I know that wasn't a school shooting, but it certainly was a gruesome example of meaningless violent behavior, and it occurred in a country with stricter gun laws than the US. But back to your original question, here are my best guesses as to why school shootings are more common in the US:
* 275 million citizens, so we have more wackos than most other 1st world countries
* Few restrictions on private gun ownership
* Many families with 2 working parents
* Unchecked consumerism by suburban parents denies children the attention they need at home
As American "culture" continues to spread around the globe, expect these type of acts to become more common in your country. Note that these school shootings aren't happening in Compton or Harlem -- they're happening in Everytown, USA, in neatly trimmed, isolated suburbs where all of the kids wear Abercrombie&Fitch clothes. Hell, I'd want to blow my school up too if I grew up in a place like that!
You don't have to be a direct M$ stockholder to agree with the above post. Most of our 401K and mutual funds hold a fair number of M$ shares, so it's in everyone's best interest for them not to tank after whatever corrective action happens. A Microsoft Apps company wouldn't be able to ignore the steadily rising volume of Linux machines, and they would surely deliver Office for Linux. I don't care much for Windows of any variety, but Word and Excel are amazing programs (some would say amazingly elephantine) that I would love to run under Linux.
I remember reading once that, in the early days of the space race, the USAF had performed tests to determine the limits of the human evaporative cooling system (also known as "sweating.") The experiment involved placing naked pilots in a heating chamber with completely dehumidified air. I think the subjects wore a special mask so that they breathed room temperature air during the test. If I recall correctly, they determined that they could turn the temperature up to a whopping 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 seconds or so without harming the subjects, although they would lose a couple of pounds of water weight in that short time. Does anyone else remember this, or was I duped by an urban legend? I always wondered what happened to the pilot that got tested at 410F...
Repressive governments don't like communications technologies because they allow people to self-organize. Assuming the villagers figured out how to talk to one another, the army would be in big trouble, even if no one dropped them any weapons. When people are starving, they've nothing to lose. One brave, hungry man with a molotov cocktail can take out a tank (it's true!) A thousand can overrun a garrison and plunder its food and weapons. History has shown us that if the folks in such a situation can organize, their government won't be around much longer. Remember the Czar? How about the French royals? The printing press was the invention that facilitated the revolution in both cases. The internet is the printing press of the late 20th century.
Filing a US patent can cost $10K-20K, which makes it unrealistic for an organization like the FSF in most cases. RMS is also extremely anti-patent and wouldn't likely go along with this idea. I'm disturbed and saddened by this entire topic. My former employer badgered its engineers to submit silly patents for their defensive portfolio. I left rather than submit a patent for "Automated Software Testing." Yeah, *that's* original...
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I know that wasn't a school shooting, but it certainly was a gruesome example of meaningless violent behavior, and it occurred in a country with stricter gun laws than the US. But back to your original question, here are my best guesses as to why school shootings are more common in the US:
* 275 million citizens, so we have more wackos than most other 1st world countries
* Few restrictions on private gun ownership
* Many families with 2 working parents
* Unchecked consumerism by suburban parents denies children the attention they need at home
As American "culture" continues to spread around the globe, expect these type of acts to become more common in your country. Note that these school shootings aren't happening in Compton or Harlem -- they're happening in Everytown, USA, in neatly trimmed, isolated suburbs where all of the kids wear Abercrombie&Fitch clothes. Hell, I'd want to blow my school up too if I grew up in a place like that!
You don't have to be a direct M$ stockholder to agree with the above post. Most of our 401K and mutual funds hold a fair number of M$ shares, so it's in everyone's best interest for them not to tank after whatever corrective action happens. A Microsoft Apps company wouldn't be able to ignore the steadily rising volume of Linux machines, and they would surely deliver Office for Linux. I don't care much for Windows of any variety, but Word and Excel are amazing programs (some would say amazingly elephantine) that I would love to run under Linux.
I remember reading once that, in the early days of the space race, the USAF had performed tests to determine the limits of the human evaporative cooling system (also known as "sweating.") The experiment involved placing naked pilots in a heating chamber with completely dehumidified air. I think the subjects wore a special mask so that they breathed room temperature air during the test. If I recall correctly, they determined that they could turn the temperature up to a whopping 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 seconds or so without harming the subjects, although they would lose a couple of pounds of water weight in that short time. Does anyone else remember this, or was I duped by an urban legend? I always wondered what happened to the pilot that got tested at 410F...
Repressive governments don't like communications technologies because they allow people to self-organize. Assuming the villagers figured out how to talk to one another, the army would be in big trouble, even if no one dropped them any weapons. When people are starving, they've nothing to lose. One brave, hungry man with a molotov cocktail can take out a tank (it's true!) A thousand can overrun a garrison and plunder its food and weapons. History has shown us that if the folks in such a situation can organize, their government won't be around much longer. Remember the Czar? How about the French royals? The printing press was the invention that facilitated the revolution in both cases. The internet is the printing press of the late 20th century.
Filing a US patent can cost $10K-20K, which makes it unrealistic for an organization like the FSF in most cases. RMS is also extremely anti-patent and wouldn't likely go along with this idea. I'm disturbed and saddened by this entire topic. My former employer badgered its engineers to submit silly patents for their defensive portfolio. I left rather than submit a patent for "Automated Software Testing." Yeah, *that's* original...