Its certainly worth a try. It definately would remove one of the causes... or at least would remove one of the excuses for war.

One of the worst mechanism of manipulation of faith, is to use it to defend a moral injustice. Removing the ability to justify war in the name of religion would at least require citizens and soldiers to find a more rational justification for their motivations and actions.

Why is it that religious people like to label everyone under a religion or define them as 'atheist' or 'agnostic'? As if everyone in the world is forced to listen to this and make a decision on it. Should we start labelling everyone in the world according to their opinions on whether aliens exist or whether UFO's have visited earth? Its ridiculous to assume everyone in the world has to have an opinion on something which they may not find worthy of the time to consider. Religion is one topic in the world that apparently everyone has to consider... while in reality, it may not be as significant as you find it and want it to be.

I think you may find by scratching under the surface that most people do not really believe anything. And only think about it because the idea was forced apon them by others and at an early age. They simply state their religion as the one they were told that they were as a child in order to fit into their societal norms. Its not like people go around stating their religion when they first meet you, but will answer it when forced by others into defining themselves as a class.

If you want to "know" what religion someone is, you can get it right 90% of the time by simply asking what country they are from. Do you really think this is an informed choice or desire to search for a real belief?

Fear is a great manipulation tool. Used by almost every ruling class. Telling young children that they will be tortured forever after death if they dont believe a tale you just told them, is probably the most common way young minds are set.

I mean to say... maximum profits do not occur when the whole world is fed. Starvation create great demand.

Let the market decide who eats and who starves. And let that market be dominated by one company. And let the courts support their decisions of life and death. amen

I think you forgot the most important aspect of being in a team: CAN you communicate clearly your programming ideas and understand what others mean when they are discussing their programming ideas? I have met many great programmers who could not do this. They were excellent solo programmers, but not team players because of their inability to express themselves or their ideas and/or they would not understand exactly how others were planning to code their protions. This is a team problem.

I do not think that the computer science education system spends enough time training students on clear communication.

Also you will need to be able to understand code you did not write. Some people can write code in their own way but have a lot of trouble using existing code from others. Finally, you will need to write code in the way the existing code is written. This means that you must be willing to lower or raise your level of coding and documentation in order to fit in to the existing group.

One last thought... if you want to excel in an business, then you will need to work on your social skills. Most advancement in a company does not go to the best programmers, but rather the programmers that get along best in a social manner with the managers and owners of the company. The education system does not focus at all on the social requirements of succeeding in business. This is something you will need to keep in mind and learn on your own.

What a load of crap. 99.9% of computing jobs do not require 3rd order differential equations. It is a lie to pretend that extensive math is required for most computer programming jobs. Basic math with an understanding of algebra and logic is enough.

Computer programming requires you to know algebra. Even if you dont know that is what you know.

In almost every case, your job will not require you to know or use everything you were forced to learn in school. So just do what you can to get through it if you feel you need a degree as a badge in order to get the job you want. Most companies value similar work experience over education. Unless the field is highly technical. Most computer science jobs are not highly specialize or technical. If you are not excellent at mathematic, then you will not want one of these jobs anyways.

Just do what you have to in order to graduate. This means that you will go to the library and pull up all the old examinations and memorize every questions from the past. You will get the correct solution for each one and practice this over and over again. Even if you dont understand it completely, you will have the process down and you can probably pass a test without really understanding it. It doesnt matter if you know it, because generally, you wont have a job that requires it. But you will end up with a degree to show an employer that you are willing to buckle down and work hard and complete a task over multiple years.

After saying all of this... I think a computer science degree is a waste of time. You can now learn more online then they will ever teach you in a college or university. Most employers will value work experience and practical knowledge over a degree. Most software tools are completely free to download, test, use and learn. All of this can be done for free and you can do it while working at a very easy computing job that does not ask for a degree. And you will not start life with a large debt.

please provide a link to back up what you last "heard". Im fairly certin that adobe gets an unreasonable portion of any device with flash installed. But I would like to know what other companies are using patents to stifle the software market.

You dont seem to get it. The cost is irrelivent. The Microsoft tax is about knowing that every time you purchase a computer, you are actively supporting a computer company you have nothing to do with, do not benefit from, and actually believe has no purpose except to hidder the value of operating systems.

If you purchase a product which includes a Microsoft OS, then you can be sure that Microsoft was paid for that license regardless of the amount you paid for the product. This is a bad and anti-competitive process.

Profits are not a bad thing. However it is bad to use energy and materials to create anything and then reduce its functionality through software limitations. I suggest to you that Canon and all other photo/video hardware manufacturers are actively engaged in limiting the functionality of the physical products they sell in order to create artificial pricing scales and force consumers into purchasing more hardware then is required.

For example, if an owner of this camera want to start taking video, according to Canon, he should purchase a new product. This is great for Canon, but bad for the consumer who already owns something that can physically do what he wants. And it is bad for the environment which encourages waste instead of reuse.

Now you can easily claim that Canon did not intend this and may not have envisioned this feature when the camera was designed. But I am not the naive. And even if I was, there is a real case that hardware with open sourced software is good for the enviroment and consumer product reuse.

I think it is funny the way that many camera experts actually take pride in the fact that their equipment is so outrageously priced. Like their disposable income allows them to enter an elite group and the price is their to limit the masses from competing with them in a feild. Perhaps most photographers realize that if the playing feild was level and all consumers had access to the advanced equipment they can afford, that their "talent" would be exposed as really simply a side effect of much more functional equipment. I mean if everyone had access to the hardware you can afford... maybe your photos would be lost in a sea of equal or better photographs produced by the masses.

The excessive price of good camera equipment is not a good thing for humanity. If you believe that photos and video are more important then the photographer who took it. There are some cases of photographers and cinematographers that excel beyond others. But face reality... your probably just not one of them. Most great historical photography and video is about location and timing (imo). So limiting access to cheap quality equipment only serves to reduce the amount of great historical media we capture for future generations.

To defend a corporate practice of limiting the functionality of photographic hardware only serves to defend the bottom line profits of a corporation.

So you are telling us that it is a good and neccessary thing for manufactures to limit the functionality of the physical hardware you paid for in order to allow them to gouge consumers and maximize profits in order to pay for past research and future developments?

I think you are wrong. I think that hardware should always be designed to function at its maximum capabilities. To do less is to encourage consumers to repurchase products to get the functionality that their existing products are already capable of. This causes waste and the earth is not designed for infinite human product waste.

Perhaps if companies cannot recoup the cost of R&D through ethical production and sales of the product and technology they actually developed, then the company deserves to be exposed to a loss on that product line to discourage them from making bad decisions in the future.

Why are you defending the concept of allowing consumers to have more options over the features of their hardware products? Does the idea of limiting manufacturer profits upset you? Do you prefer to purchase products that are intentionally crippled by software to not allow you to achieve the full potential out of the products you paid for?

Think very generally. How would you feel if you needed to purchase three shovels... one for digging in dirt, another for sand and one for digging gravel? This is not possible with a shovel, because only software allows a manufacture to actively cripple the physical item you paid for in a way which limits its functionality. But if a shovel manufacturer could limit its function in this way... you can be sure that they would do it. And all competitors would do it too... and the reason isnt to compete for a better shovel, but rather to increase the total market space for demand of shovels. Even if they did produce a shovel that would dig all in all three areas, you can be sure that that uncrippled shovel would cost you more then all 3 shovels... because carrying only one multi purpose shovel is more convenient then carrying all 3.

Now, if you cannot see how the camera industry is using this shovel principal in order to limit the functionality of their camera lines, then you have far more money then me. Because I can clearly see that some features are left out of some cameras when there is no reasonable technical limitations other then not including the feature in the software. I can tell you that the still camera, compact camera and video camera could all be one camera, but no manufacturer will provide all the advanced features of each on one single camera. The current limitations are far less technical and more profit based then you may be willing to admit.

I agree that in a time where we are trying to reduce human consumption of earths resources, that it is unethical to create products that do not allow the consumer to obtain the full potential out of physical materials used to make it. This is similar in the router industry where multiple routers of varying functions and cost are the same physical product. The unethical part is that the company actively cripples an identical product in order to artificially create artificial scales of value. What happens when a customer decides that they need a feature that is not available in the crippled version? They dispose of the crippled product to buy the exact same product with non-crippling software. Good for company profits, but bad for human consumption and waste.

I think there should be a law against producing hardware products with closed source software. It would be best if the manufacture did not even provide any software pre-installed on their products. This would encourage re-use of older products and provide the option for new features on products that the manufacturer did not envision at the time of sale.