The GPL has no provisions relating to the price of the compiled binaries. You can set these to whatever you want for whatever reason you want.

I can't recall offhand if you can charge anything for source code, if you can, charging more than distribution even if permitted would definitely be iffy from an ethical perspective IMO.

There is no universal ethical tradition regarding selling GPL code, provided you fullfill the terms of the license and don't exploit any loopholes you find to restrict source availability- any such loopholes you find should be reported to the FSF and the copyright holder(if different) so they can be plugged, you should not take any advantage of them.

So it's really up to you. Just remember that while you have a right to expect credit, if someone takes your port, compiles it, and starts distributing it for free, you cannot do anything to stop them. The most you might be able to do is demand credit for your part of the code.

If the entire project team asks you to stop charging, I'd consider it, but it's really not their call to make. I personally think you should be nice and consider their request, but keep it firmly in mind that it is a request only, it has no legal force, and only as much moral force as you choose to give it.

Perl's strength for a new programmer is in the wide variety of programming techniques it directly supports.

It is not, however, all that accessible beyond the most basic stuff. It has historically been designed such that every time a conflict between ease for the experienced programmer, and ease for the learner, exists, the experienced programmer won out. Always.

This is apparently changing somewhat for Perl 6, I haven't read much about it but apparently Wall and the other leading Perl people do want to make things easier for people learning it. But without a break from the past so substantial that the new language is "Perl In Name Only", there really isn't a huge amount of progress they can make on that front.

Perl's flexibility, especially for tasks bigger than a shell script but smaller than an application, makes it very good to know. Especially if your programming is primarily to support sysadmin or other duties rather than being the job itself. But it really isn't suitable as a first language. I'd probably even recommend C over Perl, integrating with the OS and various APIs needed to do real work is often easier that way.

Python or Ruby are probably the best bets. Easy, flexible, and powerful enough for real world tasks. On Windows, C# or VB.NET(do not go to 6 or earlier, it was really a mess then) aren't too bad if the learner focuses on structure rather than the language. Objective C via XCode can serve a similar role on OS X.

Because the jobs call for a degree.

I've seen entry level hell desk jobs call for a 4 year compsci degree. Not even a supervisor or lead position. Grunt tech on the phones.

A good argument can be made that most of the tech jobs, perhaps even most programming jobs, shouldn't require a degree, or at least not a 4 year degree. But the fact of the matter is they do. You don't get the degree, you can't get the job no matter how qualified you actually are.

Some places will budge a bit from the formal job requirements(but you have to be that much better in other ways), and there are some that are smart enough to not even officially require it when they don't actually need it, but many will just toss your resume in the reject bin without a thought.

Basic procedure for building important databases and data processing apps, is to fill it with test data. Some realistic, some not realistic, and some that should be impossible. See what happens before the system goes live.

I'm not seeing anything in this report that conclusively rules out the possibility this is test data. Though, I suppose something might have gotten lost in translation.

The modern general purpose computer, even Macs, are very open products compared to typical consumer goods.

A CD player is a CD player. It has to work properly with itself, and CDs. Even componentized systems have a very limited environment within which they have to work. Precisely defined interfaces in and out, and they are limited in number.

A general purpose computer program though, is another beast entirely. There are thousands, if not millions, of other programs that they may have to coexist with. Most only need to worry about one OS, though with Java getting more popular for general applications, there might be several OSes to consider. And hardware... Even with Macs, there are several different models with different hardware configurations, and wierd stuff occasionally happens between them.

And then you get into end user use patterns and configurations. It's really a miracle that software is as reliable as it is, it really shows how good the compiler/linker/OS people are, even on Windows, given that it all mostly works in the real world.

A liability law is a nice idea, but this stuff would ahve to be taken into account.

The timeline with Kirk taking command..

Bad Stuff happens. Billions of lives are at stake, and the Federation needs to respond immediately.

Enterprise, Farragut, several other ships end up crewed nearly entirely by cadets because no other ships are available, and they don't have experienced officers on hand to crew them. Eventually, Pike has to leave Enterprise(if he hadn't, we're talking Game Over for the Federation, so the departure from protocol is justified by the extremity of the situation), and names Spock as acting Captain and Kirk as acting First Officer.

Eventually Spock has to relinquish command. Watch to find out details. McCoy says somethign about they have noone who can be captain, which suggests that there were no fully commisioned officers available. Either none on board in the first place apart from Pike and Spock, or those they did have had gotten killed in previous scenes(their original CMO had died at least)

"I don't understand how this works. If this was the case, what incentive would the professor have to require four of his books and never use them in the course?"

Spanish department at my school requires the textbook and a workbook. Recommends an audio CD set that costs close to 70USD.

Not only will the school library copy the CDs for you if you provide blanks, but all of the material from the CD set is available at the publishers website for free. Don't even need to register or provide a code from the book!

So why do they bother recommending this CD set?

iPhone uses a capacitive touchscreen. In short, this means it depends on the electrical charge of the users body to track touch.

Styli and gloves are pretty much guaranteed to block this charge, though I suppose conductive ones could be made to work if the resistance is low enough.

Windows Mobile devices, and at least all the palms I've seen, use different technology that is based in pressure rather than charge. Fingers work, but in my experience they just don't have the precision to work well with this sort of touchscreen, at least on a smartphone scale.

I should have been clearer, I was referring to retraining costs when they need to replace the hardware, in the event that Apple no longer has a suitable product available.

Initial training, iPhone probably has a small advantage, but these things will have to be replaced eventually. If Apple no longer makes suitable hardware, they'd have to switch platforms and incur the resultant retraining costs.

That clause says nothing about using the products to support the use of such weapons.

I like the idea. Smartphones have enough computing power and sufficient battery life to perform militarily useful functions, with a minimum of added weight to the soldiers gear.

I'm not sure about the platform choice though. One company controls the hardware and software. There are no alternatives in either category that allow you to benefit from prior investments- replacing the hardware or OS requires junking everything you already have. And if the public APIs don't let you do what you need, and Apple can't or won't, it won't do what you need and thats that.

Android, or even Windows Mobile, I think would be better. A lot easier to switch to another device and minimize training costs, a lot easier and cheaper to get a device custom designed and built for specific military applications. These two are far more open- anyone with a properly trained engineering team and some money can make devices for these platforms. You need a specialized gadget integrated? You'll have a dozen companies salivating at defense budget dollars. You'll get it done, balancing capability and cost will be a meaningful choice and you can make it based on the needs and the budget, not because it's the best of limited options.

Maybe not.

But if we added up all the ideas we are tempted to dismiss due to apparently trivial benefits, we'd probably see a worthwhile dent in overall usage.

for that long, just about anything currently on the market should be fine.

Others are discussing hardware, I'll discuss the OS choice a bit.

A 64 bit OS might be worth considering, in the timespan you are dealing with they will probably become standard. He might be fine keeping the computer, but at some point he might need a software upgrade that requires it.

As much of a mac fan as I am, in 10-15 years, who the fuck knows what sort of processor they will be using. I'd be hesitant to recommend one for such a long service life due to their propensity to change processors more often than that. Scratch them off consideration entirely if they are even on your list.

Linux is a possibility, if all the software he needs(or equivalents) is available. This can work now.

Windows Vista... Some find good luck with it. If this needs to happen now and he needs or demands windows, research heavily the hardware and software that works well under Vista. Vista can be made to run well, but there are a lot of crap drivers and a lot of applications that really don't like the security features.

If you can delay the purchase, consider Windows 7. It's like Vista, only done right.

You could get any old thing and run XP, but looking that far into the future, you really should be looking at a 64 bit OS. Sure, any hardware you get now should run a 64 bit OS ok, but it would be best to plan from the start specifically for it.

C, C++, and Java, for all their differences, are related languages.

Learn something entirely different.

Assembler is good. You don't need to know enough to actually be able to use it on the job as a primary language, but you should learn enough to give yourself a practical understanding of how data is manipulated by the computer. Just because modern programming tools hide this stuff, doesn't mean it isn't useful to understand it.

As far as high level languages go, you already know a procedural language(C), an Object Oriented language(Java), and a hybrid Proc./OO language(C++). Learn a functional language next. You may not ever use it in the real world, but exposing yourself to a new way of looking at problems can only help.

And learn SQL. Download Postgre or MySQL or some other free RDBMS and play around with it. Even if you never use it specifically, it gets you thinking about how to organize data effectively to solve a given problem.

Ok, if the tax laws say they should get this refund, and they aren't getting it, they have a right to petition in court to force the issue.

And if the bailout law specifies exact amounts they are getting, well, they have a legal right to those amounts in addition to what the government already owes them.

As fucked up as it sounds, if the law says they are owed this money, thats what the law says, and they should get it. Congress should look at the situation though, and see about changing the law so that their next stimulus payments get reduced by, oh, 165 million plus whatever these bonuses were for(can't remember the exact amount).

I'm not a fan of how this bailout is proceeding in general. Ok, this is a big problem, and the failure of these companies risks a full blown economic depression. We can prevent that from happening by spending hundereds of billions of dollars to prop up these companies.

Ok, fine. If thats what it costs to prevent the second Great Depression, I'm fine with the government spending that much. Not happy about it, but its definitely the lesser of two evils IMO.

But it seems more like a nationalization plan than temporarily propping them up so they have time to fix the problems that lead to this situation. I don't like this.