I agree that it's distrust. This started a while back, when it started becoming obvious that technology was going to replace a lot of jobs. When robotic arms become a reality (and now they have eyes too!) and start moving the material onto the machine you used to load, then people start thinking about it differently. But they still loved it because it had only replaced the most menial jobs and was actually thanked for eliminating these tasks at home and work.

Then it started doing things better than the best craftsman. And faster. While craftsmen numbers fell, machine repairmen numbers did not keep up (otherwise what's the point?). This is when distrust began. But it was only a few that had been replaced and they were not heard as the technology had brought great fun and even provided quite a few other jobs.

But lately technology is replacing many different types of jobs. Salesman, accountants, and general office help (which ironically was only ever a job thanks to technology) joined the ranks of the blue collar machinist as those that had been replaced by a computer. At this point distrust is growing among many, but still the new gadgets and joys - and affordable too - are keeping dislike to a minimum.

And this is only from one perspective. The next would be the interruptions it brought.

Looking back with new (and fairly plausible) information, this was far more insightful than was recognized. Well done AC.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Progra...

I remember http://mp3.com/ having more mainstream acts than the poorly written Wiki article indicates. But they certainly sold DRM free well before Apple.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...

So what your saying is that Democrats used to not give a shit about Civil Rights and Social Welfare before the 60's and they did afterwards? And that is used to argue against the Southern Strategy and Dixiecrats being responsible for a "swap" in political party agendas?

Whether you say Dems started giving a shit about minorities in the 60's or Pubs stopped giving a shit about minorities in the 60's, the point is the parties switched how they felt about tolerance, equality, and civil rights in the 60's. So anything the the Pubs did in regards to that before the 60's can no longer be used to claim that you should support that party for those actions today.

Really, this guy got two up votes? Perhaps you should do some research on The Civil Rights Act of 1964, Dixiecrats and how there was an amazing shift (scroll to bottom) in which party southern states supported in the late 60's.

Attempting to claim modern day Republicans were responsible for spearheading Women's and Civil Rights is laughable.

The NCAA just went away from an algorithm and to a human selection system that will determine the entrants of a two game playoff to determine the champion.

Some of the comments have been about how the BCS (the algo) didn't factor in if the field was muddy, if a player was injured (some do), experience and maturity of players, and could not determine when margin of victory mattered. Humans, however, have no issue being able to dynamically add a factor to the algorithm. Humans can easily tweak how much weight you give to various factors. Humans also have bias.

I guess my point is this stuff gets pretty complicated, especially when it involves humans and our inconsistent, illogical emotions, feelings and actions. If it was easy nerds would have figured out the perfect horse-betting-algo and woman-getting-algo.

Mod up parent. That is a beautiful way of explaining the current "gamer" profile. +1 if I had it.

I once worked with a Brit that used an electric kettle here at work all the time. I can't say I remember anything specific about the kettle, other than him not understanding why we all don't have one (and why we don't drink tea). He also quite often talked about the 240V electricity. I am sure the two topics intersected at some point.

In reality 20 amp is common and 30 amp is certainly not unheard of here in the US. I have a dedicated 20 amp circuit running to my kitchen island (at 125V), so it could pull 2400 watts.

Yeah, but isn't it pretty creepy that it could be relatively soon when your nosy neighbor (and by that I mean anyone that knows your address) will be able to stalk you from their basement? In 75 years we have gone from the first satellite images to them being commercially available and nearly real time (at least daily). In another 75 years, it seems plausible that there will be near real time video of most of the populated world. It's going to happen for military purposes, so we might as well accept it into society. That's a bit unsettling. Nearly everyone is pissing off somebody at any given time. We're all gonna have to chill out a bit.

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You are very correct. Look at personality types to confirm this. How many people want to open a business? How many just want a steady job? How many people are more than willing to follow along after a strong personality?

The fact is that humans are born to seek safety. In fact all living beings are programmed that way. And if you think following another, or following the majority is the safest route, there is a good chance that's whats going to happen.

Maybe? I don't think there is any chance the government could hide something like Area 51 in 2014. Watergate would have been revealed as quickly as Bridgegate. Secretes that would have previously taken decades to get out now take hours, days and weeks. Secrets that could have been squelched just a decade ago are now easily retrievable from computer storage and backups and surveillance and the ease of communicating not just messages, but evidence such as video, audio and pictures.

Without a doubt, the governments of the past were able to keep more secrets. This is why the Arab Spring happened. Information is easily transferred and stored thanks to technology that has become mainstream in the past 5 - 10 - 15 years.

I see your point that FOIA was designed for specific requests. But in this case the question is if he ever reported this to superiors. It could have been in person, but he probably would have covered himself and sent it in email. The only way to see if he ever sent emails reporting the issues is to see all emails. That request would mean a full release of his emails.

Of course, the reality is that this would have been one or two carefully crated emails. Taking 2-4 emails out of an archive with a daily average of 50 for a tech worker (pulled out my ass), would be unnoticeable. So the whole thing is pointless unless Snowden himself can show undeniable proof of these emails, and for bonus points a response.

Yeah, I think that helps. Thanks. I will be printing a few.

At this point, there are numerous things happening such as laws, inquiries, public debate, and policy changes that are all due to Snowden's release of information. I feel that he has brought to the forefront an important issue and revealed things that the public needed to know. I can understand to some degree that people don't like how he did it, but given the machine that is the government, I don't doubt that this was the only way to bring about such changes (or at least debate and knowledge).

After a bit of a cool down period, I don't hear nearly as much hate for Snowden. Libertarians, Republicans, Democrats and all other flavors should want a more open government. The government does also need to keep some things secret. This gives them a reason, the means, and a public grant of power to keep things from public knowledge. Some times the only way to circumvent that power is through a leak/whistle blower.

As far as this story, the public needs to pressure the government to keep no more secrets about Snowden. The cover of endangering certain sources or resources is no longer being accepted as we have seen little damage and much good from the release. It's time the US Government come clean and it's time we tell them that we demand it.