Do you have any numbers about "political" prisoners? It doesn't sounds like you actually *know* anything, except for some media headlines? Knowing Russia just a little (yes I also speak some Russian and have been there a few times, and in the Ukraine) I doubt there's any significant political movement behind bars. You have a WISISTI (What I See Is What There Is) perception - of course your news media don't report on "normal" cases in Russian, all they ever do (understandable and that's okay) is report a few very high profile (well, only that reporting makes them so) cases. Pussy? Khodorkovsky? Anyone else? Not to mention that Khodorkovsky never deserved all that attention.

And don't think I want to defend Russia, it's a cold, hard country (in so more than just nature), but come up with intelligent criticism and not just some random opinion based on very little, no, more like no knowledge except a small number of headlines. Because it is such a f...-up tough country with severe poverty you can expect there to be crime, quite a bit of crime, with all those I-have-nothing-to-loose people. Better criticism would be the wealth distribution that contributes to crime. There isn't a big political movement to imprison ASAIK.

Fourth, use common sense.

Don't even try to come up with extreme cases where something else obviously does make more sense then these text formats. Because also obviously there is no one-size-fits-all. So if you think you have a problem that is better solved using some other format, binary, whatever, just DO it and don't try to use your particular example as "counter point" why everything else is wrong.

First, thanks for ignoring the solution given to the problem mentioned - use common sense, and arrays.

Second, the data that goes over the wire *IS* binary - it is (de)compressed on the fly.

Third, the majority prefers human readable formats. That's why those formats became popular - "popular": "liked or admired by many people or by a particular person or group".

JSON is verbose? That's news to me. Make it any more dense and it becomes hard to read for humans - and having human readable messages is one thing I don't want to give up, speaking as a developer. I don't want binary messaging. It has been tried. (It doesn't prevent anyone from sending natively binary data - as opposed to data that is made binary but might as well just be text - in another way, but for a lot of communication it's great.)

Indeed (see my reply to the other guy). And yet, no entrepreneur looks at tax rates - if the taxes are high they just don't want to sit at home and not become rich any more? So out of spite they say "no, taxes are too high, I refuse to invest and make money just to spite you, government (- that benefits me as an entrepreneur much more than anyone else, but I don't want to pay for it)". My focus is tax rates don't matter for entrepreneurial decisions. Their result is how much money is left with the company - but any business that actually DOES something, like investing and R&D, has enough costs not to pay too much. The only businesses that care about tax rate are the "rentier" types, those that milk assets or have such a market force that they can dictate prices. So claims that tax rates have much to do with business growth are stupid, also given the historic context (I posted links to graphs in another reply).

What does your statement have to do with anything I said? You try to reframe it so that it looks silly - but only YOU look silly, boy. I'm a (small) entrepreneur and I have NEVER looked at tax rates to decide whether a project should be done or not. Also see my reply to the other guy (why should I repeat myself) about who benefits the most from a government (and should therefore pay for it unless you believe in subsidies).

The country had its best time in the 50s/60s after the war - with the highest taxes.

Also, myself an entrepreneur (albeit on a small scale) I know not a single entrepreneur including myself who ever looked at tax rates before deciding to become entrepreneurial.

Last, a good infrastructure - not just roads, the legal system!!! - for the most part benefits entrepreneurs and those with money. The worker classes go to small claims court at the most (I want to say it's about small change 99% of the time when they use the system), those who benefits the most from government provided infrastructure are those with something to loose. So if you believe that those who need, use, benefit from something should pay for it you should be asking for higher corporate taxes and local taxes (meaning don't let companies benefit here and pay (no) taxes in Bermuda.

The there's this:

Corporate tax rates US:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Effective_Corporate_Tax_Rate_1947-2011_v2.jpg

Corporate, income and cap. gains tax rates US:
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/dfadf.png

You are just plain wrong, historic corporate tax rates were higher, and NOW you have the crisis, the unemployment, the anger - the boom time seems to have been the 50s/60s.

Are you trying to say Google is the result of low US taxes? That is such a load. Californian taxes are HIGH. If next you come back telling me "but Bermuda..." I'll have to point to what you said and ask how Bermuda tax rates have anything to do with the tax policy of the country the company is in?

Next go and watch this video about the history of the Silicon Valley and go away with your propaganda: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo

I'm under the impression - supported by the votes on your comment - most people would very much prefer to see YOU leave. That would raise quality here quite a bit. But kudos for not posting as AC - On the other hand, what does it mean you are unable to recognize how you behave?

(i.e. Slashdot is) - as far as content and quality are concerned. Look at my UID, I've known the site since the beginning. These days I don't really know why I still come here, reddit has MUCH better comment quality on average (not a joke - this includes that the really good comments are easy to spot while the garbage quickly disappears). Slashdot is living off of past glory completely. Back then the moderation system was state the greatest asset - today it's still the same while everyone else continued to develop. I'm not bitter at all - as I said, reddit is pretty good so I know what I read most of the time...

But without getting lots of money they can't do all those good things, like finding a cure for cancer or the next antibiotics etc etc. They NEED lots of money. Or so we keep getting told whenever there's a discussion about limiting the expenditure for pharmaceuticals... you may say that they should get the money for other, more valuable drugs they make, but this isn't how it works at all even when left alone. Anyone selling something doesn't try to get back "cost" but to get back anything they can. Since they won't have to do a lot of research on vitamin pills any excess money they get through selling those is available for the expensive research. IN theory - just want to take the wind out of that particular argument right away.

Not that I support any of it, I think this system doesn't quite work in health related matters, and private insurance (which serves me, personally, very well indeed) is the worst idea ever, but that's a completely different topic (maybe).

I would really like to have a global database accessible to anyone where everyone who actually believes this and other utter nonsense and obvious BS stories is registered. Forum owners and people interacting with such people are then automatically informed by their software whenever they read information from one of those people, and they will have to wear a t-shirt that says "I'm really gullible".

Basically, I don't mind Facebook, Google or the NSA - I *do* mind that they keep the data to themselves and that they exempt themselves. Put everything in the open - and I mean *every thing*. Ooops, that 2nd sentence went off on a tangent...

...you want to 1-up him you'll have to go for the quantum mechanic explanation of bonds. As far as *useful* models for chemical bonds go, even chemists use something pretty far from the "truth" . There are valence bond theory, orbital hybridization, resonance, and quite a few more.

When it comes to explaining nature, you use the model that is most USEFUL for what you want to explain, not for the most complicated one possible to impress your peers because you are so smart. :) That is why in many books atoms are still represented by red, white, blue "balls" and no one complains about it.

And by the way, the in the oxygen-hydrogen bond oxygen actually does sort of "borrow" the electron - the probability distribution for the location of that electron shifts towards the nucleus of the oxygen. That is why water molecules, while actually neutral (if not ionized), still act polar - the oxygen is essentially negative, the hydrogens positive. There is no equal "sharing".

"I don't much like Javascript" translates to "I know very little or nothing about Javascript and I'm unwilling to learn".

There - how about some honesty?

PS: Obligatory link: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=douglas%20crockford&sm=3

You confuse ANY-one and EVERY-one. ANY-one can be rich. ANY-one can do what you did. ANY-one can win the lottery. But if a certain threshold is reached that won't work any more, unless something fundamentally changes in the system (system in a "sciency" meaning), because whatever the current system is it allows only a certain amount of non-standard actions.