He's a blowhard who takes himself far, far more seriously than anyone else does. And has no off switch.

He desperately wants to matter. And doesn't.

I've never taken him seriously because the first time I ever heard of him was when he was running his web site with instructions on how to bypass parental filtering software. Mind you, nothing wrong with that, but he whined like a little girl when that web site got blocked by the very software he was trying to help people defeat.

Like a little girl.

There actually is a treaty that would allow prosecutors to go to a Irish court and get a search warrant. Why they haven't done so, nobody knows (though I suspect the standards of probable cause are stricter in Ireland).

Given the unemployment (about 25%), and some generally fucked up bankruptcy laws (you can't bankrupt a mortgage, for instance, no matter how underwater you are), Spain has some pretty serious problem, and it shows.

However, it's not a very good comparison to, well, anywhere else in the world.

But not commercial drivers licenses, or vehicle registration. And their insurance will hang them out to dry when they have a police report that says the driver was operating an illegal taxi service without the proper license. And US states, at least, are increasingly enacting regulations specifically to classify Uber and similar services as a livery service, which is a commercial use, This requires commercial license, as noted above.

Also, apparently, Uber's insurance only covers the passengers, pedestrians, and the other guy's vehicle. Not the Uber drivers's vehicle, which still isn't covered by their own personal insurance while they are driving for a livery service. And Uber's insurance only applies if their driver is at fault. If you get in an accident with an uninsured driver (and about 25% of California's drivers are, last I heard) who is at fault, you can sue the other guy for money he'll never, ever have, but neither Uber's nor their driver's insurance will ever give you a penny.

Insurance is the biggest gotcha on this kind of service. The most likely risk to bite you in the ass. And if it does, odds are, you're bankrupt, at best. Enjoy your cheap, illegal taxi ride, there, butch.

For the most part, apparently, they're hanging drivers out to dry.

Uber may claim their insurance will cover you for an accident while you have passenger, but no insurance company in the world will cover you - or Uber - if it is determined that the driver is operating illegally at the time.

And at that point, not only are you responsible for the damage to your car, and the other guy's, but also for any medical bills for passengers in either car, as well. I'm not sure my personal health insurance would cover me if I were a passenger in an illegal taxi when injured.

That's the difference between real civil disobedience and the whiny little bitches we have today. Real civil disobedience is breaking the law so that you get arrested, preferably with the TV cameras watching. Not whining like a little girl that laws are enforced consistently.

Charlie Stross, of all people, should know that science fiction isn't and has never been, about the future. It's about today, told in a way that makes it easier for people to examine the hot button issues without getting too emotional. Or it's put escapism, and it just doesn't matter whether the details are right or wrong.

Plus, anybody who makes up a word like "enculturation" should be beaten with a stick.

Getting bought out for a ton of cash. Sadly, that's not what happened here.

Is Hughes a visionary cleaning out dead wood or a clueless tech star leaving destruction in his wake?

Why on earth would you think those are mutually exclusive?

However, you need to know the precise definition of "computer employee" in California. It is intended to cover programmers, and specifically exempts people who work mainly with hardware. And if your primary job is manipulating data, you're an administrative employee, not a computer employee.

(I know all this because our then-new HR director tried to classify me as a computer employee, which would mean I'd have to start punching a timeclock. I objected - it'd be a pain in the ass to have to track whether or not I had to put my pants on when I got a weekend call, and, equally important, my employer does not abuse the salaried exempt status - I average about 40 hours a week, overall, despite occasionally having multiple 12+ hour days in the same week. And while I do hardware, and networking, and all those usual IT things, the majority of my time is spent manipulating data, so I managed to get reclassified as an administrative employee. I almost hope that we get audited by the labor board someday, and they object to me being exempt. I swear I'll show up at that meeting with my own lawyer, to represent me against the labor board.)

Not all employers of IT people abuse them.

Cronkite's hero was Edward R. Murrow, who was the giant whose shoulders Cronkite stood on.

Indeed. News is a business, and it is, by and large, an advertising business. In other words, the viewer isn't the customer, the advertiser is. And the predominate marketing strategy for the news business for the last several decades has been to scream at us "WATCH OUR PROGRAM OR YOU WILL DIE!!! AND YOUR CHILDREN WILL BE EATEN BY DINGOS AND SOMEONE WILL KICK YOUR DOG!!!!"

Because that's what the audience will tune in for. Retarded hysteria. Says more about the audience than the news programs, but it says a lot about the news programs. And all of it is bad.

Not really. Google actively wants this crap because they are an advertising company, and their entire business model depends on destroying all privacy everywhere (except for the privacy of their proprietary database of your private information). If they put in real security for privacy settings for other people's apps, then Google can't track you either.

"The purpose of product placement/product integration/branded entertainment," explains Disney in a job posting, "is to give a brand exposure outside of their traditional media buy."

Let me translate that in to normal English:

"The purpose of product placement ads is to shove advertising down people's throats until they choke to death on it so we can rifle through the corpse's pockets for loose change." Or, more realistically, "Our normal advertising is so annoying and offensive (because all advertising is, these days) that we have to find other ways to force it on to people because if advertising doesn't actually work, we'll all lose our jobs had have to actually work for a living."

Fuck Disney.