[passivate]

A lot of human progress in core sciences and engineering is on the backs of people toiling the midnight hours on sheer passion for little monetary reward. We owe a great debt of gratitude towards them.

In any commercial organization, there are tremendous pressures in high-investment, super high-risk projects and anyone can trivially find things that are wrong with the current system. The much more difficult challenge is showing an alternate path that is superior - based on the results it achieves. The times when you see the ugly behavior of people are times of desperation. Online commenters expend a lot of effort point out how to improve things by "proving" it by linking to random studies - but the more persuasive argument is by implementing those changes in the real world. "Talk is cheap, show me the code." ;)

[jjoonathan]

Sure thing! I've got your alternate path that is superior right here: see, first I give the semiconductor industry a big fat middle finger, and then I go work for somebody who fucking pays me.

This code is working great!

[passivate]

Heh, I got a chuckle out of that :) Thanks for sharing.