Never did more than make some pretty drawings. Of course I was in grade 2 at the time. I don't think any attempts to get me to understand the abstract concepts of programming would have gone anywhere.

This is why we need to completely drop the minimum wage and bring in a basic income. If something can be done by a robot, then there's no reason a human should be doing it. Productivity will keep going up with fewer and fewer workers needed, but we're still going to have people who need to live and consume.

Except that they don't - because then you have to add in drownings, jellyfish attacks, lightning strikes, etc...

So taking a picture while hugging a lion or jaguar is still ok? What about Ligers? This seems like way too specific of a law.

This isn't data like health or tax records - those they're keeping. It's things like fisheries data from the 1950s - what was caught where and when, which birds were living in northern Saskatchewan in 1985, etc... It's largely mundane data, but when researchers need to look for trends in trying to manage fishing quotas, being able to get that old data is invaluable.

That seems like a surprisingly reasonable way to do things. It would be great if more communities would follow that example.

This is the critical short-fall in over-emphasizing the individual right. It's not merely short-sightedness. Each individual can be perfectly rational in not doing the extra work to sort recycling, as there is almost no benefit to them to do so, and essentially no harm if they don't - in fact if recycling is charged for, then there is a loss for them to recycle. From that point of view, one would be foolish to recycle.
However, on a large scale, it's a benefit to each individual if everyone recycles, so it's again rational to vote for measures that force everyone to pay for recycling through taxes, and to fine people for not sorting recycling.

Maybe not, but this 5-lb Y2K Milka bar was everything I could have hoped It would be.

What would you propose as a better alternative to this idiom in a language that lacks exceptions:

void func() {
if (!AquireResource1()) goto end;
if (!AquireResource2()) goto cleanup1;
if (!AquireResource3()) goto cleanup2:

DoStuffWithResources();

Cleanup3();
cleanup2:
Cleanup2();
cleanup1:
Cleanup1();
end:
return;
}

Why not write your game server in C/C++ with garbage collection, nice arrays, debugging, nice strings and an ide? Leaving those out seems like you're intentionally making things difficult on yourself.

I'd also back the W-series. They're beasts - though the loss of the 17" model was sad.

All the "real programmers" do.

I'd love to see an expert system that could take in some form of legal jargon, the details of a specific situation, and spit out an unambiguous application. Of course, then it could lead to all sorts of "hacking" the system. Imagine winning a court case because of an off-by-one error in a law, or a buffer overrun vulnerability in a contract that allowed for arbitrary code execution.

He's 5th for the 1990s and 252nd overall.

And I wouldn't be surprised to hear someone say they were "proud" to be 5'2" or 6'6". Nobody gets mocked for being 5'10" (at least in a predominantly Caucasian crowd - when I'm the only white guy in a crowd of Pilipino people, I get the occasional comment)