So let's get back to the point then. Are you saying that basic infrastructure such as power is fine as long as it works only during the day when it's sunny?

Reality is, it's not. It would certainly prove to be an improvement over status quo in many places in Africa, but it's a far cry from being something that could replace the wired infrastructure that we have in the West today.

And the entire argument in this case is that wireless is somehow about "leapfrogging over" wired network, rather then attempting to dodge the massive cost of having proper infrastructure in place by installing something that possibly, maybe could serve as a bare minimum by Western standards.

Sure. You can just sit on a practice bike hooked up to electric generator and start pedaling. Advantages over solar include among other things power on demand rather than no power when its actually needed. Energy supply vector is the food, which is indeed wireless.

You could also utilize sun through simply using a diesel generator, or countless other means. In fact ALL energy is originally wireless, as it originates from the sun.

But to actually use it, you need wires.

Yet wires between panels and equipment using the electricity. Hmm?

It's intriguing that it's only not applicable to "morality" of those that are trying to wash their conscience clean. Interesting point: when your grandparents were creating the system, they were thinking of everyone's greater good. Post WW2 gave some very harsh lessons on what happened when too many people only looked out only for themselves and let everyone else rot.

Sadly these lessons are now being forgotten, with new generation of privileged people growing up and forgetting the lessons of old. In the end, that is the fate of humanity - to repeat its own foolish mistakes. Let's just hope that price we have to pay for your self-destructive behavior collectively will not go too high any time soon.

That's the beauty of it: if everyone worked this way, you wouldn't have to sacrifice your own welfare. But because some people insist upon taking the best parts for themselves and leaving rest to others, situation worsens for everyone in the end.

It's actually something a bit different. If someone doesn't understand, they are encouraged to seek help not only from teacher, but from the rest of the class. This brings the gifted kids from "I'm better than others" pedestal to "my friend needs help, I should provide it and feel really good when he gets it!"

It's a very powerful thing to teach at young age, which affects much of person's world view later on.

Do you mind if I come back now then? You know, because my statement actually comes not only from being all those things, but also actively working with several teachers when it comes to certain kinds of education in a country where public education is done better than average private education in US.

Not that your "american exceptionalism" type would listen. Either you're right or messenger is wrong. There is no other way. That's why most US based exchange students short out when they hear someone has it so much better than them. It just flies too hard in the face of what they were told their entire lives and not very different from the muslim men trying to "assault western women who are "dressed indecently because we can't help ourselves". It's hard to battle that nature which you have been taught from birth to adulthood.

Ah yes, the fallacy of "everyone is born equal". It openly spits in the face of reality, and serves only one function: to give those who had privileged life an absolution of guilty conscience.

In real life on the other hand, best equalizers are the one that place children from good families together with those bad ones. This provides strong unifying force for the society. On one hand, those from bad families follow the example set by children from good ones. On the other hand, it dispels the myth of "worse people" that many from privileged families tend to have about those that exist in lower societal strata.

Few children end up suffering from it. Vast majority benefits in a huge way however, and this majority covers children from both ends of the spectrum. Society benefits also from massively reducing the social strife between people from different social and financial backgrounds.

One great example of this has been US having same schools for people of various ethnic backgrounds instead of firmly segregating. The new generations that studied in such schools are typically far less racist than their parents who didn't. Are they not racist at all? No. But the situation has markedly improved.

Same can be observed in many countries that do not allow easy schooling segregation based on economic background, like Nordics.

And if everyone lives by that principle, no one will have a good life.

That is the problem here. Exceptional egocentrism destroys things. If in grandparent's case everyone was sending their children to public school, it wouldn't be anywhere near as dangerous, as there would be a lot of "good" students. These would quickly balance out the bad ones, improving the situation.

Taking out the good students, and leaving the bad ones among themselves is what causes schools to become bad. Many egocentric people use "it's not my responsibility" excuse to wash their conscience clean, and you end up with system that cannot properly function, starts to become massively inefficient and many people who could have had a good life among the "bad" students if they had a decent environment in school lose out because they don't get.

That's the reality of it. You can wash your hands off it, but it certainly doesn't make you a good person. And fact is, when there are too few good people in the world, it goes bad for EVERYONE.

In MOST Western European countries, public schools are GOOD.

In some, they are best in the world. Like mine (Finland). I had more a few discussions about it with US exchange students back in university, and not a single one of them could ever get their head around the fact that "best public schools in the world according to international tests many years in a row" also function on basis of "no child left behind" and "tests aren't that important until 8th-9th grade". They'd accept the former, and then their brain would short out completely when hearing the latter two. It's like trying to convince someone that black is while. I actually got accused of lying several times. Nowadays, I just post this link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8601207.stm

Frankly, after having the same issue a lot of times with people from very different parts of US I suspect that you're being fed a line as a nation to make you want to have the system you currently have to line someone's pockets.

You misunderstand. Hollywood is the propaganda arm of US government. As a result, while it does enjoy significant protection of US government as to enable it to perform its task (financially self-sustainable domestic and international propaganda), it most certainly does not command US government beyond its ability to influence the puppets, otherwise known as politicians in the same way that other similar agencies can influence the same puppets.

It still has to combat all the other agencies, and in that game agencies like NSA and CIA hold much stronger cards as they have blackmail material on everyone, as well as ability to simply remove people they do not want.

It doesn't. However reasonable compromise, such as not using perfume within offices of a worker who is strongly allergic to it is perfectly reasonable. Essentially as long as these things are luxury goods (i.e. perfumes) or select easily avoidable foods (i.e. peanuts) most people should feel compelled to assist the person by not bringing these to workplace.

You can eat nuts and use perfume on your free time after all, while the person cannot avoid you at work.

I'm rather surprised that someone would seriously consider that it's okay to threaten someone's life because they want wear a strong perfume or similar lifestyle luxury choice. I'm not allergic to anything, and I would find it to be my duty as a decent human being to take colleagues with dangerous allergies into account when making decisions about things like deodorant or food I bring to workplace.

No, not at all. It means that you can bypass the old cruft, but you have to pay for it with teething problems from new tech you replace it with. Both methods have their good and bad points.

MS has no new geographical markets. It's very mature and omnipresent. The only way to grow is to either expand into completely new markets product-wise which is what it tries to do with varying success rate (xbox, windows RT, zune etc).

In markets largely under their control (desktop, office suites, etc) they can only grow by leeching more money from the customer.

Actually it's "dying" which is a word that certain type of nay-sayers use for "growing" faster than during the recent past, mainly because of consoles losing ground with generation change. Right now, if you want gaming, PC is where decent money can be made.

Pretty much everyone who thinks it's dead should just be shown star citizen or similar projects. People are willing to pay tens of millions while the game is still on the drawing board. Piracy? So what?