It's not just that they can't learn new technologies - it is that they won't. Older folk get comfortable with their favorite tools and don't feel intellectually vulnerable when using their favorite tools.

But it's not just that...

Older folk get tired of jumping on board a new technology only to see it die in six months and leave them with useless knowledge. They just don't want to spend the majority of their free time learning new technologies that either die off or later are so buggy that the industry quits using the new technology.

Why learn VB.Net when VB still works? Why even learn PHP when JavaScript works? Why not just use Perl for everything since it has worked fine since 1993? There is wisdom in staying with what has been proven, and in certain sectors such an attitude is pervasive - sectors where reliability trumps innovation.

Some day, those 29 year olds will be in their forties and be tired of jumping to new set technologies only to see them fail. Those same 29 year olds will likely stick with Java or Python no matter what the project.

I've been 29 years old for 20 years now but I still learn new languages and other technologies. I'm just not an early adopter because ii don't wasn't to spend six months learning something that will be useless in a year...

The real problem is that no matter what the situation, no matter the result, there will always be a segment of the population that is unhappy with how a cop handled the situation. There will always be some blowhard, politically left or right, that will attempt to further their own "career" by questioning police actions and thus rabble rousing.

In a perfect world, every police action on-shift would be continuously recorded and if a problem arises, it would be reviewed by internal affairs. Of course IA also needs oversight to be sure that they are not just rubber stamping police actions. However, allowing public review of police actions by releasing camera footage to the media is fraught with problems as police departments attempt to justify their own actions to the public.

It seems to me that it would be paralytic to law enforcement. On the other hand, we do need some way to know who the bad cops are and to have them removed from law enforcement.

"I'm positive about the negative but a little negative about the positive." - Curly Howard

America is supposedly the most technologically advanced country in the world and thanks to our politics other countries have and will continue to have better internet access. It seems ludicrous but I could see companies relocating to countries with better internet access with fewer restrictions and better pricing. It has happened with labor, supply chain, customer support, and other areas so how long before our government causes it to happen with Internet access?

The argument may be fallacious but I find it easier to suspend logic when discussing government policies.

Seems gays made their own mess by causing AIDS to be identified with homosexuality. It took a kid dying of AIDS (Ryan White) to get the public to realize that it wasn't just a gay disease. Some asshats had even beat the kid to death because they assumed that he had to be gay.

It is so sad that the general public can be so stupid. Simple logic says that AIDS has nothing to do with homosexuality. Consider that AIDS is a crossover virus from apes. That means that a gay disease was prevalent among apes. That means there must be a sizable gay ape population.

What about feline HIV? I don't know any gay cats, but there must be a sizable gay cat population. So is nature punishing gay animals and it took until 1980 for God to get around to punishing human homosexuality although homosexuality has existed for thousands of years.

The real problem is that Microsoft wedged its software into industrial and other non-consumer systems without apparently understanding those markets.

An industrial system, say a steel press for instance, is designed to function without the need for changing software unless new features are added. That same type of steel press may have been built forty years ago with relay controls and pushbuttons. Those relays and pushbuttons don't get upgraded - they get replaced as needed and upgraded when improvements are desired.

On the other hand using a consumer based set of software such as Windows that is intended to be upgraded every five years is an unneeded and unwanted expense with no real benefits. This supports the idea of using PLC's and Panelmates/Panelviews because their manufacturers usually provide support for at least ten years - in some cases 20 - and even provide an upgrade path at a reduced cost in many cases.

However, the real lunacy to me is when such a company provides SCADA systems that run on Windows. On the other hand, they will likely sell you an upgraded system that is equivalent when Windows XP dead next month.

I don't wasn't to be a Luddite but in some cases it may be better to just stick with or go back to relays and pushbuttons.

If I make a will, I'll leave my money to the games! They'll be taken good care of by my money as each game is given only the best filtered electricity and a nightly rubdown.

I would leave my money to my pet cat but she'd probably just waste it anyway...

Honestly - I wish there were more of these archives or at the very least that every science museum devote a section to video game technology.

Nah. Arrogance and apathy.

The design meeting probably sounded a little like this: "who are you worried about? Why would anyone be interested in any of this anyway? They'd first have to know (insert secret here) and know where to look it up. And they'd need the right software and settings. Even if they did, what would they do with it? See, one in a million chance that all of that comes true."

Maybe you're right, it does sound like incompetence...

It's unfortunate that a major event, or political push, will need to occur before things change.

The prevailing attitude about industrial equipment, such as PLC and SCADA systems and related items seems to be that even if someone gained access, they'd have to be familiar with the software, own a copy of the software, and know what they are doing.

In other words, only an engineer could hack such a system and they would never do that; so we have nothing to worry about.

I suspect that the same attitude existed relating to the PDP 7 long ago.

"Maybe if the whole car was balanced on one wheel and then drove over it."

I'd rather see them pull off this stunt with the car riding on the rims...