Then it's clear you don't understand modern nuclear power plant designs. There is far less danger from the radioactive waste coming from a modern nuclear power plant, then from any of the coal plants that have ever been built.

This may shock people, but dropping "Made in US" salaries on a percentage of a population that makes far less than that, won't actually raise the quality of life across the board in most cases. All it's really likely to do is cause massive inflation as people try to make money off these select people earning far more than everyone else. While at the same time all the people who -didn't- get an obscene raise suddenly can't even afford the cost of living.

If we want to inflate a foreign nations salaries to match ours, it must be done with care and slowly, not just saying "Hey look, you hundred thousand people, here ya go, 10x more money for you!".

Well I voted power company, because at least around here (unless you can somehow pull off going completely off grid) you're getting your power from a mixture of the choices. So there's not a great way to pick just one.

No see, prove how stupid you think this idea is by NOT PLAYING THEIR GAMES.
Seriously, once Ubisoft announced always on DRM I -stopped buying or playing their games-.

I don't buy the PC ones. I don't pirate them. I don't buy the console games.

Suggesting that DRM creates pirates is feeding right into their own feedback loop that they might be able to convince you to pay if they make it impossible to pirate. Instead you need to prove that treating their customers, and potential customers, like this is simply not acceptable. Do not use their products in any fashion.

I still think the obvious solution for Google, is to take some money out of their piggybank and just perform a hostile takeover of one of the larger media outlets. Maybe Viacom. Then they -are- one of the major media companies and could then tell the MPAA, and Congress exactly what they think about SOPA and maybe finally get listened to.

Hell, I've been saying for years that the tech industry, which is absolutely massive compared to the media industry, should just divvy up the media companies and each buy out one. The obvious thing would be say, Apple buy Disney, Google Viacom, Microsoft can buy Comcast since they already have a relationship through NBC. Then just fire the entire executive teams and lawyers who've been pushing for these horrible copyright bills in the first place.

My answer to the "5 years" question, was always "Retired, rich, sitting on my private beach reading a book."

The question is a horrible interview question and no matter what you answer it's a setup tfor the wrong information. If you want to know where people intend to go within -your- company if you hire them, then ask that. If you want to know if they're intending to stick around in your company, ask "If you get this job would you be willing to sign a contract saying you'll stay five years?" Whatever you want to know, ask -that-. Not vague questions that have no useful answer.

I run my own company now and don't have to answer stupid questions like this and you can bet I don't ask them either.

Actually, assuming from your statement you're not in the USA you might be surprised to find out that a whole lot of people who live here also think we're a big bully and should stop. The catch is, like most countries the majority is basically apathetic at best. Which makes it difficult for those of us who -don't- like the way our government is acting to change things. Now I happily look forward to Spain hopefully having the balls to continue to stand up and -not- enact a SOPA style law. Good for them. I also challenge anyone to find -any- country in the world where the people of the country don't have to deal with any corruption in the politics of the country. If you find one let us know, because I'm sure a whole lot of people would love to move there.

Well the obvious thing would be if the laws int he US were changed to forbid carrier SIM-locking, that those same laws should also enforce that a phone that is compatible frequency wise simply can not be denied by a carrier. In fact, it probably should have been a FCC requirement for the past decade that any cell phone sold would simply work on any and all US carrier frequencies.

But it's a moot point, because these rules don't look to be changing anytime soon in the US.

In the future, here's a good set of guidelines to follow, I'm also not a lawyer this is just things I've learned over the years:

1. Never use their equipment for any personal projects.
2. Never install anything on their equipment for personal projects, even if it's to help them.
3. If you want payment from someone for something, then never do any piece of the project without confirmation in advance that you'll receive compensation for the work.
4. Don't do anything if it's not in writing.

The thing is, doing personal projects in your own time is fine and dandy, but already can be rough if you didn't read your employment contract closely as they may own it if you work for them. Using what may have been a personal project during your "work hours" for an employer may give them rights to that work unless you had an agreement otherwise. Beyond all that... if you didn't have an agreement before the work started you really can't expect them to pay for it now.

Now from the summary it sounds like you've just done design and not implementation, you're never going to get extra compensation for design you took it upon yourself to do, but do yourself a favor and just stop right there.

It's not far out of whack for some of the sets Lego makes now either. While doing holiday shopping this year for our daughter I was highly impressed by the Architecture sets at the Lego store.