It sounds like you're not really saying Rock Star so much as pretentious developers. In a free-market a person with extraordinary skills is entitled to be paid accordingly, but that doesn't make them a jerk.

>“There was no intentional, reckless or negligent misconduct by XTO.”'

Do they realize that just leaves stupidity?

> I don't want one to own me.

Did anyone check to see if he was Don Draper?

Could it be they're all being stretched as they're attracted towards one black hole?

If you can't be the best at something, screw over everyone who's better! That's the American Way!!

Intelligence is part nature and part nurture. Barring a global school system where everyone is taught perfectly designed curriculums along with ideal emotional environments while growing up, it'll be impossible for an entire world of identically super-intelligent people to exist.

"If you can put music on a compact disk, why can't you put a persons consciousness?"
-Cave Johnson

I've very, very briefly worked with government-employed sysadmins. They're forced to adhere to many rules and regulations, and while those procedures might keep things organized day-to-day, during an emergency troubleshooting the guy doing the fix has to be able to operate freely and quickly.

I'll put my money on any civilian systems administrator to do a better job than a DHS "administrator" any day.

This has cropped up on slashdot before. Can't find the article, but it was more hand-wringing about the vulnerabilities of the American network infrastructure to enemy attack.

Granted, the nature of the Internet is to provide information access from any point in the world, and because of that it can be so easily exploited, commandeered, or broken. But I believe if the $hit ever hit the fan and the Tubes were threatened, those of us who hack and build and kludge the Code would come to its defense. Hundreds of thousands strong, I would wager a citizen-soldier army of l33t coders could well defend this country from its script-kiddie foreign enemies.

Very good point; the best system is one which a computer is a backup, a failsafe in case a human being *doesn't* react fast enough.

But at the crux of the issue, a Manual Override is *always* important. To depend on your pilots is the whole reason they're there, and if the automatic issue was why the plain went down, you need manual controls. To do otherwise smacks of distrust of pilots, which means training at large could be a widespread problem.

The term "directives" gave me a chill of terror down my spine. In "Atlas Shrugged" ludicrous anti-capitalism restrictions were enacted, ones that would never make it through congress. How? Because they weren't laws, they were "directives", basically laws that could be enacted *without* democratic process.

Let's hope this ruling get the directive off the books.

Uh, okay. So what am I misunderstanding?

I don't usually rant, but when I see the ham-fisted arm of the Old World lashing out, my blood boils.

Authority doesn't understand group consciousness on the 'net, how it can group people together. They glom it with the 60's protest groups or terrorist cells, not seeing them as concerned groups of people protesting within the laws of the U.S.

They fear it because they don't understand it, they can't stop it or control it. They're the Old World, and can't understand the New one, so they fear it, try to find some way to control it or mitigate it.

Soon things will grow beyond their ability to control, the protests will expand beyond Scientology and attack other memes that we cannot tolerate. THAT will be when the Old world will lash out at us, when they are wounded and their ultra-conservative way of life ebbs.

We have a leader who understands that, who is aware of the internetworked world, but a conservative Republican party that is writhing as it dies and becomes confused old men. I worry about how they shall lash out when their death-knell comes, when the Young supplant the Old more drastically than ever before.

I installed Silverlight and never noticed any problems; I haven't used WMP on my laptop since I bought it. I think I've even turned off all the services that run it.

It is a sad thing when competent, faithful service is rewarded in this manner. That you've been a productive and effective member of their development group is more than evident by the fact they don't want you to leave, and your own dedication by giving them three weeks notice (something I myself have done in the past).

Such an action smacks of immaturity and short-sightedness; even after you muster out of the job, on their terms or yours, they'll probably need to ask you questions about your past projects when new developers work with them. And you won't be inclined to help.

Consider this: because of their own juvenile attempt at manipulation, if you push back they could very well fold and give in, letting you have your 3 weeks.

However considering their antics you should get a Letter of Rec *before* agreeing to anything; quitting in three weeks or three months, they'll have to provide one no matter what. And if they decide to give you a bad verbal rec, you'll always have the letter to fall back on (not to mention a good story to tell).