Simple, the executives want to live in the fancy neighborhoods with the best schools, etc. Their head explodes if they think about managing teams "remotely" a couple states over, in pretty much the same time zone.

That is not really true. Lots of people who aren't capable get into college and graduate, some even with advanced degrees. The percentage of incapable people is lower the longer the program because there is a higher chance that people will realize they are not cut out for it and switch to something else.... If they finish a degree even though they suck they usually end up spending a few years trying to be an engineer before moving on to management or other business functions or other careers entirely. The ones with true ability are more likely to continue for many years and gain a lot more depth of experience over time. People who are actually GOOD generally either are "that way" no matter how much experience they have, three months is probably plenty of time for someone with real talent to get enough experience to be productive in an entry level position. Certainly, they will continue to acquire more skills and knowledge the longer they work, not saying that someone with only three months experience is anywhere near as good as a senior engineer... but I absolutely agree that college is totally unneccessary.

College is a Joke. Degrees are largely worthless because grade inflation has gotten so bad that basically anyone with a pulse will graduate from the CS programs... doesn't matter if it is Harvard, or MIT, or Stanford, or lowly state schools. The students all whine and complain and talk to the dean, etc, etc... until they get a passing grade. It sucks for those who actually are GOOD because you end up with the same grades and the same degrees as the idiots who can't code their way out of a paper bag.

Why is java obscure? Sure you need to write a bunch of boilerplate code, but it is just a programming language which happens to be widely used. There is nothing about it which makes it particularly hard to learn or "elite". Python is not "easier". It just takes less boilerplate to do a lot of common things (although in many cases the performance suffers). There are certainly things in the Java language which I'm not fond of, but show me any language and I'll tell you about its flaws. I have yet to find a perfect one.

Just connect to a VPN first and then use Netflix. You'll be able to clearly see how much Verizon is throttling. I've been using this as a workaround for a while now. I'm not sure why more people don't think of pointing this out when Verizon's tech support people claim there is no throttling.

Furthermore, according to a recent study (2009 date on article I just pulled from):

Top 10 cars with most USA parts.

1. Ford F150
2. Toyota Camry
3. Chevy Silverado 1500
4. Chevy Cobalt
5. Ford Focus
6. Toyota Sienna
7. Chevy Malibu
8. Pontiac G6
9. Ford Escape
10. TOYOTA TUNDRA

See what’s NOT on the list? No Dodges. None.

Um, you are deluded if you believe that narrative. ASSEMBLED in the USA? Sure maybe parts of it... but no, your Dodge Ram is not MADE in the USA. The Toyota Tundra is actually a higher percentage made in the USA.

No matter how much you optimize your schema and your queries there are limits to what one machine can handle. Depending on what your application or business needs are, this may happen MUCH sooner than a billion users. For many, merely tens of millions of really active users are enough to exceed these limits, and when you are a startup trying to grow and add features it is easier said than done to ensure that every piece of code you release is so perfect that you will not rock the boat at all, since one minor slip effects EVERYTHING. At that point your choices are custom sharding (expensive, painful, error prone). Or horizontally scalable NoSQL. Personally, I would just choose NoSQL from the start. It is not harder to use, and you have a lot more wiggle room to respond when you want to release features quickly and iterate over them to improve performance if you decide to keep them. And yes, you can use functional sharding and multiple relational databases, but sooner or later if you are successful, you will hit the same problem.

And I might add that one of the most painful parts of migrating away from relational databases after you are already huge and bursting at the seams is that usually folks will have relied on the transactional consistency they provide for all the app logic and business processes. Suddenly wanting to change all that code to handle eventual consistency is not trivial at all, but if you were doing it all along because you started out that way... fewer pains.

Actually, more than you think should probably use NoSQL. It isn't really any harder if you build it that way from the start and if your startup happens to get gigantic you won't have a relational database to migrate away from as one of your problems. You'll still have problems though, and even with NoSQL you need to "do it right" or it will still have issues when it gets huge.

Until not that long ago women were not supposed to run marathons either... because their uterus might fall out (among other stupid assertions).

Technically most phone GPS apps would be illegal even if you weren't entering data since they get the map data over the internet. This whole nonsense is a slippery slope, why is it safe to use the car's built in GPS, but not the phone? Should it be illegal to adjust your climate control knobs? What about chewing gum? You can't legislate away stupidity.

Selectivity is not *the* problem, but it is the reason they can't find people. The main reason the number of qualified applicants keeps shrinking is because obesity is out of control, our country is turning into a bunch of lazy fat asses.

No I'm pretty sure the main problem is the requirements I mentioned above coupled with the raging obesity epidemic which continues to spiral out of control. The number of people who can fit the requirements keeps shrinking because we are a bunch of lazy fat asses.

Those are general requirements. The chances of someone with 20/50 vision actually being made a fighter pilot as opposed to some other role are basically zero unless they have absolutely amazing abilities otherwise. They'll tell you anything you want to hear during recruiting, but you have almost no chance no matter what they say.