Sticking around hasn't helped Manning any.

I think you're looking at "consequences" as a very black and white thing. Snowden is facing the consequences for his actions -- he's exiled from his country and may never be able to return. He's already sacrificed so much to do the right thing. Sticking around to be persecuted wouldn't help out any. He took the risk of being tortured, imprisoned, and even executed. Isn't that enough? That's the most we ask of our soldiers and then we declare them heroes -- we ask that they risk their lives. We ask that they risk sacrifice, not that they do sacrifice. Kamikaze pilots and suicide bombers have no place in the defense of our country. Why should the whistleblower be so self-sacrificial? Why is he not a hero for risking his life when that's the standard of valor we place upon ourselves?

It's not just a tax write off. By keeping his money in the foundation and the investments of the foundation, its a tax shelter.

He's no more altruistic than the big pharmaceutical companies. It's not really altruism when you stand to make a large profit. Gates just figured out that the charity business can be an extremely successful one -- it gives one the ability to strong-arm entire nations all while immune to criticism under the protection of "philanthropy." The Gates Foundation, like similar foundations, exists so those of his lineage will all be filthy rich no matter what and no individual will be able to screw it all up for the rest of the family. It's like a trust fund designed to last centuries rather than decades.

Your attack on televangelists is irrelevant. They're much more an analog to Gates than a dichotomy.

Treaties like that caused WWI.

Given Newton's later descent into religious mania, he might not be the best example here ;)

However, if you've ever been to a Californian art gallery, you'd know that they do sponsor plenty of really crappy art.

The idea that the police can simply delete what they don't like or switch of the device when ever they feel like it, is a very false premise in terms of the law. Lost evidence immediately creates doubts about the veracity of statements against those who lost or purposefully failed to gather evidence. As the public and hence juries becomes more aware of the requirement of police officer to record all their policing interactions with the public they will demand that evidence, when police fail to submit it for what ever reason, it will place great suspicion on their actions and create the doubt necessary to break their prosecutions.

Not that bringing up these questions is not important, it is very important in the creation of successful secure devices that will protect the public whilst providing evidence of crimes. It will also help with the recording of crime scenes ie multiple view points. Storage of data should reflect statute of limitations for the crimes applicable, keeping in mind it does not need to be 28 frames a second, lower speed higher resolution images would be preferable.

Both are working to target the same concept, tying the operating system to the device. They both hate the idea of the consumer believing the operating system that came with the device is disposable and can be readily replaced with the OS of your choice, say a flavour of Linux. Two OS's on a device, hmm why not three or more specifically why not replace those two with a third alternate OS. So basically both companies are using the size and predatory power to try to keep other Operating systems out of the market, either as pre-installs of post installs.

Translation: I'm a Redmond shill trying to sound reasonable, but I can't help but make blatantly pro-Redmond statements like "significantly better than a comparative Tablet OS"

Do you have any fucking shame? More importantly, do you think we're fucking idiots that we don't recognize you for who you are?

Metro has a low market share; as in most users are happy with the classic desktop, and RT devices are such an insignificant market share that why would anyone bother developing for it? Besides, there are enough common UI toolkits for Linux and Windows that I doubt there's that much additional support involved.

Face it, Metro is a dismal failure on every front.

I dig that. The outdated economic system is my reality too, but I can only speak for my society. I'm not saying that people wouldn't have to work. I'm saying we could all work less. Stuff will still need to be manufactured and energy produced. But I also know that i live in a society who's needs (overall) are overfilled. Businesses create new markets now to sell their products. They are not meeting a need, they are creating one. It seems that we could reduce our production, work less, and still meet our needs. It just wouldn't be as profitable. That's when the powerful people come in with their needs of more and more profit.

Sure, I agree that we will need new and better power sources. Zero point energy sounds intriguing, but that's about it at this point; it's vaporware. I'm all for conspiracy theories (I believe they happen more than most people think) but that one has a lot of heat and not much light. I also think that powerful people exert more control over society than most people believe. But there is not one reason for the world being the way it is.

Blasted Slashdot! Apparently the profile link to "New Here" no longer works.

Nope. He is, though.

Maybe they're just fucking idiots, with an IT department that either is utterly inept or had been so marginalized by MBA morons and sociopaths.

Jesus fuck. It was a joke...