That is the situation we are in now. That is not how it has always been, and, if enough people can get angry enough to actually facilitate change, not how it has to be.

I've worked with quite a few of the "old timer" engineers, the ones who started working back in the late 60's, 70's and 80's. They would tell tales of how people would start at their companies as a lowly technician or engineer and stay for 30-50 years, moving up the corportauntil retirement. That it wasn't until the late 80's to 90's where everything went to hell. Multinationals would buy the company out, plunder the pensions, bring in foreigner for pennies on the dollar and fire everyone. There even used to be this mythical thing called job security where assuming that you didn't royally fuck up or the company didn't tank, you didn't have to worry about getting fired or laid off at the end of the week because one of the 40 VPs needs a few extra dollars to replace his company-paid three-month-old Porche with a more sporty Jaguar.

It reminds me of an Onion Radio News episode from 2008, 1998 was 10 Fucking Years Ago" It was almost a wake-up call because at that point as it did seem like almost yesterday.

What are you talking about, Half, if not more than half of CEs are programming. Sure, not game programming (as in the book) but still programming.

I'm a CE and I spend most of my time programming everything from Robots, PLCs, HMIs, Motors, FPGAs and Vision systems, to the communication that glues them all together. I still need to have a knowledge of electronics and electrical design, but still a good portion of my work is (usually low-level) programming.

If I can predict lightning, now I no longer need to rip off plutonium or travel into the future and waste my money on a Mr Fusion to power my DeLorean. I can just use free thunderstorms and save a metric shitload of money!

What's the point. I still need to go into the future to pick up a hoverboard and sports almanac anyway.

"That's not fair. That's not fair at all. There was time now. There was all the time I wanted...! That's not fair!"

Mincome works for employers as well. If the government was picking up the tab for a living wage, the biggest advantage is that you no longer have to. There is no point to having a minimum wage if the government is paying a living wage. This is the same reason that Universal health care is in the interest of most companies, because they no longer have to pay for employee insurance.

Then there are the side benefits. If everyone has a safety net, you can be damn well sure that moral is going to improve, which generally correlates with a rise in productivity. You also will get rid of most of those employees who don't really want to work, but just want a paycheck.

So, I believe that cheaper, more productive workers are in the interest of corporations.

That is also an unfair comparison. You get disability benefits because you can't work. The option is either sit and collect a check or return to work. It is an either / or situation. The point of a Mincome is that if you decide to work you still get the check and you get paid from your employer.

If those on disability had the option to go back to work part time (or take a different job entirely, start a business, or what have you) and still collect benefits, how many do you think would go back to work?

Yeah, I miss the wholesome arcade games of the 80's, like Battlezone, Red Barron, Scramble, Rush 'N Attack, and Missile Command. No military propaganda there. Nope.

I don't know, ask the media why they like nicknaming executive-level governement offices, "Czars", as there are no positions with Czar as (or in) the official title. However, the tradition seems to go back to Franklin Roosevelt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

Don't forget their second attempt in 2004 with the SPOT Watch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

1-2 years? This was going on for a while. I remember watching Battle Bots on Comedy Central (Vlad The Impaler FTW) back around 2004. There was on on the Discovery Channel around the same time as well (Robotica, I think?), each with all types of merchandising behind it. Hell, Robot Wars was started in the early-mid 90's

They can just get into the education sector. You already have a captive clientele, School nurses are even cheaper than prison doctors, and cheap meals are still cheap meals. Plus you have ample facilities for punishment and detention, A yard for "recess," and if you don't want to deal with public schooling, plenty of room for boarding students as a private school.

Schools are practically part-time prisons as it is, might as well go that extra few steps and use actual former prisons.

I am joking, but sadly that case could easily be made.

No one was seriously expecting a new notebook from Apple. The new notebooks are most likely to feature Intel's new Broadwell chips, which have been delayed until what's looking like next spring.

Besides, the Macbook Pro was just given a refresh in the Summer.

I bought my white Macbook in 2007, paid $1200. One of my family members made the remark that they only ever buy the Walmart special, (whatever is on sale for around $300) and told me that $1200 for a computer was a crime and I was stupid to ever pay that much. In that time, the longest they have ever had a computer was 2 years meanwhile my Macbook is not only still kicking, it still works pretty damn well, though I did max out the RAM a few years ago, install Lion, and am on my third battery.

After all these years, it still works great as my portable computer, Software Radio terminal, and music server though my desktop PC is my primary computer.

Of course it is AI, not cutting edge AI, but it is still AI. Just because it is now a mature solved problem, doesn't make it any less valid.

It is like saying that someone doing the old "calculate the landing position of a cannonball fired at X velocity at Y angle" problem isn't doing physics because modern physics now involves super-tiny particles and / or traveling at speeds near the speed of light.