Please change the font. The word "meme" looks like "mcmc".
As a developer that is much closer to 50 than many here are, I can say that it's a crapshoot whether I will be programming when I'm 50. I tired of it after a handful of years, but decided to stay on with it because I can't afford the paycut, and am still am going with it, getting close to 15 years now. But everyday, and I've tried another employer, I still can't stand it. I enjoy the freedom and art and creativeness, but when things don't work, which happens a lot, I waste time on it and feel stupid and depressed. Feeling smart 1% of the time and stupid 99% of the time and worrying about whether you will be able to continue it without getting fired is a horrible way to live. It has affected my health, my attitude, and makes me drink more than I should at times. But, we justify this with "we are making a good living".
Common things I think about doing are (1) buying and running a bar, but then I would have to deal with the alcoholics, prostitution, drugs, and other crap that goes with it (not worth it) and would feel that I was contributing to an evil in our society even though I love beer and good times, (2) selling old computer equipment and games (there is little money here, and I'm not a hardware expert, so screw that), (3) getting involved with my church (but they don't need more IT, I'm a developer anyway not IT, and I have no idea what else I have to offer), (4) helping humanity get into space (but I have little to offer there also), (5) developing Indie games (which I've done in the past to some extent, but I think that writing games just means that people will waste time away from their family and solving problems playing them), (6) going to work for a non-profit development group (but I'm a conservative, and I can't work with tree-huggers even if I have a very liberal opinion that software should be free or open source, which I realize is not the same). So instead, I take care of my family.
Everything sounded great up to this point: "There are however two glaring problems (IMHO): 1. Voting is optional;"
When people have to vote, they will vote for things they are undecided on and it is likely that stupid things will play into the decision, like what the name looks like and whether it seems familiar. It doesn't make them any more likely to be informed about the candidates.
And if they have been "informed" about the candidates, the most likely corruptive force is our news media, which is biased (on both sides). Each radio and television station provides a "range of views" that on average lean toward their candidate or are carefully edited. If you can't trust the media to be unbiased (not that they ever were), who can you trust to give you the "real" scoop on the candidates? No one that I know of.
If people don't care enough to vote, they don't have a strong enough opinion on how things are going, then leave them alone. I don't want them choosing pretty names, and it is already bad enough that our views are so manipulated.
At least those that choose to vote are probably somewhat swayed by how well the government is doing, and how it is treating them and those they care about. Those that would be forced to vote aren't, or it is an even draw.
All of that said, I admit that I am an "undecided voter". I lean conservative, but I don't know who to vote for because I disagree strongly to some of the views of the conservatives. So, I might not vote this election, and I still care about the outcome.
And odds are the guys that wrote this paper don't have any clue that even if those writing the CLI tools/libraries/frameworks that use SSL had locked them completely down, developers and sysadmins would write scripts to agree-to-all, fake auth, etc. to get around security, because we have jobs that have to get done and security is not what we are all paid to do. Security is only critical when it fails. People claim to want security. They may even have an office of security. But even if that office of security is scanning all the apps, taking production apps down because they didn't throttle their probes, and maybe even looking at code- they cannot do the job of the developer.
It is destined to be flawed as long as insecurity is allowed. Only when every exploit is exploited continously will people be vigilant.
Which linked to this which scares me. A new CMM from may that deals with energy. CMM red tape didn't save contractors from fucking up the shuttle program- how is it going to help our power plants from being "hacker safe"?
http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/Electricity%20Subsector%2...
But, if trying to eliminate cruft, why include define_singleton_method? Why not just set the proper scope and define_method? Same with instance_eval, class_eval (and module_eval maybe?)- why not just set the scope to define whether you are in instance, class, eigenclass, etc. and use instance_eval? Not a criticism, but a serious question if the goal is to pare it down.
tl;dr summary: We're all screwed and the hippie progressives and tea partiers can't save us because they aren't being really innovative and getting to the heart of the problem.
So first off- I agree. Second, this post is way too long, pisses off the left, and doesn't provide solutions that I had the attention for.
So, I'll provide some. Put money into education and infrastructure, and teach our kids to be innovative, then get our debt fixed in a way that doesn't cause massive change and disable business. That isn't the Libertarian stance, but it is a the moderate stance, which no party supports these days.
As a developer that is much closer to 50 than many here are, I can say that it's a crapshoot whether I will be programming when I'm 50. I tired of it after a handful of years, but decided to stay on with it because I can't afford the paycut, and am still am going with it, getting close to 15 years now. But everyday, and I've tried another employer, I still can't stand it. I enjoy the freedom and art and creativeness, but when things don't work, which happens a lot, I waste time on it and feel stupid and depressed. Feeling smart 1% of the time and stupid 99% of the time and worrying about whether you will be able to continue it without getting fired is a horrible way to live. It has affected my health, my attitude, and makes me drink more than I should at times. But, we justify this with "we are making a good living".
Common things I think about doing are (1) buying and running a bar, but then I would have to deal with the alcoholics, prostitution, drugs, and other crap that goes with it (not worth it) and would feel that I was contributing to an evil in our society even though I love beer and good times, (2) selling old computer equipment and games (there is little money here, and I'm not a hardware expert, so screw that), (3) getting involved with my church (but they don't need more IT, I'm a developer anyway not IT, and I have no idea what else I have to offer), (4) helping humanity get into space (but I have little to offer there also), (5) developing Indie games (which I've done in the past to some extent, but I think that writing games just means that people will waste time away from their family and solving problems playing them), (6) going to work for a non-profit development group (but I'm a conservative, and I can't work with tree-huggers even if I have a very liberal opinion that software should be free or open source, which I realize is not the same). So instead, I take care of my family.