I'm waiting for the next episode of The Big Bang Theory to hear what Dr.Copper thinks of this paper before I take sides. He's the man...

Great insight, wish I had the points right now to vote you up!
  (why did someone vote that comment down?)

Let's not forget and I can always do my 0x30th again when I get to 48 ;)

The good old BBC, that British establishment of impartiality, politically neutral editorial and protector of the innocent.

Jimmy Saville, Rolf Harris, Stuart Hall, the list goes on. Operation "YewTree" came too late, too little.
Yet the BBC has the gal to point fingers at others for abuse given it did nothing to protect kids from it's stars over the last 3 or 4 decades.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Yewtree
Quote: "The NSPCC described Savile as "one of the most prolific sex offenders in its 129-year history". The BBC restated a "sincere apology to the victims"."
Oh yeah BBC, you really do have kids best interests at heart don't you?

Not to mention their disgraceful one side coverage of the Scottish referendum on Independence this year have left many like myself really not giving much of a shit as to what they have to "report" these days.

So do us all a favour and crawl up your own hole.

I remember my 30th as a sort of wake. My 40th birthday was the best birthday party I ever had.
When you are in your 20's you know you are at your peak physically and life's ahead of you (if you are fortunate).
It's easy to let the number 30 affect your outlook. Professional sportsmen start planning retirement at 30.

Instead of mourning my 30's I realised that better people than myself hadn't go to 40 and so I celebrated having had 40 years and being grateful for them.
I've continued with that view for 6 years now and was recently wondering how I can make the 50th party better than the 40th.

At the end of the day it's just a number.
It's the life in your days not the days in your life that matter.

Who's the largest Disney shareholder and who declared thermo nuclear war on Google?

Grindr for Execs?

Wonderful! You made my day by taking us back to the good ol' days of MS bashing here on Slashdot! Thank you sir!

Huawei did the same thing when they launched their first routers.
Worse even. They just copied the Cisco IOS code replacing the string "Cisco Systems Inc" with "Huawei"
Cisco won in court because Huawei's routers had the exact same bugs and spelling mistakes in the IOS CLI.

Or "Mind"

It's getting boring here on Slashdot, this shift from Microsoft bashing to Apple bashing.
The article's making it to front page are becoming very one sided, pro-Google/Android and anti-Apple.

Only several out of a million+ Apps?
So a few wild animals jump over into the walled garden, easy enough to chase them out and plug that hole.

If a soulless, inhumane, machine which with no conscious is the singularity you fear then what else is a modern corporation?
The mantra of "in the interests of our shareholders", is too often quoted when a large money making entity is caught doing something morally questionable.
Human's (non-sociopathic ones) have empathy to tone down their ambitions and value systems.
Corporations are entities and could be compared to organisms like a bee hive or ant colony.
A Corp has ambitions and value systems driven by making money with the empathy left to individuals within the "hive" but with the added problem of individualistic ambition which the insects don't suffer from.

So no, the machines getting smart doesn't frighten me but the greed of corporations does especially now they are wielding more control over governments than ever before.

In all other "professional" disciplines (law, medicine, financial, engineering etc) your worth increases with age - except software engineering.
In software engineering you are viewed as "expensive and outdated" once you reach middle age.
You wouldn't get a graduate lawyer to handle your divorce, a graduate med to operate on you, or a graduate to advise or complete your tax returns.
Yet graduates are just fine, cheap and dandy for writing that great App idea someone has which is going to make them rich and keep you in subways for a couple of weeks.
I'll be pointing this out to my kids if they try to follow me into the profession I thought was a good bet.

The consumers view of software is that it's "valueless", free and their birth right to obtain it without cost.
Which is why they get pissed if they are asked for even a tiny amount of cash to use it.
I get regular hate emails from people who download my Apps, which give them enough to try out the product before they purchase, telling me how much I suck.
My standard response to them is "beggars and buskers make more and give you less. You'd think nothing of tossing 99c in the hat of a stranger on the street yet you can take the time to email me telling me that my months of labor aren't worth the same?"

The cost of software is largely hidden in services, advertising (Google) or hardware (Apple).
So the perceived value of an software engineer is hidden.

That public perception isn't helped when one of our legion makes it big, like Mark Zuckerberg.
It gives me great satisfaction to see someone like Zuckerberg take an idea, execute it well, and reap the rewards.
The Winklevoss are an excellent example of all that's wrong with society's attitude towards engineers.

So my advice is, do what I did, do an MBA.
Once you have that title and a bit of experience in business you aren't just the "geek in the corner" you are the guy in the room who understands the whole picture better than anyone else there.
You'll find your own "stock price" on the rise once more.

I thought that the recent revelation that his original NZ residency application failed to disclose a dangerous driving conviction left it open for him to be deported?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11350895

So the whole "illegal" raid, dodgy handling of his arrest and application for his extradition could be a moot point now.
He's seriously pissed off the NZ power's that be after the Internet-Mana, mud slinging, campaign in the recent election.
That and putting John Key's mate, and ex-Mayor of Auckland, Banks in jail for failing to disclose Dotcom's donations fully.

A man with few friends, no money and a lot of powerful enemy's.

The reason 80% of percent of French motorists drive diesel-powered cars is because they are the most economical option.
Not just French but in most of Europe you'll find the diesel car is the popular option as it's the most economical choice.

The introduction of the "AdBlue" legislation on goods vehicles, and now private vehicles, has reduced the pollution deficit in comparison to petrol to a point which is even better. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust_fluid

Take a typical French family car and compare same sized engines of petrol and diesel (this car has AdBlue).
http://www.nextgreencar.com/view-car/49548/citroen-c4-grand-picasso-1.6i-vti-vtr+-120hp-petrol-manual-5-speed
http://www.nextgreencar.com/view-car/49561/citroen-c4-grand-picasso-1.6-e-hdi-vtr+-115hp-diesel-manual-6-speed

Which one pollutes the most? Why the hell would you want to start "phasing out" the cleaner car?
Why not just offer everyone driving a fossil fuel car the same incentive to move to electric?
Why pick on diesel when it's now cleaner?

I'm all for electric and the end of burning fuel to drive around but you have to ask the question of WHERE that electricity is coming from to charge up your car?
Is the problem just being shifted?

At least when you burn the fuel yourself you have the choice of which fuel you burn and how well you burn it.
When you are consuming electrons off a grid you've given up a lot of your freedom of choice.