We got there because of decades of people systematically giving their money to the most sensational press, which enabled them to become more powerful. It's not something that just happened.

I think that there probably oughta be a law that you can't knowingly tell an outright lie and call it news, but even that seems to be a minority view, which is just another symptom of the same damned need for entertainment.

There's nothing wrong with that, so long as they don't propose to use force to retrieve the data.

Balderdash. There is not a press. What is this, communism, comrade? We have many presses. The problem is that the public follows the sensational ones instead of the informative. We The People have the government, and thus the press, which we deserve.

But it in fact is; it's not all obvious. Being forced to work is slavery even if you get paid, because you're not choosing the terms of your employment. It's like being raped and then having your rapist throw you a few currency units.

Implementation makes a difference. Early versions of NT were quite good, but unpopular because you needed 16MB of RAM (if I recall correctly) to run them in an era when a high end personal computer shipped with 4MB of RAM. Over the years they tried to hold the line, at one point getting the minimum down to 12MB of RAM, but perhaps not coincidentally stability got really bad.

With slave labor, no less.

Yes people are limited by their culture and time, but not *that* limited. Braun deserves condemnation for using slave labor in WW2.

Or I can connect it to a Linux VM and see what that has to say about it...

Welcome to the American legal system, where selective prosecution is standard operating procedure. The only reason to have a legal system which does not require prosecution for known crimes is to permit treating some people differently than others. It leads to the proliferation of bad laws.

I was thinking that "staunchy" is a good word for "tending to staunch" -- for example, a bandage is staunchy when it staunches a wound.

But I was mistaking "staunch" for "stanch" -- ones stanches (not staunches) a wound.

So then I think, "staunchy", from "staunch" -- thus "tending to be loyal or devoted".

Now I find out that "staunchy" means "stinky".

Which kind of fits both ways ... bloody wounds are stinky ... tendencies to loyalty are stinky (by comparison with real, true, full loyalty, as opposed to mere tendencies) ... it all fits together.

That 10% more would probably just go into the pockets of their rich. It's not like they don't have them there, too. They infest everything.

And? I didn't say the US didn't have any of these elements. I said that China did.

I note you didn't actually disagree with me. Obviously it isn't complete rubbish.

The specifications for the required ammunition are well-known. The stuff is harder to make than the firearm, however. For that to differ you'll have to use something substantially higher- or lower-tech, e.g. caseless or black powder. And caseless ammo is only easier to produce if you disregard the difficulty of producing a practical propellant.

The Chinese government itself literally operates labor camps where criminals are forced to produce consumer goods.

You clearly do not decide who is credible when you say that slave labor is not slave labor.