Unlike all other Ask Slashdots, this question is not prededed by "$USERNAME writes", so who actually proposed this question? A user that didn't get credit? A Slashdot editor? Someone from Sourceforge? The post introducing sponsored Ask Slashdots says that "the sponsors don't pick the questions", but that's still ambiguous. Many people are skeptical about this being thinly veiled astroturfing, so it's important to be as transparent as possible.

If you're not aware, a bunch of "hippies in jeans and t-shirts" have done quite well here in Silicon Valley. While obviously there are many other factors at play, one reason for the success of the valley is that, by and large, nobody cares what you look like so long as you're intelligent and get your work done. Keep your suits, we'll keep our t-shirts, and call me when your fashionocracy catches up to our meritocracy.

OS X is not a walled garden like iOS. You can install apps and tweak the system to pretty much any reasonable degree. While there's always the fear that Apple is going to iOS-ize OS X, right now the Mac App store is purely optional.

Admittedly this is all based on reports that I would only trust to be semi-accurate so far, but it seems pretty clear that he was not executed but was a casualty of war. The last loyalist bastion in Sirte has been home to intense fighting in the past few weeks, and now it's clear why. According to the report, Gaddafi was either killed in a convoy that was hit by a NATO airstrike or by NTC fighters on the street. Unless he was shot while trying to surrender, and I seriously doubt that he would surrender given the ferocity of fighting in Sirte for a clearly lost cause, he was killed in a legitimate military action. As great as it would have been to put him on trial for his crimes, there's often no choice when someone is committed to fighting to the death.

Graphics, music, and some small forays into movie production (although the real work still happens on Windows and the processing on Linux). Business-business, that being, engineering, finance, healthcare, point of sale, etc, still are Windows or Linux only clubs. For very, very good reason.

Funny, here in the middle of Silicon Valley, I see a whole host of MacBooks. I guess we don't do any real work like engineering. At least in the software world, they can't be beat. Since the vast majority of people developing for Linux have dedicated build/test machines, all you need is a thin client for ssh access. Add in that the Mac can run your collection of bash/perl/python/whatever scripts locally if need be, and it's the ideal dev machine. All this and you don't have to spend pointless hours forcing Linux to work correctly with your laptop. Yes, it's possible to make a functioning Linux laptop, but it doesn't "just work" like a Mac. And guess what? My company (and many others) would gladly pay the extra money for the Mac because it pales in value compared to the wasted time of engineers.

PS - Thank you. I've turned to near hatred of Apple over pretty much everything they touch with iOS. Thanks for bringing back the good ole early 2000s era Mac bashing and letting me release my decades-cultivated Mac fanboy. Who knows, maybe for old time's sake I'll install an OS X point release and come post about how snappy it feels.

While I agree that cellular carriers are generally lying sacks of crap (and I think that's putting it kindly), I can't entirely fault them for pushing LTE as 4G. I think the ITU was wildly optimistic with their bandwidth requirements. The ITU even later revised their position to state that LTE, WiMax, and HSPA+ qualified as 4G. While part of that was bending to pressure from carriers, it was also a tacit admission that they were wrong with their original targets.

Other than the unrealistic bandwidth requirements, LTE hits all the other selling points for 4G. Most notably, it's all-IP and uses the much better OFDMA/SC-FDMA air interface. It will be compatible with LTE Advanced networks. It is much more closely related to full-blown 4G systems than it is to 3G systems, so I think it's better to just call it 4G than use some contrived term like 3.9G.

While there is no expectation of privacy in public, there is a huge practical difference between automated tracking systems and manpower surveillance. A few well placed cameras could track as many cars as thousands of people could.

Besides the law enforcement slippery slope, what about the commercial privacy concerns? It's not a stretch that such a system could be used to track how long you spend at the mall and where you went, especially if it were combined with a facial recognition system inside the mall. I know some of this is already possible just by tracking credit card purchases, but opening up yet another more invasive avenue for data collection is not something I welcome.

The marginal cost of texting is next to nothing. Texts get sent over the control channel. Regardless of texting, the control channel is needed for making calls, and it's mostly wasted bandwidth the rest of the time. Text messaging rates are highway robbery. That they cost anything is a product of our lovely cellular service industry.

But don't worry, once AT&T and T-Mobile merge, they won't waste so much money on redundant overhead, so they'll be able to make texting free with the savings. Right? Right?

Yes, the same Apple that is behind Darwin, WebKit, Bonjour, and countless other open source projects. Don't get me wrong, their iOS devices are a nightmare in this aspect, but OS X is a very open platform.

I "upgraded" from OS 9 to OS X 10.0 (a true work in progress) in 2001, but I was still dual booting between the two quite often until 10.1 came out later in the year. It's been all Aqua goodness ever since then.

As a counterpoint, I'm doing my Masters in CS right now and work as a software developer. Jobs in my field are plentiful even if you're just moderately competent, and there are great options if you're above average. Of all the STEM fields, CS has some of the best job prospects, and it's no coincidence that I find most people in my program are happy with their situation. So yes, I could totally see how Bio majors are miserable when they compare their brutal race for tenure to CS grad students who come out of school with six figure jobs.

It's easy to be nonchalant about it when you don't like in Seoul. If war breaks out, Seoul will get hit by North Korean artillery nonstop. The other major concern is that China would get involved, and nobody wants to see the US and China going at it, either directly or via proxy. If it weren't for those two reasons, Kim Jong-il and co. would have been wiped out a long time ago. The only thing that could make those risks bearable would be if the alternative is an aggressive, uncontrollable nuclear state, and that's exactly what North Korea is becoming.

Obligatory xkcd

There are a lot of other shows to complain about for their science instead of the one that gets it mostly (although far from perfectly) right.

It ran for a whole ten hours between crashes?

Get me that man's sysadmin to work on my tubes at once!

True, but then why pick the salesman over the consummate geek?