I agree with your first 3 sentences, Ghoshroy seems a little too happy to disparage the project. Development of something this advanced takes time and needs public support. I don't get your last sentence at all. I'd rather us not have to smoke anyone, and vice versa.

It's certainly likely some are, but I don't automatically equate the two or think of it as a huge problem. Though this article did qualify with use of the word "some", the tone seems to indicate that the author feels people mostly only get ahead by stepping on others, instead of maybe hard work, investment, and dedication. Sounds like sour grapes. You could run an experiment where complete wealth redistribution was conducted, and everyone in the country (or world) had the exact same amount of money, assets, and access to education. Within less than 10 years, that faux state of "equality" would disintegrate again as a great number of people would squander their assets and opportunities while others invested and worked hard. Anything else is a fairy tale.

Hey, it wasn't that long ago!

You're lucky you got modded to 5. I brought this very thing up last time the subject was broached here (not long ago) and got jumped on like as if I'd said all women should be barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen.

This guy forgot to add other very real world possibilities: inclination, desire, motivation, ambition, aptitude .. etc. Those who under-perform do not always do so merely because they are victims of circumstance or others, and sometimes that's why they're judged. He thinks of successful people as bullies? lol

I really don't know. I haven't read any newbie books in years. Mostly I attend classes and seminars now when available, via work. If anything, I read O'Reilly books for reference. Maybe the "Idiots Guide"? or maybe it just depends on the book/author.

Well actually the first ones were pretty good intros to basic IT. DOS for Dummies was a classic. They certainly lived up to their name later on though. I'd read the original PCs for Dummies, DOS, DOS book2, Windows 3.11, and Windows 3.11 book two when I started out in IT, and I they were pretty good. And I didn't even own a PC for reference yet, and I still managed to follow through (finally got one in '95).
I tried some later books though and they were awful, they just wouldn't get to stick to the point. Or, maybe I just had a better grasp of things by then and the fluff got in the way.

But.. but.. they've lasted the longest! Granted, they're not very mobile.

I think that's backwards... you do that when you tell the truth, it raises your blood pressure and heart rate for the baseline.

I suspect a lot of tech writing is done because an author is pushed into it and would rather be writing maybe something else.
It's not hard to be ambiguous in the English language, special care (as well as a desire) needs to be taken to be clear and concise. Not my best example, but off the top of my head, when people say something like "Everyone is not right-handed", with the intent to mean that some people aren't right-handed, they don't realize that their sentence literally means that NO one is right handed. They should say, "Not everyone is right handed".
Other examples are, "I saw the man with the binoculars" or "EMTs help dog bite victim". It's just a caveat of the language.

I think the best thing any tech writer could do though - with something like Bash or Cisco commands- is provide more command examples, because sometimes the exacting demands of the syntax just isn't made clear. A few good examples go a long way to alleviating uncertainty.

This is what happened to the "For Dummies" books, IMO. The old classics like "DOS for Dummies" was great for a beginner, but it seemed like a lot of the later books went way too heavy into the realm of comedy or stretched tangential analogies, and it distracted from the key information itself.
Nobody likes dry reading. but they got soppy dripping wet. ;)

Damn, I can't give you mod points, but you nailed it. An awful lot of the poeple out there decrying "haters" seem more hate-filled than anyone else, they can't seem to differentiate between hate and basic disagreement with their SJW views.

This study is one small indication for why I argue against those who claim that the country has shifted right - when popular media itself, as a reflection of society, indicates the opposite. At least in terms of religion, this study suggests.. well, I'm not sure it suggests a move left, but it sure doesn't suggest a move to the right. I think those who are fanatically religious are just more shrill than they used to be and stand out more.
As an agnostic, I think this study is a good sign. Religion and government do not make good bedfellows. Religion should be a personal thing if anything. I'm wary of large, organized religion particularly.

That's what I thought too. My toilet bowl drains into the same sewer pipe my kitchen sink and shower drain does, and my toilet tank is filled from the same water line as my kitchen faucet and shower head. I thought maybe socal kept separate water lines or something until reading further below.

Knowledgeable hackers, yes; neighborhood not-quite-so-computer-saavy, but curious teenage kids looking for a quick easy target..? I think it all helps. Sort of in the same way that locking your door won't keep a determined burglar out of your house but it might be enough of a bother to make him look elsewhere. Besides, no one goes on my home network but my (small) family, and we all know our SSID. It's not like I'm a coffee shop or anything. It's a minor thing granted but I don't think the minor steps are bad so long as they're not used in place of better precautions. If someone knowledgeable is really determined to get into my home network while parked in front of my house, nothing will stop him, including WPA-2.