Half of those things are NOT things I would "recommend to a kid who wants to become a programmer".

Version control, UNIX philosophy, software testing - it's too much! Someone who wants to be a programmer should start to learn programming first, and then they can explore the wild twists and ideas that surround the thing once they have a grasp of what programing means to them.

I would say even starting languages to recommend depend on the person. If a programmer likes some languages and not others later in life, why should that not be true from day one because of how they like to think? What if you are recommending a language that will turn them off programming forever?

It would almost be best to develop a kind of programming sandbox, that would let them use a variety of languages and concepts (like functional or OO or even, yes, procedural!) and see the path they take most naturally.

I initially read that as "celebrating" instead of "covering". I think my mis-read might be just as accurate, sadly.

If anyone is worried about these slight actions turning kids into psychopaths, they would be AGHAST at what kids normally do with insects when they catch or find them...

Fire, pliers, rocks, etc. All are involved.

They are still bitter that they had the idea for a tablet long before Apple

Sure but that idea was a touchscreen desktop computer.

When Apple did it, everyone pissed themselves like excited dogs

When Apple announced the iPad there were a TON of pundits who said it was stupid and would never sell, lots saying it was a much worse platform than the Microsoft tablets...

But on shipping them people found they liked how it worked, and sales took off from there.

Kind of sad, really. Apple continues to gain marketshare and is making more money with it's 1 out of 8 people using Apple products than Microsoft is with 7 out of 8 using their OS.

Apple is making more money but still not a lot more than Microsoft, which still has huge revenues. But you have a good point that they are basically been perceived as losing for a while and they have to have been pretty inept to manage that when they could have had the phone and tablet market from the outset if they had done things right.

But I do not think it was possible for a company run by someone like Gates (and later Balmer) to ever really do things right. They just don't understand what right really is and so they wouldn't know how to ship it if they had it.

Lots of people have very expensive watches on their wrists and don't seem to worried about them getting damaged or catching hair.

Yes, those of us who have moved beyond watches have a term for them. It is "Idiot".

Do you like pocket watches?

Yes I do. It's called a "Smart Phone". And here in the 21st century the chain is optional!

If the shutdown is short, it's not a huge deal... but if it drags on, I wonder if her bank will defer her mortgage payments? Likely not...

Why is that likely not? Real banks do in fact do that all the time for people if you just call and explain the situation. Don't be an idiot and let the bank find out by surprise - talk to them early and ask for a deferment of some kind.

The son of a friend is a civilian helicopter mechanic attached to the base. He isn't "essential", so he's currently not working and not bringing in income.

You know what happens to people in real life when they are laid off, even if temporarily? They find another job.

Being a mechanic you'd think he could find some work pretty rapidly if he needed income badly. But possibly he has saved up, like everyone is supposed to (reserve is six months of income), and he's treating it as a break?

I don't feel sorry at all for either of your friends because by now you know what happens if you work for the government, it will shut down from time to time. My own wife works for the federal government too so it's not like I am not personally affected, but currently for her the tradeoff is worth keeping the job... but we are prepared for the shutdowns because we know at this point they will happen with some regularity. If you can't take it find a job in the private sector.

One other difference between the government and real life is that in real life the business usually just goes away, but you know the lumbering beast of the federal government will proceed, perhaps stumbling like now but it's not like the job will ever really go away. And that's why most of the people stay.

I have before worked for an employer who said he could not pay me for a while, but I should keep working.

That happened a few times over a few years. Eventually I got my money back but it took a long time and there was a significant back pay that floated for a year.

So knowing that was a pattern, what did I do? I left to find other work.

Government is NO DIFFERENT. If you are going to obviously be screwed over every time the Government needs to figure out a yearly budget (hint: they can't) or bump against the debt ceiling (hint: very often), then you need to LEAVE.

You didn't say if you were enlisted or not but it seems like not. Most people take government jobs because they are easier but if you are not liking this new tradeoff you need to leave, which is what every worker in the private sector would generally do... the mistake is thinking that delayed pay and worse is something that only happens to government workers during a furlough, because in real life it happens to people quite often.

I hope more government workers figure this out, and fast - and that it takes the shine of government work for others also.

I don't understand the need for this. Tomatoes are simply to small and soft to pose much peril to a house, even in large numbers. The only way there could possibly be a danger is if somehow they were exposed to large quantities of radiation, clearly impossible.

Basically, what I'm seeing is people who advocated shutting down the entire federal government as a complete waste of money are now going "Wait, I didn't mean that, or that, or that other thing."

No, they meant EVERYTHING, knowing what that meant.

INSTEAD what we get is "that, and that but not that". We get guarded parks but not letting people inside even though they are still paying the people who would protect the park anyway! We get the government spending money on barricading things that normally have NO staff!

A government shutdown should mean that, a SHUTDOWN. Instead what we get is what you described - the White House cherry-picking just what delectable services shall remain open and what shall not.

The shut down is total farce.

It's a poor mind indeed that cannot accept a fact because they do not like who is stating it.

Rational people absorb and ponder on words and facts as they are, not discarding information because of internal biases.

A mall has to close and lock doors, so that you cannot get inside.

Many national parks have public roads that CANNOT be closed running right through them, off of which are the campgrounds that are being told to close.

It's like saying that a store outside the mall had to close just because the mall did.

The duty of the National park service ceases when it closes down. Whatever it's duty was is irrelevant, too bad they CANNOT protect the parks now but that's the case if they are shut down - and in the meantime the people should be able to get to the land THEY own. The National Park Service is illegally preventing access to land that is ours.

If you're making anything more than a quick, throwaway prototype it shouldn't be riddled with so many bugs that it'll cause months of additional work

If you're making anything of any complexity it WILL be riddled with lots of bugs well before release. As it was, it didn't seem to cause "months of additional work" because the work that was done after was the work that was simply required to finish.

You are living in a dream if you think you can develop a product without at some stages having a lot of bugs.

Who cares about the signal strength during a demo? As they said, they knew the signal would be good - they brought in a mobile tower. The only issue was that during the demo the cell radio might crash, dropping bars and then raising them again - which would be MORE of a lie because the actual network had not dropped. As it was we don't even know if that ever happened.