It's said that in a democracy people get the government they deserve. Until we start voting these issues, the lobbyists will own the law.

The only civilizations still surviving in our galaxy are extraordinarily powerful and consider humanity beneath notice. Which is a Good Thing, because when they notice you, it does not go well. Really, Miskatonic University is the only institution doing useful work in this area. Unfortunately they have trouble keeping research staff on.

Pretty much the only reason I trust an ATM is that I can visually verify that it gave me the right quantity and denominations of cash, and/or it printed out a deposit receipt. If I was blind I wouldn't want to use the fracking things, I'd go to a teller I trusted.

Actually most colleges don't get to this stuff at all. There's way too much computer science to cram into four years. If you're lucky there's one or two courses on software engineering, which barely scratch the surface of what's needed for the real world. If it was up to me we'd train programmers for 6 or 8 years, but for now the only way to learn this stuff is painful experience.

If it is a typical complex, highly-customized business system, it will have:

1. years and years of poorly- or un-documented code patches, fixes, etc.
2. lots of legacy code which is no longer used but never removed
3. Dozens of external systems which extract information from it, probably each in a different way
4. large amounts of critical information not written down but scattered among different user groups

So, I'd say your Phase 1 above is a vast under-estimation. And the idea that you can farm it out to an external organization, especially one without close personal contact with users, is pure fantasy.

At the end of your process you'll have a system that does maybe 20% of what the users actually need, and 50% of which is stuff no one needs any longer.

Interesting analysis. One problem with it is that much of the "payment" demanded for digital goods is not actually directly linked to the labor used to produce it. A lot of the resistance to paying for music would go away, if the people paying were confident that a) the money was going to the people who created the music, and b) it was a "fair" payment for that music. Most people don't mind if Paul McCartney makes a billion dollars, but much of the music industry is designed to siphon money away from the artists and distribute it to parasites.

In the past, people couldn't do anything about that, it was buy an LP/CD or nothing. Now consumers have choices, and they'd rather go to a lot of trouble to download for free, than pay $.99 for a song where $.01 goes to the actual artists.

You're seriously equating protesting Gulf War 2 with giving the nuclear bomb to an enemy country? What drugs are you on?

This brings up a serious thought. Combine the following:

1. The increasing belligerence and nationalism of the current Russian government.
2. The coming retirement of the Space Shuttle with no replacement -- which means Russian rockets will be the only (manned) way to reach the Station.

What's to keep Russia from unilaterally taking over the Station? What, exactly, would we be able to do about it?

Let's relocate the frickin' humans. Crocodiles belong in the Everglades, people don't belong in its drained and sterilized remnants.

It may not be illegal in the US, but that may change now the Democrats are in power. HOWEVER, I'd say the gamer has a good chance of suing M$ and getting a lot of money. I find it hard to believe that even Microsoft could be that stupid...

What, they're no longer including him in the poll options? Did I miss a memo?

What this story really illustrates is that we as a society have a bigger problem. Namely, we're letting crazy people run around loose. When will people like Mr. Thompson be confined and medicated for their own good? Is it really that hard to draw the line between dissent and stark raving lunacy?

"Why are we replacing free service with paid expensive service with lock in from the media monopoly of our choice?"
How much did those media monopolies donate to politicians last year? Just askin'.

WTF? Don't those idiots realize if they don't delay it, there are people WHO WON'T BE ABLE TO WATCH THEIR TV? How do they expect the country to survive a blow like that? I don't know about you, but I'm stocking up on canned food and ammunition.

Hey, if it's "obviously" a geologic process, would you mind exactly WHAT process it is? Keep in mind that Mars has no current volcanic activity. And if there is/was no life, it's not a fossil fuel.