Information wants to be free. Sony demands. Anthropomorphism requires.

Q: If entropy is increasing, where is it coming from?

TOM!

"Uh, Tom... Tom... Actually, from now on, we're the comedy team of Ahjnudpippibod and Davis."

They've outgrown the confines of Guantanamo Bay.

Thank you, I'm quite flattered by the comparison.

Take advantage of the system

(1) Find the best college or community college that'll have you as an English teacher
(2) Teach English for small $
(3) Take advantage of the perquisite that you get to take some amount of free classes because you are faculty
(4) Finish an associates in a STEM field. An associates is transferrable, even if credits are not (I suggest microbiology)
(5) Either transfer as a student, or, if it's a good college, finish your bachelors degree there
(6) ...While still teaching, if you can; 1-2 years experience teaching at a college level puts you higher on the hire list

NB: "Good college" is relative; you will generally get out of any program what you put into it.

People without CS degrees tend to lack the vocabulary necessary to communicate efficiently with their peers about CS topics in situations where they are required to work on a team. Big "O" notation, names of algorithms, breadth of algorithmic knowledge, etc..

If you are not going to be working on a team (and it's the rare company who does not believe they will become larger in the future), then a portfolio of previous work is generally acceptable.

Because companies believe they will grow, you are most suited to being a consultant, or, alternately, working for a consulting firm.

I've frequently considered creating a "vocabulary test", along the lines of those multiple choice test games passed around on Facebook; the problem with doing that, however, is people would "learn to the test"; and while it would be a form of education for them, as a result they would successfully get their foot inside the door of place where they would ultimately not be successful. This would not be a service to either them, or the places which hire them. To be effective, it would have to end up growing to the point that it might as well be a certification exam. And still, people would learn to the test, instead of having any depth of knowledge necessary to communicate with those who do.

You are making a strawman argument. Never did I suggest doing any such thing.

You can attempt to draw all the offensive comparisons you want while ignoring the fact it isn't a terribly challenging problem to solve when your wall isn't right through the middle of a major city and isn't easily climbable and isn't the only line of defense. Look at what happened when they put in a complex fencing system in the San Diego zone in the mid 90s: suddenly crossing attempts dropped by over 90%. Nobody got through there, so they all went into the mountains to go around the system.

Simply extend the San Diego system across the rest of the border and have heavy patrols. Anyone damaging the system is imprisoned for a period, then deported to their country of origin. Those who manage to make it through the system are quickly rounded up by the regular patrols and immediately deported to their country of origin. Most will stop trying. The few that remain will be far more easily managed.

Pardon me, but that's bullshit.

Let's just take the forces we already have today. We have 1.4 Million in active duty military personnel and 850,000 reserves. Obviously we can't take every single one, so let's take half: 1.1 Million people. Now stick them on a 3-man rotation minus 1/3 for duty rotations and leave and spread them out across the 1,954 mile border with Mexico. That puts 125 people plus their equipment per mile of border, plus all their R&D budget going into technologies to increase protection. Those personnel aren't just idle all day; they're building fences, digging trenches, laying sensor grids, and basically doing all the stuff that completely shut down the San Diego zone for crossings and they're doing it 24/7/365 at 125 per mile or one person every 14 yards.

I think that's all way overboard for what we'd need to actually secure (~99% reduction in successful unauthorized crossings) that border, but in any event, don't try to say it's impossible to do. Say we lack the political will. Say we choose not to do it. Say we just aren't interested enough in the problem to do what's necessary to solve it. But don't say it's impossible; that's absurd. I'm not even getting terribly creative here; just sticking boots on the ground and a whole lot more boots than we'd ever actually need at that.

Linking Drought and Los Angeles: Easy To Do

Northern California sends most of their water south to Los Angeles so that they can grow water intensive crops like walnuts, rice, avocados, etc., when other crops would take hugely less water (but not be as profitable). Sadly, agribusiness pays a deeply discounted price than the rest of us, so we're effectively subsidizing their shrinking water bills with our ballooning ones.

If Los Angeles would just *catch* their run-off, instead of dumping it into the ocean using their huge drainage system you tend to see in Terminator movie car chases, and walked down at the end of Buckaroo Banzai, they wouldn't need to take all the water from Northern California, or most of the water from the Colorado river.

How much of the recent torrential rains in California that happened to land in the Los Angeles area do you think ended up in storage systems, vs. the ocean? I'll give you a hint: not a lot.

The human don't have to bother with smashed jars of pickles...

"Smithers! Release the Roomba!" "Yes, Mr. Burns head."