Since when has Slashdot of all places become accepting of general mediocrity over personal excellence?

" Perhaps the advice-giver wants to sound smart, or simply wants to avoid the possiblity of having to admit they were wrong (if you make your advice hard to follow, that reduces the chance of somebody actually climbing that mountain and then pointing out to you if your suggestion didn't work). So it's not just that the advice-giver is being unhelpful, it's that they're being a dick."

Well, I'm glad the author cares about the overall performance of his advice across 'everyone'. Personally, when receiving advice, I prefer searching out and researching all reasonable options and choosing the best one for me rather than taking generic advice applicable to a wide range of people. And when I give advice I try to do it in such a way that leaves the advice-taker able to evaluate the options and take the best option for them, rather than giving them advice that may help "anyone" a little bit but won't help them in particular a whole lot. If the advice-seeker doesn't have the interest to look at the options and make a choice that's their problem.

+1 UI madness.
For me the problem with git is the extreme un-usability of the standard command-line client.

There are countless ways of doing the same operations, all of which are confusing. Unless I use a specific command on a daily basis I end up having to look it up and sift through results with varying ways of doing the same thing. It is extremely frustrating. Some of the other dvcs solutions are far superior in this regard.

Architecturally, git is fantastic. It seems to me it shouldn't be that difficult to make the standard client app easier to use on the command line. Too bad this article is a joke, I would actually love to see it happen.

Yeah, this is great and all...

But wouldn't it be more useful to have a course that emphasizes critical thinking about all types of problems rather than focusing on one specific application of critical thinking? People usually seem to overlook that the important thing about working with computers is the ability to think critically about what you're doing, not the specifics of what you're doing.

Traditional science classes kind of broach the surface of critical thinking, but I suspect that it could be covered in much greater depth over a wide variety of problems, to much better effect.

This is retarded. I submit a story for the first time and it just disappears from the submissions list. No way to determine what happened.

The "firehose" apparently is just gone, even though the site FAQ still refers to it. There isn't even a redirect from the /firehose page.
There is no way to control what "colors" of submissions I can see on the submissions page, and even clicking on a particular color (which it says will filter to just that color) does absolutely nothing.

One would think that there would at least be a way to see that my submission has presumably been scored "black" or below. But no... there is in fact no way to determine that.

This place has really gone downhill in recent years.

Actually, it kind of does.

ET == [EST or EDT, depending on the time of year]
So, if you look at your timezone as "ET", then yeah, it's one timezone.
However, if you look at your timezone as EST or EDT, it's two.

Personally, I look at it both ways, depending on the context of what I'm doing.

This. Exactly.
Terrorists are a sometimes-maybe-sorta threat. Government is much more terrifying because it is always there protecting itself rather than its citizens.

How do we fight this nonsense?
It goes way beyond the role of groups like the EFF... What groups can I support to prevent nonsense like this?

Sometimes I swear Apple makes the Windows versions of their software terrible on purpose. It's still an uphill battle trying to use any of their software on a windows machine, as it always has been.

Why?
Obviously when you're using their amazing iPhone or iPad or whatever other tacky Apple gadget, you'll start to feel that your PC isn't up to par and you should replace it with a Mac.

Total rubbish. People should avoid buying trashy Apple products at all costs, lest they support this fiefdom.

full disclosure: I have used Linux exclusively for the past 13 years. I only have to interact with Apple and Microsoft's junk when I have to sync my wife's iPad with her PC.

Maybe they shouldn't have Coca-Cola deliver refreshments to their secret military installations? ;)

This sounds like what I've experienced with USPS.
Except I've had this sort of nonsense happen dozens of times with them.

I'm sorry... are you implying that restructuring the USPS would be in some way unethical or inhumane?

Yeah?

I've lived in apartments in the NYC area and the LA area over the past 5 years.
In both places, the USPS has screwed up almost every package delivery, almost always without apology. (Frequently resulting in packages going back across the country with me never having even seen a missed delivery notice.)
There's not even a useful way to complain to anyone higher up the food chain than the local postmaster, who, based on the three I've spoken with, is useless 100% of the time.

I, for one, am thrilled to see them dropping Saturday delivery of some items. They need to start running the operation like a business instead of a government agency if they intend to hang around much longer.

I never have a problem with UPS or Fedex.