Google and Facebook are out to make money. The Chinese are out to be a superpower. I like my chances better with the US than with China.

That's about 1.5% of the total US population. What point are you trying to make here?

That raises an interesting point about the intersection of copyright and trademark. If I write a version of, say, Snow White, that is similar-but-legally-distinct from the Disney version, am I infringing on the use of their Snow White trademark if my Snow White looks nothing like the Disney Snow White?

Thanks for answering the OP. I had no idea who Murakami was (is?) so I too was trying to figure out why this was on Slashdot. Any particular works / translations of his you recommend?

That'll do wonders to help the housing crisis, I'm sure.

Yes, this. I just want to eat my meal. I will signal if I need something. Otherwise, let me alone.

Can you back up those assertions or is this just doom-and-gloom prognostication? I don't like Trump, but we're Slashdot, we should be holding ourselves to a higher standard of conversation.

It's one of two things:
1) Skills mismatch: employers can't find personnel with the skill-set they need. I don't work in the tech sector so I won't comment on the HB1 visa debacle, but I know this is a big issue in construction and civil infrastructure sectors.
2)Regional mismatch: the jobs are in places where people aren't.

As for Seattle, I'd guess that most of the street people don't have the necessary skills to work in the tech sector. That said, feel free to donate your time and energy to teach a few of them how to code.

"Universal"
"You keep on using that word. I do not think that word means what you think that word means.

No, not even close. Wikipedia has a list of military bases in Europe. The bases in Italy provide easy access to the Mediterranean. The bases in Germany, particularly Grafenwoehr and Hoehnfelds, are large-scale maneuver training areas, used by both NATO members and US allies.

Fascinating. Again I'm not opposed to buses, I just don't get why most of them seem to be run by crayon eaters or people who actively have their user base.

I'm inclined to agree with you on public transit in the forms of subways or commuter rail but all bus systems seem to universally suck (with the exception of Helsinki, Finland). I've used bus systems in multiple cities and countries and they are universally more difficult to use then either the subway or commuter rail systems. Assuming the schedule is posted, it's often illegible due to age or the scratches on the cheap plexiglass the stations use for posting it. Or it's a public holiday and the bus lines are running on a different schedule that isn't posted at the stop but can only be gotten from the local transit authority website. Change-overs or bus-line intersections or whatever you want to call them are rarely posted. Often times the transit routes themselves aren't posted or they're posted by color (for example, the Red Line) while the bus sports a number (the #1 Line) and there's no key/legend to let you know what is what.

Assuming you can figure out how to get from A to B, often times getting from A to B takes WAAAY longer than it would take by either subway or commuter rail or car. Using San Antonio as an example, though admittedly an extreme one, it took an acquaintance of mine 45 minutes to walk from his apartment to his job. Using the bus, it took two hours and two transit-line changeovers.

Every subway or commuter rail line I've ever ridden (all European admittedly) has had a nicely labeled sign at every stop, with clear instructions on how the lines intersected, where the various stops were within the city, and what time you could expect the next train for normal workdays, weekends, and public holidays.

In short, I don't object to buses in principle, but in practice they're often poorly executed. Maybe fire the bus people and hire some commuter rail / subway folks to design their information signs.

Google "The Toxoplasma of Rage"* It's an interesting article on the outrage cycle that fuels clickbait and other type articles.

*Posting the title, but no link, as the writer recently asked people to stop linking directly to his page from major news media. I'm honestly not sure if Slashdot counts or not.

The US government gets its money from the taxpayers. It then follows that the taxpayers are indeed the ones paying for it.

Unfortunately, the DRC has an electricity distribution issue. While the DRC has a lot of power-generating capability, civil infrastructure development is very lopsided and a lot of areas suffer rolling blackouts or brownouts. Also, never underestimate how far dictators will go to stay in power.