Nah, neither would want MS. Apple doesn't care all that much about industry...although they are changing that a bit recently. They still don't want the desktop ball and chain. Google doesn't either, they just want all communications in their cloud so that it be squeezed for information on everyone's grandmother and what she eats for breakfast (A hint, Google, think "prunes").

I doubt he's got enough enemies in Russia with enough power to take him out. He controls the state police and the armed forces. There would have to be mutiny in the armed forces and that won't happen because they do not want to be shot by the state police.

Putin is doing this because he fears others believe he has a small dick. There's nothing more to it than that. Everything else is window dressing to cover up his lack of manhood. The state police are tasked with defending his small dick.

Try 6000 years. They were bashing each other over the head way back then as well according to the ancient history book I read.

The wars aren't what's bankrupting the budget, it is the 2/3 of "non-discretionary" expenses that are dong that job quite nicely.

The U.S. is involved world wide because the U.S. has defense agreements and economic interests world wide. The U.S. had their head stuck up their ass before WW II and then WW II happened. It happened because "the world" didn't have the balls to stop German and Japanese aggression when it would have been easy.

Currently, Putin and Muslim radicals and Chinese expansionism will create another fucking world-wide mess, and two of them have nuclear weapons. As soon as Pakistan drops their panties for the radicals, the Muslim jihadis will have them as well. It's going to be wonderful world.

Yep, I used to walk 20 miles a day just to pick up one processor instruction manual...in my bare feet...and then had to carry it back.

In the 80's, you had a few manuals on your desk and it was enough. Now you need the WWW just to hack your way through all the details to get something running. The systems were smaller back then, the languages were simpler, the assembly code was simpler. Nothing is simple any more.

It is true that past Ukrainian governments didn't do very well by the people. However, there is a split in the country about what to do with the situation. The Ukrainian nationalists laid the blame on Soviet era politics and decided they needed to look West for the solution. The idea was that the West is doing okay, Russia is more or less a failed state. Also, they believe that joining the EU will force economic reforms (and it will) that will require the old Soviet style of management goes bye-bye.

The Russian leaning part of the pop. of the Ukraine look at the situation and place the blame on leaving the Soviet Union. Hence, their solution is to go back to the embrace of its remnant, Russia. This part of the country has more heavy industry and their chief market is Russia, so they feel the economic draw of Russia. Also, going West would require their heavy industry become much more efficient to compete with EU industry. The problem with that is it would mean more unemployment as companies that cannot hack go out of business.

Sooo...the Ukrainians were willing to risk world condemnation on a crap shoot of discrediting the rebels and getting international support? Putin isn't paying you enough.

Well, given the rebels are the brightest lights on the tree, they could easily assume that the transponder signal was a Ukrainian trick. Just look at all the conspiracy nuts on this page attempting shift blame to the West for some unmentioned, devious plot to discredit the Russians. Geeze, given Russian behavior over the last several years, they don't need any help in discrediting themselves.

Why would soldiers know what they were shooting at, the plane was at 33,000 feet. The plane was probably over the war zone because the previous shoot down occurred at about 20,000 feet (Ukraine transport plane). Also, it cost money for more fuel to route around the zone. Given the expense and the tacit acceptance that it was safe, it's very likely Malaysian Airlines though it would be okay.

So, it probably wasn't terrorism (not definitely). It was probably an accident given the quality of the rebel troops and certainly their behavior after the fact.

The problem remains that the Kremlin send advanced weapons, and this we know from sat images), to the rebels. The Kremlin in general and Putin in particular thought it would be neat idea. Now that the rebels have gone and done something extraordinarily stupid, the Kremlin is scrambling to push blame on everyone except themselves.

I've watched Jeff Sessions several times in hearings on CSPAN. My impression of him is that he's first class dolt. It's very likely he cannot figure out the consequences of the various stands he takes. He's almost, but not quite, as dim as Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.

Yes, well, in the U.S. the Obama administration is doing exactly that. However, coal state Republicans are arguing the climate change issue isn't settled science because they can find a few whack job scientists that disagree about either its cause and certainly a few more about what to do about it. It isn't that the Republicans don't care about climate change, they just think that doing something about it will get them unelected and contribute to Big Government. The latter they are opposed to because it impacts their lifestyle of Do What You Want and Damn the Externalities.

Coal state Democrats want to have their cake and eat it too. They want carbon emission caps but they don't want it to impact jobs.

What both groups fail to understand is that it isn't Obama that is wiping out the coal industry in the U.S., it is natural gas and fracking. Meanwhile, the world plays Russian Roulette with carbon emissions. They feel lucky.

According to Wikipedia, there are "174,000 blue-collar, full-time, permanent jobs related to coal in the U.S." Personally, I think the U.S. should just buy them out and tell the Republicans to STFU.

Sooo... they know how to do software development now that they've adopted Agile. I think rather that Agile has more or less codified how they've always done software development, and with it, Agile's sins. The most egregious is that your product will look like a dirty snowball that, if it is of decent size, no one will understand.

And if they are jerking developers off the project to address every single bug as it comes in, they've already shot themselves in the foot. No defect backlog means no bug backlog. Reallyy? how are they tracking those things? How do they know which bugs are related to other bugs? How do they know which bugs got fixed?

My experience with Agile is only a single point, others may have other points. However, my impression is that it was simply a tool management could use to micro-manage a project and jerk the developers around due to whatever wind was tussling their coif that week.

Errr...can Palin find Russia on the map yet?

At that height, they'd have had to use a telescope. More likely the separatists were trigger happy and they had a handy missile.

Can Wolf be far behind in the Situation Room or whatever the hell they are calling it now. How does world manage to turn without Wolf on the beat?

9/11