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What Do People in the IT Field Do for Side Jobs?
Flagg0204 asks: "Growing up in a primarily white collar household I wasn't exposed to 'side-jobs' until I met my girlfriend whose family was mostly blue collar. This got me to thinking. What do people in the IT field do for side jobs? Electricians, plumbers, HVAC, mechanic, these fields have many opportunities for a little extra cash on the side. What are some IT/IS side jobs that Slashdot readers do for extra money?"
That's how a lot of Free Software gets written. Go home, code up something useful, stick it on SourceForge, put it on your resume. You get a line on your resume, the world gets (hopefully) good code. Or help out on some existing project as a bug fixer, documentation person, fringe features (or mainline features if you're that good), etc.
Just because you don't get an immediate paycheck for it doesn't mean it's not worthwhile.
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
It will take quite a while before you have the skill to start working on blades. You start out with simple things like hooks, tools, etc.
The simple things teach you hammer control, curves, and let you get used to learning how the metal responds. from there you increase the difficulty of the things that you make both in forms and materials.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
My advice is to play home games with other poker players, go to local tournaments. There may even be free ones available in your area at local bars. Once you feel like you have a decent grasp of the game, deposit $100 or so to your poker site of choice (usually you'll get a deposit bonus too) and start playing. My favourite format for the value is the single table no-limit tournaments. For $10 + $1 you have a decent shot at winning $50 and the tournaments only take an hour or so.
Celebrate the finer things in life
Come now, Google on "anvils" brings up some basic hits, the first one of which (http://www.oldworldanvils.com/) looks fairly interesting. ;-) Dig around online for info on hunting up new/used anvils and other forge equipment.
But first things first: 1) dig up books on the subject. Check out Jim Hrisoulas' bladesmithing books. The first has a wealth of good basic material. That and later books also move quickly into Jim's specialty of advanced pattern welding techniques (See his website at http://atar.com/). 2) Nothing beats practical mentoring in a discipline such as smith-work. See if you can arrange to get classes/apprenticeship time with a smith in your area.
Enjoy!
Get used to it.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
to be honest, i could probably live happily without touching a box at all outside of my 9-5. i do however do a great deal of side work, mainly web scripting for people that want dynamic sites to do whatever. i also do onsite computer/networking work for $50/hr using only word of mouth for advertising. my side work yearly income is somewhere around 15k so far this year, so im not doing too bad. and no, i was smart enough to NOT sign any non-competes...
Improper plumbing (not installing a backflow preventer where required, for example) can result in waste/sewage entering the municipal water supply system, potentially endangering MANY lives.
Most plumbers also install gas/oil fired heating systems, for which the hazards of improper installation should be obvious. Even an improperly vented gas water heater could kill via CO poisoning....
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FWIW, there have been a few discussions about similar topics in the past which I happened to bookmark because I was considering going that route myself last year. Grant Barrett wrote a couple of interesting articles about starting up your own tech consulting business. They have been re-published at http://www.koozie.org/2004/10/freelance_tech_.html .
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I don't have the link to that Slashdot discussion, but it basically fell along the lines of "good advice!" and "no way it'll work."
A discussion about how to set up your consultancy was at http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/12/19/20502
That one's a little more informative.
There, now I feel somewhat justified for actually bookmarking that stuff. Good luck!
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
Ummm... I think he was pointing out that as many in taiwan want independence it is a bit of a double standard to say tibet can't have it too.
But I mean, don't just ask him what he meant... start dissing him out. Stupid myopic american "put-down" culture.