oldtobor

They say that to understand the history of something, you can't be too close to the events. So I am referring to something that happened about 8 years ago, namely when apple HYPERCARD was no longer supported or ported. That is the day computers died.

It is a general thing with the concept of "progress" that we tend to think of things "improving". Nothing can be so untrue. We have things that CHANGE alot and many things do improve, many do not and many stay the same. In 1987 Apple put out Hypercard that is still years ahead of anything out there today. They forgot about it, things change, sometimes we gain sometimes we lose.

Yeah, I know. Java is here to stay. Too many schools and companies have embraced a bad technology, bloated, complicated and not much fun. In the future I hope computer scientists will really try to simplify things!

Why say an old thing in a new way? Basic could have done everything with a top notch compiler and some really good extensions like "regular expressions" (something that is hard to use in java) and some good array manipulating things as perl has. Perl also has a built in sort and grep, which could have been added to basic. The point is all the thousands of students at schools that struggled to come to grips with java between 1998 and 2004 could have been programming and thinking about improving code than getting all confused with abstract fluff concepts that java forces you to deal with. Hell even assembly would have been more productive in the end. Anyways that is the way it is.......

They say that to understand the history of something, you can't be too close to the events. So I am referring to something that happened about 20 years ago, namely when pascal and turbo pascal started to become popular and started to substitute basic as the programming language for home/PC computers. That is the day computers died. Pascal was the next "big thing" and cool and also "harder" so it started to pick up. Basic slowly started to become out of style. But the question I asked then and I still ask today is "why say an old thing in a new way ?" I also guess that is when programmers started running out of ideas. When you run out of new ideas invent a new programming lanuguage.

I started programming microprocessors in summer 1978 using the SCAMP National semiconductors development kit in machine language (aka load accumulator with 0 was C4, 00). Then I learned basic and used it until about 1988. I then went down the road of learning all the sequence of languages: turbo pascal; turbo C; unix systems ksh; awk; perl; javascript; visual basic; java; c++; delphi; php; python.

After all these years I have come to the conclusion that we would have been all better off just sticking to basic and maybe improving it's compiler and creating a possibly huge library of reusable programs and modules. If all those man years used for just "java" woud have been used to really program, we would be light years ahead of where we are now.

Do you want an example ? Try to write this simple basic program in Java:

FOR i = 1 TO 5

a$ = ""

WHILE a$ = "": a$ = INKEY$: WEND

PRINT a$

IF a$ = "w" THEN SOUND 150, 2

IF a$ = "z" THEN SOUND 550, 2

NEXT

Hey don't forget we are in the year 2005 and we have all the great Object oriented java crap available!

I imagine there's alot of work for lawyers too! So hospitals fight with insurances fight with doctors fight with patients and lawyers make the money.

Can I get by with no insurance at all and in case of emergency go to the hospital and then just leave a tip ?

I may have to go to the US for a period of 3 months to 2 years. I want to buy my own health insurance because either I work on my own or not at all or in modest paying jobs that don't offer health insurance. How much would it cost me to buy my own in the US ?

I saw a documentary explaining this on a European TV channel. It seemed quite complicated, depending on whether you live in a city or suburbs it seems the price for your private insurance can be between 100 and 700 dollars a month.

There also seems to be a struggle between doctors, hospitals etc. for expenses so even if you have an insurance, in many suburbs doctors and hospitals wouldn't cover it. I was suprised by how complicated the whole issue was! Is there any simple rule of thumb I can use to estimate how much it would cost ? I intend to be in a suburb NJ or PA. Also many in the program said they simply don't pay anything even after they go to the hospital.

What I wanted to say is that any war between China and Japan would be so devastating that all else would become irrelevant. Iraq would take the back seat of the world's concerns and so would al-qaeda. Who would win ? Japan and the US since US is Japan's very strong ally no doubt. Russia would keep out because they would not like China winning and the same for Europe.

By the way both in the US and Europe alot of people don't like how much China is exporting to their countries and forcing alot of their textiles factories (and others) out of business, so this would be another reason why China would not have allies in these areas.

The US is rich enough to spend at least a minumum amount for a minimum size modest home (1 small room per person) and at least minumum health care at a low price for the truly poor. No administration whether left or right has ever proposed so, because it seems the people don't like any kind of minimum "gifts". This will never change and has actually gotten worse in the US in the last decades. But aside from this, the US has living costs and a situation for low cost housing that is greatly better than any other country. Maybe only the scandinavian countries have something comparable. The real point is if you make a minumum wage 800 dollars a month you should find a modest home for rent at 400 dollars a month and this is possible only on the US.

A war between Cina and Japan would make Iraq look like a walk in the park. Also all the "terrorism talk" and "Islam fundamentalisms" would completely disappear in a matter of minutes.

Why is housing always a problem ? In the socialist/communist societies, everyone was supposed to be given a home, but in all those societies homes were scarce and/or very costly and they had a waiting period of decades. Why on earth would a socialist regime not produce the one most fundamental item of equality HOMES FOR EVERYONE? That is really amazing, at least this is one thing they could have done.

If you look at the big three USA, Europe and Japan, only the US has a decent situation. Homelessness in the US is simply an "ideological" choice the americans like because if you are poor you should be punished by not having a home. The US could easily solve its homeless problem, but the people love the idea of seeing how the homeless are punished. The US however is the only country that has any decent hoUsing costs for most of the people.

Europe and Japan absolutely suck because there are few homes that are extremely expensive and it is actually very hard to buy a home in these places. Japan really takes the cake, then they complain that their GDP doesn't grow! If all your money goes to paying for a little room, whats left ?

It is amazing that after all the right and left wing hype, no one can solve the housing problem! WHY IS IT SO HARD TO CREATE AT LEAST A MINIMUM CONDITION FOR HOUSING EVEN IN THE RICHEST COUNTRIES?

I have to take a trip from Europe to USA. Is it true that if you have no medical insurance you cannot be recovered in a hospital ? If you fall on the street with a heart attack that won't bring you to the hospital unless you are insured or pay?

I think people who told me this are exaggerating. Exactly how does it work in the US if you need medical/hospital assistance ? Is it true you must pay very large sums of money if you are unfortunate and get sick there ?

Also can you get a local US health care insurance for 1 or 2 months upon arriving in the US and at what price ranges ?

Thanks for letting me know really how it is!