VIM editing Perl code in one window, another for an execution trace, and a third to run the program. Ugly and basic but it gets the job done.

Ultimately, within a hundred years, this world is going to be absolutely miserable to live on and some really pissed off person is going to create a biological weapon and bring it all down... all because people are desperate for power over others but refuse to live by the rules they themselves create. I guess it is good that I will be dead before then. I wonder how much suffering I will see before I die. The suffering from World War 2 was apparently not enough.

I hope you elaborate.

It seems to me that despite our technology, society is directionless, people are miserable under the surface, we're not really achieving anything and discontent is spreading.

Stop all immigration.

Stop all food aid.

Stop the sharing of baby photos on Facebook.

Don't show sexy late night TV in winter.

Let's focus on raising the quality of the humans we do have, not making more.

Our technologies and laws allow us to do lots of things.

We should perhaps ask instead, what kind of society we are making?

If we're making a miserable place that focuses on details of law-breaking more than the big factor, which is how safe/smart of a driver someone is, we're penalizing good behavior and encouraging people to live in a nit-picky miserable world.

We can make a horrible world, if we want; however, we might prefer not to.

I like the positive way of looking at this that you've chosen. However, I also mourn the loss of what college should have been, could have been, etc.

I think that's all true, but originally in 1900 or so, students were expected to know how to do things: they had to have abilities, outside of special disciplines. Since that time, education has been moving more toward having them memorize steps through specific tasks, which makes them good cogs (true, true) but unable to act outside of that narrow framework. Students today lack the ability to go into an unknown situation and reason it out; what they have is the ability to, given a known situation, repeat a series of steps, with no real connection to the desired consequences of those steps.

Education in 1900: you need to be able to do things.

Education in 1980: you need to be able to know how to do things.

Education in 2000: you need to memorize things.

Education in 2013: you need to have done the reading, been present, breathing and perhaps even conscious.

Ha! Good observation. I'd forgotten about them. What happened to Occupy, anyway?

$100m is the new $20m. While this fact is virtually never reported, American currency has lost a huge amount of its actual spending value since 2007. A lot of this is hidden behind the lower quality, quantity or degree of innovation behind products; they're cheaper to make and so can be sold for the same price, which is worth less than it was.

When Americans wake up to how much they've lost, despite the numbers not changing all that much, they will surely write a lot of strongly-worded text messages to their representatives.

When I see terrorists in skinny jeans, ironic tshirts and wayfarers, on their iPhones plotting the demise of the Great Satan, then I'll worry.

Thank you for trying but:

LucasFilm (the corporate entity) wanted to expand their business into other areas. In other words, they did want to be a games company.

The primary product is film, not games.

The last 15 years of internet dominance have been neat, but it seems like all of the "inventions" are clever ways to interact with each other. Entertainment and consumer products are booming, but what actual technologies are we inventing? Or to put it another way: what opportunities have gone past while we've been inventing toys and minting teenage millionaires?

For your information, Lucasarts THRIVED when it developed games internally, it was when they outsourced development that the rot set in. So... the history of Lucasarts 100% invalidates your rant and proofs you are a silly person nobody should listen too.

The point is this: when a larger corporate entity, whose business is not the making of software, then has an in-house department that makes that software, it will not follow market demands but will be obedient to management, who are one step removed from market demands.

The point isn't "develop their own games" if they are a games company; it's a non-games company developing games internally.

That was clear in the original message, but you either missed it or don't care. Judging by your angry and incoherent post, you're looking for an excuse to be offended and righteously angry. I hope you get that chip off your shoulder; living like that has never worked for me or anyone I know.