The whole point of the Mojave "experiment", was to say to the consumer "we know better than you".. Although Vista has it's problems (hardware requirements) I think the main reason it has not succeeded to MS's expectations is that most people just felt they didn't need it at the price they were selling it for. Throw in the downgrade in performance on older hardware, and you have to say hell no.. Doing a "taste test" by calling it something else was perhaps the biggest wast of marketing money they could do. It doesn't change any of the reasons people didn't buy it in the first place.
I really don't see much more success with this "new" OS in the future.. but we will see.
Two private corporate bailouts, one FISA bill, and almost a trillion in new spending. This cannot be sustainable in the long term.
Ok, the "two" bailouts were under the Bush administration.. and actually it was one bailout in two batches of spending..
I don't know about you, but my thoughts on the whole wiretapping thing has become this.. We need to obey the Constitution and require warrants for wiretapping going forward.. I realize quite clearly how wrong the previous administration was, but I don't see any benefit to a witch hunt against people following the directions of a corrupt administration.. How much would be spent on this ?.. I fully expect that the current administration will make appropriate changes to insure things are done by the Constitution going forward.. If they don't then they deserve the fallout.
The new stimulus package.. I don't know.. I hope it will help.. everyone should hope it will help.. This catch 22 problem is tough.. In order for the economy to improve people need to work, in order for people to work the economy needs to improve.. perhaps if we forcfed investors and CEO's anti-depressants things might get better.
Proceed as planned, and send $40 checks to people who submit receipts for converter boxes.. If it's cut, people will scrounge up the money.. and they have had ample warning already.
Most excellent post.. I like it.. and using algebra, I now have a response when all those Windows guys tell me that Linux needs to standardize the desktop.
The editor in mc, is much like the dos editor from windows.. yeah it's pretty easy. Probably not a good programming editor, but very good for quick edits of config files.
If I read it correctly, it was 50 hours for middle and high school students. and 100 for college.. It's not really that bad an idea, although I think that is way too many hours, and the logistics behind it would be difficult.. I myself served in the Army after high school, I think service to your country is a good thing.. of course not everyone can do this (physically or mentally), but I am pretty sure anyone in high school or college, can do things like helping the elderly, feeding the homeless, picking up trash, and the like.. I don't see the down side.
I am not a gun owner, but I don't have a problem with those that want one.. still I do have reservations that anyone should be able to have whatever type of arms they want.. and I absolutely demand that people that own them are responsible for them.. Like you I see no need to repeal the Tiahrt Amendment if it does indeed already allow access to law enforcement of the data they need.. although if I was a gun owner I personally would care less about this law, but that is perhaps because I do not see how it could be abused that would affect me.. I also have to wonder why the BATFE cares one way or the other ?.. anyway, I do lean with you in the unnecessary need for the repeal., but am hardly worried about Obama and the Constitution, of which he is probably the most adamant supporter we have had in decades. You will keep your right to bear arms.
If you made a mistake in editing say your xorg.conf file, and upon reboot X will not restart.. mc is THE easiest editor to use.. bar none.. and it is easy to use for copying, renaming, moving files etc.. especially for those who don't often use the command line. It was standard to include it in all distros by default, and that was a good thing,. sadly not so much now.. If whatever distro I get doesn't have it, I always make sure I download it so it's there for emergencies.
That spreadsheet is an interesting read.. but to be fair, think about some of these projects, especially building and construction projects.. you just don't throw the money out there and boom your doing it tomorrow..
The education funds might have an immediate impact, especially if you can convert some people from unemployment to fully funded students.. but again, to use the money wisely it takes time to screen it to people who will actually be successful.
I am not sure where they are with this spreadsheet, seems to be less than halfway there.. and it also seems that there are quite a few loans in there..
13 billion for education for disadvantaged, and 16 billion more for financial aid.. don't quite see the difference between the two.. Just lump it all together in financial aid, and make sure that the people getting it, really need it.
The SBA loan figure is pathetic at 426 million (I think it should be like half of the 800 billion).. I'd like to see a program where groups of experienced people, who lost their jobs because their employers panicked (thereby creating this mess), could start their own companies.
Sorry bout that.. good for you.. I didn't vote for him either time either.
I'll not try and change your opinions on the policies that you think Obama has.. After all he has time and time again said things like "We need to increase the size of the government", and "The people need to give up their freedoms" or "We need to increase taxes".. yep hear it all the time... at least I think it was him,.. or maybe it was Rush Limbaugh, I forget.
I see none either.. He does get some marks from me for mentioning the facts (I didn't know about the $500 fee), but totally loses them for saying there is visa fraud when this is not what it is about.. Now if he said something to the effect of "I hope someone looks into the visa aspects of the company because falsifying employees doesn't give me good feelings about them" that would be ok.. but to imply that visa fraud exists because they are guilty of one crime so must be guilty of the other is not accurate.
To comment on the $500 fee.. Well, that is perhaps a good idea.. but I really just see it as money collected for the sake of collecting money. The INS as an enforcement agency is totally ineffective. When people overstay their visas they rarely do squat about it, even when they know where the people are.. and the number of illegal immigrants.. well there you go.
yet I've still never met a single person that uses Linux as their primary OS
In my opinion, until Linux gets a unified interface, a sane way of installing applications and dealing with dependancies and manages some actual commercial support I just don't see it appealing to the average consumer.
I'm just not sure if your kidding, trolling, or just making this stuff up based upon opinions from the 90's
There are plenty of people who use Linux as their primary OS.. and both apt, and rpm, ARE the sane way for installing applications, it's the MS.exe installers that are insane. You can make either to install programs just as simply as you do with Windows by double clicking an.exe (as opposed to through a repository) that's how robust both managers are..
Linux doesn't need an unified interface.. It's quite simple. Their are Popular distros such as Ubuntu (apt) and Fedora (rpm).. you pick one, use and learn it, and it is a no brainer to switch to the other and try it out if you want.. just as it is a no brainer to switch from gnome to KDE or to Xfce..
Yes, you are to obey LAWFUL orders.. you take an oath to do that. But everyone in the military is taught that you do not obey something that is not a LAWFUL order, because you are criminally responsible for breaking the law.
Yes you can be sentenced to death for disobeying a LAWFUL order during wartime.. but there is no summary execution crap. Show me a Uniformed Code of Military Justice reg that says that and I'll believe you, but you won't find one.
Well.. according to the article, there were 2 laws made, and both have been shutdown.. Then it also talks about a Ca state law that is being fought..From what I gather, the industry is regulating themselves anyway.. I don't see what the hub-bub is all about.. The Constitution seems to be working just fine in this area.
As to "protecting" children... That is the parents job.. period. If I was a parent today, it would be up to me to decide when I felt they could handle the internet.. or to decide if I felt they had enough of a grasp on the difference between fantasy and reality to handle some of these games... Personally, I feel that any parent that has kids that are under the age of 16 or so surfing the internet by themselves are pretty shitty parents.
There is no kid safe internet.. and if people want that, they will have to build a separate read only internet with "approved" content.. until then, just keep em off it.. problem solved.
Where I live, we already had one major network (ABC) switch early.. I went out the next day to buy a box, and Walmart was sold out.. Circuit City had 4 left and I got one of those.. When the actual deadline comes, I imagine it will be more of the same, but worse, for those procrastinators like me... In fact to show how bad a procrastinator I am.. I HAD gotten 2 coupons for the house, but when I went to use them they had expired.. So the switchover was on me.
In reading the reviews, everyone seemed to like the Zenith, which is what I ended up with.. I also bought an antennae from Radio Shack.. everything works pretty well "most of the time".. I do think that during daytime our local stations send a weaker signal, because that's when I get the frozen screens, or lack of sound. Prime time never seems to be a problem, at least not that I have noticed.
EZTV and torrents have kept me from paying for cable for the last 3 years or so.
whereas KDE has lots to configure, but actually does something for you.
Before I begin, let me say "to each their own"
First, having all those extra configuration options.. Well, that's "somewhat" true, but actually, now when you add in compiz-fusion.. it all kind of goes away for the most part.. Gnome's widget coloring has been and still is not something that is a simple mouse click, and that has alway bothered me somewhat.. but it is possible to do, if your willing to learn how.. I make no excuses for them, it should have that basic function.. but I have learned how to customize it myself, just because I wanted to.
But let's really get down to the core issue.. does one or the other make you more productive ?.. no, they are equal, and it goes back to "to each their own"
I think one of the most amazing things about it all is how the replacement of one individual can really change the mood of so many people
And this is exactly what is needed.. an anti-depressant for the mood of this country.. People have been lain off, fired, and workforces reduced on "speculation" of a downturn in the economy.. thereby self fulfilling the prophecies.. When people are not working they are not spending.. to turn it around you have to have hope, and take risks.. When people are working again, they will spend again and the economy will flourish again. It will take a change in attitude and a much more positive rhetoric than we have had for the last eight years. a change from fear to hope (where did that come from ?)
Personally I don't see why any person who commits a victimless crime should spend any time in the slammer.
Pretty much any crime that is considered "victimless" is not really.. that is an illusion. When something is a crime, it is a crime, meaning illegal. When someone is committing a crime they are victimizing the society that says "you can't do this".. Now wishing something was not a crime does not make it so, and doing something illegal without hurting someone else does not excuse it either... for example..
Many people can drive drunk, (and plenty do) without hurting anyone else, and even obeying all the traffic laws.. hey, no victims here.. the problem with it, is that there are some who can not do it.. So the law was created to prevent those who can't handle it from driving, at the expense of those who can. Drug laws are the same thing.. Too bad, so sad, it's illegal because there are people who can't handle it.
Now the guy growing pot in his basement for his own use still is under the same laws as everyone else.. He might not be part of a criminal organization that kills people who owe them money, or are the competition.. But Just like the driver who can handle drinking and driving.. when you catch either, the punishment is the same as for those who can not handle it. It is the price you pay to prevent potential victims... Victimless, is not really victimless.
Further, I'd argue that the taxes collected on legalized drugs could be fed back into treatment centers and anti-drug propaganda/education.
Treatment centers sound like a good idea.. But even wealthy celebrities with a lot to lose, show that their effectiveness is minimal. In certain circumstances where medical treatment is needed, I say yeah.. but I think for helping people to get clean most of these places are less effective than programs like NA, which is self financed.
As to "anti-drug propaganda/education".. Is this really necessary ?.. Is there a person on the planet who doesn't know and needs to be educated that drugs are bad for you and can ruin your life ?... I mean look at what they've done with the anti-smoking education funds.. those commercials are really stupid.. showing smokers as uncaring people forcing babies and children to breathe their smoke.. and now they are trying to come up with something called "third hand smoke".. it's gone out of control into the realm of extreme fanaticism.. and it's like being called un-patriotic if you go against the fanatics witch hunt of terrorism.
Well, I would imagine that it is both difficult and expensive to string underwater cable when compared to over land... This.. http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/dn16394/dn16394-1_1458.png picture, is of course over simplified.. but it is apparent that going over land would not be an extreme cost increase.. I think the article nailed the real reason it is not over land.. and that's because it would have to go through countries like Iran, and Iraq... can you say.. "snip snip you damn infidels !" ?
How about.. Because IT doesn't know crap about how to "use" the software that they maintain, and can do no better, and sometimes worse than the poor guy who needs to create a budget for his department for some meeting ?
IT guys will complain here about these macros, and the horror of a "non techie" creating them.. but I think it's mostly their frustration when they are called into an office to try and fix a deleted cell or something and are made to look like fools when they don't know how to sum a column or do a basic formula.
"due the limited oil production, prices will skyrocket again"
Thing is.. there is not, and has never been, a shortage of oil.. In these years of $140 a barrel oil, have you ever gone to the pump to find no gas ?... Prices got where they were because of "speculation" of "possible" shortages.. and greed.. you see, if I buy something for $100, and mark it up 20 percent, I make $20.. If I buy it for $200 I make $40..
When a product like oil, which is used to transport most of the products in your economy, is out of control with it's costs like it has been.. it is a disaster in the making.. Of course we should continue working on alternatives.. but in the meantime.. enough is enough, and we need to say something like "if you want to sell gasoline in the US, you must not pay more than $50 a barrel for it.. or you can't sell here".. and stick to it.. you see we have the buying power, and I can guarantee that if that is "the rule" for selling in the US, then it will be stabilized at $50 or less.
When first reading your post, my initial reaction was to just tell you to stop fretting over mod points and to get over it.. what does it matter ?.. However, you actually succeeded in making a point of the "non mod" variety.
There are of course a number of people who will follow the crowd, or trends, and go with what's popular just for the feeling of belonging I suppose.. There are those who place way too much importance on the mod system, and probably follow these trends to gain these "valuable" mod points, or to punish those who they feel are outside the trend and therefore need ridicule.. and perhaps this skews things into the scenarios you described.. I myself when modding do fall into this category, but give points to people who actually make "a point" with their comment.. sorry, but don't have any to give right now.
If your interested in how some of this came about.. you might want to know that Linux was not always the popular kid on the block.. there was (and still is) a lot of bad information being presented as facts.. so I suppose that those of us who used Linux became somewhat a defensive group. On the other side with Windows users, you have people who have invested a lot of time learning what they know, who are unwilling to invest time in something else. These 2 stubborn groups have battled it out for years. Linux originally being the more obscure OS was more elitist in a sense.. and therefore more "nerdy", which appeals to those who think of themselves as "power users".. those Windows users who stuck with it for years suddenly found with the boom in PC's that there were more and more people finding their way around Windows and they felt themselves less of a "power user".. many of these people migrated to Linux.. Then with the distro's becoming increasingly easier to install (especially Ubuntu) well things just took off.
Having not been involved with OSX or anyone that uses it.. I'll leave that alone.. but I think it's users have come from Apple, Windows, and Linux camps.. and I am sure it's a great operating system.. all these OS's require an investment in time learning.. so of course you will have defenders of them all.
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The whole point of the Mojave "experiment", was to say to the consumer "we know better than you".. Although Vista has it's problems (hardware requirements) I think the main reason it has not succeeded to MS's expectations is that most people just felt they didn't need it at the price they were selling it for. Throw in the downgrade in performance on older hardware, and you have to say hell no.. Doing a "taste test" by calling it something else was perhaps the biggest wast of marketing money they could do. It doesn't change any of the reasons people didn't buy it in the first place.
I really don't see much more success with this "new" OS in the future.. but we will see.
Two private corporate bailouts, one FISA bill, and almost a trillion in new spending. This cannot be sustainable in the long term.
Ok, the "two" bailouts were under the Bush administration.. and actually it was one bailout in two batches of spending..
I don't know about you, but my thoughts on the whole wiretapping thing has become this.. We need to obey the Constitution and require warrants for wiretapping going forward.. I realize quite clearly how wrong the previous administration was, but I don't see any benefit to a witch hunt against people following the directions of a corrupt administration.. How much would be spent on this ?.. I fully expect that the current administration will make appropriate changes to insure things are done by the Constitution going forward.. If they don't then they deserve the fallout.
The new stimulus package.. I don't know.. I hope it will help.. everyone should hope it will help.. This catch 22 problem is tough.. In order for the economy to improve people need to work, in order for people to work the economy needs to improve.. perhaps if we forcfed investors and CEO's anti-depressants things might get better.
Proceed as planned, and send $40 checks to people who submit receipts for converter boxes.. If it's cut, people will scrounge up the money.. and they have had ample warning already.
Most excellent post.. I like it.. and using algebra, I now have a response when all those Windows guys tell me that Linux needs to standardize the desktop.
The editor in mc, is much like the dos editor from windows.. yeah it's pretty easy. Probably not a good programming editor, but very good for quick edits of config files.
government mandated community service
If I read it correctly, it was 50 hours for middle and high school students. and 100 for college.. It's not really that bad an idea, although I think that is way too many hours, and the logistics behind it would be difficult.. I myself served in the Army after high school, I think service to your country is a good thing.. of course not everyone can do this (physically or mentally), but I am pretty sure anyone in high school or college, can do things like helping the elderly, feeding the homeless, picking up trash, and the like.. I don't see the down side.
I am not a gun owner, but I don't have a problem with those that want one.. still I do have reservations that anyone should be able to have whatever type of arms they want.. and I absolutely demand that people that own them are responsible for them.. Like you I see no need to repeal the Tiahrt Amendment if it does indeed already allow access to law enforcement of the data they need.. although if I was a gun owner I personally would care less about this law, but that is perhaps because I do not see how it could be abused that would affect me.. I also have to wonder why the BATFE cares one way or the other ?.. anyway, I do lean with you in the unnecessary need for the repeal., but am hardly worried about Obama and the Constitution, of which he is probably the most adamant supporter we have had in decades. You will keep your right to bear arms.
If you made a mistake in editing say your xorg.conf file, and upon reboot X will not restart.. mc is THE easiest editor to use.. bar none.. and it is easy to use for copying, renaming, moving files etc.. especially for those who don't often use the command line. It was standard to include it in all distros by default, and that was a good thing,. sadly not so much now .. If whatever distro I get doesn't have it, I always make sure I download it so it's there for emergencies.
That spreadsheet is an interesting read.. but to be fair, think about some of these projects, especially building and construction projects.. you just don't throw the money out there and boom your doing it tomorrow..
The education funds might have an immediate impact, especially if you can convert some people from unemployment to fully funded students.. but again, to use the money wisely it takes time to screen it to people who will actually be successful.
I am not sure where they are with this spreadsheet, seems to be less than halfway there.. and it also seems that there are quite a few loans in there..
13 billion for education for disadvantaged, and 16 billion more for financial aid.. don't quite see the difference between the two.. Just lump it all together in financial aid, and make sure that the people getting it, really need it.
The SBA loan figure is pathetic at 426 million (I think it should be like half of the 800 billion).. I'd like to see a program where groups of experienced people, who lost their jobs because their employers panicked (thereby creating this mess), could start their own companies.
Sorry bout that.. good for you.. I didn't vote for him either time either.
I'll not try and change your opinions on the policies that you think Obama has.. After all he has time and time again said things like "We need to increase the size of the government", and "The people need to give up their freedoms" or "We need to increase taxes".. yep hear it all the time... at least I think it was him,.. or maybe it was Rush Limbaugh, I forget.
Unlike Bush's small government, frugality, and support for a "god damned piece of paper" ?
I see none either.. He does get some marks from me for mentioning the facts (I didn't know about the $500 fee), but totally loses them for saying there is visa fraud when this is not what it is about.. Now if he said something to the effect of "I hope someone looks into the visa aspects of the company because falsifying employees doesn't give me good feelings about them" that would be ok.. but to imply that visa fraud exists because they are guilty of one crime so must be guilty of the other is not accurate.
To comment on the $500 fee.. Well, that is perhaps a good idea.. but I really just see it as money collected for the sake of collecting money. The INS as an enforcement agency is totally ineffective. When people overstay their visas they rarely do squat about it, even when they know where the people are.. and the number of illegal immigrants.. well there you go.
yet I've still never met a single person that uses Linux as their primary OS
In my opinion, until Linux gets a unified interface, a sane way of installing applications and dealing with dependancies and manages some actual commercial support I just don't see it appealing to the average consumer.
I'm just not sure if your kidding, trolling, or just making this stuff up based upon opinions from the 90's
There are plenty of people who use Linux as their primary OS.. and both apt, and rpm, ARE the sane way for installing applications, it's the MS .exe installers that are insane. You can make either to install programs just as simply as you do with Windows by double clicking an .exe (as opposed to through a repository) that's how robust both managers are..
Linux doesn't need an unified interface.. It's quite simple. Their are Popular distros such as Ubuntu (apt) and Fedora (rpm).. you pick one, use and learn it, and it is a no brainer to switch to the other and try it out if you want.. just as it is a no brainer to switch from gnome to KDE or to Xfce..
Bullshit detector going off..
Yes, you are to obey LAWFUL orders.. you take an oath to do that. But everyone in the military is taught that you do not obey something that is not a LAWFUL order, because you are criminally responsible for breaking the law.
Yes you can be sentenced to death for disobeying a LAWFUL order during wartime.. but there is no summary execution crap. Show me a Uniformed Code of Military Justice reg that says that and I'll believe you, but you won't find one.
Well.. according to the article, there were 2 laws made, and both have been shutdown.. Then it also talks about a Ca state law that is being fought..From what I gather, the industry is regulating themselves anyway.. I don't see what the hub-bub is all about.. The Constitution seems to be working just fine in this area.
As to "protecting" children... That is the parents job.. period. If I was a parent today, it would be up to me to decide when I felt they could handle the internet.. or to decide if I felt they had enough of a grasp on the difference between fantasy and reality to handle some of these games... Personally, I feel that any parent that has kids that are under the age of 16 or so surfing the internet by themselves are pretty shitty parents.
There is no kid safe internet.. and if people want that, they will have to build a separate read only internet with "approved" content.. until then, just keep em off it.. problem solved.
Where I live, we already had one major network (ABC) switch early.. I went out the next day to buy a box, and Walmart was sold out.. Circuit City had 4 left and I got one of those.. When the actual deadline comes, I imagine it will be more of the same, but worse, for those procrastinators like me... In fact to show how bad a procrastinator I am.. I HAD gotten 2 coupons for the house, but when I went to use them they had expired.. So the switchover was on me.
In reading the reviews, everyone seemed to like the Zenith, which is what I ended up with.. I also bought an antennae from Radio Shack.. everything works pretty well "most of the time".. I do think that during daytime our local stations send a weaker signal, because that's when I get the frozen screens, or lack of sound. Prime time never seems to be a problem, at least not that I have noticed.
EZTV and torrents have kept me from paying for cable for the last 3 years or so.
Why are blogs a valuable way for information sharing and communication on the internet at large?
Um... I suppose they are.. but the nature of "intelligence" would be gathering.. Sharing (especially with internet at large) is undesirable.
whereas KDE has lots to configure, but actually does something for you.
Before I begin, let me say "to each their own"
First, having all those extra configuration options.. Well, that's "somewhat" true, but actually, now when you add in compiz-fusion.. it all kind of goes away for the most part.. Gnome's widget coloring has been and still is not something that is a simple mouse click, and that has alway bothered me somewhat.. but it is possible to do, if your willing to learn how.. I make no excuses for them, it should have that basic function.. but I have learned how to customize it myself, just because I wanted to.
But let's really get down to the core issue.. does one or the other make you more productive ? .. no, they are equal, and it goes back to "to each their own"
I'll let the IM part slide, I can kind of see some uses.. but what would intelligence need blogs for ??
I think one of the most amazing things about it all is how the replacement of one individual can really change the mood of so many people
And this is exactly what is needed.. an anti-depressant for the mood of this country.. People have been lain off, fired, and workforces reduced on "speculation" of a downturn in the economy.. thereby self fulfilling the prophecies.. When people are not working they are not spending.. to turn it around you have to have hope, and take risks.. When people are working again, they will spend again and the economy will flourish again. It will take a change in attitude and a much more positive rhetoric than we have had for the last eight years. a change from fear to hope (where did that come from ?)
Personally I don't see why any person who commits a victimless crime should spend any time in the slammer.
Pretty much any crime that is considered "victimless" is not really.. that is an illusion. When something is a crime, it is a crime, meaning illegal. When someone is committing a crime they are victimizing the society that says "you can't do this".. Now wishing something was not a crime does not make it so, and doing something illegal without hurting someone else does not excuse it either... for example..
Many people can drive drunk, (and plenty do) without hurting anyone else, and even obeying all the traffic laws.. hey, no victims here.. the problem with it, is that there are some who can not do it.. So the law was created to prevent those who can't handle it from driving, at the expense of those who can. Drug laws are the same thing.. Too bad, so sad, it's illegal because there are people who can't handle it.
Now the guy growing pot in his basement for his own use still is under the same laws as everyone else.. He might not be part of a criminal organization that kills people who owe them money, or are the competition.. But Just like the driver who can handle drinking and driving.. when you catch either, the punishment is the same as for those who can not handle it. It is the price you pay to prevent potential victims... Victimless, is not really victimless.
Further, I'd argue that the taxes collected on legalized drugs could be fed back into treatment centers and anti-drug propaganda/education.
Treatment centers sound like a good idea.. But even wealthy celebrities with a lot to lose, show that their effectiveness is minimal. In certain circumstances where medical treatment is needed, I say yeah.. but I think for helping people to get clean most of these places are less effective than programs like NA, which is self financed.
As to "anti-drug propaganda/education".. Is this really necessary ?.. Is there a person on the planet who doesn't know and needs to be educated that drugs are bad for you and can ruin your life ? ... I mean look at what they've done with the anti-smoking education funds.. those commercials are really stupid.. showing smokers as uncaring people forcing babies and children to breathe their smoke.. and now they are trying to come up with something called "third hand smoke".. it's gone out of control into the realm of extreme fanaticism.. and it's like being called un-patriotic if you go against the fanatics witch hunt of terrorism.
Well, I would imagine that it is both difficult and expensive to string underwater cable when compared to over land... This.. http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/dn16394/dn16394-1_1458.png picture, is of course over simplified.. but it is apparent that going over land would not be an extreme cost increase.. I think the article nailed the real reason it is not over land.. and that's because it would have to go through countries like Iran, and Iraq... can you say.. "snip snip you damn infidels !" ?
How about .. Because IT doesn't know crap about how to "use" the software that they maintain, and can do no better, and sometimes worse than the poor guy who needs to create a budget for his department for some meeting ?
IT guys will complain here about these macros, and the horror of a "non techie" creating them.. but I think it's mostly their frustration when they are called into an office to try and fix a deleted cell or something and are made to look like fools when they don't know how to sum a column or do a basic formula.
"due the limited oil production, prices will skyrocket again"
Thing is.. there is not, and has never been, a shortage of oil.. In these years of $140 a barrel oil, have you ever gone to the pump to find no gas ? ... Prices got where they were because of "speculation" of "possible" shortages.. and greed.. you see, if I buy something for $100, and mark it up 20 percent, I make $20.. If I buy it for $200 I make $40..
When a product like oil, which is used to transport most of the products in your economy, is out of control with it's costs like it has been.. it is a disaster in the making.. Of course we should continue working on alternatives.. but in the meantime.. enough is enough, and we need to say something like "if you want to sell gasoline in the US, you must not pay more than $50 a barrel for it.. or you can't sell here".. and stick to it.. you see we have the buying power, and I can guarantee that if that is "the rule" for selling in the US, then it will be stabilized at $50 or less.
When first reading your post, my initial reaction was to just tell you to stop fretting over mod points and to get over it.. what does it matter ?.. However, you actually succeeded in making a point of the "non mod" variety.
There are of course a number of people who will follow the crowd, or trends, and go with what's popular just for the feeling of belonging I suppose.. There are those who place way too much importance on the mod system, and probably follow these trends to gain these "valuable" mod points, or to punish those who they feel are outside the trend and therefore need ridicule.. and perhaps this skews things into the scenarios you described.. I myself when modding do fall into this category, but give points to people who actually make "a point" with their comment.. sorry, but don't have any to give right now.
If your interested in how some of this came about.. you might want to know that Linux was not always the popular kid on the block.. there was (and still is) a lot of bad information being presented as facts.. so I suppose that those of us who used Linux became somewhat a defensive group. On the other side with Windows users, you have people who have invested a lot of time learning what they know, who are unwilling to invest time in something else. These 2 stubborn groups have battled it out for years. Linux originally being the more obscure OS was more elitist in a sense.. and therefore more "nerdy", which appeals to those who think of themselves as "power users".. those Windows users who stuck with it for years suddenly found with the boom in PC's that there were more and more people finding their way around Windows and they felt themselves less of a "power user".. many of these people migrated to Linux.. Then with the distro's becoming increasingly easier to install (especially Ubuntu) well things just took off.
Having not been involved with OSX or anyone that uses it.. I'll leave that alone.. but I think it's users have come from Apple, Windows, and Linux camps.. and I am sure it's a great operating system.. all these OS's require an investment in time learning.. so of course you will have defenders of them all.