It's not only that stock exchanges have become gambling halls. It's worse: the HFT traders are the card sharks that any self-respecting casino bans from their premises.

If the markets themselves want to act like respectable gambling institutions, they need put a brake on this. The simplest means would be to charge big fees for cancellations. If Flash asks "would you like to buy an apple for 51c", and the answer is yes, then he had better buy the damn apple.

The liquidity argument is specious; there really is no benefit to liquidity below a certain threshold. Fees should also go up astronomically for very short-term trades.

First, the "we broke 20 plots" is bullshit. They have have used these tools in 20 investigations, so what? And what about the other 280 they admit to? And anyway, how many people's data was involved in each of these investigations? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?

In any case, we still come back to the basic problem: The police could certainly stop a few more crimes, if they were allowed unfettered access to people's homes. See someone suspicious? Walk in and search the house, no warrant required. The point is: This price is not worth paying.

Why? For many reasons, but here are the ones that leap immediately to mind:

(1) People need to feel they have personal privacy.

(2) Government bureaucrats are humans: some good, some bad, most just muddling along. Put this kind of power in their hands, and it will be abused. Whether for political ends, to get back at the ex after a nasty divorce, or whatever. Because they work for the government, they will not be punished. See the recent IRS scandals for a perfect example of this.

It is important to limit government power, because this is the only sure way to prevent abuses. You can't abuse power you don't have. If this makes police work a little more difficult, that is a price well worth paying. Convince a judge and get a warrant before spying on someone - this just isn't that hard.

Or maybe they are. Read the oath taken by military officers: American officers are required to disobey illegal orders. Certainly any military officer involved in direct and clear violations of the Geneva Conventions (torture, indefinite detainment of civiliains, etc.) is guilty of following illegal orders. This applies from the JCS on down - there have been a *lot* of illegal and unconstitutional orders that should have been rejected.

Wrong question anyway...

What is it with the apparent belief that the US Constitution is only supposed to guarantee rights for US citizens?

This seems to be an implicit assumption in the public reaction to the NSA spying scandals. The Constitution makes no such distinction; it is intended to limit the power of the government, period, regardless of who is affected. If this were not the case, the US government could do anything it wanted to foreigners: search without a warrant, detain them indefinitely without charges, torture them, even murder them.

Oh, right...

Sorry for the cynicism, but the point should be obvious: This is clearly not the intent of the Constitution. The US government is out of control, but too many Americans excuse this by saying "well, it's mostly them foreigners, so it's ok". It is not ok. Anyway, it is now beyond obvious that the US government routinely violates the rights of everyone including US citizens.

What counts as released? Open-source stuff with an unknown number of users? Stuff written for one-off use? For friends? For clients? Only complete programs, or individual utilities?

One of the best arguments I have heard for the fifth amendment is "pressure" to confess. I put "pressure" in quotes, because we have surely all heard the stories about rubber hoses being applied in back rooms. If you cannot appeal to the fifth amendment, then you have no easy way to refuse to make a confession.

This applies especially if you are innocent, since without a confession the police and prosecutor may be unable to prove their case.

I don't know, or particularly care, if this argument meets all of Bennett's conditions. His conditions are pretty damned pedantic - he can do his own damned homework.

p.s. I grant that the government has found a way to get around the fifth amendment: piling on the charges, and then intimidating people into plea bargains. Still, you do have a right to demand a trial, and a right to refuse to say anything they can use against you.

The original study seems to be using PCs as a quick way of counting the users that they support. Many computer intensive organizations spend GBP 6000 per person per year in - here's the catch - total IT costs. Government administration is probably typical here, and GBP 6000 is not at all unreasonable.

The author of this article quickly points out that she can buy 22 iPads for that price. That's great, but it doesn't pay her website, server, ERP system or the people to run it all. Her CIO friend who thinks a spend of GBP 1000 (EUR 1500) per person per year was either answering a different question, or is clueless.

Are we supposed to be impressed with 8.5 inches of concrete in the walls? In much of Europe, that's pretty close to normal residential construction, nothing special. Ok, maybe they are including more steel - I surely hope so - but it's still nothing special.

In Moore, the school where children were trapped under rubble and drowned because they couldn't escape the flooding: This school had no designated safe room from burst water mains. This is "tornado alley" we're talking about - the last time that Moore was flattened was just 15 years ago! What kind of idiot builds a school in that area that cannot stand up to tornados and has no shelter to retreat to? In this area, tinkertoy construction ought to be forbidden in government buildings, and utterly uninsurable in private ones.

"the new administrative fee is a key component for accelerating revenue growth for the rest of the year"

So, have I understood this correctly? If you have a contract with them, they aren't violating it, because they aren't raising your rates. They're just adding a separate administrative fee. Reminds me of the game airlines play: your flight is cheap, but you have to pay the fees for the airports, for fuel, for your luggage, for having wings on the airplane...

This is great for the bean-counters and marketeers, but it's unethical as hell. Why do big businesses lose their ethics? Does MBA stand for "Must Be an A**hole"?

What is your agreement with the contractors? From your statement that you "pay on time" I have the feeling that this is where your problem is.

If you have agreed: "I will pay you $x per hour of work", then you are paying for their time. If bugs need fixed, you need to pay for some more of their time.

On the other hand, if you say "I will pay you $x if you write a program that meets this specification", then you simply do not pay until you have such a program. If it's a big project, it may make sense to define some intermediate milestones, where the programmer receives partial payment. However, a large portion of the payment (at least 1/3) should be released only after the program has passed acceptance tests.

A contractor ought to charge you slightly more for the second option, because the contractor is carrying the risk.

girlintraining writes: "American labor often stresses that people take their own initiative in solving a problem. You're expected to come up with a solution on your own, with little oversight or guidance, and you're given some leeway in making that happen. Yes, some companies are worse about this than others -- I am speaking in generalities here. YMMV. The culture of many of our immigrants is to not take that initiative -- but to only do things under the express guidance of their leaders."

This is an incredibly important point. Many Asian workers have this problem - technically, they are incredibly competent, but they have learned to do just exactly what they are told to do. I have visited Asian programming shops, and watched as the boss instructed his programmers on every detail, all the way down to "you need to put that CD back in its cover". Western management style is to give general directions and leave the initiative to the developers. This combination is a recipe for disaster. It is also a direct contributor to for GPP's complaints about "Substandard code, slipping release schedules, low wages."

You ask the question: "What would it take for me to get out of my mismanaged and failed country of fools and into your country, which appears to be slightly less mismanaged and the changes are being pushed by startups who want to pay me"

The answer is surprisingly simple: Apply for jobs. If the employer decides that you're the person they want, they will apply for a work-permit and deal with the paperwork. Sure, you'll get a lot of rejections - that's always the case when job hunting - but it only takes one acceptance, and you're golden.

FWIW: I emigrated 20 years ago. It's easier now than it was then. Just do it!

What the devil is the federal government (or, indeed, any government) doing, telling companies how they need to package their sales offerings?

In the best case, this is micromanagement. In the worst case, follow the money, just who is paying for the legislation, and how are they going to use it to screw consumers?

I know it's a late reply, but your thoughtful comments deserve a (hopefully equally thoughtful) response from the other side.

- Yes, the government should invest in the long- future. However, current governments mainly invest in the next election. Bureaucracies quickly develop into organizations that don't invest in anything except their own well-being and existence. These are real problems for which we currently seem to have no effective answers.

- Government debt beyond a very low level *is* a bad thing. Why? Because, contrary to what most people think, governments do not have any money of their own. If they spend, it's your tax dollars they are spending. If they borrow, it's your future tax dollars that will pay the interest. If the government "cheats" by printing money, this devalues the currency, and hence is an indirect tax on your assets and income.

- Public education and other services threaten private alternatives, when private alternatives are forbidden or regulated into uselessness. Public education services are often overpriced for the benefits they deliver; education and health care are two prime examples in the USA. Again, it's your money they're spending so inefficiently.

- A point you didn't mention directly, but that was in the post you replied to: Charities, foreign aid, subsidies and many other aspects of government spending may be things that you (or I or someone else) does not want to support. Yet the government takes your money and spends it without your permission. In the best case, this is the majority stealing money from the minority to spend on its own ends. More cynically, this is politicians buying votes with your tax dollars.

There is every reason to use MySQL: It is integrated in pre-configured LAMP stacks, it is ubiquitous, and it "just works". If MySQL isn't good enough, why would anyone change to MariaDB, which is - and will remain - 99% the same thing?

This appears to be a guy trying to take back a product he already sold. Regrets? Doesn't know what to do with his life? Whatever...