I don't see this as lazyness. I see this as a different culture coming into IT over the last 5 years. 10 years ago CS degrees were few and far between. People fell into IT because they were good at it, or because they really loved it. Now IT is one of the most stable career paths available, every university has multiple IT tracks, and IT is mainstream (see NBC's Chuck)... People are now getting into IT for normal reasons. It has become more of a "normal" job. I work with a bunch of people who come to work, do their jobs, and go home. We have a couple of old schoolers who live their job, and live their geek life. Most IT people I know now are married, have children, hobbies, and live a pretty full life. This life does not always lend itself to building clusters in your basement to turn your dvr into a file share...

I don't really have a preference for one or the other. I generally agree that people today are more lazy than their parents, but there may not be any direct correlation between this and the lack of tinkerers... Oh, and if you don't want your kids to be lazy, don't give them anything other than the essentials. I think this tactic is coming sooner than later with the pending economic disaster.

Look back at the decisions you made. What was important 5 years ago when you were looking for your job? Was it benefits, work environment, SALARY, job security? All of a sudden what you get paid is less significant than "if" you get paid. There are pleanty of companies out there that have never been through job cuts. Sure, they are not paying 150K + free food + all the google perks, but wtf?

This is a microcosm of our society. People bought bigger houses because their perceived value was always increasing. People took higher paying jobs with startups and unproven companies. We have blown up the economy balloon so much that eventually it will contract. The longer we prop it up artifically, the harder the fall will be. Funny, people are now starting to spend less than they make, save money, and value stability.

I have played Assassins Creed (same developer) and did became frustrated whenever you have to walk accross the whole city just to retry a failed attempt. I put the game down after about 15 hours of play because the game is very repetitive and does not grow.

On the other hand, my son (5) and I have been playing all the lego series of games (Travelers Tales). When you die as a lego guy, you just fall apart, lose some collected money, and reappear. It is great for a beginner, and fun for me. Also the jump in/drop out aspect of these games in two player mode is awesome. If my son cannot complete a tough move, he can drop out, let the computer do it, and rejoin. Beats swapping controllers.

A game should not derive its worthiness simply by how long it takes you to complete it, rather how much entertainment value do you get out of it. I have played a bunch of games (PS2 mostly) that when I get done with them I consider the time I spent a waste of time.

you have got to be kidding. How is what is going on now worse than what happened in the 20s? Do you even know how the great depression happened?

Individuals put money in unsecured banks (no fdic). The banks and other upper classers borrowed money to buy stocks. The stock market crashes, banks and wealthy go bankrupt, and it affects a ton of people. Every one bank that goes under affected thousands of people. The banks going under then made "calls" on their outstanding loans. When individuals couldn't come up with the money (many had borrowed to invest in the stock market), they had their houses repossesed...

Banks went under, business owners went under, housing went under. There were no jobs because the business owners were jumping off bridges. The republican party (Coolidge, Hoover) prior to the collapse did nothing to regulate the market. After the crash interest rates were raised and noone could get a loan. Then Roosevelt started the new deal, which put some people back to work (similar to what Obama is suggesting). The real, only thing that got us out of the depression was WWII, where the government debt started and has not stopped since. With government spending for the war and shipping over millions of working men for service, there was a shortage of workers and not jobs.

So maybe a good old fashioned ground war is what we need. Lets build tanks, and guns, and send our sons to die... Oh wait this isn't nearly as bad as it way 80 years ago.

My housing history seems to be microcosm of the problems we have today (and how I narrowly avoided it). I am 27 now, working and have a house payment roughly 22% of my monthly salary. When I bought the house, I was making 11$ an hour, part time as an intern while in college. Translates to about 14,000$ a year. The bank said sure we will give you a loan for 150,000$ house. I made about 1500$ a month and had a 900$ a month house payment... I took the deal and the gamble paid off.

Three years later I am working needed to refinance the ARM I had originally signed. I had planned on doing this from the moment I signed the loan, since I knew I would be making more than 11$ an hour. I go to refinance, rollup some debt. The mortgage broker says, " how much do you need to take out" He gets a total of the outstanding loan + debt consolidation + a heafty fee for himself and his cronies = X. He takes this total, adds 20% and says "your house needs to be worth X" He gets an appraiser he knows to appraise the house, and the house comes back as worth X... The loan gets signed and everyone is happy.

So what is the problem. The appraisers have to do what the mortgage broker wants, otherwise they will not send them work. Appraising houses is a decent job, the guy got paid about 400$ for a couple hours worth of work. I refinanced in June 2007. If I would have waited until August, I would not have been able to refinance, and my ARM would have matured to a respectible 8.75%...

The problem is a 50-50 split. People should not sign loans or anything without fully understanding it. People should not take advantage of those who are ignorant. I cannot believe that people do not spend a little change on a lawyer to read over the biggest purchase of their lives...

I would pose another why? question. Why in today's society does one feel it necessary to illegally download music? In the past record industries failed to acknowledge the need for downloadable content. Once they did they wrapped DRM around it so tight that it was easier to go out and buy a CD, go home and bit torrent the same cd just to get a copy to play on your freaking mp3 player. I support drm free providers (Amazon seems to have a good policy, and the price of music has come down significantly in recent years). I applaud piracy for one reason. It forced the industry to address their antiquated products for a 21st century consumer. The biggest thing now isn't pirating music, it's movies. Why? Because the movie industry has been slow to provide a full array of online content in a portable (non drm) format. After years of lawsuits and tens of millions spent on litigators, maybe they will also figure it out.