Universal healthcare would also be communism.

Anyone that's fled from a communist country can tell you how it all worked out in practice. It's not quite the ideal that commie wannabes make it out to be.

People are still greedy and corrupt.

Centralizing power just makes that worse.

That already is playing itself out in Stuebenville.

It's the same as the case about all-in-one printers. The relevant troll was not suing HP or Brother. The relevant troll was suing companies who perhaps bought an HP or Brother printer with the capabilities described in the relevant patent.

Most of these cases are probably bogus for the same reason.

As much as I would like to enjoy some shadenfreude at Apple's expense, they should not be subjected to this kind of nonsense any more than anyone else.

That's fine for the first iteration of a prototype but not really maintainable or auditable after that.

One would hope that the total lack of any auditing would be considered a problem in a financial services environment.

Cowboys are for cattle country...

It's not 1998. Databases don't cost $60,000 anymore. There's no good reason that some cowboy developed database app should be any more expensive than some cowboy developed spreadsheet app.

At least the database allows for some semblance of centralized management.

Russia was an empire long before the tzar and his family got shot. The national character is not going to change much just because of a minor bit of regime change. If Putin weren't effectively president for life, optimism about the new Russia might be a little more warranted.

Except dumb people complain anyways.

Although this isn't really about "dumb", it's about lazy. Many people that seem "dumb" really are just lazy. They choose to be helps and there is simply no helping the helpless. You cannot dumb things down enough for them. Sooner or later their faux helplessness will manifest again.

Enabling helpless and lazy only encourages more of it.

Yes. Forgot about this bit. NoScript isn't just about security. It's also about performance. A lot of the extra nonsense that sites run just isn't necessary. It doesn't significantly impact the desired user experience to have all of that random crap turned off.

It's much like food labeling or processes running on your PC.

If you don't recognize it, chances are that it's to be avoided.

Except I don't have to avoid Javascript entirely.

I can do it selectively.

I can decide who to let into my circle of trust.

Given what kind of random crap seems to be on modern websites these days. That's a very good idea. It's not paranoia when people really out to get you. Trying to deny the danger is the position that's really out of touch with reality.

YOU are the one that's a danger to self and others, not me.

Juvenile insults won't change that.

So it's OK because they are indentured servants then?

You don't have to be a communist to be against that sort of thing.

You can be a Lincoln Republican and be against that kind of thing.

That's what happens when you have the proudly ignorant rambling on about things they know nothing about.

Any free market depends on meaningful choices. Those actually have to exist and be usable in order for a free market to exist. Quite often they don't.

If you have to be oppressed by someone, being "oppressed" by a Union is likely a far better option.

These devices are the next evolutionary step of phones and mp3 players. They have been sold as purely entertainment devices for pretty much their entire lifespan. The notion that kids will just reprise the old "comic book behind the text book" cliche' seems like an obvious problem.

The kids might even be able to adapt to the attempts to manage these devices.

The smartest people in the room are the ones that you are trying to keep from treating these things like toys.

You've really not done much to raise the bar here.

An e-book reader is all you came up with.

On the other hand, there's some value to having a great pile of books on hand. As others have stated, e-book readers are a very poor interface for dealing with reference material. I would also add to that that they are also a poor interface for exploration in general including the kind you might expect from a kid being able to sit in front of a shelf of actual encyclopedias.

All of the pizzazz and flim flam haven't quite managed to replicate that really.

> And then you have to worry about drivers, malware, file system corruption, etc.

Not according to old Apple commercials you don't.