Though I agree with your sentiments, I have to point out, nothing is being lost. It is being redirected. As the Demento audience declines internet useage increases. Your strange, silly, and plain funny are now online. Radio is going the way of the newspaper. There is a new medium in town.

With the Android SDK it's pretty damned simple to do what you want. It's the benefit of an open platform.

There are several Mass Effect books that explore the early days and talk about when humans first discover the relays and subsequently, other races. I figure that's the territory any movie adaptation will start with.

They are worth a read if for no other reason than to get Anderson's story. Check out Mass Effect: Revelation, Mass Effect: Ascension, and Mass Effect: Retribution.

Not sure if you were going for ironic or just stupid, but you hit both, so kudos.

Employees are generally retained at some rate that compensates for historical product knowledge and specific item expertise. This happens in both business and entertainment software. Long running franchises have their wizards no matter which camp they fall in.

I've seen some impressive CEO, CTO and Director salaries. Once again, that happens on both sides of the fence. I'm a bit reluctant to accept your claim of 6000x salary, as that puts us in the hundreds of millions of dollars a year sort of range and that's a very rare circumstance for general software houses. The margins to accomplish that are in big-boy range and there aren't that many big boys on the block. Even if you've somehow witnessed that paycheck personally, you were in an abnormal situation and we're talking about typical scenarios here.

If anything puts business developers ahead in salary, which I honestly don't think it does, it's the fact that they have to have precise implementation to service enterprise level customers. If I get a game and it crashes every half hour, I'll be pissed, may even go rant on a support forum, but at the end of the day I know it's just going to be patched.

If I am setting up an enterprise cross-domain solution for data replication and it crashes every two hours, I'm calling support under my enterprise contract to fly someone out the next day to make it work. Entertainment consumers and business consumers have wildly varying expectations for software reliability.

But once again, a good programmer makes what a good programmer makes. A shitty programmer makes less. A programmer that is poor at self-promotion makes even less. If nobody knows you're brilliant, you aren't going to get compensated for the secret.

At the end of the day, programmers with actual talent above being able to enter rote commands are in demand and do make decent money, whether they apply themselves to business or entertainment.

Really? News for Nerds. Get angry when they publish stories about crime being stopped in some normal way. Put on your spidey PJs and play "the floor is a hundred foot fall" while hopping from couch to coffee table when stories like this show up.

I would never do the above, of course, as I am more of a Batman fan.

Now I'm off to perch precariously on dark rooftops and leer menacingly at random strangers while having a bleak and sorrowful inner monolouge.

Your entire thesis is flawed. Business software is complex. Business UIs have to be precise. Game developers do not make 1/5 the amount of business software developers.

I have worked in both areas. Pay is pretty standard for qualifications. None of it is glamorous. It's a job.

If you want money and recognition you put in the extra hours, do a better job than the guy to your left, have actual intelligent insight, and have a plan for your career which includes your own personal motivation to achieve.

The way I see it, there are addicts to everything from food to video games. No "moral stance" by the government will ever change that. I'd rather not have your beliefs forced upon me because your buddies can't handle their good time. Just as I don't think anyone should close down state assisted cafeterias because of over-eaters that have control issues nor should the state approved liquor stores be boarded up because some people are alcoholics.

A sufficient number of the population enjoy the lottory and its state level benefits to consider it a net positive. It appears that online gambling is soon to fall into the same area.

I'm all for you sharing your opinion and exercising your right to disagree with the programs, but I beleive people are generally able to remain productive with the demon of gambling easily in reach. Hell, I bought a lotto ticket just the other night. Just one. I didn't feel compelled to spend all of my mortgage or grocery money and didn't feel as though the state were luring me into some sort of evil, corrupt, system of sin.

Some companies bill direct time, rather than general overhead for your position. They can't have you on unbillable hours due to contract structure. In those companies, there may be times where you have to suck it up and read on your own time.

It helps if you remember that certifications are self-improvement. I understand the frustration of having to acquire something for your position outside of work hours, but it is something that will help you as a professional with or without the company. When you get your certification and tell them to piss off, you can surely get a higher paying job out of it, or if you can't, well, it's a no brainer.

I have worked in many settings, and the most likeable were the ones that offered reimbursement in exchange for my own self-study.

The least enjoyable were those that forced me to take on-site training boot-camps that imparted very little actual knowledge and dragged on at a mind numbing pace.

The ones that required certification or even degree always let me know coming in that I'd need it within a certain timeframe to remain with the company long-term.

Studying on your own time to improve yourself isn't really such a bad thing. And even though a certificate or degree isn't knowledge itself, it is proof that you have displayed sufficient knowledge to be considered competent in that area or at least had enough self-discipline to suffer through and get the accreditation.

This makes sense when you actually have an open market with competition.

Let's follow your logic, "Well if you don't like it, don't use it". I need high speed internet to work. "Well if you don't like it find a new job." I have the job I have to afford my mortgage. "Well if you don't like it, move."

So I would actually need to abandon my mortgage and find a new career because a cable company has a state approved service monopoly in the area but isn't treated like the public service utility it should be in order to garner those protections. It's a whole lot deeper than "Well if you don't like it, don't use it." in this day and age.

So, different positions have different requirements. That's the thing Slashdot leaves out more often than not. It's always either math is good or math is completely unnecessary. How about math is useful in applied fields and positions?

It's a two way street, though. A lot of managers are promoted up or hired in and have no idea how to effectively lead. As a manager, I found Individual Development Plans (IDPs) to be more effective and productive than other incentives. By working with your employee to define clear goals other than "Show up, work 8 hours, be better than the worst person on your team and then go home" you may find they aren't all just cogs with no ambition.

Some of them actually want to work toward something better and by helping them figure out a path of growth within the organization you're doing good by yourself as well as your worker.

I had never heard of Conservapedia before. I am still trying to decide if it is a satire site.

I may be the first to point it out in this thread but the Japanese have many odd cultural likes and dislikes on any given day.

For your reference, see Anime. For my reference, see Cowboy Bebop. That was a damned good show. Now go watch Squidbillies. Culture(s) is odd.

Whether you are for Apple or for Google, you will eventually get tired of the conversation. So here is how to add some spice.

"Well, I mean OS X and Android are both Unix derivitaves, so as long as we're supporting open source I'm all for it."

Hilarity ensues on many levels.