No need to paraphrase. His comment to the interviewer was brief:

"We have this top tier [of scientists] in the U.S., the people who graduated from Stanford, from Berkeley, from MIT, Cornell. Those people are still exceptional and really good. But we have this enormous gap between that and just regular software writers and farmers and people that need to be scientifically literate."

My question to Mr. Nye would be: why does he think "software writers" are scientifically ignorant? How did his opinion form? Based on research studies, we know that United States citizens are relative dolts when it comes to science. I'm just surprised that the software engineering profession would be singled out (along with with those poor farmers).

I wrote the summary. I actually agree with Nye's larger point about the general state of science literacy in the United States. That's not even controversial. I do take exception to his categorizing software engineers as scientifically illiterate. Perhaps a Microsoft engineer slept with his girlfriend.

I wrote the summary. I take exception to Nye's stating that software engineers in the United States are scientifically illiterate. If I had the opportunity, I'd ask him on what basis he formed his opinion of my profession. His delineation of the world of Big Serious Science, apparently only to be found in the laboratories of Ivy League schools, and the rest of America is ridiculous.

The pilot in command wasn't very high time; but, was instrument rated. He didn't have a lot of experience with actual IMC (instrument meteorological conditions). And he was zipping around the airport pattern at night and in very poor conditions.
You are so right about the ease with which spatial disorientation can come on. Given his low altitude, he had no room for recovery. Pretty bone headed.

I wish I had said that.

Thank you.

99 percent of the time, I'm running OS X. But, I do keep a dual boot (OS X / Linux) Mac Mini handy for the odd cases where a particular program happens to only be available for Linux, or if I experience strange behavior from an application hosted on OS X.

For example, I was getting system crashes after upgrading my Macbook Pro (mid 2009 model) to Yosemite, and running Arduino IDE. Attempts to upload sketches to the target Arduino would make the entire operating system crash. Very dramatic. Thankfully, this problem hasn't appeared when using my new iMac.

I was a hard-core Linux desktop user for over a decade. Still do a lot with that operating system on the server side. But, as soon as I could afford to do so, I bought a Mac. I love not spending unscheduled time fiddling with the operating system when I have serious deadlines to hit.

Recently I bought a Lenovo Yoga 2 for a very rare bit of Windows IE testing for a web app. As soon as that activity concluded, I ditched Windows 8. Linux Mint is a delight to use on it.

Following up about the Dell At-Home Service ... So, Dell will send out a human to attend to any problem with their computers? I'm assuming the customer will first be walked through a diagnostic trouble-shooting session over the telephone. Given that most of their computers are running Windows, this means that Dell receive a lot of "my computer is running sluggishly" technical support calls from oldsters. How can Dell afford to offer house calls for this common scenario?

The gaping lack of examples in Marco's blog post has me scratching my head. I'm curious what exactly has ticked this guy off to the extent that he uses the term "nose dive" to describe the software quality.

All of us power users of computers, no matter the operating system, will have a list of gotchas that we've encountered. I've got a very short list of squawks, nothing approaching serious, for Yosemite. I spend my days cranking out software on a Mac. This includes building apps in Xcode and Eclipse (for Android). Also includes running various apps for database management and image generation (Photoshop). I simply have not encountered anything awful. And I have a low threshold for pain.

That said, I count myself among the users of Apple computers who are ever fearful of what the company will become now that Jobs is gone. So far, I'm delighted with Yosemite.

From the previews that I saw earlier this year, it was obviously intended to appeal to high school and fraternity boys. So, it'll have one good weekend at the box office. Then unkind word of mouth will spread

A vague question posted to Slashdot isn't a _strong_ indication of anything other than perhaps being new to Slashdot. No doubt, more details will garner better responses. But, there's no reason to be harsh.

I suggest heading to a large city where there is more competition for IT professionals. In those cities, non-profit organizations have a difficult time competing for talent. You would likely have a better opportunity to resume your IT career in that sector. Then, once you have some stable years behind you working in IT, you can merge back into the general marketplace. Another good suggestion mentioned by another commenter is picking up jobs via Craigslist. Many of my own projects have been gained via that avenue. Good luck to you.

Tons of online books and tutorials. See https://wiki.python.org/moin/P... . Python is my go-to language for just getting stuff done. I use it for damn near everything these days, except mobile apps, which I code natively.

I'd appreciate hearing from Google employees about their impressions of Mr. Armstrong while he was an executive at Google. Is this a case of a competent upper level executive proving themselves too flawed to run a company as CEO?