That is a very, very large beta testing crowd. China will eventually figure out their own technology, but Google will not (any time soon) be able to pass up the benefits of such a heavily populated country.

"What can be more democratic than being allowed to start your own country with your own laws if you don't like your current one?"

Giving your opinion and accepting the outcome regardless of whether you like it or not.

Like posters above have said, don't confuse Democracy with Anarchy.

Anarchy:
"Act[ing] without waiting for instructions or official permission... The root of anarchism is the single impulse to do it yourself: everything else follows from this."

That was WinXP, wasn't it? ;^)

Most developers know that you have to make independent decisions to keep a project moving forward. That takes the "democracy feel" out a little, especially when it's publicized like this.

However, the nature of open source gives any of us the ability to choose a different path. Don't want to use their button placement? You have the option to modify it on your own time, choose a different theme, or choose a completely different window manager.

It's not really accurate to say open source as a whole is non-democratic when we're talking about a single theme.

Make sure to spend all your points on Energy upgrades so you can do more jobs each level without downtime. Oh, and do your Cuba missions as soon as you hit level 35.

Unless you happen to be a high-school-age or college-age fan of a band that happens not to play at all-ages venues.

I don't think apple would have a problem with documented 16-year-olds working 2-8 hours a week while they were doing well at school. This has to do with kids working full time or more, particularly if under terrible working conditions. In terms of safe disposal, it has other implications with terrible health effects for certain destitute communities. (Google it.)

The Constitution does NOT give the 9 old people on the Court power to run the country like an Oligarchy. They were never given the power to make the final decision of what laws are constitutional or unconstitutional.

It's time for California, Oregon, Colorado, Jersey, Hampshire, and the other states who have legalized marijuana for use by doctors (or prescription) to tell the Supreme Court Oligarchs to fuck off. And they should use Amendments 9 and 10 to back them up.

No.... plain GPS receivers doesn't work in buildings, in the woods. But if there is data network, then things change.
The new wave in LBS is merging A-GPS with social location information and other data.
Mobile phones have A-GPS (Assisted GPS) and other technologies, like Cell ID based locations and WIFI Hotspots information. By merging all this information, "positioning systems" that are not simply GPS anymore are getting much better.
A-GPS gathers Almanaque and Ephemeris data from the network, "making a weak signal stronger".
Cell ID (from the operators' cell phone antennas, BTSs) and WIFI help in between buildings, inside places by applying algorithms using simple techniques.
By gathering this information and crossing it, right now there can be pretty good results.
I'm using a Nokia E63 WITHOUT a GPS receiver. With the help from Nokia location based servers (supl.nokia.com) , I get pretty accurate location information without a GPS.

I'm a geek. I like sports :-)

My general response to those claims is a combination of what you said and the following argument:

Yes, his quote was ambiguous and probably gave a false impression of what he actually did. It was poorly worded and probably misleading. However, he said this in ONE interview and even by looking at the rest of that quote in context, it is clear that he meant something along the lines of "I pushed forward a number of plans and funding proposals which helped to turn the Internet into what it is today." If he repeatedly or directly claimed that he had "invented" or "implemented" the Internet, I would be less sympathetic, but it seems like it was little more than a slightly poorly-worded answer to a single interview question that was blown way out of proportion for purely political reasons.

Correlating cowardice with not voting is a huge, and unwarranted, assumption on your part. Take a look at any revolution that has ever happened and you will find that many of the people who sacrificed their lives in the actual revolutions didn't take part in the political processes leading up to the revolutions.