Not just startups run by kids. Be wary of companies run "like startups" who want to be all kinds of agile by exclusively hiring people who have started but not finished a CS degree because those people are supposedly both experienced (because all CS students are experts in all things computer) and extremely creative (because people over 25 can't keep up). Experience is considered problematic as apparently it translates into higher salaries but not higher skill.

I work in such a hellhole (well, until I'm done with my degree) and the sheer amount of stupid mistakes we're making because nobody has any kind of experience is mindboggling and is the reason why the company has been in damage control mode since 2010. The kicker? The owner of the company is in his 50s. He's still convinced that only CS students can ever be reasonable employees in the IT world.

Not just young bosses can be stupid about hiring.

What's keeping Kickstarter from recouping the lost money from the creator? I haven't read the fine print of the deal between Kickstarter and a creator but I'd be surprised if it didn't contain a clause that allowed them to do exactly that.

Crowdfunding is a bit of a gamble. I've backed a few projects that are massively overdue. On the other hand I also backed Shadowrun Returns and Wasteland 2, both of which are here and immensely enjoyable. And a high-efficiency LED bulb I'd buy again if I needed another one. Aside from Kickstarter I bought myself into the Path of Exile closed beta and PoE became a succesful and very fun game that I spent a lot of time with.

Of course there are some wasted Euros in there. I'm not going to deny that. And I'm still waiting for a few promising-looking games, although at least I get status reports every once in a while. One semi-example for a failed Kickstarter would be Preaching to the Perverted; while the Blu-Ray version works fine and looks great, the promised digital download first turned into an iOS app (I don't own a recent iDevice) and then had to be redone from scratch because Apple wouldn't allow it on their store. If I remember correctly it's still being worked on.

You have to accept that it's always going to be hit-and-miss with crowdfunding. Sometimes you get a polished, fun product that will leave you entirely content with how much money you spent to obtain it. Sometimes you get something disappointing or the project folds due to mismanagement. In my experience the former is more common (even if time overruns are the norm), especially if it's a high-profile project. But it's still a gamble and it's up to you to decide whether you're willing to take it.

The gist of it is that a terrible and untouchable community manager managed to get several backers to a point where they felt that the only effective way to protest a community management issue was to financially hurt the developers. You can find the details online; a search for "mighty number 9 chargebacks" should bring up relevant stories. There's a dash of Gamergate towards the end but it's only tangentially related to the core issue.

I'm completely shocked that when given additional opportunity, you still won't back up your claims.

The bizarre thing is that you're accusing me of "singling out one particular issue based purely on the person implementing it," when you have literally no example of me ever doing that, ever, least of all in this discussion, where if anything I was taking Gruber's side.

Not in any way, no, I did not.

You're a liar.

I agree. I am nearly completely transparent and obvious and clear. I lack pretense or disguise.

No. It's true that the framers and most people who understand politics want the people to be ignorant about most issues in government, because otherwise, the people would be spending too much time watching government and not enough time enjoying life and being productive. Everyone should want to be ignorant about most things, especially most things government does. Otherwise you'll be miserable.

But it's not true that they want people to be ignorant, but with a delusion of lack of ignorance. You're just making things up.

There's no objective reason why it's a bad thing.

I'm a dope because you ... agreed with me? You think that little of yourself?

You're a liar.

Well, yes, people who believe what they are told -- and then profess to know those things -- without investigating it, are stupid.

Gruber was mostly right, although the word "stupid" is probably not what he meant. But the fact is that whoever believed it wasn't a tax, it wouldn't raise rates, it wouldn't force you to change plans and possibly doctors, etc., was ignorant. Not stupid, necessarily, but ignorant. That said, someone who is ignorant and thinks that he actually knows these things is kinda stupid. So all the news folks, for example, who said that what Republicans said about the ACA were lies ... they were stupid.

The fact is that almost everything the GOP said about the ACA was true. Federal funding of abortions, subsidies for illegals, massive government control defined at a later date by an administrator and not Congress, death panels, increased taxes and premiums, decreased choice ... all of it was and is true.

I'd expect an article talking about criminally prosecuting Gruber would at least make reference to some violation of the criminal code. I see no crime. Neither the author nor his interviewee mention any crime. He makes vague references to "Deceit. Fraud. Premeditated felonious theft.," but he simply gave his opinions; he didn't implement anything. The theft was by the government, not him. The fraud was perhaps aided by him, but no court has ever found that government fraud of this type is prosecutable, so prosecuting a private citizen for aiding the government in something that can't be prosecuted makes no sense.

NeXT didn't close up shop, they were bought by Apple. Then they replaced several of Apple's top execs (including the CEO) with their own and used NeXTSTEP as the foundation for the new MacOS. In essence, NeXT bought Apple for minus 400 million Dollars.

You are painting with broad strokes. By the same measure one could argue that guns have pretty much one use: Accelerating bullets. The kinds of targets the bullets can be accelerated towards are varied, one of which is murder victims. There is considerable societal interest in regulating guns' use in bullet acceleration leading to the production of murder victims.

You conflated all chemical reactions with bomb making, which does not make much sense, just like my conflation of all gun use with murder doesn't.

Also, by your logic, hydrocarbon fuels should be severely restricted because they can be used to make ANFO. Also vegetable oil because you can use that for ANFO, too. Or you leave the ammonium nitrate away and just build a fuel-air bomb. Society has interest in regulating the production of those, too. And let's not forget that electricity can be used to electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen, which can also be used as an explosive. Access to electricity should be regulated as well.

Or we agree that just because something can potentially be used for actions that are against the interests of society we can't assume that this is a particularly common use.

No, only lawmakers. A chemist would just look at what you're trying to do, say "yup, he's probably not going to kill himself" and move on. Chemists can be unnervingly casual around fairly dangerous chemicals because they can gauge the actual danger involved.

Of course when the chemist does become nervous, so should you.