I'm not being pedantic here. Searching a house and an email account are not the same, and trying to make an analogy will generate questions based on what people know about the house scenario.

Consider a file cabinet of all correspondence, and the judge allowing a copy of every paper retained for evidence. You can't take everything just in case. But is this different because its a copy instead of taking the original?

Hint, there is a big difference between search and seize. It should be clear now.

Put coders in maintenance mode of something they didn't write, and you will see. Writing and bug hunting are completely different. Someone with mostly bug free code can do both, but bug ridden monstrosities happen too.

With a large enough talent pool, you get:

Coders to get behavior implemented
Debuggers to get it ironed out
Future proofing of documentation between the two

If debuggers miss documentation, that can be taken care of before the author leaves. Thus is the first I heard of it, so there are maybe details I don't have. But it makes sense to me, depending on priorities.

Regarding Intel, Microsoft has a different customer base, and needs more people in sales, support, security patching, documentation, and everything else but hardware. And maybe hardware too, depending on fab outsourcing.

False equivalence. Facebook could use that $60k to fund/bribe inclusion of WebP, or maintain their own build of AssWeasel or whatever fork they want to call it.

Or they could entice users with "if you want to see pictures, click here". That works really well, and the facebook using billions might convert to something other than firefox.

Or, they could be supportive of this new tech and not use their massive market share to clobber open source into submission.

On the other side of the argument, NIH is a terrible summary of this link, found on the page you linked to.

http://muizelaar.blogspot.com/...

WebP seems like it has grown a lot - which means keeping up with another imaging library and testing something that is continually changing. Given the limitations mentioned, it hardly seemed worth the effort. And problems with the new patch abound - no tests, breaking Windows build, and devolution into a discussion forum.

Take the opinion that you don't care either way, and read through that bug with an open mind. It's hoseshit, top to bottom, and I don't blame anyone one bit for keeping WebP out.

Why would they transcode all existing images? They could re-scale the thumbnails, but they wouldn't dare touch the originals unless they were so massive it made sense to give it a go.

Thumbnails for new images, ignoring existing ones, would more than pay off in just one more world cup, simply by replacing the existing implementation with this one.

So let me re-phrase. Mozilla open source people who can work on stuff because they want to, or can attribute some generic benefit, have teamed up with one of the largest image hosts in terms of active usage, to see if their benefits also help the image host. If this had not been a news item, no one would have noticed. Is FaceBook using subscription fees to make investment in minor advancements instead of something useful? No, it looks like they are just trying stuff out, kinda like they always do.

So what's the down side here that we need to shit on this news about?

You sound young, or scholarly. I say that because in the real world of work, it takes years of experience to match minimum requirements for anything but journeyman/apprenticeship jobs. Your advice is to be a future proof *person*, which is not something most people can even comprehend, let alone achieve.

Excluding entry level, of course, since that tends to sully your resume. You need to be able to demonstrate that you can do the job - not day 1, but certainly be capable by day 14, and functional at day 31.

The only generic advice you could give someone without knowing if they are capable of learning anything (some people just don't do math, or history, or language, even though they probably could, unless they have some sort of reading or learning disability like dyslexia) is management.

The only other possibility is sole proprietorship, but then you have to have skill or experience or desire, and also have a market. So that's not really future proofing unless your skill set and desire and market are also future proof, which is not the case.

You can apply good management skills to an average team no matter the industry. A lower than average team requires industry-specific skills, but depending on the structure of the organization you may be able to get some degree of mentoring type help, so you know where to focus the managing.

Statistically speaking, you are far better off getting management education and experience, and hoping for an average or higher team, and if it's lower than average hoping you have enough experience to cope. And that's about as future proof as you can get.

First layer of non-managers gets laid off? Someone needs to manage the robot supervisors. Robot supervisors get automated? Someone needs to manage the supervision techs.

The name can't be blank, so that's a restriction they didn't tell you about. It's not clear if they require both a first and last name from your post, so I can't call you a dumbass on that one. But you do have enough characters for a first and last name, which may make them required.

From what you are describing, you are setting your "name" which, from the history of computers, has been first and last name. It sounds like they changed the policy either for names, which have a first and second part, or for usernames which you are not actually changing.

Regardless, your story sounds like it has holes in it, and your petulance should be directed at Google. For a novelty, the slashdot summary is not incorrect, so there's that.

Guy spends 20 years doing something and decides he would rather become a writer. Things he used to internally justify the decision, instead of being a sign to change jobs or move to a new city, are now reasons for EVERYONE to jump out of the game.

None of your questions seem relevant, because one ex-coder is not a rigorous study with good selection criteria and clearly reported margins of error.

In my line of work, this guy stands out as an outlier who was looking for a reason to quit. His friends are all apparently employed and doing fine, not complaining about being *this* close to losing the job, or cuts around the corner, or asking how he changed careers.

In other words, his blog sucks.

Unfortunately, Binney may have lots of information, but at least 10% of what he says seems to be conclusions he jumped to based on nothing. That makes it easy for someone who would normally believe 50% to disregard the extra 50%.

I still think he's a crackpot, even though 90% may be true. Yes, even now after reading all of this.

Developers should be able to choose a language based on the problem they are trying to solve, not how the application will be delivered to the user.

So there should be no languages dedicated to the kinds of problems web coders have to solve? Or do you mean all languages should support web problems?

Maybe you object to the term, and we just say development now?

And which languages are no longer available so you can't use their features?

Is it realistic to expect 4% on government money? Last time I checked, banks can borrow money free or nearly so, and rent it out to borrowers.

The whole second paragraph depends on a completely unfounded assumption, and just fell apart.

Your post is written the same way. I could have cared and looked up several different sources of numbers. But I don't.

I actually believe those numbers now, because you sound butthurt and failed to offer alternatives. So congratulations, you achieved the opposite of your goal.

Capture. You mean Captcha? The thing that's as relevant as tea leaves and astrology?

That there is no more meaning than the one you imbue?

That random, unrelated, almost always irrelevant word jumble to which some posters ascribe meaning out of feelings very similar to religion and winning the lottery?

Is that what you meant?

Seems to require JavaScript. I see a white page. So I guess you should consider yourself lucky to see anything.

The animated website I suppose is because of people like you who enable that horseshit.

So I guess I take that lucky comment back. You got the internet you deserve. Quit yer bitchin.

First world problems.

You embarrass me. I like tech, but you really lost your perspective here. Sure it is a stupid rule. But the anger over the current state when you alone are at fault is staggering.

And it leads to bad conclusions.

Why not take this opportunity to plan your charging a little better, regardless of the new rule? And leave the arguing to more rational thinkers.

Mandating efficacy is the best defense against snake oil sales. Fear of lawsuits polices safety.

The only way to prove a drug safe is to have people use it for years, and see how many die or incur damage. It us better to take the health risk on effective medicine, instead of on snake oil, yes?

Personally, I think all new medicine should be on limited release for 10 years, only for those not helped by existing medicine. That limits exposure and effectively operates as phase 4 trial. But why take the risk if it doesn't do anything? Proving it works can be done in a month or two for most everything, but proving safety takes much longer.

Also, FDA does revoke approval for safety concerns, so it is not just ignoring safety.