Well, that would be the point. Things like driving a car and performing surgery need both (a) computing capability and (b) a real-world interface. It would seem that taking a pinball machine, a handful of linear motors, a camera, and some compute power would be a much, much more useful real-world learning exercise.

When playing an electronic game, the exact same input will produce the exact same result; but on a mechanical pinball game, there will always be a slight variation - which makes the whole thing far more realistic.

There is really no way you're going to get the people you want based on perks, salary, benefits, and the like.

However: virtually every company has some insufferable ***holes on staff, either in engineering, or management, or both. If you're lucky, you get to meet one during your interview process, and strike that company from your list. In other cases you think you're golden - only to meet the offending employee(s) during your first week or two. Then you have to restart the whole job search thing once again.

I'm not saying that everyone needs to be perfect. Everyone is a jerk once in a while; but the fewer loud, arrogant, sexist/homophobic/prejudiced/intolerant people on staff, the happer everyone will be. If I'm going to spend 10 hours a day with people, then they should be people I'd choose to hang out with anyway, not people I'd avoid.

The VFX industry has for most of the last 30 years been reliant on Macs and Windows machines for video editing

You seem to have skipped SGI hardware, and software like Discreet Flame/Fire, which defined both video and film editing for a decade.

So commissions are $50/$481 = about 10%. In other words, a fairly minor factor; you can usually save that by switching companies. Sure, it would be nice to chop 10% off your bill; but that is hardly a "major disruption". Even a caveman can chop 15% off your bill; who needs technology?

Most major carriers are moving towards online services already. If Google enters the market, their efforts can quickly be matched, leaving no net advantage for Google.

Not until RMS quits.

Uh.... the software wasn't the magic. Unless you plan on putting 1000 TV antennas on your roof and building a server farm in your living room, the software isn't going to be of much use.

But yes, Aereo is to be commended for something *truly* innovative and useful.

Take the deal, and contribute the money you save to an organization that fights the monopolies. Mine goes to the ACLU.

If Google really wanted to help out, they would scan their database to find your blog/twitter/facebook/etc. postings about your family; then they could make much more useful suggestions, like "Hey, Uncle Norm is a real pain - why don't you relax and stay at home this Thanksgiving?"

Dear Sir,

I am both amused and frustrated that you do not consider mechanical computational devices to be 'computers'.

Charles Babbage

Isn't an atomic bomb just a very, very simple robot?

while (altitude() > TARGET_ALTITUDE)
        sleep(1);
explode();

And yes, it is impossible to determine if that algorithm will ever terminate.

Once we get to the point of building and testing killer robots, I predict that engineering management is going to be a LOT more polite than they are today.

Of course there's a human solution. My cousin Tony, from over there in East Jersey, he'll fix your problem right up with one visit. Your business, hey, it just needs a little protection.

So then *you* help them out.

I'm a OpenGL/Linux/kernel/lib developer, and there is no way on God's green earth that I will contribute anything to Gnome.

So, basically you welcome viruses and malware, but fix up the damage afterwards?

Sounds like the anti-vaccine crowd. In reality, it is far better to vaccinate and never get sick, than it is to self-repair after you get a virus.

AT&T *claims* to have stopped using internal tracking codes.

Whether or not you believe one of the top 3 most evil corporations on the planet is up to you.