dead_phish

Thank you. I was a little disturbed by how quickly this turned to "you're an ass for not thinking this way." I expected disagreement, but not, well, so much rage.

I would argue other wise, on two counts. What I said was that I have no sympathy for him biting the hand that feeds.

Second, I think that the situation has been vastly over complicated by attempts to colour matters as some sort of grand moral crusade. Snowden is not a white knight, nor is he a traitor. He's a man who did what he thought was right. I disagree with his methods, and think that his actions (leaking to journalists rather than going through the appropriate oversight channels (or even just dropping a USB drive off at his Congressman's office, with a break down of what it all means)) negates any sort of 'moral right' that the community has been ascribing to Snowden.

The moral crusade is against the NSA, not for Snowden. There's a distinct difference between the two.

Well, yes I am a dick, but I also think the situation is more nuanced than 'rah rah free Snowden'.

If he wanted to do the right thing, he should have gone to his Congressman, or the oversight arm of the NSA (it does exist, regardless of how inefficient it seems to be).

I'm stuck in the odd position of thinking both Snowden and the government are wrong, which seems to piss both sets of hardliners off. I'm not arguing that the NSA is right to slurp our data, and I'm not trying to defend that - I think it's reprehensible. However, I also think that Snowden did not exhaust all his legal options before deciding to play secret agent and scarper off to Hong Kong. I think if it truly wasn't about him, he wouldn't have gone to the press first thing. If he'd been shutdown after going through those channels? Sure, leak everything. He chose instead to play the hero.

I have very little sympathy for his monetary plight. He made his bed, let him sleep in it.

Or rather, when your giant paycheck comes from the government, maybe torquing off that government in the most flamboyant way possible isn't the best of ideas.

I would argue it's less 'good' design and more that design is a secondary, or ever tertiary concern - which, from an engineering standpoint, it is.

Look at Western design/font choices - Helvetica. Helvetica everywhere.

Japan's engineering prowess - very distinct from any sort of design prowess. Look at the classic example of Honda and Toyota, two great engineering companies who succeeded in spite of their design. The early Toyotas were derided as ugly little box cars, and their only redeeming value was that they were cheap and well engineered.

Well, one of Japan's coders. Matz was kind of revolutionary.

How did you incorporate data from Washington DC into this? I can almost guarantee that the reason Maryland has such a high rate on the HIV/AIDS chart is because of the District, and its outlying areas (Prince George's County, Anacostia, etc.)

One day, when I have Karma.