It's not as simple as that. Sure, everyone is going to have bugs in their code, but some are much worse than others. No accountability at all can be just as detestable as incessant finger-pointing.

Also it's harder for a girl to ignore a wall post in front of all her friends ...

Now there's an auspicious start to a long-lasting relationship.

You're assuming that devices and the software on them are inherently insecure and can never be made secure. Instead you rely on walled gardens created and cultivated by the companies that are selling you those devices and that software (or at least controlling your access to that software). Granted, security is hard to do right, but what makes you think Apple or Google are so much better at it with their App stores than anyone else? And if they are so good at it, why don't they just make their OSes secure enough to obviate that excuse for the walled gardens in the first place?

Here in Texas at least, this extends to basic courtesy. I'm continually astounded at how polite people generally are in person but how few of them are courteous enough when in their cars to even use their turn signals. Vehicle code issues aside, signalling is an act of common courtesy like saying "please" and "thank you", and when in the anonimity of their cars, otherwise exceedingly polite people abondon said politeness.

Except that from the linked story: "But ruminant animals such as cattle can safely ingest a wide variety of feedstuffs that chickens and hogs can't." The gummi worms story was about feeding cows, not pigs.

Your slashdot example is idiotic. This is a self-selected group of "nerds" who would be expected to be above average at learning skills like programming.

I know from personal experience with my wife and daughter that some people just are not cut out to do any sort of software development. They don't naturally think in terms of the logical steps required to find and implement an elegant solution. If you made their food dependent on their usable code output, they might learn enough to survive, but they would be very hungry.

I encourage you to peruse some of the free apps in the app store of your choice. There's no shortage of almost completely unusable garbage there from "programmers" who figure anyone can write an app. A lot of people might be able to write an app, but not anyone can write a good app. In this case, these are people who had a desire to code well and still could not. Likewise books in the Kindle store. The assumption that a decent grasp of spoken language is enough to weave a compelling story is quite obviously fallacious.

If you're so sure programmers are nothing special, then let me pick a few to write the flight control software for the next plane you fly on or the engine and brake control software of your car or the user interface software of your TV (okay, that last one might be a bad example given some of the crap I've seen in things like TVs, but that helps make my point).

Energy is extracted from the wind and used elsewhere, same as with wave energy and solar. Slowing down the wind or waves or absorbing heat from the sun will all have a non-zero effect local to the harvesting mechanism. For example, harvesting a significant amount of wave energy might change beach dynamics or tidal flows or whatever, maybe in a negative way. Maybe the impact is negligible. That kind of thing needs to be reasonably well understood, or we might end up in the future with the same sort of problem we are facing now with fossil fuels and greenhouse gases. Or we might be able to use the effects in a beneficial way if we understand them well enough. We humans have a history of barreling ahead without really considering the long-term effects we might create. I realize it's wishful thinking that we will change that behavior in any significant way, but at least I can point at this conversation and disclaim any responsibility for future catastrophes.

The net result can't possibly be zero, energy is being extracted from the system. Now it may very well be that, as another poster suggested, the amount of energy being extracted is so small as to have no net measurable effect, and while that may be understood to the the case on a very small scale, I personally don't have a good intuitive feel for that when you scale up to many gigawatts. Extrapolating the effects from a very small wind farm to a massive one (on a global scale) would seem imprudent to me. I'm not completely ignorant in the matter, but neither have I researched it in enough depth to satisfy my curiosity. Your response of "it's zero, now go away troll!" doesn't help. Perhaps you have pointers to some research or even just some well-written articles from science journalists to back your opinion. Your personal intuition doesn't count any more than mine does.

I have similar questions about all-electric cars. Sure, an electric car emits effectively zero emissions when it's driving around, but the energy to move it around came from somewhere. Given our current power infrastructure, it's far from clear to me just how much better an electric car is from a fossil fuel car. My intuition is that it likely is measurably better, but I'd really like some science that backs that up. I think the larger benefit to electric cars is that any improvements made to power plant efficiency and cleanliness directly translates to less emissions attributable to the electric cars that are already on the road, but I'm nowhere near convinced that today's electric cars are significantly superior to the higher fuel efficiency internal combustion cars. That doesn't mean I'm an anti-electric car troll. It used to be that critical thinking and skepticism were valued, especially in scientific discussions, and not considered the hallmark of trolls and shills and subjected to automatic ridicule.

Certainly. And given the difficulty in deploying wind farms on a massive scale (on the ground or in the atmosphere), there will be plenty of time for scientists to measure and understand the possible effects of such scaled-up deployments. Despite the propensity of the anti-science religious right to use scientific skepticism as an argument against science in general, that's how science must always be conducted.

Rather than attacking as a troll someone for asking what was likely an innocent question based out of ignorance (not stupidity as you so arrogantly suggested), it might be more constructive to simply point out their ignorance and maybe even point them in the direction of some useful materials to educate themselves. Reflexively calling them a troll or stupid just eliminates any credibility you might have had, at least in my opinion.

That line of reasoning is almost completely non-sensical and doesn't really deserve a response.

But "anti-Apple fanboyism"? "Fanboyism" involves an irrational devotion (or repulsion in this case) to a product or company. A reasoned explanation for liking or disliking a product or company does not automatically elevate someone to fanboy status. I think you making that claim only exposes your own fanboyism.

Apple's walled-garden approach makes me queasy, but not enough to dissuede me from considering their products. But their offensive (in both senses of the word) legal attacks are too much for me to further consider purchasing their products. Samsung, Motorola and others are heading in the same direction with all the lawsuits filed all over the world. I'm looking for a tablet for myself and find that Android-based tablets may be my only option, although the fragmentation and version update issues in that market concern me greatly and have kept me from making a choice. And waiting for a Microsoft Surface tablet is out of the question. While I take offense at being characterized as an anti-Apple fanboy, I'll proudly wear the anti-MS fanboy label. I just don't like MS and am not inclined to bother with explaining why (I do have a number of reasons, but it's easier to just hate them).

I stand corrected (multiple times). Perhaps instead of "most valuable company in the world, EVER", I should have said "a company as phenomenally successful as Apple (in valuation)". Serves me right for only half paying attention to the media reports about Apple being the highest-valued company, I really should know better.

I'm in a similar boat. I write good code because I care about the quality of my work. I generally have fewer defects in my code, but that doesn't make me a "rock star". In my experience, in any group sufficiently large, the real "rock star" is easily identifiable as the developer who just seems to know eveything and can offer accurate and useful advice without having to go off and research anything. More often than not, that developer actually doesn't do a whole lot of implementation, they're spending too much time guiding all the other developers in the right (technical) direction. What development they do is usually on the really hairy parts that require simultaneously very broad and very deep knowledge of the system.

I'm with you. When the most valuable company in the world, EVER, goes whining to the courts because another company has phones with "pinch zooming" and "rubber-band scrolling", I cannot respect that company and will avoid their products. I mean really, how many iPhone purchases honestly didn't happen because Samsung had these features? Certainly they would have played zero role in any decision I have or would have made.

There are four iPods and an iPad in my household, but those are the last Apple products I'll willingly buy (with a wife and kids, can't really say absolutely never). I'll be getting a smartphone and likely a small tablet for myself soon and won't even consider an iPhone or iPad, with Apple's legal behavior being responsible for going from "would consider" to "no freaking way".

So should we get rid of any clothes we have that might offend someone? Bumper stickers? Sikhs will need to stop wearing their headdresses so they don't stand out and possibly make someone uncomfortable on a train or bus or plain. And just forget about burqas or other traditional dress from non-Western cultures (do you think people would be more concerned about a guy wearing lederhosen or a woman wearing a burqa, given no difference in behavior between the two?).

I'm not typically a fan of slippery-slope thinking, but if you pay attention, you'll realize we've already slid well down that slope. Posts like yours demonstrate that quite clearly. It's now okay to be forced to self-censor, and those that don't (and who clearly are not breaking any laws) deserve some or all of the blame. Does it bother you at all that you have to be careful about which shirt you might be wearing when you go on a flight? It bothers me.

And on a side note, it's actually nice to get a view of the TSA where they aren't portrayed as stupid brainless vindictive security drones. Given the overwhelmingly negative portrayal they get here on /., it's a good thing to be reminded that they are people and that some of them, at least, can do their jobs in a reasonably respectful way.

If I had mod points I would mod this up. This is the exact point I made the last time this subject was discussed on /.. I have not RTFA, but I have to wonder if they just asked people how much time they spent working when outside of normal working hours, or if they also took into account the amount of time they spent not working during normal working hours. I wonder if, on average, number of hours spent working hasn't really changed.

That said, I do what a previous poster suggested, which is to pull work email when I want to. I don't even own a smartphone, and I have to make a conscious effort to check email on my iPod. I put in a small number of hours in the evening because that kind of schedule suits me. So I fall into that "enjoy their job flexibility" group without giving up anything to my employer.

You make very good points. My comments may have been overly influenced by the state of SW patents and the current attitude (on the part of conservatives, mostly) against even basic research being funded by the government. I do think there is a better balance to be had. I'm also not convinced that the core "inventions" of these particular patents could not have been made via well-funded basic research. But then I'm not expert in this field to really know.