You could happily sit in the company of many of history's great men. The too were willing to sacrifice countless lives for some lofty goal.

Is there any benefit too small, in your mind, for my kids to die supporting it?

I care more about my children's survival than Thomas Jefferson cared about my kids' survival.

America no longer has distributed agriculture or fuel production. A revolution, however warranted, would lead to an unimaginable amount of freezing and starvation within the first two winters, I'd wager.

"Any excuse will serve a tyrant." -Aesop.

I just binge-played Plague, Inc. on my phone.

Now when I hear a story like this, my first thought is, "Will I get bonus DNA points because of this?"

Provide money and guidance to the local school systems then let them buy the approved technology they need rather than what is dictated to them

I've got a different take on the matter. As far as I know, the federal government exerts control over public education by taking money away from the states via taxation, and then only returning it if the states will teach in the manner seen fit by the Dept. of Education.

I.e., they use the ability of the federal government to tax anything and everything to circumvent the limitations on the powers of the federal government.

So in contrast to your solution, I'd suggest the federal government just taxes the states' citizens less, and let the states figure it out if they want to. Problem solved.

Actually, anything with practically opaque internals is a potential security hole, including processors, compiled software, network equipment. Also anything involving telecommunications.

If China is picking on only Apple, I'd wager it's to drum up business for some company that's owned by a state or an official.

China is right: the iPhone is a gaping security hole.

I also have little doubt that their "solution" will also be a gaping security hole, except that it will be designed so only China's intelligence services can exploit it.

that nothing can be kept secret anymore?

It's hard to say, because in general we don't know about the things that have remained secret. We know the numerator, but not the denominator.

I don't think that's a distinction worth making in most circles. It's only after a few years of study that one starts to see the distinction between the knowledge needed for software development vs. the mathematical aspects of computing theory. And then they keep on re-intersecting anyway, with things like programming language type systems, concurrency, and proving certain qualities of a piece of software. Good software developers need some theory, and most good theoreticians end up programming sometimes.

I'm not sure Javascript is literally Turing complete, because it can't simulate an infinite tape. I think its expressive power is, technically speaking, that of a linear bounded automaton (LBA). Which is subtly less powerful than a Turing machine.

Anyone who lives for this topic want to weigh in?

I used it in my PhD thesis work. It was a productive language, just not a fun one.

For fun, I still get the biggest kick out of pure functional languages. It's nice to see that job advertisements for them seem to be on the uptick.

But in your perfect world, would we even need cops?

I think you're talking about the ~535 traitors who comprise Congress, but refuse to impeach an out-of-control President.

Exactly whom will you behead, when probably 30%+ of Americans consider the NSA's actions appropriate?

Our country is deeply and closely divided on tons of issues right now. I shudder to think how many of us would sign off on killing everyone in the opposing group.