Ever'body likes a little strange now an' agin'.

"You'd think something like Silverlight would automatically upgrade itself."

As intrusive and time consuming as Microsoft updates are, they damn well better be updating Silverlight, FFS.

Two things:

First, leave etymology out of it. Language is an evolving system. Meanings of words change over time. "Engineer" may have, at one time, meant an "engine-er", and engineers may have, at one time, been a person who researched, designed, and built a technological device/system/whatevs. And there are "engineers" who do it this way today. But contemporary usage gives us a person who employs principles from the physical sciences to design technologies (objects/systems/or whatever).

There is also a fuzzy hierarchy from scientist/researcher -> engineer -> technician. Knowledge, technique, and best practices pass up and down that hierarchy. Each has their role, but they may overlap and extend.

Second, I didn't mean to imply that it's necessary for the engineer to "innovate", though certainly many do. Engineers possess the level of knowledge and specialization to take scientific principles and use them to build technologies.

All I'm saying is, you don't need to be an engineer to do the work of a technician, in fact, you be losing money if you did. However, technicians do the work of maintaining the technology engineers design. Because of that, they must be familiar with much of what the engineer is expert at. Likewise up the chain from engineer to scientist. And all in all, it's more of a scientist/researcher engineer technician. All three classes are interdependent.

Let's just say Sheldon's string theory work is not going to be turned into a inter-dimensional portal if Howard doesn't build the hardware. But once it's built they're gonna need a technician to keep it working while they're exploring the other dimension or they'll never get back. And it's a pretty good bet that that technician won't even have a Masters. It's also a pretty good bet that Sheldon, Raj, Leonard, & Pitr (we'll call the technician character Pitr) will shift duty up and down and across the scientist/engineer/technician hierarchy during the course of building the inter-dimensional portal.

Is it too much to ask for the prices they're asking for cars these days?

The truth is, most "computer support specialists" & "network administrators", & "system administrators", and I am one, are technicians, not engineers. Even some of the IT guys with "engineer" in their titles are really technicians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technician

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer

And that's okay. Well, except for inflating the importance of the the job by adding "engineer" to the technician's title.

Technicians are important. Technicians keep technology running. Being a technician is a noble pursuit.

Engineers take what the researchers have discovered and create the technology, technicians deploy the technology and maintain it.

Well, if there was an "Edit" button we couldn't pick on you for a typo.

At last! A power supply for my flying car!

A crossbow?!

Why don't you just go on down to Home Depot and buy yourself a pre-killed, pre-skinned deer.?! Jiminy H. Cricket toasting over an open fire!

Crossbows are for wussies. What you want to do, see, is make yourself an atlatl, and atlatl darts. You'll need to knap yourself some obsidian atlatl dart points. While you're knapping the atlatl points you should knap yourself an obsidian skinning blade too. Then after you kill the deer, you can use the antlers and gut to to mount the skinning blade.

'Course the atlatl darts would be better if you used gut to lash the points to the shafts. But that pre-supposes that you already got a deer... which ideally you should have... by taking a club, ambushing a deer, running it down and beating it to death (be sure to apologize to the deer spirit for taking one of its brothers).

With all this hide & gut, you've got the makings of a good travois, which you'll need to haul your gear out to the playa, 'cause they ain't no deer on the playa. An if you got a lotta gear, yer gonna need to go and capture you a mustang, and break it, to pull the travois. So, better put that on your to-do list.

Sure they can break it. If they have your fingerprint to photograph. Assuming this is a lost or robbed phone, where will they get your fingerprint? From the phone? Maybe. Maybe not.

Apple's solution is good enough for civilian security on a phone, as long as you're not oblivious and pay attention to your surroundings while walking in unfamiliar areas so you don't get mugged, and don't lose phones regularly, or store very sensitive information on your phone.

Don't forget the TAXES! Jiminy-Cricket-on-a-bamboo-skewer-over-hot-coals don't let our monied overlords® have to contribute to the betterment of society & the environment! Unless it directly benefits them personally.

Oh, by the end of the century... Pfft! I'll be dead long before that. But I feel sorry for your grandkids. World's gonna be like one great big Louisiana bayou in August.

I agree. Banks do the same thing.

"Frankly, I've never understood why guys would want to carry phones in their pockets."

Because the guys who wear their cell phones on a belt clip are the same guys who tuck in their polo shirts.

Lest you think I'm some young, age-ist punk, he's only a decade & a half older than me. But most people who were born before personal computers were common in peoples' homes don't understand 'net culture. Or computers, for that matter.

I'll give General Hayden some cred, in that's he served in the Air Force, and has worked in intelligence for most of his career. So he'll have some passing acquaintance with computers. But like many people his age, and from his background, he's probably clueless about "Nihilists, anarchists, activists, Lulzsec, Anonymous, twentysomethings who haven't talked to the opposite sex in five or six years."

The fact that he's using "Nihilists & anarchists" in the same grouping makes me think of those fogies who say things like, "on the drugs", "hippy-hop", and "all gooped up on gop". It's a spew of things they might have heard, but aren't really familiar with. All they know is it's different... and it scares them.

I'm sure Fox News'll give him lots of air time. You know, 'cause: Boo! Scary!

I'm pretty sick of hearing the same old tired bullshit from conservatives and libertarians about how regulations, unions, and taxes are so awful.

You can always find some instance of where a given regulation is bad, a union is over-reaching, or taxation is burdensome. But these three things, regulations, unions, and taxes, define civilization as we know it in the contemporary U.S.

Regulations (laws) and the regulatory agencies were demanded by the people and put into place to protect citizenry from consistently ethics-challenged business world. Likewise unions. Business, it turns out, cares more about turning a profit than the health, safety, and welfare of you, your family, employees, and the environment we all live in. If you don't threaten to throw 'em in jail, or subject them to penny ante fines and public humiliation, businesses will happily bait and switch your ass to death. They'll pay you starvation wages to work in situations as dangerous as the most dangerous situation you can imagine. And dock your pay if you're late.

For every bad regulation you come up with, there are a thousand that have saved your life in the last week. For every non-union shop that you claim is fair and treats its employees fairly and looks out for their safety there are a thousand people on disability from preventable industrial accidents.

And taxes help pay for those life-saving regulations. And roads. And bridges. And schools. And police and fire departments, health departments, public parks, libraries, universities, basic research, the arts, THE MILITARY... Need I go on?

And for every onerous tax you mention, there are a thousand benefits you've personally reaped in services and infrastructure paid for by our taxes.

So I don't want to hear about how bad government regulation is, or that unions're bad, mmm'kay? Or that we shouldn't pay taxes. If you don't want to participate in our society and partake of the benefits, fucking move someplace where you don't have to suffer those "burdens".

I hear Somalia doesn't have personal income tax...