On a side note though, I've wondered why it is that CPU vendors haven't been able to integrate random number generation into the CPU itself. Intel had their RNG built into one of their chipsets (I think it was the 810 or 820?), but AFAIK their current chipsets don't support it anymore (correct me if I'm wrong). Anyways, it's always bugged me that there's not some sort of RNG instruction that fills the destination register or memory location with a randomly generated integer/floating point value.
The United States has had a two dollar bill since at least the 70's (when I was born). I can't speak earlier than that, but surely Google could turn up some links to currency history sites.
If I had to wager a theory, the reason they're adding essay questions is so they can charge more for the tests while paying their graders roughly the same (ensuring once and for all that your test scores are graded, uh, fairly, and stuff).
But I agree, essay questions should remain off the test for the very reason the writer of the linked to article mentioned-- it introduces a level of objectivity on behalf of the person grading the essay that's impossible to avoid. Better to have multiple choice and right/wrong question/answers than to introduce something that can really skew your score if the person reading your essay is a) having a bad day or b) doesn't like your point of view.
Re:NEWSFLASH, NTFS is a journaling filesystem!
on
Looking at Longhorn
·
· Score: 1
The only thing MS ripped off from BSD is a lot of their command line tools (ftp.exe for example, as well as some others). You can even see the text stating the code is from BSD if you hex edit or just "edit/70 ftp.exe" at a cmd prompt.
Why is it when you said "ARTIFICIALLY SCARCE" I instantly envisioned Disney and their fabled "vault" that they're putting Toy Story and Toy Story II back into? Crap like that is the #1 reason P2P will flourish, especially once people can burn dual layer DVD's (which unfortunately they can't do now) and are trading 8 GB movie image files over their gigabit network connection.
Indeed, this is the exact situation I'm going through right now, and let me spell it out-- given the choice between being further in debt and having a chance of getting a job vs. going homeless and having no chance for work (because you cease having an address) I'll take being in debt, thanks anyways. I mean, it's not like it'll matter if it falls apart in the end anyways, since the bill collectors will be hard pressed to find my bed at the local mission via the US Postal Service.
Of course with the kind of credit I have, I could probably do this for a year, but I'd obviously rather just get work and be back doing what I know and love-- software development, or hell, even something unrelated like tech support in a call center, as long as it wasn't what I'm basically forcing myself to do due to lack of options (light industrial labor).
On that note, good luck to you and yours, I'm glad you've found work.
I hear you, I was making $72,000/yr prior to being laid off from the company (which ultimately shut down during their bankruptcy, so everyone was laid off) which works out to almost $1,400/week. I went from that to $496/week ($460 after taxes) on unemployment. Not that I'm ungrateful or anything (although considering it's effectively my own money being given back to me, I suppose I could be), but I really think unemployment should have a it's flat max cap removed (which, as I've said in my other posts, varies wildly from state to state) and instead be based on an ever decreasing percentage the more you made (sliding scales anyone?). Obviously millionaires wouldn't (and shouldn't) be able to take the whole system down, but people who made reasonable wealth wouldn't be put out through no fault of their own.
Unfortunately that'd still drain the unemployment accounts faster, but at least people with recurring bills (mortgage, etc) wouldn't be in a bind. One way to handle it would be to leave the amount payable to every unemployed person the same (read: their personal unemployment account balance), just allow the people who made more to draw off of it quicker than someone who made less (the result being that you may not get X weeks of benefits like Joe Burger Flipper, but at least for the weeks you can claim you'll be able to make your house payments, car payments and other bills).
How the federal extensions would tackle this, I think, would be to extend it by the X weeks system they use now. Having read up on it more, it looks like fund used for federal unemployment extensions is part of the Social Security system, so literally every penny we get back is likely (at least partially) some money we put in ourselves. For that reason if they extend it by X weeks, even people who get more than the norm should get X weeks (since conceivably, they paid in more because of their income status).
But back to your point, it's not a vacation, anyone who thinks it should be needs to be shot.
God help me, I sympathize with your dilemna 100%. It's funny but even when applying for the light industrial work it looks like I'll be stuck with for awhile they demanded explanation for the extended period of unemployment-- that whole stigma of collecting unemployment working it's way into even basic work.
Having said that, there's a lot of people out there in situations like ours, so I'm hoping/expecting that employers will realize that an extended period of unemployment isn't abnormal given the way the economy has been for the past few years. Obviously anything you can put in would be great, and given all your free time one would hope you'd maybe bought/checked out a few books to brush up on your skills, so list that. If you wrote some code while unemployed, try to show that at the interview (if it's good code anyways, heh). The last impression you want to give is that you spent the time as a vacation period.
Heh, I noticed that right after I submitted it too-- was doing some coding when this thread popped up and I guess I wasn't thinking quite clearly.;) Replace 'struct' with 'struck'.;)
Not professionally, but I've written some ISAPI and ASP objects for use in my own server side script.
You mention OS. How about System administration stuff? NT, Novell, Linux etc.
No sysadmin stuff honestly, closest thing I might have as far as experience with that would be my LAN setup, which consists of Windows 2000 Server setup with Active Directory and two Windows XP desktops connected to it for authentication/etc. That, and a terminal-only Red Hat setup that I telnet into to work on small pet projects of my own. =)
I know that this is a weird question to ask, but have you used Microsoft Access before? Or perhaps a better question is have you worked with any SQL before.
I've used ADO to execute SQL queries against Access/MSJet databases, so I guess the answer would be yes.;) I've also used ADO with MS SQL Server.
Like I said, the relocation is more a pipe dream (especially in this economy), a 'nice to have', but not a deal breaker.
Something I read recently from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a pretty good arguement (I think) for extending the current unemployment extension for another 3-6 months--
Basically, comparisons are made between the current extension and previous extensions (the previous ones being the recession of 1991/1992, and the one prior to that in the early 1980's), ranging from how they were implemented to the length of the extensions provided. It shows a history of shorter and shorter unemployment extensions, and that with this latest recession, instead of tieing the end of the extension benefits to the decrease of unemployment figures, they've been hardcoded to specific dates (the 1991/1992 extension, it seems, was legislated such that it would be valid until unemployment percentages dropped back to a specific point).
Another thing to keep in mind is that there's an entire federal fund set aside for emergency unemployment, and while some might not believe the current situation qualifies, I personally believe it does. There's billions of dollars sitting in this trust/account that can only be used for unemployment extensions, but this Congress/Senate refuses to act on the issue and provide the aid that more and more people (myself included) need to get by. And what makes it worse in my eyes is that instead of helping people out in the short term while providing long term growth, this Congress and Administration seems bent on only implementing tax cuts, and resisting any attempts to extend unemployment.
What really irks me though, is that they pushed through an extension of unemployment benefits for airline industry workers. Yeah the airlines took a beating after 9/11, but so did a lot of other people. It seems wrong to extend it just for people who were working in profession X but ignore everyone else.
Anyways, just some food for thought on unemployment, the benefits it can have, and maybe why it should be extended further for those who have run out of options.
Having gotten $496 a week for 51 weeks, that worked out to $25,296 in income for me last year. Above the poverty line, IIRC, but because I had them deducting the 10% out for the entire year, I got by with a $90 tax return. Had I not had the taxes withdrawn, I'd have owed roughly $2,550 easily. (Which, coincidentally, is eactly how much I paid in over the whole year thanks to their auto-deductions each week.)
I'm looking for work doing software development, most of my experience is in Pascal/Delphi, but I'm fairly well versed at C/C++, and I also have a good amount of experience writing x86 assembly code. My interests tend to lean towards operating systems, low level hardware and communications (networking, etc). I really have a wide set of experience, all of it in varying degrees of maturity (basic to advanced).
As far as the midwest goes, I certainly have no problem relocating, my only 'request' would be one of the following--
1) Relocation assistance
-or-
2) Guaranteed work over a 6 month period to help ease the cost of relocating out of pocket
Having said that, I've had no out of area job offers or interviews (despite having applied for jobs as far away as New York (when I lived in Seattle)), so my relocation ideas haven't been a factor in not finding work yet. =) And having said that, I'd probably be willing to give up that idea altogether, it'd just make the whole 'pack up and move' scenario a lot easier to deal with if I didn't have to run further into the hole (or atleast knew for sure that any debt incurred would atleast be temporary).
The point is that about one quarter or perhaps one third of the people who look at this story will have to figure out themselves that this is US-only. It may take them a few minutes, a failed attempt to fill in the online form of this site, which doesn't know about other countries, etc.
I'll refer back to the FAQ entry then that pretty clearly spells out that/. is a US-centric website with US-centric stories/articles. Nothing in that FAQ entry indicated that/. was intended for worldwide consumption, only that if people from outside the US wanted to submit stories that they'd be given consideration as well.
As far as the maximums go, usually, at least, as far as I've seen, it hasn't been lower than $380/week. $240/week might be if you weren't hitting the maximum for their benefits calculation formula (usually a percentage with a minimum benefit amount and a maximum benefit amount). I heard Texas was awful as far as unemployment goes though, I think that's the state that only offers roughly a month of benefits and has the lowest maximum.
The rest of us unemployed people call that "luck". Thanks for sharing your Lottery moment, do bask in it, as that one in a million shot isn't likely to come around anytime soon.
Then again, if you get struct by lightning, I think we'd all like to hear about that, I just hope you don't end up like that guy from Uncle Buck.
Yeah, the medical insurance thing to me was a joke. Let's see.. I got that CORBA/COBRA (whatever stupid acronym it is) paperwork that says my medical insurance will be costing me hundreds of dollars a month, obviously not something I can pay on zero income, even with unemployment checks. So then we go check out the state-run medical coverage system (in Washington state, this would be 'Basic Health'), and whee, wouldn't you know it, unemployment counts as income for purposes of eligibility determinations, and I easily surpass the highest program they offer! As you say, eat, or get to see a doctor, but not both.
And it gets even better. In *every* state, unemployment compensation is taxable, so at the end of the year you owe taxes on any unemployment you were paid (most/all states will deduct 10% of your unemployment for you from each check, but sometimes this is not the default, so you can be stuck with a nice hefty bill come April 15th). Why unemployment is taxable is beyond me, as one elected official once put it, it's like kicking people when they're down, and it's just plain wrong.
I guess I just don't get your problem here.. it's a US-centric website, and this is explained in the FAQ, but you have a problem when a US-centric story is posted and it's not billed as such?
The requirements and benefits vary (sometimes wildly) from state to state. The variables can be--
1) Number of weeks you can get benefits (some states offer as little as *one* month of benefits, while others offer up to 6 months of benefits (not counting federal extensions which can push that over a year right now)). 2) Maximum amount benefits can be each week (I've seen numbers as low as $380 quoted, and I guess one state gives a maximum of $560 a week-- in Washington state, the maximum is $496/week, and naturally every state has their own set of formulas and work periods they use to calculate what YOUR unemployment will be). 3) Work search requirements (again, can vary greatly from state to state-- in Washington, you have to apply for a minimum of three jobs a week and keep these in a log which you can randomly be required to show and have authenticated; if you go on Extended Benefits (EB, something seperate from TEUC/TEUC-X, but still federally subsidized) you have to apply for four jobs a week (or, as they define it, 'job contacts')).
I mistakenly made the assumption that every state was identical, but they're not. Unemployment is, as I understand it, mostly funded by each state through taxes on businesses or other fund collection methods. As far as the federal extensions go, the Department of Labor gives out the cash but gives states the choice on how to implement it (legislation language not withstanding, of course, but generally the language is such that each state can easily integrate the extensions into their own state-funded plans easily).
Don't worry, I've been unemployed since 10/2001 and sure I've had a few interviews (even had one scheduled at Microsoft that got pulled out from under me 3 days before I was set to go (because a prior candidate got the job, nothing to do with me)), but now that the unemployments gone I've gotten used to the idea that I'll--
1) Be in debt (unemployment really did help, but unfortunately I still had to hit up the credit cards because it just wasn't making ends meet) for the foreseeable future. 2) Be making slightly above minimum wage doing "light industrial" until the economy stops felching it's own ass.
And yeah, for anyone who thinks "he didn't look hard enough" or some other holier-than-thou bullshit, I assure you, I looked real god damned hard, and I lowered my salary expectations considerably (going from $70,000+/yr to having salary expectations of only $30,000/yr I would hope qualifies).
To anyone who says it's not that bad-- you're clueless, or you're terribly lucky.
On a personal note, I want to thank the US Congress/Senate for finally passing that Unemployment Extension in January when they got back from their Christmas break-- too bad it didn't extend ANYTHING, it just extended the TEUC and TEUC-X programs to those who would have been cut off, for everyone else who had already exhausted both their TEUC and TEUC-X benefits, they basically gave us the finger. Way to go guys. (Read: The TEUC extension provided for 13 weeks of federally funded extensions, and the TEUC-X extension provided for an additional 13 weeks for states with high unemployment (mine, Washington, qualified easily) for a total of 26 weeks. The "extension" passed in January didn't add any additional weeks, it only extended the program for those who were just starting to use TEUC and/or TEUC-X, and added language that made it possible for someone starting on it late in the game to be able to claim their total balance, rather than being cut off on some arbitrary date).
Agreed, I'm hanging onto my SMP Pentium III 800 system for just that reason-- Pentium 4's are SMP'able, and I'm not a big fan of AMD processors (for various reasons, none of which I'll elaborate on because I'll just end up being modded a troll or flamebait, like every other person with a dissenting anti-AMD opinion). Besides, this dual processor P3 800 system doesn't even feel like it's aged much; every P4 based system I play with is just as responsive as this box at everyday tasks, and for gaming this system runs fine except for maybe a 30% drop in frame rates (which, as far as I'm concerned, anything over 50-70 fps is great for me).
And as more games become multi-threaded (since hyperthreading is going to be Intel's next big thing), or at least, SMP aware, I should hopefully see a bump in processing speed if their engines are designed right.
Slashdot Mirror
On a side note though, I've wondered why it is that CPU vendors haven't been able to integrate random number generation into the CPU itself. Intel had their RNG built into one of their chipsets (I think it was the 810 or 820?), but AFAIK their current chipsets don't support it anymore (correct me if I'm wrong). Anyways, it's always bugged me that there's not some sort of RNG instruction that fills the destination register or memory location with a randomly generated integer/floating point value.
The United States has had a two dollar bill since at least the 70's (when I was born). I can't speak earlier than that, but surely Google could turn up some links to currency history sites.
If I had to wager a theory, the reason they're adding essay questions is so they can charge more for the tests while paying their graders roughly the same (ensuring once and for all that your test scores are graded, uh, fairly, and stuff).
But I agree, essay questions should remain off the test for the very reason the writer of the linked to article mentioned-- it introduces a level of objectivity on behalf of the person grading the essay that's impossible to avoid. Better to have multiple choice and right/wrong question/answers than to introduce something that can really skew your score if the person reading your essay is a) having a bad day or b) doesn't like your point of view.
The only thing MS ripped off from BSD is a lot of their command line tools (ftp.exe for example, as well as some others). You can even see the text stating the code is from BSD if you hex edit or just "edit /70 ftp.exe" at a cmd prompt.
Why is it when you said "ARTIFICIALLY SCARCE" I instantly envisioned Disney and their fabled "vault" that they're putting Toy Story and Toy Story II back into? Crap like that is the #1 reason P2P will flourish, especially once people can burn dual layer DVD's (which unfortunately they can't do now) and are trading 8 GB movie image files over their gigabit network connection.
Indeed, this is the exact situation I'm going through right now, and let me spell it out-- given the choice between being further in debt and having a chance of getting a job vs. going homeless and having no chance for work (because you cease having an address) I'll take being in debt, thanks anyways. I mean, it's not like it'll matter if it falls apart in the end anyways, since the bill collectors will be hard pressed to find my bed at the local mission via the US Postal Service.
Of course with the kind of credit I have, I could probably do this for a year, but I'd obviously rather just get work and be back doing what I know and love-- software development, or hell, even something unrelated like tech support in a call center, as long as it wasn't what I'm basically forcing myself to do due to lack of options (light industrial labor).
On that note, good luck to you and yours, I'm glad you've found work.
I hear you, I was making $72,000/yr prior to being laid off from the company (which ultimately shut down during their bankruptcy, so everyone was laid off) which works out to almost $1,400/week. I went from that to $496/week ($460 after taxes) on unemployment. Not that I'm ungrateful or anything (although considering it's effectively my own money being given back to me, I suppose I could be), but I really think unemployment should have a it's flat max cap removed (which, as I've said in my other posts, varies wildly from state to state) and instead be based on an ever decreasing percentage the more you made (sliding scales anyone?). Obviously millionaires wouldn't (and shouldn't) be able to take the whole system down, but people who made reasonable wealth wouldn't be put out through no fault of their own.
Unfortunately that'd still drain the unemployment accounts faster, but at least people with recurring bills (mortgage, etc) wouldn't be in a bind. One way to handle it would be to leave the amount payable to every unemployed person the same (read: their personal unemployment account balance), just allow the people who made more to draw off of it quicker than someone who made less (the result being that you may not get X weeks of benefits like Joe Burger Flipper, but at least for the weeks you can claim you'll be able to make your house payments, car payments and other bills).
How the federal extensions would tackle this, I think, would be to extend it by the X weeks system they use now. Having read up on it more, it looks like fund used for federal unemployment extensions is part of the Social Security system, so literally every penny we get back is likely (at least partially) some money we put in ourselves. For that reason if they extend it by X weeks, even people who get more than the norm should get X weeks (since conceivably, they paid in more because of their income status).
But back to your point, it's not a vacation, anyone who thinks it should be needs to be shot.
God help me, I sympathize with your dilemna 100%. It's funny but even when applying for the light industrial work it looks like I'll be stuck with for awhile they demanded explanation for the extended period of unemployment-- that whole stigma of collecting unemployment working it's way into even basic work.
Having said that, there's a lot of people out there in situations like ours, so I'm hoping/expecting that employers will realize that an extended period of unemployment isn't abnormal given the way the economy has been for the past few years. Obviously anything you can put in would be great, and given all your free time one would hope you'd maybe bought/checked out a few books to brush up on your skills, so list that. If you wrote some code while unemployed, try to show that at the interview (if it's good code anyways, heh). The last impression you want to give is that you spent the time as a vacation period.
Good luck with your search.
Heh, I noticed that right after I submitted it too-- was doing some coding when this thread popped up and I guess I wasn't thinking quite clearly. ;) Replace 'struct' with 'struck'. ;)
No sysadmin stuff honestly, closest thing I might have as far as experience with that would be my LAN setup, which consists of Windows 2000 Server setup with Active Directory and two Windows XP desktops connected to it for authentication/etc. That, and a terminal-only Red Hat setup that I telnet into to work on small pet projects of my own. =)
I've used ADO to execute SQL queries against Access/MSJet databases, so I guess the answer would be yes.
Like I said, the relocation is more a pipe dream (especially in this economy), a 'nice to have', but not a deal breaker.
Already did--
4 511
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=62236&pid=582
Something I read recently from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a pretty good arguement (I think) for extending the current unemployment extension for another 3-6 months--
Looking Back and Looking Forward:
An Assessment of the Temporary Federal Unemployment Benefits
Program and the Needs of the Long-term Unemployed
http://www.cbpp.org/3-5-03ui.htm
http://www.cbpp.org/3-5-03ui.pdf - Direct link to PDF article
Basically, comparisons are made between the current extension and previous extensions (the previous ones being the recession of 1991/1992, and the one prior to that in the early 1980's), ranging from how they were implemented to the length of the extensions provided. It shows a history of shorter and shorter unemployment extensions, and that with this latest recession, instead of tieing the end of the extension benefits to the decrease of unemployment figures, they've been hardcoded to specific dates (the 1991/1992 extension, it seems, was legislated such that it would be valid until unemployment percentages dropped back to a specific point).
Another thing to keep in mind is that there's an entire federal fund set aside for emergency unemployment, and while some might not believe the current situation qualifies, I personally believe it does. There's billions of dollars sitting in this trust/account that can only be used for unemployment extensions, but this Congress/Senate refuses to act on the issue and provide the aid that more and more people (myself included) need to get by. And what makes it worse in my eyes is that instead of helping people out in the short term while providing long term growth, this Congress and Administration seems bent on only implementing tax cuts, and resisting any attempts to extend unemployment.
What really irks me though, is that they pushed through an extension of unemployment benefits for airline industry workers. Yeah the airlines took a beating after 9/11, but so did a lot of other people. It seems wrong to extend it just for people who were working in profession X but ignore everyone else.
Anyways, just some food for thought on unemployment, the benefits it can have, and maybe why it should be extended further for those who have run out of options.
Having gotten $496 a week for 51 weeks, that worked out to $25,296 in income for me last year. Above the poverty line, IIRC, but because I had them deducting the 10% out for the entire year, I got by with a $90 tax return. Had I not had the taxes withdrawn, I'd have owed roughly $2,550 easily. (Which, coincidentally, is eactly how much I paid in over the whole year thanks to their auto-deductions each week.)
I'm looking for work doing software development, most of my experience is in Pascal/Delphi, but I'm fairly well versed at C/C++, and I also have a good amount of experience writing x86 assembly code. My interests tend to lean towards operating systems, low level hardware and communications (networking, etc). I really have a wide set of experience, all of it in varying degrees of maturity (basic to advanced).
As far as the midwest goes, I certainly have no problem relocating, my only 'request' would be one of the following--
1) Relocation assistance
-or-
2) Guaranteed work over a 6 month period to help ease the cost of relocating out of pocket
Having said that, I've had no out of area job offers or interviews (despite having applied for jobs as far away as New York (when I lived in Seattle)), so my relocation ideas haven't been a factor in not finding work yet. =) And having said that, I'd probably be willing to give up that idea altogether, it'd just make the whole 'pack up and move' scenario a lot easier to deal with if I didn't have to run further into the hole (or atleast knew for sure that any debt incurred would atleast be temporary).
As far as the maximums go, usually, at least, as far as I've seen, it hasn't been lower than $380/week. $240/week might be if you weren't hitting the maximum for their benefits calculation formula (usually a percentage with a minimum benefit amount and a maximum benefit amount). I heard Texas was awful as far as unemployment goes though, I think that's the state that only offers roughly a month of benefits and has the lowest maximum.
The rest of us unemployed people call that "luck". Thanks for sharing your Lottery moment, do bask in it, as that one in a million shot isn't likely to come around anytime soon.
Then again, if you get struct by lightning, I think we'd all like to hear about that, I just hope you don't end up like that guy from Uncle Buck.
Yeah, the medical insurance thing to me was a joke. Let's see.. I got that CORBA/COBRA (whatever stupid acronym it is) paperwork that says my medical insurance will be costing me hundreds of dollars a month, obviously not something I can pay on zero income, even with unemployment checks. So then we go check out the state-run medical coverage system (in Washington state, this would be 'Basic Health'), and whee, wouldn't you know it, unemployment counts as income for purposes of eligibility determinations, and I easily surpass the highest program they offer! As you say, eat, or get to see a doctor, but not both.
And it gets even better. In *every* state, unemployment compensation is taxable, so at the end of the year you owe taxes on any unemployment you were paid (most/all states will deduct 10% of your unemployment for you from each check, but sometimes this is not the default, so you can be stuck with a nice hefty bill come April 15th). Why unemployment is taxable is beyond me, as one elected official once put it, it's like kicking people when they're down, and it's just plain wrong.
I guess I just don't get your problem here.. it's a US-centric website, and this is explained in the FAQ, but you have a problem when a US-centric story is posted and it's not billed as such?
Where's the logic in bitching about that?
The requirements and benefits vary (sometimes wildly) from state to state. The variables can be--
1) Number of weeks you can get benefits (some states offer as little as *one* month of benefits, while others offer up to 6 months of benefits (not counting federal extensions which can push that over a year right now)).
2) Maximum amount benefits can be each week (I've seen numbers as low as $380 quoted, and I guess one state gives a maximum of $560 a week-- in Washington state, the maximum is $496/week, and naturally every state has their own set of formulas and work periods they use to calculate what YOUR unemployment will be).
3) Work search requirements (again, can vary greatly from state to state-- in Washington, you have to apply for a minimum of three jobs a week and keep these in a log which you can randomly be required to show and have authenticated; if you go on Extended Benefits (EB, something seperate from TEUC/TEUC-X, but still federally subsidized) you have to apply for four jobs a week (or, as they define it, 'job contacts')).
I mistakenly made the assumption that every state was identical, but they're not. Unemployment is, as I understand it, mostly funded by each state through taxes on businesses or other fund collection methods. As far as the federal extensions go, the Department of Labor gives out the cash but gives states the choice on how to implement it (legislation language not withstanding, of course, but generally the language is such that each state can easily integrate the extensions into their own state-funded plans easily).
Don't worry, I've been unemployed since 10/2001 and sure I've had a few interviews (even had one scheduled at Microsoft that got pulled out from under me 3 days before I was set to go (because a prior candidate got the job, nothing to do with me)), but now that the unemployments gone I've gotten used to the idea that I'll--
1) Be in debt (unemployment really did help, but unfortunately I still had to hit up the credit cards because it just wasn't making ends meet) for the foreseeable future.
2) Be making slightly above minimum wage doing "light industrial" until the economy stops felching it's own ass.
And yeah, for anyone who thinks "he didn't look hard enough" or some other holier-than-thou bullshit, I assure you, I looked real god damned hard, and I lowered my salary expectations considerably (going from $70,000+/yr to having salary expectations of only $30,000/yr I would hope qualifies).
To anyone who says it's not that bad-- you're clueless, or you're terribly lucky.
On a personal note, I want to thank the US Congress/Senate for finally passing that Unemployment Extension in January when they got back from their Christmas break-- too bad it didn't extend ANYTHING, it just extended the TEUC and TEUC-X programs to those who would have been cut off, for everyone else who had already exhausted both their TEUC and TEUC-X benefits, they basically gave us the finger. Way to go guys. (Read: The TEUC extension provided for 13 weeks of federally funded extensions, and the TEUC-X extension provided for an additional 13 weeks for states with high unemployment (mine, Washington, qualified easily) for a total of 26 weeks. The "extension" passed in January didn't add any additional weeks, it only extended the program for those who were just starting to use TEUC and/or TEUC-X, and added language that made it possible for someone starting on it late in the game to be able to claim their total balance, rather than being cut off on some arbitrary date).
Agreed, I'm hanging onto my SMP Pentium III 800 system for just that reason-- Pentium 4's are SMP'able, and I'm not a big fan of AMD processors (for various reasons, none of which I'll elaborate on because I'll just end up being modded a troll or flamebait, like every other person with a dissenting anti-AMD opinion). Besides, this dual processor P3 800 system doesn't even feel like it's aged much; every P4 based system I play with is just as responsive as this box at everyday tasks, and for gaming this system runs fine except for maybe a 30% drop in frame rates (which, as far as I'm concerned, anything over 50-70 fps is great for me).
And as more games become multi-threaded (since hyperthreading is going to be Intel's next big thing), or at least, SMP aware, I should hopefully see a bump in processing speed if their engines are designed right.
http://www.icehouse.net/llt/images/20030414h.jpg
It'll be up for a lil bit so backup, mirror and spread if you haven't already.
You used the word "informed" in the context of Slashdot readers. WTF dude, don't give me too much credit.