it is NOT secure!!!

Secure communication means that only you or your friend on the other end can disclose secrets, not the service in betwen.

If you run a truly secure e-mail service and Uncle Sam wants keys, the correct response is "sorry, can't help you; we do not have any keys".

for going to the movies with Dr. Sheldon Cooper!

Git is absolutely not a good first version control system for people who are clueless about version control. (Such as, evidently, your developers).

Git requires prior experience with at least two simpler version control systems. In git, you often run into scenarios that require you to understand its complicated repository representation so that you can choose the best steps to unravel them, based on understanding the ramifications of each approach.

The implementation of git is not hidden from the user behind a robust set of "no brainer" use cases.

The decentralized model alone will confuse the heck out of workers with no prior version control experience.

Use a system that has a centralized server from which working copies are checked out, like Subversion.

You cannot compare people being murdered to people who do not know (at least according to popular perception) how to eke out a living.

This Slashdot poll is about whether to bomb Syria, not whether to go after the oppressive regime somehow.

"Innocent people were gassed ... so let's bomb the fucking place too?"

I'm in favor of cleanly executed assassinations that take out all the correct bastards one at a time.

Yawn!

I wrote:

If I think that some publisher's output is poor, that is my opinion. It is not libel.

Ah, in the United States perhaps. But if I express that opinion in Canada, it might in fact be defamation. Oops!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_defamation_law

True North Strong and Free, indeed ...

For instance, the publisher could start a blog in which they call the librarian "Mr. Poopy Pants".

That is essentially the equivalent of what he did to them.

If I think that some publisher's output is poor, that is my opinion. It is not libel. You can't sue people for having standards (even completely vague ones that change daily) and for claiming that some things don't measure up to those standard (in no objective way).

Libel would be if I claim that, say, the publisher cheated someone out of ten thousand dollars, when in fact that is false.

Nobody would be dumb enough to be seen with that, especially around airports. So your luggage is safe.

The dot com bust hit the IT sectory specifically, and followed a huge bubble in which tons of people were found in unnecessary jobs fueled by the gush of easy start-up money.

How can you even compare.

:)

A little PC board with a soldered-on Intel chip, which itself has pins ...

I don't agree. Even if it says somewhere that there is free support, it's an obvious TGTBT claim that only an idiot would believe and get irate at, if that idiot knows that the program was free.

I think these people do not know that the program was free. They think someone in their organization (maybe an IT person) paid for it, and the support goes with that.

With big, complex, multi-user applications, you can't assume that the person calling the support line is the one who selected and deployed the application, or that the person who did select and deploy the application made it clear to everyone that it's free.

Time does not run the same way backward as it does forward. It, like, runs forward and does not run backward.

If they don't kill them swiftly and surely after release, they will go on to be pests.