Iran's government is fighting over whether or not to implement rusting-edge technology, with calls for impeachment if they go ahead. It's like they WANT to remain in the 8th Century. Why is it exactly that we're afraid of them?

"IF" is a powerful word, and can trick one into presuming that the predicate is true. Have you actually watched any of her videos?

I work in a unionized software shop. It's awesome during bad times. In good times one is tempted to think it's better in fast-and-furious start-ups, but then one compares one's salaries and benefits and realizes, "no, actually, union shop is still better."

• Project management, specifically the importance of not being a bottleneck.

• How to design a solution on my own time before I code a solution on company time.
• Differential diagnosis of bugs (see #2 of the link above --- although I learned this skill later in graduate school and have applied it multiple times since.)
• Code for readability and correctness first, efficiency later. Code that is "too clever" will never be maintained (except by you).
• I really enjoy programming as a way of automating tasks and not for other reasons --- which makes me better as a systems administrator than as a software developer.

The tolerances are designed to account for the slight inaccuracies in speedometers as well as the tolerance of the radar equipment. If the posted speed limit is 70 and you're speedometer says you're going 70 you might be going 70 or 65 because the speedometer is not supposed to display a speed that is lower than the actual speed of the car, only greater by 10%.

Let's celebrate like topologists --- with donuts and mugs of coffee!

It's not a very good pun.

A good pun would present, on the surface, a deeper knowledge of the (admittedly complex) material.

"I know a place
Where you're all going to go
They'll pay you to kill
If You're eighteen years old
First You'll need a haircut
And then some new clothes
They'll stick you in a jungle
To play G.I. Joe

CHORUS:

You fight for democracy
And the "American Way"
But you're not in your country
"What am I doing here?" you say
But now it's too late
You're entering Managua
If you had brought your surfboard
You could surf Nicaragua

Video here

OSCON is held every July in Portland, Oregon, and focuses on open source solutions to all sorts of IT needs. They have specific tracks for public sector and education. Plus, there's good beer.

Yes, people have been unlocking phones but without the carrier's consent you have to 'jailbreak' the phone. I'm going to assume that the phone either needs to be out of contract or you need to pay the balance due on the phone to get it unlocked.

If providers are going to have to unlock phones then I can see them changing things up a bit. Instead of the phone company 'subsidizing' your phone which you are allowed to keep when your contract is up, I see plans that include a lease fee for the phone with a new phone every years (or two) option if you turn in your old phone. With this model, just like car leasing if the phone is beat up or doesn't include all the accessories you'll be charged a 'lease disposition' fee. Providers will keep their user base locked in and won't have to provide unlock codes because the phone remains the property of the provider. If the user wants to unlock the phone they will need to pay the lease buyout fee and the phone will be theirs.

Apple already has most of these restrictions and more.
The ability to turn off in app purchasing and / or making purchases. The also have 'allowances' which once reached the user can't spend pass that unless they provide an additional form of payment. iDevices also allow you to turn OFF the 15 minute window and specify that a password is required for every purchase.

Parents really have NO right to complain if their children are racking up purchases on their iDevice because they have the ability to limit that spending.

WHAT?

So, authors don't want to have a large price gap between a real book and an ebook? Do they NOT realize that with the real book you get an actual real book. With the ebook you get a limited, revocable license to read the book but only in the format you purchased your license for.

I'm still wondering why the price gap isn't larger.

CSS/JavaScript/HTML5 is plainly obvious. Everything from Microsoft to mobile hybrid development relies on this these days.

C# is the standard language of the Microsoft stack --- in fact, the bulk of MS-stack training is in C#, with only a smattering in VB.NET.

Java is the COBOL of the early 21st Century. It isn't sexy anymore but it will always be around.

PHP is used in a lot of web applications. I wish it weren't. In fact, I'd really rather see Ruby on Rails take over this space.

If you're going to program native code, you could learn Swift, sure. You could also learn Rust (Mozilla's systems-level language with significant buy-in from Samsung) for device programming. If your goal is to write native apps, your best bet for Android is actually Java. By the way, one can also design native apps in Java (the code is Swing-like) and compile them to native apps for iOS or Android using Codename One, and I imagine a few shops will pick up that practice.

I like Erlang as an honorable mention. I'd also add two others: Python (especially for data analysis) and PowerShell (which will set the grown-up Microsoft sysadmins from the point-and-click kids).

Gas lines need nonconductive sections to protect from becoming long ground loops.

It sounds like this transformer had its center tap grounded and was the path to ground on one side of a ground loop as the geomagnetic field moved under pressure from a CME, inducing a common-mode current in the long-distance power line. A gas pipeline in an area of poor ground conductivity in Russia was also destroyed, it is said, resulting in 500 deaths.

One can protect against this phenomenon by use of common-mode breakers and perhaps even overheat breakers. The system will not stay up but nor will it be destroyed. This is a high-current rather than high-voltage phenomenon and thus the various methods used to dissipate lightning currents might not be effective.