PythonicAlpha

I did think, that your comment was mostly ironical.

I also know this thinking, that taxes are theft. But that is just one viewpoint. The other is, that taxes help to build a community, to build infrastructure, to build the internet ... (remember: the internet started as military network). Taxes are necessary, to help those that are weak and have not so much possibilities in life. To help those, that can not buy their schooling ... Before (gov. funded) public schooling was started, reading and writing was a privilege of less than 10% of the society. I would even go as far, that many of our today's achievements are because of taxes (only taking schools into account). Without public schools, we might have still steam machines. The fast successes of science are because so many people have access to education.

Even you and me might be still life in some underprivileged village and reap noggins without (tax paid) public schooling.

It is not about marketing, it is about control.

I understand your point, but the money laundering laws and the abandoning of cash all leads into one direction: The government shall be in control, who uses money and for what reason.

As much I sympathize with the need to control money laundering and tax avoiding, I fear that our basic freedom rights are in grave danger. When I have to ask the government, before I can buy a car (with cash ... at least in Europe it is still normal to buy used cars from private people with cash) or have to fear the grip of the FBI, because I am reported by the bank, my freedom rights are hurt.

Also there where even small merchants accused, since they put sums <$10.000 repeatedly in their account. Something that is normal, when you earn <$10.000 in cash during the weak and empty your cash box at the end of week.

Don't make your whole population into offenders, because you want to prosecute some crimes!

I just wonder, if the video is part of a new, clever (or not) marketing strategy?

At least at my computer (tried with two different browsers), the video stops after 17sec or so and is interrupted in midst of a sentence by a form to enter my email address. I just wanted to view the video to the end, but have to enter my email instead??

Either an error in the page (?) or a clever marketing strategy?? In my case, not so clever, because I will not adhere to such tactics.

It could also be, that the whole thing is similar to that tactics? As jwf also pointed out, the claims are a little over the top. I don't think, that 800% are really achievable. Maybe 20-30% in real life applications. That of course could be still good, when the gadget will not be to costly and is unlimited reusable. Still the question remains, if simple rechargeable are not still better (for your economy and the environment) in cases where you have battery-intensive applications. I try to limit the usage of non-rechargeables to cases where the battery is swapped really seldom -- and in such cases, additional gadgets just make life more complicated.

When you have good replacements, at least serious developers will use them. Also there are tools to check for compliance.

I don't think, that you can discontinue strcpy and co.

But it would be possible to create new functions with new names that supersede the old ones, so that the old stdc-lib will be discontinued silently.

At least, there are some corners that would need to be addressed. A new, better standard library would provide safer string handling and omit the traps that where left out for years to preserve compatibility.

The C++ standard seems to get much more attention than C. C seems to be the step-daughter of programming languages, but still so many projects rely simply on standard C (and not C++).

We have the same thing in Germany. The problem is not, that the politicians are to ignorant or adhere to wrong believes, but for example our chancellor first met with the big corporation bosses -- and they told her, what "innovation" is in their opinion. And of course, the big corporations have a total different view of innovation than others.

It is like asking the dinosaurs, who the most fittest species on earth is.

Very sad, that there is still no courage, to effectively limit weak patents.

Weak patents are a hindrance to innovations. In a better world, the patent offices should care for that -- but because they earn money from issuing them, standards have been continuously reduced in the past decades. It also looks better in the "innovation news" of the past year, when more patents can be listed ... but it is just eye-washing.

Of course it is not trivial to get a patent application threw, but that is the reason, big corporations have highly paid lawyers for that. The whole thing is a shadow-industry of it's own (starting at the patent office, that earns money by issuing patents).

The problem about "TTIP" and "free trade treaties" is, that they are continuously used to support the interests of big corporations -- and thus, lowering health, environmental and other standards is one of the big targets of those treaties.

I lately saw a documentation about the trade treaty of the US with Mexico. They said, that standards where lowered in both countries.

Take two or more countries and make today a "free trade treaty" between them, you get the lowest common denominator, since the big corporations are at the head of the table.

TTIP starts to reduce standards even before it is signed.

The big success of today's capitalistic system is indicated by the fact, that it even draws profits from the calamities of the people.

When I add the "globalization" situation (marginal wages for poor people in poorest countries, that oftentimes even are at the limit of starving in these countries, for the production of our goods), than it is not even seldom today, that this system draws its profits from poorest peoples.

It is said, that Henry Ford understood that for him to succeed, he also must help others to succeed. He and other big entrepreneurs laid the foundation for today's wealth of the western nations. Currently the system seems to have changed, by teaching people how to let others fail for the own success.

I don't think, that the current system is sustainable. Even Warren Buffet said that his class is winning, but it should not.

I think, in the long run, we will all loose this way.

The problem today is, that our democratic systems are eroding world-wide. Since the EU has more and more influence in Germany, German politicians are regularly using the EU to circumvent democratic decisions in our country.

When a law is not popular in Germany, they just pass it to the EU, where it is much easier to bring them into effect. Then they pressure our own parliament: "We have to comply to EU standards" and they just pass it on. There even was at least one case, where such a law was passed without thinking about it and our constitutional court had to cancel it as not constitutional.

These cases, where democratic decisions are circumvented are not single ones any more -- they are the rule, not the exception.

People say, that TTIP will reduce standards in the EU (and potentially also in the US) regarding environmental and people protection.

When I see that: TTIP starts to reduce standards even before it is signed.

I also got such eMails lately and was wondering, because I could find no connection between the web-address linked to and the company I was ordering from in the first place, nor any registering authority!

I also asked the company and they said that it was legit, but came from some kind of service provider.

Finally, the web site, I was directed to also looked very suspicious and less than professional (something, a hacker could have made up in a weekend -- and again no names, logos or information that could make up a connection to my business contacts).

I really would appreciate, when they could make the process more transparent and less phishing-prone -- so anybody could make up a nice sounding domain and fire eMails to people with domains ...

Somebody could think, that domain registration authorities have at least basic knowledge of internet threats ...

I don't wanted to make a point for the German model. I just wanted to say, how it is and not defend it. There is also sometimes discussion in Germany, if we really need a "President" -- our "chancellor", it seems, better compares to the US president in role.

I don't know. It was just a side note on my side and to be frank, I don't care to much, since I am not British and when the British think they can afford it ....

Similar thing here in Germany: Government brought up the so called "Vorratsdatenspeicherung" (data preservation law) again, only to prevent terrorist attacks. Similar laws where cancelled by our "Bundesverfassungsgericht" (German constitutional court) and also at the EuGH (EU constitutional court).

But still they brought it up again, because "the terrorist danger is so high" ... and of course they said, that the data will only (we promise!) be used in these cases.

Now, short time before the law shall be passed (it should be rushed threw the parliament, of course!), they added some additions to the law, that the data can be also used at any crimes committed in the internet. That is exactly, what was criticized by our constitutional courts before.

The law makers try to install such laws again and again. They are not interested, whether it is constitutional or not. When they fail, they wait for the next terror activity and bring up the same bullshit again.

That is the reason, why I come to believe, that our democratic systems are bound to fail (again). With so few people caring about our constitutional rights, we will loose them.

The lack of care for the constitution allowed it, that the NSDAP "legally" changed a democracy to a dictatorship once before. It can happen again -- in any country.

The "monarchy" in GB today, I think, can be compared to the German "Bundespraesident" -- who is on paper the "head of the state" but has nothing to say, but has to sign the laws, others made. He can only delay the signing or call the judges, if he things that the law is against constitution.

The worst thing about the monarchy in GB is, that it costs a huge stack of money -- whereas the Bundespraesident in Germany is relatively affordable.

I come more and more to the conclusion, that democracy -- at least, how we practice it today -- is not working. At least with this level of commitment of the people, it is just a hide and seek game between politicians and the masses and the masses loose, because they are bored away from the political game.

The big winners are the big corporations world-wide, because they know how to play the game or at least how to pay the people who know.

The multiprocess feature was one of the main reasons, I switched to Chrome in the first place. I think, it is just a good idea to keep the things separated, so one tab can not stop the whole browser.

Today, the browser more and more becomes that, which was called "operating system" some years ago. Many applications today run just from the browser and instead of switching apps, you switch the tabs....

So, it is just a good idea in my opinion to upgrade the security of the browser to a higher level.

I am not sure about the memory consumption, but since Chrome seems to have solved this topic, also Firefox should be able to, and maybe it's also time for me to switch back?

This "coding scheme" seems to be "unkillable" (don't know, if the wording is correct, the spell checker does not like it).

I thought, after Microsoft made a bad name about itself by using this in its "Access" product ten years ago or so (they "encrypted" passwords this way), some people should have been warned. May be it is was just to long ago ...

Within seven years or so (of operating), somebody could have come up with a different algorithm ...

Python already uses alternative representations for Strings since Python 3.3 as much I know. When latin-1 (ISO-8859-1) is enough, one byte per code point is used, when UCS16 is sufficient 2 bytes and 4 bytes in all other cases. So the whole range of Unicode is supported and still the representation is space efficient and because inside one string every code point has the same size, the speed is also acceptable.

I really would love having such a thing for Linux.

I am sorry for my bad English! Mrs, I guess!

I don't know, how many people "disappeared" in the night. I don't think, that it where that many, but please correct me, when you have exact numbers. I know that many went to prison, but I just don't think, that to many "people just disappeared" -- the DDR was a bad state, but I just don't think that it was as bad, how some south american dictatorships where (where at times hundreds dissipated and where buried in mass graves).

I wrote that it was a joke, because what they used where paper folders of information, typed with typewriters. So they may have stored some GB of data about the people -- the NSA and other agencies store how much data? Petabytes? Or some magnitudes higher?

So the number of people spying may be less (and the methods still better -- remember: there are already cases, where ordinary people become victim of snatch squads in the US, because of some misunderstood Google searches), but the shear magnitude of data is much higher.

Same here.

I am also outraged, what our government is doing and how they get away with it.

I think, political disinterest has just risen so much, that most people just ignore everything. 30-40 years ago, chancellors stumbled upon much less, but today they just keep on lying.

I even heard, that only 15% or so of the German population is interested in the lying and spying scandals. Everybody seems to be more interested in the price of bananas or if the government promises lower taxes.

We train our politicians, that they can be corrupt, that they can lie and do anything that is for their profit and get away with it. Consequently what we will get is an even more corrupted system in the future.

I fear that we will again reach the state of the 1930s years. And what will happen than, nobody can say. Maybe a new dictator or even the world wide dictatorship of the big corporations. In Italy we saw, how much might just one media mogul can unfold.

Same here in Germany: Police also did foil an attack lately. The information just came from a shop assistant in a hardware store. And what: Again they want get into more surveillance.

> Last I heard the UK was outpacing Germany!

Short-term comparisons are always wrong.

Sorry, I am German, but still I must say that, because it is right. Don't believe in what your politicians tell you, I don't believe what our politicians are telling me! (many statistics are basically on the verge to lies, I know that, because our government is falsifying so many).

I don't know, how bad Labour is, but what I know is, that this kind of spying on everybody reminds me very much to that what the former DDR did, what was greatly criticized in Western Germany, after the fall of the wall. With one distinction: What they did, was a joke compared to what is going on today in many western countries.

The other thing is, that in my opinion, what ruined the country most in the long term was the reign of Miss Thatcher. The total sale of the state and the rise of the banks stripped the country from any other options (all other industry is in ruins today or sold to foreign (e.g. German) corporations) -- GB must give the banks a free hand, or crash. And when they do, we all in Europe loose (also GB).

I also read a statement from a Economist, who largely criticized Camerons idea of further reducing the states spending (as much I understood, by privatization). This makes the country even more vulnerable to crisis and I also see some very good examples in GB, how privatization can make public services worse.

As a German with also no patriotism: I think, Germany is starting from a very low point here and particularly my generation (post war, but not so much post) is rather uncommitted to the own nation. But, I see some new nationalism breeding particularly in younger generations and in the less intellectual people. Patriotism was and is always a means of finding some meaning in life and something to be proud about.

When you look, how people are treated from other nations, than I see very much undercover nationalism. Of course, we are still at a low level, because of our history and because the media does not enforce nationalism like in other countries ... but I think, that we can not take our own attitude and think that everybody has it.

I see nationalism rising again in many countries in Europe and in the world today. In the same time, egoism is rising (what partially counteracts to nationalism, partially reinforces patriotism).

I think, we see the age of egoism rising today. What it will end up, who knows?