then you right a book that asks 'Are dogs telepathic'

This is, of course, after a diligent search for such a book that is upside down.

that we can send information back in time, like tomorrow's lottery numbers? The outcome of a race? That we were involved in an accident tommorow, and now we can avoid it? Once that is possible, doesn't life as we know it collapse?

Maybe she'd print bracelets with "WWJP" on the side.

Nah, she'd print statues of the Virgin.

I like what I read. I'm always conflicted by my good experiences with untyped languages, compared to my good experiences with typed languages finding hard to find bugs. It's nice to see people looking at how they can be mixed. And I like they've added some stuff that Java lacks which is useful. (no such method) etc.

The trouble is: it looks too much like Java for it to be likely that anybody will bother. With all languages I usually end up thinking... is this as elegant as Scheme? No? So why bother. I think even CLOS type schemes can have the compiler do type checking, so what do we gain? Has anything ever surpassed Scheme plus whatever favorite libraries, or macro/ object collections you like? I don't think so. Scheme allows you to overlay pretty much anything onto its syntax. It always seemed like the final word to me.

Oh well, at least they didn't pull an Apple and label it "The New Xbox(tm)".

Volkswagen is even worse about that. First they had the old air-cooled Beetle (except it was actually called the "Type 1"), then they had the "New Beetle" (from 1998 to 2011), and now they have the "Beetle" (from 2012 on). So now, to avoid confusion, I have to refer to my 1998 model as my "old New Beetle" and my friend with a 2013 model has to refer to it as a "2012 Beetle" because if he calls it simply "new" people will think it's the 1998-2011 version!

(And no matter what we call it, we'll still get asked "is the engine in the back?")

I'm talking about a hypothetical situation where somebody bought Portal but regrets their hypocrisy (re: DRM) now. In other words, a "you're usually not OK with it, but sometimes can't help yourself" thing.

If you're OK getting something like Portal, than you've... well, your anti-DRM ideas have their price in some sense. (I'm not trying to criticize here -- mine definitely have their own price -- but just be realistic.) And at that point it's the old joke about how now it's just a matter of haggling over price, as you've established that your attitude is "DRM decreases the value of something" instead of "I won't buy DRM at all." And at that point, who's to say that the console price isn't below the limit?

Or you bought a DRM'd thing during an irrational lapse of judgement.

since the PlayStation is an even larger turn

Are you saying the new playstation will be the PS 720?

The consumers (aka, the mindless bleating masses) may repurchase all of their games, but the customers, the ones who are able to make intelligent decisions instead of just blindly accepting everything their corporate overlords throw at them, would just hang on to their 360 consoles in order to play their 360 games, and only purchase new titles for this new system, if they decide they want it.

"Customers" would never have bought a 360 in the first place.

So what you're saying is that PC + DRM and other assorted lock-in = Xbox? I think you should direct your "fuck, you are stupid" comment towards those who actually decide to buy it...

Bull. You can't be sure your code will work next week, IBM or not. You think the IBM websphere code I'm working on now is guaranteed in 30 years time to work? Never.

OK, but... who the heck wants 20 boxes of paper reports?

Frankly I'd be a bit iffy about the medical field. It has advantages with the guild like features keeping wages high in some positions and there are some obstacles to off-shoring, but it's also a field that will likely come under increasing pressure from AI and robotics in the not too far future. The gains to be made are simply so compelling and anything from diagnostics to surgery is potentially better done by machines (which in turn, due to the nature of the field, means that having an actual human doing either will basically be malpractice.)

Trade jobs that are hard to offshore and difficult to cost-effectively automate are probably a good choice. I'd stay away from the transportation sector as that too is likely to get automated to a significant degree within our life time.

H. G. Wells-style (and Futurama-style) time-traveling avoids this issue, since the time machine passes through all the interim moments between the start and end of the trip, albeit really, really fast. Since it exists in all those moments, it maintains the same frame of reference as the ground it's sitting on.