I don't mean to be rude, but I don't think that you've quite understood the process.

There has not been a public case yet in which the prosecutor has had to lay out the evidence against Assange. There has been no hearing where the object was to determine whether he was guilty.

I'm guessing that by "read the case" you mean the English High Court case, but that was an extradition hearing. The Court was not required to consider the strength of the case against Assange, and there was no obligation to prove the case. That comes later in the process.

What's available on the internet is a few leaked documents and some speculation - nothing on which to build a conclusion.

At present, the only person who has been able to consider all the evidence against Assange is the Swedish prosecutor, who considers that there is a case to answer. In due course a Court will determine whether Assange is guilty, but in the meantime, anyone saying that they've read a few scraps of information here and there, and are therefore able confidently to say that the prosecutor is wrong, hasn't understood how little they know of the facts.

If you can imagine situations in which it would still be rape despite the woman having consented earlier, clearly it doesn't logically follow that consenting earlier in the evening means it will not be rape to have sex with the person while they sleep.

In which case it all comes down to the facts, and anyone saying on Slashdot that they know whether he is guilty or not is kidding themselves, because they don't have all the facts.

I don't think that that follows as a matter of logic.

It's purely a question of where being charged fits into the legal process, I think. In the UK, for example, you're usually charged after being arrested, so you would be extradited first and charged second (because you can't be arrested until you arrive). An example of that was Hussain Osman, who was extradited from Italy and arrested and charged on arrival.

This is complete nonsense.

If you have no idea what you're talking about, everything is "unheard of".

Where a European State seeks to prosecute someone in another European country it is completely normal for Interpol to handle the communication between forces, and (according to Interpol's stats, and counting both formal notices and communications only sent to a particular country) happens about 20,000 times a year.

Notices can be issued for a wide range of offences. The first page of published notices on the Interpol website included, at the time of this comment, individuals wanted in connection with murder, rape, sexual assault, forging a passport and "unlawfully using a computer with the intention to commit an offence".

This is a little misleading, since it ignores the obvious reasons why this is the case: it ignores that Assange's case is very unusual, since the police know exactly where he is and have a warrant for his arrest, but cannot carry it out; and it ignores that Hans Crescent and the surrounding streets are home to a number of embassies and missions, meaning that there would often be police there in any case.

It's also not true to say that it's unheard of - in other cases of people taking refuge in embassies, police or other state authorities have waited outside to apprehend them.

Do you have a source for this? I've never heard that the alleged victims "changed their minds" (which, I feel compelled to say, is a bit of a distasteful turn of phrase) and it would surprise me that their statements would be released to the public.

I'm not quite sure what this is meant to achieve.

Does it hide the source of your funds?

No - if you pay 10 bitcoins in and get 10 bitcoins out, the fact that they may not be the same bitcoins isn't going to confuse anyone. If you've logged everything, as you suggest, this is going to be transparent.

Does it avoid anti money laundering ("AML") legislation?

No - AML legislation makes it an offence to attempt to hide the source, ownership or control of funds. Running this scheme would be an offence in itself.

Will it allow you to bring the money into regular circulation?

No - this isn't going to provide any response to the question "what is the ultimate source of your funds", which is the key question that banks, lawyers and other regulated bodies are required to ask as part of their AML procedure. (In fact, in my jurisdiction, the suspicious Bitcoin transaction would be enough to require them to make a report to the police).

It seems to me that your suggestion takes a very literal interpretation of "money laundering", and assumes that it means breaking the link between the exact money that you obtained illegally and the exact money that you have now. That's part of it, but there's a lot more involved and, crucially, breaking that link is not enough on its own either (i) to pass AML checks, or (ii) to avoid conviction for the AML or handling the proceeds of crime offences.

It's only nonsense if you accept that, to be a good programmer, you have to be motivated right at the start of the course - being motivated after you've done some of the course, and the importance has been made clear, is not enough.

I don't see any reason that that would be the case. In fact, I suspect that the biggest difference between the people who are motivated at the outset and the others, is that the former have already seen the importance and power of the CLI. In such a case, there's no obvious difference between their motivation once the importance and power have been explained.

This isn't saying that students should not use the CLI, nor that they should not be proficient in it.

The point is that wanting to use a GUI for lots of common tasks is not lazy or incompetent. It's often the quickest and easiest way to get the job done. As a result, if you want students to appreciate that the CLI is important you need to explain why it is better to spend time learning its eccentricities rather than relying on the GUI applications.

The alternative is to do what the GGP advocates, and just put them on the CLI and make them use it. That seems like a great way to sap their motivation with what seems like a pointless task.

To reiterate: this isn't to detract from the power of the CLI. The point is that if you want students who are used to slick GUI applications to appreciate that power, you need to make it clear what the benefits are. Initially at least, the students will be able to do almost any task you set them much more quickly and easily with GUI applications than using the command line, and so if you do not set out those benefits clearly, they are liable to think that the CLI is a waste of time.

Stand obstinately in the way of making the subject more accessible, and you will get two types of students: those who are keen, motivated and passionate about technology, and those who choose technology because they can't make it anywhere else. The latter group is not going to yield many great programmers. So congratulations - you've managed to retain the group who will always do your subject, no matter what, while keeping everyone else away.

You don't have to dumb-down. You don't have to give everyone an A+. The point here is just to make it so that more people can engage with the subject initially, which opens it up to a lot more people with the potential to be great programmers.

You talk about "socialism" all through your post, and then about "liberal/socialist beliefs" in your final sentence. I'm not sure why; liberalism and socialism are completely separate political philosophies, with significant contradictions. They are not interchangeable.

More generally, the image that you conjure is of someone repeatedly suffering from the failings of capitalism, but continuing to support it and stick up for it, unquestioningly faithful that it will do better next time. Socialism is a pretty broad church, but I don't think you would find any socialists with those views. The views that you describe as socialist are in many ways the exact opposite of traditional socialism.

There are varying 'degrees' of socialism, but in a great many cases it involves believing that capitalism cannot, and will not, do a good job of managing certain sectors, and so it should either be removed completely or heavily regulated - i.e. the opposite of what you are describing as socialist.

"Socialism" and "liberalism" are not simply pejorative terms for anyone who disagrees with you. In this case, the views you dislike are more prevalent among capitalist, economically right-wing people; for example, the UK's Conservative chancellor, a center-right conservative capitalist, recently went on record stating that his view was that bailing out the banks after a crisis is the price to be paid for the benefits of unregulated capitalism.

Your order was shipped on December 4th and not received before Christmas?

In that case maybe I wasn't talking about you. But if that's your attitude, do you not find the uber-macho, shoot-first rhetoric of a lot of pro-gun posters a little worrying?