If i was hiring, I would probably discriminate as well. Yes, I know that people fresh out of college or with a few years under their belt might know some new technologies (probably not. Colleges usually lag technology), and might be willing to work long hours, but I know that somebody who is 40+ and has been working most of those years in the technical industry has already made many of the mistakes that a young person has yet to make and has figured out how to do things right and how to write code efficiently and using the proper tool and not the latest wizbang tool that isn't quite right for the job but looks great on a resume and everybody is constantly blathering about on the internet.
So yes, I would tend to discriminate in favor of the experienced individual, even though they are probably more expensive and won't work as many hours, I know I will get an overall better product out of them and in a shorter time frame.

Next hardware rev they'll remove the port, or worse, just slightly change the configuration of pins and size.

True enough- IF you can prove it was a murder and not an accident.
 
Can you prove intent with global climate change? If you ignore the utterly non-scientific process of "scientific consensus", do you even have enough data left to prove the murder weapon?
 
And in the long run, does it matter? We're still left with the decision to either adapt or die; we're far too late for any mitigation attempt to work. Blame the culprit is a waste of time in this case.

Period.

Same thing goes for GPS tracking.

I'm in total agreement with you. If Uber wants to claim to be a technology company then I am all about that. Just stop transporting people. Develop your smartphone app and your scheduling system and sell it to Yellow Cab, ABC Limo, whoever. Let the transportation companies deal with the regulations. It is what they have been doing for 100 years.

From a population perspective maybe. From a geographical area that she was responsible for, it would be like being governor of about 1/3 of the states in the country. Population is not the only determination of how difficult it is to govern. Alaska deals with huge geographic area, climate, large numbers of small remote locations requiring infrastructure, political hotspots due to oil reserves, proximity to occasionally unfriendly nations and a host of other problems that the typical state government doesn't have to deal with.

Being in debt is not so bad if you are making more money from the borrowed money than your debt service is costing you. The reason debt became an evil word is because most Americans use debt to buy things that they can't afford to buy outright and that decrease in value. Debt used to buy a house is not evil debt (although it hasn't paid off well in the last 10 years or so.) Debt used to pay for a vacation because you can't afford the vacation without making payments on it, is bad debt. Debt used to buy a car is bad debt unless you already had the money to pay cash for it and chose to invest that money in something that earns you more than the car loan interest rate.

In what way is insuring a fair and free market collectivism?

Species that are unable to adapt have been going extinct without mankind's help for 9/10ths of the planet's history. For the remaining 1/10th, we've been a major motivator of evolution, that's true- Dodos and wooly mammoths and the like. But we are also to the point with GMO research that we can be a major cause of increased adaptation- we can speed up evolution, and likely will, because beef is tasty (among many other species that are directly useful to us, such as bees). Speaking of that last, just saw a report on OPB about a pair of beekeepers with a unique solution to colony collapse disorder- they're breeding stronger queen bees that can live through Oregon winters.

If mankind wants to survive, food needs to be our top priority. Luckily, as I mentioned someplace above I think, food production is also an answer to excess atmospheric carbon. Especially if we keep locking our own carbon up in airtight containers buried in concrete when we die.

Not to mention, if they do lobby and manage to get the law changed such that they don't have to have insurance or be registered or have medallions, the same law would apply to the other transportation companies, so Uber STILL wouldn't have any advantage. They talk about being a tech company, but I don't see where they have any more tech than any other company. They have a mobile phone app and a scheduling system. Color me unimpressed. Plenty of other transportation companies have those as well and ALSO have insurance and the proper certifications.

Tesla must have some big bucks to fund four stories in only a week on the new Tesla Household battery,

And the poster was also Korean, as was the original V. Tech shooter. Yup, looks like something that should be taken seriously.

I don't use IE or linux. Not sure where you get that information.
Yes, AVG has a free version (and a paid version) and that is all well and good, but just because it is free doesn't mean it should be allowed to clandestinely or deceptively install other software on my computer. As there are other similarly priced alternatives that do not install unwanted software on my computer, I installed the other software instead.

And a menu bar on the top, please.

I just tested this on my system and it didn't work. I backed off from the display about 5 feet and the font did not change at all.