It depends on where you live. Here in Wisconsin, you can register on election day for whichever party you wish and the registration isn't binding or anything, so for all intents and purposes you can be whatever political party you want when there is a public vote coming up.

I was born and raised in Philadelphia, and I remember my Grandmother having to register ahead of time to vote back in the 80's and early 90's (maybe they changed things since, I haven't ever actually voted myself in Philly in my life). They used to send people door to door like census takers to sign people up to vote, and I remember my grandmother getting exasperated having to tell people over and over that she already registered.

You know, I didn't used to care. Then recall season hit here in Wisconsin, and happy groups like this started popping up on Facebook, not to mention tons of veiled threats online (I received plenty just commenting on Madison.com during the height of the circulation)...and even a few open ones. Then, of course, the employers started getting harassed over their employees having signed the recall petitions and shit like this started happening.

While I'm not afraid of those people when it comes to violence against me (they're largely trailer park living, welfare collecting, hypocritical cowards), when those signatures were released I was definitely worried about repercussions in the workplace. How do you prove you were terminated in response to political ideology? Even if you could prove it, political affiliation is not considered a protected class.

Maybe if you'd lived up here in Wisconsin over the last year you would understand better why shit like this being made public could intimidate some people.

I don't despise my customers, I despise ignorant people that think Steve Jobs invented the modern era, as well as people that waste my time by asking me about the capabilities of a given product when they'd already made up their mind to buy the fucking shiny iThing that they see their neighbor's kids with long before they walked in the door.

Those other things you list as examples of being "important" don't directly impact my job. iDiots do. What I can't understand is why they don't just go to the Apple Store if they want an iCircle Jerk...there is one mere minutes away, and there's plenty of Geniuses willing to wax philosophical about how Steve Jobs was the electric Jesus. I'm here to discuss the products and their capabilites, not the goddamned sociopolitical impact of the fucking iPod.

Actually, an even better analogy would be a restaurant owner that serves minorities while donating money to anti-minority groups.

LBGT and fat people are pretty much the only classes of people left to safely hate on in this country without social repercussion. If we'd been talking about Blacks or Latinos instead of gays there would be few people out there jumping to defend this guy's views. How many people would get on CNN and defend a person's right to hate minorities? How many people would publicly declare their support of him and patronize his restaurants more because of it?

But you know, because it's gay people, and they're icky, then it's okay. Just like fat people, and how they're icky, too. You're allowed to point and laugh. God Bless America!

As opposed to always knowing precisely when Firefox updated because it broke 2/3 of your fucking plug-ins? Chrome's got all of the same damn plugins now and they don't get busted like they do (did) on Firefox.

Whether they fixed the issue in Firefox since those days is immaterial; the fact that it was like that for long enough to build a reputation for that fucking issue is all the explanation you need for why so many people have said "fuck Firefox" since Chrome came out. They had their chance, and I got tired of waking up to that shit. If you depend on those plugins it was almost like waking up to a BSoD in terms of how it fucked up your morning.

Chrome didn't lure me away, Firefox drove me to Chrome. I'm betting that's true for a lot of people out there.

As I said, part of what I do for a living requires me to deal with these people. I don't much like it, but the paychecks come in handy.

How long before baptisms and communion services are offered at the Genius Bar?

I really miss the old days when they just reported the news factually and let people make up their own minds, rather then the "news as a product that must be tailored for optimal consumption" corporate-whore mentality that we're stuck with today.

It's not a new phenomenon (William Randolph Hearst was doing the same shit a century ago) but it's certainly become totally pervasive these days...

Among other things, I sell consumer electronics. I will not escape the retards looking to Apple so they can revolutionize the revolution with their revolutionary products, by the grace of Steve Jobs (God's other son), for some time.

It's quite annoying to have to pretend that a potential customer isn't a mouth-breathing moron that, based on their reasoning, is choosing an iDevice solely because their neighbor has one and OMG if they don't get one, too, then he wins whatever fucking competition these idiots think they're playing at.

There are Fandroids out there, too, and I've met them as well, but they are outnumbered by the iDiots by about 1000:1. Anyone that sells consumer electronics (outside of perhaps some butthurt Apple Store employees) will tell you that it really is almost cult-like, the way iDevices are revered among people.

Then you either live in a small pocket of technological illiterati, are legally deaf, or deliberately ignoring it, because I hear that kind of shit all the fucking time out of retards that honestly believe Steve Jobs invented the modern era single-handedly.

How long before this becomes reality?

Whether due to incompetence or malice, it still screams Caveat Emptor, and most people should know better. Even before this particular story broke, how many /.'ers were considering buying network hardware from this company? Probably not many. Most reasonable people can see a deal that is too good to be true.

Yeah, exactly the same, except for all the deliberately inserted vulnerabilities. What a bargain!

I highly doubt the motivations behind the low price of Linux as compared to the low price of these Chinese shit-tier routers are one and the same, which I'm betting you damn well know yourself, but if you want to play the 'feigned ignorance' game, you go for it buddy.

Would you buy electronics out of the back of a van? It could be legit, amirite?

You get what you pay for. Who would trust this craptastic bargain basement shit anyway? When something is being sold for a much lower price then competing products, there is a reason for it.

Are you kidding? The Olympics is a hugely political event. It's not about the medals, it's about beating the U.S. and the West to prove that their way of doing things is better. Just like the U.S.S.R. back in it's day.

They played games in the 2008 Gymnastics competition with their 14^H^H16 year old Gymnasts, so I don't doubt for a second they're playing games now.