Well exactly, and the Kardashians are more important than war or hunger, certainly.

Last year, I invented an extra control that would allow me to slap Clarkson, assorted politicians, cakes I disliked on cookery shows etc. etc. I called it tele-slap [tm].

Implementation is proving a little challenging, nothing that £20m of frothy VC money won't cure though. Watch this space, but duck.

Yes, agree, was this an advertorial for infoworld? To be constructive, the 'really bad' are SCADA, infrastructure, IoT and [on their list] vehicle hacks. Water supply, power stations including nuclear, train signaling, electricity grid and [Lord forbid] weapons systems. Except for 'car', none of those are included.

ATM hacks just throw pieces of paper around, doesn't really do any physical damage. Consider it to be redistributive.

It used to be said that 'when America [meaning USA, sorry] sneezes the UK catches cold'. So, as a Londoner, I'm not at all surprised. Probably some of this data [because it's not information] is being 'exported' too, the data version of special rendition.

At the moment our 'imports' are TTIP, private healthcare, GMO crops, US banks, mall-shopping as an activity, cops as thugs, empty celebrity culture, reality TV, US payday lenders [quickquid, for example, is US owned] gangster rap and US style gangs etc. etc. probably because we share a language and to some extent a culture. Two thousand Met [London police] carry arms now too.

Before I'm jumped on, there's lots of things I admire in the US but they are not the things that are making their way into the UK.

Sorry, should have been clearer, I think Microsoft are concerned that UK government is taking open source more 'seriously' than previously. I live in Newham [a London borough] that 'nearly' switched to Linux, however everyone felt that it was probably a bargaining position rather than a real initiative. Now I think they're somewhat 'ready'. The irony is that in Canary Wharf, amongst the investment banks, not exactly hippies therefore, are full of all kinds of open source tools.

Yes, exactly. Being old and cynical that was my thought too. Show source 'A' but compile from source 'B'. Then we'll truly 'experience their committment to transparency' won't we?

The good thing about this is that UK government has made some fairly strong statements about considering open source when purchasing, for example: https://www.gov.uk/service-man... and I think they're a little concerned.

I just discovered Minetest, I wanted a completely open stack so that I could modify deeply, if necessary. I do voluntary work with Raspberry Pi and the Minecraft Python API [very good!] in the UK. There's a place for all of us, people who want just to play, people who want to add/modify 'a bit' and people [me] who may want to modify deeply. It's a spectrum of uses and users, not a war amongst them.

Greece should never have been part of the Euro, in the first place: http://tinyurl.com/yzj8tzo

However the 'enthusiasm' of Goldman and probably the rest of Wall Street + [intellectually dishonest] desire from the EU Commission to have a great deal of buy-in [whatever the cost] pushed them in.

To declare interest, I'm a Brit, I worked for the commission for nearly ten years and for an investment bank in London. I don't admire or believe in either of them. I'm not a big fan of the euro, it connects everything and puts it [south and north, large and small] into a straitjacket. Indeed I'm a supporter of community currencies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... an idea that Bernard Lietaer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... also supports.

Greece is a mess, but basically this is warfare without guns. Maybe that's the future?

This reminds me of a joke that came out of the philosophy department in Oxford, about fifty years ago.

Student: Wouldn't you agree, Professor Strawson that everything is relative?
Professor Strawson: Absolutely!

In other news, please try not to put words into other people's mouths. It never ends really well.

If the little people start cooperating, doing stuff, changing the world, that's really, really bad. So we must compete, win prizes given by the big people, follow their agenda. Hence, also, attempts to buy into or hijack open-source, communism and altruism on the hoof, cannot be allowed, everything must be monetised.

I'm currently doing voluntary work in schools in the UK and the 'push' coming from Google, Microsoft 'partners' etc. is extrordinary. One would be mad to believe that any of this is altruistic, it's just a big, stable, undemanding [I deal with crap computers and software during the volunteering gigs] market.

Sorry that this sounds so ranty, unusual for me, but I don't trust them, don't trust their motives.

I really recommend these two books by Sladek: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... they're very funny satire about a naive, learning robot in a cruel illogical world. This is what our little friend here can expect.

I'd add Derek Trucks too, wonderful guitarist, microtonal because he's slide and every scale that suits him: https://youtu.be/Zwaau9mMQ-M

I think all of them are interesting, pentatonic gives you the blues but also [approximations to, on the guitar] oriental tropes, all the jazz modes give you [surprise] jazz, mix and match gives you Butterfield's East-West: https://youtu.be/YaV-S5ivX3E. You have to love them all + the pure geekiness of chord construction with 'exotics'.

Music is almost as good as computers, not quite though.

I'm 64, a Perl guy and in London. I still get a fair amount of contract work, some of which I turn down. Recently that's included a couple of start-ups. Are you London area? I suspect this may also be a geographical and networking problem. I'm ex-investment bank and people know me.

Meanwhile some of the other advice is great, learn Python [I did], learn Java [I do some, hate it, it reminds me of COBOL], improve Javascript, especially the 'new' frameworks. But, I like to program and I like freelance, if you're programming 'for cash', then the advice about graduating to management is good. At this age, I can look at things and go NOOOOO, often saving others a lot of time, money and heartache, but I don't like meetings/suits etc. etc.

So if you're old, I'm moribund [although 2 hour half marathon suggests otherwise, keep healthy too!], don't despair, very best of of luck from me.

http://chirp.io/ and, as previous poster remarked, acoustic coupler. This is a pretty bad idea, generally.