Two things:

First - I supported myself for a decade working in bars and restaurants. There are more interesting people living interesting lives employed in that sector than just about any other.

Second - Ridley Scott went to art college. Peter Jackson was self-taught. James Cameron was a truck driver. The people who have done more to shape your vision than you're likely able to realise followed no discernible pattern of behaviour. I'd advise you to save your derision until someone's earned it.

Case in point: One 'liberal arts' friend of mine plays the king of the White Walkers on GoT. Another works on The Daily Show. How's your job look now, keyboard monkey?

Did a double major in Theatre and English Literature. After 20 years of gainful employment in systems software development and consulting, I'm now CTO at an international think tank. I also know the value of capitalisation and punctuation.

Short version: It's horses for courses; reflect carefully, then do what you feel is best. If you're smart, the real determining factor is how hard you're willing to work, and how well you continue to learn.

I should point out that citizens of Washington State have a State Constitution which specifically gives us stronger privacy rights than most Americans.

You can't even use GPS trackers on our cars without a specific court order, even though you can do this in most states.

Same goes for our cell phone data.

Same goes for our front yards.

Now turn off your cop cam you're recording my lawn illegally, copper!

The first rule is that nobody talks about Bird Fight Club

A map by territory shows places that are pretty empty but have a common language.

A map by population has problems handling multiple languages in use in one location.

A map by language density using vertical bars or color shading to imply pop density might work, if dithered properly.

From the most common hacked password (password) to the second most common password (death)

Or using their cat's name, found in all their FB pics, instead of their dog's name (same thing).

Yeah, that will do it.

Not.

No dispute there. The problem, though, is not that we make easy things simple and hard things possible (pace, Larry Wall). It's that we have of late developed a tendency to simplify too far. Microsoft is famous for making systems administration and certain types of programming 'click-and-drool' easy. And hyperbole aside, the cost to society of the half-competent people who found gainful employment due to this charade can be measured in the many billions.

You're absolutely right in that commercial flying is safer than ever, notwithstanding the tendency in airlines to pressure senior pilots out in favour of cheaper, younger staff. And those working in HFT would likely be wreaking havoc by other means if they didn't have software and fibre-optics to enable them. I guess my tongue hadn't entirely left my cheek when I wrote that last para.

BUT... Microsoft has contributed significantly to a general downward trend in the quality of software and systems integrity. And they've done so by marketing the idea that with the right tools, tool users can be commoditised. And that really, really sucks.

You must be new here :)

Agreed. 'Software that makes it easy for non-experts to do expert tasks' will one day be recognised for its role in causing the downfall of civilisation as we know it. By then, of course, it will be too late.

Some among you may think that's overstating things. Some among you are also .NET developers, so what do you know?

Seriously, though: From the Airbus crash to high frequency trading to the Sony hack, examples abound of how enabling and empowering mediocrity is the first ingredient of every modern tragedy.

The problem with electric pianos is likely to be the speaker, not the electronics.

A nuclear reactor has a life span in decades, and needs more than a decade to pay itself back. There is no way anyone is going to make that investment when the business case involves something as speculative as tar sand. Tar sand is barely profitable now, who knows what it will be like in 2 or 5 years, never mind the 20+ you need to justify building a reactor.