Your critique of the show turning winning contestants into losers is dead on. Kamerion Wimbley took and completed the preliminary course. Watching a man of his size complete the course was amazing to see. Then we got to see him get knocked out due to other contestants coming in with faster times. And then watched an added insult in the finals when they bring in 'wild card' contestants--many of whom did not even complete the preliminary course. And of course all the wildcards were turned into 'human interest' stories. Thankfully the grandfather wildcard actually did complete the course.

My biggest issue with the show was that they end up giving only summaries of the runs to half of the contestants--even after having 2/3rds of the contestants competing on the G4 show. The original show packed the same amount of content into 30 minutes that NBC is trying to stretch to 2 hours.

THIS!

This is exactly where they get the long term payoff! And parking everything in orbit around the moon is even smarter. The absolute worst thing they could do is bring resources down into our gravity well just so they can take them out at a later date.

The study answers one of my favorite questions:

"Do I use my powers for good or for awesome?"

Awesome it is...

It's more likely that they didn't even have a contract with the hiring company and needed a few more candidates before they got everything signed. Having just recently finished a job search, I can attest to this being this being a common occurrence. I had two different recruiters phrase things in a similar manner, just without the relocation. Most reputable recruiters will court the hiring company first, then court candidates. You can easily use that to your advantage.

Unless a recruiter is contacting you for a specific opportunity or company, it is very likely that they will just waste your time. Shady recruiters will use your resume to court companies with little or no notification/permission and they will do just about anything they can to find out where else you have applied--typically under the guise of not wanting to send in a duplicate copy of your resume. Combine that with the fun hard-sell techniques and it is very hard to feel anything but dirty and used.

Worthwhile recruiters will have an opportunity in-hand when they call you and want to find out if you a good fit for that opportunity. You shouldn't even have to ask about this...it should be a part of their introduction for contacting you.

Some developers are quirky because they do someone no one else understand and think they are better than everyone else they work. They go out of their way to be a pain in the ass to work with, and I really don't understand why any manager puts up with it.

Others, like myself, are quirky because...we just are. No amount of trying to fit in with office life is going to be considered a success. No one minds if I'm quirky so long as I work hard at being a member of the team.