...to the real cyberpunk world. Megacorporations don't rule the world, they let that dirty work be handled by governments. Instead, the have found a way to corrupt our politics in such a way that we are actually subsidising megacorporations and small companies and taxpayers are footing the bill.

I just hope that the time when history looks upon this period and asks whether we were all insane isn't too far off.

The other option sucks more

Yeah, I agree, despite my grandmother's experience in her hundred years on Earth. She outlived two husbands and three of her four children, lived in arthritic pain, and spent her last five years weak and frail in a nursing home. I'd personally rather be dead than in a nursing home, but unless I'm living in hell I'd prefer to be alive.

I see you're still playing cowboys and indians

I almost always vote against both of them if I have an alternative, although I've voted for candidates from both and yeah, sometimes they seem identical. Bush and Blago were identical, Bush was the worst President I've seen in my life (I thought I'd never see one worse than Carter) and Blago was the worst Governor I've seen. Both sucked because they appointed incompetent cronies to key positions. Bush almost ruined the country and Blago did the same thing to Illinois.

My problem with the Republican party is their stance on taxes and social programs. Federal taxes are lower than than any time since Eisenhower and they're too high? Really? Their idiotic and disingenuous notion that cutting taxes on the rich helps the economy pisses me off; they have to know that history shows that's pure bullshit.

The Koches are bullying punks, but patsy? Who's he a patsy for? Everything they do is in their own greedy self interest. The working class tea partiers are the Koch's patsies.

One copyright, patents, drug laws, and a few other topics important to me I'm 100% against both parties.

As to Obama, he hasn't yet started any wars, and when he took office the economy was worse than at any time since the Great Depression, and the economy isn't great but it has improved greatly. He's certainly not a great President, though. I was especially annoyed with health care reform, that was just a gift to the insurance companies. We need a system like sane countries, all of whom have cheaper care but beats ours in every metric. I've known people who have died from lack of health care.

If you haven't read Nobots, wait for the book. The ebook version will be free.

AIUI, cops tend to follow this type of ruling very, very carefully and do their best not to violate any new guidelines handed down. This isn't because they have such a great respect for the law (although many individual cops probably do) but because they don't want to have their evidence declared inadmissible, with the chance that the entire case might be thrown out. After all, they don't have to agree with the rules of evidence, they just have to make sure they follow them.

A friend of mine wrote a book about the state of virtual reality over twenty-five years ago. Back then, special glasses, headsets or other similar viewers were state of the art. Now, your average first person shooter video game has better 3D than anything he wrote about.

Well, this is Slashdot, you know. What else did you expect other than unfounded speculation by people who didn't RTFM and hyperbole?

If you'll go to the post I originally replied to, you'll find this: "For all we know, 97% of those researchers were ungrad-students doing research for a professor that required them to assume AGW was man-made." I was just remarking that using the term AGW includes the assumption that it's man made, and that any professor who expects them to use that term also expects them to accept that assumption.

Thank you; I sit corrected. Still, the point remains that the term AGW assumes that it's caused by mankind.

For all we know, 97% of those researchers were ungrad-students doing research for a professor that required them to assume AGW was man-made.

For that matter, for all we know, almost all of the papers that took the position that the current warming trend wasn't man-made were rejected and that their position on the cause was part of the reason. I'm not saying that there was selection bias, just that it's a possible explanation. And, btw, the A in AGW stands for anthropomorphic, or, "man made," so AGW is man made by definition.

I didn't say you have less corruption in general.

You have less corruption of this particular kind.

This kind of corruption is based on overzealous and overly complex rules and regulations. 3rd world countries usually don't have those, what they have is a lack of regulations, leading to the other kind of corruption, where you need to grease palms to get the wheels of the engine in motion at all, for example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/2 was pretty decent. as was a Mac. Or Amiga. They all had decent software stacks. Microsoft did the best job selling to businesses as well as consumers. But when there was competition, I often chose non Microsoft stuff.

Also, You were not using outlook in 1993. It didn't exist back then. The first versions came out around 96 or so. It was only bundled with the rest of office in Office 97, before that it came with MS Exchange.

The Baltic Sea isn't anywhere near as salty as it sounds. There are so many rivers emptying into it that parts of it, especially in the northern part, are very close to fresh water, and most (if not all) of the fish there are fresh water species. That's why, back in the Viking days, people in that area had to buy salt from mines in what's now Poland, instead of getting it from the sea as most other maritime areas do. This simplifies things tremendously, because they don't have to worry anywhere near as much about corrosion from the salt.

How long have you been brain-dead?

-jcr

rational planned economic system

BZZZZT!

A "planned economic system" is not rational, it is political. See the 20th century.

-jcr

The same claims were made at the beginning of the industrial revolution. The work we do will change, but there will always be work for people do to that machines aren't suited for.

-jcr