So what is the plan here then? To churn the video game equivalent of javascript/web designers? Equating video web design with simple game scripting is like equating enterprise computing with dynamic web page programming. A 4-year degree just for that, for designing on top of existing engines? No discussions on how to design one, on understanding what it takes to make a game (both vertically and horizontally programming, architecture and integration)?

Unless a person is a natural when it comes to understanding programing (efficient programming that is), I highly doubt (based on what I've seen) the average programming student can get that type of understanding without getting closer to the metal. In particular, if this school is banking on being in the DC area and attract the heavy duty simulation market (in the military and medical fields), they need to provide a bit more than just teaching how to program on top of a engine with a scripting language.

Do you believe in unicorns too?

Freedom of speech does not mean a free-for-all usage of anything available to express any point of view. You are free to exercise freedom of speech using the means that are legally available (which are plenty.) Really, not being able to use a copyrighted song to make fun of a political figure does not hamper my liberty of doing so. I haven't seen the satire, but from what I can gather, DeVore is/was in the wrong here unless the artistic work was altered so as to make clear it is a derived art clearly distinguishable from the original (with the derived art being legally usable for such a purpose.)

You are confusing freedom of speech (politically motivated and otherwise) with fair use. Imagine for example (and just for shits and giggles) that during the last presidential elections, the Republican party decides to make a satire of Obama at the tunes of, say, one of Michael Jackson's songs (say, "Beat It".) You could alter the roles with the Democratic party making a satire of McCain/Palin (as well as changing the name of the artist and type of art being used) but the essence is the same - a satire and form of political speech using copyrighted material without parodying the copyrighted material herein used.

It would be legally reasonable that the Jackson's camp would be entitled for monetary fees due to the usage of those songs for purposes other than parodying the song and the artist. The law would recognize the artist' claim (which should not be construed as an attack to freedom of speech.)

As for the analogy with the removal of the Hitler parody videos, I'm sad to see them go, but the law is clear in that satires are not protected in the same way parodies are (wrt of using copyrighted material). None of this should be construed either as an attack to freedom of speech in the form of satire or parody.

Unfortunately, the law is (or seems to be) clear on this. I hope that someday (sooner I hope) the law gets amended so that satires done for non-commercial purposes get the same protection wrt copyrighted materials (at least so that we can all enjoy Hitler going at it for lolcatz sake).

It is called a joke. I'm sure that the concept has also existed in Italy, even predating Roman and Etruscan times.

And blasting the person for WHAT YOU DECIDED TO PERCEIVE as Americastan chauvinism and putting into question a country's common law system (of which you have no personal experience to speak of) just because someone made a post that is clearly a joke to anyone that is not brain dead... earns goodwill how?

How does hypocrisy works for you?

If you are going to project e-rage and e-hate towards an American poster (or the American judicial system), at least be honest instead of dressing it with kumbaya calls of goodwill.

Easy tiger, you are not even Brazilian to take offense, certainly has never lived in the US or Brazil. You are not even from this side of the globe. And look at you, with your panties on fire by e-rage. RAAAARGH!!!

Seriously man, you don't know who you were replying to. For all you know, he's a Brazilian living in the US (yes, a foreign person living in the US preferring the US in some ways over his own country. Incredible, I know.) Take me for instance. I'm Nicaraguan, but I live in the US, and the hell that I will back there again. After having lived half of my life under civil law and my other half under case/common law, I much prefer the later when you take all pros and cons into account. I personally know quote a few Brazilians living here who feel the same.

I'm not saying that the dude is a US-living Brazilian, but you really don't know who you are blasting away with your ARGGH-AMERCUNT! post, do you?

You were just looking for an opportunity to vent some long-built steam against what you *think* is American nationalism. You found something, you built yourself into an e-rage and made up an excuse to blast the living crap out of it. I'm not one to judge people for their proclivities, so do as you please. Just don't complain if you get blisters after screwing that nice straw man you just built here.

See, that's reverse nationalism supported by thick brush painted generalizations of something you barely know of. Projection is the clutch for those who like to feel morally superior. Let me know how it works for you. Or better yet, get some help and stop being such a sensitive e-bitch looking for a gratuitous cause to fight for. It might actually do you some good.

Speculation.

See? More speculation, of which you are trying very hard to make it offensive simply because you have no way to defend your position with logic.

Projection. Strawman. Speculation. Offensiveness done simply because that's the only recourse you have when trying to defend an illogical, indefensible argument.

More speculation.

Some of those things that are being done wrong in life are having a family and kids, adjusting to a new location after moving from other place. I mean, seriously. The typical life of a college graduate is to move wherever works take you, sometimes across the country, far away from your parents and HS friends. Your college friends will also go their own way. This is not counting migrants or people married with people from other countries (whose friends and relatives you will befriend if you are normal.)

So either you didn't make lifelong lasting friends in HS and college (meaning, it is you who is doing something wrong in life.) Or you sever ties with friends the moment they end up in a state or city different from yours (which doesn't necessarily elicit an interesting and healthy way of life either.)

Again, stop projecting. The problem is not with them, it's with you.

Question: From where I am (Florida), how do I hang out with my friends, school buddies and relatives in California, Massachusetts, Georgia, Yokohama and Central America? Or do they stop being friends and relatives the moment they are no longer within spitting distance? It got to suck in a very insular way to not have people you care to hang out with but are very far away, in this modern, mobile and to a point, nomadic nation of ours. Either that, or you live in a cow town where everybody you know and care for enough to hang out with stays and dies on the same spot.

Here you are making the leap of thinking that all that information is available to random strangers (when in fact, that only happens if you consciously fiddle your privacy settings to make everything public.) Most people in Facebook do not do that, and, unlike Myspace (and the friend-whoring it seems to support), these same facebook users tend to keep visibility open only to actual friends, relatives and co-workers.

I'm a facebooker myself, some of my information is accessible by every one; other just to those I connect with. Fact is, I'm only connected with family, relatives and people I actually know. It's been the best thing since e-mail to keep in touch with relatives and friends thousands of miles away. With people that I've lost contact 10-15 years ago (by virtue of finishing school and/or migration) we have been able to re-found each others.

With it, and with skype, they have been great tools to communicate with faraway friends and family. It's the only way my grandma in Nicaragua and my in-laws in Japan can get regular, daily updates on my baby's growth. Networking sites are some of the best things that have come from the Internet in terms of human interaction.

When people start seeing those as ZOMG, GEEK+ATTENTIONWHORE, BASEMENT! ditching advise about getting out, that's just projecting.

No kidding. The only time I've ever had to search for a module like that in recent years was when trying to install a version of Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex on an AMD64 laptop back in 2008. Before that, I can't remember for the life of me when I had to do that type of search (97-98 maybe.) Maybe this guy was trying to install a long-forgotten slackware CD (circa 1995) - downloaded via CompuServe to boot - on one of those 486SX Frankenstein computers we used to build from cannibalized parts.

Linux installs have gotten so good (they have been that good for quite a while), that you have to have some weird combination of hardware (say really old-tech parts put together with really, really new-tech parts) to get severe installation problems. The only Yaaargh! we get to say now is at the sound of the linux distro spinning flawlessly (most of the time) on the CD/DVD player.

Holy LOLCATS!!! I know!!! What if it was The Football or a snuke? And what if it has been a Na'vi baby, or a puppy???

</facepalm>

Appeal to emotion much? Here, have this link with your sanctimonious kool aid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_the_children_(politics)

That's only a concern for sedentary couch potatoes in the industrialized world (specially in the US). In any meat-eating country where you have to walk 2 miles a day at least, saturated fats from red meat becomes a negligible remote possibility, so remote it makes no sense to even consider it.

It looks like that *to you*. But the fact is that about 70%-75% of all development going on today IS NOT for internet applications. Automotive and manufacturing, medical devices, military industry, consumer electronics, that's where the bulk of development goes. Ever open that computer of yours and see all those boards in it? Ever seen all those little, strange and mysterious black square thingies, then one called "chips"? Guess what goes on them? Software, and not the internet application type.

Sorry, but that statement is so wrong on so many levels, it is embarrassing.

Furthermore, there will always be improvements on how we create things, operating systems included, not unless all of the sudden we stop making advances in computer electronics, solid state devices and network/communication technologies. Are you so naive so as to think operating systems of today will be capable of handing ever increasing challenges in file systems, networking, larger RAM, larger disks, greater bandwidth and greater parallelism? Seriously, what the hell?

That's because the average reflects the lowering of standards. Average CS student 15-20 years ago was expected to do Pascal/Ada, C, a full-course on assembly (and not just a few weeks), Lisp/Prolog, create multi-threaded/multi-tasked applications from scratch (and if lucky to be at a good university, create a bootloader or mini-os or an embedded app from scratch as well) by the time of graduation. Some even were lucky to learn how to create primitive calculators with hardware in their computer org classes.

Average CS student now is expected to know how to create a dynamic web site in Java or whatever without ever having to learn how all of this shit works from the moment they press the "power on" button on their computers. Mind you, I do Java for a living, so it's not like I'm a C-enamored freshman bashing Java development for the heck of it.

So to say that the learning curve is too great for the average developer is just a reflection of the averages TODAY (and an indictment of our CS education nowadays.)

Purely anecdotal - younger generation of developers are more geared/equipped towards making web pages (and usually suck at it) than dealing with low-level interesting (and, at least, be decent at it.) They could be working on Java or C# for 8 years (or say they know C/++) and not know who Gosling, Hejlsberg, Stroustrup or K&R are (which is like looking for a job as a Physicist and not know who Newton is.) Don't know who they are after working on their stuff for years, chances are you suck at it. Purely anecdotal so that it for what it is if your mileage has varied when it comes to this.

Pure unsubstantiated conjecture.