Oracle would do better by not mimicking Microsoft of 10 years ago, and instead simply state the REAL value of corporate software development for government use: Built-in back-doors for the NSA.

... WITHIN logical...

would be more concise :-)

Is anyone going to study what happens when you suck a bazillion joules of energy out of the the wind? Why don't we convert the entire gulf stream to energy? We don't need that pesky gulf stream that bad, do we?

We work with development partners. We use GitHub as a shared repository - works good, and separate repositories can ensure nothing goes to production without you pushing it. Manage permissions correctly to prevent them from going places you don't want them.

On the merits of outsourcing in general, in our case it makes sense. I can't make sense of your case.

I think this almost falls into the 'no shit, Sherlock' camp. I'm glad someone with credentials is finally saying it. Please pass it along to the geo-thermal guys, who seem to think that sucking energy from the inside of this planet will never have an effect. Oh, and the wave-power-generation guys need to know too - they'll be disturbing ecologies and water flow patterns for miles around - who knows how far those effects will cascade? Scale counts - oil consumption wasn't a problem until we scaled it out - the same fate awaits any terrestrial energy source we scale.

There are only two places to get energy: 1. Earth, 2. Not Earth. Given a choice, I'll choose 2.

GUI vs. Command Line. I lived through that argument in the 80's and 90's. With a GUI, syntax problems go away - IF you can figure out how to find/launch the GUI. On the command line, all commands are available in one spot, but the syntax can be challenging. We really just traded one problem for another.

But for those of us who run production shops, a GUI isn't scriptable and is therefore not testable. Command line scripts can be tested in an offline environment, emailed around, put under version control, and printed out for enjoyable bathroom reading. Who doesn't love command line scripts???

John Stewart had an author on a few weeks ago that claimed a disproportionate percentage of CEOs were sociopaths - i.e. those for whom guilt and conscience have little meaning.

Couldn't agree more. He was my science-hero when I was a kid. Besides, he threw LIGHTNING BOLTS!

99% Fi and 1% Sci does not a sci-fi make. Wake the fuck up sci-fi writers! It's the heretofore unthought-of gizmos, and the unique ways they're used to get out of mind-blowing situations (replete with explosions and such) that makes a sci-fi. The crap you guys have been writing lately (I'm looking at you, SG Universe and Caprica!) got you your commercially-viable mainstream audience, but you alienated (ha ha) us real sci-fi fans. You suck, go away. And hence forth, be known as Fi-Sci writers, correctly leading with the ratio of drivel, to cool.

I've been watching Caprica, and Stargate Universe. Both suffer from the same disease that infected BSG from the start: Tooooo much 'Fi', and not enough 'Sci'. Do we really have to sit through 57 minutes of character/story-building crap to get 3 minutes of the science-y part? Cripes, these new sci-FI's are more like soap operas than anything else - a total fucking snooze-fest. These writers better get over themselves and figure out what makes a sci-fi show cool to watch. Hint: If it could happen in a western or a soap opera, cut it from the script.

What he's saying about all these devices about to happen probably rings true for most /. readers, including me. The problem is that visionaries have been saying it for years. Legal chafing between content providers, carriers, patent holders. et. al. has slowed the roll-out of super-toys to a crawl. He who can predict how fast the lawyers will move is the true visionary.

How much heat can we suck out of the earth before we start noticing effects? When we first sipped from oil deposits we thought the supply was unlimmited - so we built billions oil-fueled cars and painted ourselves into a corner. Would someone with real credentials please stand up and say what needs to be said: Geo-thermal is a finite supply - and at some level of human consumption mining it will destabilize our planet.

I lasted 15 mins max in this game. Woke up when my head hit the keyboard.

Given that, in the majority of cases, solution #1 will be no better than 10% better than solution #2, is paying 200% worth it? What guarantee do you have that the succeeding project (of a slightly differing nature) would be better executed by the team winning the first? Life is fraught with such complications, rendering generalizations of this sort moot.