> Pointer and String handling are also better in Pascal

Used to be better. C++11 string handling and pointer features are certainly better than what Object Pascal can offer now.

The best parts about Delphi were everything except the language. VCL, IDE and the fast compiler were all great and I still favor them. The language itself was, although very clean, not as productive to work in (just tiedious to type and too verbose to read - no complaints about its semantics). It was however well-modified to support IDEs. It was Delphi that first had language level support for properties, event_handlers and the like.

I still use Lazarus/FreePascal, but wish that I could use/mix modern C++ into the projects.

What advantages does MSEide+MSEgui have over Lazarus? When I looked at it a few years ago, it seemed way behind Lazarus in every way.

Lazarus is pretty good. It is a Delphi like/compatible IDE based on FreePascal. I always thought that Delphi's approach to DB GUIs was the most straightforward.

CodeTyphon is a good cross-platform distro for Lazarus that bundles lots of components. It also specializes in cross-compilation. But you are probably not looking for that aspect. It can target multiple GUI toolkits including Win32, Qt & GTK with the same set of components. I am surprised why it isn't more popular. Perhaps it is because Delphi is not as well known as C++/Java/.NET. While I am not a particular fan of Pascal, the component framework (Delphi: VCL, Lazarus: LCL) makes it worth while.

http://www.pilotlogic.com/site...

Adam Smith's capitalism isn't what is in charge today. Why talk about some idealized version of capitalism that never was, beyond small town bakers that Adam Smith observed (you are not the only one who has read some economics). The world moved on. Its better to read Piketty than Smith to keep up with the times.

BTW, it makes it a lot easier to cuss and complain when you are anonymous, doesn't it. Does it feel good?

You pretty much hit the nail on its head. When most governments take socialist action, it is because of socialist motives (people demanded it). When US takes socialist action, it is because of capitalist motives (businesses lobbied for it). So cost controls, either through regulation or via competition with the public options (in US, public option often ends up being publicly-funded option, rather than publicly-run option) are quickly ruled out as infeasible or unfair for privates. Then everybody nods their heads on how government is not the solution.

This is not to say that a bit of this does not happen in other countries, but seems to be especially problematic in US.

Do you have any statistics on this?; like life expectancy at puberty through history?

I have a 64bit processor on my laptop, but I elected to go back to a 32bit OS because I decided that having more free RAM is more important to me than the 64bit advantages. All my VMs use 32bit OSes even on 64bit hosts for the same reason. So its not just for older machines.

I should add... Take Offlike Wikipedia too. The text version will suffice.
Perhaps, the Gutenberg repo as well, if you use an ereader.
That should cover your information addiction. Of course the point of the Himalayas is to force withdrawl.

Download all the Debian DVDs. The full repo has nearly everything you might conceivably need in terms of software and dev tools. Make sure you take two copies of the data. The last thing you want is a disk dying unexpectedly. It is safer to have one copy as optical disks. I actually did this when I left for a rural location.

I'd download some Coursera courses and fill my ereader as well.

Of course, the best thing to do there would be to enjoy the scenary and practice mindfulness. I am sure you will be doing that as well.

I used Lyx initially for the same reasons and exported to PDFs. Soon it became apparent that it was much easier to just pass Word files since I could just click to accept or reject suggestions (I know Lyx can do that as well... if the people on the other side also use it) from my advisor who used Word. So I exported to Word and stayed there. Plus using Zotero with Word was much easier than with Lyx. I also liked the grammar checker in Word, flawed as it may be (it is popular to criticize it, but I liked it). There is LanguageTool integration for Lyx, which can be more comprehensive, but is also weakly integrated. I do hope to furrther use Lyx in the future though.

> Students can write their reports and essays using LaTex

Good luck getting anyone outside CS to do that. Even if the student learns LaTeX, he/she won't likely be able to collaborate with other students/advisers easily. Exporting and importing into/from PDFs is not really a solution when edits are involved.

> I cannot think of a valid reason students should be learning a proprietary application.

The most common and valid reason is when other people you work with want to use a proprietary application and you are not in a position to make them do otherwise.

Indeed. I wonder how much the Bill of Materials is. The innovation premium appears to be too high on this one.

Cars are quite reasonably priced in US. Why are motorcycles so expensive though? (lack of a mass market making them special interest products?) For the price of an $800 electric wheel, one can buy an entire motorcycle from a recognized brand in Asia (starting from $500), where cars cost about the same as in US.

1. I'm too busy to sit around thinking up additional words to throw in so I can score "mod" points

2. The people I like on Slashdot are too busy to read a bunch of additional words I only threw in so I can score "mod" points

3. It's not in my nature to waste words, or to waste time

Actually this particular councilman represents an extremely high-rent district--Manhattan's upper east side. I doubt there are many wealthier neighborhoods in the world. He's not doing this to 'score points', he's doing it to do the right thing.