The problem is this: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/magazine/skills-dont-pay-the-bills.html Managers still live the early '900, practicing what looks like class warfare, trying to run companies like sweatshops and forgetting the supply-demand rule when it's time for them to cough up... ;)

... leverage... dynamic cultures... nimble and innovative... move fast and run... key ... prove that you can...

Ah sorry, I couldn't resist.

This middle-manager speak is a stereotypical example of what obedient group-thinkers regurgitate in the hope of kicking other competitors of the same ilk, off the hill they're climbing; they could be selling cheese, or trading pebbles, or running an "app startup" and it wouldn't make a difference. Just the same bullshit bingo, while engineers are kept down in the basement, getting a bone thrown every now and then...

Where are mod points when you need them?! +1

Ah ok, we'll see next Monday: my story is that I tried upgrading an existing 12.04 and all seemed to go well until the installed started complaining that I had chosen to "hold back broken packages". Once it rebooted grub barfed and dumped me to its command line.

My guess is that the new package manager took half hour to abort the install or run through the b0rked list of packages, broke the previous one in the process and reboot, so that now I'm left staring at the old grub deploy.

It's kind of annoying really, all I had added to the bog standard install were the repos for Chrome and VirtualBox. How is it possible for such a standard upgrade to fail so badly is unbelievable.

Hmm, as if Apple hasn't created the first true smartphone.
Listen, before Jobs decided it was time to get a real one in our hands, we had to deal with craptastic shite such ash the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_6630 Seriously; at the time it cost me about as much as an iPhone and it was nothing compared to the iPhone, and when the 3G arrived in EU it was the end for anything else. Those suits running the competition think they can just slavishly copy and out-number Apple by sheer inertia but really those fucks don't give a rats ass about innovation or getting cool electronics out of the door.
Samsung and the other are run by the Dilberts, not Apple... you have no clue.

and it's part of social security here (of course you get to pay a couple EURs a month for the privilege). But I guess this over-the-top socialist expropriation of financial assets doesn't resonate with the you folks across the ocean... but it does qualify for a good bullet point in the "benefits" employment contract section. Yep, us european are decadent spoilt brats... :P

Yeah, many students from south Italy move out to go study in another (better) University. It's the locals that don't have any incentive to do so, after all who in his/her right mind would pay 500EUR for a bed (just a bed) in an overcrowded apartment if they could avoid that. The problem in Italy is that social security for the older generations couldn't be cut so what the right wing establishment did was simply to cut back on the younger. Left without decent opportunities they ended up staying on family budget, effectively reducing social spending across all generations. By cutting back I'm not referring only to subsidy cheques but also to indirect damages inflicted upon them: a good part of the right constituency in Italy are professionals. These people often employ younger people on perpetually temp contracts or outright illegally, and are rich enough to own homes that are put for rent at exorbitant prices. A State that cared for all its citizens would repress and discourage these abuses but nothing has been done in the past 20 years. People are starting to call it "generational warfare"

Well, the reason is in your answer, "... as soon as we find a job..." which in many parts of Italy can often mean "never". I'm living in NL now and for what I can see, dutch kids are encouraged to move out by means of lavish (by IT standards) subsidies and a fairly inclusive and accessible job market. I'm pretty sure many Italians would be more than happy to carry their affairs away from their parents' home, if only they could...

LOL +1

Here's your awesomeness car sir... what a perfect synthesis.

this comment sanctions the end of /.

It's either a bad, bad, bad astroturf and brand crapfest or I just saw it pass by in a woosh: a generation of geeks replaced by one of geeky consumers. I am sitting in between, and I don't know who's the saddest of the lot :(

... and the language! oh boy, "experience" what is that, for $deity's sake...

that's why I consider keyboards and mice like underwear... very inconvenient to touch and share

I wonder if it ever really HAD to be a PC world in the first place. In the '80 and before that, the imaginarium was abundant with wristwatch computers, tricoerders, speaking and sentient machines, robots...
It became a "PC world" the moment wintel's suffocating embrace made everyone believe in the "end of history". It didn't happen, they're just realizing that... the bozos

You don't understand, what is going to become of all the contractors and tenders paid with the taxpayers' money? Have you thought about that, you insensitive clod!? It's the wrong commission that is going after Google; it shouldn't be the one for Privacy and Freedom but the one for Competition ;)

Listen guys, privacy is toast anyway... if anything Google is making us acknowledge this and move along.

Hats off. These days it's rather difficult to find reasonable, competent and professional people in the field; therefore I won't pass this occasion for a well deserved praise.
Definitely good advice, there would be so much more unnecessary stress and emotion if this attitude was more widespread.