Actually I'm fine with teaching most people to code at some level (*cough* python *cough*). The logical thought process and being able to use a computer to solve actual problems is going to be a valuable life skill. I consider it a logical extension of teaching other basic life skills, like math or home economics or shop or other practical classes they should stop eliminating...

But the output of this is not aimed to be professional programmers. It's exposure to how to use an advanced tool to solve a problem, much like using a lathe to make a handle or a router to dado a cabinetry joint. I'm not a professional machinist or woodworker and could never pass as such, but I have enough experience with both tools to understand how to use them to solve problems.

Professional programmers should be held to a much higher standard than "I got it to work... once... and it chewed up all my memory and CPU for an hour before it spewed the output and segfaulted..."

Bah, you've never really programmed until you've programmed a PIC10-series. Last one I used in a real, production product was a 10F200, which has a whopping 16 bytes of RAM (yes, bytes - no stinkin' kilo- or mega- here), only a two level instruction pointer stack (Harvard architecture, so separate code/data) and 384 words of read-only program memory.

Occasionally it's fun to write in assembly again. I'd hate to do it on bigger stuff, but when you need a simple variable PWM generator, you can't beat a $0.35 SOT-26 micro.

Seriously, though, most problems being solved by most programmers can easily be done in far few resources than they use, without resorting to extreme measures like unreadable code. Efficiency, maintainability, and portability are the holy trinity, and it's absolutely achievable with talented individuals and discipline. I'm an embedded guy who's now the tech lead over a large enterprise business logic library. It's in straight up C (old school C, too - ANSI C89 with no double slash comments - because of some of the places we have to run only have ass-old compilers), and ports to places Java fears to tread with ease. Hiring greybeards who can work within a constrained system is easy - convincing management to pay them what they're worth is a different issue. Management just wants to get me a bunch of fresh-out-of-college Java goons, or worse, H1B contractors.

If it meant upgrades, security and bug fixes, etc. then I might actually say that this is a step in the right direction. The problem with all these "appliance" type items like cars integrating something tied to things like phone OSs and protocols is that the car will outlive multiple generations of phones. The companies only see supporting the old software as a burden and an expense, and thus don't do it. If supporting and upgrading the software on these older platforms actually provided revenue, then we might actually see fixes and upgrades.

That said, I doubt that's what they're thinking. In all likelihood it's just another way to soak the customer.

Yeah, I have actual porch pirates. Lost a few boxes over the years. Most of them worthless to the thieves (very hard or impossible to fence), but often times up-ended my plans because I don't have the parts I need. Lost a shipment of PCBs one time. Absolutely worthless to anybody but me (and my client), but took me 6 weeks to have them remade and tested. I'm sure whatever asshole took them just tossed them. If they'd at least return the stuff they couldn't fence, I maybe wouldn't wish for them all to be burned at the stake.

But as the parent poster says, that's not justice, so I'd settle for their asses rotting in prison far away from my porch. Personally, I'd like to see more stings like this, but with less press releases and more arresting. If they keep working it, they'll get some folks. Guaranteed. And don't give me crap about entrapment or some neighborhood brainwashing conspiracy by Amazon or that thieving meth-heads deserve any form of sympathy. This comes down to enforcing a basic principle of society - don't steal shit. Those who do deserve to meet justice swiftly.

In the meantime, some very obvious cameras (and some non-obvious ones) seem to have mostly cured my problem, other than one jackass that broke out my truck window to steal my prescription sunglasses (bet those were worth a lot) and some change.

> Mining is becoming less and less labor-intensive

While this is a true statement, a big part of this is due to automation - both above and below ground.

In fact, underground coal mining is still going strong - there's even a Longwall show coming up:

https://www.longwallusa.com/

Criminals are, for the most part, not the brightest bulbs on the tree, which is mostly why they're only an inconvenience in the grand scheme of things and not a tremendous threat to civilization. It's certainly not the cops (at least not those around here) who protect us from petty crime.

  I had some idiot break into my truck, in my driveway and in plain view of three different security cameras, and steal a variety of rather worthless items - prescription glasses, my old radio scanner, and (worst) my half-broken 3-year-old cell phone (cracked screen, 802.11 radio no longer worked, etc. but I was still using it). Called the cops, gave them the videos that showed the guy's face, and told them the phone was still on so I could get its location. The phone was getting good coverage (gps was reporting +/- 20ft error), and given its presence in a wooded ravine about a mile away known to be a homeless hangout, I suspected it was still with the thief. Literally all the deputy would have had to do was drive over and I'd call it. Bust the guy, haul him in. Nope. We'll take a report, call your insurance company, we don't plan to do anything. Yet later that day, on my way to replace my sunglasses, they had plenty of time to pull me over for 7 over the speed limit.

One time, many many years ago (2002ish), my ex and I rented a movie as we did rather infrequently. No problem, dropped it back in the slot a few days later, several hours before it was due. No big deal, right?

About two months later, I get a notice from some collection agency that apparently I owed Blockbuster something like a buck in late fees, but that the collection agency was tacking on something like $20 to collect on it. No prior warning, no call, no letter, no nothing. I was especially pissed because I know it wasn't late. So I took my ex-wife's card and my card, cut them into little tiny pieces, and went into the store with a copy of everything. Paid the manager a dollar, pointed out that over a single dollar they'd never see me again, tossed the tiny card remnants in the air like confetti, and exited the premises. Called the collection agency, told them I'd satisfied my debt with the asshats and if they really wanted their dollar, they could take me to court. Last I heard of them.

When I saw the "going out of business" sign go up a year or two later, I made my own addition. A laminated 8-1/2 by 11 that simply said, "Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of extortionists and thieves." I went over one night, taped it to their door, and left.

Trust me, as a small business owner myself, that 3%, plus a "pain in the ass" fee of dealing with the card processor, is built into the price for everything. There's always the chance the customer is going to reverse the charge on you as well, and often Visa/Mastercard is going to side with them even when you've got overwhelming proof that you fulfilled your obligations on the purchase. Then you're out both the product and the payment.

If somebody wants to hand me cash, I have never once even thought about turning it down. Usually it just means more money to my bottom line. Sometimes, if it's a large enough invoice, I'll even cut them a discount of about - ding, ding, ding - 3%.

I don't oppose the legislation, but it just seems like an unnecessary, "feel good" sort of lawmaking with little substantiated data to show cashless businesses were causing a significant problem. Debit cards are stupid easy to get, as are bank accounts. And if there were a significant population of people walking around with cash going "I wish somebody would take this in trade - who wants some business", some smart business is going to find a new customer base.

And that's the problem with all of these "the sky is falling and there's not enough" studies - they assume that status quo technologies and manufacturing will continue even as the economic realities around them change. Few of these materials are the *only* way to build PV or wind generators. They're just the best balance at the moment given prices and engineering goals. If you move the prices around (higher), the engineers may move on to a different way of doing things, or more mining capacity may be developed, or recycling materials that previously were junked may become feasible, etc.

Worried? Not at all. We'll figure this out.

I'm right there with you - part of the responsibility of living in a free democratic society is educating yourself and trying to make rational decisions and choices.

Unfortunately, humanity regularly demonstrates it's too stupid for this responsibility. Facebook is both part of the problem, as there's no way to downvote stupid and it contributes to the "what should I be enraged at today without thinking about it" culture, and it's also just a place that demonstrates this is the basic nature of humanity, whether on FB or not.

I choose not to participate in social media hysteria and stupidity, because I feel it actively makes me dumber.

Yup, me too. Just finished responding to quite a bit of today's email using it. I've tried migrating to something else, but it just doesn't work the way I want it to. Outlook is passable, except for it totally fails at things like breaking up quotes to inline responses, and there's no chance in hell of there ever being a native Linux client (and Win10 makes me want to totally abandon Windows more by the day - Eudora is one of the things holding me here). Thunderbird is likewise okayish, but sometimes it just hoarks on itself in unexplained ways, and again the editing/composing engine leaves something to be desired. In the past two weeks I've finally relented and started looking at how to migrate to something else and make it so I don't totally hate it. This might cause me to retrench until I figure out if there's a way to modernize Eudora.

Seriously, MDI interfaces for having multiple mail folders open at once is awesome. Screw you UI people who don't like it.

Okay, so we have the source. Who's with me to modernize this sucker and finally build TotallyNotCalledEudora 9? (since Penelope already made 8 a horrific, traumatic experience)

Can confirm it's definitely these little guys - they're all over my house the last couple days. It's also going to be a near perfect weekend followed by a very hard freeze and snow on Monday, so there may be some instinctual drive pushing them south along the Front Range.

As a European all I can say from someone sitting on the outside is that in your rigged two party system one of the candidates (the "blue" puppet) was so fucking awful that the slightly less awful candidate (the "red" puppet) romped home.

There's some truth to that. They both had the highest negatives in history... it was definitely all about who was "less bad".

American politics is worse than anything I've seen from any so called banana republic. An utterly fixed system where you get to choose between two tightly controlled establishment puppets. No choice. No democracy. It's like being given the choice between being punched in the face or kicked i the balls.

And you just lost whatever sense you were making before. Trump an establishment puppet? Are you kidding me? The establishment in both parties absolutely hates him. On the Republican side we had 17 candidates to pick from in the primary, and ALL of the Republican establishment candidates lost big. In the end, it came down to Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, who were by far the most establishment-hated candidates that I've ever seen run in a primary.

If you want to rephrase your charge of "tightly controlled establishment puppets" to refer only to the Democrats, then I'll give you that, because after the DNC email hacks we found out that they did, in fact, rig the primary contest to make sure Hilary won and Bernie lost (though the fact that he got as far as he did, even in the face of their treachery, shows they don't have as much control as they thought). But yeah, end result on the Democrat side was that their establishment got the candidate they wanted, and when taken to court about it, they argued that as a party they have no legal requirement to select their candidates in any particular way, and that it would be perfectly legal for them to go back to using old boys clubs in the back room with cigars to pick the candidate. A tacit admission that they can rig the process as much as they want. But only one party rigged it, not both.

Just face facts. Your "blue" puppet "candidate" was just fucking god awful ! Stop crying and get one with life. Stop trying to make excuses. Russia didn't win the election. The election was "lost" because of your fucking awful puppet !

And now you are back to making sense again. We all know that's why she lost, and the funny thing is, I'm pretty sure that's the only reason you won't find in her new book, "What Happened."

It's OK for Sheldon Adelson, Koch brothers and such to throw millions in on their PACs and hold auditions for GOP candidates, that's just free speech, no subversion of democracy there.

Not to mention the untold amounts of money that Hungarian George Soros has dumped into all kinds of election groups. He spent a LOT more than $100,000. But yeah, no subversion there either. Let's get the microscope out and do a super thorough search of the Russian flee and ignore all the elephants running around...

Realistically, it's probably far to early to tell how the two parties will align themselves in 2024 to make that claim.

I think the main point is that as the left continues to concentrate themselves more and more in a few very large urban areas, the electoral college will likely skew against them. Remember, every state gets two senators (and two electoral votes) regardless of size, so continued left wing migration into Silicon Valley, the Northwest and the Northeast does not help them to win national elections. To win, you generally have to have a national coalition of states, and they are getting more and more regional, at least at the moment.

But I do agree with you it's way too early to make any predictions of victory in 2024, because regardless of the map advantages, in the end it still usually comes down to the candidate, and candidates on either side can blow it.