Naive question perhaps, but: what are the alternatives to a central bank? Past, fiction, theoretical, etc. example apprecitiated!

Apologies, but: hiring? 40yo dev looking for the corporate environment you're describing...

Hey, for personal interest an edification, do you have any favorites or pointers as far as academia's ideas about better desktops and what they consist of? Thanks!

Awww, never played Spy Hunter in your Excel spreadsheet?

Well, can you answer that question: what would a demo need to provide for you to decide to purchase the game? I've had the same conundrum for quite a long time with every other game system, including PCs: demos can be pretty cool - for the first 10 minutes, then it becomes more and more obvious what the UI and game rule limitations are, and usually also the design principles and goal of their... playability. Typically the only way they get my money after a demo is if they hook into some previous game commonality rather than showing they've innovated or otherwise proven their case that I should buy their game. ):

Maybe we just have yet to define relative causality and general causality?

8-PP

Disclaimer: only the irony is free!

Thank you, KGIII, for bringing up as good of points as you have.

Since I am also not in the circumstances of feeling transgendered, I can only wonder - and since it seems to be an extremely sensitive topic for people I shy away from interviewing people in that state to gain a better sense of what is going on for them: what they feel, think, what their internal tensons and conflicts are... I would love to do such a study if it could bring about any better understanding for myself (and perhaps their selves).

I don't have much experience with transgendered people - the one I met a few years ago was socially/personally a jerk (an ex says that change in personality coincided with testosterone treatments), while another ftm appears to me to be quite a wonderful person, and it makes me very sad to think they will be going through with surgery to, with current medical technology, what seems to me to amount to mangling their body - especially when they've so creatively dealt with their gender conflict so far.

- looking forward to better days.

My least favourite is #3 - the truth is that many packages/apps/what-the-hell-ever on Linux have their own upgrade process once you have to start dealing with all the friggin' dependencies. I haven't seen any clean way to keep 10 versions of the same dependent libraries on a Linux system (sometimes necessary) to allow me to upgrade any single application without worry about breaking other applications and sometimes more importantly without requiring me to spend a full day deconstructing the dependency trees - if that is even possible!

So I will posit that Linux is actually pretty damn far from having #2 proper package management. While it tracks things and can tell you what needs to be upgraded, it cannot tell you if it is even possible on your current system let alone in what order you will need to upgrade apps/packages/drivers/etc. for everything you currently have installed to work once you're done.

Besides crap multi-monitor/video card support, that is my biggest peeve as a developer and user of Linux.

Just sell it through Amazon: They don't care.

A couple years ago I purchased Disney's "The Little Mermaid" from amazon.com to replace a friend's stolen copy. As soon as the intended recipient saw it they said, "That's not from Disney!" The DVD had a poorly printed cover and DVD art, and significant problems playing.

I reported it to Amazon - not only the problems with the purchase but also the fact that it was obviously a copy and not an original. I've never heard back.

Buying software for small companies (eye doctors, chiropractors, etc.) doesn't make sense - especially now that the US gov't is changing electronic records policies/requirements.

All those practices are being encouraged to upgrade now with incentives - as long as they upgrade to a certified platform.

But with the gov't's certification level rising year after year, why would anyone *buy* software each year? (most practices don't upgrade their installed software every 5 years, right?) Especially now that some vendors are doing even more lock-in/refusing access to your own data, it requires installing and upgrading your own PCs and server(s) - hardware and Windows versions and databases and...

Use an online SaaS. Granted, there is only one working solution out there right now for eye care specialists (www.revolutionehr.com), but it works on modern browsers, integrates with several brands of optometrist equipment, has billing, email, inventory, scheduling... most of what you need. And not only do they help with importing your data, they'll also help you export it if you decide it's not for you.

(disclaimer: former dev)
8-PP

Other factors might also include that fewer women have the disposition for the kinds of drama/politics/socializing that exists in the IT realm, though that bleeds towards "old boys club" and we're back to sexism talk again...

Which is exactly the deal Antigua should get into: one Antinguan entity makes one copy of just under 1 million U.S. copyrighted items (DVDs, Blurays, CDs, software, electronic books, etc.), removes the copyrights, and then can copy, sell, and distribute to the rest of the world. Suddenly the U.S. has some competition!

8-PP

I don't know off the top of my head if anyone has more fully dealt with #2, but it has been touched on in:

A. Looper - I was pleasantly surprised it was as sci-fi as it was with multiple timelines (and causal paradoxes/not paradoxed) given a rudimentary treatment
B. Sliding Doors - intermixing timelines peaks my curiosity
C. (Disney's) The Kid - time travel in a limited sense with intermixed timelines
D. Premium Rush - not time travel - I just liked the way they explored the bike messenger's decision process 8)

Wow, I know there have been others but that's what I can think of now.

8-PP

Hey, I hope you're open to a conversation about this - though I fear I'm more in the learning stages - but: what *is* the U.S. economy based upon?

You've listed the government contracts for military - there's also got to be various other ones, like the Haliburton-type contracts to companies for... humanitarian? efforts.

But I've been wondering this for much longer: if the U.S. *did* actually make a national healthcare system, one where every single health insurance company was eliminated and replaced with a national agency (which would arguably be smaller and cost less than the companies it replaced)... do we go from healthcare-related revenues like 15% US GNP (a number I saw randomly early last year) commercial to 5% government-based organization/employment? Where would that 10% go? Or even 5% Or even 1%?

With the details you gave for follow-up you nicely show the waves of deeper effects a company closing can have. Can we reset those previously Boeing-dependent companies to new effects? New products?

So yeah: I'm wondering not only about how things change from how they presently are (stock market crashes?), but also ways to make this economy (and I suppose further: the world's capitalist economy) more adaptable.

Hope to hear from you!