Yours friends should get the "Nobel prize" for Economy:

They developed a "famous economist" software : one that is perfectly able to predict things that have already happened!

Interesting

They know. They just don't care. The only important thing is to make sure that their cronies get as much as they can and as they can get away with.

That law hasn't be discussed by MPs, it's been written down by the majors and the SACEM (local equivalent to the RIAA) who don't even understand its unredeemable defects. Some MPs from Sarkozy's party may even be against it, but most don't care and they'll all vote yes since they want endorsement for the next elections.

The worst of it is that it goes against French Constitution, and the viewpoint of the EU Parliament on it to boot. Sarkozy and his buddies are just trying to force the issue. Seeing as how things have gone in the last year in France, they may even get away with it.

Before that age, many children have a complete disregard for social rules and niceties - if they're even aware of them. Because of that, they tend to become assholes ready to call mummy/daddy when they get the punch in the face their behavior's earned them. That is especially true when they're faced with adults who work with them all day long, as such people are considered suspect before hand if any kind of incident crops up. This is one of the cases where presumption of innocence does not apply to the adult.

[disclaimer] Yes, I work in a junior high school and the attitude of the little bastards has become insufferable, to the point I'm currently looking to change jobs within the next few months.

On the other hand, I think a 100% configurable ribbon style interface would be something very interesting to have in OOo. I know at least a couple of people (me included ) who'd like that.

It may be naïve of me, but wouldn't there be a huge difference between development cost and construction cost?

What's keeping them from buildng more than one unit?