My thoughts exactly. In 2010 the British Chiropractic Association sued Dr. Simon Singh for libel for suggesting (on his blog) that some of their claims and practices were dubious at best. The courts (which have tended to be quite plaintiff friendly in UK libel cases) initially found against Dr. Singh, though his legal team managed to get that overturned on appeal on the basis that his article was "fair comment". This smells like something similar.

You may have intended this as sarcasm. If not, I'd suggest you haven't fully understood the problem.

Look at the current UK government's record, for example. First they introduced mandatory "porn" filtering - which you must formally opt-out of - in the name of "saving the children"; of course, even in it's first incarnation, it was blocking things that were clearly not porn.

Then they swiftly moved to "leverage" that to block "extremist" material. The problem, of course, is that extremist is a nebulous term; UK politicians have described groups as diverse as the Countryside Alliance and UK Uncut (a tax pressure group) as "extremist", and it's these same politicians - not the courts - who are deciding what should be blocked.

Maybe you really do want to live in an internet bubble where the only things you see are whatever the government of the day has decided is "safe". But most of us would rather make our own minds up.

Eh, no. The point is there's nothing stopping you saying anything (and still isn't). But there's no magic amulet protecting you from the consequences of saying it either.

Agreed. I have a *lot* of CDs, but only started buying them seriously in the 1990s and they still play fine. It does depend on how you store them though; things like direct sunlight and extremes of heat and cold can damage the discs. And for discs you burn yourself, a lot depends on how you burn them; YMMV.

Ob. xkcd link Free Speech.

Fair point. I'd forgotten about ACS:Law. That said, there are still fans of draconian measures against file-sharers in the current UK government. For example Government "must consider" jail time for illegal file-sharers.

From TFA:

It's significant, I think, that he singles out the UK which is becoming increasingly like the 51st state in legal/civil rights terms.

In the rest of Europe I'd suggest they won't find the legal and regulatory environment anything like as forgiving of their methods as the U.S.

Apparently for some people it's a lot harder than you would think; Driver Dies After Posting Facebook Selfie.

True. But things were still pretty basic in the 1980's. On PCs compiling and linking (memory overlays anyone?) could take forever. There was a "conspiracy theory" that compiler/linker suppliers were secretly owned by coffee companies! :-)

Good point. The built-in assembler was excellent too. The whole BBC Micro project was designed educate people about the computer as a powerful tool they could use, and not just a games machine. And, as you say, they did a damn good job.

Yes indeed. I initially learned to program on a BBC, and I learned a number of good habits in the process.

Ob. quote from Real Programmers.

"Real programmers don't write in FORTRAN. FORTRAN is for pipe stress freaks and crystallography weenies."

Of course, it also says this about BASIC :-)

"Real Programmers don't write in BASIC. Actually, no programmers write in BASIC, after the age of 12."

Leaving aside the fact that OpenSSL is not a "BSD package that kindly ported to Linux", I suggest it's rather more arrogant to assume that the world will rush to replace OpenSSL with Theo De Raadt's LibreSSL when (if) it becomes available.

OpenSSL is not fundamentally broken. It had a bug, albeit one with big consequences. Lots of people depend on OpenSSL and it needs to properly maintained. Paying people to work on opensource projects is nothing new and if this funding supports developers with the necessary cryptographic skills devoting quality time to maintaining OpenSSL then that's a good thing.

I doubt it. In the UK (where there is a well established public health system) employers have been getting increasingly fond of zero-hours contracts over the last few years. If you want to talk "double whammy", these contracts not only do not guarantee you any hours in any given week (hence the name) but you are usually contractually forbidden from working for anybody else; you are supposed to be always "on call". So you aren't working many hours, and you're poor. Oh brave new world!

And this doesn't just apply to the business world. You get similar issues in professional team sports, where guys come out of school/college straight into what is essentially a never-ending frat house environment.