But I don't speak about Benedict XVI, because he is not the target here per se. It's the Throne of St. Peter and the Church. Nobody would blame him for (mandatory) membership in Hitlerjugend if he wasn't the Pope. It's his position that is being attacked, not himself. Who does really know anything more than a few phrases anyway? You criticize the Church and (yes] Inquisition from the today's perspective, but it is too easy. The Church has done many good things (faith aside), but it is not so cool to mention them. Let me ask you a question: are you or are you not catholic, that you are so interested in the Congregation? Because if not, I see no reason for you (other than your immortal soul if you believe in it) to bother. Galileo's case is too stereotypical. Yes he has been restricted a little bit, but it was Christian Europe where he studied and worked. Give the Church some credit for keeping the civilisation together for all those centuries, especially after the fall of Rome.

You criticize a (without any doubt) very intelligent and learned man, head of the oldest and most influential institution in modern Western history. Based on what? A text of no value, without any relevant links, without a link to a full transcription of the speach. We all want to think freely, but that requires thinking at all first. Most of the high karma posts just spit poison, like people of the underclass after 12 beers. I don't blame anyone for not recognizing that today the Church is under a crossfire (yes, that is a point in it, but really, don't you see it's really a campaign?), but please, you can do better, I am sure. Pope - nazi, that's nonsense, guys, for instance. And yet for this pure nonsense on the level of mild idiocy, the person saying that (and only that) gets a plus point. That's sweet. If I didn't know I am on the smart guys' website, I would think there are some silly peasants here, that just for the little while want to make themselves great by standing on a noble man's head. Maybe the Pope is right and the Internet does harm to human spirit. At least sometimes.

They believe that a book is divine and they adore a piece of rock and they are afraid of idolatry? This is something I will never understand.

In my country, there are some newspaper websites where that not only want you to send them your full name and address, but they actually publish your full name when you discuss the news online. And they send you a letter first to confirm the address is real. It is mostly an attempt to mute some politically incorrect voices, but sure you can fake your identity anyway. Back to your comment: this kind of sites doesn't fall to any of your categories.

They understand the behavior on the appropriate level. I don't see any reason why reason about transistors and stuff when all you need is to turn your laptop on and play Pacman. You know how it works just enough. Eat and don't get eaten.

Are we talking about IT or about business? If we are talking about IT, your remark about comodity software does not seem valid to me. But even if we consider the subject to be part of IT, you are wrong: http://www.softwarehistory.org/history/d_60s.html And how the Gates BASIC implementations changed the IT? There were much more important programming language creators, but there are not on the list. So again, Bill Gates is a great businessman, but I would never call him an IT pioneer. Some other poster is right - even Carmack deserves to be enlisted more than some of those who are there.

In what sense is Bill Gates an IT pioneer? Pioneer of reaching and enforcement of an monopoly(-ish)? Really, a pioneer is (as I see them) a person who goes as the first one a hard way so that many can follow them when the way is secured. Microsoft followed many and concentrated on one issue mostly: to assure, that NO ONE (well, virtually) cannot really follow. Where a pioneer builds a highway, Microsoft really blocked it. I don't say that Microsoft or Gates didn't do ANYTHING good, but come on. They are not real pioneers. Gates' (and Jobs', for that matter) inclusion in this poll is a slap in the face to Church, Dijsktra, Knuth, Amdahl and many others.

The world needs more "Geek Chic", IT Crowd style.

In my previous job, like 7 years ago, I used headphones too and my boss once called me to his office and forbidden listening to music explicitly. I tried to explain and ask for reasons and he just told me he didn't have to explain anything. A couple months after I applied for a new job and entered an environment where everyone used headphones to keep them concentrated to their work and the company even bought the headphones on request. And guess what, all the good developers left sooner and later too. Managers like this are just morons, get off if you can.

What exactly does it bring in as the bonus? Websites like MetaCrawler and AllInOne have been with us for long years. And what is the news when I select to use just Google as the search engine?