But the hosts file toner refill prints fewer adds, so you can print 10,000% MORE pages with the same toner. Totally worth 3 weeks.

I am aware of societal pressure, but I wonder if it's credited with more influence than it deserves. When I was a boy I wanted to be a steward working on aeroplanes. Everyone told me it was a women's job and I should become a pilot or something. I didn't care. Somehow I became a programmer when I grew up. I don't know why. Maybe it was subconsciously societal pressure that subverted my choice, or maybe it was the bad wages, long hours, frequent redundancies, and lack of career progress that did it. I have since seen many men working as stewards, so other men had the same idea I had, and have forged careers in a classically female dominated field. I admire them for it. In spite of that I won't become a steward, for now. I don't want to become a pilot either for similar reasons, and that is a stereotypical male job in the same industry. If I ever change my mind though, I doubt I would let stereotypes stop me.

You could equally ask why men aren't flocking to careers in nursing, early childhood care, or beauty therapy. I suspect it has less to do with discrimination, and more to do with men just don't give a shit about those careers. Be it money, status, working conditions, whatever. Men don't want it. Same probably goes for women in technology, construction, and trades. I don't even care if there is a gender imbalance in nursing, early childhood care, or beauty therapy. I don't know any women who care either. But if I did care, I might find that balancing the male side of the equation in female dominated careers already half solves the female side if things in male dominated careers. Men are welcome to join female dominated careers, if they want. Women are welcome to join male dominated careers, if they want. If people don't want, then they don't want.

You are lucky. I work in research. We compete with each other for grant money, co-authership, and basically everything else. When someone gets funded, and others need money, then the person with money can hire and exploit the ones who need money. When that money runs out and someone else gets funded, tables turn and it's payback time. Publishing more than your supervisor? Expect to get jerked around with useless tasks so you don't have time to write, then get a bad performance review because you didn't complete all the useless tasks. Supervisor publishing more than you? You are their bitch. And don't expect to be acknowledged for it either. Have a good idea? Don't tell anyone, or before you know it someone else will write a grant application and get funding for your idea. And the politics! Every single thing people do is related to manoeuvring, butt covering, back stabbing, buck passing, ass kissing, or anything else just to survive. Enough of my colleagues have had cancer to make me wonder...

I think you might be the snowflake here. I get this all the time. Someone thinks their project is more important than everyone else, and they are the only person to ask me to prioritise their work. Stand in line buddy. I have six other customers who think their project is the most important thing going, and a bunch of other customers who really do have important projects with deadlines but patiently wait their turn while impatient little snowflakes like you keep jumping the queue.

When I need something done and someone doesn't do it, I have several choices. I either do it myself, or I find some other source who can do it, or I use some suboptimal solution until such time as a better solution can be found and live with the consequences, or I find more money to entice someone to do what I need, or I just wait my turn. I don't like it when people hassle me, so I don't hassle other people.

No need. Great leader Kim will invent water roads to replace all dirt roads, so everyone can enjoy a smooth ride in their canoe cars. Water roads on hills will have the great advantage of running downstream both ways, not like what the American imperialists invented, so nobody needs to paddle over a hill ever again. Also, canoe cars run on water, so you never need to pay for fuel ever again.

But if algebra is compatible with quantum mechanics (and Schrödinger's cat), shouldn't divide by zero be able to maintain both positive and negative infinity states simultaneously? Until you observe it, at which time the superposition collapses into a definite state.

My mother asked me in all seriousness if I ever saw any aliens or their technology while in the army. I told her I got probed and I don't want to talk about it ;-)

Maybe, with a bit of coercion. I doubt he would have had access to those servers though. And it would be really impressive if nobody remembered to change the server passwords in that time :-)

Exactly. The cheapest way for Russia/China to put western intelligence agencies on the defensive is to fake it. Use some other intel to take a stab at the contents, spread a rumour that you cracked it, and watch western intelligence personnel leave as a precaution. Then just check names off your list of suspected agents as they leave, AND send them home at their own expense.

The timing of this is rather suspicious though. Snowden has been in Russia since June 2013, and I doubt Russia would have pissed around for two years trying to decrypt those files if they really wanted them. Just install a keylogger and wait. Western intelligence agencies would have removed their personnel long ago. As others have mentioned, this announcement comes hot on the heels of the hacked government personnel records, including people with clearances. This could be butt covering, as in "Those suspicious people are not agents, pay no attention to them, we already removed all our personnel because of Snowden".

I must be covered in $50 worth of bacteria right now, and I have more where that came from.

I know, right. No mater how many handy little search bars I install on peoples systems, someone will always call me to solve their shitty little problems. The search thing is right there, people! Use it.

I think investors are fully invested. I am. What else can we do? It's just the companies aren't translating that into increasing productivity. There is less R&D, fewer new production facilities opening (even in China), barely any wage growth (stagnant consumer spending, catch 22 right there), keeping old machinery rather than replacing with more efficient machinery, little product innovation, I haven't seen anyone expanding into foreign markets (quite the opposite), etc. It's as if everyone looked around at everyone else, collectively shrugged their shoulders, and said "I dunno".

What companies ARE doing is borrowing at really low interest rates and buying back shares. There are multiple reasons for that. It's a cheap shot at raising share prices. By buying on the open market there is one more bidder nudging the share price ever so slightly higher, and reducing the number of shares that can be sold. It also reduces the number of shares, thereby artificially raising earnings per share. Remember, many CEOs are partially paid in stock options, so they benefit directly from higher share prices. They were supposed to do that by improving market share, revenue, margins, etc, but they just found the path of least resistance instead. I don't know how to fix everything else, but CEO stock options and share buy backs should be mutually exclusive at the very least. Heck, pay it back as a special dividend and let me decide if I want to buy more shares or spend that money.

Inflation might work. Japan is trying that after decades of mediocre growth. Doing so by raising interest rates risks stalling what little progress there has been though. If the fed does do that then they should have started a year ago, because the higher markets go, the further they fall.

Dude, if you have a self driving van full of cheerleaders, then what the hell are you doing in the drivers seat?

Cars don't have to cost a fortune. Tata Nano sells for the equivalent of US$3000 in India, and could do the same in many developing countries. How much did a PC cost in the 80s? About the same, or more factoring in inflation. At that price I don't mind if the whole thing is obsolete in a few years. I'd hate to be in one when it crashes like an 80s PC, but I cycle to work so for me it's always going to be the equivalent of an 80s PC crash anyway.