[ A spokesman for a Microsoft-funded trade group ] disputed the assertion that Microsoft's distribution of Suse Linux service and support coupons makes it a Linux distributor.
"They're not distributing Linux," Wilder said. "They're providing somebody access to a service but they're not providing copies of Linux on a disk, and they're not providing somebody access to Linux for the purpose of download, and so they're not engaged in any distribution."
Great news! Let's start all posting the AACS key to Digg, again. After all, you won't be distributing AACS yourself, and you are not going to provide access to download anything.
if you get suckered into giving someone your account information, that's kind of your own problem.
I presume, then, you've never written a single check, and you do not use credit cards. Your account number is printed right there on every check you write, and your credit card account number -- which is just another kind of a bank account -- is printed right there on the face of your credit card.
Or, perhaps, you ran a background check on every company and individual that handles your checks and credit charges? Including, for example, all the workers at the mail processing center that opened the envelope with your check for last month's electric bill?
My landline is also on the donotcall list, and gets very few calls. But everyone here is well-trained: if the caller ID is not recognized nobody picks up the phone.
I ran some of the numbers through Google -- and the hits do indicate that the number is usually associated with some "survey" or "charity" type of a call.
Occasionally the frequency that the same caller ID rings picks up a bit. When that happens I hook up the fax machine to autoanswer after two rings. That usually solves the problem.
A particularly interesting recurring caller was some robo-dialer that kept leaving a recorded message from some outfit with an unpronouncable name asking for a callback regarding "important financial information" which is "not a sales call". A Google search traced the number to some outfit called "Ocwen Federal Savings Bank" (which sounded phonetically close enough to the message on the answering machine) whose modus operandi appears to be some shady real state loans and deals. The Google hits were from people claiming that these folks used high pressure tactics to try to get them to pay up for alleged loans or credit card bills that they knew absolutely nothing about. The Ocwen calls started within a couple of months after my landline was turned up; and they were much more persistent than the average sales call or a bill collector -- the calls kept coming for at least a year, even after long spells of the fax machine treatment. Not quite sure what was up with that. The most likely explanation is that I got the phone number that used to belong to someone else who had dealings with this shady outfit. I also know that the chap I bought the house from skipped out owing money to a lot of people; I got a new phone number but the Ocwen types sound just like the ones who could find a new number that goes with the same street address.
The US is quickly turning into the Nanny State. We live in a dangeous world, folks, but -- have no fear -- the mighty government is here to protect you from yourself.
Next thing you know, they'll be telling you how much water you legally can use to flush your crap down the toilet. Oh, wait...
If that's all it was, then why has no one else been able to create an equivalent tool to Joerg's?
Because as long as Joerg's tool was free software, there was no need to. Nobody really cared much about Joerg being a jackass, as long as his software basically worked, and was redistributable under the GPL.
Until one of those two properties changed, Joerg could've remained as pompous and as much of an ass as he wished. But that will hold true only until you cross a certain line.
We've seen this happen with XFree86. Now, it's cdrecord/dvdtools. I'm sure it'll happen again, in the future.
Anyone who kept track of Joerg Schilling, and his prominent ego, was able to clearly see the inevitable fork from quite a distance away. Schilling was another one of those types -- like the dude who was running some obscure piece of code known as xfree86 -- whose success and prominence as the author of a popular free software package went completely into his head.
No, this should not be suprising news to anyone who's been following LKML. You could've predicted this a long time ago. What is really interesting here is the revelation that Sun explicitly made CDDL intentionally incompatible with GPL. That is, what I think, the newsworthy fact, and should be a wake up call to all the Sun fan club who've been slobbering all over themselves on the account of Sun's promises of releasing Java as free software.
Reading this just underscores the fact that you just can't trust Sun, and nobody should hold their breath on account of Java.
You bet your ass I'm tooting my own horn. And you know what? I think am completely entitled to it.
I paid my dues. I've gone through hell and back. And I believe that entitles me to gloat a bit.
I've carried my share of the load. I've seen pretty much everything there was to see. 2.5 hour commutes. One way. Every day. (Drive half an hour, over a mountain that crosses the Appalachian trail, to a remote suburban train station; stand in a middle of nowhere, freezing your ass off in the middle of January, wondering if the ol' diesel will be on time today, falling unconscious in my seat for the next hour, in blissful coma until the train pulls into the terminal, and then spending another half hour squeezed into a commuter subway, standing room only, before arriving in the office and spending the next hour really being unable to do anything useful, until you recover your wits).
Five years straight with only about a week's "vacation" off. A steady diet of TV dinners and greasy fast food take-out. Scumbag managers who have PMS every week. Repaying my student loans, every single penny of them. Even years after graduating from college with my degree still waking up in cold sweat, after some hazy nightmare involving a missed homework assignment, or something of this nature.
So now, when all of that is behind me, and with me finally sitting at the top of my heap (it may not be everyone's idea of a heap, but it mine's) I think I'm entitled to a little bit of boasting. Just a little bit, mind you.
Let me tell you something: when you're pretty sure that you're earning twice as much as your manager, you're going to get an attitude adjustment real fast, and you'll be HAPPY to do whatever the hell they want you to do, as long as they don't give you personal grief or make your life difficult.
And if you don't readjust your attitude, in this situation, I'll tell you what's going to happen: you're going to fizzle out, and go down HARD.
I can tell you that what I do, at times, is absolute SHIT, as far as personal preferences go. BUT I DON'T GIVE A FUCK. I don't go to work to have a big party. And I really do not work because I like to do a good job, and get a pat on the back. The only reason I go to work is to MAKE MONEY. That's the only reason I haul my ass out of bed, in the morning, and spend 20 minutes packed like a sardine, on a commuter train. As long as I get cash stuffed into my ass, at regular intervals, and as long as nobody gives me jive and gets on my ass, I'll be happy to climb my desk, stand on one foot, and whistle Dixie.
"Greed is good". Gordon Gekko is my fucking idol. I guess that's why I'm doing all right, in the Wall Street meat market.
But that doesn't mean that there are no limits whatsoever. Yes, I also draw a line somewhere. There were times where I drew the line myself. As a matter of fact, the last one was about a month ago. I really hated one particular project that I was involved in. I usually try to take my lumps and don't complain, and I do a lot of things that I may not like, but sometimes things go too far. And especially when I remember telling my manager, when he interviewed me, that I'm really not cut out for this line of work. So, after I delivered a project that I told them in advance that I wasn't really the right guy for, I approached my managers, and told them -- hey, you know, I don't think that I'm going to be the "best resource" for any future work along the same lines.
And you know, they got the message! There's a lot more to this story, this is just a capsule summary. The bottom line is that: first, you have to prove yourself, you have to give your managers hard proof that you're hot shit, and that you're a valuable resource THEY DON'T WANT TO LOSE. Once that's done, and NOT EARLIER, then you need to be frank with them, and inform them that there are something that you don't really digest very well. Good manager will take the hint. Bad ones won't, so you'll just have to make a decision whether you're going to swallow more crap, or start E-mailing your resumes.
It's my turn to agree. When I incorporated as a consultant, the next year I also pretty much doubled by income. After a couple of years you're going to top out, but for the first few years, the curve's pretty steep. And even after you top out a few years later, at the rate you're going to get, you AIN'T GONNA COMPLAIN.
And, yes, I also feel like I'm getting more respect. Some days, I feel like Vito Corleone; sitting at my desk all day, drinking tea (Earl Grey, hot -- yes, really), pecking at some code at my own pace, while people approach me throughout the day, asking for favors in the nicest tone of voice possible.
The other day I stepped out of the elevator and ran into an old buddy of mine, who turns out also consults where I am now -- didn't know that. Not sure exactly what his situation is, but the impression I get is that he's not really making well. He's getting an 'ok' amount, but nothing to be proud off. Well, he tells me that he really is getting shit from his manager. He literally can't go and pee, without getting his boss on his ass.
I didn't start out consulting, right from the beginning, because I just didn't know any better.
But, in retrospect, that was the right thing to do. Getting into consulting, without any experience, is tougher than getting an entry level job. Unless you go through a body shop that manages the client's contract, who just resells you, pays you peanuts, and bills you out at an obscene rate. And you do not want to go there.
I've had gigs that involved report generation, and I've had gigs that involved developing user interfaces; on one occasion I developed a web-based interface with Perl/CGI, on another occasion I've used a Java applet.
The more financial knowledge you have, the better. That goes without saying. Everything helps. As I said, the first 5-7 years are going to be rough going, while you learn the ropes. Financial knowledge will accrue naturally, as you gain experience.
While you are getting yourself through the first 5-7 years, save as much dough as you can. Do not make the common mistakes many others make: do not splurge and buy a new car, on credit, or crash in a sprawling flat that forces you to pay sky-high rent. Live frugally. Make it your goal to save enough cash that you can live off for at least 2-3 YEARS without a job. Yes, _YEARS_, not months.
Savings tip #1: live with your parents for 2-3 years, after graduating from college. This does wonders for your bank account. You can move out and get a pad of your own later, after you've saved up an rainy day fund that'll get you through the low times.
After graduating from college, try to stick 2-3 years in your first job, then change jobs and try to find one that's in a completely different financial area, so you get well-rounded financial knowledge. You may not end up being an expert in any particular area of financial knowledge, but you'll have a generally broad base of financial knowledge.
After being a wage slave for 5-6 years, incorporate and become an independent consultant. If you've got a good head on your shoulders, you don't need an accountant, just Turbotax. You can do all the tax paperwork yourself. Now that you're a consultant, kiss the 60 hour week goodbye. Now that the company has to pay you for every hour, suddenly you don't need to work 60 hours a week, any more.
Many headhunters will still try to screw you with gigs that don't pay overtime, they'll throw buzzwords like "professional day" at you. Tell them to fsck off, you get paid $X/hr, and not $X*8 for a ten hour day, or not $X/hr for the first 8 hrs, then $Y/hr after that, where Y<X. Stick to your guns. Every time, in the last eight years, I was looking for a gig, I always stumble upon some headhunter twit who will swear up-and-down, cross-his-heart, that nobody uses consultants any more, or that nobody on Wall Street pays consultants for overtime any more, or that nobody pays the kind of money that I want.
Every time I'm in between gigs, I always end up talking to one such clown.
Just last week some lady called me. She talked to me about seven months ago, her agency recruits for salaried spots only, and she was disappointed that I have no interested in a salaried position, only consulting. So, this sweetheart calls me last week, wondering if I changed my mind. No, honey, and I've been busy for the last 6 months, making twice as much money as you were offering me. She tells me to call her if I ever change my mind. In my Jerry Lewis voice I tell her: laaaaaady, I've been a consultant for over a decade now, and that ain't gonna happen. And a couple of dudes that I'm working with right now, are consultants who are pushing into their retirement years. Ain't gonna happen.
You will end up doing gigs that will run anywhere between 6 months, and >5 years, with intervals of 6-9 months in between, while you're looking for your next gig (did I mention that you need to have enough cash to live off, for at least 2-3 years?)
You will find that your job search will go much better when you are not desperate for any grub a headhunter would want to throw your way. I enjoy pissing off all the headhunters, who think that I'm desperate to latch onto anything they give me. Yes, I'm really serious -- this is how much money I want, and no, your "exciting opportunity" isn't really that exciting to me.
I really had the following happen more than once: it's early spring, and I'm on the prowl. Just finished a gig somewhere
I graduated with a Bachelor's in a double-major of Comp Sci, and Applied Math, 16 years ago, and have been working ever since.
The barrier to entry, today, is unquestionably higher than it was years ago. If you're coming out of college today, expect to rough it out for 5-7 years. Then it gets easier. Much, much easier. If you know what you're doing, and you're good at it, outsourcing is not going to bother you.
The key to success, in this racket, is to love programming. You should've known that this is what you want to do with your life -- computer programming -- even before you've gotten your high school diploma.
If you're looking at a career in IT as a means of earning a living -- forget it. It's not going to work for you. You need to be naturally drawn to programming. If you're naturally driven to this (I sat down in front of an Apple II at age 12, and that's all she wrote), then it's only a matter of time before you claw your way to the top of the heap, and from that point on, it's easy going. Do not be concerned even if things look very bleak, the first 5-6 years out of college. Learn as much as you can, when you go home, spend all your free time "scratching an itch", and a few years down the road you will have the experience and knowledge to run rings around everyone else.
I hear all the woes that people are saying, and just quietly smile, internally. I work in what's considered to be the toughest IT environments in the world: Wall Street. People get eaten alive, around here.
Yet, I moved into my first house at age 21, paid off its 30-year mortgage eight years later, sold it, bought a second house two years ago, and I expect to pay off THAT mortgage next year. I get into the office around 9, and leave around 5. I'm not a wage slave, I don't work myself to death. I work as an independent consultant programmer, so if the company wants me to work 12 hours a day, they will have to pay for it. It's funny how the expectations of IT people to work 12 hours a day disappears, when the company has to pay for it (I'm under strict orders not to work more than 40 hours a week, anything more requires advance authorization).
I remember hearing the headhunters' sob stories, as long as ten years ago, about all these Indian outsourcers taking a dozen H-1Bs, throwing them together into one, tingy, dingy house somewhere on Long Island, paying them $30/hr, and billing each one out for $40/hr; and undercutting everyone else.
Strangely enough, I've somehow managed to avoid getting undercut all this time. Yes, I see a lot of Indians around here. But, they're all low-level admins, who really don't do anything that requires any kind of sophistication. If you enter the market today, you WILL have a lot of competition to deal with, at first, for entry-level/low level spots. Once you get past that, though, the landscape changes dramatically.
I'm currently involved -- amongst other things -- with the management's hiring push. We're trying to hire as many high-level, experienced, developers as we can find. Wall Street has done very well in the last year, everyone is reporting record profits, everyone has hundred dollar bills coming out of their assholes, more cash than they know what to do with, so everyone's trying to hire as many good people as they can.
Based on interviewing a whole bunch of people over the course of the last 3 month, I can say: if you have your shit together, and you know what you're doing, you won't have any problems.
If a lower pay is enough to pay the bills and lead a comfortable life style, I would seriously consider dumping a high-paying boring job for a rewarding low-paying.
But:
The fact that it's a startup complicates things. Startups can fail at any time, and one day you may wake up and find yourself on the street. You need to do your homework and take a very close look at the startup: are they just a dot-bomb wannabe, or do they have a solid business plan, a marketable product, and a firm roadplan? The answers to these questions will guide you to making the call here.
Your other alternative is to find the time in your cushy job and make it interesting. If it's really such a bore you should have plenty of time to spend on educating yourself. Find something you want to learn, some skill, and use your free time to study it. If it's even barely relevant to your current line of work you are on solid ground to justify using your free time, on the clock, on this. No employer -- especially the solid company you claim to be working for -- would object to their employees learning and picking up related skills that might be relevant to their employment; they should even encourage it.
a virtual machine can make a mediocre java programmer outperform a mediocre C++ programmer.
Here's a trick question. You're a project manager in a large firm, who is responsible for delivering a core application, basically a "company-jewels" kind of a deal.
Question: would you prefer to hire a "mediocre java programmer", for this position, or "a mediocre C++ programmer"?
... and I've been an incorporated independent consultant ever since.
I consider that to be the best decision I've ever made in my life.
No more twelve hour days at the office.
No more wearing a leash on your neck, every weekend, dialed in remotely, and having to provide coverage and support for the preciousssssssssssssss weekend produciton job runs.
And making twice as much money (even after factoring in the overhead of being self-employed), then the salaried schmucks who sit next to me.
And I still have a decent medical plan (and if I don't like my medical insurance carrier, I can fire them and get a new one).
And I still have a retirement plan, to which I contribute pre-tax dollars every year.
There's been an endless stream of recruiters, over the last ten years, constantly calling me and desperately try to raise my interest in some salaried position they're trying to fill.
I'm still looking for a single, valid reason why I should.
And to the scumbag bastard of a manager, who opened my eyes eleven years ago as to which side of the bread _really_ gets buttered (by shipping a dozen consultants and employees 7,000 files to do a customer site install, paying all the consultants' expenses and car rentals, while making all the employees suffer through some infernal car pooling arrangement), I have only two words to say:
When I was in a similar situation, I ended up writing eztorrent. You can find it on Freshmeat.
Publishing BitTorrent content is as simple as copying the files into a directory, and running a single command. Eztorrent automatically creates the matching.torrent files, start the tracker, and start a seeder for each.torrent file.
Files can be added or removed from the torrent directory at any time. A single command adds/removes any.torrent files, and starts or stop the seeders, without any downtime for any other, active torrents.
I don't see what's the big deal. Dealing with collection agencies is very easy. Just write a simple letter giving the "account number" from the agency's dunning letter, and stating that you dispute the debt, that you request proof of the debt, and that you don't want to be contacted by telephone in writing.
Then, pay three bucks to send the letter by certified mail with return receipt. Unless you owe a lot of money, and the collection agency has some real paperwork to prove that, this is the last time you'll hear from them. The certified mail receipt makes sure that you can burn their ass off if they ever try to bother you again for no reason.
Although some might baulk at the three bucks, just keep in mind that it costs the collection agency more than that to send the letter off and process your response (someone has to go in, look up your account number in their system, and mark it off).
If everyone did that, the collection agencies will quickly go out of business.
I don't remember the last time I watched anything on any big-3 TV network. The last thing I ever watched on broadcast TV is the slow, withering death of "Enterprise", and that was only with my Tivo's help.
Broadcast TV is completely unwatchable these days. You're wasting a third of your time having your intelligence insulted by all the ads. It's not just the sheer amount of ads drowning out the real show you're trying to watch. My impression -- from the snippets I catch here and there -- is that they're utterly brainless, and are aimed at the lowest common denominator.
Every once in a while you might stumble across a retrospective show that runs some notorious commercials from the decades gone by. The difference is staggering. 15-20 years ago the commercials actually tried to be creative, funny, and entertaining. Now they just try to get into your face as fast as they can, and shout their slogan repeatedly at full volume, before their time runs out.
Broadcast TV is a cesspool. Cable TV is still barely watchable, so far, with some help from the Tivo.
It does not surprise me that the dude's show was rejected, but gained some popularity after the leak. The show was probably "too cerebral" (geek points if you know where the phrase came from, and obviously this isn't really new). If your show's too intelligent, it's a minus these days. Broadcast pablum has to be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. If not, you're lose all the societal rejects, because they won't understand the show. There goes half your audience.
Slashdot Mirror
From TFA:
Great news! Let's start all posting the AACS key to Digg, again. After all, you won't be distributing AACS yourself, and you are not going to provide access to download anything.
it was a matter of a leftish organization waiting for a conservative radio talk show host to say something that they could use politically.
Is that a "conservative radio talk show host" as in "campaigned for John Kerry", and a "registered Democrat"?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Please post all "Libraries Of Congress" jokes in this thread. Help keep Slashdot clean. Thank you.
the skin looks better and better. That aspect of realism is the most striking, I wonder if this is driven by the prosthetics industry?
Oh, please. You must be an impostor around here. Any true geek would tell you that it's the porn industry that's... err... behind it.
if you get suckered into giving someone your account information, that's kind of your own problem.
I presume, then, you've never written a single check, and you do not use credit cards. Your account number is printed right there on every check you write, and your credit card account number -- which is just another kind of a bank account -- is printed right there on the face of your credit card.
Or, perhaps, you ran a background check on every company and individual that handles your checks and credit charges? Including, for example, all the workers at the mail processing center that opened the envelope with your check for last month's electric bill?
My landline is also on the donotcall list, and gets very few calls. But everyone here is well-trained: if the caller ID is not recognized nobody picks up the phone.
I ran some of the numbers through Google -- and the hits do indicate that the number is usually associated with some "survey" or "charity" type of a call.
Occasionally the frequency that the same caller ID rings picks up a bit. When that happens I hook up the fax machine to autoanswer after two rings. That usually solves the problem.
A particularly interesting recurring caller was some robo-dialer that kept leaving a recorded message from some outfit with an unpronouncable name asking for a callback regarding "important financial information" which is "not a sales call". A Google search traced the number to some outfit called "Ocwen Federal Savings Bank" (which sounded phonetically close enough to the message on the answering machine) whose modus operandi appears to be some shady real state loans and deals. The Google hits were from people claiming that these folks used high pressure tactics to try to get them to pay up for alleged loans or credit card bills that they knew absolutely nothing about. The Ocwen calls started within a couple of months after my landline was turned up; and they were much more persistent than the average sales call or a bill collector -- the calls kept coming for at least a year, even after long spells of the fax machine treatment. Not quite sure what was up with that. The most likely explanation is that I got the phone number that used to belong to someone else who had dealings with this shady outfit. I also know that the chap I bought the house from skipped out owing money to a lot of people; I got a new phone number but the Ocwen types sound just like the ones who could find a new number that goes with the same street address.
The US is quickly turning into the Nanny State. We live in a dangeous world, folks, but -- have no fear -- the mighty government is here to protect you from yourself.
Next thing you know, they'll be telling you how much water you legally can use to flush your crap down the toilet. Oh, wait...
If that's all it was, then why has no one else been able to create an equivalent tool to Joerg's?
Because as long as Joerg's tool was free software, there was no need to. Nobody really cared much about Joerg being a jackass, as long as his software basically worked, and was redistributable under the GPL.
Until one of those two properties changed, Joerg could've remained as pompous and as much of an ass as he wished. But that will hold true only until you cross a certain line.
We've seen this happen with XFree86. Now, it's cdrecord/dvdtools. I'm sure it'll happen again, in the future.
Anyone who kept track of Joerg Schilling, and his prominent ego, was able to clearly see the inevitable fork from quite a distance away. Schilling was another one of those types -- like the dude who was running some obscure piece of code known as xfree86 -- whose success and prominence as the author of a popular free software package went completely into his head.
No, this should not be suprising news to anyone who's been following LKML. You could've predicted this a long time ago. What is really interesting here is the revelation that Sun explicitly made CDDL intentionally incompatible with GPL. That is, what I think, the newsworthy fact, and should be a wake up call to all the Sun fan club who've been slobbering all over themselves on the account of Sun's promises of releasing Java as free software.
Reading this just underscores the fact that you just can't trust Sun, and nobody should hold their breath on account of Java.
You bet your ass I'm tooting my own horn. And you know what? I think am completely entitled to it.
I paid my dues. I've gone through hell and back. And I believe that entitles me to gloat a bit.
I've carried my share of the load. I've seen pretty much everything there was to see. 2.5 hour commutes. One way. Every day. (Drive half an hour, over a mountain that crosses the Appalachian trail, to a remote suburban train station; stand in a middle of nowhere, freezing your ass off in the middle of January, wondering if the ol' diesel will be on time today, falling unconscious in my seat for the next hour, in blissful coma until the train pulls into the terminal, and then spending another half hour squeezed into a commuter subway, standing room only, before arriving in the office and spending the next hour really being unable to do anything useful, until you recover your wits).
Five years straight with only about a week's "vacation" off. A steady diet of TV dinners and greasy fast food take-out. Scumbag managers who have PMS every week. Repaying my student loans, every single penny of them. Even years after graduating from college with my degree still waking up in cold sweat, after some hazy nightmare involving a missed homework assignment, or something of this nature.
So now, when all of that is behind me, and with me finally sitting at the top of my heap (it may not be everyone's idea of a heap, but it mine's) I think I'm entitled to a little bit of boasting. Just a little bit, mind you.
Let me tell you something: when you're pretty sure that you're earning twice as much as your manager, you're going to get an attitude adjustment real fast, and you'll be HAPPY to do whatever the hell they want you to do, as long as they don't give you personal grief or make your life difficult.
And if you don't readjust your attitude, in this situation, I'll tell you what's going to happen: you're going to fizzle out, and go down HARD.
I can tell you that what I do, at times, is absolute SHIT, as far as personal preferences go. BUT I DON'T GIVE A FUCK. I don't go to work to have a big party. And I really do not work because I like to do a good job, and get a pat on the back. The only reason I go to work is to MAKE MONEY. That's the only reason I haul my ass out of bed, in the morning, and spend 20 minutes packed like a sardine, on a commuter train. As long as I get cash stuffed into my ass, at regular intervals, and as long as nobody gives me jive and gets on my ass, I'll be happy to climb my desk, stand on one foot, and whistle Dixie.
"Greed is good". Gordon Gekko is my fucking idol. I guess that's why I'm doing all right, in the Wall Street meat market.
But that doesn't mean that there are no limits whatsoever. Yes, I also draw a line somewhere. There were times where I drew the line myself. As a matter of fact, the last one was about a month ago. I really hated one particular project that I was involved in. I usually try to take my lumps and don't complain, and I do a lot of things that I may not like, but sometimes things go too far. And especially when I remember telling my manager, when he interviewed me, that I'm really not cut out for this line of work. So, after I delivered a project that I told them in advance that I wasn't really the right guy for, I approached my managers, and told them -- hey, you know, I don't think that I'm going to be the "best resource" for any future work along the same lines.
And you know, they got the message! There's a lot more to this story, this is just a capsule summary. The bottom line is that: first, you have to prove yourself, you have to give your managers hard proof that you're hot shit, and that you're a valuable resource THEY DON'T WANT TO LOSE. Once that's done, and NOT EARLIER, then you need to be frank with them, and inform them that there are something that you don't really digest very well. Good manager will take the hint. Bad ones won't, so you'll just have to make a decision whether you're going to swallow more crap, or start E-mailing your resumes.
It's my turn to agree. When I incorporated as a consultant, the next year I also pretty much doubled by income. After a couple of years you're going to top out, but for the first few years, the curve's pretty steep. And even after you top out a few years later, at the rate you're going to get, you AIN'T GONNA COMPLAIN.
And, yes, I also feel like I'm getting more respect. Some days, I feel like Vito Corleone; sitting at my desk all day, drinking tea (Earl Grey, hot -- yes, really), pecking at some code at my own pace, while people approach me throughout the day, asking for favors in the nicest tone of voice possible.
The other day I stepped out of the elevator and ran into an old buddy of mine, who turns out also consults where I am now -- didn't know that. Not sure exactly what his situation is, but the impression I get is that he's not really making well. He's getting an 'ok' amount, but nothing to be proud off. Well, he tells me that he really is getting shit from his manager. He literally can't go and pee, without getting his boss on his ass.
I didn't start out consulting, right from the beginning, because I just didn't know any better.
But, in retrospect, that was the right thing to do. Getting into consulting, without any experience, is tougher than getting an entry level job. Unless you go through a body shop that manages the client's contract, who just resells you, pays you peanuts, and bills you out at an obscene rate. And you do not want to go there.
I'm taking it you haven't visited MIT, Stanford, or CMU campuses lately.
Right. All I've done is visited Lehman, Morgan, Merrill, Goldman, and a bunch of others, whose names fade in distant memory.
Sorry, haven't checked out the situation in various small-fry hedge funds.
I've had gigs that involved report generation, and I've had gigs that involved developing user interfaces; on one occasion I developed a web-based interface with Perl/CGI, on another occasion I've used a Java applet.
The more financial knowledge you have, the better. That goes without saying. Everything helps. As I said, the first 5-7 years are going to be rough going, while you learn the ropes. Financial knowledge will accrue naturally, as you gain experience.
While you are getting yourself through the first 5-7 years, save as much dough as you can. Do not make the common mistakes many others make: do not splurge and buy a new car, on credit, or crash in a sprawling flat that forces you to pay sky-high rent. Live frugally. Make it your goal to save enough cash that you can live off for at least 2-3 YEARS without a job. Yes, _YEARS_, not months.
Savings tip #1: live with your parents for 2-3 years, after graduating from college. This does wonders for your bank account. You can move out and get a pad of your own later, after you've saved up an rainy day fund that'll get you through the low times.
After graduating from college, try to stick 2-3 years in your first job, then change jobs and try to find one that's in a completely different financial area, so you get well-rounded financial knowledge. You may not end up being an expert in any particular area of financial knowledge, but you'll have a generally broad base of financial knowledge.
After being a wage slave for 5-6 years, incorporate and become an independent consultant. If you've got a good head on your shoulders, you don't need an accountant, just Turbotax. You can do all the tax paperwork yourself. Now that you're a consultant, kiss the 60 hour week goodbye. Now that the company has to pay you for every hour, suddenly you don't need to work 60 hours a week, any more.
Many headhunters will still try to screw you with gigs that don't pay overtime, they'll throw buzzwords like "professional day" at you. Tell them to fsck off, you get paid $X/hr, and not $X*8 for a ten hour day, or not $X/hr for the first 8 hrs, then $Y/hr after that, where Y<X. Stick to your guns. Every time, in the last eight years, I was looking for a gig, I always stumble upon some headhunter twit who will swear up-and-down, cross-his-heart, that nobody uses consultants any more, or that nobody on Wall Street pays consultants for overtime any more, or that nobody pays the kind of money that I want.
Every time I'm in between gigs, I always end up talking to one such clown.
Just last week some lady called me. She talked to me about seven months ago, her agency recruits for salaried spots only, and she was disappointed that I have no interested in a salaried position, only consulting. So, this sweetheart calls me last week, wondering if I changed my mind. No, honey, and I've been busy for the last 6 months, making twice as much money as you were offering me. She tells me to call her if I ever change my mind. In my Jerry Lewis voice I tell her: laaaaaady, I've been a consultant for over a decade now, and that ain't gonna happen. And a couple of dudes that I'm working with right now, are consultants who are pushing into their retirement years. Ain't gonna happen.
You will end up doing gigs that will run anywhere between 6 months, and >5 years, with intervals of 6-9 months in between, while you're looking for your next gig (did I mention that you need to have enough cash to live off, for at least 2-3 years?)
You will find that your job search will go much better when you are not desperate for any grub a headhunter would want to throw your way. I enjoy pissing off all the headhunters, who think that I'm desperate to latch onto anything they give me. Yes, I'm really serious -- this is how much money I want, and no, your "exciting opportunity" isn't really that exciting to me.
I really had the following happen more than once: it's early spring, and I'm on the prowl. Just finished a gig somewhere
I graduated with a Bachelor's in a double-major of Comp Sci, and Applied Math, 16 years ago, and have been working ever since.
The barrier to entry, today, is unquestionably higher than it was years ago. If you're coming out of college today, expect to rough it out for 5-7 years. Then it gets easier. Much, much easier. If you know what you're doing, and you're good at it, outsourcing is not going to bother you.
The key to success, in this racket, is to love programming. You should've known that this is what you want to do with your life -- computer programming -- even before you've gotten your high school diploma.
If you're looking at a career in IT as a means of earning a living -- forget it. It's not going to work for you. You need to be naturally drawn to programming. If you're naturally driven to this (I sat down in front of an Apple II at age 12, and that's all she wrote), then it's only a matter of time before you claw your way to the top of the heap, and from that point on, it's easy going. Do not be concerned even if things look very bleak, the first 5-6 years out of college. Learn as much as you can, when you go home, spend all your free time "scratching an itch", and a few years down the road you will have the experience and knowledge to run rings around everyone else.
I hear all the woes that people are saying, and just quietly smile, internally. I work in what's considered to be the toughest IT environments in the world: Wall Street. People get eaten alive, around here.
Yet, I moved into my first house at age 21, paid off its 30-year mortgage eight years later, sold it, bought a second house two years ago, and I expect to pay off THAT mortgage next year. I get into the office around 9, and leave around 5. I'm not a wage slave, I don't work myself to death. I work as an independent consultant programmer, so if the company wants me to work 12 hours a day, they will have to pay for it. It's funny how the expectations of IT people to work 12 hours a day disappears, when the company has to pay for it (I'm under strict orders not to work more than 40 hours a week, anything more requires advance authorization).
I remember hearing the headhunters' sob stories, as long as ten years ago, about all these Indian outsourcers taking a dozen H-1Bs, throwing them together into one, tingy, dingy house somewhere on Long Island, paying them $30/hr, and billing each one out for $40/hr; and undercutting everyone else.
Strangely enough, I've somehow managed to avoid getting undercut all this time. Yes, I see a lot of Indians around here. But, they're all low-level admins, who really don't do anything that requires any kind of sophistication. If you enter the market today, you WILL have a lot of competition to deal with, at first, for entry-level/low level spots. Once you get past that, though, the landscape changes dramatically.
I'm currently involved -- amongst other things -- with the management's hiring push. We're trying to hire as many high-level, experienced, developers as we can find. Wall Street has done very well in the last year, everyone is reporting record profits, everyone has hundred dollar bills coming out of their assholes, more cash than they know what to do with, so everyone's trying to hire as many good people as they can.
Based on interviewing a whole bunch of people over the course of the last 3 month, I can say: if you have your shit together, and you know what you're doing, you won't have any problems.
... is Homer's butt crack, when he runs away from the car.
Yes, I need therapy...
RTFA:
Published Thursday 3rd March 2005 17:38 GMT
Yet another fine example of slashdot editors earning their pay.
If a lower pay is enough to pay the bills and lead a comfortable life style, I would seriously consider dumping a high-paying boring job for a rewarding low-paying.
But:
The fact that it's a startup complicates things. Startups can fail at any time, and one day you may wake up and find yourself on the street. You need to do your homework and take a very close look at the startup: are they just a dot-bomb wannabe, or do they have a solid business plan, a marketable product, and a firm roadplan? The answers to these questions will guide you to making the call here.
Your other alternative is to find the time in your cushy job and make it interesting. If it's really such a bore you should have plenty of time to spend on educating yourself. Find something you want to learn, some skill, and use your free time to study it. If it's even barely relevant to your current line of work you are on solid ground to justify using your free time, on the clock, on this. No employer -- especially the solid company you claim to be working for -- would object to their employees learning and picking up related skills that might be relevant to their employment; they should even encourage it.
I, for one, welcome our giant octopus overlords.
<ducks>
a virtual machine can make a mediocre java programmer outperform a mediocre C++ programmer.
Here's a trick question. You're a project manager in a large firm, who is responsible for delivering a core application, basically a "company-jewels" kind of a deal.
Question: would you prefer to hire a "mediocre java programmer", for this position, or "a mediocre C++ programmer"?
... and I've been an incorporated independent consultant ever since.
I consider that to be the best decision I've ever made in my life.
No more twelve hour days at the office.
No more wearing a leash on your neck, every weekend, dialed in remotely, and having to provide coverage and support for the preciousssssssssssssss weekend produciton job runs.
And making twice as much money (even after factoring in the overhead of being self-employed), then the salaried schmucks who sit next to me.
And I still have a decent medical plan (and if I don't like my medical insurance carrier, I can fire them and get a new one).
And I still have a retirement plan, to which I contribute pre-tax dollars every year.
There's been an endless stream of recruiters, over the last ten years, constantly calling me and desperately try to raise my interest in some salaried position they're trying to fill.
I'm still looking for a single, valid reason why I should.
And to the scumbag bastard of a manager, who opened my eyes eleven years ago as to which side of the bread _really_ gets buttered (by shipping a dozen consultants and employees 7,000 files to do a customer site install, paying all the consultants' expenses and car rentals, while making all the employees suffer through some infernal car pooling arrangement), I have only two words to say:
THANK YOU!
When I was in a similar situation, I ended up writing eztorrent. You can find it on Freshmeat.
.torrent files, start the tracker, and start a seeder for each .torrent file.
.torrent files, and starts or stop the seeders, without any downtime for any other, active torrents.
Publishing BitTorrent content is as simple as copying the files into a directory, and running a single command. Eztorrent automatically creates the matching
Files can be added or removed from the torrent directory at any time. A single command adds/removes any
I don't see what's the big deal. Dealing with collection agencies is very easy. Just write a simple letter giving the "account number" from the agency's dunning letter, and stating that you dispute the debt, that you request proof of the debt, and that you don't want to be contacted by telephone in writing.
Then, pay three bucks to send the letter by certified mail with return receipt. Unless you owe a lot of money, and the collection agency has some real paperwork to prove that, this is the last time you'll hear from them. The certified mail receipt makes sure that you can burn their ass off if they ever try to bother you again for no reason.
Although some might baulk at the three bucks, just keep in mind that it costs the collection agency more than that to send the letter off and process your response (someone has to go in, look up your account number in their system, and mark it off).
If everyone did that, the collection agencies will quickly go out of business.
I don't remember the last time I watched anything on any big-3 TV network. The last thing I ever watched on broadcast TV is the slow, withering death of "Enterprise", and that was only with my Tivo's help.
Broadcast TV is completely unwatchable these days. You're wasting a third of your time having your intelligence insulted by all the ads. It's not just the sheer amount of ads drowning out the real show you're trying to watch. My impression -- from the snippets I catch here and there -- is that they're utterly brainless, and are aimed at the lowest common denominator.
Every once in a while you might stumble across a retrospective show that runs some notorious commercials from the decades gone by. The difference is staggering. 15-20 years ago the commercials actually tried to be creative, funny, and entertaining. Now they just try to get into your face as fast as they can, and shout their slogan repeatedly at full volume, before their time runs out.
Broadcast TV is a cesspool. Cable TV is still barely watchable, so far, with some help from the Tivo.
It does not surprise me that the dude's show was rejected, but gained some popularity after the leak. The show was probably "too cerebral" (geek points if you know where the phrase came from, and obviously this isn't really new). If your show's too intelligent, it's a minus these days. Broadcast pablum has to be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. If not, you're lose all the societal rejects, because they won't understand the show. There goes half your audience.