Please see Slashdot comment #45746307 (Attached to: Bill Gates Plays Secret Santa To Reddit User). It pretty much explains Gates. Spoiler: He's better than you!

What consumers around the world need to fully understand (and don't really seem to yet) is that ALL modern data-driven devices represent a new era of consumer product in that each device operates like a two-way mirror. No longer is the product simply yours to use or not. The retail side consumer, no matter what he/she believes they are doing with "their device", are merely entering data points into a vast cyber-machine -- data which numerous others will be collecting, collating, extrapolating, buying, selling, and much, much more. Every "terminal" is equally operable from the other side of the device, most often invisibly to the consumer. This new generation of products actually provides more value to the "other" owner/users (businesses, hackers and government agencies) operating behind the "mirror". Most of these devices could be handed out for free, and yet still provide gigantic profits - sort of like the paper magazine business model. When you have a connected refrigerator other entities will have it too - they just won't be using it to store food. Yet arguably that fridge will be worth more to them than to you!

“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.” --- Dr. Marcia Angell (Harvard Medical School)

Apparently those untrusting "fucking morons" are in very good company.

A non-vegetarian veterinarian is a job where you can eat your customers when they don't pay you. (FTFY!)

... who is also as dumb as a box of rocks!

Btw, the beta version is not an improvement.

Hey Anonymous, you forgot to correct the extra space after "someone"! (Ha, NOW, who's....?)

Oh, for a mod point to give.... (sigh). Follow the link, read the free ebook (thanks Charlotte!), and then check out http://www.invisibleserfscolla... to understand Common Core Curriculum.

Wish I had some mod points for you....

Well, actually you can if people are getting punched so much that all faces become unrecognizable (and with a different appearance each time they get scanned). That would effectively render the technology useless.

I'm not advocating this.

Do not look directly at the sun!

Or, to put it another way - - "Do not pay any attention to the Sun behind the curtain."

No, it was "que oo lait".

Hey, these robots are already totally ready for work with road crews -- I mostly saw a lot of just standing around!

Sadly, it took a European to tell us that "We the People of the United States" are the ones to hold our government accountable. Duh, hello! It's "We the People" that granted the United States any powers it may have. Any powers we did not specifically grant the government are powers it does not legitimately possess. And I am certain our European friend is also correct in that the rest of the world would be quite grateful were we to reign in our "monster".

As a side note, perhaps now would be a good time to listen carefully to Steppenwolf's "Monster"(youtube link) -- especially those of you who are unfamiliar with the song.

Problem misidentified. We need to clear the blue-blood elitist upper class out of all the processes which ultimately determine the fates of everyone they feel are beneath them. If you got the "big money" out of the (visible) picture, what makes you think the establishment's "good ol' boy network" will also be gone?

Slight correction: What the NSA is doing is attempting to shore up the ruling class. As far as U.S. citizens are concerned, the NSA is merely a "peacekeeping" tool in this regard.