This is probably my biggest complaint about OSX. Seriously, WTF? If you open one copy, you get a tiny dot on the dock to tell you. If you somehow manage to open another copy, I guess with the command line if you can find it, you'll get a **second** icon on the dock. You don't get a second dot, you get a second icon. WTF!!! The interface is conceptually confused, inappropriately muddling the "can be started" and "is a running instance" concepts. It's like not knowing the difference between a class and an object, or between a file type and a file.

This is also one of the yucky things about the OLPC XO's Sugar, but at least there is a good excuse: they don't always have enough RAM to run the first copy of an app, so you'd best forget about wanting to run more than one app at the same time.

Will my paid developer get commit rights to GNOME's source control? For an edit war, reverting changes as they occur?

GNOME developer's essentially forked their own project while unjustly keeping the name, web site, and so on. The "new" MATE project is the real GNOME. Nobody would be pissed if the GNOME 3 developers had gone off and started some new project -- call it PHOME maybe -- for phones.

So you detect an irregularity. What are you going to do about it? Realistically, nothing. Even if you did redo the election, that itself is an attack. It gives time to campaign some more, time for people to learn about or forget a scandal, etc.

That's quite the elitist high-class fantasy you have there. FYI, it's normal to not give a fuck. (rightly or not, depending on the subject matter) Also, the parents don't give a fuck.

Young people have a different perception of time and a much weaker ability to work toward long-term goals. Very few kids are influenced by a reward that is many years into the future. For the youngest, college is more than two lifetimes away.

Those crappy Washington D. C. schools are spending about $30,000 per year per student. Lots of ordinary not-well-off places are in the $10,000 to $20,000 range.

Since student/parent motivation is the #1 most important success factor, the majority of that budget should be going to incentives. Weekly cash payouts would be highly effective. Nothing, with the possible exception of weird social rules (such as "minimum class rank average for prom couple is 50th percentile" or "the lower your rank the more patdowns and drug testing you face"), can beat large immediate cash payments.

The point is to get them studying so that worrying about college funding is even an issue. Cross a bridge when you come to it, if you do come to it.

Saying "Top 5%" is only helpful to students right near the cutoff. The top 1% won't try any harder, because they are in no danger of not being top 5%. Somebody at the 70th percentile won't try any harder, because he knows he can't reach the 95th percentile.

You need to turn class rank percentile into dollars, payable on a short term horizon. For example, multiply the class rank percentile by $10 and pay this out every week. Recompute class rank very frequently, using a running average (possibly exponential decay) that tends to consider the most recent couple months.

Note that it is OK if the parents confiscate this to cover family expenses. In that case, they will apply pressure to succeed as only parents have the ability to do. The kid might even gain better nutrition, full-time parenting, tutoring, etc.

The TLAs (NSA, CIA, NRO, FBI...) are not about to ship their programming jobs off to India. The same goes for UAV control software, fire-control radar, etc.

First Amendment rights would mean that I can throw bricks at a cow to make a political statement or to engage in my religion. First Amendment rights would mean that I can protest the failure to protect ground-nesting Hawaiian birds from invasive species by burning a cat. Remember that political speech is allegedly our most protected form of free speech.

If you open enough browser windows and enough tabs in each window, you'll exceed what a 32-bit program can handle. Depending on the OS, 32-bit programs get 2 or 3 GB of address space. I've seen my browser using more than 4 GB.

OK, look at the size of the US government's black budget. This is what they need to outbid. Oh, but the budget will change as required.

In case you can deliver the goods, my gmail address is doubleplusgoodalbert. We're hiring.

They pay pretty well if they trust you. They sure won't seize back what they just payed you. Email doubleplusgoodalbert at my gmail account if you'd like a job doing this. US citizens only, sorry.

You said "large collection". Thumbnailing that is too damn slow. (and always will be, because images get bigger) I want a responsive UI.

Five round points will do very well. A star will work OK. Even a flathead screwdriver will work OK. For one-time use, a regular bolt (bonus points if reverse threaded) and some epoxy will do the job. Pick a bolt small enough to fit into the weird head, glue it in place, and then use a regular tool to remove it with the evil screw attached.

If you aren't getting paid extra, then your job sucks.

If you are comfortable with low-level hacking, maybe I could get you a job that doesn't suck. It's probably in Florida, though we have other offices too.

reply below or email doubleplusgoodalbert at gmail