My understanding is that main point of Wayland is not to be a X server.

Apart from necessary technical knowledge, there is one more reason: most radical social movements has often started on technical universities.

Reason for this is simple. Technically oriented people tend to underestimate how society works, and believe that it is possible to change it easily. This attitude was also seen in XIX century, when mathematicians tried to apply mathematics rules to social problems. It should mention that this never worked. Not because mathematics is wrong, but society is simply too complex to be modeled that way. (Or, it could be modeled mathematically, but results would not be spectacular.)

Or to say it in other words: you have an intelligent but socially incompetent person, who believes that everything is easy to fix (hey, there was no WinXP that he could not attach a SATAII disk to!). He is highly dedicated, he believes that his position in society won't be appreciated as it should, and he believes that one bomb could actually solve something. Doesn't this sound like a good candidate for a terrorist?

This is a term from telecommunication theory. For each type of modulation (AM, FM...) you have carrier and signal which is embedded into the carrier. IIRC (it was 1997 when I attended telecommunication course), efficiency is defined as a power of the signal compared to the power of the carrier. In AM it is like 0.5% (!) which is why they have so powerful transmitters (up to 1MW, IIRC). FM is much better in that regard.

I would dare to say that PHP competes just fine, just for example.

Scrum has one good point - show your code to your customer often and apply his comments. But that works only for GUI or web. I cannot imagine that in, say, medical software. For instance, one of my colleagues had to optimize crucial piece of code (some heavy math for CAT scanner). It took him several months. Only thing he could say to the customer was like "it is now two times faster" or "it is now 3.45 times faster". Not something you can really get some useful feedback on.

In another company, we were supposed to do a project for GE, and there was some serious GUI there, but their office was some several thousands miles from us and I really didn't know how we would make regular meetings with them as Scrum required. Also, they had some very elaborate specs and they did not see too much point of Scrum methodology. In some other situation, that project would be a perfect one for Scrum.

PS One thing I don't like with Agile evangelists is that Agile (Scrum in this case) is always right. It's either "what are you doing is not Scrum" or "you did not adapt Scrum to your needs", but its never the problem in Scrum.

In Korea, only old people use conventional weapons.

I have a cousin in USA, and last time we talked, she told me that she and her husband pay 120USD per month (total) and they get nice mobile phones and awesome Internet. She compared that to Serbia where she considered mobile rates to be extremely high, since we pay everything by usage. In the worst case, we pay about 0.05 per SMS (only sent one, receiving is free); we pay about 0.20USD per minute of call (receiving call is free); Internet can go up to 0.60USD per MB. But with some extra "packet add-ons" you can lower your SMS price to 0.01USD, calls to 0.01USD for certain numbers and you can get Internet for 0.02USD per MB. And everything is still without any contract, just via buying some coupons on the kiosk (or on ATM, or in bank, post office, via Intenet...).

In my point of view, this is actually a better deal than 60USDx24 months to get a telephone which I can buy for 300USD (and you can always buy it on credit card if you don't have enough cash). Even with worst case scenario here, it would take me quite a calls and SMSs to make bill worth of 24x60-300 = 1140 USD.

Is there a way to get pre-paid number in USA and how much they charge per minute and SMS? Can you buy decent DCMA telephone without contract?

Ashton refers to the other co-founder Lashlee, but marketing decided that Ashton sounds better. That's what I've read somewhere years ago, but Wikipedia does not confirm that Ashton is actually derived from Lashlee.

I've read TFA and I still don't get the point. Author says that Americans believe that technological advancement will solve problems instead of social advancement. I think that he does not understand that all major social movements were driven by technological progress, or at least they were made possible by it.

For instance, state as we know it is only possible in a society where high-speed communication is possible. It is not a coincidence that old feudal regimes where overthrown at the same time when technological revolution was in progress. And this is nothing new, and it was elaborated by Carl Marx in great details (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism) more than a century ago. (Yeah, Marx is considered to be wrong, but not in that part.)

In a part where author describes how we have traded one problem for another, only I could say is "rubbish". If he does not think that car is better than horse carriage, I would say that other 6bln ppl believe in the opposite.

If you can afford it, go for masters.

Let's compare yourself to someone of your age and education but without a masters degree.

In two years, he is in great advantage (you have 0 experience, he has 2yrs). Two years later, he is still in the advantage (masters + 2yrs against 4 years). At this moment he is, unlike you, a candidate for getting a promotion etc.

But in a moment when you get ~4 yrs of experience, i.e. where you have to compare his 6yrs against your 4yrs of experience, his advantage is not that big. Four years later, 8yrs vs. 10yrs of experience does not make any difference. But your degree will remain an advantage.

Assuming that you'll work in IT for more than 2 years, I would say that your master will be an advantage for longer period that his 2yrs of more experience will be the advantage for him.

And as something possible in CS/IT, you can get some real-life experience during your masters course, which means that in practice you will have 2yrs spent on masters with some experience, and he will get only the experience.

Also, on a plus side for you, the larger company becomes, it takes more into account formal training. So if one day you want to work in some large system, it's better to have higher qualifications. In this moment you may not want that, but do you know where would you like to work in, say, 15-20 years?

And it was never popular in Europe.

In Serbia, our fixed line monopolist Telekom does not offer voice mail. On the other side, all of our mobile providers do offer voice mail, and they offer it for 8 years, and still no one uses it.

Somewhat similar to this, mobile providers send you a SMS with a list of missed calls (time + number) so if you have turned your mobile off, you'll get the list as soon as you turn your phone on.

Also if you cannot get someone on his mobile, you can send him a SMS, and it will be delivered once he gets reachable again.

This won't do any help in fighting terrorism. Instead, it will allow an easy route to blackmail people. Like, we will present some evidence about your infidelity to your wife if you don't cooperate with us.

Yes, secret agencies were able to do that even before, but now, when such logging becomes mandatory, even telco technician will be able to get the history of your communications.

FSF, EFL and other organizations should do everything to develop and promote technical solutions that would render this logging useless. We should start using encryption even for most trivial tasks.

Start Google Earth, go to the ocean west of the Ireland, and you will see even larger "Atlantis".

I still don't understand how this kind of monitoring does any help in running the company?

If you want to sell confidential data to your company's competitor, it is very likely that you'll do it via your home internet account. Does it mean that Nokia should be able to read your private mail too?

It is some strange trend that companies become so paranoid. Treating employees like traitors will not help them in any way. Those who want to hurt the company will find the way to do it anyhow. For instance, good way to hurt your company is to ruin its public image by breaking laws and lobbying for ridiculous legislations.