2^31 = 2,147,483,648 = $21,474,836.48 when counted in pennies. I once worked for a software company where a call came into the support desk from one of our customers accounting departments. Once their sales reached a certain point, their books were suddenly off by exactly that amount (minus 1 cent). While everybody else was scratching their heads about the missing 21 million dollars, I recognized the number, and knew exactly what the problem was. They were storing the number as a 32 bit signed int which had overflowed. That's also how I got promoted from the support desk to a software developer.

IMHO, this is possibly why the max number of bitcoins was designed to be 21 million. Even though the number is not stored as an int in the bitcoin clients, it still avoids a lot of potential problems across platforms, and in scripts, and in data transfer to other systems in other formats. Just a thought.

You see, between all the proprietary crap messing with peoples heads, and all the technology egos, and those daytime prisons they call public schools, it becomes really hard to find a good programmer.

IMHO, the best way to find a great programmer is to find some high-school kid who hasn't been corrupted by the public school system, who can think analytically, and who has a good attitude, and train him.

... but you made my point though, (the same is true with MS security too) you can get it right if you go through a bunch of bullshit, but they always make it a pain in the ass, or gouge you.

Everything abut Microsoft is frustrating. Constant popupups, talking nagging paper-clips, can only log in one user account at a time unless you pay out the nose, a window8 GUI trying to shove apps down out throats even if we're a desktop, all versions of word are more incomparable with each other than open office is, how they try to force me into bing, how they try to obsolete older versions like XP - even though it works perfectly fine on older PC's, even worse, how they try to obsolete older versions of office. Don't even get me started with VB VBscript, and their basterdized versions of html and javascript.

However, all of these annoyances are not problems, they are symptoms of a company who can't compete on service, so instead they try to compete by shoving proprietary crap down our throats. Then they wonder why companies that 'get it' like google, waltz in and rip them a new asshole, while linux effectively kicked their ass in the dataceter market. I know being able to gouge the fuck out of people with proprietary licensing is like a security blanket to them, but really, in order to compete they just need to give it up. It's dulling them.

IMHO, the problem is that these companies with the help of the government want to use intellectual property rights laws to control people. These (IPR) laws are the problem, and DRM is the tool they intend to use to impose them. That's why I don't think fighting DRM will solve our problems. They'll never stop this crap till we cut it off at the root, and stand up against the laws being imposed on us.

Oil and fuel can be re factored from both coal and natural gas if necessary, so in truth, it's not a matter of amount, but a matter of price. Once the price reaches a certain level - other means of getting fuel become more economical. In fact, once oil reaches a certain price, you can literally use nuclear power (or hydro/solar) and pull co2 from the air, and reprocess it into fuel.

In the end, there is no one foundation or company. We have to use technology to create p2p/distributed types of solutions that can bypass the state and proprietary controls, even assuming they have 100% control over the infrastructure.

Does anybody else just wish ReactOS and/or WINE would just take over, and reach a point where everything can run on them. That way we could kick out Microsoft and not have to play their upgrade and licensing games all the time.

Because in the USA, at least, you can't patent an interface. You can patent all sorts of other stuff, but interface patents are one of the few things you can't patent? That's why AMD and Compaq were able to waltz in and kick IBM's and Intel's ass when it came to pin-socket compatible PC's.

http://thepiratebay.se/

Seems legit to me :)

I don't see why he can't be let go. Name the people he's harmed. Sure he's embarrassed a bunch of government bureaucrats, but since they work for me - the tax paying citizen, I can hardly see a problem with that.

I suppose what he did was treason, violated the government's legal edicts, but seriously here. This US is a man made institution, not a god, not an ends in itself. Freedom is the ends, the state is supposed to be the means to protect that. Letting him go is going to harm everybody how?

In the science of praxeology, they don't claim to know the mechanisim of what makes humans tick. They just presume that the mechanisims behind human behavior is too complicated to prefectly predict in many areas, and then work from there. Even though this is not hard science, you can still make extremely usefull predictions about human behavior in society and in large groups, and what kinds of social structures favor optimum desired outcomes.

Anyhow, the point is that praxeology implies free markets for optimum economic success, and public benefit, and many of the AGW proposals addressing global warming fly directly in the face of this. So obviously something is screwed up somewhere. Especialy when they say that disaster is immenent, and that we need to have insane taxes, regulations, and global government right this second to fix it. Also, predictions about AGW fly all over the place ranging from 1 degree in 100 years to a catistrophic heating event in the next decade. Also, every time a new discovery is made ... like the amount plankton plays a role in the oceans, like methane generation in the soil ... their computer models go to hell, and they all go running back to redo them and recalculate. Even with people screaming loudly that the debate is closed. Also, why does the UN have a pannel on climate change? This is not a science orginisation, it is a political one ... at times there seems almost to be a desparate push as in, fuck it all to hell right now we must have a big co2 tax, or something similar this minute.

For decades I have heard fear mongering about immigrants taking away IT jobs, and without fail just the opposite has been true, every time. In fact, what usually happens is that a bunch of cheap immigrants end up working for a start-up, a certain percentile of those start-ups that wouldn't have existed otherwise make it big, and then they hire 10000 engineers driving demand for IT talent through the roof, and pushing demand for even more immigrants. While I keep hearing these stories that the immigrants are going to push me out of a job, just the opposite has happened to the extreme. Talented people from a low freedom and low capital environment end up moving to a high capital high freedom environment, and creating wealth that never existed before - a lot of wealth.

In truth, software and most IT is global. But notice how things like Linux flourish in silicon valley the most, even though they can afford MS windows a lot easier than the 3rd world. That's because when you mix freedom with capital, it creates growth.

Solar flares lead to more cloud formation which leads to more reflection of regular light, which leads to colder temperatures.

So what are you saying? that the private sector doesn't think it's worth it, and so we need to ream the tax payers for it, or are you saying that the private sector isn't as forward seeing as the government sector? Uh huh.