the quality of a software project, especially if it is a development tool, server, or some other component of a larger software solution, if it suffers from inadequate documentation.
I'm willing to give credit where credit is due, and Microsoft's enterprise products have improved a great deal. Their development tools are great. C# is about as good as I can imagine a compiled language ever becoming. Yet, constant churn is built into the platform. (E.g.: MFC -> VB6 -> WinForms -> WPF -> WinRT; ODBC -> OLE DB -> ADO -> ADO.NET -> EF.) One can't avoid it, due to the need for constant patching. And it is not uncommon for that churn to remove functionality without fully replacing it, or to degrade the user experience, rather than improving it. So I still see the open source alternatives as tending toward lower TCO, even if they require a somewhat larger investment in money and time up front. If you want something yesterday, I don't think the MS stack can be beat. You'll get something decent quickly and for minimal cost. But over time it will rot. It will end up costing more and more and more over time, just to keep it alive. If you want something to last, then build it using FLOSS technologies. More cost up front, maybe even a bit more time, but the potential to be WAY more solid, robust, and future-proof than anything coming from Redmond, even though the latter has improved a lot over the years.
My condition does come with a mild upside that some people might find valuable (although I see the downside as far worse). I don't really see much upside to being blind or deaf. But some deaf people, apparently, do. I may not understand, but, so long as no one's rights are being violated, they are free to believe or think or act as they please.
Perhaps the sporadically striking fast food workers who were previously thought to be powerless can set an example for us.
They are powerless. No amount of bullying or legislation can force someone to pay $15 per hour to someone who adds less than $15 per hour to the profitability of the business. Any employer forced to do so will employ fewer people, raise prices, or go out of business.
My wife is from the Balkans. I understand that language is a focus around which cultures tend to be built. However, for that very reason, I think it useful to learn multiple languages. The Macedonian who can speak both Macedonian and Albanian, or the American who can speak both English and Spanish, will be able to communicate with, and benefit and benefit from, both cultures.
Because I am mildly autistic (fka Asperger's) I can do a handful of things brilliantly, such as software development. Yet, it is still a handicap, and if there were some way I could become "normal" in this area, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I would very gladly give up the benefits of being good at a few things, in exchange for being able to learn how to be a friend, or to read people's emotions, or to know how to rejoice with someone who is happy or comfort someone who is sad. Or even to be able to talk to someone without inadvertently upsetting, disappointing, and hurting him or her on a regular basis. While my handicap may be mild compared to others', and while it may even be a part of God's plan for my life, I'm not going to pretend that it isn't a handicap, or that it doesn't hurt, or that it is better to be a rude, socially insensitive jerk than not to.
It mirrors ghetto (NOT Black) culture. Not all Black people subscribe to the idea that victimhood is superior to empowerment, although, unfortunately, many of their self-appointed "leaders" do. And you will find plenty of the same attitude among underachieving members of the white and other minority communities as well.
Many mobile apps use functionality not easily available in HTML5. Is there some reason one could not write a native app to serve as a front end to this functionality, and then communicate with it within HTML5 via WebSocket or some similar mechanism?
Sorry, but I was doing software development 10 years ago, at which point XP was already several years old, and there were DEFINITELY alternatives to the Microsoft technology stack for rich client development (including but not limited to Qt, Wx, GTK, Python, PostgreSQL, Java, and, very shortly afterward, Mono) and a lot of what we really needed to be future-proof was already being deployed as a Web application on Java servers. All of those alternatives are better, more mature and more mainstream now, but they certainly did exist in 2004.
Now, I knew that XP would not be around forever, because Vista hadn't been, 2000 hadn't been, ME hadn't been, 98 hadn't been, 95 hadn't been, 3.1 hadn't been, and so on and so forth. Win 7/8/8.1 won't be either. I was constrained by my employer's insistence . . . contrary to my own recommendations . . . to develop rich-client software using the Microsoft tool stack almost exclusively. So I did. But I also did what I could, as a conscientious employee, to minimize and isolate dependencies on specific OS and software versions, and to protect the source code (even though our SCC deployments were in their infancy at that time), so there would always be a clear and relatively inexpensive upgrade path.
There certainly were people back then still making IE6-only "Web apps" infested with ActiveX crud. There were still people using VB6 even though it was already known it would not be supported indefinitely and.NET was already in production. There were people who did not make future-proof decisions. And many of them built software that was marginally cheaper to build, or got deployed marginally sooner. But none of that rot lasted. It all died slow, painful, and expensive deaths. The stuff that was built to last, whether by me, or anyone else, generally did. So I'm not buying the excuse of "no better option existed 10 years ago." Many better options did.
Chile actually has, overall, one of the better economies in Latin America and the Southern Hemisphere, although much of the development and wealth are concentrated in the central part of the country (Santiago and Valparaiso). I would assume that like almost every other part of the world, Android is much more dominant than iOS devices, which sell well only in the U.S. and a handful of other countries.
The principle I think you are trying to describe here is called comparative advantage and is fundamental to any understanding of economics. That people do not understand it, is why the powerful (politicians and those who own them) are able to manipulate the public into doing what serves the interests of the powerful rather than their own.
Amazon's Import/Export service (which works with Glacier, their low-cost data archival solution) lets you send them portable drives for a very minimal fee. They can transfer data from those drives to their network at the speed of the drive interface, or transfer it to those drives and send them back to you. I think they accept most kinds of removable media (flash drives, maybe SD cards, not quite sure). Anything that can be mounted on Linux. I would be surprised and disappointed if Google Drive did not offer a comparable feature.
Slashdot Mirror
My understanding was that we're not sure about that yet. We do know that various toxins can be dissolved in fat cells, which can then cause cancer or other diseases as they are slowly (or quickly, ironically whilst one is losing weight by burning it off) reabsorbed into the rest of the body. And while there is still a lot we don't yet know about the role of antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides, and hormones in the food supply, all that we do know to date suggests that all of these are very, very bad. These are among the things we eat too much of, and many of them do get deposited in fat tissue. The one thing we do know reasonably for sure: a varied, nutrient-dense, minimally processed diet is best for most people.
Nonsense. You can get one online for about $20.
It ceases to be a free market when government, under the guise of "regulation," can be lobbied by the already-successful to harm new or existing competitors. Google "regulatory capture" if you wish to learn more. Regulation almost always protects the existing players. It almost never protects the public. Those who argue for more of it, are arguing for more corporatism, whether they realize it or not. A better solution would be rule of law, where businesses are free to do as they wish, *except* to harm people without their consent, and all of them, big or small, play on the same, level playing field without obvious mechanisms for the largest ones to tilt it in their own favor.
Except, even knowing MANY Republicans (I'm not, but most of my friends are), I've never met even a single one who wants to screw anyone else over. I've never met one who did not give either time or money to help those less fortunate than himself or herself. I've also never met one who did not believe that the best way to help the less fortunate was to empower him or her to help himself or herself. I've met a few who were racist, but most are not. (Many are anti-Islam, but not necessarily anti-Muslim.) The stereotypes of "eeeevil Republicans" simply do not match my experience. The self-professed "liberals" I know however . . . and I can count them on the fingers of both hands . . . are, to a fault, either malevolent, or willfully ignorant. Usually both. They may have deluded themselves into thinking that the welfare state, public indoctrination, forced vaccination, wage floors, "Social Services," etc. truly help the needy, and that by supporting these things they are helping them. But, to the very last, each of them is smart and informed enough to know that they are all pure bullshit. They, unlike my more conservative friends, simply have found a way to rationalize their unwillingness to give a flying fuck about anyone besides themselves and those around them and those sufficiently like them. Yet, even while denying this huge fault in themselves, they project it onto their opponents. We, the non-Bolshevists of the world, are the ones who are greedy and cruel and heartless for wanting a world in which as many people as possible can prosper. Not them, for wanting a world in which they and the rest of their privileged few can control everyone else by selectively granting or withholding the stolen largesse of others. Fuck them, and if you are going to defend them, then fuck you too.
Would mod up, but already commented. Question: at least in reasonable climates, it should be very easy to improve ventilation by adding that latest of late high-tech wonders: a fan. Costs a few bucks, will greatly improve results and may even save lives. Why wouldn't they do that?? I realize it might cost more during extreme weather, but if airflow is as bad as the article suggests, IMO, it should be done anyway, to maintain airflow comparable to what would be expected in any other indoor structure, bad weather or not.
I agree. It is highly insulting to people with reduced mental functioning, to compare them with leftists (of either the bolshevist or fascist variety - each sucks worse than the other), who choose not to use whatever mental faculties they have in the first place, but instead allow themselves to be ruled by emotion, and, worse, demand that all others do likewise and that the dwindling handful of responsible and productive people left in our society pay for their unsustainable foolishness. A person does not choose the intelligence he or she is born with, but DOES choose whether to use it or not.
I'm so sorry about your ex's miscarriage. :(
I became *very* maternal - and I'm a guy - when at age 18 I suddenly became the primary caretaker of a 9 month old girl who was more or less abandoned, physically by one parent and emotionally by the other. The experience changed me a great deal. To this day, I melt around babies and small children. I just want to hold them and play with them and to protect them from any harm . . . sometimes mildly embarrassing myself by jumping into their path if I see them approaching an uncovered electrical outlet or other potential danger. In my own family unfortunately I'm not very well liked or respected, for a variety of understandable reasons, so I don't get the time with my own kids that I'd like. But even though I get to see them nearly every day, some days I miss them so much when I'm away that I cry and can't really think about, or do, much else. I don't know how much is hormones, how much is personality, how much is instinct. But I know I am not even remotely the same as I would have been without this experience.
As for women, I find them attractive, or not, based primarily not on physical appearance but whether they are kind and compassionate and decent. Whether or not they would be good moms basically. Looks fade over time, but character, if it's real, doesn't. It only improves.
I don't see how Facebook is worth 1/100th of what it is.
Then you probably do not understand the value Facebook can offer to its customers (advertisers, not you or me) by virtue of its unique understanding of people's social relationships, networks, knowledge, skills, and likes. Only Google can come close.
I'm severely depressed, due to severe guilt and shame over things that happened in the past, although I've learned ways to hide this from most of those who don't know me. Drugs have never worked (over a 20+ year period of trying many). And frankly I don't expect to live long because I don't want to live long. My depression is at least as much a burden to my family as it is to me. They are relatively young and deserve a fresh start, with someone better than me. Though I lack the courage to end my life quickly, and though I fear the possibility of becoming even more disabled and thus even more of a burden, I do manage to live in ways that I know will increase my risk of dying sooner rather than later. This is NOT something I'd recommend to other depressed people, as most depression can be treated and some of it results from unmet needs (love, affection, attention, etc.) which are endemic in the sick "culture" of the U.S. and other Anglophone countries, but can change. Also I am not a burden merely because I'm depressed, but for a variety of other reasons as well, not germane to this discussion. So I'm not suggesting that others follow my lead, but that they get the help they need (not just medical but also societal) as much as they can. But as for myself, it is not any great mystery that I'm going to die reasonably young. I eat crap, too much of it and too infrequently. I drink the strongest alcohol I can stand and lots of it. Lots of caffeine too, often on an empty stomach. I take on a great deal of stress, so as to reduce the stress in the lives of others I care about. I work very hard and save every penny I can, and have as much life insurance as I can reasonably afford. I purposely drink unfiltered water even though we have filtered water available, and expose myself to carcinogens at every opportunity (though not other toxins necessarily, and I take great pains not to expose others). I volunteer for every bit of dangerous or dirty work I can. I sleep only enough to be able to work (and just barely). I never see the doctor, and have instructed those around me not to consent to any medical treatment if I am not conscious. I realize it might happen anyway, but only against my explicit wishes, and only for as long as it takes for me to wake up. I have untreated sleep apnea, GERD, high blood pressure, possible diabetes, and probable early-stage renal failure. In the short term I keep myself reasonably healthy and able to work, since my role as a human ATM is the only useful one I have, but, over a longer period of time, I understand that my risk of death from stroke, heart disease, diabetes, liver failure, renal failure, and cancer is much higher than normal, and I will not consent to treatment for any of the above, so, once one of these hits me, it is more likely than not that my death will ensue reasonably quickly, freeing my family from the burden of putting up with me, and making the world a much better place in the process.
Consuming sugar doesn't bother me.
It does bother me. Sugar and high-glycemic carbs trigger hormonal changes which trigger overeating in both animals and humans.
What does bother me is consuming all the preservatives in out food, and all the unnatural sweeteners that are included.
Agreed.
I wonder if high fructose corn syrup, calorie free sweeteners, and to a lesser extend, regular corn syrup....
HFCS is uniquely nasty, even more than sugar and other high-glycemic carbs, because it is absorbed more rapidly, metabolized primarily in the liver (as is the fructose in table sugar, only more slowly), often is contaminated by toxic levels of heavy metals, and also is usually contaminated by enzymes used in its production, which have the lovely side effect of continuing to convert starches in the digestive tract into more fructose, and also damage the intestinal flora which are now known to be a vital part of the immune system.
The "calorie free sweeteners" are almost uniformly awful, although some are more awful than others. Pure stevia is the only one with a reasonable safety record, and even that is usually adulterated with much less safe substances such as maltodextrin, sugar alcohols (which trigger moderate to severe GI distress in many people), or silicon dioxide (sand - supposedly, generally regarded as safe, but known to cause lung cancer if aspirated).
try going 2 weeks without any sugar except for naturally occurring sugars in fruits and the like... you'll get your actual sense of sweetness back
Agreed. I've tried it and it absolutely does work, but, beyond just losing a lot of the "sweet tooth" which is really an addiction, one will generally feel much better as well, and one's appetite also will gradually return to normal (most of us who consume excess sugar do NOT have normal appetites, and never will, short of eliminating sugar and other toxic sweeteners from our diets.)
I would say most Americans' health would benefit more by greatly reducing sugar and HFCS, if not eliminating them outright, than by any other single lifestyle change. But in addition to this, I strongly suggest:
We do all these things, and, although I'm still overweight, I'm losing maybe 1-2 pounds a year, and none of us are hardly ever sick, even when exposed to other kids who are.
So it's perfectly ok with you that thousands of people die in avoidable accidents, and BILLIONS die because they don't have the energy they need to eat, work, stay warm, get the medicines they need, and so forth? Well, fuck you too.
Something like that is part of the federal rules of civil procedure, as well as those of most if not all states. Unfortunately it is up to the judge to enforce and many judges simply won't, unless the prosecution has done something to piss him or her off. Collusion between cops, prosecutors, and judges is very common, as in the end they all work for the same system and have much to gain and little to lose by cooperating.
-1. Offended. :) Seriously, though, your point is noted, and valid, not in every case, but in far too many. Many FLOSS projects, including some I like a lot, suffer from poor, outdated, or no documentation. I am often still willing to use it myself, if I can figure out how. But I'm reluctant to use it to build software for clients, knowing someone else without my familiarity with these projects may have to maintain it. PostgreSQL and (although I dislike it for other reasons) PHP have decent documentation which I believe has contributed to the popularity of both projects. These are a few good examples. There are plenty of bad ones as well. Generally, it is hard to feel good about the quality of a software project, especially if it is a development tool, server, or some other component of a larger software solution, if it suffers from inadequate documentation.
I'm willing to give credit where credit is due, and Microsoft's enterprise products have improved a great deal. Their development tools are great. C# is about as good as I can imagine a compiled language ever becoming. Yet, constant churn is built into the platform. (E.g.: MFC -> VB6 -> WinForms -> WPF -> WinRT; ODBC -> OLE DB -> ADO -> ADO.NET -> EF.) One can't avoid it, due to the need for constant patching. And it is not uncommon for that churn to remove functionality without fully replacing it, or to degrade the user experience, rather than improving it. So I still see the open source alternatives as tending toward lower TCO, even if they require a somewhat larger investment in money and time up front. If you want something yesterday, I don't think the MS stack can be beat. You'll get something decent quickly and for minimal cost. But over time it will rot. It will end up costing more and more and more over time, just to keep it alive. If you want something to last, then build it using FLOSS technologies. More cost up front, maybe even a bit more time, but the potential to be WAY more solid, robust, and future-proof than anything coming from Redmond, even though the latter has improved a lot over the years.
You do realize, I hope, that cars with automatic transmissions (a) dominate within the U.S., and (b) do not have clutches?
My condition does come with a mild upside that some people might find valuable (although I see the downside as far worse). I don't really see much upside to being blind or deaf. But some deaf people, apparently, do. I may not understand, but, so long as no one's rights are being violated, they are free to believe or think or act as they please.
Perhaps the sporadically striking fast food workers who were previously thought to be powerless can set an example for us.
They are powerless. No amount of bullying or legislation can force someone to pay $15 per hour to someone who adds less than $15 per hour to the profitability of the business. Any employer forced to do so will employ fewer people, raise prices, or go out of business.
My wife is from the Balkans. I understand that language is a focus around which cultures tend to be built. However, for that very reason, I think it useful to learn multiple languages. The Macedonian who can speak both Macedonian and Albanian, or the American who can speak both English and Spanish, will be able to communicate with, and benefit and benefit from, both cultures.
Because I am mildly autistic (fka Asperger's) I can do a handful of things brilliantly, such as software development. Yet, it is still a handicap, and if there were some way I could become "normal" in this area, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I would very gladly give up the benefits of being good at a few things, in exchange for being able to learn how to be a friend, or to read people's emotions, or to know how to rejoice with someone who is happy or comfort someone who is sad. Or even to be able to talk to someone without inadvertently upsetting, disappointing, and hurting him or her on a regular basis. While my handicap may be mild compared to others', and while it may even be a part of God's plan for my life, I'm not going to pretend that it isn't a handicap, or that it doesn't hurt, or that it is better to be a rude, socially insensitive jerk than not to.
It mirrors ghetto (NOT Black) culture. Not all Black people subscribe to the idea that victimhood is superior to empowerment, although, unfortunately, many of their self-appointed "leaders" do. And you will find plenty of the same attitude among underachieving members of the white and other minority communities as well.
Many mobile apps use functionality not easily available in HTML5. Is there some reason one could not write a native app to serve as a front end to this functionality, and then communicate with it within HTML5 via WebSocket or some similar mechanism?
Sorry, but I was doing software development 10 years ago, at which point XP was already several years old, and there were DEFINITELY alternatives to the Microsoft technology stack for rich client development (including but not limited to Qt, Wx, GTK, Python, PostgreSQL, Java, and, very shortly afterward, Mono) and a lot of what we really needed to be future-proof was already being deployed as a Web application on Java servers. All of those alternatives are better, more mature and more mainstream now, but they certainly did exist in 2004.
Now, I knew that XP would not be around forever, because Vista hadn't been, 2000 hadn't been, ME hadn't been, 98 hadn't been, 95 hadn't been, 3.1 hadn't been, and so on and so forth. Win 7/8/8.1 won't be either. I was constrained by my employer's insistence . . . contrary to my own recommendations . . . to develop rich-client software using the Microsoft tool stack almost exclusively. So I did. But I also did what I could, as a conscientious employee, to minimize and isolate dependencies on specific OS and software versions, and to protect the source code (even though our SCC deployments were in their infancy at that time), so there would always be a clear and relatively inexpensive upgrade path.
There certainly were people back then still making IE6-only "Web apps" infested with ActiveX crud. There were still people using VB6 even though it was already known it would not be supported indefinitely and .NET was already in production. There were people who did not make future-proof decisions. And many of them built software that was marginally cheaper to build, or got deployed marginally sooner. But none of that rot lasted. It all died slow, painful, and expensive deaths. The stuff that was built to last, whether by me, or anyone else, generally did. So I'm not buying the excuse of "no better option existed 10 years ago." Many better options did.
Chile actually has, overall, one of the better economies in Latin America and the Southern Hemisphere, although much of the development and wealth are concentrated in the central part of the country (Santiago and Valparaiso). I would assume that like almost every other part of the world, Android is much more dominant than iOS devices, which sell well only in the U.S. and a handful of other countries.
The principle I think you are trying to describe here is called comparative advantage and is fundamental to any understanding of economics. That people do not understand it, is why the powerful (politicians and those who own them) are able to manipulate the public into doing what serves the interests of the powerful rather than their own.
Amazon's Import/Export service (which works with Glacier, their low-cost data archival solution) lets you send them portable drives for a very minimal fee. They can transfer data from those drives to their network at the speed of the drive interface, or transfer it to those drives and send them back to you. I think they accept most kinds of removable media (flash drives, maybe SD cards, not quite sure). Anything that can be mounted on Linux. I would be surprised and disappointed if Google Drive did not offer a comparable feature.