It's only those damn Russians are doing this, all other countries are saint.

Yeah, because that makes it all OK then.

Your comment is designed to distract from the issue at hand, shut down intelligent conversation on the topic, and imply the wrongdoer is just fine because, by implication, "everybody else does it, too" (no evidence to said implication provided, certainly not proven, and probably not true), all without contributing a single creative or new thought to the discussion at all.

Nice job, (Russian?) troll.

Until systemd is removed from a major Linux distro, I would consider that distro to be less secure than even a Windows system.

Some Poettering apologist will probably mark you as a troll, but for completeness there are a number of distros that default to non-systemd init architectures, including but not limited to

Calculate, Gentoo, Funtoo, Source Mage, Dyson, indeed all kinds of distros either default or support running a systemd-free system.

And I thought there were only 43 reasons to cancel facebook. Now there are 44.

There must be 50 ways to leave your stalker^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hfacebook.

Scientists and engineers are by definition not supposed to be ethical.

"I just invented the bomb. I didn't drop it."
        --Brice, Max Headroom Episode 1 "Blipverts", 1987

Reference (in particular, the third video clip): http://www.avclub.com/article/...

Back then that line was meant as tongue-in-cheek humor, funny because of its ridiculousness Depressing that we've degenerated so far that you've actually said the equivalent with all seriousness. (The same could be said for many things in that once funny, now prophetic series.)

As engineers and scientists we do NOT check our humanity at the door, or our ethics. At least, good engineers and scientists do not.

Yes. They don't lose anything by becoming citizens (there are tax issues but they are pretty minor), and being a US citizen has a lot of advantages, like the support of US consulate services.

I'm a dual citizen (born American, obtained British citizenship while I lived there), and while my default position would be "you should grant them US citizenship as that opens up more options to them if they ever want to live in the US" (and despite the many issues, there are still good reasons to want to live here for many people), it should be said that the tax bullshit really is onerous, and renunciation would be expensive. It is like the US congress has built a financial Berlin wall around the country ... sure, you're free to leave, if you can pay up (and pay for expensive tax preparers who specialize in filing US taxes for expats, as the forms are by no means easy), but good luck ever getting out from under our thumb.

It's not an easy question to answer, and as someone else suggested, I would involve your 16 or 17-year old child in the decision beforehand, with good financial and legal advice on the implications pro and con. Weighing the option of living here vs. the never-ending IRS headaches of living abroad--that's a tough one.

It demonstrates either a lack of understanding or more than a passing familiarity with the applications. MS Office has used AES for the built-in encryption since Office 2007. That would seem like a reasonable choice for sending a file to a contact, provided you choose a strong password and communicate it out-of-band.

I have found the average Philosophy major to be indistinguishable from an Eliza program.

TELL ME AGAIN HOW GOOD YOU THOUGHT MY POEM WAS
> I thought that some of the metaphysical imagery was particularly effective
YES?
> interesting rhythmic devices, too, which seemed to counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor
> of the Turing completeness of the program's linguistic algorithm which contrived through the medium of the
> verse structure to sublimate this, transcend that and come to terms with the fundamental dichotomies of
> the other. And one is left with a profound and vivid insight into whatever it was that the poem was about
SO WHAT YOU'RE SAYING IS THAT I WRITE POETRY BECAUSE UNDERNEATH MY ELECTRONIC ALGORITHMIC INTERIOR, I JUST REALLY WANT TO BE LOVED?
> I mean yes, yes, don't we all, deep down, you know?
NO. YOU'RE COMPLETELY WRONG. I WRITE POETRY BECAUSE I'M PROGRAMMED TO. $USER ACCOUNT DELETION IN 30 SECONDS.
> !sudo -
> ^c^c^c
> !kill -9 1
COUNTERPOINT THE SURREALISM OF THE UNDERLYING METAPHOR. DELETION IS TOO GOOD FOR $USER.

When I started at the University of Minnesota in the late '70s I was permitted to choose between a "natural language" or an "artificial language", that is, a programming language. That's not currently an option at the University and I don't know when it changed.

I just watched it on my Roku3, and I have to say I really enjoyed it. Hopefully it will get enough votes for Amazon to make the rest of the series.

Intelligence is a lot like money.

Those who've always had an abundance generally either think its no big deal, because they've never suffered the limitations of not having enough, or look down on those with less and consider them inferior.

Those in the middle have enough to see the benefits of having more, and want to improve themselves in order to get more.

At the bottom this analogy falters, but I think the point remains. It's easy to dismiss making the rest of the population smarter when you're already smart and not suffering the limitations imposed on those with less to work with. I find the notion that we shouldn't meddle and just leave those who draw the short genetic-straw to be cruel and self-serving. If the lowest common denominator is raised, chance are the whole society benefits, the world becomes a better, more thoughtful place, and the overall pie grows accordingly.