The parent post represents a kind of thinking that dooms political decision-making. Basically, as long as a policy's supporters are Trying To Do The Right Thing, then the policy is good. Second-order effects of the policy needn't be considered, since those are just some kind of weird rounding errors. When Bad People refuse to go along with the policy's good intentions (shockingly), and everything blows up, we shouldn't blame the policy since its supporter's hearts were in the right place.

Having read Slashdot in the late 1990s, I think many of its newer readers today would be surprised to see what a libertarian stronghold it was back then. I can't remember the exact comment or story, but I recall long ago somebody making a comment at how sensitive people were on the forum about censorship, and many users jumped on his comment and more-or-less explained, "here on Slashdot, free speech is sacred to us". Fast-forward almost 20+ years, and you actually many of the Slashdot commenters criticizing websites for not doing enough censorship.

What are your thoughts on the MEAN stack ( MongoDB, Express.js, Angular, and Node.js)?

Is there a word for something that's between a "job" and a "hobby"? It's a phenomenon you'll often see among people who don't need to work, but for whatever reason choose to be employed. Their job's characteristics include:

1) Very flexible work hours
2) Low stress
3) Little or no metrics for determining success
4) Little or no involvement of a supervisor/boss
5) Undemanding
6) Modest pay

The people I see who have these types of "jobs" generally have wealth from some other source (nearing retirement, rich parents, rich spouse, etc). Their financial picture probably wouldn't change significantly if they suddenly quit. So they've got reasons for working that are non-financial. Whatever you'd call their gig, it'd be inaccurate to call it a "hobby", because it's not enjoyable enough, and it generates a non-trivial (albeit modest) amount of income. Yet given its very undemanding and flexible nature, I think it's unfair to call it a full-fledged job. And there's nothing wrong with these types of "jobs", but it's really frustrating when people start comparing them with real jobs that people have to work because they need an income.

Every time I see "this question is closed as "not constructive", I'd like to give StackOverflow a taste of their own medicine. For example, StackOverflow exec's would be having an board meeting over the phone, and all of a sudden the phone clicks off and a pre-recorded voice says, "This meeting has been closed as primarily opinion-based and not constructive".

On a somewhat related note, every time I read the slashdot.com url, I read it as "slash 'department of transportation'" -- like it's some right-wing group trying to defund the DOT.

I've never cried after seeing something on the Internet, and I least expected it to happen on Slashdot, but I cried after reading this post. Your post really shows the daily struggles that bald people experience. I really hope they find the cure to baldness someday. Don't despair though. Science is ever making advances. I'm sorry if I ever offended anyone with my ignorance about baldness, and will never make light of it again.

Leaving aside the question of whether or not a god exists, do you think belief in god can give one an evolutionary advantage? Daniel Dennett postulates a war between a gold army and a silver army: "The gold soldiers believe that God is on their side, that God will answer their prayers, that if they die they will go to heaven and be rewarded by God. The silver soldiers are well-informed and highly trained economists. They are taking out insurance policies, laying out side bets, they’re doing very well informed cost-benefit analysis, they’ve got exit strategies both personal and by group."

I'm not so sure that these engineers are very well paid. Last year, Apple CEO Tim Cook was awarded $378 million in compensation. According to the above survey, the average software engineer at Apple makes $114,413 a year. In order to make the same amount as the CEO, the engineer would have to work 3300 years. So let's ask the question: When would the engineer have had to start working in order to have the same amount of money as the CEO? The engineer's first day of work would be 1300 years before Jesus of Nazareth would be born. And keep in mind this is an engineer. Consider junior level employees. According to an article by the New York Times, a salesman working at an Apple store makes about $11.25 an hour. He would make the same amount as the CEO in about 16 thousand years —- that would put his first day of work well into the stone age -- if you’re a creationist, his work time would be longer than the age of the universe.

I feel the ease-of-installation is one of the main things we can do to switch people from Windows to Linux. In past versions of Fedora Core/ Red Hat, new installations have seamless. However, the Fedora Core V release seems to have been very poorly tested in this regard. My users ran into one problem after another. I would be interested in hearing comments for future Fedora Core versions on this issue.