But you assume crime and illegality are the same thing. What about drug-usage offenses? There's probably no finite in-jail punishment time to prevent future toking upon release.

The concept of "everyone" meaning just a small circle of people is in evidence here. What about the so-called "third world" where modem dial-ups in a dingy cafe still common? Sometimes in these circles, Facebook IS the Internet and is still growing rapidly. Of course, "our youths" don't chat with this rest of the world who don't count in the coolness-factor of the survey above and discussions here.

So is this a good thing, or just dismal? At the higher end, daily rates for externals can be much better than internal staff salaries -- but of course, with caveats and the usual temporary nature of assignments. And clearly, some people are more suited for this sort of thing than others. I'm interested to hear experienced opinions whether you consider this headline statistic as a good or bad thing.

I'm undecided because the article (and my limited awareness) doesn't break down the types of self-employment into recognizable scenarios.

s/Bradley/Chelsea/

Sounds neat, will they handle Silk Road deliveries next?

Kodak always was a "scaling" company, not just a niche market thing. WIth the emerging trend towards produce-your-own stuff with 3D printers, can small-scale production of acetates be far behind -- for the few who still want it?

So let me know when you can produce your own 3D molecules small-scale. I have a special order. :-)

This sounds like a "scifi-jihadist" rebut, if you can pardon the paradigm. Bad logic because it doesn't follow your conclusion -- is that your general description for those who disagree with you, or do you reserve the label for religious discussions? Surely the facts of the matter don't depend on my arguments regardless of the inconvenience this causes you .

Science is a method, and the conclusions continue to change over time. And I suppose once everything is "proved", as you envision it, science itself will be obsolete.

Whether or not something exists (eg, a designer) has little to do with Occam's & Laplace's heuristics of how to guess it from afar, or whether our principals of extrapolating existing know-how are up to the task.

While there's merit in these investigative tools, they have limits. Being aware of such limits doesn't make me an idiot, as implied earlier. Indeed, the "religion of science" crowd is just as likely to show intolerance of other opinions as any other certified jihadist when it comes to keeping and open mind on this topic.

In other words, YOU think you know what the alleged designer had in mind, and since the result is not in your mind, therefore said designer doesn't exist. On the the other hand, if the design point of this bug was to exist in diverse forms, then mission accomplished. There now, I've evolved my design-understanding to fit the facts. Now it's your turn to design the evolution of your thought-processes accordingly.

I interpret this as a general sentiment against creating long-term (as in, millions of years) nuclear waste that is "simply" thrown away somewhere -- despite substantial and expensive assurances that a good somewhere has been found. And I agree.

So deal with the waste, or don't produce such things in the first place -- though a bit late for that one. Sooner or later we have to deal with the consequences of making all this stuff, like reprocessing it while keeping bomb-grade material out of the hands of bad guys. Live and learn.

In other words, a better model is needed for the entire uranium (etc) life cycle. What's failing is handling it piecemeal, along with the concept that there's an "away", as in garbage throw-away, which is already far too ingrained in our consumer mentality. No wonder there's controversy as we slowly and painfully and expensively learn that this concept doesn't apply to nuclear waste.

Maybe we could hire scientologists to guard the stuff instead. Don't they sign billion-year work contracts?

Yes, I was thinking of this article as I read the header and started to read the comments above. Looks like most of the brickbats here haven't even read the article, but are just reacting to the theory of it all. Tsk. I'm still with Kristof on this one. Maybe one of the naysayers above can rephrase their negative commentary based on this specific article, versus their own projected fears?

So, what's the answer to your which-is-worse questions? Or are you also one of those people who have idea... I'm happy to understand the risks better, educate away.

A misunderstanding here is the Slashdotter's assumption that "get a good job" means getting a job specifically doing high-powered software development after taking this training course.

While that might not be reasonable, I do see jobs where the addition of programming know-how (or even more awareness) would be helpful and can make the difference between available work or not.

Eg, system/application integration. Sometimes a bit of glue programming is needed above and beyond doing installations and support. (Perl, anyone?)

The business-type people (or anyone who talks in sound-bites) scramble to put a label on this activity. Tacking on "analyst" is getting old now, so maybe the new buzz word is "coder" which might have a different context than what the audience here is jumping all over.

How much IT work lives in a vaccum without context, as does a handbag?

This new service might be useful for a few one-time scripts by someone with more experience than the customer, but real business value requires integration & continuity. Etc.

Things will get more interesting if these guys can introduce an "OpenCEO" product. Why pay for high-priced execs when you can download the equivalent for free?