I suddenly wish I could edit my posts.

I lament this decision, but understand it. I telecommuted from Maine to D.C. I did it very well. I was reliable. I even got more work done there where I had control over my environment and time than I do where where I don't. That said, I was alone in this. The other 3 or 4 people doing the same thing were notoriously unreliable. So I understand the decision to end the practice even if it really made my life worse. My argument would be, then... address WHY people can't stick to the job at home... rather than end the practice. In a world with dwindling resources, severe jumps in carbon emissions (not small portion of which is transportation and heating/cooling related), all of a person's lifespan utterly wasted (and in some respected, endangered by) sitting in traffic, etc. Rise above, Mayer... don't put down.

Heh; while we hold on to weaponized smallpox stockpiles ... yeah; totally an islamic thing, eh? Any sufficiently disenfrachised, abused, and under-represented individual or group will have similar motivations.

DNA is a programming language after all... but knowing the character set is far from understanding the foibles of the programming language itself. We need to have a deeper and more complete understanding before distributing this kind of power.

That my webkit browsers have been very poorly behaved; maybe it's just me... but images flicker, forms appear and disappear, sometimes pages just stop loading at random... each patch for mountain lion seems to repair it BRIEFLY... but it always comes back.

Before anyone goes and aggros the concept of government, try to remember first that government (as intended, anyways, prior to the inevitability that concentrated power attracts the corrupt) is supposed to be the gigantic lever by which the public can accomplish massive tasks that were too big for communities or individuals to do by themselves. Folk get together, agree on a solution, and contribute to it... and no matter what form that takes, you've just defined a government. That said, the nature (and speed) of technological advancement is changing this game. It doesn't make government bad; it just further empowers smaller units of self-government more than was previously possible... so yes, the equation can and should change... but does not serve as excuse for condemning something we've (in all of recorded human history) not been able to do long without.

... open sourcing the software may be critical; not only does it expose to anyone who needs to know that its done well and ethically, but it can also serve as a platform (at all levels) for the majority of voters to fight back against the exponentiation of aforementioned gerrymandering.

That's nearly true; if it were me now, I'd just plow through even though the material was becoming decreasingly relevant to what I was (and did) persevere to do in spite of them (goals/career-wise.) Then again, NOW, I have the financial foundation to feed myself and afford books, transit, and rent ... and further have a distinct sense of what I want to do with myself. Wasn't quite the case at the time ... and when the choice became between their gouging me for ten times more than I had, or the decent paying but full-time and demanding job I'd already found and conquered. Yeah... it's not a great feeling thing to look back upon; I might have had a much better experience if I'd put off university for a couple years and dabbled at work FIRST. Regardless, do not condone messing with students FINANCIALLY. Make their courses tough (As Markovsky always told us in discreet structures, after having shown us a clipped down version of starwars, day one, suggesting recursion was akin to the 'force', 'I'll feel as if I've failed if any more than two of you (out of 20 or so) pass this course this semester. I don't want to hear another tale of patients suffering fatal or nearfatal doses of xrays because the software behind the hospitals' machines didn't cope well with someone who typed too fast at the console.') ... but don't lie about the upcoming expenses and then withhold the 95% of the money you've already been paid even while classes are starting (and said student is being kicked out of labs for lack of fees paid) while leaving said student to beg around looking for 3rd party private loans with crap terms.

I've heard this; that commits to Github/CPAN are far more important to good employers than a CV or particular degree (though both are not unimportant.) To that end I have been spinning out some of my ideas; I describe my long-term employer as a bit of a sheltered bay. We developed an in-house MVC framework that predated and could well have taken on the life that Moose/Catalyst have, had we the wits to open source it early on. But never having done that, not having the option now to do that, and spending so much time developing and maintaining something that is going to remain an relative unknown to anyone else... it can make one rusty. In the meantime, I whittle away at personal projects and even now contribute to some nonprofit projects so as to do good for others while hopefully doing good for my discernibility on the talent market. Still... not having a degree I put a lot of time into, regardless of my current capacities and pay-grade... it feels like a personal failure even if the financial aide department gave me much to legitimately rant about.

I never finished my degree as my original university seemed to delight in messing with my finances and withholding books; I also slipped into an IT/Software Dev career and am doing reasonably well, but also feel like the lack of an official degree (and some need for brushing up) is a bit threatening. I'd love to poke away slowly at a degree (I'm going to assume that, since what CS I do have is about 12 years old now, little of it will transfer into a new one.)

Sadly, no... skype is currently not allowed to make emergency service calls. I'm speaking of a telephony service that is 100% exchangeable with modern requirements of having a damn phone number (yes, I hate phones.) If I didn't have to write down a phone number on forms I'd probably not even have one... but as long as I MUST, I'd just as soon not having to have a separate and ultimately unused object that handles it.

I'm holding out, myself, for the all-in-one tablet... powerful enough to manage as an IT/developer's tool (I figure they're close enough already, but to the point that I won't be crippled without a laptop nearby) and includes FULL telephony... I realize one isn't about to hold a tablet up to their ear, but with bluetooth one could have one of those in-ear things just as they do now with an iphone... I'm simply not willing to buy multiple devices that have so much overlap but one damn feature or two that is unique when there's really no good reason for it.

The system you mention would be just about the only thing that really should be able to have access to this kind of power; my concern is that that system is being pressured by the likes of monsanto and the NRA and walmart and you name whatever mutlinational corporation you like. Concentrated power attracts corruption even if it was originally created with the best on intentions. I'm all for constitutional requirements; I'm just not 100% convinced that they're holding sway anymore... and no, I'm not anti-obama. If drones are being abused, it's by the military-industrial complex we were warned about so many decades ago, and Obama can't stop that kind of thing alone... and support from the masses is not sufficient at this time to back him if there really were a contest of wills going on between corporations, the military, and civilian control of 'presure points' of power.

Look, the way we took down bin Laden was the RIGHT way to do it and it was the way it should have been done from the very beginning... if you have an enemy, decapitate him. But instead we treated (and treat) entire populations as if they were the enemy, which really only serves to make US the enemy instead. So I'm torn... on the one hand, if drones can do this, then good... on the other, what happens when our relatively lack of accountability in using them takes a darker turn? What happens when a peacenik (as suggested by Goering at the nuremburg trials) is denounced at a traitor and subject to 'droning,' too? Who decides who is a terrorist?

It is true to say that google is an app that extends the cabilities on the human mind; but this is not news and not new. The hoe was an extention of the human arm and hand that broadened out abilities. The abacus and the calculator enhanced our ability to do math. Telegraphs and phone wires and electromagnetic squeaks allow us to communicate far behind the physical limitations of our vocal chords. Google is simply the amalgamation of many minds into a common memory store. And this will progress as the scale of technology is further reduced and literally disappears inside our bodies through nanotech, without so much as a scar (yes, implants are essentially obsolete even before they've gained much traction.) We'll be dreaming together and having conversations in our heads with folk over the internet, witnessing events with our own eyes as they occur on the other side of the globe, et cetera, within just a couple decades, if not less. The point is; we have essentially been cyborging ourselves since the invention of technology itself. It is nothing new.