While it is true that technology is more prevalent today and more people are using it, that does not mean that Millennials are any better than the rest of us at using it. In fact, I can see many examples where they don't know what in the hell they are doing. The ease of use of much technology today has actually had a negative impact. 20 years ago, we learned to do some amazing things with technology, and in order to make that happen, we had to code on the command line and jury rig stuff to get it to work together. Today, everything is all menu-driven in neat little GUIs, and everything works together. If it doesn't work, the product must be defective, and you take it back to the store to get a new one. The Millennials raised with this type of mentality never learn actual trouble shooting and problem solving skills. They learn that when the going gets tough, the tough go back to Best Buy for a replacement.

I think a major problem with the current generation is, despite an increase in communications technology and cell phones, the younger generation has larger lost the ability to communicate and interact. Yes, they can text and they can communicate instantly with all of their "friends" in the world (100% of them, anywhere at any time). Though I do wonder how many people on one's Facebook are truly "friends". That being said, their communication is texting -- but 90% of human communication is non-verbal. They're not really communicating when you think about it; but they think they are. Go into any popular bar or restaurant and observe the crowds. The tables with the Boomers and GenXers will be mostly socializing and talking amongst each other -- interacting in person. The tables with the Milliennials will mostly have people staring down at the cell phones tapping away, and very few words will actually be said. If this is how these kids are socializing, I can only imagine how they are in the workplace.

Do these younger folks know how to find the unix prompt on an OS X system? Or do they even realize that OS X is unix?

At least older workers know about the basics ... like how to use a unix prompt. Seriously, I just had a student worker dispatched to our lab to install some scientific software (because the IT administrator doesn't want to let us have the root password). This student did not know how to install a relatively simple scientific software package properly and to be able to get it working in our PATH variables. They also left a lot of executable files out of the install so that the software didn't work right, and didn't understand how to set the permissions of the files until I told them about the chmod command. When looking at the files, they preferred to use the GUI and graphical-based methods to change permissions instead of the unix prompt. Their preferred text editor was gedit instead of vi. We eventually had to send them back and study up on how to install software in a unix environment before attempting to install it. How someone entrusts them with a root password is a complete mystery,. . .

It's not just with IT jobs. It's prevalent in other scientific and technical fields, too. I'm a PhD computational chemist and I constantly get bombarded with recruiter spam from addresses like 1000018179_10007281@jobbank301.com that have subject lines like, "JOBOP - Drug Discovery - Medicinal Chemist - Medford, MA". Gmail sends these all straight to my spam folder. Seriously? If there's a 301st "job bank", what's in the first 300 job banks? Does anyone check email send from an email address that starts with eighteen random numbers? I really don't think any of these recruiters know what in the hell they're doing, as I have never gotten a job from one of them. Ever. All of the jobs I've worked at since receiving my PhD have been from direct contacts and personal references. JOBOP emails are completely useless in a job search,. . .

LibreOffice isn't needed on a Mac anymore. They all come with Pages, Numbers and Keynote (Apple's version of Microsoft Office). Office runs, too, but isn't free. I would rank Pages/Numbers/Keynote over LibreOffice in terms of compatibility by a long shot.

At ORNL in Tennessee, 90% of all of the scientists used OS X on their laptops. Most scientists also had a desktop system in their office (stationary) that was running Linux, the most popular variant being OpenSuse. The only Windows machines on site were in the business office.

Unix-like? You know OS X is actually certified unix, right? And has been since Leopard. Linux is "unix-like".

I agree on the powerpoint aspects being the main reason to buy a MacBook Pro over a Linux notebook PC. While Linux is the de facto standard for scientific servers and the like, you're going to be using your laptop for presentations and writing papers. While a lot of physics geeks still do use Latex, more and more scientists are becoming accustomed to publishing in Microsoft Word, which is the de facto standard for publishing and office apps. And if you're doing a presentation, the OpenOffice equivalent of powerpoint is absolutely atrocious, and connecting a projector to Linux is a major pain in the ass. Connecting a MacBook to a projector is as simple as connecting the cable, and even Keynote (which comes FREE on all Macs now) is a major improvement over OpenOffice (although MS Office for Mac is an option as well).

This really isn't new at all. The American Chemical Society has monitored the web in general to keep people from posting versions of its standardized chemistry exams online. A couple of years ago, they busted a professor at a school in Florida for copying questions from the exam and posting those online. The school was fined a fairly large sum of money.

Was it really a big miss? Or was it intentional? Maybe the reason why Steve Jobs steered Apple away from making a TV was that he foresaw the complete disaster in the TV and cable industry, and saw everything moving online. Even with iTunes, you've been able to buy TV episodes and movies there for at least a decade. And TV viewing is shifting towards online streaming on other devices that Apple has dominated (iPhones, iPads, etc) for several years now. There's already plenty of manufacaturers making large screen televisions, and in the past 10-15 years, that has shifted from CRTs and analog to flat screens and digital. There was no reason for Apple to get into the business of making large screen TVs when all that was going to shift anyways. Apple TV was sufficient to allow those that cared to bring digital content to their big screen TV, but Jobs didn't care much for that medium, so Apple stopped at that.

Serious question. If someone were to put their participation in a MOOC course on their resume, would an HR department or hiring manager actually take them seriously and believe that they had obtained valuable skills from that participation? Especially given the ridiculously low pass rate of many MOOCs.

Except for those in Arizona, you insensitive clod!

Of course, a true Whovian will install some nice statues of weeping angels in the front yard!

The Sling trademark is owned by Dish's former parent company Echostar. Dish network's new offering, Sling TV (announced today), is a new service being offered -- it is not being offered under the Dish Network brand, but as its own product.