Yes. Eventually you realize it's the programmers that make the difference, not the language.

Any time you hear someone say, "we're going to rewrite this because the new language will make things better" you know that their new product will be even worse.

Then go find the original source, it's cited in the article. That is something you can do.

I don't know if the headline is just poorly written, but it seems to suggest that Microsoft is suing Samsung for Android patents.

Microsoft owns Android patents? Since when?

Local elections are the only ones that are important. The national system is so rigged that nothing individuals can do will make a difference.

However, be aware that local elections are the next target of corporate types. In the past two years, the Koch brothers have spent millions on school board elections, and not in the areas in which they live.

If you do get involved locally, be prepared to make a real fuss, and make sure you don't get busted for pot or beat your wife. In fact, don't even allow yourself to get into a situation where you can be framed for a pot bust. People have tried to get involved in local politics and have had their lives destroyed for their trouble.

And if you try to fight what has been cynically referred to as "election reform", be prepared for death threats.

Well, how many nukes does it take, exactly, to destroy a country? Realistically, all anyone has is enough nukes to ensure MAD....it's not like the US is able to bomb Russia without retribution. Estimates of China's stockpile vary, up to 3000 warheads. China is secretive and everyone is just guessing what they actually have. Any number you see is just a guess.

In any case, it's pointless to talk about arms-reduction without being aware that one important country is aiming for arms-increase.

I don't know anything about Atlanta's medical scene, but the reality is, that sometimes there are boneheaded doctors who make boneheaded decisions.

Physical access is root access

However after that takeover fails (you already know it will,)

It had better fail. Corporate consolidation in the US has been a disaster.

9/11 may not have been engineered by us, but the people in power certainly took advantage of it when it happened.

Thereby precipitating the most epic win imaginable against Western Democracy.

I honestly don't think they imagined the extent to which they would to undermine the society they were trying to shake. And if they did, that's truly scary.

That the 'authoritarians' (*cough* fascists *cough*) took advantage of that, we are not in disagreement about.

But either forcing them to, or giving them an excuse to, finally just fully take control ... I still say 9/11 was a game-changing event, because everybody immediately rushed to build the "at any means" surveillance society in the open.

These guys almost have express written permission for these kinds of abuses. The exact same abuses people were warning would happen while they were being passed. The PATRIOT Act had stuff in it which people said would lead to this kind of crap while it was being passed, because it was a knee-jerk response.

I argue that Western society post 9/11 is overtly different than it was pre 9/11. Some of the rot may have been there already, but it's come into the full light of day since.

Yeah I was going to say the same thing. You NEVER make a change that you don't have a way to backout to the previous operational state.

And, really, if you have something which Absolutely Has To Be There ... you make damned sure you have an environment you apply the changes to first. So that you can apply the changes and at least try to make sure stuff don't break without messing up the real one.

This is basic change management.

(And, yes, I am saying this without any context for this outage -- but, really, if you maintain a production environment for critical software, this is what you do)