You're kidding, right? The law can be abused, sure, but so can the internet... and when people need a recourse, what else have they got but the law?

Let me lead everyone on a bit of a rabbit trail here, because this is very hypothetical. Still, I think it makes sense. Now, consider for a moment that the advent of and rapidly increasing accessibility and affordability of 3D printing may put common goods manufacturing into the hands of the consumer... and takes it away from the gigantic sweat-shop operating acmetm cartel. For Acme TM, that's scary as hell. Their business model goes away and, in spite of the fact that their once employees are now able to better take care of themselves via access to cyclical 3D reprinting technologies, the CEOs no longer have 1% style leverage and wealth. Said CEOs may want to find some way to turn the public AGAINST 3D printing, thus, before this paradigm shifts. Now consider, for a moment, than scared-irrational (or hobbyists) are printing 'illegal' triggers for guns, circumventing a community's ability to track and deal with said deadly weaponry. Prior to now, big-business interests have been mostly pro-gun because people, in general, are kinda pro-gun... but if you can use 3D printed triggers as a wedge issue to scare people away from 3D printing as a practice (thus ensuring your future as a law-leveraged manufacturing monopoly), do you really think they won't try? To be blunt, I personally am anti gun. I don't like them. I think they cause 10x as many problems as they solve, etc. But I also detect the possibility that a world in which people can see to their own common goods needs, underlying causes of violence will diminish and thus the desire for guns (and violence et al) will likewise go down. Sorry, I'm novelizing... the point is, I suspect that we will see (like this article, like some media lately) will overinflate their interest in gun triggers to silently try to rob the world of 3D printing as an individually available ability.

Yeah, seems a bit two-faced, huh? To be fair, Apple has the strictest pro-labor requirements of places like Foxconn out of all of Foxconn's clients... but they're still terribly lax and sweat-shoppy. I think they are more concerned with people making this kind of connection than 'objectional content,' seeing as how violence in games (while not as controversial as many claim) could just as easily be considered far more 'uncomfortable' a reality to confront than sweatshops.

Absolutely; and how often does one arrive at work after a long and often contentious commute in a GOOD mood, ready to hit the keyboard, the paperwork, the beat (be it a street or a classroom), or the conveyor belt?

I suddenly wish I could edit my posts.

I lament this decision, but understand it. I telecommuted from Maine to D.C. I did it very well. I was reliable. I even got more work done there where I had control over my environment and time than I do where where I don't. That said, I was alone in this. The other 3 or 4 people doing the same thing were notoriously unreliable. So I understand the decision to end the practice even if it really made my life worse. My argument would be, then... address WHY people can't stick to the job at home... rather than end the practice. In a world with dwindling resources, severe jumps in carbon emissions (not small portion of which is transportation and heating/cooling related), all of a person's lifespan utterly wasted (and in some respected, endangered by) sitting in traffic, etc. Rise above, Mayer... don't put down.

Heh; while we hold on to weaponized smallpox stockpiles ... yeah; totally an islamic thing, eh? Any sufficiently disenfrachised, abused, and under-represented individual or group will have similar motivations.

DNA is a programming language after all... but knowing the character set is far from understanding the foibles of the programming language itself. We need to have a deeper and more complete understanding before distributing this kind of power.

That my webkit browsers have been very poorly behaved; maybe it's just me... but images flicker, forms appear and disappear, sometimes pages just stop loading at random... each patch for mountain lion seems to repair it BRIEFLY... but it always comes back.

Before anyone goes and aggros the concept of government, try to remember first that government (as intended, anyways, prior to the inevitability that concentrated power attracts the corrupt) is supposed to be the gigantic lever by which the public can accomplish massive tasks that were too big for communities or individuals to do by themselves. Folk get together, agree on a solution, and contribute to it... and no matter what form that takes, you've just defined a government. That said, the nature (and speed) of technological advancement is changing this game. It doesn't make government bad; it just further empowers smaller units of self-government more than was previously possible... so yes, the equation can and should change... but does not serve as excuse for condemning something we've (in all of recorded human history) not been able to do long without.

... open sourcing the software may be critical; not only does it expose to anyone who needs to know that its done well and ethically, but it can also serve as a platform (at all levels) for the majority of voters to fight back against the exponentiation of aforementioned gerrymandering.

That's nearly true; if it were me now, I'd just plow through even though the material was becoming decreasingly relevant to what I was (and did) persevere to do in spite of them (goals/career-wise.) Then again, NOW, I have the financial foundation to feed myself and afford books, transit, and rent ... and further have a distinct sense of what I want to do with myself. Wasn't quite the case at the time ... and when the choice became between their gouging me for ten times more than I had, or the decent paying but full-time and demanding job I'd already found and conquered. Yeah... it's not a great feeling thing to look back upon; I might have had a much better experience if I'd put off university for a couple years and dabbled at work FIRST. Regardless, do not condone messing with students FINANCIALLY. Make their courses tough (As Markovsky always told us in discreet structures, after having shown us a clipped down version of starwars, day one, suggesting recursion was akin to the 'force', 'I'll feel as if I've failed if any more than two of you (out of 20 or so) pass this course this semester. I don't want to hear another tale of patients suffering fatal or nearfatal doses of xrays because the software behind the hospitals' machines didn't cope well with someone who typed too fast at the console.') ... but don't lie about the upcoming expenses and then withhold the 95% of the money you've already been paid even while classes are starting (and said student is being kicked out of labs for lack of fees paid) while leaving said student to beg around looking for 3rd party private loans with crap terms.

I've heard this; that commits to Github/CPAN are far more important to good employers than a CV or particular degree (though both are not unimportant.) To that end I have been spinning out some of my ideas; I describe my long-term employer as a bit of a sheltered bay. We developed an in-house MVC framework that predated and could well have taken on the life that Moose/Catalyst have, had we the wits to open source it early on. But never having done that, not having the option now to do that, and spending so much time developing and maintaining something that is going to remain an relative unknown to anyone else... it can make one rusty. In the meantime, I whittle away at personal projects and even now contribute to some nonprofit projects so as to do good for others while hopefully doing good for my discernibility on the talent market. Still... not having a degree I put a lot of time into, regardless of my current capacities and pay-grade... it feels like a personal failure even if the financial aide department gave me much to legitimately rant about.

I never finished my degree as my original university seemed to delight in messing with my finances and withholding books; I also slipped into an IT/Software Dev career and am doing reasonably well, but also feel like the lack of an official degree (and some need for brushing up) is a bit threatening. I'd love to poke away slowly at a degree (I'm going to assume that, since what CS I do have is about 12 years old now, little of it will transfer into a new one.)

Sadly, no... skype is currently not allowed to make emergency service calls. I'm speaking of a telephony service that is 100% exchangeable with modern requirements of having a damn phone number (yes, I hate phones.) If I didn't have to write down a phone number on forms I'd probably not even have one... but as long as I MUST, I'd just as soon not having to have a separate and ultimately unused object that handles it.