Specifically, can we assume that any extension loaded into Firefox via the official extensions repository, is open-source, and that someone from Mozilla is checking the extension before an update is released?

I looked at this, and there are 2 things I can't understand:

1. How does key distribution work? Even public-key crypto of this type doesn't necessarily work if there is a man in the middle.
2. How is metadata protected? For an SMS, often the timestamp and sender/recipient pairing is as revealing as the message content.

For Linux users, is there any way to replace the iTunes functionality to get music and photos onto an iDevice, and have it properly recognise the library?
I only use Linux, but have an iPad3. I have mediocre photo functionality[1] via a jailbreak, but am still stuck with only one folder and no sub-folders. As for getting music on there (especially .ogg), forget it.
[1] http://www.richardneill.org/stotbig#ipad

I agree. Clementine just works, and stays out of your way otherwise. It responds quickly to external changes to the library (using inotify).
For me, my music collection is a set of well-ordered files/directories, each with a .m3u playlist and appropriate tags. (The Unix "everything is a file" approach works well here). Then the music player is just for playback, for playing them, and not for editing tags (use easytag), ripping CDs (a shell-script), nor for buying music (CD store).

If we're talking about the great firewall of china, you're right. BUT most corporate proxies run fairly standard software, and only update it every few months (if that). So, there's a pretty good chance of my getting the JS through the first time, and of the vendor taking a long time to work around it (if they ever do). Yes it's cat and mouse, but there are a lot of mice with different strategies, the cat isn't very quick, and as long as the mouse gets through once, it's enough to let the user know he's being snooped on.

Hashing it won't help - I want to inform the user that their data is being intercepted, not that it's being corrupted.

I operate a webserver, and I'd like to protect my users against SSL proxying. At the moment, all I can do is tell them to check my key's fingerprint against what the browser shows. But I'd really like to do this in JS. Is there any way to use JS to get the fingerprint string (that I can see by clicking on the padlock icon)? Then I could send that back to the server (from JS), and check if it's been tampered.

(A really effective evil proxy would be able to defeat this, but most corporate proxys aren't going to be able to parse my own JS and work out precisely how to transparently defeat it).

I think I'd go for the exact opposite argument: that public-interest should be a valid defense to breaking the official secrets act.

I am the author of a small university dating website, and I recently had this explained to me. Looking at something like the "Genderbread person" it seems that sexual-identity isn't the simple set of options that I originally designed i.e. "{Male ,Female} seeks {Male, Female, Either}". In fact, it's a 16-dimensional space, with floating point coordinates
(4 axes, each with a mean and std-dev, and the same 4+4 for what you seek).

BUT... what is a computer programmer to do? I don't have the slightest idea even what pronouns to use, let alone how to sensibly represent this 16-D space, or make it searchable. Any ideas? There's an excellent site about "Falsehoods programmers believe about names"... could someone write something similar for gender?

In the end, my response to the requestor was that, regrettably, we had started out with a design saying that sex was boolean (M/F), and would they please pick the nearest match for themself, then elaborate in the comments. I made a design error when I started out, but haven't the time to fix it now (I estimate a man-week to fix and test all the instances where the codebase assumes that !M F), and for a 600-member site without membership fees, this isn't practical. But I'd love to see some documentation of the correct way to handle the problem, so that maybe in future I can fix the design.

There seem to be quite a lot of references, usually well researched and with eyewitness testimony about poor care. Cases where her victims suffered and died because they went to her care centers, rather than to the existing hospitals. Not to mention the awful waste of giving money to support missionaries rather than medical care. Another example: http://futiledemocracy.wordpress.com/2011/03/28/the-curse-of-mother-theresa/

As for defending the right to oppose contraception... yes, I agree with you in a Western context, where it's just a debate, and people can rationally choose. But in many less secular societies, this is the equivalent of "fire in a crowded theatre" - her advocacy actually denied people access to birth control, keeping the uneducated poor poor - at this point, it goes from an issue of free speech to one of moral culpability (in the same way that the previous South African president has the blood of millions on his hands for his continued assertions that AIDS was caused by poverty, not by HIV).

Also, we do actually need the occasional contrarian. Our democracy is weak enough without further deference to the strong, wealthy and powerful! Also, to be a "troll", it's usually implicit that the argument itself is weak. I've not yet seen Hitchens lose a debate.

Hmm... it's not the relations with dictators that I find so repulsive, nor even her absolute opposition to abortion. Those might be what you call "slip-ups".
But she did, in fact, preside over awful standards of care, people were denied access to medical treatment, and suffering was not alleviated, because it was considered "spiritually noble". MT also campaigned agains family planning and contraception. So while, by religious lights, she might have been "moral", the effect was deeply cruel and wicked, keeping people in poverty and away from real medical care.

Also, if you want to take issue with Hitchens,I don't really think you should imply that Henry Kissinger was among the better specimens of humanity! Nor, for that matter, was the previous Pope (whose time in the Hitler Youth one may overlook, as the actions of a child under compulsion, but who fully deserves to go to Hell for knowing inaction on child-abuse, and opposition to condoms despite HIV).

That said, I do entirely agree with you that nobody is perfect and anyone can be made to look bad. Your "exhilaration" quote is one example... I checked the context of this, and while I don't find it in good taste, it's not an uncommon description of how some people feel at the start of a war, even those on the good side.
(You might consider imagining yourself as Churchill, at the moment when Hitler invaded Poland - a rather strange mix of gloom at the inevitable impending tragedy, combined with some excitement that, finally, because the evil thing has become so bad, that the world can delay acting no longer and that it will stand up and fight.)

I think Mother Theresa would choose not to print anything.
She was a friend of poverty, not of the poor, and considered suffering to be a state of grace.
She was a rather nasty piece of work, who kept the poor in poverty, and prevented many dying people from getting access to medicine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WQ0i3nCx60

What about migration from Organiser? Is there anything out there that can replace it, preferably by importing the data format?

How about a "Privacy-Reqiurement In Principle Act", mandating that all devices should be secured to protect the user's privacy so that EVEN Law enforcement cannot ever get access. Backdooring should be a criminal offense, as should excess logging, and facilitating wiretapping. Product safety laws should be updated to treat software vulnerabilities the same way as toxic components.

Then instead of going around with the fantasy that law enforcement can fix problems, politicians might devote some more energy to fixing the underlying causes (such as foreign policies that cause "blowback" and the war on drugs). It will also make the country much safer against "cyber war".

Sometimes, a program can be dead because it's obsolete. Others can appear dead because they have simply been completed.
For example, I'd guess that xclock hasn't been updated in many years... but it's still widely used for testing X11.