Let me guess, Mr. O'Reilly: $70 programming books as the norm.

I agree. The sample is self-selecting, because by and large the only people using it are the ones who fully understand why using it in certain cases is not only not harmful but actually maybe even better. How about we tell CS students to use it whenever they feel like, but just be careful; we then wait, say, 10 years or so and run the study a second time?

My guess is the conclusion that time around would be: Goto responsible for the fall of Western Civilization.

The term you're looking for is good judgment

Big business is in thrall to the MBA's and their "scientific" management. If something can be measured, it's legit; if something can't be, it isn't. The thing is though is that, at any point in time and given any development in statistical research methods, some things are going to be more easily measured than others. If you have a business culture that believes you're clear-eyed and sensible when looking at numbers, but wishy-washy and "unscientific" when going by experience and gut feelings -- and, even worse, if you have a similar investor culture financing the whole thing -- you will run into trouble.

It's the numbers guys firing people with experience (and the judgment that comes with it), and replacing them with spanking brand new rock stars, or foreigners with well-crafted resumes. Add up the columns, contact human resources, collect your bonus check. If it all goes wrong several years down the road, you'll be working somewhere else anyway. That's the business model we're all suffering under.

They do. They work themselves into an early grave, commuting two hours each way to earn the big bucks. I don't know what the exact percentage is, given a husband, wife, and two-child family, but you can bet that what I've just described is heavily skewed male.

This is the thing. The drunks on the road causing problems are generally alcoholics who have several drinks, shoot their blood-alcohol level way up, and then get behind the wheel. They do this on a regular basis. The vast majority of accidents and fatal accidents are caused by people driving with a BAL of 1.5 or above, and yet our neo-Puritian attitudes demonize people with levels half that. Enforcement doesn't fit the crime.

If we were serious about drunk driving, we'd go after the problem drinkers. But drunk driving enforcement is more about revenue than anything else. The courts, the lawyers, the social workers, and now the interlock device manufacturers are all in on it.

Would only that the Muslim world advance to the 18th century—never mind the 21st!—that would be a huge improvement.

What you're saying then is that there is nothing more popular than code written in a bad, mongrel version of C.

I am far from being an expert on encryption, but the danger is not that PGP will be broken; it's that there are weaknesses in the entire "ecosystem" that allow for side-channel attacks. That's part of what that NSA paper, linked to in the article, is discussing. If there is something that can be exploited in the user's operating system or in the hardware, then that becomes the weak link in the chain.

Then, there is the whole issue that you touch on: namely, the caveat of encryption's efficacy "if used right." The same is true of condoms and even oral contraceptives. Sadly, human beings are very bad at scrupulously adhering to the injunction to "use as directed."

Seriously! Is an alarm going to go off if I'm checking out the cleavage of the young lady behind the counter? I'll take my pervert money elsewhere!

The people running the polls where I voted all seemed like nice people, but I doubt there was even one of them who can program a VCR.

The real problem is that the actions of people, in some circumstances, are considered beyond good and evil, and all the silly hypothetical situations in the world doesn't begin to capture this. In the heat of the moment, with only seconds to decide, people can't be relied on to make a choice that conforms to some explicit moral code. On account of that, when faced with passing judgement on the actions of people in emergency situations, we don't pass judgement; rather, we forgive them.

Robots, however, are programmed, and "split seconds" don't mean the same thing to robots that they do to us. Thus, there is no way around what they're going to do. They will be programmed to do one thing or another, and someone is going to have make the bad decision—since, in many cases, there are no good decisions to be made. And that poor bastard may have to program the machine anonymously, because what he will get is not forgiveness but, "What were you thinking!"

They're doing it to spy on people.

Patents have a limited span, no? When the patent runs out, it's anybody's game. So, what's the problem?

Seriously. A friend of mine had his ex-wife (they're on good terms) send him a picture of their daughter, who was something like 4 at the time. The girl was riding a toy horse, and but for a cowboy hat was buck naked. The ex thought it was cute; my friend was upset that she would encourage things like that. I told him to get that picture the fuck off his phone before he gets pulled over (he had a lead foot and a weed habit), arrested, and the cops find a photo like that on his phone. He saw the wisdom in that right away.

You can't be too careful. There are cops and attorneys at the D.A.'s office who like nothing better than to put the screws to people, at the smallest provocation; and in this "zero tolerance" world, you're guilty until you prove yourself innocent.