10 scraps of paper are labelled 0 through 9 and tossed into a hat. How many combinations of numbers can you get if you randomly pick 4 scraps of paper from the hat? That's combinatorics. It helps you understand the size of the data sets your code may need to process so that you can choose a reasonable approach.

You need basic algebra and boolean algebra for any code beyond the most simplistic scripting or web hack job. Given the quality of most device drivers, I can believe they were written by people without those skills. If you want to architect a software system that scales, you'll need at least some understanding of linear algebra as well.

Can't live without algebra. Combinatorics is critical for computer science. Statistics is very helpful.

Unless you go into scientific computing, you'll almost never run in to a computing problem for which calculus gives a boost. The math computers work with just doesn't relate.

Differential equations was my bane as well. I failed it several times and ended up not correcting an error when I transferred schools and they assigned credit for it as a result of a different course I'd taken. Now I earn near $140k and I'm the go-to guy at the office when there's a particularly complex data handling or networking problem to be solved.

If the interface encourages or facilitates harmful mistakes then it is a poor interface. If it encourages behavior that encroaches on others' good will then it carries major ethical implications. If it does neither of these things then what's the problem?

One of the worst places I've worked had a well stocked break room. Sodas, chips, ice cream, everything short of a full meal. They patted themselves on the back about how well they treated their employees. And failed to treat them well in the areas that matter.

You can document prior art by publishing it on a web page and having a printed copy notarized for $5. No need for the cost and rigor of any kind of patent filing.

Virginia considers you not merely to be a citizen of the country and of the state but also a citizen of your locality within the state.

Section 5. County, city, and town governing bodies.

Whenever the governing body of any such unit shall fail to perform the duties so prescribed in the manner herein directed, a suit shall lie on behalf of any citizen thereof to compel performance by the governing body.

Check your civics boss. According to the 14th Amendment, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

The overwhelming majority of classified documents are classified because they were derived in part from some other document that was classified and were written by a government contractor who is not authorized to declassify any portion the prior document marked classified.

Even if that weren't true, it has no bearing on a state government's response to FOIA requests. Classification is purely a Federal government thing where Federal FOIA rules apply.

And in case it wasn't clear, I don't want some dope from California wasting my Virginia tax dollars on some paranoid quest to find out what Virginia knows about alien abductions. If you can't at least find a like-minded Virginian to sign his name to the request, something is seriously wrong with the request.

It's not the government's time. As a citizen of Virginia, it's my time. *I* paid for it.

If with all the Internet at your disposal you can't find one single person in the state willing to submit the FOIA request and pass you back the results, it's a good sign you're wasting everybody's time and *shouldn't* have access to the information you seek.