I think one has to be realist about their tools and idealist about their goals. And the drive is the most important factor. If they're just going through the motions without intent, without ideal, it won't lead anywhere. The will to preserve (imo absurd[0]) or the will to change.

Of course, there isn't any one true model of thought. So I'm surely wrong.

[0]: I don't think anything can last, civil rights included, but things can come and go

Ideologies (and ideas) are, in my view, stronger than facts, which often only represent the past, while ideas shape the future.

(these days the word "fact" is a bit of a trigger, but I thought about that well before all that jazz, and the current phenomenom seemed to prove my point to many of my friends)

If someone follows me in the street for hours (days, weeks, life) and note everything that I do, I'd be right to call that a violation of my privacy ?

Well, they weren't exactly choirboys from what I've heard.

(I understand what you meant, but that quote out of context is just great)

I try to avoid manipulating strings as much as possible. ;)

By and large people (demographically) who voted for the democrats won't be much affected by the GOP gov, but the people who voted for the GOP will be badly affected.

If a mod comes here, I vote for closing this post, I feel it is very very prone to political flame wars.

Paris and London are 500km apart, a couple hours of train or plane away from each other, both capital cities, both have ~10¨7 people.

Yep, it's almost true. London 8.5M. If you count all 50 "countries" (some are a joke though) it ranks between the 21st and 22nd.

Though in my city (Paris 11M, I think), similarly sized, there's only 2 Apple stores.

As long as you write all your code on one line

I mean 18 months. It's a lot.

I would like to believe they do... But I don't think they'd bother with that.