The recorders were actually stellar. Problem was just to get out again what you recorded unless you wanted to use the analogue hole. Which, coincidentally, was crappy enough that you could as well just record to a cassette tape.

So we should squeeze into bad fitting three piece suits and talk in inane buzzphrases, i.e. turn into a middle management idiot? Sorry, but then I couldn't take myself serious anymore.

Then you'll get what's left at the bottom of the barrel, the ones that no company actually paying interns money scoops up before. It may surprise you, but especially in IT a lot of what's coming as "interns" needs less training than some old farts who refuse to even consider learning any new tricks.

IT moves fast. And choosing between an intern that knows the latest tricks of the trade and some old, high priced programmer who considers anything but Cobol a fad that will fizzle is kinda easy for companies like Facebook.

I generally think that the whole "presentation" thing is big in most far east countries. Maybe someone with more experience with far east culture could fill in, but what I learned about gifts and presents in Japan, you should spend some time pondering the packaging, don't just wrap it up in some kind of paper for the sake of wrapping it up.

Odd. It's pretty much the same in my country, just settling where you wanna simply isn't (you pretty much need a building permit for ... well, I'm not sure about your dog house, but...) but we have one of the cleanest cities. Seriously, when I went to L.A. I was surprised you can breathe that stuff they claim is "air".

Trust me. It's pollution standards.

Not quite. They sell me the phone for 99 and a 2 year contract, WANTING me to use their service so I have to pay for the calls and text messages I send and receive. So this law essentially does not protect or enforce a contract, it protects what the company selling the phone WANTS its customers to do.

Here's what happens in my country, and I'd be very surprised if it was any different in the US: Carrier A sells a phone for $little_money with a 2 year contract. People go and get that phone, along with the contract with the least possible monthly fee. These contracts usually run in such a way that they come with a low (or even free) monthly fee and rather expensive call rates. Then they unlock it and go to Carrier B which offers a pretty favorable calling plan but no phone. Presto, new phone and cheap calls.

It's of course not what Carrier A wants. But since when has it been the government's job to protect a faulty business model?

It's not? Gee, the recent development in laws could easily have fooled me.

Since you couldn't steal what you already own, you needed a new law.

The systems aren't that much different when you strip the fluff.

Both systems are founded on a lie. The Communist lie was "Work hard today, and we'll all be living in paradise tomorrow." The Capitalist lie is more insidious, because it's more personal. "Work hard, and you can be rich too". What's insidious about it is that success is only dependent on YOU. If Communism fails, we all failed, and hence the system. If you don't work out in Capitalism, it only means you didn't work hard enough, it doesn't mean that the system is a lie. And as if to prove it is, there are some people who actually "made it", who managed to get rich. But once you look closer and find out just HOW they got rich, you notice that most of them either came from rich backgrounds or had backers who Joe Average has no chance of ever meeting. What's left of those self-made millionaires, who actually had an idea, risked everything and succeeded, is pretty close in number to lottery millionaires.

In other words, if you want to get rich, forget working and buy a lottery ticket. It's much easier, less risky and more likely.

The only "advantage" the Capitalist system has over the Communist one is that it's harder to see through. Plus we do not have a "West" that would show us that there's a better way.

Well, in earlier times, royalty was measured by how blue the contents of your veins was. Today, it's measured by how green the contents of your wallet is. The net result is pretty much the same. Sure, in theory the law treats you equally, but you really think that you are equal, with equal chances?

From time to time, I get to read an actually good and apt analogy on /.

You should post more.

Religion, Communism, Capitalism... as long as people have something to live, kill and die for, bad things will happen. How many people have been killed in the name of "keeping Communism at bay"? How many are still in Guantanamo in the name of the "war against terror"? How many atrocities have been committed in the name of peace, freedom and "our way of life"?

Religion is a tool. Not more, not less. First, to convince yourself that something "has to be done", and then of course to justify it towards others that we do something that is morally wrong. And I am talking about a very secular kind of moral, not the religious kind. The kind that has the ultimate dictum that whatever I do not want others to do onto me is most likely also what they do not want me to do onto them.

Killing people is wrong, but if they don't want to join our cult, we have to slay the heathens. Stealing is wrong, but we cannot let those barbarians keep that gold. And so on, and so forth. Religion has been a pretty tempting reason to kill, steal and be a really nasty asshole otherwise.

Of course, some individuals have been very generous and selfless due to their religious conviction. I'm thinking of people like Mother Theresa and others who took the example of Jesus (who I still think was a pretty awesome guy if only half the crap in the bible is accurate) and tried to live up to it. If more did instead of abusing his message of peace, cooperation and understanding to cause grief, dissent, war and pain, there was no need for heaven for we would have a paradise on earth.

Problem is, people are assholes and they will use whatever justification. Religion just tends to be one of the simplest ones.

I don't know, has "our way of life" been promoted to religion yet?

Stupid: Believing the myths and stories of a religion as truth.
Ignorant: Ignoring all kind of proof of the opposite.
Crazy: Making people suffer for not sharing your delusion.

Now every religious person can choose for himself where he is on that ladder.

There are a few people who think the whole Auditing stuff is "working", but they don't believe in the rest of the bull. There's a pretty good reason why you get to learn about Xenu and the Space Bombers pretty late in your indoctrination, selling crappy Sci-Fi stories as religion (especially one that easily costs you more than your house) isn't really a good selling point.