I don't know a lot about the US. But of course it has always been ruled by the elite - the founding fathers were from the 1%, and the "revolution" was just a change of management that did nothing to benefit the common man. But while fearful of mob rule, they felt a greater duty to the commoners than today's politicians seem to. (or at least the white commoners)

  The recent development I think is the power of the corporations, rather than just wealthy individuals. The corporations seem to have less collective conscience.

No, thats just the US, and other countries with first-past the-post voting system.

Talking about the US again? Though that is only a relatively recent development.

For what? Voting in a dictator counts as a democracy, does it? The Russians dabbled in democracy, and then rejected it.
In the context of an English-language forum, modern democracy means a multi-party parliamentary system with rule of law, as invented by the British. Without an effective opposition, the parliament becomes a rubber stamp for the executive, and politicians stop caring about votes. In some countries this can work better than a multi-party system, but it functions very differently from a democracy in the Western sense.

Ah, but when man first invented the wheel (long after metallurgy and shipping) there was a great thunderclap from the heavens as God slapped his forehead and said "Why didn't I think of that?".

We can look to nature for inspiration, but have you ever seen the old film of the early plane with flapping wings?

No, a balloon is not so easy. With 1% the atmosphere, you need a 100X bigger balloon than on earth. And mind those winds.

But an aerofoil / rotor has advantages - first it only needs 40% of the lift (lower gravity) .
More significantly, while lift is linear to air density, lower pressure also means reduced drag on the rotor, allowing faster rotation and/or bigger rotors (lift proportional to area).

Drag formula is similar to lift, so with the same power, you can spin the rotor 10x faster to get the same drag and lift as on earth. (force = density x velocity squared ... )
In practice, you make the rotors bigger and slower, but you get the idea . Aerofoils work better than balloons in low pressure.

(IANAAE)

:-) I think you've been watching way too many Hollywood movies.

Ha, good one Trollston! You had me there for a minute.

Are you subscribing to the conspiracy theory that the 4th plane was shot down?
And the authorities cannot distinguish between a bomb-threat and a hijacking?

With physical access, you can reflash the bootloader. There is a write-protect screw in some models.

And why would a user reboot? By the time he does, its too late - the google password has been changed, and his data sucked out of his google-drive.

Ouch! Your bad maths is making my head hurt. Amp is a measure of current, not energy or charge.
  A nA is one nano-couloumb per second. WTF does "nanoampere a second" even mean? Current acceleration?
  One nano-Amp for an hour is precisely one nano-Amp hour, duh!
Better known as 3.6 microcoulombs. At 2kV, it is 7.2 milli-joules of energy.
For that idiocy you get a +5? Mods need to stay in school.

FFS! First you equate amp-hours with power, and then you equate it with amps. Where did the time unit go?
Your 3AHr battery at one nano-Amp will last 3 x 10 to the 9 hours, or 342,000 years. (neglecting internal leakage :-)
Of course you will need a few of them in series to equal the 2kV of the Oxford Bell.
What has happened to /.?

(disclaimer: After that rant, I'm almost certain to have made an error myself.)

Oh, no they have not.

A macbook can install 3rd party apps out of the box. It is not locked down.
But if you want Skype, Minecraft, or Steam for example, on a Chromebook, you need to unlock it (developer mode, unsupported) and install a full Linux environment first.

But yes, no need to replace ChromeOS, just supplement it.

Why do that? Chromebook is already running Linux, and you can easily install a full Ubuntu (or whatever) environment under ChromeOS, running them side-by-side, using Crouton scripts.
No need to reboot. A bit like a using a virtual machine, but its all native.

The biggest problem is having to wipe all your data when switching to developer mode, and Google considers this a feature. Couldn't they just encrypt the private data instead? I cannot see the point. If a bad buy gets hold of your Chrome-book and switches to developer mode, he can just install a login screen that grabs your password, and gets all your private data from the cloud.

No, thats not at all what we mean by a free country. It started 800 years ago with the Magna Carta (the great granddad of the US constitution) which (attempted to) limit the power of the Monarch.
Freedom means freedom of the individual, (and of local authority, originally the Lords).

What you describe is called "anarchy". (Or, in the US, "libertarianism")

All that "hippy stuff" may well have some relevance to flu, but vitamins won't do anything to stop you catching measles if you are exposed and not immune.
There are good arguments against flu vaccine, but measles should be a no-brainer. It is safe and effective. Nothing else is.

Thats seriously fucked up. Have you considered emigrating to a free country?