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In government entities such as the ACA, IRS, NSA, TSA, fraud and abuse is prohibited by magic fairies. Why can't the banks hire the same magic fairies?

I agree it is a flimsy argument. I'm sure arms dealers do have plausibly deniable cover stories and legitimate or sympathetic transactions occurring as well. The funnier thing is we can't call this the Twinkie defense, because that is already taken.

Clearly, his soap bills were hundreds of dollars a month. Now that he's quit his soap habit, he's got enough for the iPhone. For shelter, he built a yurt out of soap wrappers and self-esteem.

I know several ego-minimalists. They never post anything online, ever. No facebook, no twitter, nada. No one online knows just how hip they are on the inside.

You know, if you're trapped outside the space craft and left to die, the last message you ever write could be graffiti written in a vacuum on some passing object. You want a pen that can write in a vacuum. Now, I'm sure you're saying, perhaps the pen could come with a microburst of thrust instead, to save said astronaut. Now you're just being silly.

What a quiet, unassuming hero Ladar Levison has turned out to be. This guy had a calling, and stuck to it. Without this incident the majority of us would not have known how deeply principled and committed to freedom he is. Our society is better because of him, I wonder how many more Ladars are out there? I'm sad to say, I'm not sure I would have endured so much duress for so little reward.

I was curious about that as well, especially given the latest cap news from the developer.

Designed and manufactured a product in less than four months? Hmmm... Why bother with software when you can crank out real products at a miraculous rate no other American company can.

I found the quote on the first page of the first issue a little too relevant:

“The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.” —Edmund Burke

It's an inference, but that's how priming and propaganda work.

Don't forget Kickstarter's obsession with pens.

'underexaggerates'? I don't know what it means, but I like it. From what I've seen of TPM, they seem to be a very "preaching to the choir" sort of site. I don't think wider exposure will help, they are niche and need a niche strategy.

You need a trendier, buzzier name for it, and perhaps a three-letter acronym. "Inbox of Things" (IoT) should work to gladwellize the minions and get people talking.

But since the chatterati think email is the spawn of old white european males, you need to get rid of "Inbox" all together. Way too emailesque.

Also, we live in the most narcissistic, shallow society ever to have sat idly on this good planet earth, so you need some combination of self, selfie, me, my, myself, you, etc.

Of course, in the selfie-sphere the major issue you will face is appearing "needy" if you respond to pings quickly or respond in a personal, non-selfish way. The proper form of communication in narcissistic society is merely post inane self-expressions in hopes of garnering hip-metrics of reblogs, retweets, likes, upvotes, and other simplistic pings.

So what you really need is an one-way orifice for self-expression that merely reports social metrics back in gamified form. Sort of like a toilet with an AI success coach built in.

The flushing metaphor has its limtis, because "flushing" makes it seem like you don't care about water conservation and other hip non-selfish, selfish things that aid your image-crafting. An "air flush" would solve the water conservation issues. So what sound would an "air flush" make? A swish, a blow? That's it.

So we should call a universal inbox in the selfie age? How about: "Blow Me"

Since I know practically nothing of birds in depth, how do they sleep during these extended flights? Or is bird "sleep" something different?

Like most mortals, I depend on Bruce Schneier: "Since I started working with Snowden's documents, I have been using GPG, Silent Circle, Tails, OTR, TrueCrypt, BleachBit, and a few other things I'm not going to write about. There's an undocumented encryption feature in my Password Safe program from the command line); I've been using that as well." http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-how-to-rema...

Have you read Steven Pressfield's "The War of Art"?

I actually know someone who has worked for the VA in medical coding contracts. He still has Cobol programmers on his speed dial because some of the live code is still written in it.

I'm sure this comment will be buried, but I sleep better at night knowing HN can still get its panties in a wad over tramplings of freedom and the abuse of the system -- long after the main stream media has lost interest. The young and old hackers reading these posts will no doubt start spending frontal lobe CPU cycles on solutions that will find their agile way into the public sphere in months, not years.

As long as the spankings remain within the "Chandrasekher Limit" I don't think we are in danger of dwarfing the larger issues.

He also mentions Lisp several times in his blog. That alone would rate a front page mention on HN. But seriously, what a wonderful smile-inducing website and page.

That's funny because in the US, "bose" means crappy speakers with big marketing budget.

When it comes to public safety, the American people stand ready for intrusions of all kinds, it is truly for our own good. Government agents are privy to secret information unknown to the public, therefore we have no choice but to submit.

Checks and balances are passe. They are the antiquated notions of dead men. With computers and the internet ensuring the proper administration of justice via self-appointed and self-reviewed secret committees, we can finally live in peace and security.

You'd be surprised that ignorant deadmen once consider the same issues and felt an adversarial system was the best solution at the time. Today with the aid of the internet we know better. We should simple censure and imprison dissent and not bother with it at all.

Everyone knows math and science is a republican invention designed by evil businessmen for inhumane profits. I prefer a system of government in which I can trust my welfare to the good nature and honesty of bureaucrats rather than cold, evil numerical equations, actuary tables, risk profiles and budgets. It's time mathematics and science are recognized as the tools of class warfare that they are.

And our contribution becomes part of our "permanent record" with the NSA? So glad I'm a US citizen and need not fear about such things.

I agree, no need for caution when it comes to liberty and due process. The "true" media has never steered us wrong.

Molecules are mathematical formulas. Machines are just simple physical devices governed by math. What matters is the R&D and protecting the R&D and incentive to do the research.

TIL that millions of geniuses around the globe can fathom the entire truth from a twitter feed w/o need for further investigation. Including the geniuses of HN.

I prefer the much easier System 1 and System 2 of Kahneman and Tversky.