The problem here is that your comments aren't fully formed. For example, originally you wrote "You're making the naive assumption that these politicians are ordinary people, capable of making independent choices and casting votes of their own choosing." I interpreted that as meaning politicians are incapable of making independent choices. Hence, my original response.

Next, you say "I'm not advocating direct democracy, I'm saying politicians are slaves to their masters." Arguing that politicians are slaves to the people is naive. So, I respond that they are definitely not slaves to the people.

Finally, you challenge me to present an example of a politician who thumbs his nose at his party and gets re-elected. An entirely different argument! Had you simply stated what you meant the first (or second) time around, this would be a whole lot easier. Instead you seem to expect your audience to know what you mean without bothering to explicitly write it. I think I know what your argument is now, but it could certainly change.

As for an example, I'm to the point now of responding to a challenge to a view I haven't even commented on. But I find you interesting, so I'll see where this goes: Senator Joseph Lieberman. He was a vice president candidate in 2000, had a public falling out with the party and went so far as to run against the party in 2006 as an independent (and won). He's spoken out against the democratic party, going so far as supporting McCain, saying: "I'm a loyal Democrat, but I have loyalties that are greater than those to my party, and that's my loyalty to my state and my country."

So, if your argument is that politicians are slaves to their masters -- and the masters of politicians are their political party -- then there is your example. He's had very public issues with the party for about 7 years now, and he's still in office.

And I'm saying they're not. They need to get enough votes to get reelected, then they can (and will) do whatever they want.

Which is it, affordable healthcare for everyone that reduces long-term spending, or mobile deathsquads pulling the plug on seniors? Both are idiotic and an insult to the intelligence if you dig even a little, but you have to pick a side (or simply not vote).

If politicians were slaves to their masters, there would be much less FUD. And there would be a lot more real information coming from the politicians to the public. Pick the side you agree with (or the least of the evils) and drink the kool-aid.

I hear the kool-aid will make you think that politicians are slaves to their masters. :) But regardless, they are neither slaves in theory (per the Constitution) or in practice.

You must not be an American. Here in the United States we don't live in a democracy; contrary to widespread belief. We have a republic, where representatives do our voting for us. Sometimes those votes are from politicians (say, the Senate and House), sometimes from Electoral College who vote for our president. The whole thing is in our Constitution, and our government type is clearly spelled out in Article IV, Section 4*.

In local matters, we sometimes get to vote directly for an issue. But, even at the national level, we generally get to vote for the people that get to vote. That's why we're sometimes labeled a democratic republic; we're a republic that shows some traits of democracy. However, a democracy we are not.

Anyway, the idea that a politician isn't capable of making independent choices from ordinary people is exactly backwards. In America, the assumption is that those that get to vote** are distinct enough from ordinary people that they are able to make independent choices.

*Interestingly enough, the word democracy (or any derivatives) never appears in the Constitution. So much for spreading democracy throughout the world?

**Okay, you can vote for the president. But only sort of. Al Gore had the most votes in 2000, and in a democracy he would have become the president. So yes, you can vote, but that doesn't mean your vote counts. Technically, although the Electoral College tends to vote for whoever the people in their district vote for, there is no requirement that they do so.

You're absolutely correct, psychiatrists always have med school training. And after med school, they then undergo a significant amount of training in mental health. As you mention, the aim is to treat patients (applied psychology).

And, psychologists do generally take a different training route: getting a Ph. D. in clinical or counseling psychology, followed by an internship. But while psychologists can be research-oriented, they can also be people-oriented. a neuropsychologist, for example, is a psychologist that certainly doesn't study behavior.

I've heard it said that one difference between psychologists and psychiatrists is the medical degree; but some psychologists certainly do have medical degrees. I'd be more inclined to say that a psychiatrist deals with mental illnesses, whereas a psychologist deals with emotional ones. There's certainly room to argue, but it's an approximation.

Anyway, a clinical psychologist might be more likely to tell a severely depressed person, "Tell your wife that you are gay; it's time to come out of the closet." By using psychological methods to solve problems, that by definition makes them psychotherapists (practicing psychoanalysis).

I'll agree that psychotherapists can certainly be crackpots, especially since there isn't regulation (at least in the United States) needed to call yourself one. However, the idea that all psychotherapists are crackpots, or that all psychologists are research-oriented is incorrect.

I'm not so sure our definitions are different, but perhaps our perspective is.

You're mixing up psychiatrists, psychologists and psychotherapists. Think of a psychologists as a general term, like "doctor," for which there are many specializations. A psychiatrist is a classification of psychologist, one of 56 defined by the APA.

One of the differences between a psychotherapist and a psychiatrist, as you note, is the medical degree and therefore, the ability to write prescriptions.

A marriage counselor could certainly have a Ph. D. but not have a medical degree. This falls under the umbrella of psychotherapist (or further subcategorized as a clinical psychologist). It also falls into your definition of anyone "who feels like calling themselves that." Boy, will those doctors have egg on their face once they realize they've earned a meaningless title!

I happen to disagree with c6gunner, in that I don't think you're necessarily trolling. Even though he/she makes a good argument, points out your flawed logic, and you followed up with a totally different argument (Canada can so why can't we), I'm responding to you instead of modding you down.

The knowledge that the Iraq war wasn't necessary is sort of funny in a way. If you read the commission report, you'll see that one contributing factor to the idea that Iraq war was necessary is confirmation bias -- facts that support your beliefs are accepted as true much more readily that ones that support the opposite, which tend to be dismissed as unreliable.

Religion is an easy example of confirmation bias. No matter what religion you are, you think it's right and probably have plenty of proof that support your beliefs. Other religions, out of necessity, are therefore wrong. If you're an atheist, all religions are wrong -- they simply can't see it.

The Bush administration really did believe it was necessary. You can fault the logic that led to such a belief, but keep in mind they didn't have the benefit of hindsight to assist.

We wasted enough money in Iraq to pay for universal health care, AND a trip to the moon.

If the Iraq war had been necessary to prevent an attack on America, surely you wouldn't disagree that saving tens of thousands of lives (or more) is worth more than universal health care and a trip to the moon. After all, those things can be postponed for a bit with minimal overall impact. One might even argue it would be foolish not to address such a risk if there is even a remote chance of it occurring.

I'm not saying that I agree with going into the Iraq war. But sometimes bad decisions are made for the right reasons. It wasn't simply an issue of throwing away money then deciding that there isn't enough for health care or space exploration.

Yes, those things are important. I've got to get new gutters for the house, the driveway repaved, and seriously need to look into getting a new car. But there's only so much money to go around and something is going to have to wait. In hindsight, I may look back on my decision and regret not making a different decision. Hindsight is funny that way.

Perhaps you should consider that there is a reason for having 12 people on a jury, and why a single person can hang it. What seems to have appalled you, in practice, worked exactly like it should have. It takes a single person to keep things balanced.

It's also interesting, that knowing this, you advocate demanding a judge to determine your fate over that of a jury -- essentially, putting all your eggs one one, biased basket. And yes, we're all biased, like it or not. To not be biased would require a special mental handicap that I have yet to encounter.

I don't consider myself stupid by any means, and, like your mother, I too decided to serve on jury duty. I recommend it for everyone; it's completely different than portrayed on television. Sure, you're supposed to make decisions on the facts -- which is what you believe to be true, not evidence, which is something else. You're constrained by the laws, the wording, definitions, etc. Then the last thing the judge tells you is that what happens in that room is no one's business except yours, and that ultimately you're going to make decisions that you feel are truthful, and you can sleep with.

The judge who talked to our group discussed a priest with a drinking problem who had gotten off drunk driving convictions three times by various juries. Each time, the jury saw what a great man he was and gave him "one more chance." Eventually he wrapped his car around a tree and died, but the point the judge was making is that you're not necessarily doing someone a favor by letting them off. While he didn't kill anyone else, he could have.

I took something else away from it too: the jury has the ultimate control over deciding whether a crime was committed. It can be illegal for you to chew gum, but it'll take a full jury to be willing to convict you. For example, in Michigan, it's a felony to commit adultery (750.30). I suppose adultery is about as common here as anywhere else, but guess how many people are tried for it... Juries are the reason draconian laws aren't enforced.

If our fate lay solely with a judge, who is completely unbiased (if there were such a thing), and who held us accountable to the letter of the law in all cases, we'd be much worse off.

No. No. No! You use a switch, but you set your switch to half duplex and your LHC to full duplex. With any load whatsoever, you're almost guaranteed late collisions.

Better late than never?

It may not be illegal like killing is illegal, but distributing software between regions is either copyright infringement (unauthorized software distribution) or at minimum an EULA violation. Part of Steam's DRM is policy enforcement. If you hack, your entire steam account may be disabled. If you have a game installed that you shouldn't have (say you have multiple Steam accounts with different games) it won't let you play those games -- even though they're installed.

That is exactly it. But realize that different markets have different pricing. Sometimes software may be cheap (or free!) but you could incur nominal per-minute playtime charges. In a different region the software may be $49 and incur no playtime charges. Whether that is for economic, cultural, or legal reasons doesn't matter -- they have no interest in letting you game the system.

Let's say you are a mechanic. You charge $1,000 to fix things, then offer free, unlimited, lifetime support. Other mechanics, however, offer free parts but charge labor. A crafty consumer may try to get free parts, then switch "regions" and get free labor. Can you see why mechanics might not feel it is your right to do that-- even if you feel that by not letting you do it they are unfairly squeezing as much money out of you as possible?

Or bought a DVD in Asia and tried to play it somewhere else? It's copyright infringement when you do it for DVDs too.

Or how software is cheaper for educational users, even though 1 block away is a corporation needing the same software but has to pay more! Why does the geographical boundary exist? Why can't the corporation buy the educational version at a discount, then use the cheaper software instead?

Are you really implying that Microsoft, a confirmed monopoly, would get sued for... not expanding their monopoly as much as possible? I think that if Microsoft stopped supporting AMD 64-bit processors they might see less court time. As a matter of fact, if they stopped supporting Intel 64-bit processors too, you could say they don't have a monopoly at all! (for 64-bit platforms anyway)

When companies decide not to support something, it is a cost decision. In this case Apple has no economic reason to support hardware they don't produce. Maybe Apple intentionally broke support, maybe they simply introduced optimizations that work on their hardware but cause problems on other hardware. Maybe they don't test unsupported hardware to know there was a problem, and maybe they do know but simply don't care. However it worked it out, they have the right to support, or not support, whatever hardware they wish.

Likewise, if Microsoft decides to stop supporting certain hardware, that's fine too. Virtual PC stopped supporting Linux when Microsoft acquired it. All that did was help move people to VMWare and other products. If it's more economic for Apple to require people to move to Windows/Linux/whatever on non-Apple hardware rather than letting them using OS-X, well that sounds like fair game to me. You don't buy the OS-X software, you lease it. Use of the software is governed by the EULA. Those users had no right to use it anyway.

Apple is making a statement. Perhaps they are saying that the software cost, assuming those users actually buy OS-X, isn't significant. Maybe Apple loses money overall on the software and rely on hardware sales for profit? Perhaps Apple does make money from the software, but it doesn't cover the cost of maintaining unsupported configurations due to the additional development time? Perhaps none of the above is true, and they simply want to push their brand of "it just works," and to keep the brand value high -- which to them is worth more than allowing flaky computers out there giving their OS a bad name. Because, in the end, it doesn't matter if you think the other processors work "just fine" or not. And having Atom support removed, if it was in fact deliberately removed, may have little to do with whether the Atom processors work "just fine" or not.

Unless you're a share-holder, your opinion probably doesn't matter much. If you are a share-holder, realize that their decision was made with the intention of making you more money, not bringing world peace (or whatever other values you think they should make their decisions on).

40 tracks, 27 sectors per track (dual density only, 18 sec/track for single/double density), 128 bytes per sector (single/dual, 256 for double). Leading to:

• Single density: 90KB (back then a KB was still 1024 bytes for storage)
• Dual density: 135KB
• Double density: 180KB

Be sure to get a disk notcher so that you can use both sides of the disk. Also... get off my lawn.

You're obviously trolling, but rather than modding you down I'll reply to prevent the further spread of incorrect information.

1. A java interpreter is not a non-caching JIT compiler. Either it gets compiled into native machine code and run natively or it doesn't.

2. Java can be as fast as optimized C. If you've played around with C optimizations it should be pretty apparent that compiler optimizations already produce much faster code than what you could produce by hand-tuning. Java is no different in this respect. Where speed is really, really needed (such as with crypto libraries) the code is often done in assembly, not C.

Make a program in both C and Java, within the programs set an alarm to go off in 10 seconds and perform calculations until the alarm goes off. Then compare the results between C and Java. You might be surprised at what you find.

3. JIT can be faster than hand-written pre-compiled code. When you compile C you pick a target platform and let the compiler do what it can. A JIT compiler can optimize for your specific machine, your specific CPU and produce more optimal native code.

4. Considering today's PCs, the fact that Java makes building multi-threaded applications much easier than C/C++ means that even if Java is slower than C for a particular task/workload, that because it's so easy to leverage multiple CPU/cores it still might be faster than a C equivalent. Even so, most applications are not CPU-bound which makes it less of an issue, except to debunk the troll.

There are issues with Java (Swing performance and I/O scaling comes to mind) but code performance is not one of them.

FTP rides over TCP so it isn't really possible to "lose" data. However the default FTP transfer mode for Windows is ASCII. This means that if you're transferring binary data that some might not make it through as expected.

Change the FTP transfer mode to binary for the transfers and you won't have a problem. The command is "bin" once you have the FTP client open (assuming you're in interactive mode).

If you were to take apart a USB drive you might not find much to learn from. In general, today's machines are not as fixable as yesterdays and there is less reward for kids to try.

Unless the kids just like to break things. :)

Since you're focusing on Blizzard rather than on China let me correct you -- It's not illegal. You will not get arrested for doing it. It's against the terms of service, the rules you abide by to be able to play the game. If you come over to my house you must take off your shoes before using the hot tub. Those are my terms of service and if you break them I have the right to kick you out of my hot-tub or off of my property. But you won't get arrested.

Grinding gold to pay for repairs isn't fun. For casual gamers that wanted to see "end-game" they often bought gold to pay for their repairs. Certain aspects were certainly more fun, but the gold-centric aspects of the game were not.

Blizz did address it somewhat in the first x-pac. No more buying Golden Pearls to make that epic cloth item -- now you can simply run an instance and get the crafting material you need (as a drop) to craft your item. Now that those drops are no longer BoP the items have become much more of a commodity and the prices are reasonable due to sellers having competition in the auction house.

The change from making the crafting materials for epic items BoE also means that you don't have to grind instances for materials. Making gold is very easy (doing dailies nets about 400g per day) allowing you to obtain the item any way you want.

Now there are probably a few reasons Blizzard doesn't want gold selling:

1. Gold farmers were always quite annoying. Killing/camping quest mobs and such. Often they would cooperate on differing factions so that one would always be close to harass you (train mobs onto you, use a scroll (or whatever tricks they have to put you into combat also) then vanish.

2. They want you to play the game. To have gold allow you to buy something that it might take months to "earn" in-game is frustrating to those abiding by the ToS. A hint that perhaps the game should be more fun and less of a grind, but Blizz has an interest in keeping things balanced for those following the rules.

3. There are probably legal considerations for brokering (laundering) real money relatively anonymously.

4. People are giving out their account information to get powerleveled and to buy gold. Yes, to buy gold that could be sent in-game. People are getting hacked, messages posted on the forums (often pointing to malicious sites) to hack innocent people, etc.

There are plenty of boring parts of WoW that feel like a grind, which was the reason I stopped playing. However gold has lost its value. From Blizzard's perspective there simply is not a good reason for allowing it, and plenty of good reasons for not allowing it.