Disclaimer: IANAA (I am not an American)

I thought one of the core characteristics of the USA was democracy and the idea that the country is ultimately ruled by the people. As such, there is nothing that excludes somebody from still loving their country but seeing how things are done somewhere else and wondering if it is a good idea.

Of course the USA has different priorities, but aren't those priorities set by the people? If 90% of USAians decide they no longer want to allow people to own guns in their country, does that make it any less USA? (Note, I'm not saying 90% do and I'm not saying guns should be outlawed - just making a point about democracy).

The great thing about democracy is that you have the ability to influence the country in which you live. The great thing about freedom (as you pointed out) is that if you disagree with the rest of your country people you can choose to leave (provided there is somewhere else that will have you).

I believe that as the world changes, so too must people. Representatives are elected to make decisions as to what the priorities should be. The hard part about government is that it seldom happens that people agree on every single issue. It doesn't matter who is elected to govern, both individually and as a collective, they will disagree on *something* with almost everybody in the country.

So to me, to say that there is no room for people to want things to be different is un-'American' - indeed, few politicians get elected on a platform of "I'm going to keep things exactly the same as they are" (as if that is even possible). Rather, most politicians get elected because they have a vision of how their country can be better and a plan for how that might be brought about. If you happen to disagree with choice that your fellow citizens have made, well, you either advocate for your position in hopes that it might be changed, or, as you said, you go somewhere else.

You know, I ended up using a Macbook Pro because that is what the standard config was at work. Fine. I'm learned to adapt, even though Ubuntu is my preference. Overall, I'm pretty happy with it, but it isn't the perfect experience I was lead to believe it would be. I find I have to reboot more often than I did with my Ubuntu laptop. I miss my Home and End keys. Installing applications is confusing sometimes because you download the installer, you click on it, and it takes a few seconds to open. Except in the mean time you aren't sure what is happening so you click on another window and then the installer ends up behind another window and you have no idea where it is. There are other annoying issues. I'm not saying that OS X is awful. I'm only saying that it isn't perfect. Neither is Ubuntu, but I would say that they both have their strong points and their weak points. The biggest issue with Ubuntu, IMO, is the lack of support for it in the enterprise. You can get the VPN software that we use to work on Ubuntu, but don't count on IT to help you with it. Ubuntu is nice because it has a whole library of software that you can install from the repository quickly and easily.

A lot of people grumble about Unity. I'm presuming/hoping these aren't the same people who are OS X fans because Unity, IMO, is basically the OS X dock except moved to the side of the screen (which some people do anyway). OS X tends not to give you a Save As option that you get in most apps on Ubuntu. Also, you don't see to be able to drag files onto applications to open the file in that application, which is pretty standard in Ubuntu.

The touchpad on the Mac is really nice and smooth - that is one thing that Apple obviously took the time to get really right. I would almost wager to say it is one of the best features of the MacBook. The magnetic power cord is often touted as having saved people's laptops on numerous occasions because it came off when the cord was stepped on, but the argument is based on the assumption that the connectors of other laptops will endure loads of force before coming out. My Acer laptop did just fine when you stepped on the cord - it would pop right out of the connector and everything would be safe.

All in all, I find both Ubuntu and OS X to be pretty nice and smooth experiences these days. Ubuntu certainly makes it easier to feel more in control of your PC - OS X tries to hide everything under the GUI whereas there isn't the same fear of that with Ubuntu. The MBP obviously has the advantage of the machine being designed specifically with the operating system in mind and vice versa, but if Dell takes the time to get everything right it could be a very interesting experience.

I find it baffling that Dell would sell a 3rd gen i7 laptop with only 2 gigs of ram.

Actually, w.r.t. parking, http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/fringe_benefit_fslg.pdf says that:
"Qualified parking is parking provided to employees on or near the business work premises, or
parking on or near a location from which employees commute to work by commuter highway
vehicle, mass transit, or vanpool. IRC 132(f)(5)(C)
The maximum nontaxable value is $240 per month in 2012. PL 111-312; IRC 132(f)(2(B); IR 2011-
104 "

No, but you paid taxes on the income that you earned to pay for the raw food used to prepare meals.

1. Schoolchildren - no, because that is after tax income and neither party is claiming the dessert cups as an expense which gets deducted off of income.
2. Paying the check - again, no, unless you are claiming that check as a tax deductible expense.

Let's look at the normal scenario for buying lunch:
Employer pays employee and deducts salary as a business expense. Employee collects salary and pays tax on income. Employ uses salary to purchase lunch.

In this case, the employee pays the tax on the income that was used to buy the lunch.

And the free lunch scenario:
Employer pays employee and deducts salary as a business expense. Employee collects salary and pays tax on income. Employer provides lunch for the employee and claims it as a business expense.

In this case, nobody pays the tax on the income that was used to buy the lunch.

Now I don't know if I would make a thing out of this or not, but I do understand the argument being made and it does some clear that Google employees are getting a tax free benefit.

Well, sure, there is that. I'm curious as to whether there actually is a feedback loop there. i.e. if the junkets are tied to the doctor actually recommending the drug or if they are merely a means of getting information about their drugs into the hands of doctors and the doctors are free to either recommend or not without effect on future junkets.

How is this different from a drug company approaching a doctor and saying 'Hey, I have this medication that can help people undergoing cancer treatment with their nausea.' Then the doctor, who has the personal information of his/her patients, makes targeted suggestions. Do you think the doctor recommends that medication to people with strep throat? Probably not. It's targeted. The drug company is not given any personal information.

Of course - there is a difference - the doctors are not allowed to accept money from the drug companies. The reason for that is because you want the medical advice given by your medical professionals to be unbiased and not slanted by money paid to them by drug companies, because you need to be able to trust that your doctor has your best interests at heart.

Neither Google nor Microsoft have any such relationship with their clients. People do not expect Google's advertisements or Microsoft's advertisements to be sound medical advice. The relationship is pretty transparent and I'm pretty sure everybody knows at least vaguely how those ads got there. But the same situation applies - Google is not passing personal information along to drug companies - they are merely pushing the ads out to those clients that meet certain criteria. Google's advertisers are not being given the personal information.

So I wasn't clear... Linus is saying he is against merging the code into the kernel, right?

I'm sure the person responsible for looking after my children while I'm working would be able to deal with the situation and get my attention as necessary.

So by forced to change their name, what they really mean is they chose to change their name because people were mistaking them for the Apple Store?

Ah, yeah, typo sorry. I meant Java.

I have no problem with Apple disabling Java. I would like them to provide some notice and I would like them to provide a way to whitelist trusted applications. That doesn't seem unreasonable.

I obtained a patch from my IT department that reversed the change. My understanding is that it modified a PLIST to change the minimum version of Java required.

Our VPN software uses Java, so it is a pain to not have it.

What is still annoying about it is that there is no way to selectively enable it. I understand that it is secure, that's fine. Consequently, I'd like to be able to whitelist Java applications that I trust (i.e. ones that come from corp) and not become vulnerable to ones that aren't trusted. Firefox has accomplished this by replacing the app with an 'Enable Javascript' button. With Safari you're either unable to work or you're letting it all hang out there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines