1. If the problem is that speeders just don't notice he yellow light, perhaps slowing down would be a better idea. 2. The typical asshat driver already sees "yellow" as "green" and just floors it instead of stopping. Increasing the yellow light time would ofcourse just encourage this incorrect behaviour. Ofcourse, accelerating into a yellow light usually means by the time they acually reach the intersection the light will have changed to red, which is why you're supposed to stop on yellow. 3. The most effective solution would be to keep the red light sensors and just replace cameras with sentry guns.

They seem to disagree with you in Dubai, where they're using surplus energy to produce as much aluminium as they can and stockpiling it because they expect the energy prices to go up, up and then up some more.

I've been told that the power required to make enough aluminium for a windmill exceeds what that windmill can generate in its service life. Even if those things didn't kill wildlife and break down all the time they'd still be a pretty stupid idea. And now we want to use water pumps and turbines to use that overpriced electricity to try and empty a pool out in the north sea. Every time it rains you'd basically lose energy and most people who've worked in the north sea will tell you rain isn't really rare out there. Why not scrap the windmills altogether and /collect/ rainwater in that pool instead, then use conventional hydro power to generate electricity? Oh I know, because it doesn't generate nearly the same amount of meaningless jobs.

So you don't think it's a good idea to err on the side of caution if you're in charge of a government authentication service for umpteen million citizens and perhaps make sure the fix works as intended before deploying it?

I think it was the other way around. Our ancestors messed up Mars and then some of them managed to escape to Earth.

The article points out many obvious pitfalls on letting an underperforming employee go, but very few of these problems are unique to the particular situation of letting an obviously underperforming employee go. Most IT departments are pummeled to death with impossible deadlines and demands and management thinks that the complaints and warnings are just "the way it is with those lazy bastards". Truth is, anyone who's worked with IT knows that you have to test your backups and failover procedures, do security audits, tear down setups that are no longer used and keep documentation and automation up to date. BUT first we have to finish this project that was dreamed up by the top level management with absolutely no understanding of the technical hurdles involved. And it needs to be finished yesterday. If you want things to be neat and tidy, you're pretty much expected to take care of it on your own time.

That depends on how much that foreign country is willing to sacrifice for a good relationship with the US government. I live in one of the last oil-producing countries in the world that the US has not yet openly invaded, and our prime minister would probably extradite his grandmother if asked to.

When was the last time you talked to two different IT consultants about something complicated and got the same answer? For instance, what's the best platform for an intranet server with about 100 users?

See, that's arrogance right there. I happen to be a computer nerd who has (for reasons too complicated to get into) also spent a good four years in the trenches (literally) with plumbers, and I can inform you that there's a little bit more to plumbing than you seem to think. That ground you're walking on is actually moving. All the time. Especially if you happen to live in a place where the temperature varies from -30 degrees C in the winter to +30 in the summer. Water leaks tend to occur just about one meter (or 3 ft) outside the point where it enters the house, do you know why? No, because you don't have that kind of training. That's why you don't have the slightest clue how to avoid it from happening either, so when your pipe starts to leak you have to pay for a professional to come and fix it. It looks just as easy as installing Linux but that's because the guy knows what he's doing. Hopefully.

This must be what they've been doing instead of fixing the crazy startup time, shutdown time and memory consumption. Kinda logical really, if you can't fix the underlying problem just make sure users make an investment in some apps that only work with Firefox. That way the users are less likely to give up and just use a competing browser. Some of you may have seen this trick before.

Can you honestly tell me the thought of murdering your spouse never crossed your mind?

In hindsight it's easy to call it crazy, sure. But what would have been more crazy; trying to design a flying saucer, or simply ignoring the possibility that this /could/ have turned out to be more significant than the jet engine? Some of the craziest ideas in human history actually worked, and changed everything.

Any idiot can use a syringe and a scalpel, but if you were in charge of hiring doctors you'd probably prefer the candidates who have their medical skills in order.

What exactly does abstract reasoning have to do with fulfilling those kinds of interaction needs? ;-)

On a slightly related note...
Q: Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?
A: Oh, your questions seems to be rhetorical - you do already know the answer!

I, for one, welcome our new chat bot overlords.

Q: Where do babies come from?
A: Why should I know where? Ask somebody else! I'd like to be judge next year, it's so funny to "test" people:-)