I really can't praise Gtk2-Perl enough. Using Glade to quickly build your GUI, and Perl to quickly build your logic, it's a knock-out combination. The end result looks just like a gnome application ( using Gtk2 ), and for 95% of cases, runs as fast as well. I liked it so much, I wrote some database classes, Gtk2::Ex::DBI and Gtk2::Ex::Datasheet::DBI ... see: http://entropy.homelinux.org/axis/.

The 'less lethal' argument is complete bullshit. The fact is that police are far more likely to use 'less' lethal weapons, on the assumption that there is much lower burden on them to prove the need for weapons use. There are many more situations completely out of the control of police that turn 'less' lethal weapons into 'completely' lethal weapons.

  - heart conditions, pacemakers etc ( yes, young people can have pacemakers )
  - pregnancy
  - short period of time since last taser assaults ( we've all seen videos of repeated taser assaults )

If police can't subdue people with their bare hands and training, then they shouldn't be police. Giving them so-called 'non' or 'less' lethal weapons only leads to more deaths due to a massive increase in the use of the weapons, combined with a very worrying deathrate ( hundreds of deaths per year according to Amnesty International ). As for police in the US where everyone has a gun ... I have no answer for that. Do whatever the hell you want over there. In sane countries where it's illegal to carry around lethal weapons, I expect the police to also be unarmed.

This guy has lost the plot. First nuclear power as a way to save the planet. Now 'putting democracy on hold' to achieve the same goal.

Now, I'm under no illusions as to the state of our alleged democracy: we don't have one. We are wage slaves who delegate our power to representatives of the ruling class. But do we really want to be 'officially' handing over the keys like this?

Surely the only way to achieve the kind of world-wide change we need is a world-wide democratic revolution ( and no, I'm not talking about American / Western style democracy, but REAL democracy ). Bring on the TRULY democratic, one-world government!

These TV station smart-asses have been openly advocating for Chavez to be assassinated. I'm sure if some 'independent' TV station started calling for President Obama's assassination, there would be some arrests over that too.

The problem is that Chavez is trying to implement some real social reforms, but the capitalists would very much prefer that not to happen. One of their weapons in the battle is these 'independent' TV stations, that are about as independent as Fox News.

Good riddance I say. There are enough far-right freak-shows with access to mass media already. Time to claw things back and give Chavez a chance to reform the country, like a majority of the population say they want.

I was wondering how long it would take before someone with intelligence posted to Slashdot. Unfortunately your solution doesn't fit in the pro-consumption market economy, or in the minds of the wages slaves conditioned to live in said environment.

Dear AC, your logic applies equally well to the free market. Central planning alone will of course not feed people. You need central planning by democratic means. The examples you gave ( post-Lenin Soviet Union, and North Korea ) are central planning, but by particularly undemocratic dictatorships.

But nice try, Mr Free Market.

Green lords? Homepage link? Signature? You're a nutcase mate. Either that, or on the payroll of a big oil co, or both.

People making these outrageous claims are showing a fundamental lack of understanding of what intelligence actually is. Intelligence is inextricably linked to life and consciousness. It doesn't matter how many transistors you throw at 'artificial' intelligence, it's still just that: artificial. It has no intelligence, just as it has no life. It has a very fancy set of instructions that attempt to mimic some characteristics that humans identify as being of an 'intelligent' origin. There's a big difference. Added complexity will not bridge the gap.

Energy diversity is where it's at. Each form of power has a different set of NIMBY problems. Different people will have stakes in different forms of power generation, which will distribute the political power of those interests.

I agree with the diversity point. I think it's perfectly valid of local communities to proclaim 'NIMBY', but at the same time, they should only be able to draw power locally. This way, local communities can decide what method of power generation suits them. I'm not so sure about the point about distributing political power. This is an extremely important issue - perhaps the most important one - and I doubt whether we've found a satisfactory solution yet.

We need to have wind, tidal, solar thermal, and next-gen nuclear.

First three, sure. 'Next-gen' nuclear though? There's nothing 'Next-gen' about nuclear. It's as eternally dangerous as ever. It's still the most expensive method of boiling water known to man. We still can't contain the waste, even for a decade. What's more, if some business guarantees that in 500 million years, their containment method will still be satisfactory, what kind of naive fool would take their word for it? They're not going to be around to hold accountable, are they? Let's put all this bullshit talk about 'clean' coal, 'next-gen' nuclear, 'ethical' business, and other oxymorons in the garbage, and work on proven clean, renewable technology, OK?

These 'people' are employees of major energy producers, or their lobbying contractors.

I predicted this in my blog on that bastards a couple of days back. Simple solution: boycott them. The world has enough browsers controlled by monopolistic corporations already. Support Firefox.

I find the Chrome interface quite revolting. But what's even worse is the psychotic bitchings of Ben Goodger, former Mozilla developer. My response to Ben discusses the issues he raised.

What a stupid post! What an idiot you must be! Clearly you've never programmed before, as your oh-so-light-on-substance first sentance 'GTK isn't as nice as everyone makes it out to be' has absolutely nothing to do with your 2nd assertion 'Basically what everyone has been doing is talking red hat, and suse and making their product work on that' which also appears to be remove from your arse without any sanitising.

I have written applications and libraries ( http://entropy.homelinux.org/ ) that 'just work' on Windows, Linux and OSX using Gtk+, and I've not any any issues you are attempting to allude to.