> On $180k income, Australian's pay 50% taxes whereas American's only pay 28%. No, they don't. This grossly overstates how much is paid. They pay almost 45% on every dollar *over* $180k + the tax from the various income brackets below. At $180k, they would have an effective overall tax rate of 30.3%. The amount of tax paid asymptotically approaches 45% as their income approaches infinity.

Have you been there? The monuments aren't crosses. They're just tombstones. The individual buried can have different logos be they crosses, stars of david, or symbols denoting atheism.

Actually, it does. Many people do not exert themselves enough to produce a significant amount of sweat. Many people work indoors where the climate is controlled and there is very little dirt. Most of the moist bits are covered with undergarments that are washed regularly. Jeans can be worn many, many, many times without acquiring dirt or smell. My skin is much happier if I shower every other day. I tend to shower every morning anyway because it helps me wake up. But, my skin is always very dry when I do. I sit around and write code from home all day. I don't really tend to pick up a lot of dirt or odor unless I work out (which obviously requires a shower and clean clothes--but I don't wear my jeans to work out).

Copyright is a completely artificial right to a temporary monopoly for an arbitrarily chosen amount of time. I'm a little less excited about such a right being abridged than if it were something like freedom of speech. Copyright merely protects a particular kind of business model.

You get an inbound number with Google Voice. You can now have that routed to an Asterisk box. From there, you could do any kind of filtering of the call you want. You could have Asterisk check your calendar to see if you are currently in a meeting and handle the call differently from there. You could get a SIP client for your smartphone and register it to your Asterisk box at home and then make make free outbound calls with Google Voice w/o having to have any voice plan. Asterisk makes it possible to do just about anything you want with a call. If you want to set it up so you only receive calls from one group of numbers M-F 8-5, and want only certain contacts to be able to call you after midnight--no problem. If you are a control freak, you should love Asterisk.

You are wrong. Asterisk 1.8 supports SRTP. I know, because I merged it myself. :-p

People need to realize that being in public is not private. There is no way to enforce that anything you do in public *isn't* recorded--regardless of what laws are passed. I think people need to realize this and modify their behavior appropriately. Having a mismatch between expected privacy and actual privacy causes people all kinds of problems. It would be much better to realize that when you are in public, you have no expectation of privacy.

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

The computer may not let you do that with the car moving and the engine at high rpm. After all, the engine and/or transmission might be damaged (another design defect).

This is just completely wrong. I drive a 2007 Toyota Prius and I tested it the other day by flooring it and then shifting into neutral. Worked like a champ. The Prius transmission doesn't have discrete gears. Shifting into neutral will not harm the transmission. Also keep in mind that the engine routinely shuts off and on and that cutting electric power to the drive is also quite simple. I did have to hold the shifter in the neutral position for about a second to get it to do the shift--I assume because they want to make sure the joystick-like shifter wasn't accidentally bumped into the wrong position.

It is basically expect script for GUIs.

accuracy != precision :-) If they are wanting to put the item "right over there" and it is "right over there" 100% of the time, they have achieved 100% accuracy. They just might not have very precise goals.

Actually, my department did this. I liked it because I didn't have to pick out what to wear each day. But, then again, I'm lazy about such things. On one hand it is good from a "if someone isn't wearing that shirt and is screwing with your computer, something is definitely wrong" stand point. On the other hand, I suppose it might make people more apt to not question anyone who happened to be wearing the shirt whether or not they were really a member of the department.

Sorry to hear you had trouble. I suppose every project attracts some people who aren't the most patient with newcomers--and that is always a shame. I can certainly understand being irritated by that. I am glad that you found a project that works for you.

Yeah, like I said in another post--there are lots of great people and developers (I *suppose* developers are people too) in both the FS and Asterisk communities (in fact there is a decent amount of overlap). His behavior is in no way typical of the FS people I've dealt with.