You might consider cranking up your network on linkedin. I've had a few friends describe to me how they've used linkedin to solve this very same (common) problem. ie. they find a job they want, find out who is hiring or who is involved, search for that person on linkedin and then find someone you know who also knows that person.
If you can build a network of 100+ people, you may start to notice that you have a second degree connection to people on the inside of the places you want to get hired.
I'm not job hunting right now, but I've tested this a little and the theory holds at least in my region.
Masters or MBA? They are not the same thing. In any case, how many people with a master's degree do I know that make less than 80k?
Answer: most of them
Speaking as someone who got their masters in CS recently, it is by no means a path to career success! Sometimes I suspect it might even be a negative (in hiring).
Agreed, teachers can do important work (i.e. really make a difference in dozens of lives). How many of them try to make a difference? Probably most of them (at least when they start). How many actually succeed in making an important contribution? hmmm
Anyway, my point wasnt to denigrate the work of teachers or to say that programmers are special. I was merely pointing out that the salary reality is the opposite of what you would expect. What most people expect is well-paid developers and poorly paid, much-abused teachers.
Canada
My teacher friends in Toronto (in their early 30s) make 70-80k. Toronto is an expensive place to live, but I was still kind of floored to get this news.
I have been told by friends in the local school system (in our small city about an hour outside Toronto) that a handful of senior teachers in our city are making over 100k.
Yeah, that's more than most of the developers I know (including myself).
ZZT is how I got my start. It is a very old game and of course the "graphics" are terrible, but the game is solid and it's fun. Once you get a little way in you'll come across levels such as The Bank. The Bank is an amazing room (for a ten year old) and for me the concept of programming soon clicked from that experience. In The Bank, you see how you can combine pushers, blocks, and sliders to create a really cool combo lock mechanism. Then, as I recall, there is a little character with some basic programming.
Anyway, the neat part of ZZT is the editor. You can make your own rooms and as you build your own rooms, you are effectively programming. From simple things like placing monsters and choosing types of breakable walls, to creating physical machines using pushers and sliders, and, finally, to programming using the ZZT object scripting language which allows you to create objects that react to events (e.g. 'touch', 'shot', 'timer', etc.) with actions (e.g. 'print message, aka talk', 'move', 'shoot', etc.).
ZZT is the game that did it for me. After a little time there I was moving on up to Turbo Pascal and QBasic. I don't know what contemporary kids would think of ZZT today, but I would think you might be able to convince them to give it a shot.
ZZT is freely available to download and still has a small dedicated fan group following online.
There's another possibility. The campaigns are smarter and better informed. Marketing, 'consumer' research, targeting are all advancing by leaps and bounds.
If you need 50.1% of the vote in order to win a particular state and you can show through your science of marketing that you probably have 51% why continue to spend money in that state???? Why throw away your money? Save it for an emergency. Need more money? fund raise some more. Have enough money? Sleep in and cuddle up with the soooooo sexy Laura Bush (mmmm mmm mmm) or go clear some brush.
An efficient machine doesnt waste resources (money, sleep, opportunities for sex and clearing brush) if it has already produced its output (an election win).
I'm not saying they have a perfectly tuned machine (clearly no one knows the outcome for certain). But I do think it's tending in that direction and we may rarely ever see 55%+ again.
What you need to understand is that voting for either of republicans or the democrats is the REAL waste of a vote.
The two parties are IDENTICAL except for a couple knee-jerk issues that make good sound-bytes but have zero to do with the day to day operation of the government.
I can't believe that you seriously believe there's no substantive difference given the last couple of elections and the issues our country is currently facing.
At a personal level you might be right. They're both going to tax you (slightly more/slightly less, they're both going to write your laws to the exclusive benefit of corporations or sometimes for extreme ideologies (this lobbyist or interest group/that lobbyist or interest group). They're both going to try to take away most of your weapons (bigger and small/just the big ones). And on and on.
Those are personal considerations. You are burying your head in the sand if you can't also see the enormous difference between the two on the national and international level.
Protection of the environment???? Where do the candidates stand? George Bush vs. Al Gore??? BIG difference (are you kidding?). I'm not making a value judgement, maybe Bush is right and the best way to Clear Skies is to dump shit into the air... But they definitely have different approaches.
Multilateral/unilateral foreign affairs???? BIG difference
Public schools vs private, education funding, religion in classrooms??? CLEAR difference in direction. Important issue.
Medicine, health care, abortion, stem cells???? Bush v. Gore??? BIG difference. Crystal clear from the start.
Thoughtful approach vs shoot from the hip???? al gore vs Bush. BIG difference
secular vs faith based decision making??? gore v bush??? BIG difference, clear from the start.
And then in 2004????
One avoided combat and the other went in and came out as a peace activist.
One pushed and pushed for an enormous war killing tens of thousands of Iraqis, thousands of Americans, and costing 100s billions. Many of us think he lied. The other guy was a pussy and gave in in a political climate that frightened him (Kerry is disguisting in this regard) but was probably mostly against the whole thing.
Clear differences in character. Big differences on religion. Big differences on the environment (ANWAR, logging, streams, air, wildlife protection, wetlands, etc). Again, stem cells, health care, education, etc.
And to top it all off 2004 was a referendum on a president who could be one of the most divisive and controversial in America's history.
Are you saying you have no FUCKING opinion on any of that? You have no input? I bet you do. I doubt you are stupid or ill-informed. Many of those things are critical issues! Now is not the time to not weigh in.
If you refuse to vote for either one then you are, clearly, throwing away your vote on ALL of those issues in favor of ONE issue; the issue of 'how much does the status quo suck' or however you want to phrase it.
If you use your head you can have it all. You can voice your opinion now for short term issues (vote Bush or Kerry, Bush or Gore), and work for a long term change by supporting your local third party, working for a change in the electoral system, educating voters, etc.
The optic muscles can be trained to move other objects.
OK. So that's straight forward enough. What about the other part of my question? Can a human comprehend an entire array of pixels all at once? Would that imply that you could see in front of you and watch behind you at the same time by gluing these 'eyes' to the back of your head?
At some point these devices may have enough resolution to do things like read a book. But, unless the camera is somehow connected to your real eye muscles it seems like there might be a problem....
As I read my computer screen right now, if I try to notice how my eyes move, I think I can really only read the word that my eyes are directly pointed at. I don't know if this phenomenon is a function of how the eye works or how the brain's visual center works or a combination of the two.
So, my question is, if someone sees using a camera mounted on their glasses (or whatever) will they have to move their entire head for every tiny little adjustment in what they want to look at?? will they have the ability to see with equal clarity a whole field of things at once??
If the first I think that would be a serious problem (not that they won't be happy to be able to see...). If it's the second then that could have some very cool advantages. For instance, if it works for one camera, how about 4 (one in each direction)?
Slashdot Mirror
You might consider cranking up your network on linkedin. I've had a few friends describe to me how they've used linkedin to solve this very same (common) problem. ie. they find a job they want, find out who is hiring or who is involved, search for that person on linkedin and then find someone you know who also knows that person.
If you can build a network of 100+ people, you may start to notice that you have a second degree connection to people on the inside of the places you want to get hired.
I'm not job hunting right now, but I've tested this a little and the theory holds at least in my region.
Masters or MBA? They are not the same thing.
In any case, how many people with a master's degree do I know that make less than 80k?
Answer: most of them
Speaking as someone who got their masters in CS recently, it is by no means a path to career success! Sometimes I suspect it might even be a negative (in hiring).
Agreed, teachers can do important work (i.e. really make a difference in dozens of lives). How many of them try to make a difference? Probably most of them (at least when they start). How many actually succeed in making an important contribution? hmmm
Anyway, my point wasnt to denigrate the work of teachers or to say that programmers are special. I was merely pointing out that the salary reality is the opposite of what you would expect. What most people expect is well-paid developers and poorly paid, much-abused teachers.
Canada My teacher friends in Toronto (in their early 30s) make 70-80k. Toronto is an expensive place to live, but I was still kind of floored to get this news. I have been told by friends in the local school system (in our small city about an hour outside Toronto) that a handful of senior teachers in our city are making over 100k. Yeah, that's more than most of the developers I know (including myself).
ZZT is how I got my start. It is a very old game and of course the "graphics" are terrible, but the game is solid and it's fun. Once you get a little way in you'll come across levels such as The Bank. The Bank is an amazing room (for a ten year old) and for me the concept of programming soon clicked from that experience. In The Bank, you see how you can combine pushers, blocks, and sliders to create a really cool combo lock mechanism. Then, as I recall, there is a little character with some basic programming.
Anyway, the neat part of ZZT is the editor. You can make your own rooms and as you build your own rooms, you are effectively programming. From simple things like placing monsters and choosing types of breakable walls, to creating physical machines using pushers and sliders, and, finally, to programming using the ZZT object scripting language which allows you to create objects that react to events (e.g. 'touch', 'shot', 'timer', etc.) with actions (e.g. 'print message, aka talk', 'move', 'shoot', etc.).
ZZT is the game that did it for me. After a little time there I was moving on up to Turbo Pascal and QBasic. I don't know what contemporary kids would think of ZZT today, but I would think you might be able to convince them to give it a shot.
ZZT is freely available to download and still has a small dedicated fan group following online.
If you need 50.1% of the vote in order to win a particular state and you can show through your science of marketing that you probably have 51% why continue to spend money in that state???? Why throw away your money? Save it for an emergency. Need more money? fund raise some more. Have enough money? Sleep in and cuddle up with the soooooo sexy Laura Bush (mmmm mmm mmm) or go clear some brush.
An efficient machine doesnt waste resources (money, sleep, opportunities for sex and clearing brush) if it has already produced its output (an election win).
I'm not saying they have a perfectly tuned machine (clearly no one knows the outcome for certain). But I do think it's tending in that direction and we may rarely ever see 55%+ again.
Just a little theory.
I can't believe that you seriously believe there's no substantive difference given the last couple of elections and the issues our country is currently facing.
At a personal level you might be right. They're both going to tax you (slightly more/slightly less, they're both going to write your laws to the exclusive benefit of corporations or sometimes for extreme ideologies (this lobbyist or interest group/that lobbyist or interest group). They're both going to try to take away most of your weapons (bigger and small/just the big ones). And on and on.
Those are personal considerations. You are burying your head in the sand if you can't also see the enormous difference between the two on the national and international level.
Protection of the environment???? Where do the candidates stand? George Bush vs. Al Gore??? BIG difference (are you kidding?). I'm not making a value judgement, maybe Bush is right and the best way to Clear Skies is to dump shit into the air... But they definitely have different approaches.
Multilateral/unilateral foreign affairs???? BIG difference
Public schools vs private, education funding, religion in classrooms??? CLEAR difference in direction. Important issue.
Medicine, health care, abortion, stem cells???? Bush v. Gore??? BIG difference. Crystal clear from the start.
Thoughtful approach vs shoot from the hip???? al gore vs Bush. BIG difference
secular vs faith based decision making??? gore v bush??? BIG difference, clear from the start.
And then in 2004????
One avoided combat and the other went in and came out as a peace activist.
One pushed and pushed for an enormous war killing tens of thousands of Iraqis, thousands of Americans, and costing 100s billions. Many of us think he lied. The other guy was a pussy and gave in in a political climate that frightened him (Kerry is disguisting in this regard) but was probably mostly against the whole thing.
Clear differences in character. Big differences on religion. Big differences on the environment (ANWAR, logging, streams, air, wildlife protection, wetlands, etc). Again, stem cells, health care, education, etc.
And to top it all off 2004 was a referendum on a president who could be one of the most divisive and controversial in America's history.
Are you saying you have no FUCKING opinion on any of that? You have no input? I bet you do. I doubt you are stupid or ill-informed. Many of those things are critical issues! Now is not the time to not weigh in.
If you refuse to vote for either one then you are, clearly, throwing away your vote on ALL of those issues in favor of ONE issue; the issue of 'how much does the status quo suck' or however you want to phrase it.
If you use your head you can have it all. You can voice your opinion now for short term issues (vote Bush or Kerry, Bush or Gore), and work for a long term change by supporting your local third party, working for a change in the electoral system, educating voters, etc.
OK. So that's straight forward enough. What about the other part of my question? Can a human comprehend an entire array of pixels all at once? Would that imply that you could see in front of you and watch behind you at the same time by gluing these 'eyes' to the back of your head?
As I read my computer screen right now, if I try to notice how my eyes move, I think I can really only read the word that my eyes are directly pointed at. I don't know if this phenomenon is a function of how the eye works or how the brain's visual center works or a combination of the two.
So, my question is, if someone sees using a camera mounted on their glasses (or whatever) will they have to move their entire head for every tiny little adjustment in what they want to look at?? will they have the ability to see with equal clarity a whole field of things at once??
If the first I think that would be a serious problem (not that they won't be happy to be able to see...). If it's the second then that could have some very cool advantages. For instance, if it works for one camera, how about 4 (one in each direction)?