Have my criticism and observations upset you AC? Struck a nerve?

Gotta love irony.

Yeah, I drop in once or twice a year. Nothing's changed. Other tech sites have more straightforward news and Quora's comments have a much better signal to noise ratio.

This daily MS-bashing circle jerk, the nauseating fanboyism, and politically motivated anti-science goons are the three reasons I stopped using /.

Ah, but you're missing the point of these postings... It's not about helpful information (how many PCs/users affected? Root cause?), it's only bait to hate on MS.

Windows kills your family and destroys the world, Apple and Linux are flawless and have never had a single bug, exploit, or bad patch.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Yes, "losers."

A habitable place to live (own or rent) isn't negotiable. Owning a plane, boat --or even a car, is. For many lower-income individuals, transportation is a significant percentage of their disposable income. A car may not be as expensive as housing, medical care, or food, but it's optional and only used 5% of the time. If there was a good alternative at a fraction of the price, most people would use it. This is why most residents of NYC and European cities don't own one.

LOL. I can't completely disagree with you. I gave up my Miata seven years ago (to get a "responsible" family car) and now I die a little every time I get in the Prius. The joy is gone and now I'm just getting from A to B.

It's odd to me that most people I talk to can't get past the idea of not owning a car. Consider what you could do with the money you waste every year on car payments, gas, parking, maintenance, and insurance. Why wouldn't the future be nearly everyone taking a robo-Uber whenever they need to? In the future, driving or owning a car will be just another interesting hobby.

There are still a lot of really smart people on /. with informed opinions --but it seems like there just as many weak-minded idiots, too emotionally committed to their beliefs to think rationally. And they have mod points. Why can't they stay on FoxNews.com or Yahoo Answers?

Sure, I can see that. String them along--just as long as they aren't "the guy." (You know, the only guy that understands how the mission-critical systems work. I've seen companies go under when they lose that guy, without a knowledge transfer, which may take months). The replacement coder costs the new going rate, delivering a fraction of the productivity in the months before they have equivalent institutional knowledge and understand the wage refugee's code.

Ironically, even if a penny pinching manager did save a little, it's behaviors like this that drive IT wage inflation.

The pattern I've seen time and again is that even if you find an employer that gives regular raises, the market rate for programmers moves much faster than a lame 3% cost of living raise. So, unless you're an assertive extrovert, with a high tolerance for uncomfortable moments with your boss, you probably aren't demanding a competitive raise each year. Easier to just interview every few years and get a big salary bump.

And the employers who lost you? They'll pay much more to replace you, learn nothing from the experience, then repeat the cycle again in a few years.

People who work with trivially-simple applications and never have to deal with someone else's legacy mess will never be any good either.

Alcohol? The continued success of America's two political parties seems like better evidence.

In other news, Exxon Mobil CEO mercilessly ridicules /. poster that can't spell company name correctly.

Admittedly, it has gotten harder. The money used to follow a much more transparent path. See http://www.scientificamerican....