Schneier suggests that actually they have, and that media is mis-reporting the results:

It's worth reading these results in detail. Overall, these numbers are consistent with a worldwide survey from December. The press is spinning this as "Most Americans' behavior unchanged after Snowden revelations, study finds," but I see something very different. I see a sizable percentage of Americans not only concerned about government surveillance, but actively doing something about it. "Third of Americans shield data from government." Edward Snowden's goal was to start a national dialog about government surveillance, and these surveys show that he has succeeded in doing exactly that.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the lack of action is your fault, not Rand Paul's. He's more than done his part. He's offered a rallying point for anyone who cares about the issue, and he's elucidated in the most detailed way possible just what the hazards are. He's actually stopped the machine for a moment, and all you can manage is to diss him for too little, too late?

Look, I don't even like the guy. He stands for a lot of things that I fundamentally oppose. But I respect him. At least he is willing to do politics using the machine the way it was designed, rather than breaking it further—which is what the rest of the right-wing establishment seems to want to do.

Rand Paul is someone I feel I could reason with on most matters. I can't say that of most other politicians. And the fact that you're damning him with faint praise is actually enabling the others and contributing to the sense of futility that pervades so much of modern political discourse today.

Nobody here is going to get that, and tragically and alas, I am without mod points at this moment. But take comfort in the knowledge, sjames, that somewhere on the internet, someone LOLed.

Also, Mojolicious.

Oh - and Mojolicious.

Okay, seriously: Mojolicious is an excellent and fast way to jump from legacy Perl to modern, rapid turn-around, DevOpsy kinds of web work. I've written a fairly non-trivial web service in it, and it's everything a (Perl) guy could want. The documentation is a little opaque; the authors assumes too much knowledge about the approaches he's taking, but once you learn his... uh.. dialect, I guess.... Once you get the way he expresses stuff, it's pretty easy to do non-trivial work with it.

Also, learn CouchDB or similar, because NoSQL and regexes can do wonderful things together when you're dealing with large amounts of heterogeneous data. And just because some new things are actually worth it, start learning NodeJS and Angular (or similar), because they incorporate some very cool—and accessible—new approaches to things that will appeal to a dyed-in-the-wool PerlMonger.

Me? I'm a 51 year old ex-Web guy who just recently decided to move on to entirely new things after facing a similar dilemma, so pardon my hypocrisy. If I were to stay in software, that's what I'd be doing. :-)

The Tata Nano is a fine car for someplace where life is cheap. You'd die if you tried to drive that car on an American highway. It's got no good crash resistance and not enough horsepower to operate safely in highway traffic.

For western markets, Tata offers the Jaguar product line. Considerably more expensive, but also less likely to get you killed.

My truck was actually new from the dealership. It's pretty feature-free, mostly because I really wanted a manual transmission, and they don't include features and manual transmissions in the same truck at the same time.

I've spoken with automotive engineers about the problems with the built in equipment. They pointed out that their updating and data mechanisms need to work in places that aren't well connected. Because while most tech people live in places with good over the air data accessibility, most car owners don't. Large portions of the population live in rural areas where there is no good mobile data coverage, and the cars still need to work well there.

So we'll always be better off using our smart phones, which update regularly, as opposed to depending on a built in system, which has to work well even when it can't count on regularly getting data and updates.

The thing that's important about a car isn't the in car entertainment system. It's the wheels and the engine and the bits in between that let me get to where I need to go. I need that to last a decade or more. I need it to be a good match for the way I drive. The in car computer system? Don't care. My current ride doesn't even have much of a driver facing interface, other than some indicator lights. My in car entertainment system consists of a radio and whoever is in the passenger seat. Navigation comes from my smart phone. I upgrade the smart phone every couple of years, which expands capacity.

Have you seen most engineers? I mean, the odds are good, but the goods are odd.

This feature has existed for a very long time now. Microsoft Access has done exactly what you're looking for since the 90s. If you're happy just using Access apps, this should be fine for you. The flip side is that GUI designers are slower than writing code for most experienced developers. While you're wrestling Qt Designer, I'll be in the code editor manipulating the screen much more quickly.

Also, most non trivial apps will require specialized behavior at various points. That means writing code. Visual models don't work well for that. The code is easier to modify and to maintain, because it allows direct manipulation of the logic symbols, rather than manipulating an abstraction of the logic.

Seriously, we covered all of this ground in the 90s. A lot of money and programmer time was put into trying to make your vision a reality. We gave it up as a bad idea.

Learn to ride a horse? Stop trying to date her, since she's clearly not interested?

My money is on learning to ride a horse. Not to date her, she's in the past. But you might wind up a lot happier with the bond you form with your horse. And the happier you might meet a nice woman who also likes horses.

And yet, here I am in a building full of engineers, most of whom are married. Possibly your theory has holes.

So no, then. You're viewing women as just a status symbol to impress other guys. Totally not going to help your love life.

Pure gold.

All the poor woe is me, women are horrible crap I see is just sad and pathetic. Have you actually tried talking to women like they were people? Not a goal to be achieved or a trophy, but actual people with interests and feelings and goals of their own? I know this is a radical thought, but it works. Or at least, it worked for me: my wife of twelve years was the busty cheerleader in school.