Dogs are genetically disposed to imprint on their owners. Imagine a dog that really does understand human language... complete with grammar. Lassie, sort my mail then bring me bills and magazines.

Translation: Yaay, I can help! Wait. Nooo! Dammit, I can't sort mail, I have no opposable thumbs! That thoughtless bastard, giving me physically impossible orders! I'm gonna crap in his slippers!

Whereas we smart adaptable warlike dishonest (feigned surrender, guerrilla warfare, etc.) monkeys whack together an Orion-drive space battleship right under the aliens' bifurcated trunks and play a game of hard-ball orbital chicken with the aliens' irreplaceable (and full of all their families) mothership.

I constantly waver between loving how cool that book is and hating how cornball it is.

Maybe that's the lesson the aliens need to be aware of: humanity are right bastards when at war; there's almost nothing we won't do to avoid losing, or to make you pay if we can't avoid losing.

"Coming to terms with variance" == "learning to accept that the RNG Gods hate you"

I'd argue the ideal hacker is multi-disciplinary. Certainly, a lot of the computer hacker (good kind, not media kind) culture comes out of electronics hacking (amateur radio, the world famous MIT Tech Model Railroad Club, etc.). Some computer hackers are fair mechanics as well, because grokking your car or motorcycle or other complicated mechanical conveyance is cool.

Makerspaces obviously make some accommodation to soft hacking, like software development or network stuff. You just don't need big obvious tools like drill presses or 3d printers to do that.

I find "maker" pretty appropriate, although it lacks consideration of the "unmaker" kind of hacking: taking something apart that someone else made for the purposes of understanding it. Maybe remake it to your liking, maybe just drop the parts in the reuse bin.

I wish we didn't have to back away from "hacker" because of all the damn stupid barbarians with their damn stupid swords co-opting the word.

Sure.

1) A robot may not injure profits or, through inaction, allow profits to come to harm.
2) A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Or you may be overestimating how much your students will retain and recall in 2-3 years. :)

BTW: "they have to used mods to decrypt"? What is "mods" in this context? Perl modules? Modulus maths? Bored London teenagers dropping amphetamines and racing scooters from cafe to cafe?

Title asks "Ask Slashdot: What Portion of Developers Are Bad At What They Do?"

Title actually means "Ask Slashdot: What Portion of Developers Are Bad At What I Do?"

If a functional understanding of a fairly specialized technological area is what you have in mind, don't assume it's widespread.

That's like getting bent out of shape if the local mechanic (fully trained and certified, even) doesn't know the detailed intricacies of ECM programming.

If you want a broadly expert Renaissance Engineer, I hope you're prepared to pay more than the usual one-trick-monkey pay. You're not talking about an engineer, there. Something more like Chief Engineer or Chief Scientist.

Considerably greater OTH range? Plus completely killer direct-fire kinetic energies, which is actually applicable to another kind of target: anti-air.

And no gunpower or other chemical propellants, which means your warship's warload is all projectile, no propellant (higher fraction of carried mass on-target).

But other than those, yeah, no advantage whatsoever.

Replying to myself because I couldn't be troubled to read my google search returns before hitting "Submit" on my last comment.

The Distribution Center is toast.

I still have fond memories of the Radio-Shack-that-was, and that place is a part of them. "4 cubic feet of random parts for $25? I'll take 4!"

Brand new TEAC FD-55 360k floppy disk drives (originally intended for Tandy 1000 family systems)? Worked great with my TRS-80 and my old CP/M system, and a steal at $20 each.

Radio Shack used to have a huge distribution center and "outlet store" in the Hagerstown, MD area where I was living about 20 years ago. I'd pick up all kinds of out-of-date stuff they must have gathered from back store rooms of Radio Shacks across the country.

I guess the distribution center is still there. I wonder if they'll turn it into the Mother of All Clearance Centers?

I dunno. They don't like hiring induhviduals. And who can blame them? But that means that most slashdotters wouldn't make the grade.

OTOH, we long-time members of DNRC are shoo-ins.

When I saw this snippet in TFS:

It's possible some of those former GTAT employees might help construct the new command center.

I actually thought "just like a conquering nation making their new prisoners build their own prisons."

News Flash: ESA and NASA fly similar Earth-observation missions ALL THE TIME.

Odds are good, if NASA is doing it, so is ESA. And they collaborate on mission plans, and share data.

Earth observation is one area of very good international cooperation. Since, after all, it's just one Earth.

No such luck. There are some things so vile that not even a grue would eat them. Comcast is #1 on that list.

We can hope they fall into a pit.