But people in other countries didn't react the same way to terrorist attacks. France and Belgium had attacks (and ongoing threats), but didn't bring in such repressive measures as the TSA and the no fly lists. The twin towers attack was the biggest single event than any Western country has faced, but the airport and a metro station in Belgium was blown up in a coordinated attack, and Belgium is a tiny country. France has had multiple attacks, including a truck running over people along a beach side road.

So for the USA, it didn't have to be this way. The TSA no fly lists are one of the most useless pre-crime infringements that should have no right to exist. Stronger cockpit doors and people no longer willing to be threatened has made more of a difference than stopping Ted Kennedy from flying.

Pity I don't have mod points, this is insightful.

I've seen many times that a previous techie built a custom support system (to maintain servers, ERP systems, development rollouts, patching systems, etc...) and once that person was gone, the whole thing was ripped out by the next person or I've been told to replace it.

This is usually because the previous techie didn't produce much for documentation and didn't pass on their knowledge. I've seen where the knowledge was not passed on, on purpose, in a misguided attempt to have job security.

This is why larger enterprises go for expensive solutions and need a lot of convincing to use and open source tool, even when the open source tool is better suited.

In Europe, banks already offer peer to peer payments. Open your banking apps, generate a QR code and then it is scanned by the other person with their banking app.

Secure, as it's something that occurs using your own back and you don't give any details to a third party.

Aren't the US banks going to introduce something like that? All of these third party apps that could be insecure wouldn't be needed.

has lot access to abortion, even when the woman's life can be shown to be in danger.

I wonder if Texans would ave preferred to have lost access to some porn sites instead.

This is so true, I saw this happen a lot.

Back around 2010, Tata sent over a young guy from India to be the team lead to learn from me and take over. He lacked experience, he had just above zero knowledge, but he was smart and a fast learner. At the end of the transition time, months later, he knew enough to be able to take over.

He also found out that I was getting paid 5 times what he was getting, was already contacting local contracting companies that would hire him and get him a work visa.

For the sake of the argument, let's agree that everything you said is true, and that he has in fact broken US laws and could be convicted in a US court, and that he did this while outside of the US.

Now, have you ever eaten pork? Have you ever taken the name of the lord in vain - maybe said 'God damn it', and you did this while in the US.

So, can the Saudi government put out a red notice on you, and get some foreign country to send you to Saudi Arabia? Is that fair? I mean, after all, if Assange, a non-US citizen, can be held to account for actions he took outside of the US where those actions are not considered a crime, then why can't the Saudi's do the same to you, a non-Saudi citizen*?

* Assuming that you are a non-Saudi, because the Saudis have executed people overseas for less... so let's hope you're not.

As an outside observer and so from a hopefully more neutral standpoint, I agree.

It appears the Republicans are corporatists that have generally socially conservative view.

Democrats are corporatists that have generally a more socially progressive view.

The economics are identical, it's just the corporations they support a slightly different. When you look at political donations, they are very similar, with industries like Big Oil giving to both sides, but maybe they give some individual politicians at little more.

The social stuff in being progressive/conservative for all but a few is a sideshow to distract and get people to support them.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that most in university degrees in the US, the first year or so is more of general education where you study a variety of subjects to complete your general education, and then only in later years do you start to specialise, and for some areas, like law and medicine, the specialisation is at post graduate level.

In other countries, such as in Europe and Australia, most degrees start off with entry requirements and specialisation begins in the first year of university. Subjects like math usually have a review of the required level for the first number of weeks, and then you have expected to have mastered it and new material is introduced. If you didn't have a strong enough background, then you would probably fail.

So, given that the US university system does not require immediate specialisation and gives further general education after high school, why on earth would schools need to make anything required other that basic numeracy and language (any maybe civics)?

Leave advanced topics as optional extras, and make sure that everyone graduating high school have 100% of the basic skills needed to function in society. Sure, everyone here on slashdot really is part of the elite, with above average language and probably math skills. There are a lot of people who complete high school that have low levels of literacy and numeracy.

Reminds me when I was trying to solve a complex integral using Wolfram Alpha. I didn't have the paid version, so I could only see some of the steps, so I kept breaking the integral down into separate parts and putting it in to Alpha until it had pretty much given me the full solution, I just had to put it together myself.

Of course, instead of all of that messing around, I would have been better off revising integration by substitution and parts, and integration of known functions to be better at Math... but it was only a couple of marks in one assignment, and I was feeling lazy and stupid (plus it was a Mathematical Statistics course, so there were very few of theses integrations needed).

So, I fully endorse the I'm too lazy to be good, so I'll just fob off my work attitude for doing things.

My goodness. And how does he propose to do that? Cut off US support - won't end it, it will just make it longer and more drawn out as eventually Ukraine will lose.

The only way I can see the US senate being able to stop the war is if they declare war on Ukraine and start bombing along side the Russians. I think Sen. Rand must be stubby short of a six pack.

Just hope no-one gets offended at you giving throat slitting signs while you're at 60 feet.

The situation may have changed in the last 10 years, but I don't think so.

The production side, that controls the factories and just in time systems run on IBM mainframes and DB2. They have back end systems that run on Oracle (and Linux), but they do not control the production systems.

Otherwise, I'd be disappointed if the bot doesn't use his most famous quote -

"Be excellent to each other, and party on dudes!"

Overall, the taxes for cars in the US are super low compared to some European countries.

For example, a Ford Bronco would cost more than $5000 to register it in Belgium https://www.moniteurautomobile.be/conseils-financiers/tmc-bruxelles-et-wallonie/taxe-mise-en-circulation-bruxelles-wallonie.html

You're not paying anything like that in Texas. The funds raised could go towards the roads in infrastructure. Someone has to pay for the roads, so it might as well be people who won't be paying fuel taxes.

I remember the days when trolling was along the lines of cross-posting to Star Trek and Star Wars news groups and saying
        "Dr Spock is my favourite Star Wars character".