He's right that there are opposing ideologies, but Liberal/Conservative just muddies the water.

Utopian believes:
1) Zero defects is achievable and support processes should assume that will be the case after release.
2) "Good code" is the result of using an "industry standard" language.
3) That full functionality specifications can be collected during design from the people who will be using the system.
4) Achieving 1-3 is more important than delivering the functionality requested by the users.
5) Considers that the delivered project will be "complete" and further modifications will be minimal.

Pragmatist believes:
1) That defects are inevitable and support processes need to allow for easy/quick recovery.
2) "Good code" should be inherently understandable by the majority of those who will be making changes to it.
3) That human memory is spotty and nobody is able to tell you 100% of what they know.
4) Delivering software that meets the needs of the user is more important than perfection of the code or processes.
5) Understands that the world changes and the software needs to make those changes easy.

As you can guess - I'm a pragmatist.

Also Hambly's "Dark" series (Time of the Dark, Walls of Air, Armies of Daylight + Mother of Winter) - for a mix of science and magic.

I second DeChancie and the Starrigger series - time travel via an interstellar road system. Gotta love it.

Also Roadmarks by Zelazny (well, pretty much anything by Zelazny)

Modern management philosophy depersonalizes employees into interchangeable resources. There is Management, Knowledge Experts and "Cogs".
They don't even care that it's more expensive using cheap programmers to get a job done - it's worth it to them to not have to depend on any individual contributor.

Old programmers can tell you that software has always been a type of art. An esoteric form of art perhaps, but a piece of well written code is a thing of beauty.

is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.

So you're saying New York City isn't safe?

I'm not sure what you can reliably take away from these statistics. Since it is only rentals it excludes the following conditions:

Did they go see it in the theater and now own the DVD? (will probably never rent)
Did they go see it in theaters and didn't care for it? (will probably never rent)

This means that the stats only capture those who
1) Didn't see it in theaters - i.e. it wasn't a big deal to see it / they didn't consider it worth the ticket price
2) Are curious enough about it to rent it later

After renting once, did they buy it for their personal library, or say 'meh' and never watch it again?

Amazon: "We're hemorrhaging money but we're selling LOTS of product!"

Comparing a software product delivered electronically to a physical device that must be assembled, stored, shipped and maintained is an apples-oranges comparison.

"Insightful"? "Funny" perhaps.