>Do you believe rehabilitation is impossible or do you want revenge?

I don't believe that someone who commits mass murder can be rehabilitated, no. It isn't about revenge; it's about public safety.

Someone once pointed out that hoping a rapist gets raped in prison isn't a victory for his victim(s), because it somehow gives him what he had coming to him, but it's actually a victory for rape and violence. I wish I could remember who said that, because they are right. The score doesn't go Rapist: 1 World: 1. It goes Rape: 2.

What this man did is unspeakable, and he absolutely deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison. If he needs to be kept away from other prisoners as a safety issue, there are ways to do that without keeping him in solitary confinement, which has been shown conclusively to be profoundly cruel and harmful.

Putting him in solitary confinement, as a punitive measure, is not a victory for the good people in the world. It's a victory for inhumane treatment of human beings. This ruling is, in my opinion, very good and very strong for human rights, *precisely* because it was brought by such a despicable and horrible person. It affirms that all of us have basic human rights, even the absolute worst of us on this planet.

This is precisely why I lost all interest in Oculus the instant I heard that it had been acquired by Facebook.

People keep spouting this like it's gospel, and it might be legally correct, but that doesn't make it any less crappy for the consumers. Apple is on the way to be a more evil version of Microsoft when it was worst, and I think the world would be a better place if they were forced to be slightly more open.

I guess it says something about how long it takes to make professional games, that it's taken so long.

The real problem with this, is that soon advertisers will start making canvas ads instead of flash ads, and then what have end users really gained? The reason that Flash is hated is mostly because it's been misused. And now it will be easy to misuse HTML5/canvas too.
We can now use Javascript to do the same stuff that flash could for many years. Don't take me wrong. I love programming in javascript, and I like that I can now do these things. But what do normal, non-programming users get out of this? That they don't need a plugin? I'd bet most normal users doesn't even know what is flash and what is not. And the way I see it, the canvas-renderer isn't somehow more magic than the flash-engine. Except that it's built into the browser, but you could argue that you could just as well do that with Flash.

Until you spend enough time with it, to learn why the original programmer did as he did.

As I see it, most projects start out with a good structure and the best of intentions, and then comes deadlines and the developer having to juggle several projects at once, and then a shortcut is taken here, then there. And suddenly you end up with a non-documented project where the only person that knows how it works is the original developer.

There will however always be BAD code by bad programmers. I've taken over Java progress where everything was OOP'ed into hell (as in a bazillion classes more than was needed for the application) and PHP projects which should be OOP'ed but consisted of about 500 files that included each other in a huge confusing net.
I've also had to take over projects where the original developer was using new technology because he thought it would be fun (at the expense of the customer). Having a huge website in PHP/MySQL and then having crucial parts of it in Ruby/PostreSQL is just a maintenance nightmare.

It's somewhat sad that when China executes people who opposes the regime, the rest of the world cry "Murder!", but when someone releases information embarresing to them, the line is not as clear.

The way I see it. If the documents had been released by "real" journalists (what defines a real journalist anyway?) 10 at a time, there would be no talk about hanging said journalists. When thousands of documents is released at one time, we suddenly call for his head?

It's actually quite easy to think of a better citation. The Gulag Archipelago is a work of fiction; Solzhenitsyn has in later life admitted that, especially in regards to the overall numbers, he had made things up. This is not denying reality of what the Soviet regime was up to in those years - simply that you don't want to use the Gulag Archipelago as your primary historical citation.

Two to five years?! But I'm sick now!

Thanks, happens I have, perhaps they didn't take as well as I'd hoped :)

Also, you derived your answer based on an axiom: that learning needs to be justified. My argument was similarly axiomatic, but based on the opposite assumption. Axioms only need to be justified in terms of their usefulness as a starting point in developing a theory. As I appear to have arrived at a conclusion conformant with observations, I'd say my choice of axiom was ok. :)

I completely concur with your criticism of modern USian culture; however, I'd like to point out that America is hardly what one would consider "educated". We have a profound culture of ignorance, which is fueled by religious superstition. I am not surprised at its psychological and physical manifestations.

I believe, however, that the above does not contradict my original point, that the generally higher level of education contributes, in the aggregate, to societal happiness. Consider: how much more unhappy America will become once the majority has lost the ability to read beyond the 3rd grade level?

As to your other point, about compulsive education, I'll be delighted to find a better model, truly; school should not be a camp where one stews for 12 years. And yes, even in the relatively more educated countries kids still don't want to learn, it is, as you point out, human nature. But the opposite does not bear contemplation - indulging these attitudes. Again, I submit that American culture does exactly that by finding every conceivable "disability" to excuse poor scholastic performance. In short, compulsory education is suboptimal, but preferable to its utterly ignorant counterpart.

...for the emeritus professor, but he did not become "emeritus" early enough.

And did he seriously use "taxpayer dollars" as an argument? Is he trolling for local office or something? The entire debate over the usefulness of any form of learning is ultimately predicated over the false assumption that this learning needs to be justified. An educated nation is one that is more productive, more aware, and ultimately happier than its massively illiterate counterparts, irrespective of the moaning of certain truck drivers, soccer moms and ex-professors over enforced learning. I've yet to observe many happy, illiterate nations - in fact the only things they tend to excel at are genocidal warfare and mass starvation.

People, pay attention: no one cares about your objections to learning math; you don't like it, tough. You like your 9-5, do you? Somehow I don't hear you bitching and moaning how we should do away with work. Shove your ignorant objections and STOP getting in the way of those of us who can actually think, 'cause you know what? In the end, you'll be the sad marginalia in the history books emblematic of a "more ignorant age". The rest of us will be praised for advancing humanity.

So, again: stop getting in our way. You are not important. Neither are your opinions. Quit trolling from the pulpit. Btw, fundamentalist Christian ministers, you hearing me? That goes double for you.

What are you smoking?
Not even Google have enough money for all that bugs in IE!