I agree. Cell phones and texting and all that jazz is making crashes more common. It's killing people, literally. It's as bad as driving drunk, some people have said. I just bought a '12 Civic Si and I plan on driving it for 10+ years, so I don't have to worry about tech ruining my ride. Stick shift n' clutch all the way, baby. Electronic doodads are just a sideshow anyways. The real advancement in automobile tech will be whatever energy source dethrones these godawful fossil fuels we use to power vehicles.

Who needs employers? Just compete against them. Infiltrate and industry, learn how it works, then launch your own competing business. Read "How to Get Rich" by Felix Dennis and "Screw It, Let's Do It," by Richard Branson.

Some people think peak oil will come sometime before 2030. So gasoline will be at least $10/gallon before then, and everyone will be driving efficient cars if they're driving at all.

It's more likely to be copyrighted than to be released to the public domain.

"Employment of computer programmers is expected to decline slowly. Job prospects should be best for those with a bachelor's degree and experience with a variety of programming languages and tools."

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos110.htm#outlook

But ...

"Employment of computer support specialists and systems administrators is expected to increase much faster than the average. Job prospects should be best for those with a college degree and relevant experience."

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos268.htm#outlook

I'm making the jump myself -- after 11 years in the newspaper business -- into information technology. They pay is better. I'm hoping I can earn somewhere in the $50k+ range as an IT worker, up from the mid-20s to low 30s that a typical newspaper reporter position pays. But I'm not going to college again; I'm just reading a lot of books on my own time and teaching myself.

Ah, good advice here. :) Listen to this guy.

Ah, local reportage *is* the AP. The Associated Press's news comes from local papers who put their stories on the AP wire, then all other AP member newspapers/TV stations across the world can get a copy of that story and put it on their own newspaper/website/TV station. Srsly. Get rid of all the local papers and guess what? You just killed 90% of AP news.

Yep, newspapers are not cheap. Think about what it takes to make a single day's newspaper. How long would it take you, personally, to create an identical product? Probably years to learn the reporting, layout, editing and photo processing skills. Then it would take another few years for you to make connections with the people you're covering, and to get to know them and learn how the systems they work for work. Then it would take time to sit through hours and hours of meetings, and hours of poring over documents, then still more hours to write what you've found into a story that's understandable and interesting to the layman. And then do that for stories about 10-20 vastly different subjects.

Then, you have to start selling and designing all the ads to pay for it all ... factor in a couple years for that. Put it all together, print it ... heck for one metro-sized weekday newspaper (not even a Sunday edition!) it would take a noob probably at least a decade to create it.

Now consider this: You can have all this work done for you, for about 75 cents per day, thanks to the team of people who run newspapers today.

Computers are a major source of pollution and hazardous waste. Just take a look:

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=computer+waste&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2

Now, does paper look so bad? Newp!

"Newspapers do not seem to have that level of self-awareness, and are stuck in a business model that is not very profitable."

Historically, papers have been extremely profitable, even since the advent of the Web: "A typical newspaper with a 100,000 circulation makes a 15.6 percent annual pre-tax profit margin, according to Inland Daily Press Association and the International Newspaper Financial Executives. The Tribune Company, which owns the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and other media outlets, for example, operates on an 18.3 percent pre-tax profit margin. Gannett, which owns 90 newspapers in the U.S., including USA Today, operates on a 21.4 percent pre-tax profit margin. By comparison, Walmart Stores Inc. operates on a 5.4 percent pre-tax profit margin, while Exxon Mobil Corporation operates on a 17.9 percent pre-tax profit margin."

source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/part3/newspaperprimer.html

I've always thought this sort of high profit was kind of messed up, since reporters are paid so little. I don't mean the Sean Hannitys and Wolf Blitzers of the world, I mean regular cops/city council/schools type newspaper reporters. They earn miserable salaries by and large. Take a look at www.journalismjobs.com and you'll see $30,000/year is pretty typical. Where's the profit going? Shareholders I suppose, not into journalism. It's all business, sadly. And it has been sucking the life out of newspapers for decades, even before the Web was a factor.

"... newspapers are little more than repackaged AP ..." From Wikipedia: "The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staffers." I work at a daily paper. I don't work for the AP. I don't get paid for anything I create that goes on the AP. But I've had my journalism work go *on* the AP and be published all over the place. It's just normal work-a-day journalists that create AP news; some of us work in small towns you've never heard of, some of us work in the big cities.

Reporter: "Sir, when you talk about Iran, and you talk about how you have diplomatic efforts, you also say all options are on the table. Does that include the possibility of a nuclear strike? Is that something that your administration will plan for?" Bush: "All options are on the table." That option means nuclear weapons. http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0228-28.htm Perhaps if you, ah, read a newspaper you'd be aware of such comments. Also, ""If Iran had a nuclear weapon, it'd be a dangerous threat to world peace," Bush said. "So I told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested" in ensuring Iran not gain the capacity to develop such weapons." http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/17/asia/prexy.php