Ever noticed our elected officials like to talk about the 2014 elections as the time when "We will regain/keep power in the Senate?". Capitalism vs Socialism is not the true issue -- the real issue is, do THE PEOPLE have a say-so in the rules, or is there a small handful of oligarchs in charge that make the rules? Both capitalism and socialism fail when a few elite make deals behind doors and stay as "leaders" for too long.

If we figure out how to take care of the general person properly -- and that may be from a capitalist, socialist or in my opinion hybrid capitalist-socialist system -- then the rest will fall into place, and the system CANNOT collapse and go bankrupt because we have from first principles made sure to create a system where everyone can prosper. You get the bankruptcy when a few steal from the masses. The socialist states in general did fall first, but the US is not exactly a shining example of not being "on the verge of bankruptcy", is it?

A problem is defining exactly what that statement means. What are the hard decisions? And if they are so hard, then there is obviously going to be a lot of disagreement on what decision to make.

Do you have a link to a specific plan? A specific list of pre-made decisions that you can point to? Because -- and I mean no personal offense to you -- I really get tired of hearing this "government has to make hard decisions". That typically means "Government needs to do what *I* want it to". What about everyone else?

Government is of the people by the people for the people, so there is no one entity to make a decision. ALL OF US TOGETHER must vote and make a decision -- and we cannot form a consensus and do that while all of the anger at the opposite sides of political aisle exists.

Personally, I think the hard decision that needs to be made is that we need to stop being so afraid of business and "job creators", and stop licking their boots. In my personal experience, many of them (I will not say all, because there are some great companies and managers out there) are huge douches that don't give a shit about anything but their bottom line. We need to make the hard firm stance "WE DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR EXECUTIVE BONUS -- if you love America half as much as you say in commercials, you will immediately support higher taxes to pay for better roads, renewed water systems, the fastest internet in the world, the best medical system in the world, free college tuition and job training, and paying off the national debt, because we need to make sure the US stays an amazing country full of hope and opportunity -- and if you do not support that, you obviously care nothing for the people of this country so why should you get tax breaks? Tax breaks only go to those that serve their community.".

I would rather see most tax breaks taken away, and that extra income used for the infrastructure mentioned earlier, as well as more money for the Small Business Admin (or similar agency) for seed money to let the common American start their own business and CREATE THEIR OWN JOB. Small grants (not loans!) to let someone take a risk and try something new. I'm tired of waiting for some executive to decide he will give me a paltry sum for hard work, just for him to take away benefits in a year and outsource my job. We should all be creating our own companies and letting the free market decide who has the best strategy.

I went to college, graduate school even, for STEM degrees -- honors GPA, internships, awards, whole shebang. And yet when I graduated, I had such a difficult time getting employers to call me back much less interview me (oh yes, I called and followed up on applications, but that never did any good, it was mostly "We received it and will call YOU if we want you, go away") that I had to take a part time position teaching, where I made practically no money and no benefits, and had to live on food stamps for a good year or so before finally getting a job to even start to pay the bills and student loans -- and even that still doesn't totally cut it and I'm having a hard time saving up enough to pay off those loans. I had a studio apartment, ate beans and rice, no frills whatsoever. So tell me, what poor decision did I make?

We need to get away from this blame-game, ESPECIALLY blaming the poor that are often trying hard**, and simply help people succeed. Everyone falls on rough times, and we need to actually be a real goddamn civilized society and be there for each other when we need help. Corporations are pulling in loads of money right -- stock markets have never been higher, and I can tell you from personal experience many of the CEOs around here literally have 7 BMWs and crap. It's not about "redistributing the wealth" -- it's about getting a fair share. The CEO doesn't handle customers and all, the whole company falls apart without workers -- why can't everyone, workers up thru CEO, get the same level of increase for everyone working together as part of a team?

** NOTE: that part time teaching I talked about? I taught at a few community colleges / tech schools (they don't hire full time right now due to budgets in public sector and due to CEO wanting to impress shareholders in private sector), and I met some very hard-working students there. Most of them are trying really hard to better themselves and get out of minimum wage, but they cannot devote full time to school because they have to work (and often very bizarre shifts that will suddenly come up and prevent them from attending class). It's really a sad situation. Even trying super hard, it's near impossible to get a better job and get out of the cycle of poverty.

To the OP: Have you tried to contact Fedora about it? There are so many hardware combinations out there, it's impossible to test everything. Personally, I have installed Fedora 20 on several different systems (desktops and laptops!) and have had no issues. All drivers installed correctly, etc. I actually really like Fedora 20 compared to how it was a few releases ago. I used to have Fedora 15 and THAT was a buggy mess -- not just GNOME 3, but a lot of the software and servers that you would expect to be rock solid. Do you really want to go back to that? I think we need to keep moving forward, but iron out the bugs as we go, and the only way to do that is to report bugs and try to work with them. Ultimately, Fedora was always supposed to be bleeding-edge -- if you want stability, then Ubuntu LTS or OpenSUSE or even CentOS might be a better match for you.

To the P: I have had Windows 7 and Windows XP blue screen immediately after installation. I have had trouble with getting the monitor to show at the correct resolution, or the sound to play, or the graphics card to be detected numerous times. I have had explorer crash on me and reset everything. I've had Windows Update not be able to find the driver for a very common device, and so I've had to hunt down the drivers online and install them -- except the drivers are only given out by the company as .inf files, so I have to do the add hardware wizard manually rather than letting it automagically configure. I'm not necessarily trying to put Windows down here -- but I do like to clarify to people that, over the years I have installed OSes personally and professionally, it very OFTEN goes wrong the moment you put a version of Windows that wasn't designed for that computer on there, and sometimes even when it IS the version of Windows on the sticker on the computer tower. Upgrades suck, hell even doing the recovery disk sometimes causes trouble and you have to manually update drivers anyway. Both Windows and Linux have the problem of being installed on an extremely large amount of possible configurations that is impossible to test 100%.

If you build custom PCs that are verified to work great with Linux, you experience the same level "It Just Works" as you would other OSes. If a vendor sold such PCs, you wouldn't have much support cost at all because it would Just Work (TM(R)), much like buying a Windows PC from Dell (theoretically) or a Mac from Apple.

You are correct, if everyone made their own office suite, but that was not what I was proposing.

I instead would like a few local/state governments to COLLABORATE on the SAME FOSS office suite (and maybe not even a totally new one -- perhaps jump on board LibreOffice, Calligra, etc.) and make it up-to-par to the needs of government, rather than paying Microsoft for continually bloated office suites that push you more and more to their OneDrive and proprietary formats. Yes, there would be some up-front costs, but then everyone -- local governments, small business, whatever -- could benefit from a nice FOSS suite. It's a much more practical use of resources, as well as philosophically good (since government is keeping data in open and documented formats and software, supporting small business by hiring people to work on it, letting small business use the FOSS for free, etc.)

Open standards is extremely important. I'd hate for all that data to be locked into Microsoft Excel format, or what have you.

While I agree that sometimes the FOSS is buggy or missing features, I do not think in this situation we should let that stop us. In fact, I would love to see NYC (and other cities across the country) agree to sponsor/contract a couple of developers each to work on whatever we need: data formatting and conversion, word processing, accounting, voting software, etc. In this way, while the FOSS is maybe not up to spec today, we can all work together on making it up to spec soon. In this way, we all pool resources, get it done correctly ONCE*, and enjoy the savings and philosophical warm and fuzzies.

(* yes I understand that long term we would probably need to continually hire developers on a contract basis to fix problems that come up, or add new features or support for new operating systems, etc., but generally speaking it would be much less impact on the budget long term -- though I also understand the political pressure currently to cut budgets rather than spend a little extra for a perk down the road.).

The HVAC systems never seem to be set up correctly, and filter too much air into one room at the expense of others. So parts of the building will always be cold and parts will be hot. We just moved to a completely new building in a completely new office park, and exact same problem.

I think some have pointed out that coding develops logic skills, but I think that's reversing the "real" direction -- that logic skills help develop coding (and numerous other technical skills! and even just plain mathematics understanding). And yet, I have not seen any discussion about logic in our rush to improve education. AFAIK, Common Core doesn't even mention logic ( I browsed through the standards once for a couple hours but I don't recall ever seeing it).

Basic propositional/symbolic logic should be taught and reinforced over and over in high school, particularly your last few years. I'm not an expert on childhood brain development, but I have the suspicion our middle school kids could do it fine too.

At university, I was appalled by how many students were completely dumbfounded in a basic logic class. We're talking problems understanding if-then statements, and why affirming the consequent is bad. We didn't even get to symbolic logic that much, it was mostly analyzing simple sentences. I'm sure everyone could, and ultimately did, learn it, but you shouldn't even be able to get into a university without knowing logic. And that isn't all the students' fault -- that's the failure of the adults for not pushing for appropriate curricula. After that class, I became pretty convinced that its not that our kids are bad at math per se, but that they have a really hard time following logic arguments and therefore, mathematical arguments.

I came here to say essentially this -- I do not really see the big deal, even if it is true that people are using fare meter phone apps. So what? As long as both people are happy with the transaction, I don't see the problem. I think there are many times when government and regulations have their place, but this one seems like one that protects certain jobs at the expense of new ones.

I recently watched thru all 6 episodes in the order they "should be" (started at Episode 1, went straight thru to 6), and I have to say that I have a new perspective on them all. It was NOT what I expected and remembered thru the fog of memory.

• Episode 1 -- still very terrible. easily the weakest of all movies. Does a poor job setting up the story, the characters, the universe, the Force (a very vague reference to bacteria, but nothing beyond that -- what does that even mean?), everything. Not very much action; one of the "biggest" moments is the podrace which is neither in the Stars nor is it a War. Whenever a character tried to explain something, Jar Jar would appear and scream over the lines and take away focus.
• Episode 2 -- much better than I remembered. Jar Jar is not a significant character. It actually does have a fair amount of intrigue/mystery (where the clones came from), and the battle of Geonosis is pretty decent. The main downside -- and probably why most think of it as lower than it actually is -- is the chemistry between Anakin and Padme. It's a little rushed and unnatural, but even that on a second viewing wasn't quite as bad as I remembered. It's more of a pacing issue than anything, and I think Episode 5 has a lot of the same problems.
• Episode 3 -- I actually like what they tried to do with setting up the Jedi Council and the President/Emperor as being suspicious of each other, and tried to keep it vague who was working for who (even though we know the answer, the movie itself I think handled it well). The fighting and battles were much better, the characters finally seemed to be a lot more developed. The main part I didn't like was Anakin's turn so quickly -- again, it actually wasn't too badly done, he has a lot of good motivation if you can keep up, but its a pacing issue. Having characters like Chewbacca show up at the end didn't quite make sense with the continuity, but actually overall I thought it was a strong movie.
• Episode 4 -- actually much weaker than I remember. Doesn't do a very good job of setting up the characters, or story. Just an action flick. Luke especially is extremely whiny. Leia and Han are alright characters, but they don't get enough screen time to develop. C-3P0 actually is like a toned down Jar Jar -- whenever someone is about to say something important, he blathers and worries about something. R2-D2 actually has more of a screen presence and personality than most of the characters. Another interesting thing I noticed is that apart from the first scene of the movie, Darth Vader does not make much of a presence; flying the fighter against Luke at the end doesn't really make him that special other than a commanding officer; he's not nearly as "scary" as I remembered. The Imperial officers actually argue with him a lot and don't take him that seriously. The Death Star being destroyed isn't any less ridiculous than the prequel.
• Episode 5 -- After the initial battle of Hoth, which was pretty good, the action slows down a lot. This is to focus on character development, which the movie does a good job of overall. But Luke is still a whiny character (like father like son?), and Han and Leia's relationship developing is also an issue with pacing -- good presentation, but Leia suddenly liking him seemed to be just as quick as the Anakin/Padme romance. It works a little better because Leia is more expressive with her anger at Han than Padme had toward Anakin (Padme always kept composure), but otherwise I think very similar. Also, Darth Vader seems a little too much in the background of most scenes -- it's implied he does a lot, but we never see him DO it on the screen, so can't really take him seriously yet. In fact, apart from the battle of Hoth at the beginning, you kind of forget an Empire exists because the story focuses so much on following Luke and Han. That's fine to develop characters but there isn't really any sense of urgency of fighting this big empire. 3PO still annoying, R2D2 kind of bad-ass.
• Episode 6 -- until the Ewoks, a much better movie overall. Luke is suddenly a jedi bad-ass and commands the respect of people around him, walking into Jabba's palace owning the place. Darth Vader also has a larger role earlier in the movie, where he makes a grand entrance to the new Death Star with the emperor, which is finally the first glimpse of people looking up to them and taking them seriously as important high-ranking character in the Empire. Again, the battle station and fleet show the the difficult battle against the huge Empire. Han and Leia are a little closer and develop feelings better. All of the main characters are much more developed finally, except 3PO, who took a backseat again much like Jar Jar did in the later movies. It's a bit hokey at the end (Ewoks with arrows/sticks take out an Imperial army), but even so, it's a pretty decent battle. Darth Vader switching to being good and talking about being "too late for him" is a little hokey and rushed too, but in combination with the prequels, we can sympathize a little better -- he had very good intentions that led him astray into the horribly wrong, as he felt he was doing what was right to protect Padme and the Republic. One can see a little better why he has that hesitation, thinks its too late for him even though he knows it was wrong, and why he can ultimately cast off the Emperor. He made that mistake once, not again with his son.

Overall, the prequels were not as bad I remembered (on the whole), and the originals were not as good as I remembered (on the whole). Honestly, I feel like the 3rd movie of both trilogies were the strongest overall; possibly because the characters and situation are finally developed enough to have some empathy for what's going on. The 2nd movie of both trilogies were the next best movies, as they both did good jobs establishing conflict and characters. The first movie of both trilogies were the weakest, as they both presumed you knew a lot about the universe, and the main characters came off as very whiny and complainy. Episode 1 though, was much much worse than 4, so don't get me wrong there; just on the whole, there is a lot of similarity in the progression of the two trilogies, so you can see Lucas's influence.

Technically speaking, maybe it wouldn't stick to the stated purposes, but any amendment would still need 38 states to ratify it so it is doubtful this would be a problem in practice. Nothing crazy can get through -- the solid red or solid blue states can easily veto crazy amendments.

That would primarily be the Citizens United v FEC court decision of 2010, and further backed up by the recent McCutcheon decision of 2014, though of course other little laws and regulations contribute.

If you would like to do something about it, I would encourage you to join a group such as the WolfPAC and Move to Amend. A couple state legislatures (California and Vermont, I believe) have *already* passed bills calling for a constitutional convention to propose a new constitutional amendment that puts into law that corporations do not have the rights of people, and there is similar pending legislation in many other states. Call/write your state congressmen today and get it done, and we can put this nonsense behind us. It is not impossible, it has been done in past history and is already starting to happen now; I'm sure you haven't heard it on the news, but it is happening. Get involved in making history!

Really, the issue is that people like to attach labels to things so they can strawman you. There really isn't such a thing as a left and a right in American mainstream politics; it is one big Corporate Party where we get the "left" and "right" labels based on which corporate industry you pander to the most. They fight with each other so much only because the industries they represent happen to often be at odds. It's not because either really subscribes to a real philosophy.

In past elections, when the country has a "vote the bums out" attitude, we see massive switch over from one party to the other. After Bush, there was a flood of congresspeople to the Democrat side for the election so they could be "Not Bush/Republican". After the antics of Obama's first term, we saw a flood of people switching parties to Republican to be "Not Obama/Democrat". Really, the party title means little now because most of these bozos are the SAME PEOPLE, they switch their party affiliation as the wind blows to try to stay in office.

I say all of this because being leftist/socialist is not necessarily shown as a bad thing just because there are some douches in power that align with the "left". That is a logical fallacy in itself, and we must all try to rise above that and not let the labels define us -- which is exactly what the "left" and "right" want us to do. Let's have a real conversation on the problems of the country, and possible fixes.

Vote Green Party, Justice Party, or Libertarian Party, in 2014!

I see this response a lot, and I completely understand it. Business needs what it needs, and so if it doesn't see a need to update, it won't. Got it. Perfectly. Crystal Clear.

But an honest question: What happens to that 100k database (maybe 200k in the future?) 5,10,20 years from now, when the computer it runs on breaks and you can't get replacement parts for that old motherboard. When Windows 98 does not have drivers for the hardware being made. When the database grows so large that the HDD in your Windows 98 box can't even handle it. When Windows 98 can't keep up with the network speeds and standards of the future that are required to stay competitive. When the install medium itself gets scratched too many types and stops reading.

I don't feel like I've EVER seen any contingency plan for this. The excuse is always "You're out of touch, business needs to run older systems". Again, I agree and understand. But at some point, maybe not soon, but at some point it WILL stop working, or at the very least, it's age hampers the budget more than helps.

Is there a plan to at least move to VMs to try to preserve the software a little more? (Maybe you are already using the VMs). Are there good backups for the VMs? Can the VMs access the USB ports and what not for your devices? How many of your devices use old ports that don't even come on any computer sold in the past 10 years?

While I understand the reasons for not upgrading immediately (or not even quickly), 15-20 years seems excessive, and I start to think this is a failure of business leaders more so than a misunderstanding of technical people.

What happens if one day, some Google executive decides they know so much about you that it's not worth it to give you free service 100% of the time?

This is always the danger of proprietary software, no matter how much you pay, what you pay, or even if it's free -- at some point, someone can arbitrarily snap their fingers and your service is gone. You may not be a customer that they want to please forever... just for right now, while it's profitable.

We really need to support efforts like LibreOffice and ownCloud, so that we can have our own systems regardless of what anyone else does.