To get something 80% complete takes 20% of the time. The last 20% takes the other 80%.

Or, once something is 80% done, there's only 80% left to do.

So, Minecraft as a loose tech demo is fun and relatively easy. Fleshing it out to the point of being a full-featured game takes a long time and a lot of work.

- Jasen.

But the US Constitution isn't set in stone. It can be amended - and has been numerous times. If the States want the Fed to take on more of the burden and power, let them say so explicitly with some amendments. The amendments could even be very broad and vague giving the Fed lots of power. The way it works now is the Fed does stuff and the States don't object so it is a de facto Federal power.

I actually kind of agree that the USA is much smaller than it was when founded. Travel speed and communications have made it much easier for someone in Washington to know what's going on in Oregon. And for someone in Oregon to provide feedback to Washington. The country is much more governable as a single nation, and the populace is very mobile.

As you say, wealth is distributed unevenly across the country and a strong Federal government helps distribute that wealth so the poor States don't spiral into oblivion. But the Federal government has been spending money it doesn't have for a number of years. The nation is now seriously in debt and radical steps must be taken to reduce that debt or we'll end up like Greece and Spain and Ireland, etc. The entrenched political class is more interested in preserving their own political power than making the painful decisions required to get our financial house in order.

- Jasen.

I see many posts in this thread referring to "government"; like "the government" should or shouldn't do this or that.

The USA is set up with multiple levels of government: Local, State, and Federal. The Federal government has certain powers enumerated by the Constitution of the United States. Ron Paul - and many others - are of the opinion that the Federal government has far exceeded the powers granted to it by our country's founding document. State governments are granted far more leeway in what they can do.

So, student loans may be a GREAT idea. Public health care may be a GREAT idea. Lots of other publicly funded programs may be super awesome. BUT, they are not (unless a Constitutional Amendment is passed) the role of the Federal government. The Federal government has seized powers that it should not have. It needs to relinquish those powers back to the States.

A strong, dominant Federal government (such as we currently have) concentrates power into fewer hands. This concentration of power eases corruption, and the repercussions of that corruption affect the entire country. /rant

- Jasen.

And here is the crux of the matter. Ron Paul is a strict Constitutionalist. The Constitution doesn't give the Federal government the power to give out student loans, so the Federal government shouldn't do it. States? They can do whatever they want and offer free tuition, loans, health care, etc.

It's mostly about the balance of power between the Federal and State governments. The Fed is way too powerful. Time to knock it down several notches.

- Jasen.

Your numbers work with people paying in state tuition at public universities. But how many people do that? You have to factor in where people actually go to school. One of the big factors of the complaint I've read about is the number of private for-profit schools charging $20+k per year.

Also, as someone else pointed out, high unemployment disproportionately affects young people. So we should see those default numbers climbing over the next several years as graduating classes find fewer jobs, and recent grads slip into bankruptcy.

And while I'm posting, let's not forget that there are State governments, too. Ron Paul is a VERY strong advocate of a smaller Federal government, but letting the States do what they want. He wants to eliminate lots of programs at the Federal level because the Federal government has taken over the country in ways it should not have.

States can run the same math you did and subsidize college education for their citizens.

- Jasen.

FTA:'Bartel said GameStop will ship the tablet with a dedicated controller, though he admitted that "[t]here's not a lot of tablet/android based games for the consumer that are designed to use an external controller."'

Fail. Right there. You work with some key developers to have kick-ass launch titles that show off the greatness of the controller and you mock everyone who doesn't develop their games to support this awesome revolution.

You don't say, "Oh, well, no one really supports external controllers, but we hope developers will think it's cool and start. Please."

Agreed. A good wireless controller and connection to the TV (wireless preferred) could help pull this off.

GameStop gets to define the controller that will be used and to strongly encourage developers to support that controller. One of the big wins for consoles is a known hardware and control setup. Right now no tablet comes with or can expect a handheld controller. A GameStop branded tablet could do that.

Also, GameStop could sell games for their tablet only through their own online store. Then they could sell the tablet at a loss and make it up on the games - just like the console makers. What would be hard, though, is forcing developers to ONLY sell their games through GameStop. But Steam does pretty well, I guess.

Toss in some good parental controls (I want this account to only see Y7 games) and that would give parents a warm fuzzy about the system. (But kids would hate it, so maybe that's a bad idea. But the kids will likely figure out a way around the controls, and many parents won't bother to set them up.)

To me, the trick is NOT to just release a GameStop tablet and a controller. But to release an entire gaming environment. Playstation Network and XBox Live have led the way, but they had years of experience and huge piles of money behind them.

Tablet hardware has certainly reached the point of being powerful enough to be a viable gaming platform. A tablet with a few tweaks to make it extra gaming friendly could be a winner.

Starting and Thinking Forth were two of my very early computer books. I'm sure I've forgotten everything I read in them, but I'm also sure some of the info has engrained itself in my programming instincts.

I actually had a job in college writing Forth for a satellite dish controller.

I'm currently reading "Code Complete". Great stuff.

Agreed. I smell a troll.

I'm glad I've never worked anywhere like that. And I've been doing software development for almost 20 years - for only two companies, though.

I suspect lots of jobs are filled with boring meetings, self-important, self-serving, useless and worse than useless co-workers. Doing whatever the actual job is you think you're doing is probably a fraction of many people's days. So there's nothing unique about software development there.

This used to be true of me. However, now I fall in the older, over 40, spectrum of software engineers. My wife, kid, and other outside work activities take up the time I used to spend tinkering and writing on the side. Also, after staring at a screen for eight hours+ at work, I don't have a strong desire to do it at home.

I enjoy my job, and try to pick up a book now and then on some new language or framework, but I don't have the time or energy to be in computer geek mode all the time.

So some company is violating GPL v3, who is going to do anything about it? Who's going to hire the lawyer(s) to take them to court to get settlement money - the vast majority of which will likely to go the lawyers? Or do you report them to "the authorities" and some government funded lawyer chases them down?

Even if you do go to court and get a judgement against the company, then what? Hamstersoft doesn't sound like a company with deep pockets. So they declare bankruptcy, and the officers open another company doing the same thing with a different name.

Perhaps I'm overly cynical or naive, but I see the effort of enforcing the GPL to be greater than the harm done by violating it. Yes, perhaps the company deserves to be driven out of business for flagrantly violating GPL and stealing other peoples' work. But it will take a lot of effort & money to make that happen.

Revelation 16:8 The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was given power to scorch people with fire. 9 They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him.

Reading all the ways scientists anticipate we are screwing up the planet sounds like a refresher on Revelation.

- Jasen.

There's a lot of different questions and concepts going on here.

Has the level of abstraction in computer systems reached a point where beginners can't just code something quick without a huge amount of back-story?

No. But that's not learning to be a programmer. Yes, you can point a beginner at any number of languages with a bit of a reference book or online dictionary and they can hack out something that works. But that is only the most rudimentary lesson in programming.

I find this to be the case now; scripting languages are good, but limited in what you can do...

Which sounds perfect for a beginner language. You start with basic concepts like flow control, variables, data structures, and other rudimentary things. If they "get it" and are excited by the potential for doing more, then they are on their way to being programmers. If not, they have been exposed some basic computer science concepts which will do them good in today's world.

Think of English or History or Art or Mathematics. Most people take classes in those subjects, but few are enthralled to the point of making a career out of any of them. An introductory programming course using Python may help someone hack together some tool later in life, but it does not make them a professional programmer.

and GUI creation requires students to be familiar with a lot of concepts (event handling, etc.) that aren't intuitive for beginners.

And is there something wrong with that? GUIs are advanced topics. They require understanding of advanced topics.

What would you show a beginner first â" JavaScript? Python? How do you get the instant gratification we oldies got when sitting down in front of the early-80s home computers?"

There are many languages available today that would work fine as introductory languages. And many students will check off the requirement box and move on. A few will "get the instant gratification" regardless of the language used and move on to more advanced learning.

You seem to have the implied assumption that if you can make the results of coding "exciting" - flashy graphics, sounds, 3D animations, explosions - then students will be more interested in coding. I doubt that is true. At the end of the day you still sit in front of a computer and push buttons over and over.

- Jasen.

In the now "civilized world" death used to be much more common and intimate - the above poster provided several examples. Children got diseases and died, women died in child birth. Moving down the hierarchy a bit, people used to kill and eat their own animals. Death was an integral part of life.

Recently we have pushed death away. Our food comes wrapped in plastic packages. Death happens in hospitals or nursing homes. Child mortality rates have fallen. We consider dealing with death "barbaric" or "primitive" or something for doctors or some such.

Medical treatment has advanced to the point where we can keep people alive far beyond what would generally be called a worthwhile life; our brains and bodies wear out and degrade, but we can keep alive through drugs & treatments.

The problem with suicide is that people often make the choice to take their own life when things are bad but may generally be expected to improve - jilted by a lover, bankruptcy, some other traumatic experience. Society has some obligation to keep people from making permanent decisions "in the heat of the moment".

I fall in the camp of if a person's situation cannot be reasonably expected to improve - incurable disease that will turn agonizing or incapacitating, then let them choose to check out before they become too miserable. When that point is is hard to determine. If you are diagnosed with Alzheimer's or AIDs should society allow you to check out immediately?

Tough questions. I wish Mr. Pratchett well.