I have a gun, thank you for stocking up for me.

It is useless at this point even if it had no false positives. It can only 'predict' earthquakes with an error margin of days. Any seasoned geologist can do that these days, we've known about earthquake predictors for quite some time and given the measurements, you can predict an impending earthquake quite successfully. The problem is what to do with the data. We can't "fix" earthquakes or stop them before they happen. If you predict an earthquake in San Fransisco or Tokyo that may happen in the next 30 days give or take 10 days, how are you going to evacuate that city for a month?

Even if you simply warn people, you are going to incite panic, riots and looting. And the first time it doesn't quite predict it right on the money, people will lose their trust in the system even though it is scientific and a statistically significant prediction. Or it will be used for someone's financial gain.

The only thing we can do about earthquakes is move people away permanently from earthquake zones. The problem is that people like to live in earthquake zones because it's cheap and earthquakes are generally (with the right construction methods etc) not that bad.

I faxed a copy. Nothing anyone can't generate online/fake.

Doesn't mean he can't. Plugins can be licensed differently than the main software (eg. nVidia drivers in the Linux kernel).

Copyright may belong to the company but does not mean the license can be assigned an open license or even become public domain. Where in the world do you work that all companies are vehemently against licensing their work openly.

The company may own it, but if it's licensed openly, depending on the license, he may be able to take it and work on it later in a private setting.

All software I develop, even for companies is licensed under GPL and published in public. I have contracts that describe that my work is done as such and I alter any form contracts that specify otherwise. I so far have not had a whole lot of pushback on the issue after I describe the benefits to the ones in charge (the biggest benefit for them being that I as a company/contractor/developer do not close the software I make for them and they are thus free to find another developer).

Depending on your position and relationship with your employer and their understanding of the ramifications, you may be able to convince them.

Copyright holders can't change the license retroactively in most open licenses. Once it's distributed/sold, the license prevails over the whims of a holder.

I have. If you develop, with the consent of your boss, open sourced software, your boss can't retroactively change the license once it has been distributed. I do not sign non-compete nor IP contracts and develop GPL under my name by contract.

If you're entitled (by contract) they can't change the terms. The issue with staying is that you hit the job market at the same time as your ex co-workers giving you less of a chance for a good negotiation.

All this talk about where you work and contracts is irrelevant if the code is licensed to be freely shared and modified. Make sure your company understands the benefits of open source, then have them allow you to develop under said license. When you decide to incorporate under a different entity, you can resell the open source code using your private resources.

No it's not. There are second rate citizens all over the world, refugees in Europe for example or Tibetans in China.

Although poverty has some influence on 'petty' criminality such as theft and drug use, education levels and religion are the main correlation in assault and rape crimes.

Given that in urban US there are many that are anti-education and pro-religion, the cycle will repeat itself.

Why in the hell would anyone train their replacement though? If you see your job forcibly being taken over by someone else, I would say screw you and walk away.

I live in a 'tract' housing. I don't mind doing the work, the cost is very cheap (60k for 2500sqft vs 300k for 1500 sqft), even if you have to gut/raze the building and rebuild, that would be cheaper than a plot of open land 2 miles away.

I don't know where you live but in the US you're not allowed to just strip lead paint from walls or asbestos and trash it. You need a professional asbestos/lead abatement, permits, trash and dust handling etc.

IMHO they look better. Especially the interiors. I live in an 'old' house like that, it's very cheap to obtain but needs constant repairs and any improvements require major investment (lead and asbestos assessments, if any space renovation triggers the local code it needs to have fire sprinklers and CO/smoke detectors retrofitted).

If Amagoogsoft wants to buy it at 2 or 3 times the market rate, I'll happily sell it and buy one or two down the street (so they can do the same in a few years).

Sure it may be a bit more compact so stop driving a freaking tractor to work every day or rent out a space at a neighborhood garage lot.

You are describing idealized setups. In most cases, the people on the floor don't give a shit about what the architect has said.

The third party firewall is too expensive, I mean we already laid out millions of dollars on SAP licensing, contractors and architects, let's cut it because the Windows box it is running on has a firewall too.

Why does the portal need it's own box? We pay $100k per CPU for SAP and Windows Server licenses cost $10,000 per CPU as well, let's run it on the same box.

That thing keeps locking me out, let's stop it from doing that. We've paid millions of dollars to implement this hack, we need to be able to use it.

etc. etc.

Again, trivial to get. I never needed a photo ID to get my birth certificate, I just requested one and they mailed it to me with just a photocopy of my passport.