There's a simpler problem - you're trying to blackmail Mojang into open-sourcing code by holding hostage a fan project on the side. Wolfse has killed the bukkit project, but that just pisses off all the server/plugin owners. Vanilla Minecraft will continue on it's merry way while other programmers re-write his contributions.

And Wolfse has the problem of ever finding a programming job again.

And what's worse, is that the cops (who, remember, are the source of all this news!) have already firmly established this guy in everyone's mind as "the crazy teacher who writes books about shooting kids".

So, what's the best case scenario for this teacher? Gets a clean bill of health, and spends the rest of his days as "the crazy teacher"? (And of course, you know that if the psych exam comes out clean the cops aren't going to release big press releases trumping the mistake).

More likely, since he's in involuntary detention, the report will say whatever the cops need it to say, and we may never see this fellow again. He's certainly not going to get his job back.

That depends on getting enough public notice (and sympathy) that the school board feels the need to make the problem go away.

Barring that, school boards are astoundingly good at playing the Very Long Game - they keep lawyers on staff, after all. It costs them next to nothing to just dig their heels in and wait this guy out.

Technically true, though - if you define "protecting next-quarter profits" and "not wanting every country they do business in demanding the same favors" as moral principles.

From Microsoft's chair, they have no choice but to fight this - how many non-US countries and corporations are going to subscribe to Office365 and other MS-cloud services if it's publicly known that MS will give your information to a foreign government?

On the other hand, anyone who works in store is probably under surveillance all day. I'm an office drone and there's a camera looking at me right now. Plenty of far less critical jobs are expected to deal with being filmed throughout their work shift.

So, why shouldn't cops - who are given the ability to use lethal force - be expected to work under the same surveillance that the guy flipping burgers for minimum wage does?

A slightly more cynical view:

Putin is going to grab Ukraine (or as much as he can), because he's willing to put boots on the ground and the Western World isn't. He's correctly surmised that the West has overextended itself a wee bit (both in terms of materials and willpower and moral authority). After all, he's "liberating", ain't he? Isn't that what the US did in Iraq? And Afghanistan? He's even invited by the locals!

Ukraine likely doesn't have the forces to stop them (if they did, they woulda kept them out of Crimea). The western world doesn't care enough to put skin in the game. As long as he doesn't heat the water too fast, I'd bet on Putin getting his Ukrainian lobster dinner.

I treat it as a civic duty to keep them on the phone as long as possible (personal time permitting, obviously).

Sometimes it's just the old "hang on" and put them down routine. But the fun days are when you argue with the "Account Services" lady about why they need your credit card number, or (my personal high score) getting the "car warranty" guy to tilt and swear at me when I told him I wanted to extend the warranty on my 1967 DeLorean.

This makes an easy comparison.

Currently, you pay a gas tax, per kilometer. No-body cares *what* you do with the gas at that point, or where you go. You can drive on freeways, you can commute to work, you can roadtrip across the country, you can just drive around the block for hours on end if you want. The only limit is the physical ability of the roads (expressed as a speed limit).

Conversely, a toll road will charge you for each segment of road. Suddenly, *where* this road is and what it connects to becomes a huge factor. If I own the major route, I can charge more (forcing you to pay or take a longer but cheaper detour) If I own the road that goes past the supermarket, I can charge more for that segment because it's popular (and the limit of what I can charge is "as long as it's cheaper than driving to the next furthest market"). If I own this movie theatre and the road in front of the competition's theatre? I can make it prohibitive for anyone to do business there. Just think how much fun you could have with speed limits. And how much is access to the road in front of your *house* worth?

And if you own a whole lot of roads, you can change speed limits to encourage traffic to go to stores you like/own, and away from competition.

This is the world the ISPs want to live in - they control all your roads, and they want to be able to adjust the toll road pricing so it's "cheaper" to go to their stores instead of their competition.

The secret to hooking viewers is not to sell it as a TV series - it's a novel being shown on television (or a really really multi-part mini-series, I suppose). Season 1 is a bit slow, but mostly we're setting up places and people and themes. Sometimes the villain is a throwaway one-shot, and sometimes it's someone we're going to keep seeing for years and years.

Barring that, there's plenty of sites that list the "essential" episodes, so you can give them the short-version to get them hooked and then back up to get the details.

Well, properly - the series arc ends at season 4. Season 5 is the "everything else" season (basically, the B-plots that got bumped from season 4 to make room to finish the main arc). There's a lot of good stuff in there (the telepaths are a bit weak-sauce, I'll admit), but I enjoy it mainly for covering the "yay, we saved the day! Wait, what do you mean we have to keep working tomorrow?" angle that is often missing from big heroic stories. (Yes, you've started the ISA. Now you need to run it. Yes, you've sent the elder races away. Well, there were folks who really liked working for the Shadows and are a bit miffed that you chased them away. Hey, remember all those telepaths that saved your bacon? Time to pay the piper...)

Did he then post your home address online, and tell you he'd come over and assault you? That you're only use in life is as a pretty face to satisfy him?

No? Then it's not really in the same category, is it.

I've had (and delivered) crushing insults to work. Never felt the need to personally threaten anyone. (And I've had exactly *one* supervisor threaten my physically. Once. And I never worked with them again.)

Overwhelmingly is almost too light a word here. Let's put this into some hard numbers. Take 1000 rape cases, put all the victims on one side of the room, put all the perps on the other. There are ten women on the perp side of the room (outnumbered literally 99-to-1 by men), and 82 men on the other side of the room (outnumbered "only" 11-to-1 by women).

Go figure that women worry about being raped by men...

Of course, when something actually *does* happen to a woman, she'll be blamed for not being more careful. After all, she's been getting threats all this time, hasn't she? She shoulda known that it was dangerous to leave her house.

Why don't we step back a bit - when is death/assault threats *ever* a valid response to anything involving video games?

What's "sexual" about Girlfight? If it was called "Guyfight" or "Dudefight", would you assume the same?