You can't build a civilization with *alpha* males; they have to *at least* be in beta.

(Preferably release versions, but you take what you can get.)

First of all, let me say up front: I'm not a professional programmer, just a hobbyist. I could understand the need for complicated tools when you're part of a large-scale operation or programming for a corporation. But the author's not talking about that at all.

Why don't you? I write little programs all the time, in Tcl/Tk, in Javascript, in C++, in Python. I don't use an IDE. I don't use any version control though I probably should. (I'm starting to learn about Git and Github.) My bug tracker is a bunch of comments at the top of the source file, or if I'm feeling ambitious, a separate text file called "NOTES".

But what I don't do, for the most part, is share my programs with anyone else. If I were planning to release something to the public, I would have to spend a lot more time figuring out all the dependencies of my software, putting in more robust error checking, writing documentation, submitting the program to an App Store or at least putting it up on Github, etc etcyeah, that would be a drag. But I don't know that any of that is necessary; it's just important if I want other people to find my software to be useful. If all you're interested in is the problem-solving puzzle aspect of programming, or in writing something to make *your* life a little easier, then there's no need to follow the herd. Do what the heck you want; all the old tools are still there.

...is from kneejerk partisan/anti-government types who automatically revert every change reported by his bot, because of course politicians are always wrong. For an example, see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/ind... and the history changes that follow.

OK, I think I get it: what Google wants to do is to give viewers the option of paying a flat rate, which will remove ads from all of the music videos on the site as part of their streaming service. And they need the labels to agree to these terms. And if they DON'T agree to the terms, then Google would have one of three options: either maintain the status quo (which they don't want to do), show those videos sans ads (which would be a copyright infringement since the artists wouldn't be paid as per the original license agreement), or remove the videos altogether.

Does that sound right?

If so, that doesn't sound nearly as evil as it first sounded, if Google is only taking down videos that it was basically paying to host.

Could they spin off Google Canada as a separate company? Google Canada would have to abide by the court's decision, but Google proper wouldn't be affected.

Oh certainly, but that's beside the point. :)

Because some of those requests are almost certainly from nasty people wanting Google to cover up their crimes?

The NSA let this random guy Snowden walk away with all of their secrets. Snowden isn't some genius mastermind; if he could do it, I'll bet there are other people who did it too. Only they didn't go public, they just sold the information to China or Russia or al Qaeda (assuming they weren't spies to begin with).

So it doesn't matter what Snowden announced to the world, because chances are the people we're most worried about already knew about it.

If the bloody National SECURITY Agency can't secure itself, we can't rely on it to secure anything else.

I'm not an IT professional by any means, but to me that doesn't seem quite fair. Ideally, the server is being run by somebody with the resources and expertise to keep the server running better than you can yourself. It seems reasonable to me that this is the sort of thing that might benefit from outsourcing, if you're an individual or a small company, and so long as you take precautions.

Asimov and others predicted a future where there wouldn't be enough jobs to go aroundubt they saw that as a GOOD thing. Humanity was clever enough to build machines to do all the work, and now we can kick back and enjoy some leisure time. George Jetson had a three-hour workday. But that vision can only work if we view our increased productivity as a benefit to *everyone*, and compensate everyone accordingly: a dividend for being a member of the clever human race (or if you want, a dividend for being a citizen/resident of a first-world nation).

As more jobs are automated, it seems to me that there are three options: 1) we share the wealth, either with a guaranteed income or by raising wages while simultaneously cutting the number of hours people work; 2) we make a lot of fake jobs so that we can pretend that people are earning the money they need to live, and avoid the horrors of socialism (horror! horror!); or 3) a LOT of people drop into poverty.

Good point. That's the reason I have an iPod Touch and a separate dumbphone (for which I pay ~$50/year).

The fact that you can have an addon like this in Firefox, is what makes me stick with Firefox. You can't move the tabs in Chrome at all.

Don't all of the broadcast companies also own cable channels? I'd think they would tell the cable companies "pull an Aereo and you don't get our cable channels anymore (or we'll just raise the price on our cable package to offset the lost broadcast fees".

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

There you go. :)

This really is the sort of service all ISPs should provide.