Which means absolutely nothing because you can't actually use any of that firepower in any conflict short of "Civilization as we know it is coming to an end." That's not to dispute the rest of your points, which are mostly valid, but let us leave the SSBN out of the calculation of modern naval firepower. They have a specific mission: deterrence. The day they are called upon to loft their birds is the day that mission has failed.

There is an argument to be made that we need more ships, particularly attack submarines and surface combatants. The former will prove decisive in any conflict with the PRC and the latter are needed for missile defense, amongst other missions. Unfortunately most of the shipbuilding budget is going to the Gerald Ford CVNs while the looming Ohio replacement is going to consume billions more. Both are needed at the end of the day, so unless we're going to throw more money at the Navy I'm not sure what the solution is. I'd opt for throwing more money at them, since it takes decades to build a modern Navy, and it can't be used (as easily) for interventionist adventures in the same manner as a standing army....

Not really : "hardinfo" itself is not known or not known under that name, and a report about the installed hardware is a bit worthless (lspci and lsusb do about that).
The Device Manager is not only a unique GUI (stable during two decades of Windows versions), it allows to choose or install drivers and even to configure the drivers. You can do things that are seemingly impossible in linux like limiting a wireless card to a maximum speed (to get a connection "slower" but more stable), or other things. It would be not only having the simple GUI (from times when Windows was easier to use) do lsmod and modprobe kind of work, but also configuring the kernel modules (or kernel), which is something an advanced user is likely to not know about (do I need to set up a build environment and recompile kernel modules?, compile kernel?)

There does exist a useful GUI under linux, the "Proprietary Driver Manager" which allows to switch between nvidia and nouveau (for instance) by clicking a radio button.

Well THAT is fucking offensive, the way you said "codifying" it sounded like "codpiece".

Yes? Well then...

Baldric... Bring me... The Black Russian!

Needless to say, by disagreeing, I mark myself as an un-person.

Needless, pointless, and untrue. Someone else may so choose to regard you; you, however, are not that at all, and anyone who takes the attitude that you are, as you put it, an "unperson", is solely responsible for that attitude. You're still you, just as worthy as ever.

Consider the source, soldier on. Defy invalid social norms.

Some things are just not done, and are socially unacceptable this is one of them.

Socially unacceptable is one thing. And the appropriate response from you when faced with something you identify as such is also social: adjust your respect, relationship(s) and commentary according to the social cues you are given.

Relying on coercion and/or violence exerted by your government so you can assure that the general social environment is only populated by speech you approve of is something else entirely. It reeks of abject failure on your part, and on the part of your legislators. Such government-based active repression is one of the very few things that is more despicable than intentionally offensive speech presented without even a suggestion of humor.

> But as an athiest, my very existence is 'offensive' to muslims.

I'm an atheist as well. And I am aware that some Muslims proactively take offense because of my lack of belief.

However, you should be aware that of the five pillars of Islam, none say or imply one word about "hating atheists." That's just crap out of the Koran, which is a mish-mosh of uncorrelated and unordered quotes. Only fanatics take the violent sections of the Koran seriously. Not that there aren't enough fanatics to go around, of course.

> Are you suggesting that I should commit suicide to appease the Muslims?

Not in the least. I wasn't suggesting anyone should commit suicide, or in any way alter who or what they are. These are not things that give offense. You have not chosen to be atheist in order to give offense, have you? I presume you're atheist because you find that to be a comfortable state of mind, one that correlates well with what you observe of the world around you. Nothing to do with giving offense at all. I'm not wrong, am I? If I am, please let me know... that's a whole 'nuther bag of wolverines.

Simply being (existing as) atheist is not giving offense. That is the same as the case where someone is simply "being atheist" or "being Christian" or "being Muslim" or "being a rock collector."

When such provokes an "offended" response, we are merely seeing examples of the common practice by muddy thinkers of taking offense for any, or no, sane reason...

> Go Fuck Yourself ...Just as you have here. Brilliant to have so cleverly put yourself in exactly the same unreasonable club with those nasty, hateful, offended Islamists, isn't it? :)

No. Offense can surely be given. But trying to magically legislate it away is a horrific, cowardly, hubris-ridden mistake. Offense arises because of difference in opinion and grasp of fact, intentional or not.

Because of this, it can and will always arise, no matter how narrow you choke down the channel of discourse, unless or until all have the same opinions and grasp of facts, which, one hopes, will never, ever come about.

The most productive course is to try not to give offense, and if received, to assess it and take value (warning, insight, stance, new information) from it if possible — otherwise, let it go.

Restricting opinion by legal means is one of the worst ideas ever. Offense is not a legitimate mitigating factor for censorship and repression. When enacted into law as justification for anything, what it tells us is that we need new legislators, because the ones we have demonstrated fundamental incompetence.

They've released propaganda films about nuking us. We didn't mobilize the cyber or real armies over the matter; I guess that's the difference between a modern nation-state and one held together with a pygmy's cult of personality....

No one has the "right to not be offended." Being offended is subjective. It has everything to do with you as an individual, or as part of a collective, or a group, or a society, or a community; it varies due to your moral conditioning, your religious beliefs, your upbringing, your education; what offends one person or group (collective, society, community) may not offend another; and in the final analysis, it requires one person to attempt to read the mind of other persons they do not know in order to anticipate whether a specific action will cause offense in the mind of another. And no, codifying an action in law is not in any way sufficient... it is well established that not even lawyers can know the law well enough to anticipate what is legal, and what is not. Sane law relies on the basic idea that we try not to risk or cause harm to the bodies, finances and reputations of others without them consenting and being aware of the risks. Law that bans something based upon the idea that some group simply finds the behavior objectionable is the very worst kind of law, utterly devoid of consideration or others, while absolutely permeated in self-indulgence.

Conversely, when people are truly harmed (not just offended) without their informed consent (and legitimate defense is not the cause), then the matter is one that should arguably be considered for law. Otherwise, no.

Oblig/meta: Orwell was an optimist

It sure as hell is the property of the person who created it.

No. It's not. I can prove it.

You think of X. You're happily sitting there thinking it's your "property." But Joe also thought of this. Do you imagine you now own "half" the "property"? Or that you both "own" all of the "property"? What if it's so obvious that everyone thinks of it at the same time? Whose "property" is it then?

You see, it's not property. It's an idea. A flux of neural activity that you cannot prevent from happening in someone else's head. You can certainly pretend it's property, but none of logic or the legal system or the constitution supports that position, so I really don't see any reason to take your position seriously.