They are, and green tech may be too : http://www.npr.org/2010/12/03/131785448/Military-Goes-Green-For-An-Edge-On-The-Battlefield

I'm sort of reminded of the Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse. In that book, this game was so important to people that it had a ministry. I sort of imagined the game like a highbrow D&D.

Probably the next jobs out there will be figuring out how to provide enough energy for all these robots. If that fails, the jobs after that will be farming, making cobblestones and figuring out a substitute for wood.

I don't know of many ways to deal with this sort of bullying. It's the type of bullying that powerful eventually engage in. It certainly isn't the end of the world, but it is pain from dozens of tiny cuts like this.

I can live without what Universal produces. While I love movies, I can and will do without theirs. There are other forms of entertainment out there. Its time to get back to books. It's time to write and share stories with friends. It's time to listen to friends play music and sing with them as opposed to listening to recordings. In short, its time to spend effort to find better ways to really and more sincerely enjoy life. It is possible to wean off of the big companies that control so much? Not quickly, maybe not ever, but maybe enough to influence their behavior.

Credit Default Swaps were regulated less than the lemonade stands of 6 year olds.
From wikipedia

A holder of a bond may “buy protection” to hedge its risk of default. In this way, a CDS is similar to credit insurance, although CDS are not subject to regulations governing traditional insurance. Also, investors can buy and sell protection without owning debt of the reference entity. These “naked credit default swaps” allow traders to speculate on the creditworthiness of reference entities. CDSs can be used to create synthetic long and short positions in the reference entity.[7] Naked CDS constitute most of the market in CDS.[13][14] In addition, CDSs can also be used in capital structure arbitrage.

Iowa Oregon Forbes article

Does it matter if they don't vote when the only viable two sides are beholden to them?

sort of raises a catch 22. The corporations have a huge influence on what the laws are, ensuring that they can say they obey the laws. We have every right to punish the corporations for supporting bad laws.

Well said. At least they'll develop the healthy fear of being sued and the drive to sue which will come in handy for finantial survival.

That is a decision that pits performance vs ease of use vs likelyhood you'll up and change your databases. It depends on the space you are working in.

If your target is low to moderate traffic, simplicity and abstraction is certainly the way to go.
If your target is very high traffic, you'll need something tighter.

I'm not for or against a particular technique but I am against 'Once Size Fits All'.

(yes, I was exaggerating what the parent had said, I admit it)

I just had to be the oddball programmer. Sigh

perl -e 'print "M" == "P" ? "yes" : "no"'

That's okey. At least it isn't VB where

if val( TRUE ) = val( FALSE )

Enter the conundrum of code sucking beyond all belief that still makes lots and lots of money. There's awe inspiring code of beauty out there that will never make a dime. Which is better and which would you rather own?

You make it sound like SQL code is some sort of medusa that turns middleware and front end programmers to stone if they glance at it.

Probably because atheists tend to have more analytic personalities?

Religion is more a spiritual/emotional experience that maybe doesn't yield to analytic logic. I don't have a problem with that. I do have a problem when 'religious' people treat religion as something that adheres to rigorous logic and hard episodic fact.

No, I'm a frenetic scripter. I do perl, son. When I don't have time for the dictionary perfect definition, I'll use what people will probably understand anyway and know its not exact.

Towards a more real seeming democracy. We need more technology integration with our legislative process. Seriously, we should be table to track down our money to the dollar.

Of course its going to be a C that wins. It's pushed close to the iron. C++ is for the careful, exacting personalities. I simply don't have the patience to use it on a day to day basis. Scripting is for the frenetic like me. If you pick a scripting language, you're selling out performance for keeping your rapid development and sanity. You can write beautiful safe stuff in C++ too. Use what you're comfortable with.