And the kicker is, if you're late, they're more than happy to charge you a fee for wasting their time.
But at the same time, having worked for several medical clinics, I understand why providers are so often behind schedule. A lot of them, especially specialists, have on-call obligations with local emergency rooms that have unpredictable time requirements. Plus, you can't always make a good diagnosis on a patient in the alloted timeslot. If the guy in front of you has complications, they're not just going to hand him some aspirin and say "Time's up!"--you wouldn't want them to do that if it was you. Add to these items that fact that average reimbursement has been going down in proportion to expense the last few years, which puts an immense pressure on providers to try to invoke economies of scale (see as many people as possible in a day), and you have a recipe for a lot of wait time.
Personally, I think the solution would be to change reimbursement practices, although I don't have a good suggestion of how. But as long as they are based on how many people providers can cram into their schedule in a day, you'd better bring a magazine.
You missed one other thing that I've always felt notable about Crichton's work, and I think it's even more consistent than the pattern you point out:
Crichton always puts in a character who needs to have everything explained to them.
I can't remember enough about Westworld to say if it's true for that or not, but absolutely everything else I've seen of his has one: Carter in "ER", Hall in "The Andromeda Strain", Smith in "Rising Sun", the Arab dude in "Eaters of the Dead"... I could go on. Sometimes he splits it up among characters--in "Jurassic Park" for example, Malcom doesn't know anything about dinosaurs, so Grant explains them, but Grant doesn't know anything about chaos theory, so Malcom explains it. It's a reasonably clever device for taking interesting technical concepts and pitching them to the readers, but the pattern is so obvious after a couple of books that they come to seem formulaic.
Anyway; I think that's a better candidate for the title "Crichton's Law". Let Slashdot be the judge.
Yeah, that's true--I like the original poster's point about proximity, though, too. It would be interesting to see if the rate of native English speakers who become bi-lingual in these regions is increasing. It strikes me that it no longer seems unusual to run across people who speak decent Spanish from the Yakima Valley (I live in Washington) where there is a large Hispanic population.
It's also interesting that you mention Asian languages... I can't think of many people I know here in Seattle who speak those, even my Asian friends. But then, that's a whole different family of languages. I wonder how much of the European's vaunted multi-linguality is really due more to the fact that most of their languages are really pretty similar and therefore easier to learn.
And servers are more than just web servers, you know. Plenty of corporations have a lot of boxes that don't serve anyone other than internal users, and those are generally only used during business hours.
"Then I think that you misunderstand the politics."
Well, I guess I would like to see you provide some more evidence for this. Seems obvious that it would happen in retrospect, but I've never run across anything from US leaders suggesting that this was the strategy all along. I'm not quite sure what you're trying to get at when you ask who paid for what... I can't tell if you mean paid in the dollars and cents way, or in the ultimate retribution was exacted upon way. If the former, obviously no one person just cut a check for it... if the latter, I hope you're not suggesting that Lenin and Kruschev are still alive, well, and calling all the shots in Eastern Europe. The policies that were followed were pretty much set right after World War II--the leaders who instituted them are mostly dead and certainly not still in charge. Gimme some facts, not some vague conspiratorial innuendo.
Sorry about GW, incidentally. Didn't vote for him myself, but then, I don't live in Florida, so it doesn't much matter.
Point taken. But it's still more expensive than other alternatives. When you get a CD, it's pretty much going to be higher quality than anything you get off Napster. The higher price makes sense. But if what you get off Napster is no better quality than what you get off OpenNap or one of the many other free alternatives, why pay the ten bucks? Just to be sheep? You shouldn't just pay because they start charging--you need to make the cost/benefit decision all over again.
Well, I think that's his point, right? Once you start paying someone, you're no longer a beggar. What are you getting for your money if not the sort of services he's suggesting? You might as well just use OpenNap and donate the cash to a charity of your choice.
If you look at the time scale involved in previous exploration and colonization attempts, I think you'll see that we've barely even gotten off the start line. I certainly wouldn't expect the benefits, if any (and I'm well aware that there may not be any) would be obvious within my lifetime, and to expect otherwise is either exteme impatience or unwarranted optimism. As ambivalent as you seem towards technological growth, you show all the signs of being spoiled by the same--our recent, rapid advances in technology are an anomaly, and it shouldn't be expected that all future frontiers can be conquered in fifty years or less.
And I think you give the US government too much credit for the outcome of the Cold War. For starters, the space race was the arms race--can everyone say "I-C-B-M?" I think the push on both sides was more to gain a technological advantage than to bankrupt the other, and it was the Soviet's poor choice to try to play the game on US terms that did them in--by no means a foregone conclusion in the early sixties. For another, the Soviet Union had access to landmass and resources far out-stripping what the US could lay hands on. Although technology is certainly not a panacea, it seems to have been at least part of the reason that the implicit resource advantage was turned on its ear. Maybe that was your point. But along with that should come some recognition that those traits you listed are not somehow universally evil.
As for the politics, I have to agree with you there. But I don't think it's really gone anywhere, just slowed down a bit. Perhaps you haven't yet been inflicted with George W. Bush's statements signaling his intent to go ahead with development of a missile defense system, but it looks like it's happening and several other players aren't too happy about it (not that they should be--it probably won't work). I don't think we've seen the last of international power politics by any means.
I'm not sure if it's late enough in the day to decide on the pointlessness or not. We're still very much in the early exploratory phases of space travel. Apollo, the shuttles, the ISS, are all just tentative feelers out into a much wider realm than anything humanity has explored before. And I think if you'll look back at exploration through history, you'll always find a portion (often even a majority) who feel that those feelers are pointless wastes of resources.
And they keep feeling that way until the benefits smack them in the face. The gold and cotton of the Americas; silks and spices of the Orient; these things weren't obvious when the first explorers arrived, and weren't fully appreciated until the infrastructure was in place to transport them. But those things all happened in the fullness of time. Who is to say that the rest of the solar system will be any different (except that it looks like we won't have to displace any more indigenous populations before raping the other planets, but I digress...)?
I can't help but look at responses such as this as pathetically short-sighted. Maybe nothing will come of our fragile experiments beyond the envelope of the atmosphere, but we can't know if we don't try. To the objection that machines can do it better, I would say that this may be true of routine, well-planned tasks such as satellite launches, but it will never be true for less well-defined missions. Could a robot at this stage have repaired the Hubble? Assembled the ISS? And had men been sent instead of machines to Mars, don't you think they might have noticed that they were descending a little fast rather than just oblogingly smashing into the surface as directed?
Personally, I think the rest of the solar system will probably turn out to be a worthwhile resource for humanity--far out-weighing a cure for malaria or a couple of ugly bits of public sculpture (and there is a fallacious assumption implicit in that argument that somehow, monies spent on space exploration would otherwise necessarily go to something more immediately practical. Uh-huh. Obviously our elected officials would rather benefit humanity than indulge in a little more pork-barreling for their constituents). Even if not, I think that finding out is a chance that's worth taking.
I haven't seen all that many episodes, but of those I have seen, this seems to be the theme. The team that comes up with the more brilliant, elegant design has it crap out on them almost immediately, because, after all, it's made out of junk. The crowd that bangs together some brute-force job powers through and wins it.
Awesome! I have been collecting the original US release for years, but lately it's been getting hard to find the issues I don't have. This is better news than the film being re-released (of course, maybe I'm only saying that because I've got the tape of the movie.)
Yeah, I agree with that. As a practical matter, if it looks like someone is seriously getting ready to flatten my nose, I don't wait around for them to do it before I try to stop them. It's a judgement call, as you say.
Free speech, of course, for all that we bandy the term about, was never intended to be an absolute, but rather a guarantee that those in power would not be able to suppress opposition to themselves. Still, the general idea behind it, and most of our Bill of Rights guarantees, is that generally people have the right to decide how to live their lives without interference provided others are not harmed in the process. When there is a question of where the line has to be drawn, I feel that it is usually better to err on the side of freedom.
I think you hit the point I was making on the head when you said "reaction." That's what this is about. Not the original action, but the reaction.
Where my opinion differs from yours is that, while I feel that a punch in the nose (or any physical assault, for that matter) causes uncontrollable damage and thus requires a reaction, non-physical disturbances exist primarily in the mind of the person having the reaction. You're the only one who can control how you react to something and I shouldn't have to police my thoughts and words just because you might have a negative reaction to them. I think it's amusing that you say "...I think people have the right not to have to experience either." It's easy to give the right not to be physically beaten (if difficult to enforce). But the right to not feel uncomfortable? The right to not be nauseated? It should be obvious to you how ridiculous this is. Different people can have different reactions to the same words or images. If someone flattens your nose, you got hurt. If someone shows you porn, you might be disgusted, you might be titillated, you might be whatever.
In general, I would say, just walk away. If someone's harassing you with the stuff, that's a different matter. But if it's just out where you can see it, don't look--and if you do, look away and don't think about it. If you can't do that, then the problem is one of self-control, not public hazard.
The practical physics involved in architecture or mechanical engineering doesn't change radically in four years. I don't think mechanical engineering is a good comparison to software engineering. Even calling it engineering somehow implies a more rigorous set of guidelines than programming actually has. I like the architecture comparison better--there's a little bit of art to it, not just the strict mechanics of gravity and materials. And in that light, I would ask, when's the last time you ran into an architect who didn't have to put in years of apprenticeship scut-work before getting to work on the big, cool projects? They may get the degree at a college, but they get the experience in the real world. Same thing with programmers. Most of the real knowledge and best practices are acquired outside the classroom. Unschooled does not mean untrained.
That said, I agree that a little more discipline would not hurt most programmers. But I think XP is a good step in that direction.
Oh, and the loopy ending, incidentally, was changed from the book, where nothing blows up. I guess the director figured, hey, it's a movie, we'd better blow some stuff up.
The book was better, but I thought the movie was a good translation of the work to screen. I've heard that Palahniuk wrote it tongue in cheek, but the central thesis (that half a generation of men raised without strong male role models have to slug it out with one another to recover their masculinity) is still pretty interesting and is, I think, what attracts the most critical attention to it. The reason young males loved it, of course, was because it has a lot of guys blowing things up and beating the crap out of one another.
Plus, great plot twist, eh? Any time I read or watch something where it turns out at the end that I wasn't reading or watching the same story I thought I was, I'm hooked. There were enough hints along the way to make it fun when you finally realize what's going on.
I disagree. You certainly can't document leadership skills or your own unique problem-solving style, but in my experience, no one is irreplaceable. You can always find another person that can do the job as long as they're given the tools. They might not do it the same way, it might turn out a little worse or a little better, but no reasonable company will go out of business just because one person leaves. I've heard that line any number of times when key people have left various organizations, and I have yet to see any of them fail because of it. It's just a natural "the sky is falling, the sky is falling!" reaction.
Gotta go with you on taking people along with you if you do ditch, though. It works both ways--they get a leg up, and you get staff you can trust and rely on to get the job done.
It's funny that you should point that out about HR, that they don't want to hire you unless you're already working--I've noticed that too. But at the same time, their next question after "Where do you work now?" is "When can you start?" When I'm un-employed and searching, I get knocked because I'm not working currently--when I'm employed and searching, I get knocked for not being able to start immediately.
As an aside, I personally feel that if you work yourself into a position where you are not easily replaced, then you were doing a lousy job. I always consider the first and most important part of my job to be documenting the position to such extent that any reasonably knowledgeable replacement can step right in and have a good handle on it within a week or two. If the original poster is really so vital to his current company and cares so much about what happens to his co-workers, he should have taken steps long ago to ensure that his absence--accidental or intentional--wouldn't sink the place. I don't think this is necessarily a mark of loyalty, but rather simple professionalism. When I'm interviewing someone, the last thing I want to hear from them is "Yeah, I left my last job and the place fell apart without me. No one even knew where to start." I want someone whose replacement was able to pick it up without missing a beat. It may be an ego boost to feel like the linch-pin, but it's not a sign of a true IT professional, IMHO.
Almost certainly; ICs aren't protected by most employer/employee legislation. You're a business, dealing with another business. Your only protection is contract law. Hope you had a well-written contract and get a good lawyer.
I agree with most of your post, but I would take issue with the idea that the Republican agenda is any less "big government" than the Democrats. Republican pols are just as in love with power as the Dems, they just want it in different ways. The Dems like big social spending, which inflates domestic support organizations--the Republicans are big on defense and law and order stuff, which inflates the organizations that should really frighten you if freedom is your concern, military and law enforcement. Personally, I'm not real hip on either emphasis, but if I have to chose between DSHS getting a chunk of money or seeing it go to the DEA, I'd pick DSHS.
As far as the Supreme Court goes, I think your faith in Bush's picks is misplaced. He claims he's looking for strict constructionists like Scalia, but Scalia was one of the major forces behind the decidedly activist decision that put Bush in office--politics plays in the court, too. And conservative justices are hardly the place to look for freedom, unless your view of freedom happens to be living like the religious right.
I think you're confusing "freedom" with "entitlement." When's the last time we exiled a citizen for speaking their mind? You still have the freedom to do so--I see people doing it all the time on street corners, in alternative papers, and public access shows. The bright ones figure out how to state their case so that the media conglomerates will pick it up and carry it for them. You can do these things too, regardless of your viewpoint--and that's freedom. Requiring someone else to compensate for your laziness is not freedom.
Unless you're in Seattle instead of Vancouver and the disconnect happens on one of our many steep hills--driver stands on brakes and waits for supervisor to show up = "massive traffic jams." The turn the 12 makes from 1st Avenue up onto Marion is particularly bad.
Slashdot Mirror
But the hairspray would be a horrible fire hazard in a high-oxygen environment.
Although, in a pinch, aerosol cans could provide a life-saving alternate means of propulsion, I suppose.
And the kicker is, if you're late, they're more than happy to charge you a fee for wasting their time.
But at the same time, having worked for several medical clinics, I understand why providers are so often behind schedule. A lot of them, especially specialists, have on-call obligations with local emergency rooms that have unpredictable time requirements. Plus, you can't always make a good diagnosis on a patient in the alloted timeslot. If the guy in front of you has complications, they're not just going to hand him some aspirin and say "Time's up!"--you wouldn't want them to do that if it was you. Add to these items that fact that average reimbursement has been going down in proportion to expense the last few years, which puts an immense pressure on providers to try to invoke economies of scale (see as many people as possible in a day), and you have a recipe for a lot of wait time.
Personally, I think the solution would be to change reimbursement practices, although I don't have a good suggestion of how. But as long as they are based on how many people providers can cram into their schedule in a day, you'd better bring a magazine.
You missed one other thing that I've always felt notable about Crichton's work, and I think it's even more consistent than the pattern you point out:
Crichton always puts in a character who needs to have everything explained to them.
I can't remember enough about Westworld to say if it's true for that or not, but absolutely everything else I've seen of his has one: Carter in "ER", Hall in "The Andromeda Strain", Smith in "Rising Sun", the Arab dude in "Eaters of the Dead"... I could go on. Sometimes he splits it up among characters--in "Jurassic Park" for example, Malcom doesn't know anything about dinosaurs, so Grant explains them, but Grant doesn't know anything about chaos theory, so Malcom explains it. It's a reasonably clever device for taking interesting technical concepts and pitching them to the readers, but the pattern is so obvious after a couple of books that they come to seem formulaic.
Anyway; I think that's a better candidate for the title "Crichton's Law". Let Slashdot be the judge.
Yeah, that's true--I like the original poster's point about proximity, though, too. It would be interesting to see if the rate of native English speakers who become bi-lingual in these regions is increasing. It strikes me that it no longer seems unusual to run across people who speak decent Spanish from the Yakima Valley (I live in Washington) where there is a large Hispanic population.
It's also interesting that you mention Asian languages... I can't think of many people I know here in Seattle who speak those, even my Asian friends. But then, that's a whole different family of languages. I wonder how much of the European's vaunted multi-linguality is really due more to the fact that most of their languages are really pretty similar and therefore easier to learn.
And servers are more than just web servers, you know. Plenty of corporations have a lot of boxes that don't serve anyone other than internal users, and those are generally only used during business hours.
Dancing puppydog? Hmmm... sounds suspiciously like a re-hash of Apple's abandoned Cyberdog suite.
Can they sue again on a whole new 'look and feel' violation?
"Then I think that you misunderstand the politics."
Well, I guess I would like to see you provide some more evidence for this. Seems obvious that it would happen in retrospect, but I've never run across anything from US leaders suggesting that this was the strategy all along. I'm not quite sure what you're trying to get at when you ask who paid for what... I can't tell if you mean paid in the dollars and cents way, or in the ultimate retribution was exacted upon way. If the former, obviously no one person just cut a check for it... if the latter, I hope you're not suggesting that Lenin and Kruschev are still alive, well, and calling all the shots in Eastern Europe. The policies that were followed were pretty much set right after World War II--the leaders who instituted them are mostly dead and certainly not still in charge. Gimme some facts, not some vague conspiratorial innuendo.
Sorry about GW, incidentally. Didn't vote for him myself, but then, I don't live in Florida, so it doesn't much matter.
Point taken. But it's still more expensive than other alternatives. When you get a CD, it's pretty much going to be higher quality than anything you get off Napster. The higher price makes sense. But if what you get off Napster is no better quality than what you get off OpenNap or one of the many other free alternatives, why pay the ten bucks? Just to be sheep? You shouldn't just pay because they start charging--you need to make the cost/benefit decision all over again.
"Beggars can't be choosers, after all."
Well, I think that's his point, right? Once you start paying someone, you're no longer a beggar. What are you getting for your money if not the sort of services he's suggesting? You might as well just use OpenNap and donate the cash to a charity of your choice.
And I think you give the US government too much credit for the outcome of the Cold War. For starters, the space race was the arms race--can everyone say "I-C-B-M?" I think the push on both sides was more to gain a technological advantage than to bankrupt the other, and it was the Soviet's poor choice to try to play the game on US terms that did them in--by no means a foregone conclusion in the early sixties. For another, the Soviet Union had access to landmass and resources far out-stripping what the US could lay hands on. Although technology is certainly not a panacea, it seems to have been at least part of the reason that the implicit resource advantage was turned on its ear. Maybe that was your point. But along with that should come some recognition that those traits you listed are not somehow universally evil.
As for the politics, I have to agree with you there. But I don't think it's really gone anywhere, just slowed down a bit. Perhaps you haven't yet been inflicted with George W. Bush's statements signaling his intent to go ahead with development of a missile defense system, but it looks like it's happening and several other players aren't too happy about it (not that they should be--it probably won't work). I don't think we've seen the last of international power politics by any means.
I'm not sure if it's late enough in the day to decide on the pointlessness or not. We're still very much in the early exploratory phases of space travel. Apollo, the shuttles, the ISS, are all just tentative feelers out into a much wider realm than anything humanity has explored before. And I think if you'll look back at exploration through history, you'll always find a portion (often even a majority) who feel that those feelers are pointless wastes of resources.
And they keep feeling that way until the benefits smack them in the face. The gold and cotton of the Americas; silks and spices of the Orient; these things weren't obvious when the first explorers arrived, and weren't fully appreciated until the infrastructure was in place to transport them. But those things all happened in the fullness of time. Who is to say that the rest of the solar system will be any different (except that it looks like we won't have to displace any more indigenous populations before raping the other planets, but I digress...)?
I can't help but look at responses such as this as pathetically short-sighted. Maybe nothing will come of our fragile experiments beyond the envelope of the atmosphere, but we can't know if we don't try. To the objection that machines can do it better, I would say that this may be true of routine, well-planned tasks such as satellite launches, but it will never be true for less well-defined missions. Could a robot at this stage have repaired the Hubble? Assembled the ISS? And had men been sent instead of machines to Mars, don't you think they might have noticed that they were descending a little fast rather than just oblogingly smashing into the surface as directed?
Personally, I think the rest of the solar system will probably turn out to be a worthwhile resource for humanity--far out-weighing a cure for malaria or a couple of ugly bits of public sculpture (and there is a fallacious assumption implicit in that argument that somehow, monies spent on space exploration would otherwise necessarily go to something more immediately practical. Uh-huh. Obviously our elected officials would rather benefit humanity than indulge in a little more pork-barreling for their constituents). Even if not, I think that finding out is a chance that's worth taking.
I haven't seen all that many episodes, but of those I have seen, this seems to be the theme. The team that comes up with the more brilliant, elegant design has it crap out on them almost immediately, because, after all, it's made out of junk. The crowd that bangs together some brute-force job powers through and wins it.
Apparently, it doesn't pay to get too creative.
Makes it more fun to watch, though.
Awesome! I have been collecting the original US release for years, but lately it's been getting hard to find the issues I don't have. This is better news than the film being re-released (of course, maybe I'm only saying that because I've got the tape of the movie.)
Yeah, I agree with that. As a practical matter, if it looks like someone is seriously getting ready to flatten my nose, I don't wait around for them to do it before I try to stop them. It's a judgement call, as you say.
Free speech, of course, for all that we bandy the term about, was never intended to be an absolute, but rather a guarantee that those in power would not be able to suppress opposition to themselves. Still, the general idea behind it, and most of our Bill of Rights guarantees, is that generally people have the right to decide how to live their lives without interference provided others are not harmed in the process. When there is a question of where the line has to be drawn, I feel that it is usually better to err on the side of freedom.
I think you hit the point I was making on the head when you said "reaction." That's what this is about. Not the original action, but the reaction.
Where my opinion differs from yours is that, while I feel that a punch in the nose (or any physical assault, for that matter) causes uncontrollable damage and thus requires a reaction, non-physical disturbances exist primarily in the mind of the person having the reaction. You're the only one who can control how you react to something and I shouldn't have to police my thoughts and words just because you might have a negative reaction to them. I think it's amusing that you say "...I think people have the right not to have to experience either." It's easy to give the right not to be physically beaten (if difficult to enforce). But the right to not feel uncomfortable? The right to not be nauseated? It should be obvious to you how ridiculous this is. Different people can have different reactions to the same words or images. If someone flattens your nose, you got hurt. If someone shows you porn, you might be disgusted, you might be titillated, you might be whatever.
In general, I would say, just walk away. If someone's harassing you with the stuff, that's a different matter. But if it's just out where you can see it, don't look--and if you do, look away and don't think about it. If you can't do that, then the problem is one of self-control, not public hazard.
Sounds like you haven't been punched in the nose lately.
The practical physics involved in architecture or mechanical engineering doesn't change radically in four years. I don't think mechanical engineering is a good comparison to software engineering. Even calling it engineering somehow implies a more rigorous set of guidelines than programming actually has. I like the architecture comparison better--there's a little bit of art to it, not just the strict mechanics of gravity and materials. And in that light, I would ask, when's the last time you ran into an architect who didn't have to put in years of apprenticeship scut-work before getting to work on the big, cool projects? They may get the degree at a college, but they get the experience in the real world. Same thing with programmers. Most of the real knowledge and best practices are acquired outside the classroom. Unschooled does not mean untrained.
That said, I agree that a little more discipline would not hurt most programmers. But I think XP is a good step in that direction.
Oh, and the loopy ending, incidentally, was changed from the book, where nothing blows up. I guess the director figured, hey, it's a movie, we'd better blow some stuff up.
The book was better, but I thought the movie was a good translation of the work to screen. I've heard that Palahniuk wrote it tongue in cheek, but the central thesis (that half a generation of men raised without strong male role models have to slug it out with one another to recover their masculinity) is still pretty interesting and is, I think, what attracts the most critical attention to it. The reason young males loved it, of course, was because it has a lot of guys blowing things up and beating the crap out of one another.
Plus, great plot twist, eh? Any time I read or watch something where it turns out at the end that I wasn't reading or watching the same story I thought I was, I'm hooked. There were enough hints along the way to make it fun when you finally realize what's going on.
I disagree. You certainly can't document leadership skills or your own unique problem-solving style, but in my experience, no one is irreplaceable. You can always find another person that can do the job as long as they're given the tools. They might not do it the same way, it might turn out a little worse or a little better, but no reasonable company will go out of business just because one person leaves. I've heard that line any number of times when key people have left various organizations, and I have yet to see any of them fail because of it. It's just a natural "the sky is falling, the sky is falling!" reaction.
Gotta go with you on taking people along with you if you do ditch, though. It works both ways--they get a leg up, and you get staff you can trust and rely on to get the job done.
It's funny that you should point that out about HR, that they don't want to hire you unless you're already working--I've noticed that too. But at the same time, their next question after "Where do you work now?" is "When can you start?" When I'm un-employed and searching, I get knocked because I'm not working currently--when I'm employed and searching, I get knocked for not being able to start immediately.
As an aside, I personally feel that if you work yourself into a position where you are not easily replaced, then you were doing a lousy job. I always consider the first and most important part of my job to be documenting the position to such extent that any reasonably knowledgeable replacement can step right in and have a good handle on it within a week or two. If the original poster is really so vital to his current company and cares so much about what happens to his co-workers, he should have taken steps long ago to ensure that his absence--accidental or intentional--wouldn't sink the place. I don't think this is necessarily a mark of loyalty, but rather simple professionalism. When I'm interviewing someone, the last thing I want to hear from them is "Yeah, I left my last job and the place fell apart without me. No one even knew where to start." I want someone whose replacement was able to pick it up without missing a beat. It may be an ego boost to feel like the linch-pin, but it's not a sign of a true IT professional, IMHO.
Almost certainly; ICs aren't protected by most employer/employee legislation. You're a business, dealing with another business. Your only protection is contract law. Hope you had a well-written contract and get a good lawyer.
I agree with most of your post, but I would take issue with the idea that the Republican agenda is any less "big government" than the Democrats. Republican pols are just as in love with power as the Dems, they just want it in different ways. The Dems like big social spending, which inflates domestic support organizations--the Republicans are big on defense and law and order stuff, which inflates the organizations that should really frighten you if freedom is your concern, military and law enforcement. Personally, I'm not real hip on either emphasis, but if I have to chose between DSHS getting a chunk of money or seeing it go to the DEA, I'd pick DSHS.
As far as the Supreme Court goes, I think your faith in Bush's picks is misplaced. He claims he's looking for strict constructionists like Scalia, but Scalia was one of the major forces behind the decidedly activist decision that put Bush in office--politics plays in the court, too. And conservative justices are hardly the place to look for freedom, unless your view of freedom happens to be living like the religious right.
I think you're confusing "freedom" with "entitlement." When's the last time we exiled a citizen for speaking their mind? You still have the freedom to do so--I see people doing it all the time on street corners, in alternative papers, and public access shows. The bright ones figure out how to state their case so that the media conglomerates will pick it up and carry it for them. You can do these things too, regardless of your viewpoint--and that's freedom. Requiring someone else to compensate for your laziness is not freedom.
Unless you're in Seattle instead of Vancouver and the disconnect happens on one of our many steep hills--driver stands on brakes and waits for supervisor to show up = "massive traffic jams." The turn the 12 makes from 1st Avenue up onto Marion is particularly bad.