I have quibbles with your quibbles. :-) For the second quibble, here's what he said:

"Like most people, I'd imagine, my ears and skills are a bigger problem than the weaknesses of whatever gear I'm using - if you don't know how to mix (guilty!) then the fidelity of your monitor speakers is the least of your worries."

Not that it doesn't matter, but that he's not able to take full advantage of the better stuff.

For the first quibble, I think this is the key part of his response:

"I don't want to be the guy who just tells everyone how great their lives would be if they quit their jobs, but for many people there's less justification than ever before for staying in a work situation that isn't rewarding for you. If you want to do stuff, go and do stuff. Who is stopping you?"

I don't read that as a categorical call for everyone to quit their job and endanger their family's security, and "if you want to do stuff, go and do stuff" can mean exactly what you say about continuing with your job while building up other work.

Google's calculator is just a front-end to "bc". :-)

I posted a link below to GPL true believer Eben Moglen's opinion about this takeover -- it may surprise you. :-)

The SFLC's Eben Moglen is okay with Oracle taking on MySQL:

http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/blog/cases/oracle-sun/ec-hearing-and-after.html?seemore=y

Among other interesting analysis:

"In fact, I think they're wrong. I don't think the GPL is a bad economic fit for MySQL. I believe that Oracle sees clearly the nature of its business interests. It knows that MySQL is much, much more valuable to it alive than dead. In fact, Oracle has almost as much reason to improve MySQL as it has to improve its flagship product. For a small firm, like MySQL AB, dual-licensing revenue was the only efficient revenue source with which to develop the product. But for Oracle, service revenue is much more significant than dual-licensing royalties. As all parties who have spoken about the merger agree, regardless of which side they are on, enterprises that use Oracle are very likely to use MySQL also, because MySQL is the world leader in number of installs. Which means that companies that pay Oracle to service Oracle are very likely to pay Oracle to service MySQL as well, if Oracle is not only servicing MySQL but acting as primary funder and participant in a flourishing MySQL ecology. Even if Oracle were only willing to invest in MySQL the extent of its ability to increase the MySQL service business, Oracle would be the best thing that ever ichappened to MySQL. In fact, Oracle has an immense incentive to invest far more in MySQL than the extent of its increased winnings in the MySQL service market. MySQL driven technologically and economically by Oracle will be a price-zero full-GPL missile aimed at Microsoft SQL Server. "

It seems to me this is squarely in slashdot's sweet spot.

If the blurb doesn't interest you, give the story and the discussion a pass. There'll be another story soon enough that doesn't meet your specifications either.