I thought NK populace and NK army were synonymous.

While the article does initially use miles on the nearer asteroid, it does immediately translate it into lunar lengths.

Does this mean my TV is 3D? It displays in height, width, and time.

By that logic, we should require everyone to derive Calculus from scratch, because "Hey, Newton had to do it on his own." The reason we are where we are today is because people passing on what they learned before decreasing the amount of time for the next person to learn the same concepts.

That would just add validity to their comparison.

If you're plugging in a cable while you're driving, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!

I'm thinking maybe you should be the FedEx CIO.

Hmm, twenty two is an odd base to work in but I suppose it's still valid.

I think this provides a reasonable basis for how to think about the issue. I read through most of the Ars comments and I found one recurring confusion that nobody seemed to have picked up on that seems to be continuing on into the Slashdot comments. That confusion is really that people are arguing two different questions. The first is "Can anyone be a good/professional/successful programmer?" and the second is "Can anyone learn to program?". These are in fact two different questions.
I've found everyone is arguing one of the two and most of the contentions between people come from when they don't realize they are arguing two very different questions.

Now I'll try to take a stab at the two questions. As "Can anyone learn to program?" is a requisite for "Can anyone be a good programmer?" I'll start with that question first.

Can anyone learn to program? : I don't know and I'm willing to venture a guess that no one on this forum really know either, regardless of how sure they may think they are. I venture to say, though, that I do think the vast majority of people can learn/be taught to program given the right instruction, motivation, and time. I'd recommend the following post on Ars. I think it provides a good example that the right instruction is crucial.

Obviously, some people are going to find programming more natural than others. For me, learning programming came very easy. Writing did/does not. Other people are the exact opposite. Does this mean that I can never learn to be an ok writer. I tend not to think so and I believe the reverse is true for people who are not naturally gifted for programming. What it does mean, at least to me, is that they have to learn to think in a new way (admittedly not easy, but it is possible). The real question then is how much effort will it take, does the person have the motivation to do it, and is it a worthwhile venture. I'll leave these to somebody else to answer.

Next, can anyone be a good programmer? This is really more of an extreme version of the other question. I'll hold to what I said with the previous question that most people could. However, the issue of whether it is worthwhile to spend the amount of time to develop the skills to become proficient is even valid. I suspect the answer is no. While I'm a believer in developing a range of talents, I also believe that being productive in society means that one needs to hone their skills in an area to become as good as they could possibly be. It seems natural then that the area in which one attempts to excel in is in an area that they are naturally gifted in to begin with. The person could then progress much further and the initial learning curve and potentially the later learning curve is much less steep for them. Lastly, one additional question: can anyone become an amazing programmer? To this I would have to say almost always no. This is akin to saying, "Can anyone become a DaVinci, a chess grandmaster, or an elite athlete?" Reaching the pinnacle of an area requires both dedication and natural ability. Even most programmers will never reach such a level that they can see any problem and quickly come up with an elegant solution for it. This is at the far end of the ability scale and for someone who isn't naturally adept at programming, and asking them to figuratively carve David.

Just my 3 cents.

No, you probably don't like the walled garden. What you like is an app store that verifies programs are virus free on the consumer side and DRM on the developer side.

I don't really see a double standard here. The summary implied that the sellers of the lock are obligated to provide a software upgrade to fix the vulnerability. For there to be a double standard, that means that we must expect a hardware lock to be replaced. The only way I see either company (the hardware or software lock companies) is obligated to fix the lock for free is if they somehow implied that they would provide upgrade services or made some guarantee to being hack-proof. I don't know what the terms of the hotels' locks were, but if they were sold as is, as a device to reduce the chance of breakin, I see no obligation.

About 2 Libraries of Congress.

Maybe he meant George Washington?

It can be argued that this is often the exact opposite case. Chickens and cows as species are doing phenomenal with no end in the foreseeable future for the sole reason that they are tasty and we've decided to keep them around.

A Modest Porpoisal