Don't get penisy, kid. Have you ever done the Kessel Run in under 12 parsecs? I mean, do you even Pirate, bro?

So where's your data, bruh?

Don't laugh. NEVER laugh. You'd be bitching if they were out in the streets in gangs, stealing your stuff, vandalizing your property, or any of that other shit old people complain about. Instead, you have a youth who has a desire to learn and invent something which will hopefully lead them into being a productive member of society instead of serving 20 to life for cooking meth. Young folks, especially in the high school age range, are easily discouraged and you ridiculing them about being too hipster or whatever will only alienate them. When faced with this situation, I will show them how to blink that LED with their Arduino, then show them how to blink it over a USB port with their gaming rig, then show them how to blink it with a mechanical cam switch (old points distributors work great for that fyi). If I've got some lying around, I'll show them how to blink it with some vacuum tubes! What you have to do is find out why they chose to do it the way the are doing it (typically because that's all they know) and then show them all the choices available, why you'd use each one in a different application, and show them why they get to use that Arduino now instead of wire wrapping an 1802 on perfboard. The key to all of this, I've found, is maintaining the balance between lengthy enough to get the concept across but short enough to keep them from picking up their phone and tweeting their facepage.

Besides, grandpa, you should be happy the hipster Makers are doing what they do. Thanks to steampunk, vacuum tubes(especially nixies) are making a huge come back. I have a USB vacuum tube audio amp similar to this. You couldn't buy that shit when we were kids. You had that 100lb behemoth amp that made the house lights dim when the bass hit, and kept your room 80deg during the coldest of winters. And that was if you had a good bit of money. If you had a little money you might be able to buy a Heathkit. Otherwise, like me, you cobbled together some barely functional and noisy bullshit from an old guitar amp and a half working tube powered CB radio. Now you can get something handheld portable for a hundred bucks with the further satisfaction that your "dying" craft is actually living on and they'll need people like you to teach the new gen.

The overall point is, no matter how they get to the destination, what really matters is that they're taking the journey. Time itself will teach them when they need to blink that LED with an RPi or if they need to use a couple transistors. /. is always posting stories about how we need more STEM graduates, more hardware hackers, and more programmers. A lot of folks here agree with that sentiment and perhaps you've said as much in the past, so please, don't ever laugh at them. They're sensitive.

DISCLAIMER: I am dense at times. If "laugh at" was just a figure of speech, please don't take the post personally- perhaps someone else can be inspired.

Correct, right about nothing.

I would think maybe, being very generous here, that back in the day America probably didn't care about exporting vehicles. Though in this day and age you are completely correct. Differences now are mostly tradition IMHO. I mainly responded because I love to hear the arguments people make why one side is preferable to the other. You evidently weren't claiming that, my bad.

Gotcha. I guess the world isn't filled with too many people with the view you have. Instead of cleaning out their closet, they just shove a dresser in front of it and hope no one notices.

I meant to say "That implies RHD is superior"

If I was a technician in those wonderfully warm glowy tube days I would have probably known that. Thanks for putting a method to the madness.

Thanks for the clarification. It's all trash nowadays and I've drastically reduced my consumption so I doubt I'll go back anyway. Don't congratulate me though, to make up for healthier eating I've increased my tobacco consumption, lol!

You suggestions are leveled headed and if I am remembering correctly the exact solution suggested in the flamewar- by the only female participating fyi. What really got the shit started, IMHO, was that chain of command was broken. Ben had authority to tell the luser to fuck off with his sanitizing and said luser made an end run around him and got someone else to do it. If you're my kid and I tell you 'no', and then you run off to grandpa to get your way, I'm gonna spank your ass, and chew grandpa out. Same happened here. Ben said no, dude said fuck off I'll get whoeverthefuck to do it instead, and Ben got mad because his authoritay was not respected. You MUST respect his authoritaaaay!

Devil Jesus, as a mustachianado, I take great offense in linking the lip-hair-blessed population with those.....ugh.....villains. Isn't that a fine "How do you do?" Good day, sir. I SAID GOOD DAY! *twirls mustache and sachets away*

Nope, you've fell into the trap and explained the problem completely:

Sounds like someone made a fuss about a simple change they should have accepted

Everyone is arguing about that right there. You say he should have accepted it. I say he shouldn't have- at least not at that moment. That's one of those little things that gets saved until the next actual version is committed. Granted, that would have merely delayed the argument until that time most likely, but it could have also sparked an overall debate about the validity of it where management and the programmers could have came to a resolution and nailed down a policy. The way it went down now, well, you see the fallout.

Riiiiight. You wanna hate on the poster for objectifying women but evidently all you think a mom is good for is jerking her kid off. Your kind of talk is what makes everyone else ignore your causes and blow them off as unimportant.

Someone on here says something about if you can't win, ad hominem. Seems appropriate to this post.

Appropriate to the original post, not yours. I wasn't clear enough. You were not ad hommin'.

You've overanalyzed to the point of missing the obvious. He wasn't being sexist, he was calling the dude a super nerd virgin. The same type of insult like living in your mom's basement or Cheeto snorting, Mt Dew guzzling uber slob. Did you read the wall of text it was a response to? They were having a classic "vi vs emacs" style fight, in this case, Solaris vs SPARC, I think. You were correct about the technical deflections though. Someone on here says something about if you can't win, ad hominem. Seems appropriate to this post.