People really don't care what OS is on their computer, as long as it pre-installed and works the way they know. It could be QNX or plan9 or anything else, as long as they are able to to the things they know how to do.

No, they do not WANT their computer with windows. They have been forced into windows for ages, so now they are accustomed and see no reason why it wouldn't be that way (and most don't even know alternatives exist anyway).
It's about the same as drugs, really. At first you get some nasty effect, then you get accustomed to it , find that normal and want more of it....

Yeah, much of what we know is being overturned. Some of the disinformation was probably created by the food companies that wanted to make cheaper food. Back in the 70's we were told that fat was bad, and so all these processed foods got lots of extra sugar instead. Now we find out that sugar is bad and you need to consume more of the right fats. We're also starting to see that this "food pyramid" they taught us about should be basically inverted. The reason for the food pyramid is more to do with cost (grains are cheap) than nutrition.

Today, we know a hell of a lot about the impact of genetics, microbiotic flora, and many other things that affect individuals differently. For instance, many people have some mild sensitivities to various food proteins, although no always enough to notice more than some unexplained lethargy unpredictable times after eating certain foods. Of course, for some people, it's bad, like those with celiac disease.

Here's an interesting one: Apparently, about 10% of the population (US or world, I'm not sure) has a homozygous MTHFR C677T mutation. These people cannot convert folic acid (which is artificial anyway) or folinic acid (found in lots of vegetables) into methylfolate. As a result, these people suffer from massive B9 deficiencies (which indirectly causes others, like trouble absorbing B12). Moreover, it's not just that folic acid and folinic acid are not useful to them; they're functionally poison, interfering with the normal function of the methylation cycle. So these people need to take large quantities of methylfolate and cut out certain "healthy" vegetables. They also have to cut out "enriched" foods. We're starting to see a correlation between health problems increasing in these people and the mid-90's FDA mandate to enrich certain foods with Folic Acid. Lovely.

If I had disposable income, I might get an iWatch for my wife (who actually uses a watch). This is a great little toy for people with some disposable income and an itch to collect expensive gadgets. It looks cool and probably has some great functionality.

For those complaining about it, they're expecting too much from a first-generation product. Give it a few years, and the features, battery life, and price will improve to a point where more of us would consider buying one. Meanwhile, Apple gets to test out ideas that will improve its later products, and some of what is learned from this will also positively impact other Apple products.

Some time next year, I'll go check one out in an Apple store for about a minute. (Which is about how long I can stand to be in an Apple store since I already know everything about the products before I go there, so I get bored quickly.)

In general, having a niche skill pays more if you can find a job in that niche. Companies that need that skill know it's a niche skill and one way or another end up realizing they have to offer higher salaries to attract the right talent. On the other hand, if you are an expert in COBOL and go to work doing web programming, they're not going to care, and your COBOL knowledge will have no impact on your income.

That all being said, I don't understand the general fear people have of learning new languages. Sure, it takes time and effort, but it should be considered part of the craft. At Ohio State, the CSE department used to teach a language called Resolve for its beginning courses. It was DESIGNED to make things like data structures and algorithms easier to code, avoiding a lot of the cruft of other languages that is unrelated to the code that matters. But students complaned and complained about learning a language they'd never use again. My thinking is that if they're going to be successful, engineers need to be willing and able to learn new languages on their own time.

At OSU, they eventually caved to student pressure and switched to Java. Why they chose Java is beyond me. Where I teach now, they use Python, and that makes a hell of a lot more sense to me. If you're entirely new to programming, there is a lot of boilerplate (from the perspective of the uninitiated) Java code you have to write just to do simple things that is unnecessary when writing Python.

Of course, because systemd will just redefine everything. Before systemd, d was for daemon, with systemd, d now means utility. Isn't life that much better with systemd?

systemd: a poorly designed complex solution to problem which doesn't exist...

Minimum wage is relative. Here, it could mean "the minimum amount of money offered to anyone for this kind of position."

People who weren't learning the material were still getting good grades (B's at least), and employers were preoccupied with GPA numbers.

Either that or they don't want to come to the DC area. Considering the massive cost of living there and the fact that "6 figures" can mean "just barely over 100K", maybe you're just not offering enough. I turned down a really nice offer in Arlington, VA, because $150K was worth substantially less there than $85K where I work now.

Probably the only place worse than DC would be NYC.

In my university, we accept huge numbers of international students because they pay higher tuition. If we didn't do that, we wouldn't survive financially, because the state's economy is poor. So in terms of keeping the institution alive, this is the best thing to do. And in any case, this never seems to negatively impact our very good reputation in the northeast. (Besides, it's not like we're giving good grades to bad students anyhow.)

As long as those poor students aren't TOO distracting, the revenue they bring in is good for everyone else. (And some of them get brought around to actually find the subject interesting.) Our domestic students are almost all very good. And there is always a nontrivial portion of the international students who are also very very good. I like to think about the cases where a student who had trouble getting into to other schools was given an opportunity to unexpectedly shine in ours. This happens plenty.

The companies say there aren't enough IT workers. The IT workers say there aren't enough jobs. It really comes down to there being huge numbers of IT workers but very few good ones.

As someone who educates CS students, I see the whole spectrum. There are lots of students who seriously have no interest in learning the material. All they care about is getting a diploma. Where I teach, those students don't make it all the way through the program, due to a combination of poor grades and being caught cheating. But when I was getting my undergrad degree, I was always angry about the fact that employers couldn't distinguish my A's from those of people who didn't actually learn the material.

Not surprisingly, supply and demand is a factor here. With low numbers of CS students, standards have to be lowered to keep the tuition revenue going. As the student population grows beyond capacity, schools are able to be more selective based on SAT scores, high school GPAs, and weed-out courses.

There are FOSS versions available, but proprietary versions, like Eagle, are significantly easier to use.

I like and use Eagle. However, have you seen the push routing in KiCad? That looks really, really nice. Of course I haven't switched because I now have my nice component libraries. KiCad is beginning to get very positive opinions.

You're a bit thick really.

I specifically stated that I would retract the accusation of sexist if he'd ever used levelled similar insults at men.

Note how I didn't very specifically did NOT specify the exact word. Since you seem either unwilling or unable to actually read my post, let me spell it out in excruciating detail:

use of the word whore != sexist

Insulting only women and not men for having too much sex == sexist.

It's not as bad as all that, but it's still not great.

Basically the way it works is this:

A young, energetic research employed on grant A burns themself out moonlighting on project B.

They then present the complete B as a proposal which might get funded.

B gets funded and they use the money for B to work on C.

Risky stuff does get done, and using exactly the same money but the funding bodies are entering into the fiction that they're involved in the risk. Of course they are since the money has to come from somewhere. It also involves a shitty life for the early career researcher.

So, the funding bodies are idiots, but pretending risky stuff doesn't get done does a great disservice to those who actually do it.

And I specifically said you're sexist because you seem to think only women can be whores.

Yes and you said that because you're a total block-head who is apparently unable to read.

Allow me to explain one last time, though I doubt you'll be able to comprehend anything consisting of more than four or five words.

Whore is a perjoratave (it means insulting) term. I said he's sexist if he only uses that term on women.

How the hell you got from that to "lol u think nly womens can be teh whores lol u r sexist lol trolololol" I have no idea. That I think is an accurate representation of your thought process and mental capacity.