Go to countries like India. For example, you will get a 60k heart surgery done for 3 to 10 k in the best of the best hospitals, add 1.5 k tickets + some for hotel. Success rate for heart is 98.5 % but if your surgery goes the other 1.5% way then you can't sue. Medicine is a practice, not a science, so risk is yours.

I am on h1b and my company got 62 per hour for my work at a client site and they kept 21 and gave me 41 per hour. Am I cheap?

It is opensource. If you are not able to support yourself then I am afraid you are not adventurous enough to use Linux. Stay in proprietery OS world.

If performance is number one priority then I would say, you should compile your own kernel. The standard distros have a lot of fat in the kernel. I have not tried many distros, so let other slashdotters pick a distro. Take the base distro and then begin kernel compilation, cut out all the drivers for which you don't have the hardware. For example, cd writer driver, tape drive, network card drivers except for the one you use and many many other stuff.. It will take few iterations to get the desired kernel. Enterprise versions are outdated by years, for example compare RHEL kernel with Fedora 15 kernel version. From my experience "enterprise" means crippled distro yet 10+ times expensive.

So is it evolution or devolution in IT age(historical prespective)- Linux users have to pay for Windows users who ignorantly choose a stupid OS. I did quit one of the biggest city's IT department in disgust because they wanted to put antivirus on Linux servers. Call me biased - I immediately loose respect for a person who chooses to implement a solution based on Windows and also for the persons who put a proprietery app on Linux and give root privileges to it. For me it becomes a parasite infested Linux system.

You are bang on the point. Wish to add that malpractice suites are the reason our medicine prices are so high. Get the facts, we know only 0.00001% about how our body works. Medicine is not a science but a practice, similar to religion, there will be failures and success in treatment where how and why part are unknown. Life is entertainment, enjoy it :-)

Angelina Jolie is suspiciously absent...

I think you underestimate society's use of the internet and networks. It is far more than being able to browse Slashdot and play Farmville. The internet is responsible for financial transactions, shipping management (particularly food sources, oil, etc), power management, etc. If the internet went down, would it be the end of the world? I don't particularly think so. Would there be a whole heap (and I mean A LOT) of problems from the result? You better believe it.

Actually, Google is bringing Programming by Contract to Java. Design by Contract is trademarked by Eiffel Software (and Bertrand Meyer).

I'm not a Catholic, but, to be fair, spending money on yourself is not necessarily incompatible with religion. Yes, it does say in the Bible that it will be "easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven," but it's not because the person is rich. (For those who don't know, Jesus makes this statement after a rich man asked him what he needed to do to enter heaven. Jesus told him to go and sell his possessions and then follow Him. The rich man went away pretty discouraged.) The real incompatibility is when possessions become first over your love for Christ. That is where a lot of people get the common phrase incorrect. Money is not the root of all evil. It never says that anywhere in the Bible. No...instead...it says THE LOVE of money is the root of all evil.

If that person with the iPhone driving the $80,000 SUV is using that SUV to take a lot of food to homeless shelters, or perhaps the driver helps cart animals back and forth to the elderly to cheer them up, or perhaps a million other reasons - then there is absolutely nothing wrong. Heck, even if that person is driving that SUV because they liked all the cupholders it had and it was comfortable for them - then good for them! As long as they don't love it more than they love God, that is a good first step. (And, I know people who love far more worthless things which would fall into the same category.)

Of course, it's easy to judge those who have more (because someone will always have more than you). But, you see, by judging them (something we shouldn't be doing) and jumping to conclusions, you're stepping very close to that "do not covet" law that is pretty excellent as well. Really, a big portion of the "rules" of the Bible are, "Mind your own business unless you're doing good for someone else." Funny enough, people are VERY bad at minding their own business.

No...they just simply...fade away.

One of the most insightful statements I have read here on Slashdot. We often forget that we are so focused on technical needs that we miss what "real people" really need or want.

Well...now...that's just blasphemy. :-p

Seriously, though. Excellent post. Technology is fun, but it's not everybody's (most people's) cup of tea.

Genghis Kahn? Huh...I tried to look him up, but couldn't find anything out about him. Lots of information about another guy called Genghis Khan, though. But...that's probably just a coincidence.

Actually, many of the Netflix streaming movies are now offering options of CC. Not every movie, but I'm seeing it pop up more frequently lately.

I did like crazy at one point in my life. Now I don't interact with my ex-wife anymore.