I agree. Hyperbole much. I use GPS all the time, and never look at the screen. I just listen to the voice. One reason I don't look at the screen while moving is that it doesn't seem like a safe thing to do. The other is that it's totally unnecessary

Stories like this are kind of like saying, "Pencils - are they really good for writing? Look what those junior high school kids did with their pencils !!!!!! Can they possibly be any good for anything?"

Sheesh

This reminds me ever so much of the *great* grammar checker in the old Microsoft Word. So now not only do they want to homogenize English writing styles, they also want to extract all the humanity from social interaction. So glad I'm retired at this point.

Most shopping malls I know prohibit any picture-taking inside, let alone something to be broadcast to the webiverse.

On the other hand, the last time I was actually inside a mall was before telephones had cameras, so maybe they've given that up in the meantime.

For one thing, paying off the national debt would mean the end of Treasury bonds, a pillar of the global economy. Treasury securities are crucially important to the world financial system in a number of ways: banks buy them as low-risk assets, the Fed uses them for executing monetary policy, and mortgage interest rates vary based on Treasury rates. 'It was a huge issue ... for not just the U.S. economy, but the global economy,' says Diane Lim Rogers

So, isn't this basically saying that the US taxpayer is propping up the world's economy?

I know the answer to this must be no, at least in the short term, but I would think that the same engine might some day be used for that purpose, which I would use a lot, as I often save web pages, and I usually save them in that awful format with the text separated from the directory of resources, because that's what every browser, even old models, can read. It would be nice to save web pages or even web sites from the browser into pdf, like I used to do with Adobe Acrobat, back when I could afford to buy such things.

Don't think you are as needed as you suppose. As the saying goes, "The graveyard is filled with people once thought of as irreplaceable."

I understand the feeling, you want the job to be more than just a relationship of convenience and profit. It seldom works out like that. It might feel that way for a while, but hit an economic downturn, or face a suddenly buyout or change in upper management and you'll soon see the reality. You need to do what is in your personal best interest, taking everything into account (not just the money). If it was in the best interest of the company to lay you off, they'd do it in an instant, and likely with a lot fewer qualms as you feel now.

good luck!

Speaking as someone who very casually uses an ipod touch, which I obtained on a special deal, and bought mainly because I just wanted to know what the device was like:

It's not easy to browse for apps or discover new ones. Sure, you can search, but search for what? I'm more likely to discover new apps when they're described on forums and bulletin boards than I am from cruising the Apple Store. Yeah, you can easily find the most popular ones in a list, but then, that's the point, isn't it? Once you're on that list, you're pretty much guaranteed to stay there, and remaining one of the small percent who gain the lion's percent of the income.

Well, I'm not wild about the device, anyway. Can't even simply transfer pictures to it without it reducing the resolution.

I'm sorry you inherited a complex, and idiomatic perl application. However I don't think its fair, computer scientist or not, to project that experience onto the entire modern Perl ecosystem. Good luck with your career.

The ships are BIG, neither are sinking anytime soon.

If you want a job now, you probably should spend time on Perl5, since the bulk of work is there today. But if you want to join a dynamic community which is building a cool new language from scratch, and where you individual efforts can have a huge impact, you might want to check out Perl 6. That's my thoughts at least.

I invested a lot of time mastering Perl, and continue to add to it everyday. I'm not unhappy about that bit at all. I think you get what you give. If you make the effort to be part of the community of Perl, to contribute code, write docs, blogs, anything, like patches or new ideas, you get a lot more out of it. And I get well paid to do it everyday. I'm sorry for those that had a different experience, but if you want to get back to Perl I am open to helping out, feel free to message me.

I guess tomorrow will be like most others, I'll go to work and get well paid to write Perl.