If as you say it's common knowledge that all governments spy on all other governments, then it shouldn't have done much harm to have what we already knew confirmed.

But that's not true, not all governments engage in this behavior, and not all that do take it as far as the US. Tapping the private phone of an allied head of state is out of bounds. It's not the kind of thing we should be doing. It's the kind of thing that causes an embarrassing international incident when it is revealed. Imagine our own government's reaction if the tables were turned.

Also, Snowden released the information to reputable journalists who have been selecting what to release. He didn't just dump it on a website for all to see. Those journalists have been reviewing the material and redacting anything that would actually put lives at risk. Snowden carried this off in the most responsible, most honorable, fashion possible.

There is no way in hell that he could control for a grandpa driving a minivan full of grandkids from pulling into the left lane from ahead of an 18-wheeler, while this joker is bearing down at 130 mph.

But I'd bet you'd blame the grandpa because he wasn't expecting the car 100 feet behind him in the mirror was a reckless jackass trying to pull off some idiotic stunt.

And yet few will admit that the reason that it's a problem is that there's power for sale. Getting rid of the money just won't ever happen, short of executing people for making illegal campaign donations, and who wants to live in that society?

While we have big multinational corporations battling over who gets to own the monopoly, perhaps a few will stop to ask, "why if we just didn't grant these monopolies?" Even fewer would ask if those big multinationals could even exist without the corporate welfare grants those monopolies provide.

I know, "dogs and cats living together!", we can solve the problem of corruption because we're smarter than all the other people who have ever lived...

When elections are won or lost based a few percentage points, then giving a 8.7% boost to a campaign can certainly sway the outcome.

Possible, but very unlikely. The effect has been studied and quantified by political scientists. I don't have a copy of a paper handy, but very roughly speaking, it's a matter of diminishing returns. The first doubling of money can sway the election, say 10%, then you double it again, and gain 5%, then double it again, and gain 2.5%, and by the time you've outspent your opponent by 16x you're barely moving the needle at all.

What they did find is that the candidates who are ultimately more popular with the voters turn out to have been more popular with the donors. So the politician who outspent/outraised his opponent by 4:1 and won the election did so because he was more popular.

Since the total possible amount of spending can never get above a certain threshold, it's actually more efficient to be a good candidate and spend the money you do have to get that word out, than to try to spend your way to victory while being an asshole.

There are exceptions, but the rule holds most of the time. Frankly if you're corrupt enough, you might as well just bribe the election officials or voting machine vendors rather than keep piling money into above-board campaign tactics that don't really yield returns.

Seemingly not at all if you're Microsoft. Not being able to code doesn't mean that much.

Not just being able - Microsoft has some very competent coders. Heck, look at the legend behind "Code Complete".

It's just like when a developer decides to build a housing development full of cheap tract houses - he knows exactly what kind of quality he's building, and it's nothing to brag about, but it gets the homes done to the point that they can be sold, and for half the cost of doing it 'right'.

Yeah, because THAT'S what's keeping him from being elected. It's not that a good percentage of the country has bought into the line that he's a communist traitor who has put American lives at risk, handed over secret documents to the "enemy", and was acting out of a desire to harm the United States. None of those things are true, mind, but that's not stopping people from demanding we send SEAL Team 6 into Russia.

The anger directed toward this man was so quick to start, so widespread, and so homogenous in tone and intent that it makes me suspect an NSA influence operation using internet sockpuppet accounts, and the already completely dominated mainstream cable channels (I won't use the word "news" to describe what they are). We actually know the government does this, we even knew before the Snowden documents, so it's not that much of a stretch in my mind. But on the other hand, I know quite a few living, breathing, people who really are that intellectually retarded. They're vociferously and sincerely calling for blood. He wouldn't live to see his name on the ballot if he comes back here. Our government has spoken: he's a traitor aiding foreign powers. We kill people for that.

Precisely. In fact, we should celebrate the division of labor.

There are guys who are really good at refactoring, guys who are really good at debugging, guys who are really good at designing, etc.

People get the most satisfaction by excelling at their talents, so that's the direction the industry should be heading.

I've only ever known one 'god' programmer (he wrote and debugged a network stack and file server in Honeywell assembly on paper, typed it onto magtape, and flew to Arizona to test it, where it worked on the first load and went into production) but it's not worth designing cultures or systems around one-in-a-million people; we should do the best we can for most of the people, which will, in turn, do the most to help the industry.

First of all, I'm not defending anything. I cannot defend something when I don't know what the charges are. So far you have failed to make a case for charges as your assertion of lying is based simply on acceptance of your assertion and nothing else. I have asked you several times to explain why you feel that President Lawnchair lied abut Benghazi and not once have you given factual basis to support your assertion. I cannot possibly defend against a claim of "he's guilty because I said so", nor can I defend against a case of "he's guilty because me and 5,000 angry Tea Party bloggers all said so". I'm even willing to consider the possibility that you could be right, but you haven't given a single shred of evidence to support your assertion so it is impossible to gauge that possibility any more so than the possibility of sasquatch or unicorns running around.

And second, slashdot is not a social media site. Don't insult social media and social networking that way; slashdot doesn't have anywhere near the relevance, user base, or income to be placed as one.

Oh I see. If you find a revolver with seven chambers, then you're a genius!

Driving 150 MPH in a 75 MPH zone in not a goddamned "gray area", Einstein.

I presume that you also consider 5 out of 6 people who play Russian roulette to be "geniuses" as well.

"What are you, some kind of nut? Who do you think you are?"

Dun, dun, dunnnnn -- Captain Chaos!

Today, you usually know who's calling before you answer. It may be appropriate to take a call if it's more important than the meeting. If you're in sales, a call from a major customer is probably more important than a meeting.

Sure, but not in the meeting. Excuse yourself, and explain it's an extremely important customer call that absolutely cannot wait.

And even if this is the case, you're still being rude... just with an excuse. The call may be more important to you, but the other people in the meeting? You're wasting their time.

If you've blocked out time for a meeting, don't take calls during that time. It's rude and unprofessional.

Note: This is for orgs that have effective meetings. If your meetings are generally unproductive, it may be a different story...

Part of the list of things I go over with my new hires is basic business etiquette. I spend at least an hour per employee on it. The most annoying thing I find is people who have a mother/father/significant other who expect them to always answer the cell phone when they call it. My experience is that a lot of people we hire have never worked in a professional atmosphere before... I'm not sure if this is because of our hiring practices, or is because of the general habits of today's younger workforce. If I am in a meeting I scheduled, and someone my rank or lower answers their phone, I almost always immediately end the meeting, to be rescheduled later. I run meetings so as to waste the minimum amount of time required for everyone; I expect the same from others. The public shaming seems to work well at my current workplace.

HAHAHAHA!!! Oh I wish I had mod points for you.