Not all of their emotions are faked. The disinterest and disgust... the ennui of having to hear the same jokes and clumsily flirtatious lines. Boredom.

The humor at your excuses when you fail to perform. The humor and disdain as you fall for their "passionate" SFX.

I don't know if a robot could replicate all of that.

Can they make Compaq's reverse engineering of IBM's BIOS illegal retroactively, and take back much of the PC revolution?

Sovereign debt denominated in a country's own fiat currency (the US situation) is VERY different from sovereign debt denominated in some other currency (the Greek situation).

Why would anybody play a game where you're required to spend time playing it just for the sake of playing it? Where you're building up the skill level of your character rather than yourself?

Umm... Same principle. Females are not taking as many courses in programming, therefore there are not as many of them to hire. Once the gender quota is reached then the market may have twice as many domestic programmers as they have currently. It won't actually work out that way due to price signalling causing people to change jobs or avoid the discipline altogether.

At the end, they reach the same outcome. More laborers equate to lower wages for all.

I'm never afraid to compete, I've always been at the top of whatever I do and competition just makes this stuff more fun. However, for people that are not obsessed with their jobs, and performance of such, this will suck. Over time, the industry will likely calcify as people with less patience for mediocre programmers influencing the flow of creativity in a project find other ways to fill the void. This will likely change the methods of development and delivery.

Whatever the case... The H1B bullshit is about lying motherfuckers. It has nothing to do with fear of competition, it's about playing fair and by the rules. If the rules need to be changed, let the Congress critters voice those concerns and reap the rewards.

There's got to be some test I can run on my VMs to see whether or not I'm vulnerable, right?

Actually, that's funny. For instance, I happen to have moved (recently) to a predominantly white suburb that boasts a very large and well rated school system.

The schools in urban baltimore spend almost twice as much per student. Adjusting for cost of living/doing business this would still leave a considerable +55% buffer on expenses. Given that the school near us boasts 15 languages with 4 yr programs and a football stadium larger than most universities, I am baffled as to what the BWI schools are spending their money on.

1. Meals?
2. Material costs due to vandalism?
3. Security procedures due to higher studentstudent violence rates?

After reading the budget and balance sheets, one of the significant differences that I noticed were property taxes... I don't have time to calculate the percentage affecting each student, but it seems ironic to find that the schools themselves are victim to the same pressures that spur some households and businesses to relocate outside the city.

GWB is about as poor an example of a sociopath as you can muster. There are quite a few documented cases of impromptu empathy.

You can hate the machine, you can hate the politics, but don't hate the person. It narrows your mind and cheapens your thoughts.

Bill Clinton is a little closer (as in harder to find impromptu, unexpected empathetic responses), but that's because he polished himself up earlier and better.

Yes, I realize it's a spectrum. I also realize that there are jobs where you are required to shed empathy in the role, or at least a large portion of it. Any job where you hold fiduciary responsibility, for instance, as it may be proven that you didn't act in the best interests of the stakeholders and might be held liable. At that point, you have to ask "What is the exposure?" of a decision.

Another excellent example, military leaders: The reduce their feelings to win tactically, or strategically... but I've known a lot of battle tested Marines, none of whom was a sociopath. In fact, when the boots and utes come off... I swear to god you couldn't find a bigger bunch of shit talking softies....

Did you read the article?

Done; see above

It was ReliableSite.net. I tried to name them earlier but was too subtle. :-)

I was only out a month's worth, fortunately.

Oh I should also point out that they didn't use HTTPS for anything. Logging in to your account and everything was entirely HTTP. "Reliable Site" my ass...

Last year I signed up for a dedicated server, and discovered that the provider's VPN server and their control panel server had Windows file sharing and remote desktop ports open to the world! And they wouldn't give me a refund. Losses cut and lesson learned...

shh

Many films have intermissions in them, even on the DVD. Just off the top of my head, trying to get a good range of eras: Gone with the Wind (1939), Camelot (1967), Hamlet (1996).