So, you're telling me that we can get the spammers to program better AI for us?

Actually Detroit is a perfect example to bolster my original point.

The auto industry had such deep connections to Capitol Hill that they never had to worry about much competition. German and Japanese automobiles were stymied and lobbied and mudslung at every opportunity. The whole thing was propped up artificially by red tape and legislature. Ultimately, it wasn't sustainable. Detroit was so far behind the times that everything came crashing down around them, and we're left with the wasteland that it is today.

Had the congress critters removed themselves from the equation, and let Detroit suffer earlier, the suffering could have been significantly lower. American cars would have started to lose ground sooner, hopefully before they were completely lost causes, and just maybe caused manufacturers to get with the times and keep themselves competitive. At least they would've had a chance. Yeah, it would still have been painful. But at least the city would've stood a chance.

Now we're starting the same song and dance with Space-X. If Congress puts up the same fight for Boeing, Lockheed and Northrop that they did for GM, Ford and Chrysler, expect similar results (cough*F-35*cough) Space-X will eventually get tired of the BS and pack up. Musk is from South Africa, and he's half Canadian and half Brit... so I think he can find somewhere else to setup shop if the US government gives him enough crap. At which point, he can just sell the rockets to NASA if they're still interested, siphoning American dollars into whichever country he's working from. Oh, and this is the guy trying to revolutionize the auto industry at the same time, AND build that giga-factory which might help create some jobs... but na, lets keep the short sighted approach and make sure the middle managers in these 3 peoples' towns stay well employed, and keep their property values high.

I think you're definitely on the right track: It's much less an opposition to dressing nicely. Rather, engineers tend to oppose things for which the only rationale is "because that's just the way we do it."

Professional business attire is acceptable when dealing with clients/customers. Makes logical sense. No opposition.
Suit and tie, to sit in a cube and churn through code all day ... makes no sense. So you'll get push back.

Anecdotally, I've noticed that this tends to be more common back east. DC to Boston, random working stiffs rocking the jacket and tie every day for no adequate reason. I worked for Intuit out in San Diego for a few years though, and engineers would quite often come to work in flip flops and board shorts (we were 10-15 min from the beach, so a long lunch of surfing was fairly common). You might be khakis and a polo shirt for important meetings. Maybe.

I think the point was less about the tactics themselves, but rather who is calling such things dirty.

The things these guys are doing barely qualify as minor shenanigans compared to the dirty tricks that big business pull

Glass houses, and all

At least with term limits, you've a chance to get some honest ones every so often, if only by accident.

As it stands now, the big corps just find one guy who's easily purchased and bankroll him until he croaks.

Personally, I think term limits are only half of the solution. The other half is a "none of the above" voting option. In any candidate race, there should be a "None of the above" option. If that option wins, the seat is vacated and a special election is held with new candidates. Repeat as necessary until an actual winner emerges.

I get what you're saying, but I can't buy the "Constituent Services" line, even at it's most cynical.

The only constituents that will feel the pinch here are the upper management of Lockheed/Boeing. The vast majority of workers should have transferable skills. Boeing is bleeding out? Well then, there should be some job openings at Space-X

If these Congress Critters really wanted to help their constituents, they'd be passing legislature that smoothed this transition. Maybe tax breaks for a company that hires local talent, or something like that. Give Space-X some incentives to pick up the slack from Lockheed and Boeing. But those constituents aren't the ones supplying the hookers and blow, so nevermind.

The kicker (for me) is that many websites DON'T allow certain character sets.

I've had websites tell me that I'm not allowed to use special characters. One of which was a financial institution.

Economies of scale would probably drop that significantly.

But even if the $300 B price tag is accurate, you could cover 1/3 of California using the bailout that Morgan Stanley received.

Don't disagree about most mobile sites being junk

My question was more about distribution of effort. Is it easier to make a decent app, than to make a decent mobile page?

Or, put another way: Do mobile sites suck because they're harder to code? Or because web companies would rather make us install THEIR proprietary software?

As much as I would like to see the entire NSA dismantled, it should primarily be the top-level folks facing jail time.

Sure, Joe Technician knows what he's doing is wrong, but it's very very difficult to blow the whistle on an operation like that. Just look at old Eddie S.

But the top brass, they actually had the clout to stop the insanity, but decided to dig deeper in, instead. They're the ones who straight-up lies to congress, foriegn allies, the American people and everyone else.

Lock them up. Hell, send a few to the Chair. Treason is still punishable by death. Not only is this proper justice for the crimes committed, but will serve as a warning to future generations of TLA folks.

Play by the rules, or be held accountable.

Question for you, as someone who has developed a mobile app:

How much harder is it to optimize a mobile version of the webpage vs writing an app from scratch and getting it approved for App Store release?

You win this round, you rogue...

But truthfully, it's only getting more and more digital, even without the computers controlling the actual steering (yet). You mentioned a threshold of ~10 years back. That's a lot of time for change. I promise you, you won't find any butterfly valves on a Tesla or Nissan Leaf (and this is half true for Hybrid cars.) I'm also fairly certain that they don't have Manual Transmission options.

It's going to be a slow process, to be sure... but frankly, I already trust a computer algorithm much more than about 50% of the gits trawling the roads. And even though *I* am quite confident that I can outperform HAL9000 at the wheel, I'm also lazy, and would rather just take a nap most of the time.

While true, reverse- just indicates that it's opposite of the norm.

When Mega-Maid went from suck to blow, it could be characterized as reverse-flow. But really, there's no such thing. Flow is flow.