You can't remain a "non-techie" and learn how to be proficient in a techie area like programming. You have to chose whether you want to give up being a non-techie. If you do then roll up your sleeves and learn it like anyone else. I would recommend downloading python, getting the online freebie, "Dive Into Python" and work your way through it. Then read a book on Data Structures and one Algorithms. Next work your way through a few of the problems on Project Euler. By that time you will no longer be a "non-techie". I hope that is OK with you.

No IP laws are good IP laws. So called intellectual property isn't.

I have money. I am not a business. I would pay to not be automatically trackable just because I use higher bandwidth (business class) services. Where is this a problem. Are you saying I must be fully trackable at all times just on the grounds that I might do something criminal? Are you sure you want to take (and live by in all ways yourself) that position?

There is no evidendence whatsover of any severe climate crisis. So this is not motivated by saving the world unless the man is a gullible idiot.

All taxes are legalized thievery. Quibbling over who the victims are and how much each victim is transgressed against is what allow these things to continue. Such quibbling sanctions the fundamental wrong.

I feel so much better. They already had a law to force me to bend over with or without lube applied. But they deferred it. So they only removed the deferral they didn't make a *new* decision to rape me. What a relief!

No multi-tasking;
No new APIs for background processes;
Keyboard is just as lame as iPhone and badly scaled to larger screen;
no path for Kindle users except iPhone kindle app;
no file system access to organize all the stuff you can cram into one of these;
no wireless sync whatsoever;
only a pound lighter than my macbook air;
only 3 hours more battery life than my new macbook pro;
no new apps just rework of iWork when all its components are apple proprietary non-industry standard crap.

That which cannot be found with search is not relevant. Murdoch just confessed he is incompetent to figure out how to make money unless he can monopolize news and even the finding of news. Goodbye Mr. Murdoch. Please retire and watch your grandchildren.

Simply scaring people about P2P may be one goal. But I doubt it. Scare them, pass legislation, then more regulation to ensure the bugaboo, largely made up to begin with, does not happen. It is a wedge to allow the government more control of software. And, considering the source, thoroughly in the interest of the movie and record industry. It also makes the control-freaks unhappy about anything that gives any real power to the "consumer" happy. It is worded so that oppose seem to be in favor of insecure computers. Clever but OPPOSE anyway.

The architects are usually uber coders that design entire systems. You can't be a really ace architect without understanding deeply what can be coded, the ways it can be coded and the implications of different approaches. An architect may or may not write some of the actual code. But very often they do.

I would work on and pay others to work on:

1) Artificial General Intelligence;

2) AI programmers;

3) automatic code refactoring and retargeting software;

4) Intelligence Augmentation via new software and systems.

5) Making lisp (or lisp like) language and environment so obviously and unquestionably superior and easy to use that no one would wish to use a lesser language. :)

I so much want this to happen. I left college in 1981 in my sophomore year to work in the field I love, software engineering. I have done many projects that would be worth a PhD if done in the academic context. Much of my career I have worked with PhD credentialed peers. Yet I have no such paper. Beyond the paper, there are things particularly in the more theoretical and research areas that I would like to know much more of. Many of these I do explore with online resources and in books. However I get no credit for these things. I can't use them to gain admittance to say a PhD program. I can't use them to be admitted to a more research oriented project.

I have checked what it would take to pick up this paper in an accredited way many times. The answer with brick and mortar is to take many years off earning an good income and sit in a desk. The online options are not sufficiently accredited. If there were online options with no mandatory time duration and testing out on an all required courses and full accreditation that would be ideal. I suspect it would be ideal to millions of others also.

As the need for continuous re-education and learning increases how can we as a society afford to not make it as efficient and accessible and fully accredited as possible?

What I really want is digital versions of all books in my library and all books I will ever care to read. I have no use anymore for dead trees and unsearchable text. I hope someone offers a reasonable price on digital versions of all books I already own.

Quite a leap there. Out of print books are not available digitally for the vast majority at all. Someone makes them available digitally and charges a fee to some commercial users. That it no way says the fee will always be there or that it will apply to those who are merely readers. Actually I would be very suprised if they did not drop this fee and only proposed it to have something else to give away as a negotiation point. I am continually amazed when people do not see a step toward much better as good because it isn't an immediate leap to their ideal paradisical situation. They see the step in the right direction as evil. Odd lot these humans.