I can edit tens of thousands of lines of code in an instant with sed and grep without even "opening an editor." Through the miracle that is sh I can pipe stuff into my custom (very small and simple) C and sh tools to frob the code. Then I just type make to rebuilt it all and my unit tests tell me that it worked.

At the other side of the office, they're cursing and swearing and Microsoft(TM)(R) Visual(C) Studio Intergalactic Azure Edition For the Enterprise(R) because it's still importing the project...

Truly, you are at one with the Tao.

That's all you need. (OK, implicit with c is the c compiler, pre-processor, assembler, linker, disassembler and strace). The old timers knew what they were doing.

Emergency Diesel generators usually have compressed air starters. There is a tank of compressed air connected to the engine's cylinders to get it turning over. There is usually a powered valve holding the compressed air in. When the power fails, the valve opens releasing the air and the engine starts tuning over. Then the Diesel supply gets started (mechanical pump driven by the engine).

Back in the day I remember someone in a programme on the telly referring to something that was out-of-order as "British Telecom."

82 million xBox 360 owners can't be wrong right?

And how many million people bought Kylie Minogue and Madonna records? They can't be wrong, right?

Chairman, CEO, CFO, CIO, Executive VP of Sales and Marketing and Executive VP of something to do with engaging the outsourcing suppliers with the starving peasants working 80+ hours a week for a pittance in undeveloped countries.

Considering the lousy end products I have to deal with on a daily basis, paying programmers more money won't improve the skillset. You want to be paid more money? Produce a better product.

When the PHBs conspire to make that (producing a better product) impossible, it doesn't matter what engineers you employ or how much you pay them.

The relentless push to cut costs, do "more with less," let the staff numbers dwindle through natural wastage and lack of vision, invent fantasy project schedules (requiring weekend, evening and holiday work) and no resources (what do you mean you need physical hardware to develop and test on? I just sold the test kit to a customer. It was revenue just begging to be had...) catches up with every company eventually.

My current employer is now in this state, and almost everyone (who knows anything) has left and I'm about to as well, however as far as the PHBs and VPs are concerned, everything's fine and dandy. Targets are at 100%, the share price has doubled and we're making a consistent profit.

The fact that tumbleweeds are blowing through Engineering hasn't quite registered...

It's the natural cycle these days. They call it "capitalism" but it's not the capitalism I understand.

Train for Management, Business Administration and Making Tough Decisions(TM). There is no way that our corporate masters are going to outsource/offshore/automate their own cushy positions or let the great unwashed get their hands on the robots producing the goods.

Cutting yourself to prosperity doesn't work.

And how would you know, Mr Smartypants? Name one company that's lasted long enough to find out!

Sing: "Send me your money."

So you nicely repeat the lies they have fed to you ?

What lies? That there are a bunch of murderous thugs trying to take over the Middle East and impose a 1500-year-old fascist dictatorship on the 99.9% of ordinary people that live there?

The lies about the suicide bombers with surgically-implanted bombs?

The Isis thing is once again financed by the Sauds. YOUR friends.

Yes, I know who finances them. They're not "my friends." I've never met any of them personally, and I don't approve of any of it, whichever of the warring sides you care to mention.

...and his side-kick Blair.

Anyway, the new dude is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and he's assimilating Irag, Syria and probably Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Somalia, Nigeria... you name it... into his all new "proper" Islam state.

A number of armies in the region are already squaring up, including Iran and Saudi. There have been some murders of Israeli and Palestinian teenagers by terrorists too, probably trying to goad each side into action.

It's a bloody miserable state of affairs.

Indeed, they're a swivel-eyed loon.