No, it doesn't. "I don't know" is a perfectly valid answer, without having to attribute it to a god, faeries, gnomes or the flying spaghetti monster.

"I don't know, so there must be a god" is without any fundament, and leads to what is known as "god of the gaps".

(Also, whoever modded parent "flamebait", you are being unfair. He is stating his views in a very polite way, and obviously ready to discuss the subject. Praise him for it, since it is so rare among religious people.)

Hitchhiker's humor? Hum? Hum?
Please turn back your geek card at the door, on your way out.

Marriages Spawned From Online Dating As Satisfying As From Traditional Dating: NOT AT ALL.

Yes and no. If you compare it to a regular car running on USA Gas, then yes, without a doubt. However, if you compare it to a car running on, say, Brazilian ethanol, the studies are still inconclusive.

My point is that most studies are valid under a given set of conditions, and we need to take those into account. If we make a case for the Tesla S polluting more, shouldn't we tackle the issue that energy production needs to pollute less? Alternative energy generation, better battery technology, those are the things we should focus on. So, if they are wrong about how much the Tesla S pollutes, we (the planet) win. And if they are right, they are still wrong, because their proposed solution, which is pretty much turning back time, is wrong.

The problem is with the cost of a context swap.

The code that managed context swapping is part of the scheduler, at least on Linux. Yes, it can be costly, which is why it needs to be implemented correctly, and why you keep getting alternative schedulers (not as often as you once did, it was crazy back in early 2.0). There is classic problem with Intel-HT and Postgresql that caused context swapping for database I/O to be extracostly, as you probably recall. And it can be done correctly, as was proven in this case, and then again for Oracle.

It is absolutely possible to have high performance userspace graphics, as was proven with some of the more up-to-date drivers. I think it was ATI that first did it, by the way. The trick is to keep as much as possible in userspace, but that requires a change in mentality for developers.

Linux is currently a mix of macro (monolithic) and micro kernel concepts. Not all drivers run in kernel space. I'm sure you were remembering the old Linus vs. Tannenbaum disagreement when you wrote that one.

Regardless, the focus of this discussing is graphic routines which, except for a few proprietary cases (most notably, nVidia), run in userspace. Which is one of the problems people have with the proprietary nvidia driver (another is it not being free, but w/e).

So, anyway, not ALL drivers are part of the kernel, more and more are moving out of it as time goes by. But yes, many drivers still are. Our Minix legacy.

Yeah. And then those same people who keep hating windows registry go and implement the same thing for Gnome, in a even more crappy way than windows did.

Gnome is, AFAIC, the current bane of Linux.

Hummm, what?!?! You know it is the same computer, right? If it is killing performance, then the scheduler is fucked. Another proof windows is broken.

Linux had some performance problems with database (Oracle specifically) because of it running in userspace. They changed the scheduler and some other stuff (rawio, etc), and it works flawlessly now. Based on your rationale, the solution would be to move Oracle to kernel space.

You know what should run in kernel space? The kernel.

Gas cars where like this once. The market tends to regular itself, even if it takes some time. Unless the government fucks it up, specially the USPO. Lets just hope that is not the case.

I'm not sure if you are reporting the fact, or complaining about it. If you are just reporting it to provide accurate information, kudos for you. Not only are you are well informed, you have more common sense than most people I know (or know of), and please stop reading here :).

I'm forced, however, to remember anyone who complains about "subsidy battles" that the USA is huge on subsides, and wages this battle against many countries, several times winning it. Orange/orange juice and corn are quick examples.

Unfortunately, subsidies are a necessary evil, specially since they are, many times, not a tool to fight an external competitor, but to regulate the internal market. In this, no country is blameless.

Republic = Res Publica = Public Thing, Public Affair. It means the state belongs to the people
Democratic = Demos Kratia= Rule by the people (literally: the power belonging to the people of the community)

Both are correct to describe the USA. Technically speaking, the USA is a Representative Democratic Republic (you can also add "Constitutional" in there, if you like).
You know that piece of paper that starts with "We the people"? That pretty much defined it as a democracy. Maybe you are confusing it with Direct Democracy (as opposed to Representative Democracy), where everything is decided by direct vote by the whole population.

Now, about your arguments. Comparing "Google Glasses" with "slavery or death" is kinda funny, really. But I understand the point you are making. The point, however, is quite different. Requiring 4/5 Majority (or 100% majority) is not feasible, and it is actually not required for most decisions, not should it be. It would ultimately lead to anarchy, following the total collapse of a frozen system.

Your last argument of not being able to vote with your wallet to trump someone else's rights is valid, but based on a faulty assumption. You are working under the assumption that it was already decided it violates other people's rights, and the jury (and the people) is still out on that one. And one of the ways people express their decision regarding that is with their wallets. So what they are ultimately voting is on the question of it violating their rights or not.

Stay in school

Thank you. That is good advice for everyone. They even have some very good books on State Theory that cover all these subjects quite well. You should try one, if you haven't already.

Them let me explain it to you.

My point is that, if people are buying and using it, they are VOTING it is a good thing. It is a characteristic of capitalists societies, and generally referred to as "voting with your wallet". Thus, "the democracy of the wallet".

It is very easy to say "democracy is good" and that you defend it when people agree with your point of view. When they are doing things you don't agree (like violating your privacy), it gets tricky. But if you defend democracy (I'm making an assumption here), you have to accept it, like it or not. You keep voting (elections or shops) against it, but you accept the result of the democratic process.

Thus, when the parent post said it was "to vote out the government", I said it is also possible to vote out products, and the fact people are using them is a sign they are voting FOR it. And, as with a senator (which I used as an example), all it takes is a significant number of people (far from the majority) to make it happen. Still, it is both the economical, social and political system you live in and, if not you, that most of Americans claim to defend and support.

And no, I don't like it either, being overruled by people who lack even the basic common sense. It is the price we pay to have a system that is not as bad as the other alternatives, although it is far from ideal.

Also, I'm sure most people will appreciate if you ask for clarification next time you don't understand something, instead of simply assuming it is a troll.

Cool. Are you also planning on replying to anything I actually wrote in my post?
Because what you wrote would be better located in a threat of its own.

Even if what you wrote on your post was 100% correct (and it is not), it would still have nothing to do with what I wrote. Just because saying "the sky is blue" is correct doesn't mean it is a valid answer to "how fast is your car?"...

If everyone else, or the majority of people, is wearing them, how is that different from voting? It is exactly the same principle.
I'm sure it take more people to make a Google product like this viable than it takes to elect a senator.

It is "the democracy of the wallet".

Notice: for people who will say that your privacy will be violated even if the majority is not using it, read again my second phrase about electing a senator.

That is just saying labour is an integral part of it. That is not the labour theory of value.

Mill, on the other hand, states plainly that the totality of the value of something depends on the labour applied. (Yes, I'm paraphrasing here).

But, as I said, I will have to check my reference books tomorrow. Anything else I say on this subject, right now, will be purely based on my recollection, since I exhausted my notes already. And since it is 2:30am right now, it is not only my noted that are exhausted.