This is a neat idea, but it would suffer from a lack of geographic unity.
How exactly will an Internet-based political party handle issues like where to build the school in my neighborhood, how high the bridges should be, or what the penalty should be for selling small quantities of marijuana? Wouldn't joining such a party actually harm my ability to influence the laws that actually affect me on a daily basis?
That's why there are separate governments at the state and county/city levels.
Another example, the permission "read phone state and identity". Developers often say, "oh, we are not reading your phone number, just your IMEI to ensure your identity". They still have access to the phone number, why not fine-grain it and say: "ok, the IMEI, that is ALL you can see".
The upshot of this would just be that developers would make apps that refuse to run unless you give them all the permissions they want. I'm imagining something along the lines of (pseudo-code incoming):
try{
obtainfeature();
} catch (FeatureNotGrantedException) {
showErrorDialog();
endProgream();
}
who suspects that this story is entirely BS?
This has to be real. Anonymous has long prided themselves on their lack of structure which allows anybody to declare themselves members of Anonymous and start doing stuff in the group's name. The upshot of this is that anybody who wants to can start their own business and capitalize on anonymous. Hell, I could open up my own fast food joint and call it Anonyburger if I wanted to.
The issue is that a salesman did something deceptive? Have you ever bought a car? A house? Voted?
Have I ever bought a new car from my mechanic because he told me my current model is totaled?
Yes, all cool... Until they are hacked by a random foreign nation that'll have detailed information about all US soldiers.
What are they going to do with the medical records of over a million soldiers? It's not like they can discover some sort of massive "death star ventillation"-style weakness in the entire army using medical records.
...or doesn't this seem a little hypocritical in light of how the whole Wikileaks thing has been handled?
When you think about it, they haven't really handled Wikileaks at all. All they've done is take legal action against Bradley Manning for leaking sensitive information (which any organization, Government or private would do). Pretty much everything else that's happened (with Amazon, Mastercard etc) has been accomplished through bitching and moaning, not censorship and coercion.
I wonder if any kids read comics anymore or if they are all too busy with higher-tech pursuits?
I'm 21 years old, and I very rarely see anyone in my local comic shop who looks younger than myself (except on annual Free Comic Day), so no.
Most of my friends read Japanese Manga, and alot of them insist that Manga doesn't count as comics because there's a negative stigma associated with being a comics fan. Despite all the success that comic publishers have had with movies, they've still completely failed to convince the general population that reading comics is nothing to be embarrassed about, and that is why the industry is dying.
I believe they did something like this in the eighties with Crisis on Infinite Earths, except they didn't restart the numbering.
As for messing with the canon, it's not like they don't already constantly retcon things and release new versions of the origin stories.
Their products are a joke compared to what they made in the 80's. Apple is a success today because Steve Jobs has the rare ability to polish a turd, add a lowercase i to the name and make a fortune. Is the iPad the first tablet? No, but they removed the keyboard and replaced the OS with something less versatile to make it the hottest toy on the market. There have also been pda/phone combos (with touchscreens) alot longer than there have been iPhones, but Apple was able to take an existing concept with limited mass-market appeal and sell it all over the world.
Kleeneness is next to Godelness.
