That's exactly the problem with this situation : trust is broken. Now that the general public is aware of the surveillance system built into each and every electronic device, how can anyone look at those the same way ever again?

For instance, Microsoft pushed a 20MB update to the "malicious software removal tool" on Wednesday, after all the patches that came out on Tuesday, on its own. I found myself wondering whether it could be the next Stuxnet. Do we, users, have to suspect everything coming off the internet now? What kind of crap is that? I , for one, want my computers and internet back to the way (we thought?) they were before becoming tools of tyranny. Having to second guess anything one does on a device is an exquisite form of torture on its own...

PS : Frank Zappa had an excellent song about this when watergate happened : "Dickie's (Nixon) Such an Asshole".

I had a heck of a time with the more abstract math concepts I learned in high school and college until I saw them at work while using Maya ; then it just all made sense.

Using modeling and animation software to illustrate the math concepts might be a good way around the abstraction problem.

In the end, Muslim leaders blame the West for their trouble and western leaders blame Islam for their trouble. The problem isn't a religious one : most people on the planet are inherently well meaning regardless of differences. The problem that the majority of the population on either sides seems to be oblivious to is that our "leaders" blame each other while sitting back and enjoying the show and will come up with some new reason to blame the other camp whenever the time comes to squeeze the people a little harder.

If the majority of the world's population were to realize that, the situation should change for the better quite rapidly. Unfortunately, I fear that most can't see past the "weapons of mass distraction"... However I still hope that word of mouth and common sense will prevail given enough time.

I second that. We CG people sure don't get to see the kind of money the major production houses flaunt and only have our jobs shipped out of country as ultimate reward. Many would be better off if it wasn't for overly-greedy middlemen ; we might actually see more cultural diversity as well. CG work is gruesome, constant focus work with short deadlines and low salaries for the amount of skill required. If Cinedigm opens an alternate route that turns out to be viable, new life can be breathed into the suffocating US film and animation industries and add some extra fluidity to the economy as a consequence.

This should be an interesting fight.

"The problem with the gene pool is that there are too many lifeguards."

FTFY.

but most of them remain just guesswork

So was alchemy before it became chemistry...