But they will bring some measure of satisfaction to a passive-aggressive bicyclist.

People are really hating on this thing, and before I read anything about it I was one of them, but I have to admit this is kind of intriguing to me. The biggest gating factor to being useful (as something other than media reading devices), for tablets currently on the market, is input. It's hardware that exceeds netbooks and ultrabooks, without compromising a tablet form factor. Microsoft has an opportunity to hold a dominant market share in the business segment. It would be folly to try to compete in the consumer segment, and any sales there should just be considered gravy. Offer viable input methods, and good integration on Active Directory and corporate VPNs, and it's a winning strategy.

It was taught in science class when I was in Catholic grade school. And that was several decades ago.

Not that recently. When I was in grade school (also, not that recently), that's the way the nuns presented the material. Evolution was also taught in science class.

"and the current Pope seems like the kind to reverse that position"

And you base your opinion on, what, exactly? Your ignorance smacks of irony in this context.

"The measure is intended to curb violent crime in Venezuela, where 78% of homicides are linked to firearms."

That's what Venezuela claims. In reality, the government prefers a citizenry armed with sticks and rocks when the inevitable revolt comes to pass.

Catholic dogma treats the book of Genesis as an allegorical work.

If the boss thinks he's getting any savings by offloading menial tasks to an offshore consulting team, he is sorely mistaken. It will still be an ongoing cost, without even considering the rework that will need to be managed and done.

This type of work can almost always be largely eliminated through better automation and better engineering practices.

Not only that, you only get what you pay for, for that billed hour. The billing rate of an offshore developer may be half what you would pay someone in-house, but you get billed 4x the hours.

I love douchebags like you who get all butthurt over the imposition of rules. In what world do you live where keeping teachers and students from being friends on Facebook is considered "punishment?" I don't believe that word means what you think it means.

Furthermore, explain to me what is appropriate about child students and adult teachers engaging in social relationships. Because I can think of plenty of reasons that make it not so. Namely, blurring the boundary of the student-teacher relationship undermines the teacher's authority, and therefore the student's education. It's similar to parenting. The worst thing a parent can be is his/her kid's "buddy."

These are things you will understand much better when you're a grownup.

Wrong. This is an example of setting boundaries. It is generally inappropriate for students and teachers to have social relationships. Ethics 101.

Ding ding ding.

Software engineering is a career that requires constant dedication, and continuous self-education. In other jobs, you can get away with not keeping current. In software, those people either move to management or change careers entirely rather than maintain skills.

My company is a small company that develops and markets a software product. We just hired two new software developers. Both of them are over 40. Being in my 30s, I'm actually at the lower portion of the mid-range as far as age is concerned. Yet the skill sets of my colleagues are far from stale, and all have been dedicated to keeping their skills current on their own time.

Sounds like an Amway pitch.

Your naivete is adorable.

Actually it's your argument that's BS. The "indirect benefits" argument is usually the last resort when all others have been trounced.

The fact is, if you were to eliminate the UF athletic department entirely, it would not change the situation with academics one bit. Well, that's not true. There would be 6+ million fewer dollars flowing into the university's general fund. But that aside, people are making it a guns/butter situation. But it's not. There is no hard financial opportunity cost to some academic program associated with the operation of the university athletics program. And there certainly is no opportunity cost where these intangibles are concerned, either.

You've just justified tearing the entire university system asunder.

If student tuition could keep academic departments afloat, we would never hear about budget cuts. But it's fantasy. The University of Florida, for example, after budget cuts, will be getting over $800 million dollars in the next academic year. Divide that by roughly 50,000 undergrad + grad, and that's about $18K/student. Tuition is $4K in-state, $24K out-of-state, and the student body definitely skews more toward in-state students. So money received from tuition pales in comparison to what the state sends.

In higher education academics, departments are funded, and justify their existences, through grants. Unfortunate as it may be, that's the way of life. And UF's CS department was not taking in enough grant money to justify remaining a standalone department.

IMO, people are looking at this a bit backwards. This should be highlighting what poor stewards of tax money public colleges and university have been and continue to be. A lot of attention is put on the athletic department, which subsists without state or university funding, turns a profit, and is a major donor to its host school. Yet a blind eye is turned to the fact that this school is raking in billions, yet cannot find a way to keep legitimate academic programs intact.