CoffeeScript is nothing but syntactic sugar. I don't get why people are so excited about it, it is exactly javascript, with a different look. It is not a language of its own, and on top of that, doesn't run natively in its form and makes debugging a pain...

It was you!!! I want my $100 back!

Interestingly enough, when you listen to such a piece, you hear a pattern of alternating low octaves notes and high octaves notes. Even though there is no mathematical repetition, I couldn't help anticipating the next big octave jump in a direction or the other, and the music had some kind of pattern to me. How weird that we can find meaning and feel sentiment in the most mathematically pattern-less piece of music?

These are all languages which can be easily approached. They all can be run from the command line and have a fairly simple syntax for beginners. They allow to start with a simple one liner 'hello world', and can go all the way to OO concepts, database connections, web dev, interaction with other languages/concepts, etc...
Also, they provide the instant gratification needed for the beginner as it's easy to find simple projects that would satisfy the needs of a newcomer (creating a simple web form, a script to list all their mp3s, an equation solver, a graph plotter, etc... )

Personally, I started with BASIC (before I had a computer, writing programs on paper...) and if I had to do it all again, I'd probably go with PHP

Amiga OS had it done years ago : MUI

I wonder if they also use any kind of geolocation / IP Lookup to change these rates as well... It seems to me that targeting localities would make more sense than assumptions based on user-agents

A security researcher involved with a website that leaks confidential documents on his way to a hacking conference was questioned for 3 hours at a border... So what? Isn't that expected for this type of work? Don't get me wrong, I'm not in favor of heavy government snooping but he kind of had it coming... If I was him, I would surely expect this to happen once in a while. Nothing to see here, move along...

Actually Hong Kong (such as other parts of China like Macau) is a SAR - Special Autonomous Region. It maintains a high degree of freedom compared to the main land and will do for another 35 years or so

I guess they're too busy allocating all their resources trying to find intelligent life in their class rooms...

the attempt to appeal the decision, TFA states that the court said they illegally obtained the names because the authorities 'actively scrolled to the right side of the spreadsheet'... Isn't that defense like "Sir, you had a warrant for my computer and found marijuana on the table... you actively looked at the table when your warrant was just for my computer". I think this is an example of the American Justice not working. If a file that incriminates people subject to the warrant also incriminates other people, I don't see how this is an abuse. The judge's decision was absurd. And don't get me wrong, I usually don't like big brother stuff, but on the other hand, tying the hand of the authorities when they're trying to do a decent job is not going to help the situation either.

But it's not 2012 yet!

When you say your den is physically secure, you mean it's in a bunker with 4 inch thick steel walls and a retina+fingerprint scanner to get in with an auto destruct on failed attempts? Otherwise, If somebody breaks in and steal your computers, I'm pretty sure you'll be happy your browsers don't display ALL your passwords in clear text, and don't even get me started on non expiring sessions. Bad enough they stole your stuff, you don't want want them to also steal all your online accounts (and $$$) Personally, I was never ever bothered by a little security. It's like putting your seat belt. You might never ever have the use for it but the once in a lifetime occurrence when you need it to save your life, you'll be happy you'll have put it on.