I changed over to a windows phone as it looks like its going to save me about $600 a year.

Win8 on a phone was a dream. Very tiny learning curve (hardest thing was opening a PDF*).

However, windows Surface has always seemed overpriced to me. As in 33% to 50% more.

The basic problem is that all my tablet needs can be met by a $150ish android tablet.

I prefer windows for my desktop. But there windows 8 is a bit more of a pain when using a mouse. I'll get used to it but i've been on the original windows paradigm and command lines since the early 1990s.

However- I made a complete shift to open source of my office functionality about 3 years ago. I will never buy an office suit again.

* Pdf readers have no "file open" functionality. You have to go to the red office tile and open the pdf there-- then it redirects you to the pdf reader of your choice. Once you've done this, you can reopen it in your PDF reader.

It was pretty bad in 1880. Then society stepped hard on businesses and showed them it wasn't going to accept that behavior. And companies mostly behaved until 1980.

In 1980 the new mantra of "a business's only duty is to it's share holders. it has no obligation or responsibility to benefit the rest of society. Indeed, if it would harm the shareholders to benefit society then it's wrong. And if harming society would benefit the shareholders, then it's right."

Like most things- there's a reasonable point in there. But it's been taken to an extreme I think it's just a matter of time til the governments get pissed off and do something about it (as they have for centuries).

Maybe 20 page, there were a LOT of flashbacks.

That definition turns ugly repeatedly so often that the government has to get involved to stop the excesses (company stores, interlocking trusts, monopoly pricing, collusion, vertical market lock).

The bad thing here is that the government was subverted by business and is no longer acting as a check and balance.

A "free market" works for small businesses but not for large multi-national corporations and not even really for simply "large" corporations. It's sort of like how libertarianism can work under a strong government but fails badly when you have a weak government and very powerful people who use that power to abuse weaker people.

There's also a "moral" component which makes capitalism work and be beneficial and that's eroded a lot since 1980.

http://www.infoplease.com/worl...

For example:

"The school day in France typically runs from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., with a half day on Saturday, although students do not attend school on Wednesday or Sunday. Lunch is a two-hour break for public school students. Students usually attend school from ages 6 to 18. The average number of students per class is 23. Uniforms are not required, but religious dress of any kind is banned. The school year for this country in the northern hemisphere stretches from August to June, and is divided into four seven-week terms, with one to two weeks of vacation in between."

Part of a consideration for any school year is the parent's work schedule and child care.

It's about indoctrinating them to be one people to prevent a lot of civil strife later on and to make them cohesive in the face of national threats.

Public education unified the united states.

And it's about education. Producing a citizen base which is capable.

It seems to be a lot less about civics than it used to be.

It's layered too- a lot of ugly information is held back until you go to college.

I'm saying that indoctrination is not all bad. Lack of indoctrination results in some fairly bloody civil wars over fairly meaningless differences.

I think you missed the point.

Somebody had reused a human brain as a ship AI. After the crew died (there is some indication it was disease, not old age- Dr. Calvin in her death scene did not look old and still had color to her hair, despite there being nobody around left to be vain for) he foolishly asked to be left turned on, and eventually the amnesia circuits started to degrade, bringing back his human memories- which is why he created the robot body for himself, and why, after he had recovered those memories, he agreed with you and committed suicide (rather spectacularly- running the ship into a sun?)

I wonder if a more dangerous vector would be a mutation that allowed it to have other carrier species. Something is carrying it now without dying. If some bird species got it without dying that could turn ugly.

I somehow missed that in Advanced C class in 1992, thanks. I'll have to try it.

"In comparison to Obama, perhaps."

I was thinking more in comparison to Pope Leo XIII.

"However if you want to champion that idea, then it leaves another question. If Reagan was not conservative, then we have never had a conservative president - why is that?"

Because the basic idea of America, individual liberty, is an idea that is more progressively liberal than anything anybody else in the world has ever tried.

"Why is it that in 200+ years of our country we have never had a conservative president, and why would that be a good idea now? "

I'm not sure, after 200+ years of liberalism, if civilization is still even possible. A conservative president would be a step back towards civilization, but I don't see any God first, country second royalists running, do you?

"We have certainly never had a socialist president in this country, and we cannot convince enough people that it would be a good idea to try it."

True as far as it goes, but I personally see little to no difference between a centralized capitalistic economy and socialism. Both are liberal ideas, not conservative ones.

"Why would a conservative president be a good idea if none of the presidents who have met previously standing meanings of conservative were adequately conservative to meet the new meaning?"

Because when the experiment is a failure, you need to replace it with something else.

I think it's more about the fatality rate. 50-90% vs 2-3% for really virulent flu like in 2009.

Even the spanish flu was about 15%.

Plus choking isn't nearly as dramatic as bleeding blood out of every orafice and even the skin.

Reagan was a free market liberal.

++i is allowed by your compiler? What does that compile to?

"Hint- those "States" - a specific set of states (as in verifiable, unlike your Christendom) - agreed to a Constitution that defined the United States as a single Republic (again verifiable, unlike your vague group of doubleplusgood true Scotsman). Common parlance refers to that as single country."

Yes, just as the countries of Christendom were supposed to abide by Canon Law (when they didn't, it caused wars). Common parlance leads to common thinking, and is not fit for uncommon human beings.

"No, I don't see what you did there. I make claims that can be verified (see above, we know what the US is, which states it's made of, what it has done). You're just being contrarian."

The only thing that counts in the long run, is the long run. I'm being meta, not contrarian. Learn the difference if you want to debate online, but since you've just identified yourself as a newbie with no actual debating skills, I'm done.

RTFA- that is exactly what they did.

And what Hack-a-day pointed out, which apparently was worth a DMCA takedown notice.