Similar background, but since 1991, totally agree with your post, many of the older teenagers who want to "write games" are artists, not coders.

Programming or playing a musical instrument is easy, doing it well enough to get paid is hard.

Yep, extreme optimism is just as much a part of the illness as extreme pessimism, both extremes are disconnected from reality.

Would you say a financially comfortable american with terminal cancer is 'better off' than 99% of the world? - Of course not. Same thing with depression, depression is not self pity, it is a mental illness that has fuck all to do with the size of your wallet. As Robin Williams demonstrated, sufferers are unable to endure living even when swimming in money.

I'm not having a go at you personally, most people who don't understand depression have your dismissive attitude. I suggest you try educating yourself on the subject because odds are you will encounter a loved one with depression at some point in your life and it's handy to know what to do after telling them to "cheer up" doesn't work.

As for TFA, I don't find it surprising that "start up" people have a high proportion of manic-depressives, the manic phase of the illness is characterized by extreme optimism.

Shameless plug for a good cause

Managing engineers has been unfavorably compared to herding cats, both tasks are all about effective communication and (benevolent) manipulation. Engineers generally don't have these skills unless they have had some other life experiences such as (say) bartending at a busy pub. Having said that, most programmers can recognise a good manager if they are lucky enough to encounter one.

Disclaimer: 56, turned down the boss's job a couple of years ago - been there, done that in my late 30's, learnt a lot but ultimately not worth the aggravation at my age. If you don't have a niche, you won''t get good money at any age, in any industry. People who have a marketable niche know what it is, if you are caught in a dying niche...well...maybe you should have been paying more attention earlier?

Fucking hypocrite, you don't want to pay "grunts" $60k/yr but I'd bet my left testical that you wouldn't trade jobs with a mexican farm hand for the same amount. Insufferable snobs like you are the first to burst into self-centered tears when life hands you the choice of food vs grunt work.

The regulations existed long before uber did, "computer dispatch" is so 1970. You can't change those regulations by pretending they don't apply to computers, so ultimately it is uber who will have to change to comply with those regulations, just like every other "get rich quick" scheme that ignores business realities such as compulsory insurance. There's nothing inherently wrong with the uber concept, but flouting the current laws in order to implement it is basically the definition of organised crime.

Melbourne Australia, I worked as a driver for 3 years, cabs are cleaned inside and out twice a day. It is the cab driver, not the owner, who is held responsible. Dirty cabs will receive an on the spot fine and will be forced to spend the rest of their shift getting it cleaned and re-inspected by the transport cops. Random inspections at taxi ranks are common. The number of taxi drivers who "stink" is no higher than that found in the general population who ride in the cab. For example, there were several houses in my area that most drivers (legally) refused to service because of the customers odour. Get someone like that in your cab and the stench lingers for hours after they have gone.

WTF have your shares got to do with your desire to deliberately trash the life savings of millions of taxi drivers in the western world?. They entered into a contract with the government, if the government breaks that contract by changing the law then drivers should definitely be fairly compensated. Business confidence is important, if the government started breaking contracts as you suggest the economy would go down the toilet faster than a new york rat.

The original "Planetary Grand Tour" project would have visited Pluto, but it relied on a planetary alignment that would have to have started in 1976 or 1977. It was originally announced as a single craft, which became four before it was cancelled (I don't remember that, but for a brief history, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...). This was replaced by the two Voyager satellites launched in 1977. The later launch date made Pluto harder to visit, but it was still possible.

Not my experience. It used to be the case in Windows 98 but I haven't found my systems to be slowing ever since I bought an SSD. SSDs solved all of my problems and they're rediculously affordable.

I also have a cluster of windows machines performing raytracing and other extremely performance driven tasks--I can't tell the age of an install based on performance.

This is all just superstition at this point without numbers. Yes if you install a third party anti-virus solution and you have a bunch of auto-installers running in the background your computer will run "Slower" than it did without anything running in the background but that's not Windows' fault and that's true of every operating system regardless if it's *nix or Win*.

Quick trip to a federal court for extortion.

Most United Frequent Flyer awards though aren't claimed though. Except for really popular routes at popular times you can get a Saver Frequent Flyer ticket almost anywhere. Your assertion assumes that Award tickets are always completely filled. Especially considering that most Airlines can now sell out entire flights most of the time that means they are missing out on some revenue.

Frequent flyer programs do cost money but they also do make a lot of money too. Both through Credit Card fees and because if you do legitimately concentrate on one airline you will spend a little extra for the miles. For instance I'll fly a preferred airline even if it's $120 more on a $1,000 ticket because the miles (Especially status miles) are worth $120. So not only are they making more on their sale than a competitor but they're making the sale in the first place. If you fly randomly on random airlines, almost nobody will earn enough reward miles on any given airline to ever redeem them at all.

Try 10 times and assume that there isn't a cap after that. Much easier on the servers than 9999 password reset attempts.

This is a huge security vulnerability and they should patch it. But he also blatantly broke the rules.

I reckoned you could do the equivalent with a superconducting cable around Mars' equator carrying about 500 amps. This sounds more do-able than it perhaps is, because the magnetic field has an enormous amount of energy so it would take years to establish the magnetic field; and all the energy would all come out if the cable is broken.