I'm a software engineer with a MS in CompSci. I don't think programming should be required in K12 programs. I'd be happy with schools having survey of computation type class which imparts a high level understanding of how networking, computers, handheld devices, gaming systems, web technology, etc work. Include a small unit with basic programming in it, sure. One should not be clueless about how technology works in our world, but most people don't and won't ever write code. Of course, programming should be around as an elective for anyone so inclined.

IMO, the push behind this effort by the big tech companies is because of the difficulty hiring good programmers/software engineers and because they can't hire enough women or minorities because few women and minorities enter this field. The thought behind this first is that not enough people go into computer science programs in college (or STEM more broadly) because they weren't exposed enough to it. "If we could only get more kids to think programming is fun, then more of them would pursue it as a career and we'd have a bigger/better talent pool to recruit from" is the corporate thought. Same thing with diversity: "If only more girls or more people of minority group X studied CS/STEM, we'd be able to have our company's diversity match the diversity of the general population." This though then leads to "lets make kids take programming classes in school so they will be exposed to programming.

I'm all for giving people opportunity and there is much room for improvement in that area. But I think we do a disservice to individual people when we push someone to do or not do something because a group is over or under represented somewhere (saying to a girl, go into field X because the population is 51% women therefore the population of graduates in field X should be 51% women). Give people opportunity and then let them make their own choices.

This is biased toward non intelligent design right off the bat. A creator would only need to optimize for life the planet or planets that he intended to deposit life upon. The fact that the universe at large is biased against life makes life here on earth all that more special.

SAP actually.

I work for a big tech company from a small city in Wisconsin. It is great. For the company, office space is cheap, internet access is cheap, energy is cheap, salaries are less than in big cities and employees are still happy. As an employee, I'm happy since I don't have traffic nightmares getting to work and home (I have a whole 5 minute commute), the cost of living is low (I live in a remodeled 3 bedroom home that is worth $120K) and in a small office (200 people) you can know everyone by name. It is a win-win deal for a tech company to locate outside the major tech areas.

I agree. When UTM isn't a buzzword and vendors have had a couple of release cycles to get their act together, get quality pieces put together and design a reasonable user interface, then these things may well be better than a mish mash of various components. There may be great benefits in time from gathering these things together, but we aren't there yet! And hopefully the vendors won't reduce the 1000 different options you had in the mish mash that perfectly served your business's needs with 10 pre configured scenarios which don't do the job.

Is it possible that single purpose security applications and appliances do a better job? In combining make various technologies in one device, how watered down was each individual component?

I think the author is making a large mistake based on not understanding the difference between free people freely acting and government enforcing of behavior. The government forcing me to 'share' my money with others via taxation and redistribution is very different than my voluntary donation to another person. Likewise, free people may decide that it in their best interests to cooperate on certain development (technological or otherwise) and share the results. That cooperation and sharing doesn't become socialism or communism until the government says that people MUST cooperate and share. The difference between cooperation and socialism then is law. Being coerced is much different than voluntary participation.

News may be worth paying for. But opinions are a dime a dozen.

News organizations need to differentiate themselves and then people will be willing to pay. The Wall Street Journal web site has thrived a a for pay site. But it provides value to people. So much free news isn't particularly well written or investigative. An article about this was just posted at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123534987719744781.html which sums up the argument for paying for quality information.

The Wisconsin Income tax form has a spot on it for WI residents to report "use" tax for items they purchased which should be subject to sales tax. A WI resident is supposed to pay the "use" (really sales) tax on any items purchased online which would have been subject to sales tax in a WI store. So this bill just expands that to the digital downloads. For the most part this is just an "on your honor" tax. Most of us will never pay it given we don't like it and they really can't figure out that we owe it.

When I graduated from high school, I was into computers 100%. So I picked an engineering school and got a technical degree. I continued and did several semesters of graduate study before getting a job and settling into the real world. Now that I am out of school, working and married it is quite apparent that there is much more to life then science and technology. You might be able to code the fastest algorithm, but if you can't understand economic and business conditions, get along with coworkers and talk about sports or politics at a social event, your education has failed you. I do a lot of reading to catch me up to what I ought to know about other fields. It is amazing how much ties together, even from those social sciences and even the arts. If you do any UI work, having a few psych and art courses behind you can be a great thing. Being able to tell your boss why programming this was will not allow you to meet the need of the business condition you can foresee makes you a much more valuable employee (those economics and marketing classes do have value). So as you make this decision, ask yourself, "Do I want to be the code monkey working 80 hours a week having more tech knowledge then everyone else, or do I want to climb the corporate latter, work 45 hours a week and have a life?"