My advice to brave Edward: you already know the ugliness of the machine, so why bargain with the ghost inside?

The impossibility of a corrupt system according justice to its whistleblowers is a good reason for Edward to remain in Russia. Moreover, he should know, and will know based on poll data, that his sacrifice is scarcely appreciated by our society of sheep, anyway.

You've done your share. You've paid your price in loss of home and comfort. F--- Washington; construct a life out of all the many rich possibilities that have nothing to do with this declining empire and its sordid leaders.

I hate religion as much as the next godless heathen, but really now.

Surely you don't think climate change is a direct result of belief? At worst, fantasies about the afterlife can make the world appear more disposable to the god-bothered, but I don't think it's churchy mumbo-jumbo that drives hyper-capitalism.

Something else has led the west to overproduce, overconsume, overbear and overlord. And the causes and reasons are rather more prosaic than heavenly.

Oh, come.

Surely any society that can produce John Carmack can't be all bad.

Let's leave aside your completely subjective generalities about Muslims and Jews.

Instead, let's focus on the single meaningful metric that might help us test your hypothesis about "shoving their opinions down your throat," by which is generally meant something akin to propagandizing and/or policy that leaves the audience little or no room for maneuver or objection. I'll just assume that's your meaning, too.

I would submit the annual US subsidy of $500 per man, woman and child ($3b total) in direct foreign assistance to Israel is probably a fairer measure of whose opinions are imposed on Americans. That's roughly one fifth of our entire foreign aid budget. Now, you might happen to agree with such aid for religious or ethnic reasons, as is your right; all fine and good. I happen to oppose it as largesse that's morally and strategically unwise. But our sheer inability as opponents to find Democratic or Republican political representatives who'll demur from the policy rather neatly fits the definition of having it shoved down our throats.

"However, the neural net still struggles to match average human performance in games such as Seaquest, Q*bert and, most importantly, Space Invaders."

There's the Singularity put off for another year.

My pooch was always prone to dingleberries. Too much magnetic alignment, obviously.

Seriously, though: as a longtime admirer, I have to say his genius would be better used in gaming if he rid himself of the albatross known as id.

Imagine what he could do in any number of R&D areas if he didn't have to ship games bogged down by boring narratives, bland level design and twenty-year old ideas of corridor-based run-and-gun.

I wish he'd turn his attention to improving AI and developing emergent gaming. The next frontier awaits, but our Einstein is bent on rendering the same old mousetrap in ever higher fidelity.

Those who aren't being wiretapped, tortured or disappeared by the US imperium have absolutely nothing to worry about.

Like the eponymous player in the song Pinball Wizard, "I must've played them all," but I'm so fed up with the black heart of corporate gaming that I can see a move like this by MS or Sony driving me away from consoles.

I don't want Pay-2-Win on IOS games, I don't want to buy missing features for AAA titles as DLC, I don't want DRM hoops to jump through and I surely don't want a system requiring an always-on connection. Over Comcast -- are you kidding? I'm lucky if my Comcast connection is even usually-on.

It might be different, slightly, if gaming hadn't spent the last decade becoming less and less diverse, cannibalizing itself, regurgitating lots of paint-by-numbers stuff we've seen so many times already. So adding monetary injury to the insult of omnipresent banality is really a northbridge too far.

Lately, I find myself on GOG buying old titles for a pittance. They aren't all nirvana -- some plainly haven't held up -- but a few are quite amusing and richly satisfying (I'm looking at you, Dungeon Keeper). The 360 and PS3 sit in their boxes, unpacked for months since a recent house move. The iPad games go unthumbed. Gaming from before the present era of nonstop exploitation holds out its low-poly hand, and it's really WYSIWYG: the other mitt isn't concealed behind its back with a billy club!

Excellent points.

Unfortunately, it's hard to get people to open their eyes about anything. Hardest perhaps of all with what they take to be benign, useful and friendly ("oooh, look at that Valentine's Day Google Doodle!"). Add ubiquity and the herd is fully placated.

As we watch Microsoft's fortunes wane and Google's rise, it's becoming obvious evil simply adapted to circumstances. It got cuter.

They taught the rats to choose the active light source by poking their noses into a port to receive a sip of water as a reward

Great tool for positive reinforcement in our congress critters. Still, science fiction teaches us it is always better to stimulate the pain receptors!

Wozniak said he was proud of how loyal Apple fans were to the iPhone

A product to which he contributed nothing. A company from which he is long divorced.

I understand the need for sentimentality in order to soften his criticism, but it is sentimentality. It gets tiresome seeing corporations -- and their ex-founders -- constantly flog these ersatz emotions. His phoniness is at a mild end of the spectrum, of course, compared to rows of low-salaried store employees standing in lines cheering customers...

And yes, I have a bloody iPhone. I'm not "proud" of it, and when I've been told at the Apple store "congratulations" I like to say, "Ehhh, no need. Many things make me happier than your products." That's how to stop a Stepford Clerk in his tracks.

Coming soon to the Wii: "Wiiiiii Me? The Zappy Fun-er-cizer!"

Refurbishers, refurbishers, refurbishers, refurbishers!

ad . dic . tion, n.: The state or practice of engaging in an activity that does not earn money for one's boss. See antonymns at "well-adjusted" and "slave."