I don't think it was a boon to farmers so much as a boon to Monsanto and ADM. This program was a monstrous subsidy to a couple of very fat companies, at the expense of pretty much everyone else -- people who pay taxes, people who eat, people who had other uses for the land, etc.

I confess this is what I can't understand about the whole concept. It's been years since I've had to do a lot of work poking around BIOS settings, but I can't see any reason why BIOS settings would ever need to be writeable by userspace programs, so this attack shouldn't be, well, an attack. What am I missing?

My 2FA from Google stopped working a few months ago, so I had to turn it off. I don't know why, but I no longer got SMS messages when I asked them to authorize something. Annoying.

I'll add that, although it is not the law of the USA, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 13(2) is explicit: "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."

I live in Indonesia.

In this case it's not about the economy, it's about politics. Indonesia will have parliamentary elections in May 2014 and politicians of all stripes are looking for ways to distinguish them from their competitors. Since none have any platforms to speak of, and all are disgustingly corrupt, they use chest-thumping nationalism as one way to garner attention and hopefully votes. This has just given them a great opportunity and all are trying to out chest-thump the other parties. Mostly harmless.

I completely and totally disagree. You have an inalienable right to the results of tests of your body, whether paid for by you or someone else, whether ordered by a doctor or yourself. You have the right to Google the results of those tests, and even act on your limited knowledge if you are so inclined, even if that is foolish. The medical profession has been able to convince many people that the potential for misuse overrides your basic rights, but it doesn't. You must be free to choose among, say, waiting two weeks for a doctor's appointment or getting the test yourself and doing with the results what you will, assuming the technology exists, which is the subject of this article.

This is a topic near and dear to my heart. I am a type I diabetic and feel much more in control of my diabetes and my life since I moved from Canada to Indonesia. My Canadian endocrinologist was an asshole, but I couldn't go to another one -- all the ones recommended to me were refusing to take on new patients without a referral, and my GP referred his patients to the asshole. Tests could only be done on a doctor's order. Now, I can go to any number of clinics, walk in and get the critical blood test (for me, HbA1C) done in a few minutes for a few dollars. I can store my history over time, and show it to anyone I want, including any doctor I happen to be seeing. I self medicate, yes, using Google, for other conditions. I am in control and my life is better. Dean living with type I diabetes for 27 years, without complications. And happy.

You are so right. I test my blood sugar a few times a day (Type I diabetic). Each test costs around $1, whether I buy test strips in Canada, Singapore or Indonesia. I'm locked into a meter given to me free by Bayer -- that's how much money there is in this business. I would guess the strips cost one cent to manufacture in bulk, two cents at most. The rest is obscene drug store and manufacturer margin. Canadian public health insurance (OHIP in my case) doesn't cover these, nor insulin. Do I believe these should be included in public health care? Absolutely. I haven't checked whether Obamacare specifically includes them, but assuming it does I think it is a huge step forward. Everyone's life includes some random elements, and including some treatments while excluding others from public insurance, or mandated private insurance, strikes me as arbitrary.

It seems that Tom's post is stuck at 2, and I don't understand why, so let me chime in. He's right. I have managed CSR programs in Indonesia, including one at a firm where they had previously invested around $10,000 to establish a microfinance lender. The lender has grown every year, and now has deposits and loans worth around 250,000. They employ people, but nothing compared to the employment their borrowers create. They are careful about screening applicants, and people pay back -- NPL (Non-performing loans) under 2%. I have had experiences with other projects which have generated much poorer returns, I suspect largely due to poor enforcement of the obligation to make regular payments. This stuff is capitalism at it's absolutest finest.

Banks can't do this stuff because their overheads and cost allocation models tell them it's unprofitable for them. That doesn't mean it doesn't work just fine if you don't have their overhead allocation methods. The only alternative for the rural near-poor (under $2 / day) are loan sharks, who charge 5-15% interest per month, which is a good example of unregulated banking at its lowest.

It's possible but it's not currently happening. The types of things he's doing are, as he specifically states in the article, complementary to what others, largely governments, are doing. The point he doesn't mention in the article, but which I think is critical, is that some of the problems his foundation is tackling are bigger than anything governments can do. Infectious diseases cross borders, so are beyond the scope of any single national government to solve. The work on malaria builds on, and exceeds, anything a government can do. Philanthropy sometimes gets a bad name, even among those in the CSR field (where I work) but there are some things that can only be solved by huge philanthropic investments. Polio and malaria are among them.

I agree. I can be a real pedant, but the modern use of "begs the question" clearly fills a need to express an idea which is not as easily expressed in other ways. Circular reasoning already is in the common vocabulary, so having an obscure rough equivalent serves no purpose. In this case the modern usage is superior, and will win out, deservedly.

I remember playing this in 1985, although the code was much older than that, on a PDP-8. I wonder if the code was structured that way to allow blocks of it to be read in from tape, as it wouldn't have been wise to assume a hard drive on some of those architectures.

Seriously? For ONE year, in ONE place, they choose to raise their children in a way similar to the way they were raised. The children will have many, many years of the experiences of their peers, and one year of different experiences. I think it's a bit like living in another country / culture for a year: the children will be much better off for it.

It's not irrelevant at all. If you are one of the defendants in a suit as a result of a motor vehicle collision, you and the other defendants are all subject to "joint and several" liability. That means that if you are found 1% at fault, and the driver is 99% at fault but dead, you are on the hook for all the damages. This judge knows that, and seems to be an idiot whose version of the law will be not be confirmed by higher courts, but it's a mildly troubling decision.