It would have been the best thing to happen if it had been a decent OS. DOS wasn't it, nor was Windows before NT/XP. It was meant to be Unix. Even Microsoft meant it to be Unix- that is why they wrote Xenix. DOS, the "Quick and Dirty Operating System they bought in to fulfil their IBM contract because they had nothing else ready, was meant as a stop gap. But when MS did finish writing Xenix for the PC they only pitched it at the corporate and academic market and left the peasants up to their necks in the crap that was DOS.

I would not describe the dog's breakfasts that were DOS and Win 3.x and Win9x/ME as a "Golden Age". I would say there was a first Golden Age with the non PC, non Microsoft micros in the 80's when there was a DOS equivalent in CP/M, used on higher end micros. Then there was a second Golden Age that corresponded with the life of XP.

And the PC age did not exactly explode. As late as 1990 for example the Amiga 3000 was introduced, running Unix and superior to its contemporary PCs. It took about ten years for PCs to oust other micros, and for some time PCs were used mainly in clerical and admin roles. For home, non-PC micros prevailed for a long time, and techies ot work (when we could still make our own buying decisions) tended to use Unix systems for heavy lifting or things like Amigas for smaller odd jobs. At least where I worked.

As it (or at least the interesting bit) lasted "the span of a millisecond", those other radio-telescope operators must have acted pretty quick.

That is absolutely barmy, barmy, barmy. How can anyone possibly be held responsible for paying for something they did not want and did not initiate? No wonder you get bombarded with calls.

Does the caller pay anything?

That is slightly misleading. Your link says :-

A survey ... found that those registered with the TPS did report a decrease in calls. But they still received an average of ten in the past month, compared with five for those who had not signed up.

In other words, people are more likely to sign up to the TPS if they are getting more calls in the first place. Not suprising. And then the calls they get are reduced. My experience with the TPS has been fairly good : calls certainly reduced. However, the TPS itself hardly seems to do anything (apart from keeping the list). I have complained about callers to them several times and never received any feedback. They say they issue fines of 1.5 million GBP last year -that's nothing.

That is the point isn't it? A non-homogeneous population is far more prone to these atrocities. The examples you give are where and when the population was not homogeneous. I could give many more too in the past (eg Saxons-Britons, Danes-Saxons), and they often started with someone (Tony Blair is a modern example) inviting a foreign people in because they thought they would lend power or money to their own elbow, an idea which then backfired. Such atrocities will occur even more in future with the trouble being stored up now.

I'm not sure what fear you are talking about. My reaction to this crap is anger, not fear, nor is fear a reaction I see in others I know. On the contrary, I want to kick those terrorists' arses. Looking at the Liveleak video I find myself wishing I was down there with a gun myself so I could have a shot at the bastards. I was in the military myself once, and it was not because of fear that I carried a gun at that time.

For me, the next best thing to kicking their arses myself is seeing someone else doing so, hence I am all for measures that will lead to that end. So let's post those cartoons everywhere now, to get the bastards to come out and show themselves.

There are several problems which have caused what you refer to as childish comments.

1) Gates is involved. Gates is a proven corporate rogue who, while a significant section of the World's population admire him (generally those more ignorant of his history, some even thinking he invented computers), he only generates dislike and cynicism among those concerned about his history of cheating and extortion. They see his "green" and "humanitarian" activities merely as an attempt to repair his bad reputation.

2) Technology for recycling sewerage has existed for years. Gates is posing as if he were involved in a new inverntion.

3) There are some simple low-tech solutions to these problems. Water shortages tend to occur where settlements have sprung up in areas in past times where water was adequate (they would not have been settled otherwise) but it has since ceased to be, or because a past irrigation/water supply system has broken down through neglect.. A better solution might be for the people to give it up and move to a location nearer a river from which water can easily be piped (using wind pumps) and filtered much more easily than sewerage can. In fact they may already be near enough.

Plastic piping is really quite cheap, wind pumps are low-tech, and the rivers of the world currently dump vast quantities of fresh water into the sea every day. I understand that there are stacks of plastic pipes in some African villages, put there by humanitarians for making water supplies, that no-one has actually bothered to assemble. What is needed is some organisation and effort, perhaps by the villagers themselves. So what chance of maintaining Gates' apparatus?

I am probably one of those you consider unintelligent, childish etc as I have made some critical comments earlier, but keep it going because I feel very secure against that. Just to make sure here it is again :- :

Gates talks shit, sells shit, and is a shit.

Ask the those bottled water companies that sell the stuff labelled as such.

It would not suprise me.

"Dovetailing" his name into this turns me straight off the idea. Here is one of the biggest corporate rogues the World has ever seen trying to rescue his massive negative karma by thowing money (of which he has so much that he could not possibly spend directly on himself) at what he thinks are do-good projects. Actually, there is nothing new about processing sewerage enough to make it drinkable.

He should be giving a proportion of his money back to the people he has cheated first. Then he can do what he likes with the rest.

Please explain why you really need to. Let me guess : to attend a conference on organising conferences? A conference on designing aircraft for taking people to conferences on designing aircraft? A conference on marketing holiday flights?

In my work I see others who make careers out of travelling to meetings all over the place, then writing reports on the meetings they had. No-one ever reads the reports. It is all bullshit.

So it's strange that most wars have been between people and nations that have known each other only too well. The medieval wars between England and France, such as the Hundred Years War, were basically family disputes. Until about 1400 the English kings and their courts were culturally French, considered themselves French, and even spoke French - but they still fought the French. The foot soldiers of course didn't give a shit and were there for the plunder - nothing has changed there then.

Then there are civil wars, more common and vicious than international ones, between people who live together, just as most murders are committed within a family or social circle. Things like 9/11 are the result of the global export of what were once localised fueds.

OTOH, Europeans never fought American Indians until, well, early globalisation. It is a common fallacy to assume that people who know each other must get to love each other.

He mentioned "train car bus". You picked cars, which are the worst for efficiency, but only slightly worse than aircraft. Trains and buses are far better.

As for aircraft carrying freight, that is so inefficient that it is only used for premium freight, such as mail and high value stuff.

All the time "we" have been around (unless you or me are >70 yo) there have been phones. And back when there were not, hospitals were localised enough for one to have sent a runner or despatched a telegram for hand delivery to where you lived if things were life threatening. They did that sort of thing in those days.

Stop feeling guilty about the First World. Nothing to stop a runner being sent in the Third World (who largely have cell phones these days anyway).

Is his name Lenny?

It's Lenny