Classic sign of being an overly aggressive driver, just sayin'

The problem with some statistics is that some people enjoy regurgitating them in an obscene way that not only ignores their original intent but also abuse them to present a more dramatic falsely supported argument. This twisted behavior is especially enjoyed by politicians.

#1 Having illegitimate parents is not some random 1/30 curse that befalls you because you're now part of a western culture, stop making it sound like you'll never know if your grandparents are your grandparents b/c your parents cheated on each other. Based on demographics, wealth, culture, education... the numbers change dramatically.
#2 The term "illegitimate" doesn't only cover parents practicing infidelity in hidden closets, it covers children who belong to parents that aren't married. So yes, that includes divorce, "whoops", adoption, and modern family who never planned on getting married.
#3 Knowing who your real parents/grandparents are and having them tested instead of your "foster" parents, doesn't stop you from being illegitimate child but lets you continue the test for your sake.

But yeah, see how that makes your exclamation so much less fun and dramatic? Seeking out the truth isn't as fun, is it? Please don't spread crap around like that, it doesn't do anyone any good. Not even yourself.

As a general rule...
New technology, new problems. Greater complexity, greater complex problems. All of that better technology also requires better talent which is also harder to find. Sure, they undoubtedly probably solved many of the old problems, but they've all been replaced them all with new ones because "problems" never go away. Just look at our modern world, do we have fewer problems than we did a century ago? hah...

The funny thing is, the article you linked cautions against the kind of sensationalism that you're suggesting. Unless you meant to lace you post with sarcasm that I failed to detect... I see this article resurface every year just like killer (Africanized) bees. Except these types of mosquito have already been native to most parts of N America for a very long time.

Technology has a habit of doing that...

Oh Microsoft... please continue screwing your unhappy army developers at your own expense

Splendid, yes, yes! In fact, let's lock more people up for non violent crimes! Plenty of room in our prisons, they're not full or anything absurd like that. Oh yeah, and that felony record stain on your person is no biggie, nothing that more crime couldn't wash away. That's not a ongoing problem for people trying to get rehabilitated for committing real crimes or anything like that...

Way to exacerbate all of our current justice's systems problems with something as stupid as this. Civil penalties is all the justice you need for a "crime" like this, it doesn't even rank the same as white collar crimes. So senseless. So you're going to "felonize" middle and lower class people for streaming video but not "felonize" upper class people for recklessly destroying people's wealth and jobs? Really? REALLY?

Gob says, "COME ON!"

Being a software engineer myself I understand the sense of excitement accomplishment after completing internal testing. But as with many projects, as soon as this leaves the controlled "lab testing" environment it's a whole different ball game. Until then it's still a white paper product and I'd suggest remaining cautiously optimistic...

Legal or not, it's still unethical. That's what it's "embarrassing" to be caught.

Like I said, it may have improved over brief periods of time but it was never a pretty good newspaper. Just varying degrees of less bad or ridiculous. Congratulations on reading one day's worth of Pravda, but if you think that somehow substantiates an opinion regarding the newspaper would be very misguided. I'm sure Fox News has a good day once in awhile too. But seriously, you reading the Pravda from the other side of the ocean is like looking through a telescope since you don't have any of the local context. You're going to need to give it a little more thought than that.

I'm hesitant to reply on any of your other statements because they appear to be aimed at someone else. I don't think anyone in their right mind can say the US (or any other republic or democracy) will be without blemish. Of course there are violations throughout history and even today. Especially if you bring into discussion the inhumane treatment of African Americans, that's a stain that will shame the US as long as there are accurate history books. Regardless, you're picking single examples that serve your opinion instead of looking at the big picture. You are allowed to criticize the US, what do you think you're doing now? ... but you picked an example during the Red Scare with McCarthy? Seriously? If you're going to make that argument I might as well bring in the Great Purge of the 1930's under Stalin where 681,692 people were shot to death for political reasons, averaging 1,000 executions per day. How's that for comparison? What do you think Pravda was reporting then? Oh, it was singing the praises of national heroes like it wasn't even happening. For most examples during the Red Scare in the US, the worst will be forever ostracized by society and/or sent to prison. In Russia they would have disappeared and the event would be silenced. If you don't think that's a difference of several orders of magnitude then you need your head checked.

Sure the US is hardly a heaven, you only need to look at current events and how our country is trending. You're certainly right about the terrorism business. It's infuriating to actually hear people support government "security" policies on the basis of feeling safer. But you really need to keep your personal cognitive biases in check, they're seriously out of balance. You remind me of one of my Russian pals who himself been drinking a little too much Pravda syrum.

Germany has money to spend and invest, they're the #3 exporter in the world. The #1 and #2 exporters are too busy spending it on other stupid stuff like military and domestic security which I doubt everyone prefers.

I'm OK with having a national flood plan but not the way it's currently handled. There are only two categories of risk when it comes to determining the rate people pay, you're either a "high risk" or a "medium-low" risk. Your risk category is assigned by your location on the FEMA floodplain maps. The private sector would have far more incentive to price risk accurately than trying to pigeon everyone into 1 of 2 categories. This is an extremely poor way to handle things because it treats "Fabio" on a Florida coastline in hurricane alley the same way it treats "ma&pa" next to Seneca Creek, they're both hish risk. I agree they're both high risk, but one of those is *much much* higher than the other. In essence ma&pa will subsidize Fabio because will see many more floods during his lifetime. If they want to keep NFP solvent they need a lot more ma&pa's, or better yet everyone that's low risk, paying into the risk pool. But since they essentially punish the low risk insureds by making them pay more than their fair share they never join the NFP program unless their mortgage forces them to. That's why NFP is currently insolvent and requires government subsidy to stay afloat.

Unfortunately ff NFP was privatized again, Fabio would never be able to get insurance, who in their right mind would want to insure a house that's guaranteed to be destroyed every decade? An insurance company can walk away and say I'm not going to take you on as a risk because you're too damned dangerous and because I don't have to. Even if they can make money on Fabio they won't insure him. That's why I'm not totally against a national plan, but at least it needs to be priced fairly and accurately.

Full disclosure, I work for an insurance company.

Coming from a country that lived under socialism under the fatherly caring hands of the Soviet Union, I am compelled to completely and utterly disagree with you on the point that Pravda was *ever* a "pretty good newspaper". It has never been a good newspaper, ever. Though it may have had varying degrees of lies and propaganda in any of its articles.

The public has become addicted to sound bites and the discussion of climate modeling and global warming is anything *but* a sound bite. In fact, if you feed the public a steady stream of sound bites you will generate the exact controversy we have today. Most tidbits you find/read/hear that are either in support or against arguments for global warming are usually all "true-ish" but they fail to fully explain the broader context and see the big picture in terms of the long term trends and effects. It's nice to try to explain things in simpler terms but you run the risk of oversimplifying everything and making no sense at all.

Nobody can sit there and deny our society has 0 effect to our environment. Of course we are. You only have to look outside and see some garbage or go to the beach to figure that out. You can argue what kind of effects we create but you can't argue we have affected it. Second, while you can try to claim we're not causing global warming on one hand because the evidence is inconclusive - you can't say that and sit on your behind and then do nothing about it. Once you take that logical path you better be allocating a ton of research to fricken conclude the hell out of it. Sitting there and saying it's inconclusive and then being happy with that answer and doing no additional research is simply ignorant.

Or just maybe, we could take the wiser road and listen to all opinions and pick and choose the best from everyone. Say, instead of drawing a line in the sand and stereotyping/demonizing the people on the other side. When people stupendously say "I'm right and they're wrong" they're usually wrong themselves on multiple counts. A majority of the time, each side of the argument will have at least some valid points. I think you also misunderstand the idiom of hindsight is 20/20 not even mentioning it's usually used in the context of sarcasm. Of course decisions are easier if you already know the outcome.

Agile development is a method that has its respective strengths and weaknesses, it's not the method. There is no "one way" to do everything. Especially with something as ridiculously broad as software development. We're not arguing religion here, c'mon folks, use some sense.