Because they reinvent the wheel. They themselves are only necessary because they have fooled the world into thinking that they are. Code (any code written in text) is best written by machines. It can be just as easily generated once the problems are well-posed. It's just that most people don't realize it, yet. The math brains have the know-how to state the complex problems. They just don't all know that it's what they should be doing. Once they do, the code monkeys will go the way of all the people doing arithmetic really, really well. It's not an insult. It's just that certain skills can be automated. And all, without exception, skills of the code monkeys can automated my grammar notwithstanding.

The conflict in modern programming is between code monkeys and math brains. Both are dismissive of the other. The code monkeys think the math brains overcomplicate things. The math brains think the code monkeys don't understand the problems they are solving.

Poorly designed projects provide more job security and require more labor to maintain. They are managed by people who don't understand that their projects are sinking or do understand it, but don't understand why that's happening. And, of course, they require more employees. The people who manage them select people who are willing to suffer the pain of being inefficient because those doing the selection don't understand the benefits of increased efficiency. The result is that more jobs is not an indication of a better education. More jobs going to graduates of these schools can very well be an indication of their alumni having been educated in how things were done before better methods were invented.

This sounds like an interrupt conflict. If the USB device and audio device share the interrupt and (because of hardware misconfiguratin) pluging in/out of usb causes sound device's interrupt handler to run, it could be reading garbage data and using it as the new config settings.

It doesn't sound wrongful. As a juror, I'd never side with someone who insists on a right to say whatever they want to their employer's customers. And it sounds like the person in question worked for a Comcast vendor.

What abuses? I am no fan of monopoly utilities (water, cable, electric, etc.), but if the employee got nasty, Comcast can't be forced to use a vendor they don't want to use. First amendment right is a right to speak. It's not a right to be heard.

That's not how the world works. Those people may simply have priorities different from your priorities and could be frustrated that their priorities are given less weight than yours. It doesn't make them wrong in disagreeing with you. How they react to that frustration is what makes them ass holes.

Star Bucks

What's more important is that you remember the name Eli Whitney. Although you are clearly trying to change the topic by bringing up one of the few times when technology reduced the quality of human condition. Why not mention Norman Borlaug instead? Especially, in the context of this article. Do people think that discovering photo-electric effect was a genius or do they call every genius an "Einstein"?

The fact that their names are already forgotten is not just an injustice to Ciara Judge, Émer Hickey and Sophie Healy-Thow. It is, once again, an attempt to put the political context (their nationality and gender) above the actual achievement. Just try for a second doing the same thing with a headline about a movie actor. As in "... a famous California performer was sentenced to rehab today..." Does it seem like you are telling the full story there? Of course, not.

Science is first and foremost a human endeavor. And any attempt to dehumanize it denigrates it. I have always maintained that every scientist and every mathematician must have it stipulated in writtng that their name appear first in any headline of any article about them if they agree to an interview on which the article is to be based. And if you really don't think people care, then tell me why the names of the actors who play parts in science fiction are known while the names of actual scientists who make discoveries are not known?

Just so you understand, this is only the case in the US. It is very much the result of how the press reports on science. It is not the result of some general trend in human thought about science. It is also fairly new. You yourself mentioned Eli Whitney. Einstein's name is a household item. This is all a result of how scientists were genuinely liked years ago. We went through a cultural period of thinking of scientists as "mad scientists" if they were good at what they did.

And it's not as if science itself was such a boring topic. People will memorize and talk about sports statistics (which are of no consequence) and talk about athletes as if they new them even if they never met them. But the same is not true of science and scientists. Why? Exclusively because of the press. Slashdot editors should know better.

No one was even discussing whether it was accurate or not. It's just not the topic of the conversation. The topic that I set was the dehumanization of scientists by the way the headlines which describe their accomplishments are structured in pop media.

If the headline goes from least personal info to most personal, it dehumanizes those described. If goes from most personal to least personal, it humanizes them. This is not a singular occurrence. This is a general communication principle. The headline was 3 Irish girls (notices least personal, the country of origin, was listed first).

You don't have to debunk them. People who demonize Monsanto classify themselves as ass holes on their own. They don't have enough credibility to need debunking.

First the name, then the age, then the gender, then the country of origin. The way you put it (country of origin, gender, NO NAME) makes her sound irrelevant. You are part of the problem of how science is reported in the US. It's first and foremost a human endeavor. The less personal you make her achievement sound the less glamorous you make the scientific work at large. Compare this to how you report on any politician or movie actor and you'll see the problem.

Maybe. Background? Absolutely. Tim Bray often attributes this

to Phil Karlton. But he does it so often that it is usually attributed to Tim Bray. Naming things is where the code monkeys usually fail. Engineers who think they are programmers usually fail at it hard. It takes a certain fluidity and realization of how actual human beings interact with the world to give content meaningful context (by naming it right) and to understand problem domains well-enough to pick the right cache invalidation schemes. And, of course, understanding how human beings interact with the world is what one gets out of a liberal arts degree. As I said, it doesn't have to be a degree, but the background has to be there.