> In fairness, anyone who actually learns to program on their own can muddle through with a couple of printf's and a stopwatch

That approach is so crude and unsophisticated that just about anyone would know well enough not to admit to actually doing something that primitive.

> Honestly, even if I'm doing it a on a million items, O(N^2) vs O(N) isn't a big deal - hardware is cheaper than my time.

No. Not really. Plus that difference you are glossing over there can mean the difference between the problem being solvable with currently available hardware (or not). There's only so much hardware you can throw at a problem before you exhaust that approach.

Actually. The more I look at your statement, the more the mind simply BOGGLES.

boggles...

Lies, damned lies, and rhetoric...

See there. That's something from my worthless University degree adapted and mangled to fit the situation.

"Having no degree" is a bit different from "having no CS degree".

Getting past the gatekeepers is the problem. You can have a degree in theater or math and still get a job in computing. The bar is having SOME kind of degree. This is not a problem just in computing. It's a general corporate affliction.

In some jobs, other fields it seems like an even more gratuitous requirements.

The guys I've known with no college education stand out because it's so unusual for them to get past the gatekeepers.

Yes. Because a few off the cuff remarks given little effort because they are ultimately no real value certainly implies that all of his professional work is substandard and useless. [/sarc]

Clearly the classic subjects are being neglected here either in primary education or at University.

The value of "learning to program" is roughly comparable to the 1st year of CS classes at a reputable University. It is certainly not a replacement for the entire degree. Also, the degree is no replacement for practical experience.

There really aren't any shortcuts. There's a certain amount of time and effort you need to spend getting really good at something. Even Mozart couldn't escape from it.

This reminds me of one of my cousins that thought you could get into computing by taking shortcuts like a weekend bootcamp. It was ultimately motivated by the usual underlying contempt that people have in general for anyone else's profession. (It's not just a computing thing)

Europe has only had 100 years to mess things up.

The Ottomans and all of the other Islamic empires are much more responsible for what state the Middle East is in today. Why can't the 3 factions in Iraq get along? Why can't the factions in Lebanon get along? Why can't the factions in Syria get along. Why does Egypt despise the Gazans just as much as the Israelis do?

This probably has more to do with the 1000+ years these territories spent under the control of various Islamic empires ending with the Ottomans.

> Imagine this scenario ...

Except it's Ukraine.

They change colors quicker than the Paris fashion industry. That's actually one of the key problems with Ukraine that a lot of people seem to be missing here. They have not had any sort of consensus since they became an independent nation. They are a a slightly more functional version of Iraq.

If not for Putin's constant and obvious meddling, the discontent of one of Ukraine's 3 factions would seem a lot more plausible.

History is not kind to nations that are tied to the fortunes of a single man or even a single royal family. He's got to be able to step aside or it will all fall apart sooner or later. Without a dynasty, that will probably be sooner rather than later.

NOTHING that is managed by init is the sort of thing that any random clueless rube has any business going near.

Not that any of the replacements are actually any easier to deal with.

Simply being the "new shiny shiny" means that it is untested and unproven. That's not something you just can casually gloss gloss over.

This adversity to change is common to ALL professionally managed systems. It has nothing to do with Unix in particular.

If it is anything like Upstart then it is a bunch of added complexity for no real gain.

> I suspect my next CPU will be arm(MIPS). I am astonished that I see I CPU the cost of several 1080p tablets.

Yes. And you will have to "outsource" any interesting computational tasks like something as simple as voice recognition. ARM based devices are good enough only so long as your use of it fits narrowly defined parameters driven by what speciality silicon is on your particular SoC. Even that is limited.

ARM lags behind even ancient and discontinued x86 processors. PCs also have more interesting "speciality silicon" too.

It took awhile for that regime to warm up. They didn't kill 30 million people over night. The entire enterprise required the apathy of a large populace over a long period of time.

It required your kind of apathy.

> Yeah, because there's absolutely no install base of Windows Server out there, and it sure doesn't run entire sectors of the economy worth trillions of dollars.
>
> Are you high?

Entire sectors? Trillions?

I think that you are the one that's high, or deluded, or just incredibly clueless.

You need to stop confusing your personal consumer fixation with real work.

Being 30 years old is not inherently problematic. If being 30 years old is a problem, you have to actually state what the problem is. Actually have an argument.

The PIO thing seems like it would be a minor nuissance. Again it seems like something that's "superficially tragic".

The balance of the tradeoffs don't seem to be in EFI's favor unless you are a mindless adherent of the "new shiny shiny".

> I had no idea that people still thought that being a woman made it impossible to be physically strong,

Not impossible. Just more difficult. Women are built differently. That's an objective fact you cannot escape from. That will cause the best male athletes to be better than the best female ones.

Although SKILL may alter the situation for sports where that can be a factor.

> I mean, face it, men are just more willing to be the trolls and make life miserable for each other. Women see that and avoid the whole issue altogether.

Are you kidding? Women love politics and backstabbing. In fact, they are much better at it than men are. They just like to pretend that they are better. If anything, all of this committee nonsense sounds like the sort of thing fueled by women rather than something they would flee from.