Everywhere that this statement is false, the train system is actually useful.
But where this statement is true, the train system is a joke.

Or in other words, a train system is only useful if people who can easily afford a car still choose to ride the train.

I think what gets missed in parts of the country, is that a well developed public transit system needs to get you from where you are, to where you're going. Not 10 miles away from either point. Walking distance. Its not just about the main route, but its also about the local connecting routes. This isn't practical everywhere, but it might be in more places than the option exists.

KeePass and all its related implementations (KeePassX, etc, etc.).
This is the only family of password management apps I've found that both share a common database format, and have functional implementations even if your platform-of-the-moment isn't "hip enough" for a more polished solution to care about supporting.

It is the same card in the US too, at least by default. But if you're like me, you can explicitly request that it just be a normal ATM card with no debit card capabilities.

This is a big reason why I outright refuse to carry a debit card, even to the point of insisting to the bank that they give me a plain old ATM card for my account.

I just feel more comfortable having a buffer between my transactions and my actual accounts, where I have to take active action for so much as a dime to go from one to the other.

And as said above, the fraud argument happens with their money, not mine.

And its basically ready, gold, good to go, with the public launch this coming Wednesday.

And here's the other thing that's often forgotten... Every time something like this gets proposed in Florida, it seems to parallel whatever the major inter-city highway is, while blatantly ignoring the sprawl. If a rail system is 10 miles from your home, and 20 miles from your destination, what good is it exactly? Places that do this right, tend to have some sort of light-rail system to help pick up the slack. However, the density is probably too low for such a system to be worthwhile. I suppose this is what the bus system is for, but those often seem implemented as a "barely acceptable solution" that you'd only consider if you had no other options.

IMHO, public transit is only good when those who can easily afford to drive would opt to use it instead.

There are two fundamental problem with the "just install XYZ add-on and it becomes tolerable" perspective.

1) Every time you have to use the computer of someone not savvy enough to want/install such a thing, you're stuck with the horrible stock configuration.
2) Every time you have to use a locked-down/policy-controlled computer, you're stuck with the horrible stock configuration.

#1 kinda reminds me of having to use the Gentoo or Ubuntu machine of someone who has different command-line needs from install-to-that-point.
#2 is a tad less of a short-term concern, since many of those are just moving from XP to 7, but a serious long-term concern if things aren't fixed in 9.

Yet this myth is so pervasive, that it feels like anyone who isn't the school's top math wiz is outright discouraged from even considering computer programming.

Except BlackBerry actually has pretty good Facebook and Twitter support. (and there's a decent 3rd party Google+ app) The only main one missing is Linkedin, and they used to have that. (But like many mobile projects, it got abandoned shortly after it was released and promoted.)

Where it fails, is the "Whoopdie do! We just invented a startup last week to leech off FB and do something stupid! We even have an iPhone app!" market.

Except somehow, scores of people have become convinced that there is a difference between "mobile app development" and "computer programming." Thus, every Tom, Dick, Harry, Web Designer, and Marketing Douchbag is now convinced that they want to and can become a "mobile app developer" even if they never learned (and have no aptitude for, or even interest in) actual programming.

You mean methods that require smart and highly trained screening personnel? Is an organization like the TSA even allowed to hire those kinds of people?

And if a desktop software developer complained about something as trivial as screen resolution variations, they'd be laughed out of the room.

Macros I actually used extensively when I was in college, and wanted to use common data structures in C code. Of course I only knew about those macros because I knew people who were very involved in FreeBSD that told me about them. (Though writing common functions for linked-list implementations is something you kinda learn in FRESHMAN level CompSci classes.)

Thus is life in the mobile world...

This is something I have far too much experience with from the world of BlackBerry. I've done both preprocessor hacks (which is supported by the build tools, but Eclipse hates), and fancy crap with libraries/pseudo-reflection/design-patterns (which lesser developers might cringe at figuring out). Either way, its not fun. It basically means that you have to use any new features "by exception", versus "by design", which makes it very hard to fully leverage them if the intent is to make your life as a developer better.

Or due to carriers not bothering to push updates, when the vendors have. Or due to users not knowing/caring that they should upgrade. Or due to people clinging to their ancient phones and developers having a hard time justifying cutting them off if they want to maximize adoption. Regardless, having so many players between "OS upstream source" and "end user's device", you're pretty much doomed to this problem.

On the PC, you also have continual upgrades to common libraries separate from the whole OS, and sometimes even multiple versions of libraries installed. Additionally, the upgrade cycles of the hardware are almost completely separated from the upgrade cycles of these libraries. (at least in relation to the time scales we're talking about)

I also agree that the mobile business models have greatly discouraged open source. Its quite frustrating, too, since it places far more burden on the shoulders of the platform vendor to provide everything. There's also this idea that you're supposed to try and make money off any and every mobile project. Regardless of how likely you are to actually succeed, you're looked down upon if you don't at least try. And often trying, means your effort isn't going to be open source at all. (Personally, I'd rather make something open-source and gain the community benefits than try to make an insignificant pittance off it as closed-source. If I'm closing something down, its because the monetary benefit is real and not imagined.)

Even if the specific example may have been blown way out of proportion, I actually see a lot of the plainly-worded outrage as a complete misunderstanding of how the whole DoD acquisition process actually works.

To this end, I once wrote up a notional piece on The Mythical $800 Hammer. :-)