yoyar

So, Google does a bunch of good work and people choose to use their service. The US is bankrupt and the economy is screwed. And the congress is spending time persecuting a successful company. BTW, Google isn't the only one. See: Gibson guitars. It doesn't surprise me that people don't want to do business in the US anymore.

If you want to dig deeper in my personal beliefs then I would tell you that I believe that the initiation of the use of force is wrong. And that this principle is universally applicable. You may or may not agree but if you do then you cannot also logically find that taxation is legitimate.

Also, I think it is a valuable mental exercise to ask someone who in fact owns the fruits of their labor. If you spend some time thinking about the implications you may find that the possible answers are not so "simple" as you may at first think.

On the other hand, some find that the question produces a fair amount of anxiety and so they may resort to verbal devices designed to diminish the value of the question, rather than trying to answer it.

Thanks for the Pro-Tip! Now I know. :)

That's fine, I understand that. But you should consider that the gov't now has thousands and thousands of laws to choose from and should they decide one day to come after you I'm sure you have broken some of those as well, most probably unwittingly. If they want to they'll come after you one day and you'll have to submit I suppose, because you've broken some arbitrary law, but I'm sure you won't mind because you seem quite happy to obey your masters, no matter, because it's the LAW! Continue on lapdog; I'm done with you and I have better things to do.

@Hyena No, you don't. Which is clearly apparent based on your previous comment, which was incorrect. Calling my statement hysterical isn't an argument either. Claiming that you do understand doesn't make your statement any less incorrect.

According to you, exactly who owns the money? Does the US gov't own a person's income or does the person who earning it?

You don't understand the issue. The IRS is going after people who owe nothing in taxes but haven't filed. Some are senior citizens and may be totally unaware that they were supposed to file. The US gov't is bankrupt and desperate for money and they don't care who's lives they ruin. They're trying to squeeze as much money out of anyone they can lay their hands on.

Quite right. I didn't express that very well. An interface is appropriate with implementations for each separate library.

I don't think so. In a windowing library you would do better to have the IWindow interface and have both Window and ModalWindow implement IWindow. Decorator then is appropriate so that ModalWindow can wrap Window and add the desired functionality. I would not subclass Window in this case. This leaves Window and ModalWindow totally substitutable and totally decoupled. If you extend you couple Window and ModalWindow. Less coupling will likely serve you better.

I eschew inheritance except for when two objects or libraries are very much the same thing but the implementations are different. Just an example, where I might want to have the opportunity to use two different PDF libraries.

Further, there's a case where a number of objects share some common methods and you may decide to implement an AbstractWindow where those methods can live. But, you may find that Aspect programming works better in that case.

Generally, and perhaps surprisingly you shouldn't use inheritance in most cases. But inheritance is nonetheless a very important part of OOP.

The chickens will come home to roost. It's just as simple as that.

I wonder about storing the timestamp in a varchar field of sufficient size to avoid all of these headaches? Although I guess 64 bit will suffice for a very long time.

And the award for most pompous, unnecessary, and conceited response goes to... cheez!

I can understand switching to Mac if you are fed up with Linux, but I can't imagine switching to Windows. I use Ubuntu happily everyday without any of the problems that the author cited and when I'm forced to use Windows it is highly annoying. The Macs look great but I am happy in my Ubuntu world. Windows is so irritating to use I just don't understand the reasoning.

I think some people can't understand a CEO who doesn't act like the typical corporate robot clone, and others can.

The implication of what you are saying is that the half million for this startup company will present no extra hurdle and will have no impact on their ability to compete and get started (as you stated it "won't have much trouble").

This begs the question: what amount would be a barrier to entry into the market, 1 million, 10 million? Is there any amount of regulation and cost that you would consider a barrier to entry into the market? If as you imply a half million is not a barrier ("no trouble"), why is not a barrier, why is not a hurdle?

So, we assume they're going to commit some type of fraud or crime up front so they have to submit to posting bond, but the investors are supposed to trust them with another half million. Or, as you put it, a few coins. Wow, in your world a half million is a few coins. You live in a universe different than mine.

So, a new startup comes along, and things are going well. The have new, innovative ideas that satisfy the needs of consumers. They manage to get a few hundred thousand dollars from a VC so that they keep operating for another 6 months. This startup offers a service that is cheaper, safer, quicker and generally more efficient that what is currently available. All of a sudden they'll be breaking the law unless they hand over half a million to the government. They can't find the money. They're done. You never hear about it. Other new companies that might have added value in the marketplace come along, look at the regulatory hurdles, and don't even try.

They might have provided a service that would be beneficial to the consumer and they might have hired a bunch of programmers once they had established themselves. The established companies already in the market would have had to lower prices and become more efficient to compete. Instead, the competition is crushed, you never hear about it, never know about it.

This is what this law is designed to accomplish. Nothing to do with Paypal. Stop talking about Paypal.

Many regulations serve the interests of politically well connected powerful oligopolies in this way. This is just one example. The reason put forward is always that this is some way of protecting you. That, if this regulation didn't exist, these companies wouldn't have to be responsible. In reality, it strengthens the hold on the marketplace of the oligopoly already in place and makes you more vulnerable to them.

Keeping companies out of the marketplace stifles competition. This is not good for you, the consumer.

yes, who watches the watchers?

> Waterfall development does not work. < All evidence that I've seen confirms this. Yet, in companies where they practice waterfall, all the evidence in the world can't seem to convince them of this fundamental problem. The solution is try "more" waterfall, or to alter the process of waterfall. The cognition that it isn't working, despite mountains of evidence just doesn't seem to register. I suppose this is due to an already dysfunctional company culture.

No, because I don't make misteaks.

Let's call if corporatism. It means the same thing but people will whine less about the semantics.

So you think the government might use their power to affect who gets the money and to try to buy influence and votes? Preposterous!

I suppose if we got rid of all the pesky technology going around we could all go back to subsistence farming or better yet hunting and gathering and then we'd have pretty much 100% employment. Would that make the wsj happy?

Savings represent capital, and naturally cause interest rates to decrease. Lower interest rates act as a signal that investors should go ahead and make investments. Saving represent deferred spending, not a persistence absence of spending.

However, in the government skewed markets of today where interest rates are forced artificially low these signals are not allowed to operate correctly and savers are penalized.

There is no "excessive incentive". People save when an incentive exists sure, but this represents future spending. At the moment there is little or no benefit to simple savings; why save when your money will be worth less over time? This is a result of not allowing interest rates to float with the market. Again, interest rates are manipulated by the government.

In the case where competition causes prices to decrease due to higher efficiency and quality, the money in your pocket becomes more valuable. What part of this is a negative consequence?

The difference is in fact that deflation is not always a negative result, which was my point in the first place.

Deflation might be caused in various ways; by a lack of economic activity or it might be caused by competition naturally lowering prices over time in a healthy market.

In Japan, the government so meddled in the economy that they caused the economic malaise; the same situation is currently occurring in the USA.

The difference should be obvious. Deflation is too loaded a term to be used without qualification or context.

I was able to find this article: http://summitbusinessnetwork.net/profiles/blogs/money-from-4... among others: http://www.google.ca/#sclient=psy&hl=en&q=400+BC+cur...

I highly doubt the money supply was fixed. A better understanding of what is actually money might be gleaned by reading the first linked article above.

What I'd like to know is if the intent of posting this Socratic discussion on HN was to disparage profit or the other way round.

Are we still really arguing about whether profit is moral? Really?

Or is the theft and corporatism we see all around being once again confused with voluntary exchange between individuals?

I've been telling managers that the concept of multi-tasking is idiotic for years. But bad managers like the idea, so they thought they could just tell you to multi-task and then everything would turn out hunky-dory. It's nice to hear other people saying die to the concept. I feel validated. Now, back to drinking coffee and posting on HN while driving and eating a ham sandwich. Cheers.

I'm astounded (perhaps I should not be) that so many assume that the lives of the people in these cultures must be short brutish and unpleasant. For a culture, or set of cultures to survive and likely thrive for 1000s of years in the jungle it must be a rich life. Take a look at the decoration these people paint on their skin for instance. They have free time to decorate and adorn themselves. They have farms. They have technology and knowledge beyond what your small minds can imagine. Yes, technology, they can light fires, create traps for the food they need, farm and make tools from all manner of naturally occurring materials that surround them in abundance. I'd wager they live an abundant happy life. Sure, they have their difficulties. But I live in modern society and I have lots of difficulties too. These people live in a tightly knit family and society. I envy them in some ways. I certainly wouldn't be sitting here thinking how much better I have it from them. They have a different way of life. To assume their way or our way is better can only stem from ignorance, and oh of course, no shortage of arrogance.

If someone took you and immersed you in the jungle you'd be lucky to last a day or two.

Think of what would happen to one of these people if you put them in a city.

MS has a long history of stealing and sabotage. This doesn't surprise me one bit.

The difference between the government owning and the government not owning but controlling a corporate entity(s) are irrelevant to me. If anything, the government sets up the conditions for monopolies and oligopolies to exist.

> If it were not for the crtc, bell would never ever have shared their infrastructure with smaller companies and the free market would have delivered us a monopoly for sure.

How do you know this?