There seem always to be some brute force policy which affects the privacy of all citizens, because a few criminals. Let them first solve their problems with their president who is a pedophile. I suggest that they put a logbox in his computer and publish all logs for everyone to see!

I also suggest governments should first solve their own ICT problems before exporting those to their citizens by shoving a hardware version of a bundestrojan in everyones throat.

RMS must be the first to acknowledge that there are plenty opportunities to make the point he made in his article. This is not one of them. I think it shows he is not equipped to be a leader, he might be fighting for morals, yet losing some himself. Family Jobs still is mourning and then write such an article makes me feel disgusted, and I have no doubts that most of us will have that same feeling. What an awful display of bad taste!

Well I'll don't mind having a bit pain in the nutsack if I would own such bike. Tron is part of my childhood, it was extremely cool then and still is. I am just plain jealous I don't have one. Let's be fair.

Oh really, please check your email...

The problem for apple is that because it has become such a popular provider of these services, at some point some powerful people get the same problems as everyone else, and then it's a problem. But no matter how politically incorrect that may be, it's is plain stupid of Apple to be totally ignorant on Murphy's law. That lawyer might just know how to peel an Apple... And if he doesn't then someone else might. So let's all wait for the inevitable. I think this whole Itunes problem is clearly something Apple finds hard to fix, otherwise it would be fixed already.

I want to suggest it's designer with the Phd takes it first himself for a testdrive. And we decide if the test provided sufficient results. All in the name of science of course :p

I am happy to see people complaining in what can be approved in games. Complaining about trivial matters is a luxury. I personally don't play games that often. My own complaints are more related to software related matters, which are not trivial to me as software development is my main source of income.

Nice reply :) The point is that the systematic risk involved with the current system is that it is inherently unstable. When the regulator doesn't regulate the current system (I especially refer to the high risk- high profit sweet spots) than it becomes extremely unstable. When all the shareholders of a regulator are "regulatee", then like any other organization the regulator will only do what's in the interest of their sharholders (regulatee) and thus will not regulate.

For a regulator to reason to not regulate something, for the sake of financial innovation is the worst possible reason and even more so when one would also involve the historical context of how disruptive financial innovations always have been. And because the derivatives market was explicitly chosen not to be regulated, it became a bubble of hot air 10 times the size of the real economy of the world. It is this bubble that allowed shadow banking, also plays a role in the last recession. The only reason for it not to be regulated is that all banks primary source of income had been securitized products (which are derivatives) and that source was so extremely profitable that banks liked securitized sub-prime mortgages. As all members of the Fed have been working inside commercial banks for a while they exactly know all the profitability, the risks and the addiction of banks to these products, they just chose to look at the other way because they didn;t want to be the party pooper.
So when governments can very easily expand their debts, and the current banking system is very dangerous for price stability a fixed money system is what you need. Even with a fractional gold standard you can have the healthy inflation you need. How ever with this system governments only procrastinate paying their debts which they are all not able to pay. Then sovereign payday or the unavoidable systematic risks of banks show up (most likely both as we see now). The consequence of such event is a downward correction. And these system shocks have occurred way less during the gold standard.

The increase because fiat money finance options and inflation is a myth. People may feel wealthy by the easy spending which high debts allow them, but that is illusionary debt. As it's a debt, they don't spend money they have (it's not their money). When such system shock occurs the middle class gets diminished because of investments going sour (e.g. houses), bailing-out banks, stimulus, austerity and inflation.

Feeling wealthy with high private debt is one thing, if that money would be used to invest in productive means so you can pay back that debt and after that can reap the profits of these productive means. But when people use debt to consume, payday might make them feel suddenly a lot less wealthy.

The Federal Reserve Bank, the central bank of the US, is not federal and also not a reserve bank. Since 1968, when redemption of pre-1963 Federal Reserve notes for gold or silver officially ended, and the value of the dollar by fiat (meaning the value is managed by the Federal Reserve Bank), the dollar has devalued 90%. And also note that the purchasing power of gold has been quite boring consistent since it's use as money during for about 2700 years of existence (which have been used also by the entire world). If governments wouldn't spend unwisely, and central banks would regulate people might be like to hold gold less. Gold imposes a stricter and more prudent policy and also limits the amounts of money a central bank could lend.

As long as the bankers are not really regulated but take high risks until systematic shocks occur as a consequence. The regulation of banks should be done by it's central bank. However, all the commercial banks of the sovereign are required to be shareholder in order to get a license. So when all shareholders of the Central bank are taking huge risks and making money, it's very unlikely they will be regulated. In a sense Central Banks are national banking industry organizations who only serve interests of commercial banks. What has that trust of the value of the dollar and the Federal Reserve done for you lately??

Money is a store of value. What would you have your money on: as a store of value which has lost 90% of it's value and still loosing (despite being the most used currency) or gold which have been consistent in buying power since for about 2700 years.?

Even Central banks know it and they have, for good reasons, the largest stakes in gold. I know Bernanke says it's for traditional reasons that they have physical gold, but do you really believe banks that much are sentimental about traditions to have such quantities?

On the side, you bring it as if we all listen to the economists in their judgment about fixed supplies of stores of value, but that judgment is hardly unanimous. In fact there are more theoretical frameworks. But I am more of a pragmatist. You keep your dollars in your pocket and I keep my bars silver which I have bought many years a go. Let's put the theory aside and see how much purchasing power your stuff has against my stuff, I bet if yours looses 90% in 43 years we don't have to expect a sudden rise anywhere soon ;p

I think you mean US "soft" diplomacy like :"Either you are for the war [in Iraq] or you hate America". The implied consequence of not joining the team effort is to be deemed an enemy. The US is still fixing the image that the Bush administration has left, if you call that soft diplomacy then who needs an ally. Not always, public memory is so short.

It's China's soft diplomacy backed by hard currency (artificially weakened) versus US hard diplomacy by weak currency (artificially pimped and by count on the advantage of world reserve currency and unrivaled military and technological advance). But it's working for China.

China's huge dollar position is both it's strength as it's weakness, as value deteriorates. China is trying to put their money in foreign investment and soft diplomacy to gain influence in Africa, weak economies of some European countries (for example Greece) and now also Pakistan, openly, without any worries knowing it is crossing US interest. Outsourcing productivity is followed by knowledge, science and technology, in contrast with popular belief that such follow up doesn't occur. It's starts with shameless copying is the prerequisite of understanding and improvement, this is the present case for China much as it was for Japan in the past. With the only difference that it is maybe even more easy for Chinese companies, as the state is shareholder. The Chinese does business with everyone, not asking too many questions or human right issues. For those who not know, China has been most of her existence been the world power state. They have a great history in diplomatic cases.

As pointed out by others examples of the reverse can also be found in practice. However I agree with this generalization to be true for coding practices. I also like to add another related generalization. Autodidact developers tend to code quick and dirty (with a lot of experience how the actual code run in daily practice under heavy loads etc), people with a heavy academic background (also depends on the specific university) tend to code slower and cleaner.

That said, in business I often hear some developer is very skilled, "he had written software X on his own faster than three others combined". Always makes me very skeptic, because 9 out of 10 times, the coder coded so quick and dirty that it is still alpha quality and will probably take a lot of extra work to get it maintainable after three years, when the this coder is already working somewhere else (and having a lot of referrals being so good). While the guy that has to make it maintainable and fix would say something completely different.

Ofcourse, generally speaking, business people are to blame themselves also as they have nonsense criteria to evaluate the productivity of software developers (counting lines etc). In the other cases, both autodidact and academic, there is some really good developer who also has "The Art of Computer Programming" on his desk or has a good background in functional programming.

Governments always find reasons to do censorship or to publish cooked data and if they don't some companies will do for them (or lobby for it). Groups like Lulz and Anonymous will achieve to show that our government doesn't represent, protect and serve the best interests of it citizens. They don't represent their citizens when they are influenced by lobby (the banking lobby for instance, or the closed source lobby), they don't protect us because they don't secure our id data amongst other things and they fail to serve us by the latter but also by being utmost nontransparent to us about it also. So as long as the government and other high profile organisations are not confronted about this they will not change their behavior.

So talking is a good option, but if that takes ages to progress and with a lacking sense of urgency it doesn't help either. In a way the government is waiting for the inevitable. if Anonymous or Lulz will not do it, maybe some Chinese sponsered better equipped hackergroup will do it (or is doing it already without us knowing it). So I think the means maybe dirty to and end, but what alternative? I think none. And I am not a cracker, but I think digital actions are allowed since our digital rights are very badly handled by government. And also this kind of actions can give us insight to things we would never get exposed using the old school spionage way. I just stick a thumbs up for it. Public intelligence rebellion!

Kudos to Anonymous, Lulz. Go shake up some feathers!!

Governments always find reasons to do censorship or to publish cooked data and if they don't some companies will do for them (or lobby for it). Groups like Lulz and Anonymous will achieve to show that our government doesn't represent, protect and serve the best interests of it citizens. They don't represent their citizens when they are influenced by lobby (the banking lobby for instance, or the closed source lobby), they don't protect us because they don't secure our id data amongst other things and they fail to serve us by the latter but also by being utmost nontransparent to us about it also. So as long as the government and other high profile organisations are not confronted about this they will not change their behavior.

So talking is a good option, but if that takes ages to progress and with a lacking sense of urgency it doesn't help either. In a way the government is waiting for the inevitable. if Anonymous or Lulz will not do it, maybe some Chinese sponsered better equipped hackergroup will do it (or is doing it already without us knowing it). So I think the means maybe dirty to and end, but what alternative? I think none. And I am not a cracker, but I think digital actions are allowed since our digital rights are very badly handled by government. And also this kind of actions can give us insight to things we would never get exposed using the old school spionage way. I just stick a thumbs up for it.

Kudos to Anonymous, Lulz please shake up some feathers!!