Noone in the US could live on $290 a month (Foxconn wages for iPad line person).
Sure they could, if (like the Foxconn workers) they lived in the company barracks, ate at the company mess hall, and wore company uniforms. 3 hots and a cot doesn't sound like much, but it's better than being homeless and starving.
In my opinion there is a lot of money in hardware.
That is not the same as saying there is a lot of PROFIT in hardware.
Most mature hardware is a commodity item. In an ideal marketplace, the cost of a commodity approaches the cost of production. There is money to be made in a commodity market, but what profit there is generally comes from efficiencies of scale, cost reduction, etc. Competing in a commodity market is almost always a race to the bottom.
IBM has survived as long as it has because it knows when it's time to leave a market. They look forward rather than trying to cling to past glories. They know the time to sell a cash cow is when it's still close to it's peak, not when it's dried up and worthless. This is why IBM is profitable and Kodak is in bankruptcy.
Ruby is *not* basically Perl, I've used both for quite a while now. Ruby's concepts are much easier to comprehend and use in everyday coding.
That's a matter of opinion. I personally find Perl to be a better (more expressive) language for most tasks. Mostly I use Ruby (JRuby, specifically) when I have to write code that will run in a JVM, otherwise I default to Perl. RubyGems is nice, but it's still (at least) a decade behind CPAN. I'll grant you that Perl's learning curve is steeper than Ruby's, but I'll maintain that it's worth the effort.
Classes are not some weird afterthought that feels like it's falling apart every second now, they are first class members.
I'll give you that one for classic Perl OO. OTOH, Moose solves most of those complaints. Moose is basically a backport of Perl6's OO system, which is heavily influenced by Ruby's. This gives you pretty much everything you need to do serious OOP without having to drink the everything-is-an-object kool-aid.
The Perl interpreter is way quicker, which is nice,
Even nicer is the ability to use other (faster) languages inline once you've identified hotspots in your code through profiling. I am not aware of anything in Ruby that can compare to the simple elegance of Inline::C for this purpose.
there's sooo much unnecessary syntactic explicitness compared to Ruby.
Huh? Examples, please. "Syntactic explicitness" is NOT a complaint that's levied against Perl often.
You can write perl that looks like modem line noise, but you don't have to. Feature!
Specifically, it's a feature designed to let you write efficient one-liners. One-liner Perl is practically an entirely different language than 'application' Perl, and (IMHO) should be treated as such.
You don't have to make it hard to read or maintain, though some programmers do.
Even as a die-hard Perl programmer, I have to admit that Perl culture often encourages it. Perl Golf is an interesting intellectual exercise, but you shouldn't be playing it when writing production code. TIMTOWTDI is a powerful concept, but it gives you plenty of rope with which to hang yourself if you are undisciplined.
Adopting the mandatory use of perlcritic is a good first step towards managing Perl development. Perl Best Practices should be required reading for any modern Perl programmer.
That goes both ways - if you want me to sign an NDA, show me the money.
I don't have problems with an NDA (or even a non-compete) as long as it is a) reasonable in scope and duration, and b) isn't bundled with an IP rights grab. If you don't want me to steal your ideas, don't try to steal mine either. I routinely strike clauses in contracts / agreements that are overreaching and unreasonable - and have gotten very little push-back about it.
Cliche, but... Coders are a dime a dozen.
Coders are a dime a dozen. GOOD coders are rarer than hen's teeth.
Coding is not an assembly-line process, and programmers are not interchangeable. You don't create great software by hiring more programmers. You create great software by hiring better programmers.
we'd have 100's of implementations of EVERY idea.
We don't, but we do have 1000's of coders for every idea.
You haven't browsed Github or Sourceforge (or CPAN, or RubyGems, or any other open source repository) recently, have you? We do have hundreds of implementations of every idea.
Actually the B-52 was designed to deliver a nuclear weapon from an altitude so high that nothing in the day could touch it. Of course that untouchability only lasted a few years until the Soviets designed interceptors and SAMs that could reach the B-52s service ceiling.
Dropping massive amounts of conventional ordinance was a capability that was retrofitted.
The fact that the B-52s mission profile has changed so many times over it's lifespan is testimony of how flexible the airframe is.
"most progressive" is an interesting way to say "least regressive".
Being a little less backwards and underpants-on-the-head retarded than their neighbors doesn't make them progressive.
Total program cost divided by number of units delivered.
Any other number is bullshit.
One man, even with a loud voice, isn't going to make much of a difference.
Unless that one man happens the CEO of a publicly-owned corporation with a $5.6B market capitalization, who is speaking on behalf of that corporation's (very wealthy) investors... investors who also happen to give giant campaign contributions.
[No person shall] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law
Independent clauses. Learn what they mean.
torture just gets confessions whether they're factual or not.
THIS.
Maybe with some hard, government-sponsored and -approved research to back it up, we'll stop using torture... I don't care if the government stops condoning torture because it's been proven to be ineffective or because it's morally wrong, just so long as they stop.
More and more virus strains are appearing that are resistant to many or all antibiotics
All *viruses* are immune to antibiotics, because antibiotics affect *bacteria*, not *viruses*.
Antibiotics are only used for viral infections to stave off secondary (bacterial) infections.
And the one thing in common with every major pandemic, catastrophe, and economic collapse has had in common? No one ever saw them coming.
Not even remotely true. Many, if not most, catastrophes have plenty of warning - most people just ignore the warning signs until it's too late.
FYI, building your house (or factory, or other critical infrastructure) on the slope of an active volcano or on top of an active fault line is "ignoring the warning signs".
I also have to reject your claim that he deserves death threats -- for what reason? Obeying the law??? I don't benerally listen to people who advocate law-breaking with falsified Visas. That makes you a criminal.
You could also argue that it was his duty to inform the higher-ups that their lawbreaking was obvious. You have a moral as well as a fiduciary duty to inform management of risks that could impact the business. If you know of a situation that could cost the company millions/billions in fines, civil judgements, and bad PR, and you *don't* report it, you're not doing your job.
(AFIK) Under Sarbanes-Oxley, not reporting illegal activity to management could wind up costing *you* your freedom. A paper trail will cover your ass when the shit inevitably hits the fan.
The Tao is like a glob pattern: used but never used up. It is like the extern void: filled with infinite possibilities.
