Still why people live in such places

Because that's where they're allowed to live. You think some European country with a nice, mild climate is willing to give up a large fraction of its territory so that the entire population of the UAE can relocate their country there?

While I share your pessimistic outlook for the foreseeable future, forever is a really long time. Are you willing to say that absolutely nobody will be living in a permanent space colony in 100 years? 500 years? 10,000 years? If so, what makes you so certain?

And how did you learn to write good code that's efficient and make sense to others? Maybe you're the rare case of a person that can just intuit what is good code and what isn't, but I think most developers (including myself) learn how to write good code by first writing lots of bad code, and then suffering the consequences until they learn from experience what works and what doesn't.

Interesting point, but be that as it may, our southern border is completely wide-open so it'd be trivial for them to sneak across with all the guns they want.

Yes, but a relevant fix on a kernel driver doesn't make you any money at all, whereas some shitty iOS fleshlight app can make you rich and famous. Just ask the guys at Rovio. This is one of the fundamental problems. Programmers have to make ends meet too, and there's apparently no shortage of fools willing to spend money on some stupid iOS/Android app.

I wonder if, "a few years ago" as you put it, the smart people working on some product in Linux distros were still young, in college, and didn't have many bills to worry about. Nowadays, they've gotten older, are married, have more expenses, etc., so they've had to concentrate on jobs which earn them money. Also, it does seem to me that the cost of living has risen greatly in the US in the last 15 years, largely thanks to the housing bubble. Back when I was in college in the 90s, it was easy to find a nice apartment for $400, or share an apartment for $200, and gas was $1/gallon. Now gas is $4/gallon and you're looking at a minimum of $1200/month to rent anything decent; you might get something for $600 if you rent a room in someone's basement and get a PO box because your landlord refuses to let you have your name associated with the address and receive mail there.

Thanks, "Assmasher". I value your learned input.

If the terrorists really wanted to change things in America, they should blow up Congress. The American people wouldn't mind much since everyone here hates Congress, and there wouldn't be any collateral damage (except maybe aides, but they're really minions of the Congresscritters anyway).

Unfortunately, the security there is probably pretty good actually; it's a lot easier to go after civilian targets.

To the people who hired you, the most important thing is getting the product to work reliably so they can start making money with it. It won't matter at all how pretty the chart bubbles are in the design document, if the program crashes or is otherwise unusable. So score one for the talented programmers there.

Which is not to say software engineering isn't important -- only that exactly how important it is will vary with the size of the project. e.g. for a smaller project like a script or a one-off data processing program, just about any design (or no design) can be made to work well enough. For a large program (or one that will eventually grow into a large program), detailed software engineering is necessary to prevent its eventual collapse under the weight of its own complexity.

Whatever your yearly stipend from the government will get you.

(Hey, if it works for Alaska, it could work elsewhere -- just fund it by taxing cheap robot labor instead of petroleum)

and in many countries you do not need to remove your shoes. shit, sometimes when i fly in the US i dont have to remove my shoes, it always comes as a welcome surprise. wonder why planes arent falling out of the sky in areas without these restrictions...

yes, as so many of these batteries have been modified to be weapons with such disasterous effect on board planes, this is now a necessary measure.

furthermore:
*enough training can endow passengers with martial arts skills that can be used to deadly effect, passengers must be tied down
*laptops and other heavy objects can be used to bludgeon, no carry-ons allowed
*the in-flight meal plastic eating utensils can be deadly when applied correctly, eat with your hands
*a wild passenger could open the emergency door in-flight with disasterous effect, it should be locked
*a blanket and bottle of water can be used to waterboard other passengers in the privy, no more toilets, beverages, or articles made of cloth
*psychology may be applied to coerce a flight attendant into unknowingly aiding a terrorist plot, flight attendants must also hold a degree in psychology OR allow no one on board with an IQ over 50 OR gag all passengers

there are *so many* ways to fuck things up, the only way for TSA to secure flying is to expand the no-fly list to include absolutely everyone

How many people still use Rios/Zunes/old CD players/etc.? Old iPods (unless they're reeeaalllly old) use the standard Apple connector that was only recently superceded for the iPhone5.

How many people actually have dead devices at the TSA line? Definitely not 100%.

Those numbers are somewhat misleading. The big problem is that they don't show the number of passenger-miles traveled per year; this number has risen greatly over the decades. Everyone (in the US) flies these days; back in 1970, only richer people took planes anywhere, or when others did, it was a rare event because it was so expensive.

Also, since this is about American airport security, these numbers are misleading since they show ALL accidents worldwide. There's a lot more air travel internationally than there used to be, as the standards of living rise in developing nations (and everywhere really). Accidents in Malaysia or Brazil by airlines which don't even operate within the US don't really worry Americans much, it's accidents on our own planes in our own country that are concerning.