Look, there is no justification for this law whatsoever. The governor is pretty clueless here.

This law cannot stand up in a court. This is an unconstitutional ban and it won't last. You cannot prevent a person from buying a product online if that product is legal to buy.

Also, what determines "online from Michigan?" What if I remote desktop to a machine in a different state and open the browser on that system and buy. Did I just break the law? Or since the system that did the ordering was in a remote state, wouldn't it be legal.

Can I buy it and have it shipped to my brother who lives in a different state and pick it up there?

Can I choose it online, and then fax or call in or is faxing and calling considered "On line". What if I get a downloaded PDF that I mail in? That definitely is not an order online.

Tesla should sue, but so should the state where Tesla has its headquarters.

Apple lost the PC market in the late 80s and early 90s to Microsoft because Microsoft focused on business features. Apple did not.

It seems no one at Apple understand business feature needs. For consumers, Apple is user friendly, but for business users, Apple is blind. For business, Microsoft is user friendly, for consumer, they are not blind but average. Apple wins hands down with many consumers but Microsoft wins business and wins the average when both business and consumers are combined.

There are about 1 billion laptops out there, 1/2 a billion for businesses. Most the business laptops will be upgrade in the next four years with a Surface Pro or similar device that is half-tablet half laptop. But unlike other products, this device will be completely business user friendly.

One a company buys their employee a Surface Pro and they use it for business and all their stuff is on it, what is going to happen to that iPad they used to use?

It might have other uses, but it sounds like software for use by responsible parents monitoring their 11 year old that they just gave a phone too.

The parents not only have the right, but some might say the duty, to monitor such underage phone users at all those levels.

"Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect."

If you code at a 1st year level for 10,000 hours, and don't study learn and improve, will you still be a 1st year level coder after 10,000 hours?
If you write fiction at a 3rd grade writing skill level, and don't study, learn, and improve, will you always be at a 3rd grade writing level after 10,000 hours?

I would say no to both. You would be much better for two reasons.
1. You will gain ideas naturally - things you may have learned in 5 minutes of studying might pop into your mind.
2. Your brain actually changes with experience. That which you do becomes easier because your brain changes. (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/brain-changes-in-response-to-experi/)

College is fine, but we are missing some key educational experiences by going away from apprenticeships. I feel that Computer Science, some forms of doctors, and many other fields would benefit from apprenticeship.

Reason 1 - Treating theories as 100% verified facts/laws

Remember, a theory is not 100% verified. A hypothesis with evidence but not 100% proven is a theory. Once it is 100% proven, it is a Law.

http://chemistry.about.com/od/...

- Gravity is a Law. It is 100% proven. Hence we call it the "Law of Gravity". Even defying gravity doesn't disprove gravity.
- Evolution is a theory, hence we call it the "Theory of Evolution." Not 100% proven but very good evidence to support it. However, there are gaps in the evidence.
- The big bang is a theory, hence we call it the "Big Bang theory."

Science is about observation. We observe what we can and try to determine why something happens or happened or how it happened.

We don't have to understand laws fully. While Gravity is a law, we can't yet explain how it works.

REASON #2 - To the lay person, science is just another religion.

In a religion, a very wise and righteous person sees something amazing (vision, God, taken up to heaven, whatever) that the average person could see if only they would be righteous enough. They call them a prophet. The prophet "preach" to the masses to get them to believe. The average person has to "trust" the prophet. The average person never gets the amazing experience but is asked to think about it and believe. Certain believes become so indoctrinated that they become zealots and lose rational scientific thought. Teachings are misconstrued by religious zealots.

There are a few very wise people who have seen something amazing that the average person could see if only they would be rich or educated enough. They call them scientists. Scientists "preach" to the masses to get them to believe. The average person just has to "trust" the scientists. The average person could never go to CERN and witness all that is happening there, but they are asked to think about it and believe. Certain believes become so indoctrinated that they become zealots and lose rational scientific thought. Certain believes become so indoctrinated that they become zealots and lose rational scientific thought. Certain believers become so indoctrinated that they become zealots and lose rational scientific thought. Teachings are misconstrued by scientific zealots.

REASON #3 - Using theories to disprove something they don't disprove (Usually by misconstrued scientific zealots)

I firmly believe in the the theory of evolution. We have evidence of changes in species over time. We still do not have proof that evolution was the result of an outside influence. We do, however, have evidence of evolutionary jumps--jumps meaning evolution that occurred faster than scientists suspect would be possible, hence there is the possibility that some outside influence gave evolution a bump. Contrary to popular belief (by scientific zealots), evolution and intelligent design and not contradicting theories. DNA looks like biological code and the way it is used in different species looks a lot like good code reuse or self-learning biological code.
The point is, claiming that the theory of evolution disproves intelligent design, or God, or some higher power, is not scientific. There is little correlation between the two ideas. Scientifically, God and evolution could both exist. God (or ancient aliens or a powerful race from a different dimension, or some entity outside of space and time, whatever) could have created the world/universe, whatever, and uses these scientific laws to do so.

Science observes and makes hypothesis, tests them, forms theories, and hopefully discovers scientific laws. It doesn't make brash statements that evidence for one theory disproves a completely unrelated theory.

REASON #4 - Science ignores the unexplained or calls the observer a liar.

Here is one example, but there are many more . . .

A person has a spiritual experience. Their mother returned to them as a spirit and gave them a bit of wisdom. Science scoffs at this experience and calls it untrue. Why? How could such a thing happen? How does a spirit of the dead visit the living? It is not explainable by science, hence it must have be a lie. However, science is about observation. The only scientific evidence that exists--the only observation that exists--is by the person who had this spiritual experience.

Hence by proof of observation, there is an extreme amount of evidence that people see spirits. Now, multiply this by the millions of people that have this experience and the scientific evidence--human observation--of people seeing spirits overwhelms the evidence of other theories, such as the theory of evolution. But such evidence is ignored. Surely these millions of individuals were all just lying and making up anecdotal experiences for one reason or another. Liars.

If a person has such an experience, and science says they are liar, how do you think they are going to feel toward science?

Then when a scientist does take such an experience seriously, the rest of science calls them quacks.

REASON #5 - Using very small amounts of data

Statistically, we probably don't have and will never have enough data to prove global warming is causes by humans. Science is doing its best. It is looking at ice core samples, and guessing the weather in the past. We are tracking data now. We don't have data except for a small portion of earth's history. We have barely 100 years worth of data. Scientists estimate the earth is 4.5 billion years old. 100 years is such a small percentage of the earth's existance. 2.2e-8 by calculator. That will never be a large enough of a sample size. And while ice cores lead to guesses about past weather, they still don't increase our sample size enough.

Become a programmer through self-study/training course and get an entry-level job with a company with tuition reimbursement. Then take night classes. Get practical experience as you get theory. Get paid. Get school reimbursed. It will take six or years instead of four, but you will have 6 years experience and have a "staff" title, working on your "senior" title when you graduate.

If only there was a very dry place about two states east that had little humidity and a giant lake of salt water. And if only that place had nearby mountains and rivers to capture the "lake affect" participation and transport the water from participation in that area flowed to California.

If only that were the case, then California could build a pipeline/pump system (mostly a one time upfront cost) to fill that lake with ocean water and let natural evaporation and rain desalinize the water. Then the lakes and rivers will just have more water all the way to California.

But of course, that is just wishful thinking, right!

I firmly believe in the theory of evolution. But does the theory of evolution discount intelligent design? I see no evidence in the theory of evolution to discount intelligent design. In fact, just the opposite. We've discovered rapid evolutionary periods that don't quite fit with the time evolution takes. These might be explained by external influence.

Also, we humans are intelligent. Everything we do is by "Intelligent Design".

How did we clone a sheep? By intelligent design.
How did we create GMO plants? By intelligent design.
How did we eradicate small pox? By intelligent design.
How did we harness electricity? We evolved until our skin could control it and ... oh wait, no, this was by intelligent desing.
How did we create a computer? By intelligent design.
How did we travel to the moon? By intelligent design.

We have so many proven examples intelligent design and we are getting more every day. Someday we might, by intelligent design, find a plant that can live in the Mars climate. That plant might help terraform the planet. We might later genetically engineer animals to take to Mars before we put humans there. We might even have to use evolution in terraforming.

By the way. DNA looks like good code reuse, a Biological engineering language, a clue that it may have been created by intelligent design.

To this date, we have uncountable examples of intelligent design. If you are a true scientist and truly believe in the scientific method, then intelligent design is one of the most proven theories. Proven by us.

1. Java is obnoxiously verbose. Despite having an example of properties from C# and cries for them to support them, they have failed to do so. So the syntax for creating getters and setters takes so much longer. Everytime I wrote code in Java over C#, it takes so many more lines. C++ compiler should support properties by now too.
A few years old but: http://www.slideshare.net/jeff...

2. The IDE. Besides having the look of an app from the 90's, Eclipse is a mess. It takes hours and hours of plugin research to get the same feature set as the default install of VS. Even basic features, like basic font size and themes, are unacceptably difficult. Then you have to add plugins to do anything worth while. Netbeans seemed to work better for some things but have less plugins.

3. The java installation is a pain. Both java and the IDE. Microsoft has the benefit of .NET embedded by default. And if a new version is needed, it comes with the IDE. The install of Visual Studio is simple and easy. You download and install it and it will install the needed .NET version and everything just works with one install. With Java, you have to find the right JRE/JDK and heaven forbid you get the one that doesn't have that enterprise feature. Eclipse is just a zip file. It isn't even an installer. So you have to manually add options to the Start page yourself if you want them. Not to mention the pinning issue. You pin it, but when you run it, it doesn't run under the pinned icon.

4. Oracle. Enough said.

I heard MS was contributing $$ to Novell to further the mono project from a member of the Novell team. Which essentially helped spawn Xamarine. Can any provide a source that confirms or refutes this.

I use OpenSource code from Microsoft. It is very beneficial. And pretty darn good open source code at that.

WiX Toolset
Entity Framework
Orchard

Whether you like it or not, Microsoft is one of the largest contributors to open source in the world.

I was going to write this awesome post and then I read yours and it already had most of my points.

So, uh, I agree with Murdoch5!

Never heard of them either. I went back to get my masters and they have not been mentioned in the academic fields either.

Your likely better off joining any local development group in your community or an open source project you are excited about.

I was constantly told growing up that girls are naturally better at math than boys. I was probably top 5 in my High School in Math as a guy. I heard this over and over and over again. The girls heard it too.

So why is this post saying the opposite?

Is my one experience just an anecdotal anomaly?

I don't think the problem is what they think it is. Correlation does not equal causation. They've started off well. The lights with countdowns have an increase in accidents. That leaves the following questions:

1. Is it a significant enough increase to do anything about?
2. Why do these intersections have more accidents? Is it really the counter, or were other updates made the same time the counter was added?
3. Are the counters only added to busier intersections?
4. I often slow down sooner because I see based on the counter that I can never make the green light. (Yes, I speed up too when I do see that I can make the light.)
5. Also, I've noticed that because of these counters, the first car starts going sooner on a green light. This means one or more cars get through the light than before. This means more traffic is getting through the intersection. So is it the light or the increased traffic through the light causing the increase in crashing?

Anyway, I don't think we are ready to act yet.