Different definitions of pretty, I guess. My aunt loves the "Fisher Price" XP theme, and takes it a step further by putting everything in Comic Sans. Now her computer is "fun".

That's not "average". That's the lowest common denominator. Plenty of creative people aren't programmers. There is a whole spectrum of users put there.

Or did you miss that whole MySpace thing, when everyone and their dog was embedding HTML in their little corner of the web? It wasn't pretty, but there's no denying there was demand.

There really needs to be a preservation/orphan works clause in our copyright laws to prevent stuff from being lost to the ages.

It saddens me that we have the technology to keep our knowledge and art alive for eternity, yet we have laws that almost guarantee it won't survive... not without corporate sponsorship, anyway.

Which tells us that no one cares about the past anyway, unless it concerns you or your family.

That's fantastic! Hey, let's get rid of all profit-less things like fire departments and freeways too!

Could be. But even so, burger flippers are still producing something.
I guess the question is if IP-based "business" like, say, patent trolling, is somehow counted under tech manufacturing - then we have a problem.

Although I share your worry that the US will become an IP-based economy, there's still a long way to go before that happens.

Manufacturing and trade still dwarf other the information and entertainment sectors:
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/IBQTable?_bm=y&-filter=&-sortkey2=&-defOrder=N&-sortkey1=&-ds_name=EC0700A1&-sortkey0=-RCPTOT&-NAICS2007=00|21|22|23|31-33|42|44-45|48-49|51|52|53|54|55|56|61|62|71|72|81&-ib_type=NAICS2007&NAICS2007sector=*2&-geo_id=01000US&-dataitem=RCPTOT|GEO_ID$|NAICS2007|NAICS2007$|OPTAX$|FOOTID|ESTAB|PAYANN|EMP|NESTAB|NRCPTOT&-_lang=en
(Sorry link got FUBAR, paste it manually if you want to see it.)

The US also remains the world's largest manufacturer:
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2009/10/us-still-worlds-largest-manufacturer.html
(Sorry to have to link to a blog, but the reference in the post is a dead link.)

Right, because CS geeks are well-appreciated in public school peer groups, and won't be ostracized at all. If you're the kind of person who can only learn social skills in school, you probably won't learn them there anyway... either that or you'll only learn a twisted version of what "proper" behavior is.

The only measure of economic prosperity that matters is actual resources (goods and services with real value) produced. FOSS does this.

Measuring economic prosperity by numbers of jobs is the kind of backwards thinking that artificial scarcity encourages.

No doubt your great-grandfather was up in arms about horseless carriages putting horses out of work.

It was a tool, albeit a very advanced one. They still had doctors in Star Trek, so that should tell you something. I never got the impression that tricorders had any AI capabilities - though maybe it could use the results of a general test to choose some more specific tests to run.

The prize criteria set the bar WAY too high, IMO.

Intelligence is not fixed at birth. The brain is a muscle that can - and must - be exercised to fulfil its owner's potential.

And only the top percentile of humanity gets to have a job in the medicine/science professions? What sort of Gattaca-fueled world do you live in?

Virus or no, I would have removed that download link due to a horrendously ugly UI. Egads.

"The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain."

I love that site. :D

Hopefully none of the many knee-jerk, sarcasm-oblivious mods will mod you troll for that.

Best part: "Compatible with IT departments that fear changes".

I assume you mean the door in "We Are Not Alone". I got caught by this bug too.

There's several workarounds for it. Here's the one that I used (uses noclip):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaE-OkYhsAM

I hope there's an official fix for this soon, but I'm not holding my breath. They'll probably finish Episode 3 before they get a patch done. -_-