2D traffic sucks here; time to up-grade.

I see way too many examples of people not understanding how to drive their car in 2D.

The idea of many of these same drivers being expected to navigate in 3D is terrifying.

There's a reason why getting a pilots license is much harder than getting a driving license. And the idiots I see around me talking on their phone, texting while driving, and weaving all over the place and making random lane changes ... these people in a flying car would be utterly dangerous.

Perhaps if they posted about their product on well know tech blogs with links to contribute then maybe it will work.

If you're about $3 Million short of being able to start your prototypes, pay your lawyers, and move into your offices ... you need much more than publicity.

'In detail we aim to create an urban dual-mode, hybrid flight and electric drive motorized vehicle that fits into sustainable mobility.'

Does it have gattling guns? Can it be used for urban pacification? Does it have stealth technology?

If not ... well, you're just another in a long line of people hoping to create a flying car.

Many of us have long since relegated the idea into the long-since cliche bucket. And since I don't trust most people to drive in the mostly 2 dimensions offered by cars ... I really don't trust most people with a z axis.

If you want to save money, here's a hint ... don't get offices in Silicon Valley before you've got a product.

Can someone please explain this obsession with the Commodore 64?

Nostalgia.

These were the first computers many people used, and and the games were quite legendary to some people.

Because they can.

Now that they're all grown up and have these spiffy new toys to play with, you have to do something with it.

Vanity.

It has always been true that programmers tend to play with projects that appeal to them and which they find fun and interesting. That there's already a crap ton of the same kind of app is irrelevant. This one is mine dammit.

Why not?

So if in the process of learning to use something new, you decide to re-implement/emulate something old, what's the harm in it? Do you care that someone nerded out and created an emulator?

Girls.

Because, really, the ultimate pick up line is "Hey baby, wanna see my C64 emulator on my Raspberry Pi"? Right? Anyone?

both crimes with likely a lot stiffer sentence than a stupid IMEI change

Oh, I don't know ... some times it seems increasingly like the penalty for digital crimes outweighs the penalty for crimes done in person.

Which is why you can get more jail time for "hacking" a system put together by chimps than you could for manslaughter.

"Mos Eisley Spaceport.. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious."

I don't think much has changed since Dickens to be honest.

The specifics change, but human nature doesn't.

This has been a problem for a *very* long time.

The Japanese actors would play the part seriously, and the people who did the voice over just went "oh, it's just a cartoon, I'm supposed to sound silly".

Akira is pretty famous for that ... it was a good movie, and the translation wasn't terrible, but some of the voice performances were pretty bad. It got re-released several years (probably more by now) in which they did a much better job on the voices.

Some of the recent stuff which came out of Studio Ghibli did a lot better job of this, because good actors who took it seriously were employed from the beginning.

And, nowadays, when you can have Lucy Liu and Dustin Hoffman doing Kung Fu Panda, people have realized that you can't treat the voice overs as an afterthought and just throw any old terrible performance at it.

There have been numerous movies (in numerous languages) over the years that I've decided were far better in their original language with subtitles. Hindi/Bollywood movies are an example of this .. most of them don't have voice over, and some of the ones which do just completely ruin the tone of the film.

If you start out with the intent and resources to do a good job of it, it can be quite good. But for many years it was just a thrown together afterthought with really terrible results.

Though, one of my all time favorite examples of what happens when people do it badly is the movie Ultraviolet. The supposed Chins (ethnic Chinese I assume) are supposed to be speaking Chinese, but they can be heard saying "sin loi", which is Vietnamese for "I'm sorry" and which is one of a handful of Vietnamese words I know. I don't believe a single word of Chinese is spoken.

I asked a Vietnamese friend about it, and his response was something along the lines of "white people don't care, just any Asian language you can find because you think we all look alike".

I think the colder climate and/or recreational hallucinogens has slowed those Canadians' brains a might.

If you mean "drinking beer and figuring out new ways to pass the winter", sure.

But if you think Americans aren't sitting around drinking beer and coming up with novel uses for a shotgun, I assure you, you are misinformed.

The four words in the English language most likely to precede getting a Darwin award are "Hey guys, watch this".

if you say so dear. now go back into the kitchen and fetch me a beer.

Oh, man, does your wife do that to you too?

I hate it when she does that.

instead of make procrastinate, for your next appointment you should try make clean; make depmod; make procrastinate; make install; make clean. Its way more efficient.

Bah, make procrastinate does all of the same things eventually.

Well, most of them anyway. :-P

So what's your arbitrary criteria for actually being a programmer?

Not arbitrary. Spend time at it. Get proficient.

In my experience, a first year programming does not a programmer make. It lays the foundation, but it doesn't get you there.

My old manager who spent a year writing JCL and then moved into management? He might have been a programmer at one point, but he had long since stopped by the time I knew him.

Me, I haven't written code in several years. And I'm not sure I'd consider myself a programmer any more.

Depends on the consequences of something bad happening.

Finding out the next flavor of Ben and Gerry's ice cream? Not such a big deal.

Finding out exactly where you can strike critical infrastructure by getting your report about how vulnerable the critical infrastructure is? Absolutely.

If you knew that the information was sensitive, and you didn't safeguard it ... then, I would argue you really missed the point.

A programmer is one who programs. Write a program: You're a programmer now.

So, if I get you to tighten a bolt, are you a mechanical engineer? If I scribble on a piece of paper am I an artist? If I add two numbers am I mathematician? Does putting on a bandaid make me a doctor?

I think not.

Write a program, and that's all you've done. Write a bunch of programs and demonstrate some proficiency at it, and then you can be a programmer. Same as with anything else.

"we need more girls in STEM" article recently. Why? Why do we need more girls in STEM, or everybody to be programmers?

Honest answer? Because it offends people's sensibilities that what are being hailed as the lucrative jobs and the future of the economy aren't being pursued by a large chunk of the population.

I know them all. They all work in Marketing.

No, a couple are in HR as well, and there is at least one in the Finance department. Some days I'm not so sure about IT.

Have you ever been told you need to submit accurate time sheets for the week on Wednesdays? How the hell do you expect me to give you accurate timesheets for the entire week on a Wednesday when I usually work Wednesday and Friday evenings for an unknown period of time??? And if I had to submit it on Wednesday, don't grumble that I had to submit a correction on Monday to come up with the real number.

But, I digress. ;-)

Just cause its art doesn't prevent it from being an eyesore.

So, you're categorically saying all graffiti is an eye sore? You've seen all of the graffiti in the world and concluded none of it has merit? You've discounted the possibility that people have asked people to put up murals in some places?

Wow, you are good. What's it like to be omniscient? Did you know I was going to ask that?