Ok, I've come to the end of the thread. Opinions have been varied, many suggestions have been made. People have defended the importance of marketing/business skills in people like Gates and Jobs. But nobody has mentioned Steve Ballmer, in over 400 comments

I guess that says something.

I'm wearing a 1977 model. Yes, it is older than me, but not by much.

I think it has been calibrated for an older person though, as when I wear it, it gains 5 minutes a fortnight.

You'll note I said should.

Perhaps you should delve into the history of law if you don't know the answer to that question though. The idea that good laws have their foundations in bad morals is very old.

Data should not be retained if the condition of obtaining it was that it would not be retained. Anything else is immoral, and should be illegal.

thing = think.

I've been on the phone with an ISP tech person who assumed I was an idiot or lying to them.

After informing them that, 'yes, in fact a telecommunications electrician has checked the phone line, but I don't see how that could be the problem,' and then having them tell me, "Mr. [X], you mustn't have done something, we will have to go through the procedure again." This would have been the 3rd time, I'd been on the phone for over an hour.

My response. "No, we've done it twice over the phone, I already did the same thing 3 times myself. And actually it's Dr. [X]." That stopped him dead. He stopped hassling me and passed on the problem to someone higher up.

We got a call back the next day. Turns out there was a bug in the ISP's code.

Moral to the story: best use for a doctorate, correcting tech support people who thing you're stupid.

I think the respondent's point is that many error messages are nonsensical and thus hard to remember. Often, I read an error message only to forget it 5 seconds after I've clicked Ok. Sure, a puppy dog or a baby would help with this (personally I like the colour and number system). What would also help is if the error was informative (and not written in binary).

So then, soon slashdotters will be complaining that they don't know how to talk to robots?

"Books and maps were originally allowed to be copyrighted for 16 years as this was viewed as necessary to help people recoup their costs of production, newspapers, handbills, plays, and music were not allowed copyright protection." What about the cost in time to the originator of the work. How long do you think it takes to write a good novel? To plan out how the story will proceed, to give life to the characters and make them believable, to incorporate original thoughts and ideas into the narrative? Now, how long do you think it takes to copy that?

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but everyone knows flattering to deceive is wrong.

Yes, but if you can't communicate your results, what good are they to the rest of us?

I voted for communication because the state of science journalism compelled me to.

The Chinese are trying to expel the internet, the telegraph never did enough to provoke that reaction, and I believe it's a requirement now.

I think the complaint is that you have to jump through hoops to talk about the things you are allowed to talk about!

Yeah, I know what you mean. Just last week I missed out on the opportunity to make a living just from surfing the web from my home computer! I can't tell you how disappointed I was that the email offering that 'chance of a lifetime' went to my spam folder.

Then there was the time I won a million dollars but because of my spam filter I never got to claim it in time. Or the time that the Prince of Nigeria sent a desperate email to me for help, but because of spam filtering I was never able to offer my assistance. I feel just terrible knowing that he was never able to access his fortune or reclaim his rightful seat on the throne.