Check out this movie:

http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie...

Gives an interesting inside look at Markerbot and its main competition at the time.

Try a human trafficking shop.. they seem to specialize in this field.. (he might miss school though)

Try code.org

fun angry birds programming game

They can't afford TAs because they're busy building rec centers with tuition money... priorities!

In many organizations the App is not king. The database is.

For such organizations using an in-memory database is usually frowned upon. SQL is king of the hill.

"Recently an opensource game release story was removed due to the game developer's open sexism(0) and harrasment(1) of women in tech."

I think its one thing to voice an opinion.... quite another to harass.. Harassment can be a crime.

"Most of the people in India agree with him, including women."

Get off your high horse dude.
The US has its own rape culture. Its called "fraternities" that promote misogyny and even rape quite effectively.

Rape is an old problem which some cultures struggle with more than others.. but don't pretend that it is only an "India" problem. Have you seen those blue lights in college campuses lately? (Hint: its to protect the women from US-home-grown rapists!)

"Other energy sources would be vastly more costly if their waste products weren't already grandfathered in to the public mindset and their true impacts to safety and environmental impact "

This is actually a very insightful point. Imagine how costly coal would be if its numerous environmental costs were included in calculations (as they are done in nuclear).

According to this talk

http://blogs.technet.com/b/cdn...

By Steve McConnell who presumably has no skin in the game, Oregon's website was extremely poorly managed. Including using bad coding practices, staff that didn't have proper training and several other problems. McConnell just wonders how anybody could think that the project could work in the first place.

(the talk is very interesting by the way)

So if McConnell is correct in his appraisal of the situation, Oracle is just trying to get itself out of a lawsuit for a grand screw up caused by their own poor judgement.

(ok.. I'll bite)

Sorry, but "true" programmers don't use PHP. ;)

I don't know about great programmers.. but I've found some great qualities in coworkers who seemed great to me throughout the years:

1. Nice people: People who get along well with others and through their good qualities make everyone better. Not only can they write awesome code, but since everybody likes them they can get the knowledge they need to do it right. This is probably the quality I admired most in the GREAT programmers I've met.
2. Deceptively simple designs: I've met coworkers that can design things so simply yet so solidly that their designs last forever
3. Clean code: the write code that everyone understands.
4. Innovative: they are always finding ways to make the project better
5. Broad range: they always have a new trick in their bag. They always know about this tool or that that makes things better, or this library or framework.
6. Attention to detail: they are patient enough to write unit tests and go through the quality steps needed to guarantee good functioning of the code.

what the flock are you talking about?

While I agree that this is an opportunity for politicians to discredit Greenpeace.. its not an issue of ENVIRONMENTAL damage.. its an issue of preserving National and World Heritage. The government of Peru is not worried about plants and animals in this case.. it is worried about keeping these ancient grounds for future generations.

What they did is the equivalent of pissing on the Mona Lisa.

Look, I know a lot of people with CS degrees that write garbage code... also lots of people w/o CS degrees that write brilliant code.
I also know people in a leading CS Master's degree program that can barely program.

So I don't think it is easy to judge.

Sounds like you're working in the wrong industry. Go work for a Software company.. they appreciate a good engineer.