That's one of the main problems with higher education, at least in the United States. I can't comment on the rest of the world.

As someone who graduated fairly recently with a degree in Computer Science, I can tell you that most of the CS students I graduated with were totally unprepared to do "real" development work. Why? Because CS courses tend to teach theoretical stuff you will rarely use, not practical stuff you will use every day. You need a balance of both, and for better or worse, many schools emphasize the theoretical side. And that's how it has to be in order to justify the high cost of an education. "You mean I spent all that money for something I could have learned online in a few weeks?" I realize that's an exaggeration, but all I know is that I will never use 90% of what I learned in my CS classes.

And really, it makes sense. As everyone reading this knows, Computer Science != Computer Programming. They are two wildly different fields, and the education for one does not imply success in the other. That brings me to my next point...

This might sound crazy, but I think the best approach for some people is a 2-year liberal arts school with an additional couple years of what amounts to vocational training as a computer programmer. You'll get the stuff you want from a university (core classes you will use every day, such as writing, critical reading, psych, etc.), and the practical experience you need to actually land a job. Oh yeah, and all for a fraction of the cost of a university. I realize this would not work for everyone, and there is something to be said for going the traditional CS route: If you want to do CS research, get a CS degree. Another fun experiment: Try getting a decent job (or even an interview) as a developer with anything short of a 4-year CS degree.

At least in the software industry, there is mismatch between the education route many programmers take (4-year college) and the education requirements of the job (the vocational route I mentioned). College has become a place to spend four years meeting people, making friends, going to parties, and attending classes you'd rather not be in. It always amazed me how many students paid through the nose for classes they never attended and had no interest in. It's babysitting for high school graduates.

Bottom Line: If you put in a lot of effort, you'll get an excellent return on your investment. The problem is, most students don't put any effort into doing "real" work while they are in school. The result is another fresh, unemployable crop of CS graduates who couldn't even use a version control system if their lives depended on it. And we wonder why jobs are moving off shore.

There, got my pessimism out for the day...

Whenever I read a headline like this I think to myself, "Alright, some jackass is trying to get a bunch of attention. Surely there must be more to this story."
 

Imagine my surprise when I realized that, no, the title is 100% accurate. Amazing.

How many "In Soviet Russia..." jokes will this generate? I'm taking bets...

From the summary:

Independent Record store customers are some of the most loyal music buyers around.

When faced with the shear numbers Wal-Mart brings to the table, does loyalty actually matter? That's the problem here. A thousand loyal indie store customers are trumped by a million disloyal Wal-Mart customers. This is a business about making money, not about keeping indie shops afloat.
 

Regardless of your answer to the above question, if I have 100 customers, and 90 of them buy my product through Wal-Mart and other large chains, I would concentrate on selling to the large chain stores. That number is just a guess, but I suspect it's fairly close. My guess is that EMI looked at their distribution costs versus the number of customers reached and decided, "These indie stores just aren't worth the distribution costs." I can't really blame them. It sucks, but I can't blame them. Distributing a physical product costs money, and what better way to cut down on distribution costs than to ship to your two or three largest customers and make the indie stores obtain your product from there, at their own expense.
 

From the article:

It's a odd turn of events for EMI, adding another blow to its physical CD sales while inversely arguing that illegal file-sharing is the real culprit behind declining revenues. If its concerned with losses then why get rid of customers? It just doesn't make any sense.

This is a rare case of the music industry--well, at least EMI--moving away from a business model we all know is outdated, and people are still complaining? And no, phasing out CD sales has nothing to do with illegal file sharing. There are better, cheaper, more convenient, DRM-free options out there, like iTunes and Amazon MP3. They aren't trying to push away their customers; they are trying to encourage people to either buy from stores with cheap distribution costs or buy from digital stores with even cheaper distribution costs.
 

I don't like the record industry, and I think the tactics they use are despicable. That said, it's stories like this that make me think they just can't win sometimes. The article makes it sound like EMI is a big mean company trying to crush indie competition, when in reality EMI is itself a business trying to keep costs down and phase out a wasteful distribution system. Give them a break.
 

Cue anti-RIAA downmods.... now.

...it doesn't change the fact that it will still end in tears for you...

I think some people are actually into that. Wait, you were talking about sex, right?

In that case, they're just lucky to be railroad workers instead of pencil factory workers. Actually, I'm not sure which is worse...

You make it sound like a crime for a company to do something that benefits itself.

That said, I think they should have come out and said it plainly: we are removing LAN support to prevent piracy, not to improve quality.

Blizzard, if piracy is what this whole thing is about (and it is), just tell me. Don't treat me like a five year old and tell me you're doing it for my own good.

Then what was I playing Diablo on in 1998?

I realize the service has surely been overhauled several times since then, but it's hardly a new service. Battle.net has been around for ages.

We looked at the Alan Shepards, Louis Armstrong, and Buzz Aldrins as supermen.

I also think of Louis Armstrong as a superman. He played that trumpet like a god! But getting back to the article, I think Neil Armstrong also qualifies as a superman.

Oh sure, it worked perfectly for Picard and crew... Except for the time Geordi misspoke a single word and allowed Professor Moriarty to take control of the ship. That episode is an example of bad UI design. I don't want Daniel Davis in control of my star ship.

Now, imagine if OpenOffice had that type of voice interface. Saying one wrong word could allow something equally ridiculous to happen, such as Oracle buying the company behind OpenOffice. Oh wait...

You're assuming the plane would take a direct path to its target. Hijackers take control of the plane after it flies past the intended target. They circle back a few minutes later and crash into the intended target. In that case, evacuation may have saved lives. Plus, I'd rather die trying to evacuate than die under my desk. If there's even a slim chance, I'll take it.

Sep 11, 2001: Air Force One does low altitude flyby of Manhattan buildings. People fled their office buildings in terror, afraid the plane would hit a building. The public ridicules them as cowards for evacuating for such a minor disturbance.

Apr 27, 2009: Terrorists fly commercial airliners into WTC. People stay put in their buildings, because the public ridiculed them for evacuating on Sep 11, 2001. Thousands die because they did not evacuate at the first sign of trouble.

Looking at it from that perspective, would you any of you like to retract your criticisms of those who evacuated today? In the timeline above, would you still criticize people on Sep 11, 2001?

I hope this has made at least some of the "we are a nation of pussies" people change their attitudes and understand the situation people were in today. Many of people who evacuated today were in NYC on 9/11, and they had every reason to evacuate.

Not sure I see your point. Most of what I order from eBay, Newegg, etc. arrive via UPS and FedEx.

Do you want your phone bill to go up $4 every month because it costs them that much to send it to you? And water, electric, cable, ect? You can probably get most of them electronically, but not all and I'd rather keep my money thanks to the USPS charging them a quarter rather than 4 bucks. If UPS charged them 4, they'll raise the bill 6 or 7.

Actually, I'd be willing to bet most people can get all of them electronically, and pay them electronically too. Companies that don't support electronic bills and correspondence will simply fail to compete and die off. That's progress.

I can't remember the last time I mailed a letter. It must have been 2002 or thereabouts. Only official documents that need to be signed and mailed are worth mailing, and I send those UPS/FedEx because they arrive faster and have reliable tracking (USPS tracking is a joke). And extra couple bucks to mail one document every few years isn't a big price to pay.

I realize not everyone has such little dependence on the USPS. I'm just saying that they should.

Oracle is much larger than Sun in virtually every way, and is much more than just a database company. Anyone who thinks Oracle is only about databases hasn't done their homework.

Furthermore, Oracle buying Sun makes much more sense than IBM buying Sun. Oracle wants to offer the full package to their customers--from servers and storage, to middleware and database software. IBM already has most (if not all) of those bases covered, so their would have been a significant amount of overlap. The parts of Sun that survive the acquisition will turn Oracle into a force to be reckoned with, for better or worse.