I use Debian/Ubuntu because OS X lack apt. The package managers I tried on OS X just gave me more trouble.
But sure, I can't run Photoshop.
Anyway, the point is -- for my work station developer use case, there is better usability on Ubuntu. (It might be different if the servers I work on weren't Linux.)
I always found the eugenics arguments to be irrelevant, because parents will probably do design babies before accumulation of mutations can have a big impact.
There is 20-35 years/generation and already now, there is some selection of embryos to avoid disease. So routine fixing of gene "flaws" will be standard in just a few generations, since most everyone want intelligent children.
And yes, there will be large and complex social effects, probably partly negative. But the "Idiocracy" scenario seems unlikely.
Reality checks are valuable. It is better to get the depressing stuff from a good writer.
But sure, there is some spin.
You might note about e.g. the Netscape browser example that Microsoft got into legal boiling hot water. And the shuttle abomination, which gave NASA a motivation to use its heavy influence to stop cheap space launch, delayed real space projects by decades; if it end up with humanity extinct because we lack ways to stop a new dinosaur killer, we deserve it.
The main Mongo problem imho, is when you have feature creep -- if you find out later that you must have joins. Relational databases are more flexible with changing requirements.
But the other side of the coin is that if you document what you do and make a point of helping others that are stuck, you'll have an easier time getting the next good job. (As long as your co workers and your bosses are aware of this.)
Also, you will not feel so dirty.
(I am from Sweden originally, we're a bit extreme in group orientation, so you might want to apply NaCl.)
I am a day late (and I might be Hell banned?), but Blindsight by Watts ought to be mentioned. It was a total kick. It might be space opera, but with little of faked science.
People's taste either seems to go literary (e.g. Hyperion) or ideas/science (Benford). I do both.
Edit: I should add that Blindsight is available under an open license from the author's website.
>> the blase assertion that a nuclear Iran is any worse than the existing nuclear powers
Iran has one of the worst dictatorships around, it exports weapons and ammunition everywhere. The regime support groups that as SOP fire rocket artillery at civilians. The regime even support the politicians which organized the genocides/rapes of millions in Sudan. And so on.
Iran's priests is just not the kind of regime that should be immune to military threats, like Russia is now with Ukraine.
The really scary thing with that religious dictatorship, with both a fin de siecle attitude and nuclear weapons, is that they might get most of the Iranian population killed. Probably a majority of the Iranians really hates their priests and are a bit more west oriented than the average European. They have worked hard to push off their yoke, but their junta was ready for it. (I come from Sweden, there are lots of Iranian refugees there.)
That said, to use spying for economic reasons ("offshore oil drilling locations" in the GP comment) do deserve a total lack of trust. They lower themselves to the Chinese dirty level.
What surprise me about these recruitments is -- how do you convince people that it really is NSA/CIA/whatever that are asking them to be patriotic?
E.g. a Chinese spy in Silicon Valley probably say "I represent NSA, we _really_ need to get access to mail accounts without letting anyone know, including your corporate CEOs" (except to people which would be open to nationalist Chinese arguments).
A visit to Pentagon to shake some well known general's hand might be hard to arrange, since not only Google or Apple might monitor the GPS of the employees phone.
Some people tell you this is before the fall of Rome because they have seen it before, after year 2000. (And those of us with grey in the hair can tell you of even older ones.)
There were lots of talk about a new type of economy then, too...
The computer job market has bubbles too, but not necessarily in phase with the general economy. And if there is a good job market with software while the general economy is in the toilet, lots of people will study computer science and you'll have a bloodbath like 12-14 years ago when the bubble burst.
It is documented that Hamas shot from civilian areas. If the return fire kills civilians, it isn't the Israelis that broke the war laws.
Also, note the sex distribution: 671 dead men, 218 women.
And among older people, not of front line age, the sex distribution was much more even.
The media are planned more than the weapons in those conflicts. Note that the Israeli side have an interest in few Palestinian civilian dead, Hamas has the opposite interest...
But sure, I can't run Photoshop.
Anyway, the point is -- for my work station developer use case, there is better usability on Ubuntu. (It might be different if the servers I work on weren't Linux.)