Produce

So the Google ecosystem was a bad idea after all. I knew it. First they lure you in with a slick web mail client and a couple of gigabytes of storage. Then they buy up a bunch of companies, including YouTube. Then they link your Google and YouTube accounts together. And now your Google identity is suddenly your YouTube identity which is linked to your real name. I didn't ask or sign up for the vast majority of this!

I merely provided a rebuttal to the argument that PHP, or any other language, for that matter, is unreliable. I did not make the case that automated testing somehow makes PHP a preferred choice. How you test the code is what dictates reliability, not the language.

> I use Python because it balances getting stuff done with having that stuff not fall over as soon as I turn my back.

Uhh... Heard of automated testing?

It makes absolutely no difference what language you write your code in, whether it's PHP, Python or Brainfuck - reliability is dictated by your testing strategy, not the language. In the PHP applications I write, the only things that break are the things I didn't test.

The smart thing to do would be to put a download link next to each video.

That makes sense then - I wasn't aware of the fact that Gnome Shell and Unity were distinct. Thanks for the memo!

>Interesting that you think desktop computing is an anomaly. I must have imagined the whole PC revolution thing then...

I think he was referring to desktop computing being an anomaly in that the predominant OS is not nix based.

>Popular distros like Ubuntu and Mint have shifted away from it.

This is news to me since my colleague, running Ubuntu 12.04 is using Gnome/Unity. Did I miss a memo?

>Yes, in principle they could learn that stuff; but they consider it to be a waste of their valuable time, for which they have other priorities.

Yet they spend their valuable time on watching television while being bombarded with adverts and forced to come back because their favorite series always ends with a cliff-hanger. Or they are drinking. Or they are working excessive hours because in spite of the fact that we have automated massive swathes of work, five days a week is still the standard, which makes absolutely no sense. Or they are too stressed by their dire financial situation because we have an economy based on gambling and usury.

My point is that people are naturally curious creatures who, given the time and opportunity, are quite capable of learning anything.

When we have a society which spends a great deal of resources constantly diverting peoples' attention, creating fake demands and generally holding an air of chaos, is it a wonder that nobody can be bothered to learn how to operate a revolutionary class of machines which provide one with knowledge about anything and everything?

By dumbing things like this down, we are approaching the problem from the wrong end. We need to work on creating a bigger leisure class which will naturally be inclined to understand it's environment better, since it will actually have the time and focus necessary to do so.

By another way of analogy - we're in the position of the 16th century puritans (in this case tech nerds) asserting that ofcourse everyone must learn to read (or operate computers) so that they can read the Bible (internet) for themselves and interpret the word of collective wisdom directly. Notice how the result of that battle was not to dumb down the English language, which is unnecessarily complicated in many places, but to teach people how to use the bloody thing. This is a similar situation.

The year of the Linux desktop?

>It should be pointed out, infairness, that the US Navy will also be using these drones to detect drug running in the Caribbean and I don't think anyone would object to that

I'll object to it. It's nobody's business to dictate to people what they can do with their own bodies. The current drug laws create a black market and fuel gang violence. As demonstrated by countries like Portugal, treating drug use as a health issue instead of a criminal issue reduces addiction rates and side effects from drug consumption. Thus, anything which polices the current drug laws is destructive by it's very nature.

Are they also working with sub-par equipment? If so, put in a request together with them. Otherwise, put in the request yourself. If they turn it down, look for another job and put this one down as a contracting position. In my experience, employers in this industry pretty much never ask for references anyway, in the UK at least.

>Christ, you act like you're doing someone a favor running this tool that was built to help you save time.

CPU time is super expensive where I live.

>Let me guess, you're the guy who bitches when the WiFi is down on the airplane.

Incessantly.

>I don't think we should view it a negative light though.

You won't be saying that when your future girlfriend googles your name and sees all the My Little Pony videos you've been watching.

Yet companies act in exactly that way towards their employees. Late too many times? Ultimatum is issued where you get fired if it happens again. Too many sick days? Same result. Underperforming? Yup, you guessed it. Your employers are not your friends - do what you have to to make your life easier. IMO, ofcourse.