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Comment Re:There is a point (Score 1) 569

But, anyway, even if the F22 is the best one-to-one, with only 200 able to fly, maybe 50 at any given time, it had to be seen if 50 of them could do the job against 1200 of a cheaper enemy (say China or Russia).

One point to raise: 1200 airplanes require 1200 loads of fuel (not unlimited), 1200 pilots (trained ones take ages, and untrained ones are a danger to both the trained & untrained ones around them), and 1200 loads of munitions (definitely not unlimited, especially in a wartime situation).

They also require airstrips, hangars, and maintenance crews to service 1200 airplanes, as opposed to 50.

And let's not even get into the fun of trying to handle air traffic control and strike planning of 50 planes versus 1200...

Comment Re:See. Patents/Copyright spur innovation. (Score 2) 491

OK, I've had enough of this garbage. Time for a reality check.

c) that is is OK to put a price on saving a human life. (i.e. "Sorry, you can't afford this drug -- you deserve to die.")

In the real world, where everything that is done requires work, and possibly depletion of resources, there always IS a price that can be put, on anything.

We might not like that fact, and it might not be all touchy-feely friendly, but that's how it is. Effort is required to get useful things done, effort requires work, and usually resources, and thus it costs you (or someone else). Money isn't very equitably distributed, but the various forms of it are what the entire world uses to trade for time, energy, and resources.

But I'm really peeved by the completely BS second part of your point:

"Sorry, you can't afford this drug..."

Fair enough, a statement of the reality that some people sometimes face. You might never face it yourself (be lucky enough to live in a rich country), but most people do from time to time. It's a horrible situation to be in, and I've been there myself more than once.

" -- you deserve to die."

However, this sentence is simply your opinion of how you think other people are thinking, and is impossible to logically derive from the previous sentence. What a pathetic, sensationalist red herring. You should be ashamed of yourself. Do you have any proof at all that your second sentence describes the thought processes of the majority of people in the world? Because let me tell you, "you deserve to die" is a very hard indictment of someone - and the vast majority of people that I've ever known do not think in that way.

Also, the following is also wrong:

I'm sorry but EVERYONE has the right to life, regardless of the cost.

No, they don't. I want your statement to be right, for the world to be like that. But it is not. You don't have the right to life, you merely have the right to fight for your own life. There is no universe-granted right to live. Civilization of humanity has brought us the understanding, and in some cases ability, to try and create and defend a "right to live" through a thousand different constructs such as government, welfare, centralised planning, universal healthcare (for some), and so on. But the natural world in general does NOT provide that, and civilization's attempts to overcome that fact will never succeed completely. We just don't have the mastery of our environment to do so. If the modern world allows you the chance to avoid certain medical problems, treat others, and generally extend your life compared to no care and assistance at all, then good. But that's a privilege of living in a rich, modern society, and not some sort of "I inherently deserve this" right.

Comment Re:I Am Not Surprised (Score 1) 542

While not denying the possibility, I think it's a bit of a tangent to ascribe the diet aspect of colonising influence (for want of a better word) to resultant depression amongst indigenous people.

One thing you inevitably get along with a western-style diet, is a western-style social civilization. I'd be far more likely to ascribe a psychological effect on native people to the recently imported changed psychological & social structure than on something off in the outfield, like the diet that comes with it.

Surely a changed local psychology is more likely to affect the local's psychological state than something dietary? Call me a fan of Occam.

Comment Re:Boot Disc (Score 1) 510

Ouch... that method fails as soon as you have hotfixes installed that aren't included on the install disk. I'm assuming, of course, that the rootkit infects/affects one or more files that have been hotfixed since the OS was installed from CD.

The only way around is to add known good copies of all new hotfixed files, as they're added to your OS, to a read-only medium (like a CD-R).

Not fun!

Comment Re:Tell the person (Score 1) 619

Yep, same problem here. I have a firstname@domain.com address, and I get multiple daily messages from people who enter addresses wrongly, people who give addresses wrongly, all the usual suspects. Tried for a few weeks to reply nicely to them all, but now I can't be bothered. My life is too short, and my time too limited, to clean up other people's mistakes like that.

The only ones I sort out manually nowadays are those that either:
a) relate to things I actually want my *own* account on (this happened with people registering for LinkedIn, amongst other things, with my address)
b) things that are really quite important - one poor bloke had a huuuuuuge tract of information, business and personal, entered into an account on some site... and accidentally put my address in as the contact. I spent the time contacting him, and sorting it out, because he had a lot of business he might have lost.

But the rest? The receipts for apartment rent (from the UK)? The innumerable misdirected resumes? The order confirmations? The random "hey, how are ya" messages? The possibly-important "here is the powerpoint presentation for this morning's meeting" attachments? The people who sign up for Apple IDs with my e-mail address? Sorry, just because you made this my problem by typing an address in wrong doesn't mean I have time to fix your problems for you. Straight into the bit bucket, baby... another donation to /dev/null.

Comment Re:quality schmality (Score 1) 229

I'm a bit off topic, but things like those you just mentioned remind me (and amaze me) again how *cheap* food is in the U.S. Your milk for $3.59 per gallon is far less than what an Aussie in Melbourne pays - $3 per 2 litres for branded milk (equivalent to $5.70 per gallon.)

And at the moment US$1.00 = AU$1.07, too. There's something to be said for economy of scale!

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