After most elected Republicans and Democrats voted for EESA in 2008 (against the wishes of their constituents by 100:1 or more) and after Bush's PATRIOT Act and Obama's decision to renew it, it should be apparent that the major political parties are functionally identical and not interested in their voters.
Dividing people along party lines distracts from the issues while changing nothing. The issue here is net neutrality.
This is like saying just because China and the US act much in the same way (for example, they are the leaders in environment pollution) there is no distinction between people who believe in a communist regime vs. in a democratic government. Of course a distinction between Republicans and Democrats is useful. For example it is a good prediction to say if you have a PhD, you are probably not a Republican.
I am a hardcore sci-fi fan. Although I basically grew up in a library, the most fascinating part of it were the two or three racks nobody frequented than me: the racks were full of hardcore sci-fi like heinlein, asimov, pkdick, silverberg, leguin, pohl, you name them. In that sense, Sci-Fi is actually dying, because in the last 10 years, I hardly found something that even remotely compares with the great work of these guys except for the works of one author, Iain. M. Banks.
And Neal Asher, or Charles Stross (although his great Laundry series is more geeky-thriller-and-urban-horror-with-some-scifi-elements).
And honestly, compared to Reynolds, Asher, Stross and Banks I find the old 'hard-core' SciFi by Dick and Heinlein rather... dull. Not entirely sure what it is, but the classics are less gripping to me.
But then: The gold age of SciFi is between 8 and 12 :)
Only someone who doesn't truly love Sci-fi can say that ... Also, if you are saying that Dick is dull (by the way, Dick is totally different from Heinlein), than you have no clue and your opinion does not count. :-)
If you like Banks you might consider checking out the other two members of the "Scottish Clique", Ken Macleod and Charles Stross. Both write some really good stuff.
Other new good hard SF writers might be Cory Doctorow, Michael Chabon, Rachel Swirsky, Sara Genge, Geoffrey Landis, Elizabeth Bear, Ted Chiang, Paolo Bacigalupi, Aliette de Bodard, Mary Robinette Kowal, Charlie Jane Anders, Felicity Shoulders, and Ian Tregillis. I haven't read them all, but they're all at least on my reading list for good hard SF due to recommendations from friends I trust.
And I'll second the Alistair Reynolds recommendation too.
Although he's technically Finnish, Hannu Rajaniemi might also count as being part of that "Scottish clique", I suppose, since he's based in Edinburgh. I thought his "The Quantum Thief", which came out earlier this year in the UK, was a terrific sci-fi novel, especially when you consider that it's his first. The bloke's got a PhD in string theory so one assumes he knows his stuff, too.
He's certainly good, I really loved Distress, but I guess I don't think of him as new. Which is sort of silly I guess, given that he's still putting out stuff. If we're including him might as well do Bruce Sterling as well. I'm rereading "Distraction" at the moment and it hold up pretty darn well - except for failures of understanding about the economics of software development.
Honestly, there's tons of good stuff out there, but it's just hard to separate it from the pulp. With the oldie goldies it's relatively easy because we have a few decades of people assessing those books.
Got to reply to myself here. I forgot to mention Joe Haldeman who still writes and is one of my forever SciFi heroes because of "The Forever War". And now I discovered that Ridley Scott (Bladerunner, Alien) is going to do "The Forever War" in 3D! So, yes, Sci-Fi is dying, but as long as true fans of the pure art like Ridley Scott are around, there is hope.
All germans know that this is not going to happen. The euro is here to stay, and germans (at least those who generate most of the GDP for germany) are willing to pay in order to keep it. After all, we can do the math.
Open standards are nice, and Javascript is in many ways better than Java or C# (but not better than F#, for example). But I am a professional programmer, and from my point of view Javascript is still a boring mess. Heterogeneity is the key, and native apps will rule. After all, that's what protocols are for, to mediate between different entities. I want to be able to create content that is not limited to technologies imposed by the W3C.
it's definitely a mess (i distinctly recall recoiling from my keyboard when i realized an array of numbers was being sorted lexically), but what do you mean by boring?
I am happy with 2.8, I use it to develop another programming language :-) I am careful though to depend not too heavily on Scala libraries, because of surprises I have experienced in that area, too. But honestly: there is just no other programming language as mature as Scala while being as productive (until my new programming language is finished, that is :-))
Hey, just got down voted by a Republican. That's a special honor. Keep it coming.