I have no fear of copyright trolls; I register my books with the US Copyright office. If one fucks with me, I'll wind up with HIS money.

And since I'm my own publisher, I'm my own gatekeeper. You can find my books in bookstores world-wide, and I've posted them on the internet. Site stats say folks are reading them every day.

What I'm doing was impossible twenty years ago. Now that I'm retired I have the time to do it. When the subject of conversation actually comes to pass, everybody will be retired.

Your repetitive "developed vs 3rd" world red herring is tiresome.

We're talking about future developments that will apply everywhere.

We could make him so fat he damages his own joints... Damn, he even beat us to that bit of parody.

I don't think NK is a satellite state in the usual sense of the word. China certainly shields NK, but its reasoning isn't always clear. NK does act as a major counterbalance to US interests (Japan, South Kore and Taiwan). At the same time, NK seems extremely suspicious of China and some believe that at least part of the reason for the latest purge was to cut out members of the regime with too close a ties to China.

So we should burn any movie script that dares insult some violent tyrant, lest they get upset? Should we also stop publishing reports on said tyrants? Just how much would you like the West to appease the likes of Kim Jong-Un?

I actually do see a connection to unions here - if you're not genuinely willing to walk away from a bad deal, you're not actually negotiating. Businesses know this and it sometimes results in temporary outages, such as a TV channel or the Amazon dispute with publishers. In America we hardly have unions any more, and our media reports on strikes (e.g. a railroad strike in France) with derision and as a sign of a failed system. But I see it as a sign of tough negotiations between parties who both have something to lose. Ideally, each industry would have about as many unions as it has employers, and there would be more than one of each.

I actually don't like the idea of being a faceless member of a collective, or causing a great divide between management and workers. But right now we have a situation where one side is organized and using its leverage to drive a tough bargain (with companies growing ever-larger, and more profitable), and the other is just lying down.

You miss the point. Androids can update their code as well. Humans do not.

>NASA did all the really hard work (the basic design of space rockets). You know, the Basic Science that costs billions and
>doesn't pay off for decades. You see, private companies are too focused on short term profit generation to basic science.
>That's why it's done on the public dime.

I won't disagree with you. But I also believe that NASA should be allowing basic launch stuff to go to companies like SpaceX, which reap the rewards of all of that public domain knowledge - the fruits of publicly funded NASA research. It's past time for basic Earth orbit access (and somewhat beyond) to be business as usual.

NASA should be moving on to bigger, tougher jobs, targets that are still beyond the horizon of ordinary business, just like space travel was 50 years ago.

When the nice Indian gentleman tells me that my computer has a virus I simply scream "OH MY GOD NO! NOT A VIRUS? Aaaaarggghhh!" and start making loud banging noises with my hand on the desk.

After a short moment I then say in a breathless voice "I have destroyed the computer, can you suggest a good place to buy a new one?"

That usually leaves them dazed and confused -- whereapon they hang up.

Lots of fun for all the family :-)

I'm not comparing features, but penetration.

Likely Java. Microsoft and its astroturfers like to tell themselves faerie tales about how the big players are all bending to Redmonds, but it's just the same pathetic wishful thinking that had Redmondites insisting Unix was drying and everyone was moving to NT.

Oh bullshit. Java dwarfs .NET.

Yeah but really who uses them?

95% of .NET is in c#. All the VB jobs are still for legacy 5.x and 6.x code that I see. Take it back 85% c# and 10% c++. Just because it can be done COBOL doesn't mean people use it other than to see if they can write a hello world program.

In essence it is a c# based environment.

I welcome it if it is more open and cheaper. 100k to start a website for unlimited licenses is freaking nuts.

But that was a few years ago.

MS is changing because they have lost and can no longer use leverage like they once did. Witness IE and visual studio where lots of free competition exists?

I welcome an alternative to java and hopes it encourages python and php to get their acts together. More competition the better for everyone