-Demosthenes-

Then you loose all the time you could have had with the game! I waited in line for Halo 2, and beat most of the game before school the next morning

The US government spends A LOT more than countries with "socialized medicine" on health care. The US spends about $2200 per person a year, countries like Canada and the UK, around $1500. We spend a lot more, 50% more. But a lot of it never pays for any health care, it pays people to decide what to do with the money. Becuase we have all these little programs doing little things everywhere. It we just get rid of those people, and design a much more simple system, we'd have plenty of money to use. Get rid of all the little programs that use more money than they are worth, and make on big simple one. In the US, with the amount of money we use, using a system similar to socialized medicine, we could have monkey butlers bring us drinks as we wait in the waiting room. (exaggeration ).

Oh duh... New site looks good, I'm enjoying it.

Historical, this is how most cultures feel.

What's TFN?

I wander around the internet a lot, and am on a few different forums and other places, but where are you guys? What forums do you visit? Do you have a blog? Do you belong to some online community?

That's pretty cool, although I thought I saw it a while ago, or something very similar.

I'm talking about true Communism. The only reason China has it's pseudo-Communism is because they've opened up key free-market structures allowing for some motive to work. I'm sure true Communism could last for a while, but only under Totalitarian rule. Some cultures withstand these kinds of governments more than others, and king/emperor/dictator/etc type governments have lasted for great lengths of time in the past, but the distant past. In modern times, and in a developed country, Totalitarianism wasn't work so well.

What is on their agenda? I was hoping for a change to minimum wage, something with the health care system, and possibly some protection for Net Neutrality.

That's the first thing that came to my mind when I saw her name.

Snow Crash. I started it after Bascule talked so highly of it in irc chat. It's way cool, and next I'll get into some of his other suggestions

I have both and frequently only one of them sees a certain problem. Together they work well. About virus software... I've had Macafee (however you spell it), Norton (both incredibly slow), and AVG , but I've never actually found a virus. I don't even use a virus program anymore... do I really need one? Anyway, when I get infected I know there's no way I can get everything. I always re-install Windows, but that's probably just because I'm crazy. (That's probably why I don't need antivirus ). Everything I need is in my bookmarks (on a server off site using a bookmark synchronizer), my documents (google docs), and other random files (usb drive).

I think that it's an agreement to promote each other's technologies (SUSE and Windows). They have overlapping markets, but they are significantly different that a deal like this could benefit both of them. But I think the big this is trying to make the two operating systems more compatible. There's been a lot of hate between proprietary and open source software/operating system makers. Microsoft engineers put in a memo the goals for the new software surrounding the networking in Windows Vista, one of them being "F*** with Samba" (Jeremy Allison on FLOSS Weekly episode 14). Samba being the open source networking program. Maybe this is an agreement for the proprietary side to stop "f***ing" with the open source side, and the open source side try to be more compatible and supporting of the proprietary software and operating system. I'm not sure though. It's a somewhat nebulous agreement. I know it involves a "joint research facility". It has a lot to do with the compatibility between Microsoft word and Open Office, and being able to run virtual machines of one operating system on the other (virtual windows machine in SUSE, or visa versa). I get the idea that Microsoft is getting something, and Novell is not getting sued for some patent infringement problem. Maybe they feel that Linux somehow copied something from windows, I'm not sure. Or possible Microsoft is trying to avoid an antitrust suit. It also feels like Microsoft might back off from the server market and let Novel market it's Linux servers (servers should be Linux anyway ). Anyway, it'll be cool to see how it pans out. SUSE is only one Distro, and if it sells out to Microsoft it's no big deal (I don't think). But I think it'll be a good thing. Edit: Here's what Novell says: http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/faq.html

I think Google owned it before it became part of "Google Docs," and it was just called "Writely" and was seperate (kind of like YouTube right now). Yeah, I used it when it was Writely, stayed pretty much the same since then. It's a really good idea though.

I've using it for months, it used to Writely until Google bought it.

The federal government still has some crazy laws and acts about farming and agriculture. Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act replaced the Agricultural Adjustment Act (because the court ruled it unconstitutional) and many government programs associated with it are still around. Social Security isn't working so well, the Tennessee Valley Authority is still around for some reason, the Federal Housing Administration, the Commodity Credit Corporation, and the Farm Security Administration. It's like they wanted to do something, but they didn't want to go too far, look too much like "socialism". Spending money on all these little programs is expensive, and isn't worth the money for what they do. Too many programs, too many people working on the same problem, getting nothing done. Like all the little programs in the health care system in the US. The government spends around $2200 per person every year on health care, and it only pays for 44% of the the citizens medical expenses. Canada spends are $1500, and covers around 70% of medical expenses, the UK spends a little less and covers around 80%. (Canadian health care in comparison with calculations) Giving people medical care doesn't cost that much money. It's the bureaucracy that costs money. In an effort to "not look socialist" we've created a bunch of little programs that actually only accomplish half of what we need, and cost twice as much. Bureaucracy or "extra government" is only bad when it doesn't do anything, or doesn't do what it should be able to. There are too many people being paid to decide what to do with the money that there isn't any left to do stuff with. That's the problem with "bigger government".

They're really fast If General Discussion posts counted I'd be around Ecoli's number

It's really interesting to see how people feel about the political parties here in Utah. Most people I know are republican. We have a lot in common with the Democratic party, if any cares to look. In the end the average Utahn is republican because of abortion, "big government", and to a lesser extent gay marriage. We just hate federal government intervention. We loose out on a lot of money because we don't want to be "controlled" by the federal government. We have on of the least funded education systems, but somehow it still works really well. Volunteering parents at the schools, especially elementary, all but run the schools in some places. It's really strange how it all works. Gay marriage is interesting because of Utah's history. A lot of people like to avoid the issue altogether. Utah was actually not allowed to be a state for a long time because of plural marriage. To support it would almost be hypocritical, and defining marriage in the way that some want to would confirm that the federal government was right to deny statehood, among other things. I've probably gone of topic, it's just such a weird and interesting place.

It would depend on the population you are talking about. Straight up communism does not work in any population larger or less intimate than an immediate family. Even experiments into small scale communalism (communALism = communism on community level) have all failed. There simply isn't the motive to work that there is in a capitalist society. Only when China finally permitted the farmers markets Chinese farmers had a motive to grow as much and as well as they could. The most important part is the motive, and the "consumer confidence" allows that motive. The need to restore the motive rules out true communism. What they need is some kind of security, which a healthy dose of Socialism can give, at the very least giving the appearance of security. As long as you make it look like things are getting better, people will start to spend. I can see the temporary nationalization of some industries as a viable option, government projects that hire people to do things, and other highly publicized attempts to fix the economy. But then you don't just have to recover from the depression, but from the extra government after it's over. In the US, we still have bureaucracy left over from the Depression in the 30's. Government doesn't easily let go. But in the end it was probably worth it.

I like http://www.w3schools.com/. I wanted to learn internet design and development, but my first class in getting a degree in computer science is "Fundamentals of Programming" teaching C++. I don't like C++ yet, but I'm trying I'm going through xhtml too. I found a book at a thrift store for 2 bucks only a couple of years old about html and xhtml, but there's nothing I can't find on the net in it. But I do like having an actual books, makes me feel like I'm learning

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/United_States_Democrats_win_House_majority It seems that the Democrats have taken the House of Representatives, and maybe the Senate. In my district the incumbent won, Democrat Jim Matheson. I voted for him, my parents voted against him . Yes, a democrat in Utah; crazy but true. Anyway, it will be interesting to see what changes.

Was there less physical wealth after the stock market crash? No, it was the willingness to exchange that wealth for products and services that was lost. Once people get scared they start hording what they have, which is, as you said, justifiable. A normal economy can't work with that kind of social attitude. Banks will assume that massive amounts of money wont be taken out in a short amount of time; product makers will assume that someone will buy their products. If consumers loose faith in that system, then bad things happen It's not a belief that you will win the lottery that keeps the economy going, it's a belief that you can invest and interact with the economic system -- exchange goods, services, or capitol with others for other goods, services, or capitol safely. If a society believes that they can do that, then the economy will be fine under reasonable conditions. Of course food and other raw materials may be become scarce, and this will cause an economic problem. But this isn't what happened in the Depression, and isn't what causes a problem of this scare in a developed country. That's an important distinction. In a developed country food is never a really a problem. It's safe to assume that there is enough food produced each year to feed everyone in a country like the United States enough so they don't die, if we wanted to. It costs like $50 a person to feed someone at an acceptable level? Times 300 million, that's 15 billion a month, or 180 billion a year. That's significantly less that has been spent of the war in Iraq by the US alone. Food is easy. Lack of other raw materials hasn't caused something of that scale in a modern developed country before, but there hasn't been a real test of that (?). Anyway, provided enough raw materials and food (which is easy), the attitude of the society, their wiliness to participate in the economy, decides the health of that economy.

In years preceding the Depression you could borrow a couple hundred bucks, buy some random stock, and sell it for an insane profit the next week. The only reason anyone brought it was because they believed it was worth it. So much of the wealth in the US was represented by this intangible medium, one that is controlled by the minds of the people, it was only a matter of time before something bad happened. So it's not like they believed they had more than they had. The small "piece" of a company you owned, represented by a piece of paper, was worth a lot because others wanted it and would pay a lot for it. As soon as no one wanted it, all of a sudden it was worth less. Wealth was destroyed everywhere all of a sudden merely because no one wanted to buy the stock. That wealth only existed because others wanted the stock, because of "consumer confidence." Something's worth is completely dependent on the consumer's demand. A diamond is extremely expensive, but if no one wanted one they would be completely worthless. So if all of a sudden no one wants something, or they don't believe it's worth as much, it will be worth less. Society's faith makes or breaks the economy. A ruined economy' date=' in a developed country, is a [i']psychological disorder[/i], and should be treated as such.

Indirectly. If the "consumer confidence" stayed, then everything could have stayed the same. But human nature is to lose faith as soon as anything goes wrong.

Dak, what was the difference between the world before the stock market crash (during the depression) and after? Is there some physical change? Something tangible? No, it was all in their minds. There were the same amount of factories, the same amount of products, the same amount of food, everything was exactly the same before except what the people thought of the economy. It really was a "depression," in both the economic and the psychological sense. Before the Depression (the 20's) US citizens just thought the economy was perfect. They would borrow insane amounts of money and buy stock, and everybody was making money at it. Stock that was worth almost nothing was worth thousands, all because of the people's faith in that value. Now, if something like lack of food or some other raw material were to trigger an economic problem, then the solution is quite different. But big economic crashes aren't caused by lack of materials very often. In developed countries food is never a problem, no one starved in the Depression if they were willing to stay in a line (grandpa's stories ). Other materials (example: oil) do effect the economy, but usually don't ruin it. These are often far seen, and don't usually come with as much surprise. What causes an economic crash is the loss of faith.