The book is quite thin (only 120+ pages) and it is a User’s Guide.  Not sure when was the last time that I purchased a hard copy of a manual.

The book brought back memories from the 80’s when I wrote a few preliminary users’ guides for different products that I developed.  Reading the book one gets the flavor of the Unix man pages.  Not sure if too many readers would share with me that feeling ;o)

The book is truthful to its title.  It shows how to use the command line.  The manual does not cover a GUI because the original product was intended to be used from command prompts on MS DOS and Unix machines among others.

As a computer scientist and software developer I was able to appreciate the way the product is intended to be used.  A lot of though went into it.  A thing that called my attention was the decision to prevent the program from running if it was not able to detect a soft copy of the user’s manual.  The reason Phil configured the application this way was to reduce the number of support calls due to simple questions that are covered in the manual.  Something to consider!

For me and probably for most readers the best parts were the ones that dealt with privacy and how the US government wants to avoid it.  Apparently the US government wants to play big brother on all Naïve Americans.  For some reason the incompetent career politicians that Naïve Americans elect year after year, feel they are above the rest of us.  Believe it or not but our current vice president while a senator tried a bill to enforce encryption at a level that the US government could read every single encrypted message weather it was personal, business or criminal.

The other interesting point was the struggle between individuals and companies regarding patents.  Something needs to be done about patents in our country.  The current patent system leaves a lot to be desired.

Overall the user’s guide is not something I would recommend purchasing.  If you wish to get a flavor of it, there are some PGP User’s Guides floating on the Internet.

What I do recommend is the idea of considering at the personal and business levels to implement policies for the use of encryption.  You never know who is reading your confidential messages and documents.  If interested visit the Phil Zimmermann’s web site: www.philzimmermann.com Keep in mind that the US government is probably able to read any and all of your encrypted data.  They will not admit it one way or the other but for some reason the current Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) for encryption is not authorized by the government for use in secret communications and documents.  In other words, it is good enough for typical Naïve Americans but not for government stuff ;o)

As the news have been reporting in the past few days, you and the Democratic Party are back attempting to resuscitate your pathetic plan to reform healthcare.  I believe that most Naïve Americans believe that there is a need for healthcare reform, but how and when it is going to be implemented are the key issues.

Allow me to give you an example of the urgency to act immediately.  This past week my wife and I spent the day at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.  My wife needed a surgical procedure, which was performed brilliantly by a consultant surgeon.  Mayo Clinic uses relatively unique (at least for me) titles for their exceptionally well-qualified medical staff.

After the procedure was completed and my wife was in her recovery room, to speed up the discharge process and shorten the time to get my wife back home (over an hour drive) I went down to the main pharmacy to pick up some prescriptions, which had been sent, by the nurse station.

The process is quite simple.  There is an electronic board, which displays the names of the people whose prescriptions are ready.  When your name appears to get in a short line and wait for your turn to pick up your prescription.  You pay for the deductible, if any, and the process completes.

Typically, towards the end of the workday, there are dozens of people sitting down waiting for prescriptions to be filled.  Around where I was sitting (got luck and got a chair) there were several older couples.  I would assume that the average age was around 80 years old.

One of the couples was from Iowa.  For what I overheard they are (probably were) farmers.  You know, the people that grow plants (mostly corn) or raises animals (mostly hogs) to feed Naïve Americans, and in some cases the world.  The woman had a portable oxygen generator.  Besides an obvious hearing issue, they did not exhibit other medical conditions.  At some point in time, a clerk approached the woman and told her that her insurance would not cover her insulin prescription.  The gal was asked if she had additional coverage from other providers.  The couple looked in their belongings and came with a second card.  A few minutes later, the same result.  The situation was quite simple, the woman needed a special kind of insulin (about $200 US) and the couple could not afford the prescription without being covered by their insurance.  I overheard that they typically get their medicines at a Walmart pharmacy.

By then my blood was boiling.  I was looking at a couple of retired farmers that apparently have worked for decades to get to a point in life when they need some medicine and are not able to get it.  The couple was called to the pick up counter to continue the process of figuring out how to get and pay for the insulin.

While this was going on, my wife’s name popped up on the display.  Got in line and after a few minutes reached the pick up counter.  For privacy reasons, thick Plexiglas separates each window.  In a very low and discrete voice I asked the clerk if I could speak with the person helping the elder couple.  I then asked if I could anonymously pay for their prescription.  The clerk graciously thanked me but told me not to worry that they (Mayo Clinic) was going to take care of the situation.  Not sure what that meant but made me feel better.  I just took care of the co pay for my wife’s prescriptions (under $5.00) and left the pharmacy.

Two things came up to mind.  Apparently Mayo Clinic via some not disclosed mechanism which might include plans from pharmaceutical companies was going to provide the medicine at a discounted price or for free.  Given this set of events and information that I have gathered from the news and talking with people, it seems that most of the times healthcare and medicines are provided to all people (not just Naïve Americans) that need it.

The question is, how is this being paid for?  I guess that in some cases, the healthcare provider (i.e., Mayo Clinic), the pharmaceutical company, the county, state, the US and finally tax payers (back to Naïve Americans) pay for it.

So the question is not the fact that people in the US gets or does not get healthcare.  The issue is better management so people without the means (are you listening Mr. President) are not faced with a bill (or insurance costs) they cannot afford.  One way or the other not paying for insurance or for healthcare when needed produces the same result.  Taxpayers get the bill.  So what needs to be reformed is a method for all Naïve Americans to have basic and FREE healthcare benefits that include prescription medicines.  If your staff of advisors and politicians cannot come with something simple to address this, move over and let others do the job.  A healthcare bill should fit in a dozen pages written with standard font.  You have to stop playing politics and drop the current bill that is written on more than a thousand pages and contains exceptions and payoff for special interests and politicians.

It appears to this Naïve American that you will never be able to fulfill the CHANGE promise that elected you to public office.

Yours truly;

The Naïve American

The one I chose to read first was “The Code Book” by Simon Singh.  The book is not technical but provides a good review of some of the salient topics in cryptography developments through history, a great starting point.

I typically read about a couple dozen books a year.  Some of them are quite technical in nature (computer science and mathematics) while others are quite informative and outside my fields of expertise (e.g., biology).

“The Code Book” describes in quite detail some older encryption mechanisms and algorithms.  Some of them were used several thousand years ago.  In general encryption or the quality of encryption has had a tremendous impact in our history.  If you are a history aficionado you might also be interested in this book.

Most of the ancient encryption methods have proved trivial to cryptanalyst with current techniques and computers.  The One Time Pad is still the best algorithm but its application in modern society and technology is relatively complex to say the least.

Back in the First World War, the Germans conspired to attack the USA.  With the help of the British analyzing an encrypted message from Germany to Mexico discovered the plot.  A lot of care was taken to keep a secret the way the message was deciphered.  The Allies did not want to jeopardize the fact that they have broken the encryption of the Enigma machine.

The Enigma is an encryption / decryption machine that automated the process.  It was quite complex.  Decades ago the military and banks made use of similar machines to exchange messages with troops and branches respectively.

For me the two salient points in the book were  [1] how governments protect encryption making it a secret and  [2] how they want to play big brother with their citizens.

Encryption algorithms, based on their strong mathematical background and proof, it is better left to the very few professionals who have embraced this field.  For the most part, one needs a Ph.D. in math in order to come up with methods that will stand public scrutiny and time.

In order to develop algorithms and be able to decipher encrypted messages a lot of computer power is required.  In general it appears that only very large companies (in the order or 100,000+) employees and relatively large governments (i.e., China, Israel, UK, USA among others) are able to afford good encryption and cryptanalysis.   It appears that cryptanalysis, at different levels, may pay better than developing from scratch products.  This does not say much for business practices but it appears to be a reality.  Many business espionage cases have been reported by the news and literature.

In conclusion, whether you are interested in a view of the history of cryptography or just want to raise your personal awareness of what has, is and might be done with it for and against privacy, get a copy of “The Code Book” and arrive to your own conclusions.  You might consider using encryption programs (i.e., PGP) immediately

There were some points that called my attention and want to bring them up on this blog.

Apparently Mr. Pawlenty wants to cut some budgets, which will force to layoff some government workers.  The logic behind this is that if there are not enough funds to go around, individuals, companies and the government need to do the same.  People would stop buying some items and companies would layoff workers.  There are politicians (mostly Democrats) and affected government workers (as expected) that do not want this to happen.  What is so special about government workers and elected officials?  The answer is nothing.  If regular Naive Americans are being laid off then any individual with some basic common sense should understand that government worker and politicians should also follow suit if the economy requires it.  My strong support for the Governor of Minnesota!

Apparently the proposed budget cuts are not going to affect benefits received by US Veterans.  I am 50-50 on this idea.  The reason is that we in the USA do not have a mandatory military draft.  If a Naive American wishes to join the armed forces so be it.  Joining the military for a few years or as a career is a personal choice which one way or another will have an impact in the lives of the individuals and their families.  The same is true for any individual that enrolls in an accredited university and completes a bachelor, master or PhD.  Educated people have better chances of success in life.  If a member of the military is injured it is just a result of their (poor or good) own choice.  I am OK with the decision of Mr. Pawlenty.

The last point that called my attention was the fact that the budget for our illustrious child daycare better known to us, as K-12 would not be affected.  Everyone knows that the K-12 education system in the USA ranks fourteenth (14^th) in the world.  Ask a teacher if he or she can recite fourteen (14) countries and their capitals that have better education than in the USA.  Yet the teachers union lobby and advertise threatening politicians that they are 70,000 strong.  In other words our poor end incompetent K-12 group of teachers will continue to get raises and will not be laid off.  If it were up to me I would fire all teachers and will start fresh without unions.  Perhaps because of natural selection and free economic process our K-12 system might regain its position of decades ago.  Completely disagree with the choice of Mr. Pawlenty!

The Naive American would like to comment on the remarks made by Mr. Cheney.

One has to be living in La La Land to believe that terrorists will never attack the US again.  The simple reason is that the foreign policies for the past sixty years or so have alienated every single country we have ever consider our allies.  Today very few countries label themselves as friends of the USA.  Most nations are indifferent and many are completely our enemies.  Yet we continue to bring nationals from countries that do not like the US and label them as refugees.  We need to think on the consequences and not in the instant gratification, which is just a consequence of politicians being paid by the American Royalty through lobbyists.  If you want a different version on my opinion please watch the 2005 documentary “Why We Fight” directed by Eugene Jarecki and be enlightened.

As we all know administration after administration has been spending billions of dollars, which the USA does not have (we borrow money from our master China) to waste on weapons and kill civilians and American troops and not been able to catch Osama Bin Laden which is the number one fugitive in the FBI Most Wanted List of criminals.  Stop and think for a moment…  Yes, something is definitely wrong with the way the USA and our policy dealing with terrorists.  The only way to stop terrorism is to change our policies and become friends with our fellow human beings, which just happen to live on other countries.  Until such change is made, terrorist will attach us over and over again.  Think of the implications of a terrorist attack if it happens in the near future.  The USA will plunge in an economic spiral that will never recover.  That would mark the end of the US dollar and our way of life.

For the second point, Mr. Cheney congratulates Mr. Obama on spending more money in Afghanistan.  Recall who was Mr. Cheney before, during and after being the Vice President.  He is a defense contractor, which Naive American elected, in the same ticket as Mr. Bush.  No wonder why he will always we happy prolonging a war that the USA will never win.  We might (by a miracle) be successful in a battle in Afghanistan, but the war is impossible to win.  The reality of Afghanistan is completely different than the one for the US.  Nothing will change until after we change our ways.  As long as we continue to attempt to bully our way of life on other countries and people we will be at war and exposed to terrorists.

I just got back from a business trip.  It is incredible the infrastructure and people that works for TSA.  It is so simple to bypass their security measures.  On the other hand in the not so distant future we might (will) have to undergo strip searches to justify the additional waste of funds in something so foolish as the TSA.

Naive Americans need to think on the future of our society and country.  At the rate we are going in the not so distant future we will be competing with third world countries.

Early this morning I checked the news and read a few articles regarding last night’s presidential speech.  I kind of liked the structure of an article by USA Today (http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2010/01/obamas-promises-verbatim/1).  I am taking the bullet points from the speech and commenting on them.

Bank Fees.  The only thing that will happen with this approach is that banks will pass them on to their Naive American consumers.  This is just a cost of doing business.  Bank fees, not a good idea.

A jobs bill.  Unless you are planning on creating additional bureaucracy (such jobs are paid by tax payer moneys which are in a decline and do not produce desirable goods or services) that will keep on destroying the US economy how are such jobs going to be created?  Are Naive Americans going to build roads and install green house equipment in business and homes for people that cannot afford it or is the government going to subsidize the purchase of Chinese equipment to offer low paying jobs to Naïve Americans?  A jobs bill, not a good idea.

Job loans and tax incentives.  Not sure from where the $30 billion which you are planning to use came in the first place.  Given that the US economy is in shambles that money must have already been loaned to us.  I guess delaying repayment would be OK if small businesses are the true recipients of the funds.  In the history of America small businesses have always provide the source for innovation and growth that we have been accustomed to.  The government should treat small businesses that have ideas, products and services that are desirable not only in America but also worldwide, as saviors and gods.  Innovation and wealth does not come from large companies.  It comes from acquisitions of small businesses by large ones.  The Obama administration needs to provide huge amounts of funds in the form of grants, loans and tax incentives to create new and to help grow small businesses.  That said I am not referring to small businesses that just sell goods manufactured in foreign countries (e.g., bike shop, car dealer, etc) or simple services (e.g., restaurants).  Job loans and tax incentives might be the first good idea of the Obama administration, but do not hold your breath on the implementation.

New Wall Street regulations.  The regulations that have been past are completely ineffective.  What is needed are new, effective and simple laws that will put caps on what Wall Street is doing.  For example, cap the total compensation of all executives to the same salary as the president of the USA.  Bonuses must come from stock of stockholders approved by the board of directors and all stockholders.  This way the pressure to perform will be there and bonuses will not be given to incapable executives.  Most executives are business and accounting majors who have not an idea on how to develop and sell desirable goods and services.  Get rid of them.  New Wall Street regulations that way you have them, not a good idea.

Energy programs.  I do not know if you or your staffs of advisors understand the energy issues in our country.  The main energy issue is with oil and gas we purchase from other countries.  For each Dollar we pay in energy to a foreign country we get back a few dimes with goods and services we export.  This is why we have trillions of Dollars in our trade deficit.  The electric car is the only proven, feasible and available technology, which will improve our economy in a foreseeable future.  The issue is that major corporations hire lobbyist that have paid off and continue to pay off career politicians to kill such a great idea.  Other sources (e.g., fuel cells, natural gas, etc) are extremely more expensive for the Naïve American but have huge benefits to car and oil companies.  Your energy programs, not a good idea.

Education.  Education is one of the pillars for the success of any country.  That is what made the USA what was a few decades ago.  Since the 1950’s education in our country is getting worse by the minute.  The K-12 schools have turned into expensive day care organizations paid by taxpayers.  The main issue is that this has been going on for so long that most Naïve Americans are not capable to understand what is going on.  To pot it off we have unions which hire lobbyist to pay off career politicians.  On the next level we have colleges that are teaching Naïve Americans skills that are not in demand in a high tech economy.  The courses and degrees offered by most universities have been declining through the years.  Just stop at campuses in universities and you will see that for the difficult degrees (i.e., science and engineering) enrollment has declined and most students are foreigners.  Why would someone spend considerable time and effort to find that most well paying jobs are outside the US?  A major overhaul in the education system in this country is needed.  Nice buildings and better-paid incompetent teachers do not help produce better professionals.  Education as you propose, not a good idea.

Healthcare.  In the past few months Naive Americans have heard enough of your preposterous plan for healthcare reform.  What we need is a system that is free for all Naive Americans.  We need to get rid of healthcare insurance companies.  We need to make accountable healthcare providers and companies (including drug manufacturers) to make sure they are properly compensated for their efforts but do not enrich themselves (high executive salaries and bonuses, high stock dividends) at the expense and suffering of Naive Americans.  Simple and clean law could address healthcare reform in a very short period of time.  Healthcare as you propose, not a good idea.

Debt and deficits.  Freeze on government spending is a must.  The problem is that national security spending is out of control.  When you have a bomb proof truck that costs a million Dollars that can be disabled with a $10 Dollar explosive charge, simple math is against us.  Wars only benefit the companies that make weapons and equipment used by the military.  War does not produce benefits for the Naive American.  War just brings pain.  You are proposing to get a bipartisan fiscal commission of career politicians paid by lobbyist to address this issue.  How could that work?  Debt and deficits as you propose to address, a bad idea.

Government and election reform.  This is not a simple task.  You are proposing career politicians paid by lobbyist hired by well-funded special interest to address the issue.  I am starting to think that my two-year-old grandson has better ideas than you do.  The simple approach to this issue is to outlaw any and all political contributions.  Outlaw lobbyist.  Make accountable organizations, individuals and politicians for accepting bribes and punish them with ten years of mandatory prison for each offense.  Problem solved.  Your proposed Government and election reform, one more bad idea.

Disaster response.  History has proven that the USA is not prepared for disaster response.  Each time something happens we find more and more flaws.  We need to come up with simple and relatively fool proof mechanism to prevent and if they do happen to aid Naïve Americans in stress.  Before just throwing money it would be best to evaluate what we have today, eliminate issues and then come up with mechanisms to help us with nuclear and bio terrorism.  That said I would like to bring up a simple idea that is used in good engineering.  Go after the cause of the problem, not the side effects.  For example, if the hard disk in your computer system is failing, do not start modifying the software to address the failing disk symptoms, change the disk.  In the 1940’s the world (with perhaps two exceptions) loved the USA.  Since then most countries dislike the US and many are just plain enemies.  Today we cannot count with the fingers in our hands enough countries that are truly our friends.  We all know the reasons for this.  Instead of addressing them we declare wars that kill innocent people.  Disaster response, as presented, not a good idea.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  This is a touchy and politically loaded issue.  If you have served in the military you probably have a better opinion as I have.  Our country at this point in time has so many long term serious issues that are rotting our society to its roots that issues with gay people is like saying that you are on your death bed and are discussing the color of your sheets.  Bringing this topic us appears to be just a political maneuver to get support from lobbyists.  Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell a completely irrelevant issue at this point in time.

Immigration.  Completely in agreement that our immigration system is broken.  We need incentives for intellect to come to the USA to study, create small businesses and hopefully to integrate and make America their home for them and generations to come.  That is more important that putting up a wall and spend resources patrolling the borders.  If people and companies do not offer jobs to illegal aliens then the problem is solved once and for all.  If the government does not provide a single benefit to illegal aliens then they will not want to be in the US.  America needs to bring in the best of the world for them to integrate and make their lives here.  Immigration a good idea but so far the implementation has been poor to say the least.

In conclusion Mr. Obama rehashed promises that were used in the presidential campaign but that have not become reality in over a year in office.  What America needs are CHANGES to the core.  If we do not do this we will continue to fall into the abyss.

When our illustrious president Obama was in the campaign trail he promised CHANGE in different fronts.  Mr. Obama has been in office for over a year and the only CHANGE that has occurred is with the trend of things in the USA; as a whole, things are just getting worse by the minute.

Career politicians CONTINUE to celebrate being in office for life, politicians CONTINUE getting “legal bribes”, the USA CONTINUES being at war and Mr. Obama is sending more troops to fight a war that cannot be won, healthcare insurance companies CONTINUE to raise prices and reduce coverage, CEOs CONTINUE to collect huge bonuses requesting Naive American tax payers bailouts, industry CONTINUES to shrink, small businesses CONTINUE to decline, our kids CONTINUE to score lower and lower when compared to their peers in other countries, inflation CONTINUES to creep in, the legal system has nothing to do with justice and CONTINUES to support special interest groups with laws supported by the Supreme Court, the trade deficit CONTINUES to grow, federal expending CONTINUES to rise, drug consumption and crimes CONTINUE to grow, unions CONTINUE to claim benefits with little work to show for their demands, etc, etc, etc.  That is what is going while Mr. Obama is at the helm.  Nothing has changed for the best in the first 13 months of his administration.  Perhaps Mr. Obama is waiting to surprise the country (do not hold your breath).

Now that we have characterized what is happening with the Obama administration, the question remains, what type of person would like to associate themselves with an individual and ideology that, so far, has not been able to CHANGE a thing while in a position (the USA presidency) that took hundreds of millions of dollars in political contributions from organizations and individuals that do not expect anything in return (If you believe this, I have a bridge I would like to sell you).  Obviously the people who contributed to the presidential campaign are not part of the “Obama Generation”.  Perhaps the “Obama Generation” represents the millions of Naive Americans that have lost their jobs and are getting so many well-paid construction jobs repairing roads.  Maybe the “Obama Generation” is made of people that are involved in all those new well-paid green jobs (doing who knows what).

It appears that there are no logical reasons for Naive Americans to be associated with a group labeled the “Obama Generation”.  If you know of a good or logical reason please let me know.  I will amend this blog with such reference.

A very loaded and interesting question.  If you ask children they will tell you that the president, Mr. Barack Obama at this point in time, runs our country.  The president is elected through somewhat twisted method, but that is how we elect our president.

For most Naive Americans the president is just a figure (puppet) that follows the suggestions of his political party.  So far so good because a Democratic president, like Barack Obama should follow the principles and ideology of the Democratic Party.  The same could have been said of the previous Bush administration.

A considerably less number of Naive Americans fully understand that career politicians that listen and receive legal bribes (political contributions) from lobbyist run the country.  In turn lobbyist work for wealth individuals and corporations that do not care about Naive Americans or the USA.  They just worship the US Dollar.

Today the US Supreme Court has eased on restrictions on corporate campaign spending.  This means one and only one thing, lobbyist will be able to provide larger bribes to politicians.  This is really bad news for the USA.  Our current economical situation is just the result of the American Royalty (wealthy individuals and corporations) making an extra Dollar and destroying the US economy and industry.  The serious problems we are facing today were primarily started during the Clinton administration.  Do you remember globalization?  Well we got it and as a result the Dollar is becoming weaker, our trade deficit is in the trillions of Dollars, a huge percentage of our goods are manufactured abroad (mostly in China), as far as energy is concerned, we depend almost completely on oil from the Middle East.  You know how the countries in the Middle East love the USA (ha ha ha).

America is getting closer to a full collapse.  We need to make changes in mostly all sectors in order to start a gradual change in direction before we become a third world country.  What fueled America in the past were innovative small businesses.  Today we have lethargic large businesses being bailed out with taxes paid by Naive Americans, managed by incompetent people (wealthy CEOs) who make huge salaries and to top it all demand even larger bonuses.

What are the chances that our president will be able to make a CHANGE?

The Naive American

If you go to the Lowes web site (www.lowes.com) next day delivery has a caveat.  It is only available for in-stock major appliances.  So what are the chances that the appliance you decide to purchase is in stock?  Do not know that answer but in the past six months my wife and I had to replace the washer and dryer (the motor in the washer burned) at home.  Purchase them at Lowes.  Lowes did not have the appliances in stock (what a surprise) so it took several (not next day) days between the purchase and delivery.  Lowes does not hook up gas appliances.  They are able to plug in a cord to a standard electrical outlet.  That appears to be the extent of free hookup.

A few months later our refrigerator was making noise.  My wife wanted to find out how much a replacement unit would cost.  We stopped by Lowes and went through a similar process with a sales representative.  Once again the delivery would be several days after the purchase.  We decided not to replace a new refrigerator at the time.

Not sure how Lowes and for that matter most other major appliance stores (i.e., Home Depot, Sears, etc) can get away deceiving potential customers as they do.  I guess that is the way to do business in America.  Naïve Americans get excited with the models at the showroom and tend to ignore the false promises that led them in the first place to stop by a store searching for a new appliance.

Home appliances used to last decades.  Today they are manufactured to last a few years.  The reason for this is that manufacturers (most of them in China) design appliances to break in a short period of time so they can sell Naïve Americans a replacement in a very short period of time.  Companies have quality assurance departments that work in conjunction with designers to test the life of different parts and estimate how long should they last.  The game is to make sure all parts last for a minimum time so the Naïve American is led to believe that a quality product has been purchased but appliances start breaking down after a few years hinting the owner that it is time to replace the unit (standard tear and wear we are told).

I guess that is the American way.  We live in a consumer society.  Products should not last too long.  They need to be constantly replaced.  I have observed this phenomenon with different coffee makers in the past five to six years.  I brew every day two cups of coffee.  Coffee machines from different companies (so far all are manufactured in China) do not last more than a couple years.  In my opinion a coffee maker, with proper care, should last at least ten years.  I as a consumer would like to decide on a newer and fancier model when I am ready to purchase it, not after a couple years (if lucky) when the unit breaks down.

This brings me to an interesting point.  Hardware designers are able to design products that break after a period of time forcing the Naïve American to purchase a new one.  What about software?  Well-designed software does not break.  It just works.  The only hope for well-designed software is that with time, the requirements of the user or the specific industry (e.g., automotive, medical, etc) change enough so a new version of the software must be considered.  This might not be as reasonable as one might imagine.  Software manufactures are constantly adding bells and whistles to their software products in order to lure new buyers, but the majority of users tend to use the same set of features version after version.  You know what I mean if you use a word processor package (e.g., Microsoft Word).  I have been using Word for about twenty years and probably use one to two percent of the current features.  With time I have purchased newer versions of Word because older versions do not work on newer versions of the Windows operating system.  Perhaps having a monopoly is the American way.

So what should software manufactures in our consumer society do to get recurrent revenue?  Adding feature just for the fun of it does not appear to be a feasible option.  Developing high quality software does not appear to be a good business.  Would like to hear your comments opinions on this issue.

As I grew older (not sure about the wiser part) I came to the realization that the political system in the USA is no better and perhaps worse than in most countries.  We have managed to legalize unmoral and unethical practices.  Not only that but corruption is very well entrenched in business activities (more on this on a future blog).

Lets take a look at how we do a few things in America.

Elections.  When political election time comes around we start seeing advertisements for career politicians that want to get elected / reelected (looking or trying to maintain cushy job with no responsibilities or accountability).  Somehow there are many Naive Americans (with little or no qualifications) that are able to raise considerable amounts of political contributions (bribes) to get elected.  In general, salaries and benefits for the elected officials are substantial higher than what they typically earn working on their initial chosen profession (e.g., dentist, business administrator, wrestler, actor, etc) but are nothing when compared to the funds spent attempting to get into office.  I guess companies and wealthy Naïve Americans (in some cases nationals from other countries as was the case with Mrs. Clinton in the past presidential election) contribute not wanting something in return (ha ha ha).  Are we in La La Land or the USA?  All the immoral and unethical practices associated with elections are completely legal in our country.  Similar practices in other nations are associated with sheer corruption by the same career politicians.

Politicians.  Who are most (never say all) politicians?  They do not tend to be people with high education or managing from inception (more on this on a future blog) successful practices / businesses.  It appears that most people turn into politics when they are not successful in their private lives.  Most politicians go into politics and after a few years somehow they start doing well for themselves or for their families and friends.  How strange that they were not able to realize themselves in their chosen professions (yes it is that call from who know where to serve the country).  The job of being a politician should be quite rewarding given the fact that once they become a politician, they do not want to return to private life.  Politicians have no accountability.  When they fail miserable (most do) they just excuse themselves and promise CHANGE.  Try the same approach in the business world and they will find themselves out of a job in weeks or months.  The difference is that there is no accountability in politics.

Laws.  Politicians are behind the laws that are put together and then passed.  For some strange reason laws are not passed individually but in sets.  Doing so has two main advantages.  First no one is able to understand what is in a bill (not even the people who authors them) so politicians write laws that benefit lobbyist (American Royalty) and destroy the USA.  The second advantage is that politicians hide their personal interests (the interests of organizations and individuals who bribe them through lobbyists) by voting for the main subject of a bill but hiding hundreds or thousands of payoffs in the rest.  This is why bills are not written in less than a dozen sheets of paper.  Do you know how many pages are in the Health Care reform being promoted by the Obama Administration?  Over a thousand.  Rest my case.

Wars.  How can it be possible that our country is most of the time at war?  There is a documentary “Why We Fight” that attempts to describe and show why America likes wars.  The logic (which appears to be quite solid) goes something like this.  Large companies in the USA are in the business of making weapons and supporting the military.  Such companies / contractors earn in the billions of dollars a year when the USA is not at war.  When the US is at war spending approaches or exceeds a trillion dollars a year.  There is way too much money lost when we are not at war.  Because of this simple fact, politicians with the help of lobbyist are convinced that a war in Afghanistan will somehow make America more secure.  The matter of fact is that security has nothing to do.  The Dollars is the guilty party.  This is due to the fact that politicians can easily be bribed to the point of committing funds that we do not have (the USA is in a huge deficit) and lives of Naive Americans that are killed and many wounded in many occasions will have scars for life.  And all of this because?  Because of incompetent, immoral and unaccountable politicians.  Does Vice President Cheney ring a bell?

So next time that you watch the news regarding any facet of our political system, pay close attention to what is really going on.  We have legalized corruption and are as bad as any third world country.