"You are not going to convince anyone with facts." ... Lost me here. What kind of organization doesn't run on facts?

Most?

We need some kind of screening for these high-stress PTSD inducing roles ... a Voight-Kampff test. Or limit the number of years one can be in these roles.

New Acela trains represent a significant step toward national aspirations for faster and more reliable train service

I work for a large company, and I can say that context switching is also a problem here. I guess it comes down to the organization, or maybe the individual team. But yeah, there isn't a week that goes by where a development task isn't interrupted by something.

>more willing to do the boring work that the older devs don't want to do

No body wants to do the boring work. I think more experienced devs realize that a boring assignment isn't personal, its just business.

I think you're right. I also think that what tends to bore an experienced dev may be less likely to bore a junior dev, just because it's newer to them.

typing fast has nothing to do with programming

debugging errors has a lot to do with programming

typos are a kind of bug

When I was 10, I started programming in BASIC ... we're talking about simple expressions and statements.

"When I was 10, I started programming in BASIC"

Me, too! On the Acorn Electron.

My son will turn 6 soon. I think he's ready for Scratch (or at least Scratch Jr) but I'm not sure he's ready for BASIC. I guess I could him a printout of some code and see if he can type it in without errors...

To put this in perspective, US daily oil consumption is 18 million barrels. So a 50 million barrel release from the strategic reserve is less than a 3 day supply.

It’s not even that:

“ Of the total 32 million barrels will be an exchange over the next several months, while 18 million barrels will be an acceleration of a previously authorized sale “

So it’s a single day’s supply.

> WAS THE CONSTRUCTION WORKER AT THE BOTTOM ASKED IF HE LIKED THE BUILDING? IF NOT, WHY NOT? SURELY HIS INPUT SHOULD HAVE MATTERED.

A construction worker is strictly implementation. Soliciting design input that isn't relevant to implementation is a recipe for chaos.

I think about the guy in the manhole in Die Hard's "cut the power" scene all the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMKQVPV1pf0

I believe this sentence should not be taken literally as input from that particular construction worker, but rather be understood in the more general sense of input from the public at large, i.e. non-stakeholders.

Beside a swarm of your own, a Phalanx canon would come in handy.

Plot reminds me of Malaysia Airlines flight 370.