> Never own a credit card. They are all scams and are far more likely to ruin your credit than help it.

That's terrible advice. The best way to improve your credit is to actually have credit in the first place. A good credit score is a balancing act involving increasing the length of time you've had credit, minimizing 30/60/90 day lates (or more accurately, not having any), and having a good amount of available revolving credit (but not too much). The point is to demonstrate that you can be responsible with a decent amount of credit for a significant amount of time.

Not having a credit card whatsoever does not help you, it only hurts you. Think about it, if a friend asked you for money, you'd feel more at ease if the two of you had a history wherein he demonstrated that he could promptly repay you, and over a longer period of time paying back small amounts of money, you'd feel more comfortable lending him larger amounts of money.

The best thing to do is to get a credit card and pay it off in full every month. Pretend that the card is an extension of your checking account and never spend more money than you can put your hands on in any given month.

Personally I'm of the opinion that in order to be a really GOOD programmer you have to live, eat, and breathe it. Part of that is spending your formative years locked away coding on a computer, eschewing things like friends, social gatherings, etc. I know I did. How many girls and young women are willing to do that? I dunno, maybe that factors into it.

But I don't see why the only option for women in technology is programming. Where I work, it seems like just about every Project Manager is a woman. And that's probably because a good PM has to do things like interact with many people, pay attention to details, schedule, organize, etc. which traditionally are things that women are good at. Why not, you know, stress those kinds of options to young women interested in tech jobs instead of trying to force women into something they really don't seem that interested in? Just because men dominate a certain industry doesn't mean there's a "problem", you know.

While I agree this is actually a service that makes money, it doesn't make quite as much as you assume. First, there's probably a good amount of dead accounts. And I believe there are longtime users that are grandfathered in for free. Second, the first year is free, so the revenue from an additional 1M users per day isn't realized for a whole year, and again that's assuming that all users decide they want to pay after a year is up.

Correct, you should have a job lined up first, but it's very, very difficult to time something perfectly so as to minimize the matching hit (i.e., as soon after 12/15 as possible). And the amount of money you forfeit is not a trivial amount. IBM matches 6%, so for your average 100K+ salary, that's 6K+ of investment money flushed right down the toilet if you leave towards the end of the year. You can't just look at it as "oh well, I lost out on 6K." Look at it as "I lost out on 6K that could've been invested for the next 20 to 30 years."

And I do have to give credit to AOL for one thing. They have a sense of shame, which is more than I can say for IBM.

These are the arguments I hate the most from the pro-piracy camp. You obviously aren't desperate enough to give HBO your money since you have multiple options:

1. Upgrade your cable package to get HBO. Pricey, but if you're truly desperate, there you go.
2. Purchase through iTunes. You won't get it immediately as it airs, but you'll get it.
3. Buy the Blu-Rays when they come out. Same drawback as point 2, but it's an option.

I think what you mean is that you're desperate to watch the show first run for a price that you consider reasonable (I'm guessing something in the neighborhood of $10 or less). Doesn't work that way.

You have to cancel HBO with your cable company. Yes, you have to call up to cancel it, but it is by no means "nearly impossible". People do it all the time. Subscribe for the show, cancel when it's over. You may even be offered a couple extra months to not cancel.

And couldn't you buy the Blu-Rays when they come out? Sounds like you have options, you just don't want to pursue them.

When you say "selling network time" that sounds like you're saying "selling advertisements", which HBO doesn't actually do. They do create shows to entice people to subscribe, yes, but advertising is not the reason.

You can't buy GoT on Blu-Ray where you live?

OK, so you download movies for free, gotcha...

Wait, what? Doesn't pirating a movie require an internet connection? And posting on Slashdot, for that matter?

Uh yeah, I doubt that.

Only T-Mobile gives you discounts. And they have the worst coverage of the big four providers. So that's why it's not really productive to compare unsubsidized prices. Pretty much everyone gets their phone with a subsidy and two year commitment.

And yes, you have to lock yourself in for two years to get that price. But so what? There really isn't much ability to jump around from provider to provider anyway. Only T-Mobile and AT&T use GSM, so from a technological standpoint you're effectively locked in to one provider or another. So again, that's why talking about two year contracts isn't that important either...

Assuming you're on the one and only US carrier that gives you a discount for bringing your own phone, yes, the Nexus 4 is cheaper overall than a new iPhone 5S. However... if you're on AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint, your iPhone 5S costs that same $199.

Part of this has to do with the subsidies they add to tuition. I remember when I was in school, tuition was about $2000 per semester. One semester, they decided to jack up tuition by $400. Most of that $400 was earmarked for subsidies for lower-income students. I found out during a meeting where the chancellor announced the change that 40% of our overall tuition went to subsidies. 40%! At which point I asked:

"So you're increasing tuition to help students who can't afford tuition, because we keep raising tuition to help students who can't afford tuition?"

They just kind of shrugged that question off.

At least you're an honest pirate. Usually there's lots of hemming and hawing about "oh I wish there was some way I could pay for this content, but it's not available in my country/available right this instant/etc. so reluctantly I must pirate it."

Are you being serious? Being available 12 hours after the original broadcast is pretty quick, especially considering that it's the middle of the night in Finland when the show airs in the US. Don't you have to work on Mondays? You get home and the episode is available on Netflix right away.

Seriously, stop moving the goalposts.