No mod points, but +1 for Grado. Besides the great sound, I was surprised with how often I had, "Wow, I never even heard that instrument before!" moments when listening to orchestral music with my SR60s.

I don't think people have this coming to them given that:

• most people don't "choose" a browser -- they just use the one that comes with their OS
• an extremely small percentage of computer users actually know what a kernel is

Should users be more educated? Maybe. But I don't think it's going to happen because most people don't care. They just want their computer to work.

What people really deserve is great software with as few bugs and security holes as possible irrespective of their technical understanding of computers.

I had a Dell M60 with 1920X1200 17" screen and I did find the fonts to be a bit small. Sure, the room was nice to have but I did have to increase some fonts so that they would be easier to read. e.g. when reading online documents in a browser I would increase the default fonts for a more comfortable reading experience.

Design patents are only valid for 14 years as compared to the 20 years that utility patents are valid.

The laws vary by province so check your local listings. For example, in Ontario Information Technology workers are exempt from overtime policy (among other policies).

• http://www.labour.gov.on.ca/english/es/guide/guide_22.html#information
• http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/regs/english/elaws_regs_010285_e.htm#BK16

So I would definitely clarify the overtime policy before accepting an offer.

No mod points but +1 for Night Stand reference!

Hey, I'm sick. I need help!

I think you may still have some more more moments in the future where you realize how little you knew as a teenager and how, at 22, you vastly underestimated the amount you didn't know as a teen. :)

This isn't a flame at you, I just think it's what happens as we learn more and reflect.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Another take on this: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2538/was-standard-railroad-gauge-48-determined-by-roman-chariot-ruts

"Funny? Sure. True? Yes and no."

So it looks like everyone is right on this one. :)

Wow, ACMS...I haven't heard that one in a while! ACMS stands for Application Control and Management System and was the TP monitor that processed the transactions. The UI pieces were probably done using DECForms. At the time I thought it was pretty decent technology. (Just don't set the timeout to 10 seconds!)

Where I live, Aspirin is a brand name trademarked by Bayer. "Today, Aspirin is a registered trademark of Bayer AG in Germany and more than 80 other countries." See http://www.aspirin.com/faq_en.html for more info (if you are really bored).

Good article on Joel on Software about the IE8 standards mess: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/03/17.html

The article says that you cannot bridge the gap by working your up the corporate ladder and that those who do catch up are ones who jump ship to other employers. Obviously, if you enter the workforce when times are tough, your wages will be affected. However, to think that there is some sort of predestined reason that you have to be underpaid over decades is false. I think it comes down to how you manage your career. If you want to be paid a "fair market wage" by your current employer, you need to convince them why the salary is "fair" and why you deserve it. If you cannot do that and your research is correct you should be able to find a job at that wage somewhere else. Now, if there is protracted downturn, it may be possible that you might find yourself making more than you could get on the open market but less than people hired in years around you. But over 20 years this seems unlikely. I think the main problem is that most people go into their performance review and just take the X percent raise that they are offered.

In my experience this isn't true. I guess it depends how you define technical skills, though. But in so many IT shops you see the same problems from the same sorts of programmers (who, I assume have technical skills?): Why wouldn't you check for null? If you caught the exception, why wouldn't you log an error? Why would you catch an exception and then ignore it? Why would you use a cookie to determine if a user was admin? Why didn't you use a transaction for those two database operations? etc. I'm not making this stuff up. I guess it's Sturgeon's Law for programming.