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I'll put it on the table: I have a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc. - 4 year degree) in Electrical Engineering (more like a CE/EE/CS degree) from The Technion in their Haifa, Israel Campus, and graduated cum laude, and I have a qualified engineer certificate which theoretically allows me to write software for guiding missiles (or other flaw-free software) and give my signature that it is flaw-free. Nevertheless, right now I'm looking for part-time jobs as a seller/vendor in icecream parlours, candy/snack stores, cafés/restaurants/bars/etc. or even as a street sweeper. Lots of places in Tel Aviv, Israel are now advertising for this, and this seems like a good way to earn some money, as well as interact with other people and get inspired which will really help me with my creative writing and my essays. And I can buy an Android smartphone (nothing really better now and some people have successfully installed GNU/Linux chroots there) so I can type stuff for later incoporation into my desktop and laptop devices.

So why not work as a software developer? I don't mind getting a job as a software developer or a hardware developer or whatever, but lately employers in Tel Aviv and vicinity have become extremely picky: you go to an interview, answer most technical questions nicely, and don't get hired. Furthermore, even if they like you they are often very domineering: don't work from home, work 10-12 hours a day, only full time, don't play computer games at all (I only played some card Patience/Solitaire and Sokoban and not for long and still got flack), don't go to Facebook/Twitter/Google-Plus, we don't want you accessing imgur.com (too muchu traffic to there so let's firewall it) etc. etc. Thing is - the junior developers are kings (see the link for the Joel article), and you should leave them alone to their elements to get shit done at their own pace, and using their own resources instead of being a control freak. If, as a boss, my developer watched porn for 6 hours a day, while still being available on the forums for questions, and spent 2 hours creating great code that is functional and beautiful, I would be happy, and give him a full salary. But finding such enlightened employers is a big problem.

Software was the first field where workers were in constant demand, but now it seems that other fields are headed the same way here in Tel Aviv and other major centres of commerce worldwide: the food outlets, the music industry, photography, and soon - writing, acting/drama/film and then hopefully also modelling, and then if we can get past the normal and silly legal barriers - also more brick-and-mortar industries. Right now I've decided to make a transition from a software developer to a writer/Internet-entertainer/amateur-philosopher - a field where I feel I produce better results and also something that people will find cooler and sexier (although like I note in the article, the fact that I wrote a Freecell solver has impressed some really cute and intelligent chicks), and will have a larger influence. I still see knowing programming and other software development as an absolutely necessary means for that, just like I can no longer survive without knowing how to read and write English. Everyone should know at least HTML/XHTML/etc.

What I'm trying to say is that one should avoid Fatalism. People can improve for the better. I spent six and a half year doing my Elec. Eng. degree in the Technion and it cost me a lot of frustrations, but I'm still alive and have constantly become a better person - more competent, more able, smarter, wiser, and with a greate

I noticed on Fred Wilsons blog today that the FCC endorsed "BoxeeTV" device has been announced - http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/10/boxee-tv.html This was sort of announced recently along with the FCC decision that cable tv providers no longer need to carry unencrypted cable http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/15/3506030/fcc-allows-basic-cable-encryption-protects-consumers-open-access (guess those washington lobbying efforts paid off), One point of note the FCC announcements indicated that cable providers only need to offer this for free for 2 years and then will be allowed to charge for this from then on http://www.slashgear.com/fcc-cuts-boxee-a-little-encryption-slack-but-not-forever-15251887/ , I cant find any information from Boxee about what these costs will be from the cable providers to make BoxeeTV work? I'm also curious about "storage in the cloud" and whether Boxee expects any patent challenges around this? eg would be a shame if an injunction strikes down the cloud portion functionality. http://blog.collins.net.pr/2012/10/boxeetv-announced.html

And what are they actually for?

Perhaps it only becomes apparent after you've used one for a while. Or you've heard enough stories from people that have. e.g.
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/05/ive-changed-my-mind-about-the-ipad.html

I disagree. How often do the majority of people still read big-brand, traditional news sources? And that will drop further if they opt out of aggregating services. I check my local daily briefly, but get the majority of my news from other sources.

Fred Wilson makes the point here:
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/04/you-cant-take-the-paper-out-of-the-newstand.html

On Friday, an asian online games company called ChangeYou went public here in the US and had a very successful offering. This is interesting to me on many levels as you might imagine. Google shows three stories on the ChangeYou IPO; the lead story from SeekingAlpha, a story from Forbes, and a story from the FT. Note that there is no story there from the WSJ.

And I could care less. I had the option of all three links and I selected the SeekingAlpha link. SeekingAlpha is a network of stock bloggers. It is slowly but surely building a brand as a trusted source of stock news and opinion.

Newspapers dropped the ball on classifieds and this is only going to be another example of management making another dreadful mistake.

Quit the jibberjabber and opt out, I say. If major papers don't want to participate, opt out and leave it for those publishers and readers who do.

For something that works on Ubuntu and Apple TV, you might want to look at Boxee. It is not open source though. Invites from the main site take a while but you can get one faster from Fred Wilson's blog .