The ability to rule well is in no way related to the ability to teach how to rule well. Given historical examples, they may well be mutually exclusive. It may well be impossible for a good dictator to deliberately teach their offspring to be a good dictator.

The more asbolute the dictatorship, the more efficient the government will run. If it's an enlightened dicatatorship, it will very efficiently improve the lives of its subjects. If it's one of the other 99% of dictatorships, it will very efficiently go to hell in a handbasket. Not that Greece isn't already halfway there.

That is based on the assumption that intelligence, fitness and handsomness are genetically based.

Which brings in to question whether or not the neoreactionaries are intellectually qualified to offer an opinion on what to have for dinner, since the first two are, at best, only vaguely genetic in nature, and that third isn't a qualification for governing (except in Hollywood, and do you really want Hollywood running your country?)

Maybe they could get the UK to send them Prince Chuck. Be a win/win situation. Greece gets their King, UK gets rid of Chuck, and probably pays Greece enough to take him that they'll be able to clear their national debt.

"Look, I know you're a criminal trying to scam me. You're not getting any money from me, ever. If this is a real debt, sue me, so that the court will make you obey the law, but it's no, its' a scam, and you're a criminal, so you don't dare do that."

Make it clear they're wasting their time, and they'll go elsewhere. The scam is a business, and lost time isn't profitable.

Aside from that, this is the outlet to all your frustrations. When you're dealing with a criminal to begin with, you can say anything, be as abusive as you want, and there's nothing they can do about it. If you threatened to firebomb their office, they wouldn't dare report you (and the NSA doesn't share).

Had a bad day? Scream obscenities in to the phone. Didn't get laid last night? Tell them you're masturbating while you talk to them. Relatives giving you a bad time? Question their mother's mating habits. Take out every frustration you have on the criminal. I will personally send you real money if you post a recording of you making the scammer cry.

If they're calling every 10-15 minutes, it's a scam by definition. It's illegal for debt collectors to all that often.

No support for chip&pin (EMV) yet, so this may have limited utility outside of the USA. They expect to start shipping in summer of 2014."

Considering that all US merchants have to be capable of using EMV[1] by October of 2015, perhaps that two year battery life is about right, because that's all the longer they will be useful. And most merchant services are pushing hard to have everyone capable of taking EMV by the middle of 2014.

Mag strip cards will be around for as long as the current ones out there last, but most new cards being issued now are EMV capable, and very soon, all of them will have to be. Without EMV support, this is, at best, a short term fad. And eventually, mag strip cards will just disappear, and merchants will have no reason to be able to take them.

[1]Technically, not required to stop taking mag strip only, but those who don't become 100% responsible for all fraud, automatically, regardless of the circumstances. As a carrot to go with the stick, those who get EMV up and going are not longer resopnsible for the sometimes pain-in-the-ass (and often expensive for small operations) requirements for PCI compliance.

Other than the delayed maintenance to the power systems and two city departmens that couldn't be connected to the network because of the delay.

You have a funny definition of "perfectly."

Childs belongs in prison.

That was, in fact, exactly the situation Childs' boss was trying to rectifiy. Childs knew it, and refused to turn over passwords to his direct supervisor even when told, in person, by the Mayor, that his supervisor was authorized to have them. He also configured the network to not able to to reboot after a power outage that exceeded the UPS time unless he, personally, was there, and refused to make backups of the configuration.

And keep in mind, the network in question included their 911 system.

The asshole belongs in prison. He had multiple chances to avoid it, including after he was charged. He chose prison rather than allow the situation you describe to end.

As I recall, the "business" involved included their 911 system, didn't it?

It has not been my experience that computer speakers are capable of making sounds much outside the range of human hearing, nor computer micophones capable of picking such sounds up. Maybe he buys comptuers with extremely high end sound equipment, but I'm a bit skeptical that nobody noticed the audio.

Maybe he sniffed a little too much of the magic smoke the virus let out.

A shaved head is a hell of a lot of work to keep up. Plus, it makes people think you had head lice.

That's their point, though. The less precise the UI, the less control you have over the computer. And their goal is for you to have no control over your computer whatsoever. That way, the only thing you will be able to do, all day long, is consume their ads. The only way around the ads will be paid for content (which will only reduce the ads, and convert them to paid product placement ads). Eventually, I suspect, they will try to do away with the off switch.

I wish I were exaggerating for effect.

One of the one's that sucked, that is.

Speaking of false history, Copernicus didn't "prove" heliocenticity. In fact, he only agree to let his work be published on his deathbead because he couldn't prove it.

And as a side note, neither could Galileo, though his use of the telescope was an important piece of the puzzle. But proof wasn't possible until Newton came up with (perhaps invtented, though that's arguable these days, too) calculus (and the idea that planetary orbits aren't perfectly circular).

But yeah, Galileo's real problem with the church was that he was an asshole, and humiliated and pissed off people with powerful friends. He'd have been right at home on the internet, where he would have been a legendary troll.

In less than 0.001% of stores, so far.

I have already opted out. My phone doesn't receive ads. And if they text me, I'll make a scene in the middle of their store about how illegal unsolicited text ads are, in front of their other customers.

Only for the weak and the stupid, who have always been terrified of their own shadow. The obnoxiousness of some retailers is why so much business has moved online, where it's far, far easier to control how much advertising you get forced down your throat (and, in fact, it's far easier to simply ignore).