Humodour

You Brits have a unique ability to say something I completely agree with (especially when the Yanks are busy being stubborn, or the Europeans are off with their heads in the cloud... which is basically all the time) and then totally ruin it with an unhealthy dose of pessimism. And the matter-of-fact yet comedic manner in which you deliver it only makes me irate. The EU's democratic foibles are cause for concern but that doesn't mean you throw the baby out with the bathwater. We play AFL over here you silly bugger.

Yet you are using DNN, and now you are posting on PHP-based forum hosted on Apache server. Probably even using Firefox? Heck, even Windows still has some traces of BSD-licensed code in it. As for quality, lack of polish is not unique to OSS, there is plenty of commercial crapware too. You forgot Wikipedia. Nokia and Google operate primarily on Open Source, too, these days. And President Obama is seriously considering replacing proprietary software in Government with OSS (which has already been done by other world governments). And of course OS X and the iPhone run on an open source BSD-based kernel. And you know that new 'Google Chrome' web browser, Rhomal? Yeah. Open source - based on the open-source Webkit engine used to power Apple's Safari web browser. Alas, with general trends it's Java, if you trust Tiobe's index. I meant on non-mobile and non-embedded (i.e. desktop) systems. But even in that Tiobe rank, C is a close second to Java. Still, it's interesting that Java's rank hasn't changed over time. It will only increase I guess, too, since Google's new Android operating system for mobile phones (which I might add is an open source Linux distro, Rhomal) only accepts Java programmes (and might I add again that Java is an open source software development environment, Rhomal?).

Typical euroskeptic Brit. To be quite honest I doubt this recession is going to do anything much to the global economic framework (except maybe fry the toes of free market fundamentalists). Nothing really failed. There were just lapses in application (notably on America and Britain's part). All the radical economic reforms have already happened and the system is remarkably stable. And despite this being one of the worst recessions in recent history, the people suffering through it also have a higher quality of life than at any other point in history. Comparing this to the Great Depression, for example, is apples and oranges. As for the Eurozone - you Brits have been decrying it's demise for a while now. Interesting, then, that your economy is suffering worse and interest in the Euro has increased as a result of this crisis. In fact, the Eurozone is predicted to be one of the first economies to recover because it is manufacturing based (unfortunately my own, Australia is supposedly one of the last because it's commodity-based). But yeah, Turkish accession will be a very important (and IMHO necessary) hallmark for the EU. But it wouldn't render the EU meaningless. The EU's economic and political power is not based on whether or not all of it's members exist entirely on the continent of Europe.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10149463-75.html The EU will most likely force Microsoft to ship competing browsers alongside Internet Explorer, and decouple IE from the main OS. The EU has yet to rule on the similar anti-trust case against MS Office (stifling interoperability), but given Microsoft's track record, especially in the EU with IE and Windows Media Player, it's unlikely they'll be let off the hook.

The top economies of the world for 2008 (those with trillion dollar economies) were: (Nominal GDP in US dollars, percent of world GDP, population in millions, population as percent of world, 'Group' membership) Rank Country GDP GDP % Population Pop % HDI Group? 1 United States $14.33 trillion 18.3% 306 million 4.4% 0.950 G7 2 Eurozone $14.20 trillion 18.1% 253 million 3.7% 0.935 G20, G7 partially 3 Japan $4.84 trillion 6.2% 127 million 1.8% 0.956 G7 4 China $4.22 trillion 5.4% 1329 million 19.3% 0.762 G20 5 United Kingdom $2.79 trillion 3.6% 61 million 0.9% 0.942 G7 6 Russia $1.77 trillion 2.3% 140 million 2.0% 0.806 G20 7 Brazil $1.67 trillion 2.1% 189 million 2.7% 0.807 G20 8 Canada $1.56 trillion 2.0% 33 million 0.5% 0.967 G7 9 India $1.24 trillion 1.6% 1144 million 16.7% 0.609 G20 10 Mexico $1.14 trillion 1.5% 111 million 1.6% 0.842 G20 11 Australia $1.07 trillion 1.4% 22 million 0.3% 0.965 G20 - Total $48.83 trillion 62.3% 3717 million 54.0% - - World $78.36 trillion 100% 6879 million 100% - There is the future of the world. Interestingly, it doesn't particularly scream "CHINA" as some would have us believe. Membership to the G7 would appear to be fairly arbitrary. The Eurozone is especially interesting (comprised of the 16 most stable economies of the EU). I can only see Europe becoming more cohesive as the years go by. The Treaty of Lisbon will probably eventually pass, making Europe a united federation of states and the most powerful country in the world (although America's defence spending would still be about 1.5 times larger). Although much of that basically applies now even without the Treaty of Lisbon (NATO, Eurozone, etc). And unlike America, China, Russia, etc, the EU gets as many seats as there are member states, giving it a significantly disproportionate advantage in voting situations (e.g. UN). It also has the unique ability to enlarge by incorporating other countries. For reference, the GDP of the full EU is about $18 trillion USD.

But his post was very silly because a) he assumed that other people don't listen to or play old things just because he doesn't, and worse that somehow justified depriving others of the right to ever do so, and b) the only reason things get 'digitally remastered' is because they were originally not digital! Is he counting on a virtual reality revolution sometime soon that I don't know about? Look at all those things you listed: vinyl, cassette, CD, digital media. What's the one thing they all have in common? You bought them because your old format was out of date. Well thankfully, your newest format - digital, does not go out of date. Unless you add DRM.

To my mind I'm not being aggressive, I just found your earlier post evasive. I didn't mean justify to me. I mean to yourself. As in: what arguments do you use to justify to yourself your position on homosexuality? Then this is an issue of miscommunication. Sorry about that. Your stance below just had me thinking you were at least mildly homophobic, though, as those are the only people who I've heard ominously claiming "there will be consequences". Just one more thing: I take issue with your mischaracterisation that the pro-gay stance is "gays do whatever they want". Who said that? Plenty of people have said "gays deserve equality" but that's certainly not "gays do whatever they want" since straight people aren't allowed to do whatever they want.

You're OK with that. Most people aren't. Next.

Examples: programming -hello world, searches for the keywords 'programming' and 'world' and excludes 'hello' programming -"hello world" searches for the keyword 'programming' and excludes the phrase "hello world" programming -hello -world searches for the keyword 'programming' and excludes 'hello' and 'world'

I am not sure what that validates? Open source is over rated more times then not. Good job showing your ignorance sunshine. But anyway, Diamond's link is poignant because the programming trends of the FOSS community are very similar to general trends. Although I do now expect you try to prove that VB is the most used programming language because it has the highest number of search results on some obscure search engine.

Still, you ARE trying to establish 'consequences' of homosexuality to justify your fence-sitter position. These 'consequences' could only justify such a position if you believed at least some of them to be (quite) detrimental. Which ones are they, specifically?

Actually, that's one of the easier things for him to do. Clinton laid the ground-work in the 90's and showed him all the ways not to approach it, but besides that, 80% of Americans support the idea and he has the numbers for it in both the Senate and House. What exactly is controversial about it, btw? America is the only Western country without universal healthcare. On another note, nice to see taks above me swearing his head off at people who disagree with him again.

Get Open Office. http://download.openoffice.org/

It's easy to tell a C++ programmer they learn C. "Why?" "Because you need to know more low-level dynamics." But what do you tell a competent, happy programmer who has only ever really known C? "You need to learn C++ so you can code better." "My code works fine. I'm happy with C. I don't care about OO. Go away."

I guess I'm going off that older thread. If I recall you were one of the people who got quite offended when I said homosexuality is a lifestyle choice. Granted, that might have been due to miscommunication. Perhaps I should have said "sexuality is shaped by many aspects including choice and lifestyle, not just genetics", but I got the feeling you guys disagreed with me even then.

I just think that's a woefully simplistic view of the situation which doesn't consider varying degrees of sexual oppression/liberation across the globe, nor factors such as epigenetics or homosexuality-heterosexuality as a gradient or 'spectrum' rather than a binary dichotomy. E.g.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterosexual-...exual_continuum Also, homosexuality occurs at a rate of about 5% worldwide. According to Wikipedia, 12% of Norwegian's have had homosexual sex (not to be confused with actually being homosexual). I dunno how sexually liberated Norwegians are, but I'm guessing it's a fair bit, which bolsters my point.

I would very much like to hear drunk Obsidian PnP podcasts.

Yeah, just from what I hear on the forums from the devs, Sega sound like a great publisher.

C# is poor man's Java (and just as ugly). Java is poor man's Python. Use Jython. But yeah, there's a reason people tend to mention C/C++ instead of just C or C++; they do not replace eachother, and you will (or should) use both.

That is retarded. The Palestinians don't deserve that, it wouldn't work, and it would probably just stir up extremism in Palestine while utterly destroying Israel's foreign (and probably domestic) image. No, this way Hamas is weakened, international support is against Hamas, and Egypt and co can clamp down further on arms smuggling. Seriously, I can't believe you are advocating what is basically preemptive genocide.

You were bitten by the same bug as me and lots of others. KDE 4.0 was actually an early adopter release. 4.1 was their stable, every-day version. Utterly retarded version labelling scheme if you ask me (x.0 for early adopter, x.1 for casual users). It's definitely worth trying 4.2 stable when it comes out in a week or two. Yes, KDE 3.5 is pretty awesome. Just keep in mind the above.

Pay attention, mate. It's working fine in The West Bank, and Gaza all depends on the next couple of years; don't conflate normal Gazan Palestinians with Hamas - Hamas is the brick wall to stability in Gaza and Gazans rightly blame both Hamas and Israel for the damage that just occurred (rather than solely Israel). It's ludicrous that you expect immediate change. Stop seeking quick fixes, and stop being so nihilistic. A few Hamas cells will keep attacking for the next couple of weeks or months and Israel will squash them as they pop up. But the rules of the game have no changed a lot. Hamas is no longer so popular, and arms into Gaza is about to be far more heavily monitored. If the West Bank can manage stability and democracy after all these years, so can Gaza.

Both. Although people went absolutely nuts at me on this board last time I said that; people who insist it is hereditary seem like they're trying to justify it as an affliction/disease and thus can't be helped. I think that's disgusting. It shouldn't matter who you choose to love, nor why you love, if it's legal. How is it important? Why do you care who somebody else loves, and certainly why do you care what causes their love? Is there a difference? Are people who stay single all their lives 'deviant'? Does it matter? What's your answer? Where are these question marks? Consequences: gay people will marry. Can you actually think of any consequences? If not, it would appear that you are trying to pad an intuitive revulsion of the idea of homosexuality, which is understandable if you've been brought up socially conservatively, as you probably have, and as I was.

What's not to 'believe' about it? You've never seen two dudes kiss each other? You don't believe they can love each other because you've never felt love for another man? You don't believe they can physically have sex? What? Speaking from the perspective of somebody who was homophobic for the first 18 years of his life, it's a totally retarded worldview.