Seconded. May that horrible woman suffer the rest of her miserable life in kind to the scars she left upon mine.

Apparently it does require courage or at least a certain meager measure of empathy.

Palm was successfully sued by Xerox claiming it violated their patent. I agree with the assessment that a gesture input is probably the only practical "on-screen" solution. But I also suspect it's a mine field for anyone attempting to adopt such a thing.

I don't care about hearing anything. I want to throw the damn thing up into space and see if we get delta-v. Then we can hypothesize whether we heard anything and if so what the hell animal it was. Given the apparent reproducibility of something so profoundly game changing surely we're at a point to merit putting this thing on orbit to finally decide if we have something here.

Yes, but unlike reaction drives you are not carrying around a tank of photons that you impart energy upon to sling them out the a** end of your rocket. Both photon drives and the experiment are not carrying anything but energy yet managed to produce (or seem to produce) thrust. The part that's annoying people is that the experiment seems to be doing so at orders of magnitude greater than the photon drive. It's kind of like challenging the existence of a religious person's god. It tends to ruffle their feathers a bit.

Inventions often arise from discoveries. e.g. Primitive people didn't have to understand the physics of combustion to create the fire that roasted their mammoth. Science is often all about throwing sh*t at a wall, seeing what sticks then circling back to figure out why.

It has been reproduced by others. That's why everyone's scratching their heads. It's also why some people are starting to get bent out of shape. Their precious model of the universe is being challenged. From my armchair I see four possibilities: the microwaves are finding something to push against; the microwaves are creating something with mass and a net velocity pointed in a certain direction; the microwaves are distorting the shape of space-time; different groups of really bright people around the world are designing spectacularly fracked up experiments and coming away with agreeing yet completely fracked up results.

The last one is easiest to prove/disprove. Throw the device into space and see if it produces delta-v. If its one of the first three, regardless of which one, the world as we know it is no more.

By my reckoning if they're going to drive at .10 BAC then I'd prefer they shoot for 1.0 BAC. One way or another their body will malfunction before they managed to get into their car and the roads will safer for it. I figure it's similar to the trash that go bar hopping in their snowmobiles where I used to live. It's amazing how effective a farmer's fence is for culling the herd.

Don't kid yourself. If they bother mass producing this crap, they're not going to capture it from the air. They're going to exploit methane (natural gas).

There's a sweat spot between college grad noob and crusty old "get off my lawn" programmers whom have lost their passion. I'd say Google's median age of 29 sounds about right. Obviously exceptions exist, but given that wages tend to be rather logarithmic relative to experience they're not that huge of a driver for hiring younger.

Last I knew it was common for old programmers to not bother learning new tech. Given Google's preference for next generation technologies, what use would they have for obsolete programmers?

If you're too obsolete for Google and refuse to do something about it, go work in the defense, automotive, or some other industry known to have a new technology adoption lag.

It's a value proposition. On one side you have a mostly adequate talent willing to work for cheap, but is encumbered by being a contract employee residing in a foreign country, with possibly a language gap. On the other side you have a mostly adequate to adequate talent only willing to work for a locally competitive wage, residing locally and no language gap. Not all managers look at all facets of this proposition, at least initially, but more than ever they are. The question simply becomes one of which proposition is more effective/economical. If what you have to offer makes the other proposition ambiguous, even more attractive, do something about it.

Don't be a fool. The most qualified are the ones that should be hired. If the local talent pool is inadequate, then we need to look at correcting this.

College might not guarantee a job, but how much harder is it for those applying for jobs where a college degree is a prerequisite? Yes, college is expensive. For certain career paths, even more so. However, the investment in a college degree or vocational training appropriate to the career path of choice almost always has ROI. High-school graduates relying upon on-the-job training are at a severe disadvantage both in terms of their career options but also in hiring competition with their peers for whom have post-secondary education.

RTFA. Requirements with his job rule out satellite. Having personally had a stint in sh*thole rural Wisconsin I can tell you, satellite is a pretty absurd option and really just an act of desperation. He presently uses a Verizon powered hotspot but keeps hitting the 30GB cap even though he borrows a local Starbucks wi-fi for downloading. He did attempt to explore building out the 2500' but Comcast wouldn't consider it. Microwave line of site providers are not in range. Washington law bars municipal providers from retail.