I'm sure the development team is proud of the generable availability of PHP as well :-)

One thing that would be great would be to fund studies that's sole purpose is to verify/reproduce someone else's work. Obviously, with the current state of funding, this really doesn't happen. Once something is published, we as the next researchers are forced to take results as fact - which may not be true due to error, low yield, or (hopefully not) fabrication of results (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_misconduct).

I really do believe that incentivizing verification of results and repeat studies (with reasonable limits, of course) would improve scientific research tremendously. However, it's even less likely to take hold than moving away from "publish or perish."

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The less features you have to maintain, the better? If they make any internal data format and/or API changes, they may have have to change something here.

I have worked at some places that hired folks with only a high school diploma, if that. These were some of the smartest people I've ever known and they were definitely good enough to make it without the diploma. If you are truly amazing at what you do then any employer would be happy to have you. You just have to demonstrate it.

That being said, it is more than worth it to take an honest look at yourself. Are you really that good, and if so, would it come across to a stranger? As many people have pointed out, the degree is not strictly about what you learn, it's a chance for you to prove what you are capable of. Also, most of the folks I'm talking about started doing this stuff before formal tranining was as pervasive as it is now.

What about coporate environments that are strictly change controlled? The extra visibility may produce significant risk to systems that cannot be patched in such short order...

Actually, there are limited places in the US that do this: Metric Road Signs in the US I think this is something that could be voted on at the municipality/state level and could eventually work its way nationally.

As many posters have pointed out, this definitely seems to be the logical conclusion of bitcoins being recognized as having real economic value. I wonder how far off bitcoin futures are from being listed on a major exchange, especially considering the CFTC is interested and has taken notice

I'd like to add a litte more along these lines:
As suggested, taking a look at Opensecrets shows that big money in politics does come, in a large part, from unions: http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php
So, a lot of big money in politics comes from unions and goes mainly to the Democratic party (at least the top 15 or so), which may be contrary to the only big corporation and Republicans thing most of us expect (especially from all those Obama campaign emails I get about "grassroots").
What the big unions do is strongarm you as a young person into becoming a VIP member (whose fee is eligible for political contributions) and then don't give you a say. Also, when layoffs happen, you're the first to go since the ONLY thing that matters is seniority. Sadly, when it comes to many things, the big unions don't look too different from the big businesses.

ITAR is from the Dept. of State and according to the article it was the DoS and NOT DoD that acted from the header in the letter sent to DEFCAD: "United States Department of State Bureau of Political-Military Affairs Offense of Defense Trade Controls Compliance"