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Really what you need to do is find something that you want to do. [...] Add a feature to a program you use regularly (an IM program, for instance), write a program that would make your life easier, or fix a random bug from some project's bug tracker.

First you narrate how you created and adapted some really cool games, then you conclude how the question asker could adapt some boring software packages. I'd like to suggest to the question asker that he picks up your first advice. There are plenty of open source games and I would suggest the (relatively) straightforward and very addictive games of Parallel Realities, two brothers creating really cool arcade-like games. Some years ago I did a write-up on how to adjust their Starfighter game to include an additional weapon.

We actually characterize our chip's RAM's bit-flip behavior by actively trying to cause bit-flips in a radiation-filled environment.

For people interested, here is a picture of such a test: radtest1.jpg. What you see here, is the electronics placed under a glass dome. The dome is vacuumed. The arm is holding a metal dish which has an open bottom. In the dish is a californium particle source.

I work for a semi-government space research organization as a software engineer and as part of my work, create test scripts to test our electronics with custom ASICs for radiation hardness.

Nice! You meddling kids ruined another one of my schemes!! You and that stupid mutt!
 
So I take it your email address is slashdot@vankuik.nl ??
 
Rooby rooby roo!!!

I'd like to suggest that you look for a job in a research institute. What you're asking is NEVER going to fly in a business environment. I'm currently working at SRON, a Dutch space research institute. My current project involves a supercooled instrument which receives waves in the 500-620 GHz range and will fly on a balloon somewhere next year. I'm the software guy for the project and it's great work. You get to work with very smart physics guys and the project has a bunch of custom-designed electronics which I'm reading out and controlling.

I'm under some pressure right now because we're going to fly april 2007, but normally, there is enough time to creatively do your job.

Check my website (for instance here) to see some stuff we're working on.

It's a hosted solution; I only have access to the guest OS. The solution is advertised as Xen 3.0.1. I don't know the storage system. I didn't have performance issues; I just ran unixbench and saw that it took a LONG time, see the results here: unix_bench_xen_budgetdedicated.

Cool, thanks very much! And nice ion cannon walkthrough :-)

Here ya go, buddy

Must not reply at own post, however just to brag: I documented the effort here.

I found Joel's "Absolute Minimum" really, really minimal and did a presentation for the rest of the developers at the workplace: Zipped Powerpoint. Be sure to check the notes below each sheet.

I played with the alpha and gave a presentatation about it at my employer. Lots of people were enthousiastic.

Plug: java-1.5_new_features_en_v2.ppt