In 1999, my company offered an 18 year old summer intern a programming job. He turned us down to attend college. Spending 4 years doing calculus and reading The Count of Monte Cristo was not going to improve his earnings potential. Spending 4 years in a real office doing real programming would have improved his earnings potential.

Short term. But when he tried to change jobs, he'd find a lot of opportunities closed to him because just about every company wants a degree. I've known a number of non-degreed programmers who have gone back to get one for that reason.

Quitting school to found a startup might make sense; at least it's honest gambling. Quitting school to take a regular job doesn't; the job or one like it will still be there when you graduate.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. It's those unions. Those ones whose membership has been steadily and measurably been decreasing for 30 years(almost exactly at the same rate as wage stagnation occurs, as a complete coincidence).

Public service unions are the major exception; the general decline is irrelevant when US mass transit is still almost completely union.

Turns out that a lot of people, if you hit them on the point of their chin they lose consciousness. Most will lose consciousness with a simple tap to the temple. Seems like an easier off-switch to me.

Drug dogs are a sham, memory dogs just more obviously so. The courts want to be fooled, so they are.

You can get heart rate monitors from sporting goods stores; these aren't FDA regulated either. As long as they don't make medical claims (like being suitable to diagnose or monitor a medical condition) it's not illegal to measure pulse or blood pressure.

No, no, they're combat engineers, like dolphins. Don't ask me where they get the explosives.

The subsidies for fossil fuels by first-world western nations (and China) (those in a position to fund green energy technologies) are a small percentage of the total. Most fossil fuel subsidies are done by oil producing nations as a form of population pacification. The idea that these funds are available for redirection is ludicrous.

Sure, but that's only half the problem. The other half is the idea that throwing money at renewables will actually reduce CO2 production.

It's stupid things like this that ruin it for responsible hobbyists.

"Responsible hobbyists" fly planes in a circle over and over again with a group of other retired guys doing the same thing. What's to ruin?

I've seen managers cry because they had to fire people. I'm inclined to agree though, but more in terms of "take care of yourself first".

Sure, your boss might be a decent guy who wouldn't kick you to the curb if it was his choice, but it won't be. Worst I've seen was a company where the location director was laying people off in waves; he was a decent guy, and worst of all, he had to know that when he laid off all his subordinates he'd be gone too (which he was).

Exactly. It's almost always easier to move up significantly in salary and position by changing companies than by staying where you are. Going for a new job when you already have one, you're an applicant with at least some negotiating power, asking for a raise/promotion you're a supplicant.

You could represent yourself in a clear-cut case like this, where the files are obviously properly licensed.

Sure, and trip over some procedural hurdle and lose before even getting to the substance of the matter.

You really have a warped sense of the law here. Note, you aren't filing a countersuit here, you are filing a counter-notice and expecting them to file a formal lawsuit against you if they want to continue. They, the guys who filed the original DMCA notice, need to spend their money filing the lawsuit and going before a federal judge to explain why they want to see you in court.

Those guys either ARE lawyers (in the case of these "IP Protection" firms or have lawyers on staff. Suing you is just a cost of doing business for them. You talked about hiring a lawyer "for 100% of the award". For you to do that would require that you file a countersuit, and that some lawyer would have confidence such a suit would succeed (when, as far as I know, only one ever has, against Diebold). And you'd still have to defend, with your own cash money, the original lawsuit.

Where do you get this notion that the law doesn't apply to you, me, or anybody else other than some special elite?

They apply to the non-elite, in that we are restricted by it.

Are you really serious about this belief that laws don't matter and don't actually protect anybody but somebody with seven+ figures in their bank account?

Uh, yeah.

When I say that I think it is a stupid thing to have each possible copyright infringement go to a judge for review, I think it is not only a waste of time for that judge but also for me as well.

You are making the accusation. Why should the burden not be on you?

I am simply asserting that in my case the DMCA is my friend in terms of even giving me a tool to enforce my copyright claims.

Sure, the DMCA gives you and any copyright owner the ability to issue what amounts to an ex-parte temporary restraining order to any ISP without involving a court. That's pretty fucked up.

For example, when the Alien & Sedition Acts were passed, while Democrats like Thomas Jefferson were vehemently opposed, nobody would have thought to argue it unconstitutional on Free Speech grounds.

Democratic-Republicans -- usually called Republicans -- if you please. Jefferson's party is the parent of both parties today, though he'd hardly recognize either. And of course they were argued as unconstitutional on free speech grounds. See the third Kentucky Resolution.

Even if these initiatives weren't both limited and in partnership with other groups, just what would Google do that would be harmful to K-12 computer science education? Make everyone learn Go?

Now, if you want a real issue, go check on the Gates Foundation's influence on the much-derided Common Core.

(Disclosure: I work for Google, but this means less than you probably think)