The difference is for authentication for important stuff we have to show up in person with an ID and a real human checks the identity.

For some things you can also use a SuisseID which is just a regular PKI smartcard USB dongle thingy. I have one. After installing the software, you can log in to some Swiss websites by just clicking the login button in the web page. You might have to enter a password and the dongle then signs the SSL session. It's all standards based and the certificate in the hardware is based on your legally verified identity, i.e. you show a passport at the post office and get your personalised stick through the mail a few days later.

Even setting the balance of government powers vs individual rights aside, the problem is that there's no such encryption. If it has a backdoor, it's vulnerable. For example, if it has an extra "NSA key" that can be used to decrypt it, then that key will be leaked eventually (Snowden is a living proof of that0, and at that point all existing data is vulnerable.

What he is asking is to compromise security below any acceptable standard for the sake of his convenience. The only correct answer here is, "fuck off". There's no balance to discuss.

Can you quote that right? Because all I see in the 4th Amendment is that they're not allowed to arrest or search unless it is reasonable; it doesn't say anything about being granted a right to search things successfully.

So far as I can see, 4A is not relevant to this discussion at all. It does not grant people the right to be completely secure from any search (as it specifically excludes reasonable ones), nor does it grant the government the right to force people to make said search easier.

This. What I find funny is that it's use is generally the reverse of where it would be most beneficial. A large established mature project would be great for Agile as it can handle the smaller delta's. These are usually in larger companies who won't touch Agile.

Consulting which is generally ground up work on the other hand with major changes loves Agile.

There's no such thing as EU VAT, it varies by state. Now you have to take into account the inter-country differences and remit taxes to each EU country independently, for certain classes of goods.

Er, if you ignore things like lack of a stable driver API then sure. Lots of users would have loved one of those.

But Linus encounters fewer problems like that because he has little in the way of vision for what desktop Linux should be. His job is to make a UNIX kernel along the same lines they were being designed 30 years ago. He is largely judged by how tightly he replicates a long-dusty commercial design. Desktop Linux on the other hand has no such luxuries because old commercial UNIX was never a force on the desktop. There, it has to both forge ahead its own path, and also look to competitors like MacOS X for good ideas.

And guess what? The genesis of SystemD bears a strong resemblance to launchd, the MacOS X init system. But because that's not something you would have found in Solaris or AIX, the UNIX "community" throws a fit.

Why not just tax capital gains at a flat rate (higher than what it is today, that is)? It's inherently progressive at the lower scale of the spectrum (generally, the higher up you go, the more income people derive from capital gains, and the less from employment and other income), and then eventually flatline somewhere in the "insanely rich" territory. And by its nature, it's much easier to track than regular income or sales.

I would argue that it is, actually, an inherent flaw in the concept, because the spending/income ratio tends to diminish as income increases. In other words, no matter where you draw the line, it'll always be regressive (in terms of both income and wealth) for people above that line.

Why wouldn't he, with the proposed scheme? Proportional to income, his consumption is significantly less than mine - most of his income is immediately invested into stocks and such. On the other hand, I'm earning (and spending) too much to significantly benefit from the "consumption allowance". The end result is that he is paying less, but because the money has to come from somewhere, this means that I'm paying more.

Yes, he does. So why would I want him to be paying even less at my expense?

Here is a chart from FairTax FAQ. It should be self-explanatory.

There's one simple and obvious problem with FairTax: it results in a progressive taxation system, true, but it rebalances it in favor of the rich by offloading some of what they are currently paying to the middle class (and especially high middle class) - this is evident from the graphs in their FAQ when they explain how it is progressive.

Now tell me - why, as someone who is middle class, should I support it if it means I'll be paying more, and my boss' boss' boss will be paying less?

So how about taxing the means by which said wealth is accumulated? Namely, capital gains.

Heck, I bet that's all you need to have a true progressive income taxation system: tax regular income at one rate, and captial gains at a different and much higher rate.

I don't know what they teach in US classes. The one that was taught to me talked about SI units, and specifically explained things such as derived units, and how to properly keep track of units when doing calculations, and use that to catch mistakes when e.g. things that are not supposed to be added or multiplied together would be combined by mistake. Using a wrong unit like that in your homework (be it kW/h or just plain kW to refer to energy) would earn an immediate fail grade.