I think Mr. Markram is one lab accident away from a supervillain.

Well, we had to have a look at W8 because we have a few thousand users who buy their own PC's. We have a say in what we can support, though, and that carries a lot of weight.

After our ISD team had a look at it, and after we stopped laughing, our chief decision-maker said: "Well, we skipped Vista..."

Major change fear isn't just a Luddite thing, it's a major cost for us. We're talking $millions if we were to move to W8 in training cost, and that doesn't include the rather expensive productivity dip as we cycle customers through a training program, for which we would have to bear the cost. There is no way we could avoid substantial training, as our users just simply aren't that adept and would completely freeze at a new interface.

You can take that back to your boss at Microsoft, Geekoid, and tell them that W8 sucks because it would cost us too goddamn much money to implement.

Nailed it, GIT. You win the Internet.

Kill that thought. Kill it with a heated spoon.

Or a third -- they become software salesmen. I've never met an enterprise-level software salesman who didn't mention that he used to write in Assembler once.

Most of the 3GLs and a fair number of 2GLs, the entire lineage of databases and indexed file systems.

The whole experience of learning new languages came to a stop when I found I couldn't learn Hindi.

How many of you immediately thought of Slaver Sunflowers?

(Ref: Larry Niven "Known Space" series. If you haven't read it, do...)

You don't get out much, do you?

Quite a number of people on the Indian subcontinent die every year from cobra strikes. Snakes are an object of horror -- if you're trapped in a pile of rubble, a snake may not be the thing they want to see.

Other than that, I think it's a great idea.

I've hired about a hundred programmers in my career, and education and career background are a good set of indicators, but they're not the be-all and end-all of selection. I've had the best results from avoiding agencies and their filtering methods, believing it's worth plowing through a lot of crap myself, in order to not lose that one gem that can transform your entire development effort.

And again, oddly enough, some of the best indicators were clear, intelligent, structured English and an interest in music. There seemed to be almost no correlation between those factors and their achieving a degree, or their lack of one.

On a whim once I interviewed someone who had a non-standard resume that consisted of a well-reasoned argument for her self-taught programming skills, in impeccable English. I brought her in, and she showed me code samples that were sophisticated, well-written, well-commented and offered proof that they worked. Her background was "housewife", no job background at all, no degree. I hired her, and she ripped through the workload like a veteran.

Don't be lazy, do your own filtering.

What, in your opinion, will be the effect on humankind if we do not develop economical, effective space travel? How do you think the species will evolve?

Oh, girlintraining, I wish I had mod points right now. I'm a fan.

Just out of curiosity, you weren't home-schooled, were you?

Covered interestingly in a science fiction novel, "Callahan's Key" by Spider Robinson.

(Good romp that read, but then I'm a rusted-on Spider Robinson fan.)

Your response is a little rough, but fundamentally correct.

I will give you props for the reminder that the way a question is cast is subject to validation, and that questions can be wrong, too.

(e.g. "Which is closer, New York or by train?")