Take the functionality, ditch the compatibility. Sounds right.

I think you're wrong. I think it's an oversimplification and over-rationalization to say that there is one combination of ingredients which is optimal, and to be aimed for every time. I never want my food to be uniform; I want it to be varied and imperfect, as that adds to the excitement and interest of eating.

And I know I would much prefer the variation to be down to a cook's whims rather than a process which intentionally introduces a quality-controlled level of randomization.

Only if the cooking is formulaic enough, I'd say. For someone who "can" cook, there's a feedback process of tasting and altering. But maybe you're saying that taste sensors will do this with algorithms good enough to rival any human cook. Maybe. Who knows?

Otherwise, I totally agree. And I do not fear a world with less work in it. Life can be so much better. We will still always need academics, entertainers, experts, customer service people and carers, I believe. Imagine a world where everyone can do what they're interested in. Scarcity and competition will always exist, but I think things are getting better and more interesting.

Whatever the fate of this particular company, it's pretty clear to me that most (or all?) farming jobs can be automated with a combination of current machinery, sensors and some reliable software. I predict a world where several hectares of farmland will be simply monitored by each "farmer". Automatic combine harvesters are already a reality. Drone surveillance is near. Pest control? Can't see why not. A complete automatic milking system which lovingly cares for each cow? Maybe 30 years.

A system where animals to be slaughtered never see a human face? Don't be shocked, it's coming.

My only question about gNewSense is why did they choose a name which reads "gee, nuisance"?

Even if that's not the intended pronunciation, it's a remarkable oversight that a lot of people will read it as such.

insensitive clod, etc.

You're an idiot. That's not what dishevel is saying at all. It's a good point. I have no doubt in my mind that this guy Tillerson is an absolute cunt, and that he doesn't want fracking near his home, but what he actually sued against was the water tower and potential noise from that. To put it another way, I think he would have sued against the water tower no matter what it was for.

Not to say that that alone isn't a dick move in itself, either. I hope he wastes a lot of time and money on it, loses the case, and then a bird shits on his head on the way out.
Then when he looks up, another shits in his mouth.

I was wondering this too. From the article linked above by tindur (norwegian), it's not, but it's not too bad:
6 letters map to R
3 to S
2 to
2 to L
2 to N
1 to E

By my counting, english has 10-13 letters mapped to E. Depends on your spelling of letters.
Eeeenes hn ihur seellene hf leeeers.

Hmm. The day after I wrote this comment, it was only voted "Funny", and reached +5 pretty quickly. Now a week later, suddenly it's voted down to -1 and marked "Flamebait" each time. I'm calling shenanigans. This was clearly the act of one person or one colluding group.

Sorry if I offended you, tubby.

I was going to comment and say that those fatties asked for it
...but now I realise that they literally did.

Yeah, I mean, who wants some egghead know-it-all spoiling their quiz shows?
Also, might I be so bold as to suggest that a Chinese name and appearance puts Americans off? Sure, he's American, but couldn't he have an honest name, like Brad Schmidt?

No, the problem with the superbowl is that you have as much advertisement as you have sport. In any self-respecting sport, you should have at least half an hour of sport to every five minutes of ads.

45 min half, 3min ad break, 10min analysis, 3min ad break, 45min half
That's how a game of footie breaks down. It is perfectly acceptable. Most other sports are much the same. American football is different, and Americans have no one to blame but themselves.

Also, [rant] and all that, but the ads were shit .

Their only hope is to open the codebase of desktop Opera. As it stands, mainstreamers see no reason to use it over Chrome or Firefox, and FOSS geeks are turned off by its closed source, cathedral nature. They really don't offer good reasons why they aren't doing this, other than the paranoid notion that the bigger boys will steal their precious code. Sad, really. With the amount of bitching about Firefox losing its way ("muh firebird/phoenix"), Opera could be really quite popular among geeks. I think they're underestimating the ripple effect of this, both from contributions and evangelism.

I think the real question (and possibly what StripedCow was asking) is why not use the syntax of existing languages, to make it easier to learn and read?

The explanation linked by the ArchWiki article on systemd is very good:
Read this forum post.

As an Arch user, I hated systemd at first, for much the same reasons as already stated: the confusing and opaque nature of debugging. I'm now a convert, and I have been ever since I worked out how to do everything I used to be able to do. I now believe people's resistance is just growing pains. Give it a shot; it's easy and good.