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Where did you download an older copy of Adobe Premiere Pro from, given that Adobe no longer hosts that version on their website as a trial?

This sidesteps the question but still needs to be said. 1. Unlike real abuse, which is extraordinarily rare, fat is hard to define even approximately. The same goes for skinny. Look what CPS – Child Protective Services, or whatever it’s called – did to one vegetarian couple. When CPS took their children away from them they tried to get their children back by force. The eventual trial, with Edgar Steele as defense lawyer, was featured on TV (I don’t watch such things and only read about it). The mother, Ruth Christine, spent 7 years in prison, the father will have served 12 when released in 2013. (By the way, the defense lawyer was a free speech advocate who once defended the founder of Aryan Nations, losing. Recently he was charged and convicted of attempting to murder his wife and mother-in-law, which is as authentic as the Christine’s child abuse. The fact that some of his views are disagreeable, to say the least, is irrelevant here.) 2. CPS has a long history of itself abusing children. The late Nancy Schaefer spoke and wrote about this: The Corrupt Business of Child Protective Services Look what they did to Kelly Michaels and children she was alleged to have abused, one of several cases described in No Crueler Tyrannies: Accusation, False Witness, and Other Terrors of Our Times by Dorothy Rabinowitz of the Wall Street Journal. I think we’d be better off without CPS, assault and battery was illegal without it. At least don’t add another quiver to their bow.

It's not abuse, but it's neglect. Neglect can be just as harmful as abuse.

Game physics engine : C++, and happily so. If it was a game in which high performance was not an issue : C#. OS kernel : C or maybe C++. C# if I simply need a simplistic kernel for which performance is not vital. Database system : Not sure, probably C++. Given its poor design , about the only reason I can think of to use Objective-C is if you are making Apple products. C# is highly suitable for a MANY applications. It is a powerful language with many features and libraries ( the .NET ones number in the tens of thousands of really good ones). It is slower than C++ and a number of other languages , however for many , many applications this does not matter. For the vast majority of applications, it is plenty fast enough and anyway, unless it is a high performance application : The choice of programming language makes almost no difference these days. If you have a look, you will find many even slower languages are popular? Why ? Because programming language speed makes very little difference to anyone not making applications in which high speed is very crucial. Sometimes languages that seem slower can actually do some things FASTER. Python for instance is considered slow usually, however it has some highly optimized mathematical libaries that can be tweaked to run at speeds approaching C++. This does not sufficiently answer the questions I asked however.

More than 50 years after Atlas Shrugged and after much years of being Objectivist, I strongly believe that some update is necessary to Rand's original approach In fact more than an update is an extension consisting in applying Objectivism deeper to the Human Animal: Ourselves The Aristotelian "A is A" means also that WE are what we are, and in recent years after Rand's main body of work, several science disciplines has gone much further in the research about our very own nature as "biological machines". In an oversimplified analogy our body and specially our brain would be the "hardware", our mind the "software" and our emotional system standing between both, and functioning as some kind of "firmware" specially in our early years of life Rand focused her wonderful insights in our mind, the software, which is of course the proper terrain for philosophy but I think now that she overlooked the strong influence of our hardware in our behavior, moods, and choices, specially our Emotional System which is shaped by our "sense of life" = values in Randian terms but also by our biology and even the particular chemistry and hormone balance inside our brains What follow are some concepts for discussion, followed by some Conclusions at the end: 1- Modern Evolutionary Psychology and Neuroscience are progressing more and more in revealing how strong is the influence of DNA-inherited traits in our behavior and moral choices and preferences So Aristotle-Locke's concept of "Tabula Rasa" is valid to a certain (great) extend but not absolute since we have innate tendencies acquired thru darwinian evolution 2- The (also Aristotelian) "Eudaimonia" and thus our pursuit-of-happiness are very strongly influenced by our emotional system, in fact happiness itself is an emotionally based state of mind, complex, quite different for each individual, hard to define, but emotional in nature: We feel happy as opposite to we think we are happy 3- Altruism and Religiosity, two apparently DNA-inherited traits are central to the discourse of Objectivism vs traditional organization in Society Recent studies strongly suggest that these two tendencies found in all World's societies across all Ages, are "hardwired" in our brains and helped specie's survival As a sample of this line of though please read Matthew Alper's book "The God part of the Brain" or this article in LA Times: http://articles.lati...theism-20110718 4- Human Society's evolution leads also to "biological weakness"? Not to mention modern medicine hindering Natural Selection, Capitalism as the best-to-date political system is strongly linked to an evolved morality, and any regression in human history would likely diminish or eliminate Capitalism in modern Society with the subsequent possibility of returning to more savage relationships among men that in turn would also call for "less evolved" individuals in order to survive? 5- Beatles' classic "All you need is love" is an expression that probably would produce revulsion in Rand and most Objectivists BUT there is something extremely important inside the very concept of "Love" that is essential to our survival as individual and species: The DNA-inherited natural tendency of "attachment" in the Human Animal which is also emotionally driven. Attachment to our beloved ones, to our projects, to other people, even to objects or devices that become important for us, allowing to move towards needs generated by these feelings that not always have an easy or even logic explanation. 6- Ayn Rand stressed the essential importance of a John-Galt style of relationship with Nature, absolutely agreed BUT dominion of Nature is dominion of just one half of our environment, as social animals we usually live in groups so our "Reality" is compressed of Nature and People with the latter posing also multiple challenges coming from our relationship with others, personal interactions, rules and laws, rewards vs punishment, control vs freedom, etc. Conclusions: A- We are what we are, A is A and it is pointless to deny our very own nature consistent with our current degree of evolution as species. Thus integrating Objectivist Philosophy into our complex "interior" (including specially our Emotional System) is a challenge that everyone has to solve in his/her own way. But to me we need adequate managing not denial, of all these DNA-inherited traits and tendencies that are more strong in some individuals than others but always present in the end. B- Borrowing from conflict management strategies an interesting option I found is working "in the frontiers", meaning accepting that conflict is an essential part of existence and try to make our choices accordingly and as smart as possible. This is specially important in the relationship with all other people around us who usually are far more unpredictable and illogic than Nature that is much more benevolent in David Kelley's sense of the word C- It sounds politically incorrect but I also believe that we should contemplate the need to be less overcivilized in some cases, keeping deep inside ourselves some residual "primitivism" just in case modern Society collapses and relationships among men change in some future. This applies also to the sometimes overprotective environment and education we are giving to our children?

http://american.com/archive/2011/march/fools-gold This is a nice historically-based essay on the non-effectiveness of the gold standard in accomplishing anything useful. *** On this anniversary of 9/11, I am reminded of one of the early debates about airline security in the post-9/11 world: whether pilots should be able to carry guns. I recall plenty of arguments on both sides, and some had merit and some didn't. It was ultimately decided by the FAA that such a move would not improve security (I personally have no opinion on the matter). I recall this debate only because of one argument in particular: that a pilot could "go nuts" and start shooting people. This is an obviously example of somebody not thinking the whole thing through: if the man flying the plane you were on "went nuts", then a mere gun would be the least of your worries. This is a great analogy for the gold standard. Yes, without the gold standard, governments are free to inflate their currency and fuck over the population. However this is certainly not their only means of doing so, and arguably not even the most effective one. In the last 20 years our currency here in the USA has been relatively stable. I defy anybody to show me somebody (an actual person, not a contrived example) who has been "wiped out by inflation" in the USA in the last 20 years. Inflation has been relatively low, and relatively predictable. It most certainly has not made any difference with respect to all of the bad things that have happened to cause the current Depression: all of that could have just as easily happened on the gold standard. If you are fighting for a better government, then solve problems that are problems, not problems that are... not problems. The latter makes you sound like a crazy person and diminishes are ability to fight for anything.

For almost all Americans, 9/11 is a day of sadness, remembrance, and unity. It isn't one of horror, outrage, and fury. Evidently, proper behavior demands that everyone should weep, reflect, and sing Kumbaya. Following this logic, maybe September 11th should also be a day of tolerance, acceptance, and forgiveness of the jihadis. Perhaps everybody should honor and celebrate the lives -- and lament the untimely deaths -- of the nineteen airplane hijackers. In reality, of course, 9/11 should be a day of rage. It should be a day of learning about, seeking vengeance against, and triumphing over, the enemy jihadis. And everyone who calls these jihadi monsters by the ambiguous term "terrorists" is morally sanctioning their past evils -- and actively promoting their future ones. This last, as everybody knows, includes simultaneous suitcase nuclear devices for New York City and Washington DC. Anyone who is so PC and MC as to call these miserable, mutant, Muslim monkeys "extremists" or "terrorists" is an enabler and a major problem. Such dishonest and cowardly euphemisms are the source of much of the Muslim activists' strength and destructive power. Such false, misleading, and counterproductive terms morally sanction the jihadi enemy by refusing to accurately identify him. And by denying reality, a new reality is created: that of the morally-uncondemned monster. Now Mohammed is free to go forth and commit new atrocities. By declining to call these guys jihadis, Americans are permitting and encouraging Muslims to do what they do best: slaughter the innocent. Ultimately, September 11th should be a day of rage against all of religion and the Judeo-Christian ethic. Contrary to what practically everyone today thinks and says, these two are not forces for good. 9/11 was their handiwork! People who love "god" ultimately hate man -- and they destroy him. People who practice religious-type self-sacrifice ultimately sacrifice their fellow man too -- and in droves. Religion and "god" are 100% false and 100% evil -- and everybody knows it. But the worst religion by far is that of Islam. That's what 9/11 should be about: remembering the spectacularly loathsome evil of the genocidal Muslims -- and then fervently swearing a holy oath that in future the good guys of this earth will successfully avoid it, neutralize it, and defeat it. Sooner rather than later, the jihad-based philosophy of Islam needs to be brutally crushed. And every jihadi on earth needs to be summarily annihilated.