ordinary

You would be surprised. There are many developers who rail against the GPL for restricting their ability to turn free software proprietary, and who subsequently call BSD-style licenses "more free", because those allow them to do more things.

That is a misunderstanding of what the FSF is about, but it is a fairly common misunderstanding.

But it is the citizens' responsibility to make clear to their representatives the problems they consider important. For a couple of examples of this principle in action, see the civil rights movement of the '60s, or the marriage equality movement of the noughts and teens. No politician would've dared approach those issues until the citizenry made its voice heard.

As a rule, on issues that we as peoples consider important, we lead our politicians, they do not lead us. This is partly because of the incentives in play in modern democracies and partly because, as you say, they are merely our representatives, not our dear leaders.

It might solve some other problems with GPU programming, though?

The smartphone may replace the box, but it won't replace the peripherals. Those will continue to be extremely desireable features for many tasks, because they are far more ergonomic and speed up many types of work.

I predict a smartphone docking station on every desk within 5 years, both at home and at work. Maybe a docking station on every couch, too, tablet form-factor.

If you're interested in how large a fraction of the working age population is employed, see employment rate.

I noticed a couple of points in this post that I would like some clarification on, if you have the time and inclination.

Christians are supposed to submit to their government, even oppressive ones. There are quite a few references for this (b) (c). Finding more examples isn't difficult if you want more.

Where does this sentiment come from, considering that Christianity was illegal in the Roman empire at the time? To an extent, I can understand requiring submission to persecution for reasons unrelated to the faith, but it seems strange to me that early Christians would be required to submit to a government that is persecuting those that attempt to obey God, for attempting to obey God.

They either already know they're not following God or don't care (which is basically the same thing).

Is it really impossible to be 'good' if you don't follow God, according to scripture? Is an atheist sinful by definition?

That is true as far as it goes, but the fundamental problem is not IS, nor Al-Qaeda, nor any single terrorist group out there, nor even all terrorist groups taken together. It's the extremist ideology that appeals to young, angry men across the Muslim world. Taking out Al-Qaeda in 2001 didn't have any effect in the long term. Going to war with Iraq in 2003 actively made the problem worse. Killing bin Laden in 2011 didn't really do anything one way or the other. If the West goes in now, and (figuratively) nukes Syria, then why would we think that will solve the problem, when it never has before?

If you want to win this like you win a war, by killing your way to victory, then you have to kill not just everyone who's currently carrying a gun, but everyone who may pick up a gun as a reaction to that killing, and everyone who may pick one up as a reaction to killing them, and so forth. That kind of total war is immoral, in my view.

Our approach to defusing this threat should not be focused on killing individuals, but on removing the motivations they have for fighting us in the first place, without judging whether, in our view, they are valid or not. The fact that they have them, right or wrong, is all that matters. I don't know what will achieve that, but after responding to over 30 years of Islamic violence with force and force alone, and failing to really have much impact, we should recognize that a change in strategy is required.

I feel that once a user circumvents the package system, it is unreasonable for that user to expect that the package system will continue to work correctly. In that case, the user has taken over some of the responsibilies of the package system, and software vendors should feel no obligation to ensure compatibility with such changes.