I was in Amsterdam for five days in May and found your people to be really open, charming, and tolerant. I actually really liked the culture; everyone just goes about their lives doing whatever they damn well please and if someone's being an asshole people tell them to knock it off. American culture, on the other hand, can be VERY judgemental and VERY conformist, so I can see how such openness would cause some of us to become very, very paranoid:)
I have the same need to get up and walk around. When I first started working as a developer I thought I was going to go nuts sitting in a chair all day... until I realized that most of my coworkers get up and take a walk to clear their head whenever they get frustrated on a problem. The managers get it; they do the same thing. I'd guess that most of us are in our seats coding maybe 1/2 the time, the other 1/2 we're either walking around or chatting with coworkers. It's only the interns that we chain to the desk:)
A lot of large corporations are already begging to change the system. IIRC only the pharmaceutical industry still thinks the existing patent system is a good idea, and that's only because nobody has sued them for infringing on something like "method for separating a salt into its ionic components using a dihydrogen monoxide solvent".
...requires a LOT more than the ability to bash out code. I have to hire US-based programmers all the time, and it's amazing how many people I talk to that don't have the faintest idea how to do anything other than program. They may be able to write a demo program using the latest, greatest coding framework, but they are severely deficient in troubleshooting, problem-solving, and social/creative skills. Even a computer can write code; I need people who can think.
So my advice for anyone trying to break in to the programming field would be to work in some other aspect of IT for several years - go be an SA or a network engineer or something and use your programming skills to assist you in those areas. Once you've done that you can transition into development. You'll be a MUCH better developer for it.
Yeah, it's like the "medical" marijuana brigade. Stop trying to convince us that hemp/marijuana is the Miracle of Miracles and start telling the truth: you like to get high and the Gummint is wasting my tax money.
You're right... we must never allow complex like "what if she was just innocently taping a little clip to show her brother?" stand in the way of ENFORCING THE RULES.
...in exchange for the freedom to walk around my neighborhood without constantly looking over my shoulder to see if I'm about to get jumped and/or mugged (it happened to me just last night. Meh.) It would also be nice if my friends could leave their cars outside at night without having them redecorated by our local thugs.
If you really want privacy outside, well... there's plenty of undeveloped in this country. I don't think they're going to cover all of it with CCTV any time soon.
...accidentally one day while hiking. I didn't notice the problem until my friend pointed out that my backpack was slowly dripping, at which point I reached in, fished out my 30G iPod (yes, the one with a hard drive) from a nice pool of water, and shook it off in horror. For the next 12 hours all it would do is display a sad iPod face and the message "www.apple.com/support". After that it would attempt to play music, but it wouldn't make any sound at all.
I stuck it out in full sun for a day (metal side UP, of course!) to dry it out. Since then it has worked perfectly. It seems that water is only bad for electronics while they're wet:)
I think this quote sums up politicians more than most people know:
"If you can't take their money, eat their dinners, and f*** their women and still vote against them, you don't belong in this town." -Unknown
Please, folks, don't assume that just because a politician has accepted money from Group X they're necessarily going to vote in favor of Group X's agenda. They're more corrupt than that >:)
IIRC that article was trashed soon after it came out by a bunch of people pointing out that you can easily make raw packets in Win9x/2K as well, you just had to go through the NDIS driver instead of using BSD raw sockets.
Yeah, we're running Solaris 10/x86 for our Web servers and we keep discovering cool new things it can do. Only downside to that is our SA's keep wanting to actuallly use the cool new things and we keep having to shoot them down with the explanation that our system works just fine right now kthx:)
My project has been migrating our 300+ machines from Solaris to Red Hat over the past couple of years. We were all excited at first, now we all miss Solaris.
Why? Because for all the wonderful things we can do with Linux, there's one thing we can't do - we can't keep the machines from locking up. That almost never happened with Solaris, and when it DID happen Sun would figure out what went wrong and issue a patch for it within a couple of days.
Don't get me wrong, I love Linux. A lot. It's done many wonderful things for UNIX and the IT industry as a whole and will continue to do so. But it's not ZOMG TEH BEST OS EVAR! for every project, and I don't think Linus ever intended it to be:)
What? There's a *huge* difference! I can sit here and talk about how much I hate George Bush all I want, for as long as I want and nothing's going to happen. In China if you talk about it long enough they execute you. HTH.
Existing QWERTY users are probably better off buying a better keyboard and rearranging their workspace than forcing themselves to learn a whole new layout. I'm too lazy too look up my references right now, but once upon a time I had a severe case of tendinitis and seriously considered switching to a Dvorak layout... then I did some research and discovered that the benefits of Dvorak over QWERTY are quite small.
So I abandoned that road and bought myself a split QWERTY keyboard (the Microsoft Natural, although there are other good designs), and trained myself to mouse with my left hand (I'm a righty). The tendinitis went away quickly after I made those changes and hasn't returned since. Maybe I'll never type 212+ wpm - but I don't get paid to type fast, I get paid to think:)
I'd definitely vote against... why? Because I want the State to be able to hire smart people and treat them like professionals instead of wasting my money on a bunch of rule-crazy bureaucrats who do nothing but sit around patting themselves on the back about how they're more loyal to the taxpayers than the next guy.
Switching jobs often is only a bad thing if your resume shows that you do it consistently. Personally I don't mind if a prospective worker has a lot of jobs on his or her resume, but I *do* mind if they don't have one or two that they stayed at for several years - it tells me one of two things:
1. You're incompetent and moved from job to job because you had to, either because you got fired or because you left right before someone let you go.
2. You're only in it for the money and could care less about what we're doing.
#1 concerns me for obvious reasons, #2 concerns me because a. even the best engineer is a drain on the project for the first six months due to training overhead (you may be brilliant, but you DON'T know what we're doing or how we do things), b. when you leave *I* have to take up your slack until the new guy comes up to speed, and c. the rest of us DO care about what we're doing.
So my advice is this: find a nice balance between your paycheck and working on something you actually LIKE DOING, and then stay there for awhile even if someone else will pay you more. I just turned away a guy who is a brilliant programmer but who hasn't held a job for more than a year since 1995 - instead, I hired someone who was less technically qualified but had the good sense to ask about the longevity of the position because he hated switching jobs... and he had a history of sticking around. I treat my people well, I expect them to do the same for me.
Financially speaking, you also need to consider two things:
1. Switching jobs rapidly significantly lowers your credit score as well as making lenders think you're a flake, which will push the APR on any money you borrow through the roof. You may not think this matters, but if you buy a house or a car the penalty can amount to many thousands of dollars a year. If you don't use credit, that's not a problem... but if (like me) you can borrow money under the rate of inflation it's a huge benefit.
2. Many employee benefits (401K matching, long-term incentives, etc.) don't vest unless you're with a company for 3-5 years, so switching jobs often can incur a hidden cost of tens of thousands of dollars per year. You probably won't see this immediately on your paycheck but you'll feel it at retirement time.
Unfortunately, I dunno if this is something you CAN teach. While I hesitate to say that these important interpersonal skills are something you are "born with". I would say that they are pretty well ingrained in you by the time you are a teen or maybe even earlier. I don't say you can't learn new things, but, with most people that have the skills....they are second nature and natural for them to use. I'd say it is kind of like being 'witty' and being able to come up with funny things instantly in conversation....a skill that often is a sign someone has exceptional interpersonal skills.
When I was 21 I decided that I was quite capable of learning everything I needed to know about IT on my own. I didn't want to become a typical techie with no social skills so I dropped my CIS classes and got a degree in English instead. When you have to get up and give presentations every week for two years straight talking to people becomes second nature... social skills aren't something you're "just born with", they are very definitely learned.
Not everyone can get a degree in English, but there are plenty of other opportunities to get out and learn how to interact with others. It's more a matter of being willing to take the risk and put yourself out there than any sort of inborn talent.
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Yeah, this reminds me of the "Windows XP's Raw Sockets will destroy the Internet!" hype.
I was in Amsterdam for five days in May and found your people to be really open, charming, and tolerant. I actually really liked the culture; everyone just goes about their lives doing whatever they damn well please and if someone's being an asshole people tell them to knock it off. American culture, on the other hand, can be VERY judgemental and VERY conformist, so I can see how such openness would cause some of us to become very, very paranoid :)
I might have to put it on right now :)
I have the same need to get up and walk around. When I first started working as a developer I thought I was going to go nuts sitting in a chair all day... until I realized that most of my coworkers get up and take a walk to clear their head whenever they get frustrated on a problem. The managers get it; they do the same thing. I'd guess that most of us are in our seats coding maybe 1/2 the time, the other 1/2 we're either walking around or chatting with coworkers. It's only the interns that we chain to the desk :)
A lot of large corporations are already begging to change the system. IIRC only the pharmaceutical industry still thinks the existing patent system is a good idea, and that's only because nobody has sued them for infringing on something like "method for separating a salt into its ionic components using a dihydrogen monoxide solvent".
So my advice for anyone trying to break in to the programming field would be to work in some other aspect of IT for several years - go be an SA or a network engineer or something and use your programming skills to assist you in those areas. Once you've done that you can transition into development. You'll be a MUCH better developer for it.
Yeah, it's like the "medical" marijuana brigade. Stop trying to convince us that hemp/marijuana is the Miracle of Miracles and start telling the truth: you like to get high and the Gummint is wasting my tax money.
What's your name and address? I'd like to... um... thank you for getting me fired. Asshole.
You're right... we must never allow complex like "what if she was just innocently taping a little clip to show her brother?" stand in the way of ENFORCING THE RULES.
If you really want privacy outside, well... there's plenty of undeveloped in this country. I don't think they're going to cover all of it with CCTV any time soon.
...accidentally one day while hiking. I didn't notice the problem until my friend pointed out that my backpack was slowly dripping, at which point I reached in, fished out my 30G iPod (yes, the one with a hard drive) from a nice pool of water, and shook it off in horror. For the next 12 hours all it would do is display a sad iPod face and the message "www.apple.com/support". After that it would attempt to play music, but it wouldn't make any sound at all.
:)
I stuck it out in full sun for a day (metal side UP, of course!) to dry it out. Since then it has worked perfectly. It seems that water is only bad for electronics while they're wet
HTH
I think this quote sums up politicians more than most people know: "If you can't take their money, eat their dinners, and f*** their women and still vote against them, you don't belong in this town." -Unknown Please, folks, don't assume that just because a politician has accepted money from Group X they're necessarily going to vote in favor of Group X's agenda. They're more corrupt than that >:)
Wow... thank God I'm just a drunk!
IIRC that article was trashed soon after it came out by a bunch of people pointing out that you can easily make raw packets in Win9x/2K as well, you just had to go through the NDIS driver instead of using BSD raw sockets.
Somehow I don't think they're hurting too bad.
Yeah, we're running Solaris 10/x86 for our Web servers and we keep discovering cool new things it can do. Only downside to that is our SA's keep wanting to actuallly use the cool new things and we keep having to shoot them down with the explanation that our system works just fine right now kthx :)
Why? Because for all the wonderful things we can do with Linux, there's one thing we can't do - we can't keep the machines from locking up. That almost never happened with Solaris, and when it DID happen Sun would figure out what went wrong and issue a patch for it within a couple of days.
Don't get me wrong, I love Linux. A lot. It's done many wonderful things for UNIX and the IT industry as a whole and will continue to do so. But it's not ZOMG TEH BEST OS EVAR! for every project, and I don't think Linus ever intended it to be :)
What? There's a *huge* difference! I can sit here and talk about how much I hate George Bush all I want, for as long as I want and nothing's going to happen. In China if you talk about it long enough they execute you. HTH.
So I abandoned that road and bought myself a split QWERTY keyboard (the Microsoft Natural, although there are other good designs), and trained myself to mouse with my left hand (I'm a righty). The tendinitis went away quickly after I made those changes and hasn't returned since. Maybe I'll never type 212+ wpm - but I don't get paid to type fast, I get paid to think :)
Er... have you tried offering to buy your neighbor a wireless router?
I'd definitely vote against... why? Because I want the State to be able to hire smart people and treat them like professionals instead of wasting my money on a bunch of rule-crazy bureaucrats who do nothing but sit around patting themselves on the back about how they're more loyal to the taxpayers than the next guy.
Switching jobs often is only a bad thing if your resume shows that you do it consistently. Personally I don't mind if a prospective worker has a lot of jobs on his or her resume, but I *do* mind if they don't have one or two that they stayed at for several years - it tells me one of two things:
1. You're incompetent and moved from job to job because you had to, either because you got fired or because you left right before someone let you go.
2. You're only in it for the money and could care less about what we're doing.
#1 concerns me for obvious reasons, #2 concerns me because a. even the best engineer is a drain on the project for the first six months due to training overhead (you may be brilliant, but you DON'T know what we're doing or how we do things), b. when you leave *I* have to take up your slack until the new guy comes up to speed, and c. the rest of us DO care about what we're doing.
So my advice is this: find a nice balance between your paycheck and working on something you actually LIKE DOING, and then stay there for awhile even if someone else will pay you more. I just turned away a guy who is a brilliant programmer but who hasn't held a job for more than a year since 1995 - instead, I hired someone who was less technically qualified but had the good sense to ask about the longevity of the position because he hated switching jobs... and he had a history of sticking around. I treat my people well, I expect them to do the same for me.
Financially speaking, you also need to consider two things:
1. Switching jobs rapidly significantly lowers your credit score as well as making lenders think you're a flake, which will push the APR on any money you borrow through the roof. You may not think this matters, but if you buy a house or a car the penalty can amount to many thousands of dollars a year. If you don't use credit, that's not a problem... but if (like me) you can borrow money under the rate of inflation it's a huge benefit.
2. Many employee benefits (401K matching, long-term incentives, etc.) don't vest unless you're with a company for 3-5 years, so switching jobs often can incur a hidden cost of tens of thousands of dollars per year. You probably won't see this immediately on your paycheck but you'll feel it at retirement time.
HTH.
When I was 21 I decided that I was quite capable of learning everything I needed to know about IT on my own. I didn't want to become a typical techie with no social skills so I dropped my CIS classes and got a degree in English instead. When you have to get up and give presentations every week for two years straight talking to people becomes second nature... social skills aren't something you're "just born with", they are very definitely learned.
Not everyone can get a degree in English, but there are plenty of other opportunities to get out and learn how to interact with others. It's more a matter of being willing to take the risk and put yourself out there than any sort of inborn talent.
er... heroin is Schedule I, "no accepted medical use."