AnguirelCM

It's pointed out many times elsewhere in that chain, but just so it gets to be here, too: in-game music includes both licensed in-game music and original in-game music. The blog post specifies it should only flag for things in the "Audible Magic database", which is probably supposed to be only for the licensed subset. The CEO's stance stated original in-game music. The system is supposed to flag the licensed music (e.g. tracks from bands with RIAA-affliated publisher deals in GTA or Rock Band), but not original music that was made just for that game. If it's not flagging the former, or it is flagging the latter, that is a bug.

My understanding is that theres already significant power loss in transmission, followed by losses from charging the battery with low(er) voltage

While true, this underestimates how insanely inefficient a standard gasoline car is. It is more efficient to generate electricity with a gas-powered power-plant-sized generator, transmit it cross-country, and charge, than to use that same gasoline to drive a gasoline vehicle normally. It's really that absolutely abysmal in terms of how inefficient ICE cars are (or EV cars are really that much better).

I can't find my old go-to article on this, which included a description of different levels of transmission and voltage jumping losses (particularly if using a standard outlet trickle charger, which is less efficient than a fast charger, but also less wear on the battery for some vehicles), but here's a few sources:

DoE post on efficiency

Australian Energy Council on efficiency

Motor Trend article on a Yale study

If strategy can beat tactics then by definition tactics cannot beat strategy.

This is clearly false. A solid strategy can be tossed away with poor tactics. A poor enough strategy can't be saved by the best tactics in the world. You can win every battle, but still lose the war. You can seem to be winning the war, but lose it all in a sudden tactical master stroke. They both have the chance to win at the right time.

Strategy is still superior, even in Civ V. If I can survive to get tanks out with a giant industrial base against your crossbowmen and small empire that has been impoverished by constant unit building, you may be able to whittle away at my tanks as they come in through the rough terrain and a choke point in the mountains, but eventually you're going to fall.

TL;DR: If you want to learn to program and get a good job right out of school... go write code outside of class. Build up a portfolio of it that you can show off to prospective employers.

Let me lead this off with: if you're seriously considering the game industry, please research the game industry. It is not as fun as some people may believe -- the work is still work. It certainly doesn't pay as well as similar non-game opportunities requiring the same skill set would. The hours can be awful if you don't pick the right companies. Research the companies as well - they all have their own cultures, and some may fit you better than others. That said...

1) It's the common (but boring) answer here: Lots of practice. Read the manual (or, in this case, the language specifications). Understand what each language excels at, and what it does poorly, so you know which tool to use at the right time. Understand your different code paradigms in general, but you'll probably work in some C-variant most of the time, unless you go into mobile games, or something based on a scripting language.

Also read other people's code and figure out how it works. If you really want to dive in head-first, grab something like Quake. Try to figure out why certain design choices were made.

And, to be honest, using Google to find answers and code is just fine -- but research every function you copy over, and learn why it works when your own code doesn't. Many devs will start with this to at least point them in the right direction. You'll know when you start writing interesting code when you stop getting Google results, or only find people asking the question, but no one answering.

2) Can't answer for Sean, but in general it's by being a game developer before you leave college, or by having some really impressive example code and specialty. Here's the big secret to becoming a game dev, the one no one ever follows, but it's right out there in the open if you ask: To become a game developer... make a game. Just go make one. Not an amazing new game. Remake Asteroids, or Zelda, or Civ. It doesn't really matter what game, or how terrible the art ends up being. Just make it. Figure out how all those different parts hook together. How to take input and render out the graphics, and run your AI loops, and handle collision detection, or whatever is needed for your game.

If you need an initial boost, pick an engine (Unity, Unreal, etc... they're all available for free now for students and individuals to play around in) and make a game in that. Then make it in another. Then make it from scratch. Use the giant libraries of Creative Commons art and sound assets that people post to reddits like /r/gamedev/ to spice it up a little. This gives you an amazing portfolio you can demo in your resume and in interviews. It gives you very specific examples and answers to all the stupid interview questions (e.g. "talk about when you had a problem, and how you solved it"). It allows you to speak with more confidence about what you think you can bring to a company, because you've at least done some of it.

This even applies if you decide game development isn't for you. College gives you a huge opportunity -- but how you use it will determine your post-college results. You have a ton of spare time, and a lot of resources available to you -- go make silly apps. Try to get mapping data for your school and make an app that uses some graph theory to figure out the best route to reach your classes. Make an app that takes in a set of courses for your next semester and possible time slots and attempts to plot them out according to your preferences (e.g. no mornings, or no classes on Friday or whatever). Then get it to automatically pull that info directly from the school's web pages.

I might have hoped that the U.S. would win the World Cup, but I would have bet against them.

I might hope that there is an afterlife, but I would bet against it, and therefore put more time and energy into enjoying this life rather than putting all that off until the next one. If there is, bonus, if there isn't, well, at least I didn't spend the whole time hoping and wishing instead of doing.