It was about "design" as in "interactive user interface design", not as in Illustrator, Inkscape, Photoshop etc.

Windows+X is your friend (no need to go through Metro, not even the first time)

What % of them actually cared about us enough to consider us as enemy in the first place? That is, before the drone attacks?

The article isn't very clear about this either.

Those legal principles and constitutional rights are certainly nice, but looking at FATCA, TSA and everything around "terrorism", copyright and taxation, fishing expeditions and profiling do seem to be the US tool of choice recently.

Who said anything about "selling" any work? (they hired *me*, not *my projects*)
Who said the opensource project was affected in any way by me being hired? (it's not, except I'm now also paid a few hours to work on it)
Who said anything about a large company where you'd become a "corporate monkey"? (it's a small startup)

It's an opinion, not a fact (hence "Imo"). And yes, it's based on my experience and anecdotes I've heard. Your experiences may differ, that's fine.

I got my current job because of my opensource work. A major contributor to a project I maintain founded a startup and hired me there. The project is used by the startup, but remains "independent" and is still opensource and alive.

Imo, major opensource contributions really do help getting an interesting job.

"Current annual revenue is estimated at somewhere between $15 and $20 million and the company is backed by millions in venture capital."

http://torrentfreak.com/utorrent-becomes-ad-supported-to-rake-in-millions-120810/

So unless TF got their numbers wrong, this is not at all about surviving - they do very well already.

Among others a reply from Frank Shaw (MSFT):

http://www.neowin.net/news/what-the-hell-is-microsofts-lost-decade

If only these guys would apply their fancy IP laws to their IP laws, preventing them from spreading uncontrollably ....

Update: UPC Cablecom works again as well

UPC Cablecom (Switzerland, Zurich) - times out right after the first router (static.cablecom.ch)
Init7 (Switzerland, Zurich) - works perfectly fine (via portlane.net)

Interesting that you question China's motive behind its increasing military spending, yet seem perfectly fine with the US military spending which is apparently still much larger than China's. Yes, it's ok for the US to plan for more than just "peacful regional defense" (they're actually obligated to do so), but the same is also true for China. No, I don't like that either, but it's rational.

It's interesting how a lot of Germans cry out loud when the EU overrides some of their laws and make them give up a tiny bit of data privacy, while at the same time they (together with the French) try very hard to force other EU members like Austria (and also non-EU nations like Switzerland) to completely give up their *banking data* privacy.