#1 and #2 in your comment has little to do with it. #3 is everything.
Greenspan said as much shortly after he retired... he expected banks and other institutions to make rational decisions in the best interests of the long-term health of themselves, and thus the economy. The decision-makers, though, were ont the banks -- they were employees and executive at the banks, who made decisions based upon their personal gain, not health of their companies.
The only way to fix this is to tie executive compensation (and liability!) to the desired outcome for the company, and the economy in general.
Years back, I worked for a well-run company that tied executive bonus to the long-term health of the company -- it was based on fiscal results on a 5-year rolling basis, with eligibility for bonuses coming only after completion of the first five years. This was an incentive for strategy that resulted in moderate growth on a sustainable basis over the long term.
I'd like to see something similar required in the financial and insurance industries.
They are inciting people. Worse the President is joining in. All against people who broke now law, people who were LAWFULLY owed the money.
LAFWULLY != MORALLY.
And like it or not, moral outrage has a place in public discourse.
At the very least, the moral outrage can be tuned, so that there is popular support for massive regulation of the banking and insurance industries (ok, I'm daydreaming now).
At the very least, I'd expect to see populist support for laws limiting executive compensation... and possibly a bill or two including the same. Of course most likely it will be political posturing, and stricken from any bill that does get passed...
The primary purpose is not inciting people against AIG execs... the purpose is to incite popular support for populist measures the likes of which we haven't seen since the 30s.
If we let them file bankruptcy, the courts can oversee their operation properly.
Interesting... so the idea is that we let them fail, discount their debt, and THEN take action to oversee operations?
Why not nationalize them now, before all the creditors (including the taxpayers who've bailed them out) get shafted during bankruptcy proceedings?
Seems to me like that is the worst outcome for the public. The taxpayers eat crow because of the bankruptcy proceedings, then we get to pay to oversee their operations while they become profitable again (and of course, those profits *don't* go back to the taxpayer).
Horseshit. Nationalize them now. Stop socializing the risk without socializing the profits.
I'm not debating that nuclear is cheap and will scale... my point is that we're not as close to where we should be (even in Europe) as you state.
Your data is incorrect, not sure where you got it from. There's been a lot of confusion (and politicking) over different ways to calculate percentage of energy consumption by source, there's even confusion over whether we're talking about energy consumption or electricity consumption.
One note... it's disingenuous to state that 100% of France's energy exports are nuclear, which you seem to claim. It's also important to note that mild winters (such as 06-07 and 07-08) will increase the nuclear percentage -- nuclear is used for baseload supply in France -- while a harsh winter (like 08-09) will result in a lower percentage from nuclear.
If you get National Geographic, I suggest you read the Feb 09 issue, it explains very well the nuances of calculating where various nation's energy/electricity consumption is coming from.
Also please note that Sweden, as of 2008, didn't even produce 50% of its energy from nuclear, and imports over 35% of its energy (which is not over half nuclear). As for Lithuania, I don;t want to amrginalize them, but their energy consumption is so small as to barely affect European consumption on the whole.
In short, I think the figures you refer to assume that whenever mathematically possible, energy exports/imports are calculated as 100% nuclear. This is simply not the case.
The power is cheap and will scale: Many European countries get the majority of their power from it
False. One European country gets a majority of their power from nuclear -- France. And the only reason France does is that they have no other feasible options (little coal, oil, or other domestic energy source).
That's up the jury. If that wasn't the case, you wouldn't need the jury at all.
I don't know why I'm bothering to respond, but that is 100% incorrect. The jury should absolutely not decide what evidence is admissible or not, that is the responsibility of the judge. The jury should be deciding if the evidence admitted is enough to convict beyond a reasonable doubt.
Otherwise, you'd have evidence disallowed for things like illegal search and seizure that the jury would still use to convict (thus trampling the rights of the accused). Or you'd have remarks stricken from the record due to illegality, that jurors would still factor in.
It's one thing for a jurist to think certain evidence does not prove guilt (i.e., a reasonable alternate explanation of events could have resulted in the same evidence -- like the fingerprints on a glass at the crimescene were from a party the night before), and it's quite another thing for a jurist to decide that certain evidence shouldn't count just because that jurist read on a website somewhere that fingerprints are unreliable (even though they are reliable to the degree required for identification).
This could be a fear of death thing or it could just be a hope for a miracle. If it's the latter then surely it'd just be better to place your complete faith in God at that stage of the game?
This leads me to the following thought:
What if the pious truly believe in the power of prayer? In that case, they'd believe that as long as they can still pray, they still have a chance of being cured (through a miracle). In this case, it's not just *hoping* for a miracle, it's *working* for a miracle by praying -- they may feel they are actively doing something that may cure them.
One other thought... at least for Christians, there are plenty of examples of God allowing (or causing) people to suffer, due to some transgression against Him. It's possible some pious people with guilt consciences may believe that if they truly repent, God may lift the suffering (cancer) from them. And if he hasn't lifted it by the time they are on drastic life support, then possibly they feel that they still haven't repented fully.
If they are resigned to their death, then they need to repent fully or they don't get to go to Fluffy-Harp-Land... and I'm sure any person could spend weeks thinking about every little wrong they had ever done (and could probably allow their mind to create wrongs out of hard choices they made).
Parent to my post specifically mentioned evidence disallowed by a judge. No juror should factor in that evidence, period -- even if they 100% believe the evidence to be true.
Specifically, though, we were talking about specific knowledge of the law, which is where the hubris is such a huge problem... parent to my post does not factor in that he might be incorrect or incomplete in his knowledge, yet still claims that his specific law knowledge should factor into his decision-making as a juror. This is not acceptable to me.
And that is your role. The attorney's will decide during selection whether they think you're experience is too relevant to let you judge properly, etc. That's part of the system.
Which is exactly what I had stated in my post... parent to my post should make sure to make his stance clear during jury selection. It's one thing for a juror to factor in their personal experience & knowledge; it's another thing for them to willfully dismiss court procedure and law, which is what the poster had suggested he would do.
This slashdot user (jetsci) posts on slashdot solely to publicize wittyrpg.
I'm surprised this post got an informative mod (what doe sit tell us? That GIMP is useful for image manipulation on non-Windows machines?), but kindly please mod it back down to oblivion so we don't need to keep reading yet another crap most meant just to get a link on slashdot.
Except that I come into the courtroom with 41 years of real-world experience & education which may or may not be approved by the judge, which may include direct knowledge of relevant laws, and which does include the knowledge that some judges will stifle relevant facts which may throw the case
I can smell the hubris from my office.
What about things you "know" that are incorrect? Maybe you read something that was incorrect, and now you believe a falsehood to be true?
You, like many slashdotters (at times myself included), need to check your ego at the door.
Your attitude presents a danger to the fairness of the justice system, since as a juror, you would opt to supercede your personal opinion over the laws of the state and the legal administration of those laws in the courtroom. Please make sure you make your viewpoints known during jury selection so that counsel can (rightly) remove you from the jury pool for your refusal to comply with the legal system.
It's pretty common for geeks to think they know better than everyone else, and sometimes this may even e true... I just think when you're dealing with something as important as someone else's life/freedom, it's time to get off your high horse and play the role the justice system is designed to have you play.
If you think a judge is throwing a trial, then I'm sure the defense counsel/prosecutorial counsel feel the same way, and we have system DESIGNED to deal with this (appeals process). It is not your right, or your role, as a juror to decide to disrupt a legal proceeding by playing by your own rules.
The feel of the car provides the best clues about whether you're going too fast, but modern cars do their best to mask that as much as possible, because it interferes with your other distractions.
You miss my point. The feel of a modern car is different than the feel of an older car. The problem is that people who have driven older cars (myself included), need to get used to the feedback of newer cars.
Rather than adapting the cars with tech to make them mimic old cars, why don't we focus on people getting used to the new feedback model?
Seriously, this is nothing new in cars... for a hundred years, the feeling of 'danger' at high speeds has been decreasing... often because the danger has actually been reduced (shock absorbers, better tires, etc). Let's not step in the way of the natural progession just because there is a learning curve for people to get used to the feedback of newer cars.
Instead of artificially inducing steering wheel vibration, etc, why not disable all car radios and keep people from closing their windows fully? Or how about just a dashboard light that lights up when some algorith determines that there is too much slippage, or something?
Personally, I know the limits of my car because I'm an experienced driver. I know what speed is safe in different conditions, for my tires, since I bothered to read the specs and have bothered to push the limits of my car on a closed course, and for sake of caution, keep my speed well below what I would consider to be the safe threshold.
I think this idea of adding in fake feedback mechanisms is yet another way we encourage people to be intellectually lazy, and I don't like it.
That's actually not true. They could still state the expense in the current period (when the update is released)... they'd just show a loss, since there is no revenue for those sales.
It's not about SOx or GAAP, it's about not wanting a loss... and this means getting some revenues to match to the expense.
Basically, the SOx copout is just Jobs or whoever saying, well, if we didn't charge for it, we'd be losing money in the current period, and we don't want to do that. So instead we are charging for it.
Note that it is more complicated than this, because the development costs for the enhancements are capitalized over the sales life of the product.
I'm surprised they didn't accrue for the cost of when they recognized the dev expense and began amortizing it over the product lifecycle.
It may just take time for people to adjust. Once bitten, twice shy... someone who loses traction going very fast around a curve will think twice before going that fast again. If they die... well, that's one more careless/reckless driver off the roads.
People have been driving cars on raods for what, a little over 100 years now? as time has gone by, the safe driving speed has continued to climb... yet there have always been people driving too fadt for their vehicles and driving conditions. Adding artificial feedback for driving at high speeds is a crutch for people who learned to drive in a bygone era.
Seriously. Just because *some people* got used to driving with different feedback from high speeds doesn't mean that we should all put in feedback mechanisms to 'warn' us when we go fast.
In short... in the US, only old people need high-speed feedback in their new cars. The rest of the drivers can use feedback mechanisms such as "the speedometer" and "vision" to realize they are driving fast.
What would be useful is pushing awareness of how much driving conditions and speed affect traction, etc. And educating young drivers that if they drive fast, they should make sure their car (and tires!) can handle it.
According to the Second Holy Doctrine of the FSM, animals that are tasty with pasta were allowed to remain unevolved. Untasty animals are in the process of being intelligently evolved by touches of His Noodly Appendage until they assume a tasty form. Thus we can reconcile the evidence of evolution with the wisdom of the FSM.
Such early examples of perfect tastiness with pasta should be eaten with reverence for the wise benevolence of His Noodliness's early omnipotence. Rejoice in your Polpi e Calamari Fettucine, for it is given by the grace of He of the Tangled Forkful.
They all lay in stone houses in Their great city of R'lyeh, preserved by the spells of mighty Cthulhu for a glorious resurrection when the stars and the earth might once more be ready for Them
I knew it! I knew it! Cloning advocates are members of the Cult of Cthulhu! They are perfecting their methods so that they can clone The Great Old Ones from their "stone houses" (fossils) and bring us all to lamentation and ruin!
I never thought I'd side with the fundies, but it's become quite clear to me that the Clonist Cult of Cthulhu must be stopped. Cloning is an abomination that will drive us all to madness, when the stars and Earth are ready... and the pevalence of cloning research tells us that the time is nigh!
You miss the entire point of mandatory auto insurance -- it's not to protect you, it's to protect those who you might injure (via property damage or personal injury) should you be involved in an incident.
This is why you have a choice between liability insurance, comprehensive insurance, and countless options between the two.
If you drive into my front window, damn straight you better be insured or have enough cash to pay for the damages. Even worse, if you hit a pedestrian because you ignored crosswalk right-of-way, you better pony up for their medical treatment.
This is why most states legally require liability insurance.
As for personal catastrophic coverage...
I couldn't give two shits if you get in an accident and suffer catastrophic injury (seeing as I don't know you)... But it's ridiculous that I should have to pay for your medical bills because you don't have insurance and can't afford to pay for your own treatment. The healthcare system shouldn't have to absorb the costs of your treatment... and guess what? Regardless of whether you are insured or not, the ER is going to treat your injuries. So you declare bankruptcy... welch on your medical bills... I & everyone who uses that hospital end up chipping in for your lack of insurance.
You can gripe and complain about some "big-brother" system, but the truth of the matter is that uninsured motorists pose a real cost to everyone else, and a "big brother" system is one of the only ways to mitigate that.
One other note...
If the government is permitted to prevent you from one mode of travel then it logically follows that it has the right to prevent you from using any mode of travel and therefore there is no such thing as the right to travel freely.
You're leaving out a very important qualifier -- "on public land". The government can't keep me from driving a car on my own land, or from negotiating rights-of-way with my neighbors. If I want to use a public resource (roads, etc), then I play by the public rules. The public (e.g., the government) has the right to restrict my use of publicly-owned land. Whether you agree with the principle of publically-owned land is another matter, but it's an important distinction, as the right of free travel is not abridged when not traveling on public land.
So, you'd prefer a sentence like "John is software developer" to "John is a software developer?" Where'd you learn to speak English?
"Software" is not being used as a noun in your example. "Software" is an adjective modifying "developer". "Developer" is the noun that the article you use applies to.
Where'd you learn to parse English?
To be fair, the OP made a slight error when he wrote
The word software does not require, and should not have, an indefinite article before it.
He should have written "The noun software does not require..."
He also probably shouldn't have interjected the bit about Indians... that's just evidence of some xenophobia or racism.
I just wish those darn kids would stay off my lawn. (True -- I live near a middle school and the bastards keep cutting through yards to walk to school...)
Build a fence. They work wonders.
Alternatively, sit on your porch eating sunflower seeds and spit on the kids as they walk by (this is what my ornery neighbor did when I was a kid -- be warned, this path leads to BAD mischief nights).
sigh I guess it's my turn for the mandatory crap posts.
Beowulf cluster... Vista... Crysis...
Seriously? What would be the point of a system like that? Rather, what is the purpose of a system like that that can't be served by a cheaper alternative?
Slashdot Mirror
#1 and #2 in your comment has little to do with it. #3 is everything.
Greenspan said as much shortly after he retired... he expected banks and other institutions to make rational decisions in the best interests of the long-term health of themselves, and thus the economy. The decision-makers, though, were ont the banks -- they were employees and executive at the banks, who made decisions based upon their personal gain, not health of their companies.
The only way to fix this is to tie executive compensation (and liability!) to the desired outcome for the company, and the economy in general.
Years back, I worked for a well-run company that tied executive bonus to the long-term health of the company -- it was based on fiscal results on a 5-year rolling basis, with eligibility for bonuses coming only after completion of the first five years. This was an incentive for strategy that resulted in moderate growth on a sustainable basis over the long term.
I'd like to see something similar required in the financial and insurance industries.
LAFWULLY != MORALLY.
And like it or not, moral outrage has a place in public discourse.
At the very least, the moral outrage can be tuned, so that there is popular support for massive regulation of the banking and insurance industries (ok, I'm daydreaming now).
At the very least, I'd expect to see populist support for laws limiting executive compensation... and possibly a bill or two including the same. Of course most likely it will be political posturing, and stricken from any bill that does get passed...
The primary purpose is not inciting people against AIG execs... the purpose is to incite popular support for populist measures the likes of which we haven't seen since the 30s.
I hope it's successful.
Interesting... so the idea is that we let them fail, discount their debt, and THEN take action to oversee operations?
Why not nationalize them now, before all the creditors (including the taxpayers who've bailed them out) get shafted during bankruptcy proceedings?
Seems to me like that is the worst outcome for the public. The taxpayers eat crow because of the bankruptcy proceedings, then we get to pay to oversee their operations while they become profitable again (and of course, those profits *don't* go back to the taxpayer).
Horseshit. Nationalize them now. Stop socializing the risk without socializing the profits.
I'm not debating that nuclear is cheap and will scale... my point is that we're not as close to where we should be (even in Europe) as you state.
Your data is incorrect, not sure where you got it from. There's been a lot of confusion (and politicking) over different ways to calculate percentage of energy consumption by source, there's even confusion over whether we're talking about energy consumption or electricity consumption.
Here's some more info on : the France situation.
One note... it's disingenuous to state that 100% of France's energy exports are nuclear, which you seem to claim. It's also important to note that mild winters (such as 06-07 and 07-08) will increase the nuclear percentage -- nuclear is used for baseload supply in France -- while a harsh winter (like 08-09) will result in a lower percentage from nuclear.
If you get National Geographic, I suggest you read the Feb 09 issue, it explains very well the nuances of calculating where various nation's energy/electricity consumption is coming from.
Also please note that Sweden, as of 2008, didn't even produce 50% of its energy from nuclear, and imports over 35% of its energy (which is not over half nuclear). As for Lithuania, I don;t want to amrginalize them, but their energy consumption is so small as to barely affect European consumption on the whole.
In short, I think the figures you refer to assume that whenever mathematically possible, energy exports/imports are calculated as 100% nuclear. This is simply not the case.
False. One European country gets a majority of their power from nuclear -- France. And the only reason France does is that they have no other feasible options (little coal, oil, or other domestic energy source).
[citation needed]
I don't know why I'm bothering to respond, but that is 100% incorrect. The jury should absolutely not decide what evidence is admissible or not, that is the responsibility of the judge. The jury should be deciding if the evidence admitted is enough to convict beyond a reasonable doubt.
Otherwise, you'd have evidence disallowed for things like illegal search and seizure that the jury would still use to convict (thus trampling the rights of the accused). Or you'd have remarks stricken from the record due to illegality, that jurors would still factor in.
It's one thing for a jurist to think certain evidence does not prove guilt (i.e., a reasonable alternate explanation of events could have resulted in the same evidence -- like the fingerprints on a glass at the crimescene were from a party the night before), and it's quite another thing for a jurist to decide that certain evidence shouldn't count just because that jurist read on a website somewhere that fingerprints are unreliable (even though they are reliable to the degree required for identification).
This leads me to the following thought:
What if the pious truly believe in the power of prayer? In that case, they'd believe that as long as they can still pray, they still have a chance of being cured (through a miracle). In this case, it's not just *hoping* for a miracle, it's *working* for a miracle by praying -- they may feel they are actively doing something that may cure them.
One other thought... at least for Christians, there are plenty of examples of God allowing (or causing) people to suffer, due to some transgression against Him. It's possible some pious people with guilt consciences may believe that if they truly repent, God may lift the suffering (cancer) from them. And if he hasn't lifted it by the time they are on drastic life support, then possibly they feel that they still haven't repented fully.
If they are resigned to their death, then they need to repent fully or they don't get to go to Fluffy-Harp-Land... and I'm sure any person could spend weeks thinking about every little wrong they had ever done (and could probably allow their mind to create wrongs out of hard choices they made).
Specifically, though, we were talking about specific knowledge of the law, which is where the hubris is such a huge problem... parent to my post does not factor in that he might be incorrect or incomplete in his knowledge, yet still claims that his specific law knowledge should factor into his decision-making as a juror. This is not acceptable to me.
Which is exactly what I had stated in my post... parent to my post should make sure to make his stance clear during jury selection. It's one thing for a juror to factor in their personal experience & knowledge; it's another thing for them to willfully dismiss court procedure and law, which is what the poster had suggested he would do.
To anyone with mod points:
This slashdot user (jetsci) posts on slashdot solely to publicize wittyrpg.
I'm surprised this post got an informative mod (what doe sit tell us? That GIMP is useful for image manipulation on non-Windows machines?), but kindly please mod it back down to oblivion so we don't need to keep reading yet another crap most meant just to get a link on slashdot.
I can smell the hubris from my office.
What about things you "know" that are incorrect? Maybe you read something that was incorrect, and now you believe a falsehood to be true?
You, like many slashdotters (at times myself included), need to check your ego at the door.
Your attitude presents a danger to the fairness of the justice system, since as a juror, you would opt to supercede your personal opinion over the laws of the state and the legal administration of those laws in the courtroom. Please make sure you make your viewpoints known during jury selection so that counsel can (rightly) remove you from the jury pool for your refusal to comply with the legal system.
It's pretty common for geeks to think they know better than everyone else, and sometimes this may even e true... I just think when you're dealing with something as important as someone else's life/freedom, it's time to get off your high horse and play the role the justice system is designed to have you play.
If you think a judge is throwing a trial, then I'm sure the defense counsel/prosecutorial counsel feel the same way, and we have system DESIGNED to deal with this (appeals process). It is not your right, or your role, as a juror to decide to disrupt a legal proceeding by playing by your own rules.
You miss my point. The feel of a modern car is different than the feel of an older car. The problem is that people who have driven older cars (myself included), need to get used to the feedback of newer cars.
Rather than adapting the cars with tech to make them mimic old cars, why don't we focus on people getting used to the new feedback model?
Seriously, this is nothing new in cars... for a hundred years, the feeling of 'danger' at high speeds has been decreasing... often because the danger has actually been reduced (shock absorbers, better tires, etc). Let's not step in the way of the natural progession just because there is a learning curve for people to get used to the feedback of newer cars.
Instead of artificially inducing steering wheel vibration, etc, why not disable all car radios and keep people from closing their windows fully? Or how about just a dashboard light that lights up when some algorith determines that there is too much slippage, or something?
Personally, I know the limits of my car because I'm an experienced driver. I know what speed is safe in different conditions, for my tires, since I bothered to read the specs and have bothered to push the limits of my car on a closed course, and for sake of caution, keep my speed well below what I would consider to be the safe threshold.
I think this idea of adding in fake feedback mechanisms is yet another way we encourage people to be intellectually lazy, and I don't like it.
YMMV.
That's actually not true. They could still state the expense in the current period (when the update is released)... they'd just show a loss, since there is no revenue for those sales.
It's not about SOx or GAAP, it's about not wanting a loss... and this means getting some revenues to match to the expense.
Basically, the SOx copout is just Jobs or whoever saying, well, if we didn't charge for it, we'd be losing money in the current period, and we don't want to do that. So instead we are charging for it.
Note that it is more complicated than this, because the development costs for the enhancements are capitalized over the sales life of the product.
I'm surprised they didn't accrue for the cost of when they recognized the dev expense and began amortizing it over the product lifecycle.
It may just take time for people to adjust. Once bitten, twice shy... someone who loses traction going very fast around a curve will think twice before going that fast again. If they die... well, that's one more careless/reckless driver off the roads.
People have been driving cars on raods for what, a little over 100 years now? as time has gone by, the safe driving speed has continued to climb... yet there have always been people driving too fadt for their vehicles and driving conditions. Adding artificial feedback for driving at high speeds is a crutch for people who learned to drive in a bygone era.
Seriously. Just because *some people* got used to driving with different feedback from high speeds doesn't mean that we should all put in feedback mechanisms to 'warn' us when we go fast.
In short... in the US, only old people need high-speed feedback in their new cars. The rest of the drivers can use feedback mechanisms such as "the speedometer" and "vision" to realize they are driving fast.
What would be useful is pushing awareness of how much driving conditions and speed affect traction, etc. And educating young drivers that if they drive fast, they should make sure their car (and tires!) can handle it.
I'd be more concerned about their ability to change color to match their surroundings. Sounds like a career bureaucrat to me.
According to the Second Holy Doctrine of the FSM, animals that are tasty with pasta were allowed to remain unevolved. Untasty animals are in the process of being intelligently evolved by touches of His Noodly Appendage until they assume a tasty form. Thus we can reconcile the evidence of evolution with the wisdom of the FSM.
Such early examples of perfect tastiness with pasta should be eaten with reverence for the wise benevolence of His Noodliness's early omnipotence. Rejoice in your Polpi e Calamari Fettucine, for it is given by the grace of He of the Tangled Forkful.
Ramen.
Who cares which arm?
They're all full of suckers.
I knew it! I knew it! Cloning advocates are members of the Cult of Cthulhu! They are perfecting their methods so that they can clone The Great Old Ones from their "stone houses" (fossils) and bring us all to lamentation and ruin!
I never thought I'd side with the fundies, but it's become quite clear to me that the Clonist Cult of Cthulhu must be stopped. Cloning is an abomination that will drive us all to madness, when the stars and Earth are ready... and the pevalence of cloning research tells us that the time is nigh!
This is why you have a choice between liability insurance, comprehensive insurance, and countless options between the two.
If you drive into my front window, damn straight you better be insured or have enough cash to pay for the damages. Even worse, if you hit a pedestrian because you ignored crosswalk right-of-way, you better pony up for their medical treatment.
This is why most states legally require liability insurance.
As for personal catastrophic coverage...
I couldn't give two shits if you get in an accident and suffer catastrophic injury (seeing as I don't know you)... But it's ridiculous that I should have to pay for your medical bills because you don't have insurance and can't afford to pay for your own treatment. The healthcare system shouldn't have to absorb the costs of your treatment... and guess what? Regardless of whether you are insured or not, the ER is going to treat your injuries. So you declare bankruptcy... welch on your medical bills... I & everyone who uses that hospital end up chipping in for your lack of insurance.
You can gripe and complain about some "big-brother" system, but the truth of the matter is that uninsured motorists pose a real cost to everyone else, and a "big brother" system is one of the only ways to mitigate that.
One other note...
You're leaving out a very important qualifier -- "on public land". The government can't keep me from driving a car on my own land, or from negotiating rights-of-way with my neighbors. If I want to use a public resource (roads, etc), then I play by the public rules. The public (e.g., the government) has the right to restrict my use of publicly-owned land. Whether you agree with the principle of publically-owned land is another matter, but it's an important distinction, as the right of free travel is not abridged when not traveling on public land.
"Software" is not being used as a noun in your example. "Software" is an adjective modifying "developer". "Developer" is the noun that the article you use applies to.
Where'd you learn to parse English?
To be fair, the OP made a slight error when he wrote
He should have written "The noun software does not require..."
He also probably shouldn't have interjected the bit about Indians... that's just evidence of some xenophobia or racism.
Hey, speakinh of twats, why not read the OP more closely?
He specified the use of an indefinite article. "Die" is a definite article. Even in German, one would not use "Eine software".
Build a fence. They work wonders.
Alternatively, sit on your porch eating sunflower seeds and spit on the kids as they walk by (this is what my ornery neighbor did when I was a kid -- be warned, this path leads to BAD mischief nights).
You're behind the curve... geek is fast becoming not chic.
Something about a recession and the resurgence of blue-collar values...
sigh I guess it's my turn for the mandatory crap posts.
Beowulf cluster... Vista... Crysis...
Seriously? What would be the point of a system like that? Rather, what is the purpose of a system like that that can't be served by a cheaper alternative?