Tim Bray might be an "XML Heavy," but he's obviously never set foot on a farm. He throws around the word "sharecropper" as if there's a stigma attached to it, when in reality sharecropping is a way of life for some people, just the same as working an assembly line or in the mines is a way of life for others.
My wife's family owns a 600-acre farm in southern Illinois. We have a sharecropping family that has farmed the land for over three generations. They have lived rent-free, all utilities and taxes paid, during this entire time. They are paid a fair wage in addition to bonuses from the farm's profits. College, if they choose to attend, is paid for. Their income, once the fringe benefits are added back, is probably greater than the average income for all professions in the St. Louis area. I can say for a fact their income is higher than most unemployed IT workers, and there has never been a layoff since the early 1800's.
I believe Mr. Bray was trying to be politically correct by using the term "sharecropper" when he really meant "indentured servant." Let's face it: Anybody who works for somebody is an indentured servant, especially if you are tied to said employer for necessities in life such as health insurance. Unless you have the good fortune to be in perfect health and can secure your own health insurance, you are, in fact, indentured to your employer if you depend on their group status for insurance.
It's up to me to make my self relevant to US employers and I have found that the easiest way is through being in management...You can't make an impact or change the world if you are locked in cube coding our trapped behind 15 miles of cable in a server room.
Thank you, from the bottom of my cube-locked heart. If it weren't for folks like you, who would make all the outsourcing and layoff decisions?
This is part of the Texas anti-spam bill that was linked in the original post. It seems to state that if you bring action against a spammer, but fail to notify the state Attorney General via certified mail of your suit, you yourself will be liable for $200 in damages for each violation.
That could make trying to recover damages from several spammers a pretty expensive proposition. I wonder how many people who haven't read the law will be sucked into this? Rest assured, the spammers will be on the lookout.
Sec. 46.009. NOTICE TO ATTORNEY GENERAL. (a) A person who brings an action under Section 46.008 shall give notice of the action to the attorney general by sending a copy of the petition by registered or certified mail not later than the 30th day after the date the petition was filed and at least 10 days before the date set for a hearing on the action.
(b) The attorney general may intervene in the action by:
(1) filing a notice of intervention with the court in which the action is pending; and
(2) serving each party to the action with a copy of the notice of intervention.
(c) A person who violates Subsection (a) is liable to the state for a civil penalty in an amount not to exceed $200 for each violation. The attorney general may bring suit to recover the civil penalty imposed under this subsection in the court in which the action is instituted.
Sometimes, after I hang up my phone, it rings again. I pick it up, and am in the middle of a conversation between two people. I've tried to see if they can hear me (they cannot). It's as if I'm dead.
Linux has already been affected by companies who have shown increased sales since beginning to spew FUD about "stolen IP" in Linux.
So true. But companies won't come right out and admit to this -- makes them look foolish.
Case in point: I was all set to introduce our school district (>50,000 students, 9 high schools) to Linux as an economic alternative to Novell. Servers were purchased (ProLiant DLs with dual processors and 6-disk RAIDs), Linux was installed, testing was done, quotas set up, we were ready to roll -- and then SCO dropped their bombshell. A week went by...two weeks...I discovered that due to "security" concerns, the servers were to be converted to Novell servers.
"Security" concerns? Bullshit. I had already worked several weeks with the network gurus to put their security concerns to rest.
This is but one government entity. The damage SCO has caused is quite extensive, and those who deny it are hiding their heads in the sand.
Who would have thought that Linux (and open-source software in general) would be brought to its knees by an indirect blow? Here we were, thinking the battle was to be fought in Redmond, when in fact we were flanked by SCO and didn't even realize it until it was too late.
Such is the price of hubris and arrogance. "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle." (Sun Tzu, Art of War)
With this article--this blatant advertisement for illegal activity (or activity with clear illegal intent - if you disagree, you fool nobody)--slashdot shows its extremism.
Or maybe it's simply a high level of immaturity on the part of/. editors. And I use the term "editor" loosely: There's not an awful lot of editing that occurs (duplicate articles, misspellings, and grammatical errors consistently elude these so-called "editors"). They continue to remain on VA's gravy train due solely to the massive numbers of hits generated by the site. Let's face it: Most people who visit/. regularly do so not to read the editors' inane comments and snipes, but to take part in the frenzied feeding of the/. community.
Taco and friends supply the chum; we provide the feeding frenzy. And that is what keeps the/. editors in the money. Our continued participation ensures the continued survival of/.
The problem with web browsers is that they still subscribe to this strange (but easily digestible) idea that web browsing is a linear activity. Forward/back is fine when you're trying to backtrack your way through a session going on now, but what about that session you had yesterday? Wouldn't it be cool if you could somehow bookmark browsing sessions? After all, when you are searching for some piece of information on the web, more often than not all of the links you follow are somehow related to the search. For instance, today I saw a Pantera on the road. Not knowing anything about Panteras, I did a preliminary Google search, which took me to a site about Panteras in general, but I followed several links, backtracked, and followed several more until I came to a few sites in which provided me with an aggregate of the information I needed.
So, how do you bookmark that? The sites in and of themselves weren't very interesting until I was able to put everything together and get the big picture about what turns out to be a pretty rare sighting. Saved as individual bookmarks, they would lose the context in which they were viewed. What if that particular session could be bookmarked, and what if I could view the session as a web of links? Then I could start anywhere within the session, recreate the context of the session, highlight nodes of interest, and add to the session itself at a later time.
Seriously, this article was nothing more than a shameless plug, an informercial for a consulting firm. If there was any reference to total cost of the project, broken down by labor and equipment (they brought their lead engineer and project manager for Chrissake!), I must have completely missed it. (Maybe I was too busy studying the pictures, which all looked suspiciously like hammers to me).
What I'd like to see is a DIY home networking guide for the rest of us.
TAPR! - These geeks will whoop yer ass in a second! A lot of them are commited to open source. They actually help fund HARDWARE projects (we could learn something). Check out their LINUX sig.
Uh, no. One of the reasons I left the packet scene several years ago is that I couldn't find anybody who wanted to experiment with transfer rates 9600 baud or higher. Everyone was stuck at 1200 baud. Unlike computer modems, the jump to higher transfer rates often requires a substantial investment in hardware upgrades to handle the increased bandwidth of higher transfer rates. 19.6 kb or higher usually requires a jump into the UHF realm, since the lower frequencies don't have the necessary bandwidth allocations.
I was involved in TAPR at the time, built a few of their 9600 baud modems, but TAPR at the time was stuck as well. A quick review of their site shows they are basically stuck in the same time warp.
You want to read about some folks that will whoop ass? Check out these guys.They are on the cutting edge of wireless. TAPR is but a candle flickering in a strong wind compared to the GBPPR folks.
they have the authority to strip search you on nothing more than a hunch - so how different is this really?
It's this very attitude of resignation and complacency that feeds the authority machine that breeds more intrusiveness into our lives. We've been sold on the idea that to submit to egregious violations of our person, we are somehow more "patriotic" than someone who has very real issues with this type of technology.
The fact that some bad apples will press the boundaries of decency is the price one pays to live in a free society. We, however, are slowly morphing into an authoritarian society. The bright side? Fewer places for bad apples to hide. The down side? Instead of the people in control of the government, the government will be in control of the people.
Why not just have the person enter the same room with the operator, do a strip search, and be on your way? It would save the cost of a $150,000 piece of equipment, while technically accomplishing the same thing.
Well, you might as well throw in a cavity search while you're at it, since these backscattered X-rays don't seem to penetrate skin.
You'd still be anonymous. Violated, but anonymous. And that's the bottom line, right? That we can travel throughout this great country, violated but anonymous. Think "patriotic."
M. Silver posted a link above that explains why lane jumpers that take your buffer are actually to your benefit. Basically, the theory is a lane jumper will get the hell out of the way quickly, thereby reestablishing your buffer zone. Once all the lane jumpers in your immediate vicinity have done their deed, the remaining drivers will be the ones content to go with the flow without the need to "fill the gap."
Believe me, Dallas has some very aggressive drivers, yet very few drivers try to fill the gap. When they do, they don't usually hang around, which means you don't slam on your brakes, which means you haven't started the ripple behind you that ends up slowing everyone down.
Along the lines you mention, I remember reading something about how traffic flow can be modeled using differential equations, and how the "standing wave" phenomenon is what causes traffic to simply slow down for no obvious reason.
Well, every time someone applies their brakes, this sends a signal in the opposite direction of traffic flow. Once the braking starts, the standing wave forms. Traffic at the back slows to a crawl, until it reaches the front of the wave, at which point the traffic flows again unimpeded.
As insignificant as you may seem to be in a traffic jam, your actions do affect those around you (especially behind you, traffic that you aren't even aware of). Every tap on the brake (cutting someone off, for instance) sends a ripple that adversely affects traffic flow.
As an on-going experiment, when I'm in heavy metro traffic, I try to keep several car lengths between me and the vehicle ahead. I don't slow down, and the goal is to not ever use the brakes -- instead, I try to use the buffer space to reduce speed when necessary. I keep up with the flow of traffic, so there's no real incentive for people behind me to pass me (except for assholes like the parent to this parent, but they'll always be assholes). In fact, I'm truly surprised that very few, if any, try to cut in front to pick up the gap. Probably because I'm in the left lane, going the prevailing speed, and it really isn't worth the effort to pass to the right to fill the gap.
What I've discovered is truly amazing: I'm often able to traverse several miles of rush-hour, bumper-to-bumer traffice without ever using my brakes! I've observed another phenomenon: People around me seem to create larger gaps once they see the gap I've created.
If you live in a large city (and I believe Dallas qualifies as a large city), try it. You might be surprised at how the dynamics of traffic flow around you changes.
Back in my day at the Academy, we used our imagination and carried airplanes in our hands around an actual 3-D model of some airport which name I've long forgotten. I had my first runway incursion at the Academy.
The FAA has come a long way, technology-wise. Too bad their people skills haven't kept pace.
...but since this was introduced in the House, wouldn't it be more timely to contact your representatives than your senators? There was no indication of a parallel bill being introduced in the Senate, which means IIRC that this bill would need to pass the House before it was voted on by the Senate.
I know, a minor nit...but I was all ready to take Groucho's advice and start hammering out a letter when this little discrepancy (I know, a rarity on/.) came to my attention.
Am I the only one suspicious about the authenticity of this so-called "press release"?
There's only one press release dated the 16th, and it doesn't mention SCO.
Re:Much Research Done On This Topic
on
Ageism in IT?
·
· Score: 1
So I made inquiries and found out that even though there was a demand, 'policy' dictated that all teachers not only hold a masters degree in the discipline being taught, but also required a teaching certification from the state (of Texas.)
The requirement for a master's degree is true at most 2-year colleges due to accreditation rules. However, this usually applies only to instructors teaching credit courses on a full-time basis. At least in Texas (where I teach) college districts are free to set their own requirements for part-time instructors. For instance, some districts require 18 hours of graduate hours in the field you'll be teaching in.
As for the certification requirement, I don't believe you were given correct information. Teaching certificates in TX are issued by a state agency called SBEC and are geared towards primary/middle/secondary teaching environments.
Re:Much Research Done On This Topic
on
Ageism in IT?
·
· Score: 1
Dr. Matloff and I exchanged a number of e-mails a year ago discussing, among other things, the paradox of unemployed software developers who choose to wait years to be rehired (an event whose probability drops as time goes by) while teaching positions in the field of progamming contiune to multiply, unfilled. It was my opinion, and he was in agreement, that there is a tremendous opportunity to teach others programming skills at levels of pay that meet or exceed current IT levels.
What better way for an older, seasoned programmer to contribute to the world of IT than to teach others from his/her pool of knowledge? Sure, teaching isn't for everyone, and there are always though who will hang on to their experience like some favorite talisman, convinced that letting it go will be their professional death.
I strongly believe the IT industry does discriminate with regards to age, and that the industry will continue to be come more commoditized to the point where software developers will simply be workers on an assembly line, putting together products not intended to withstand the test of time, but intended rather to turn a fast buck. In this scenario, there simply will be no room for older, more experienced programmers.
At any rate, there are community and tech colleges across the US who are looking for experienced IT types to pass on the mantle. I've taken this route now that I've been "aged" out of the market, and haven't looked back.
Along the lines of Goodkind, George RR Martin's "Songs of Fire and Ice" series is a fun fantasy read. Probably a ripoff of Goodkind (fair play and all that), but both series are engaging in a sappy way.
I have no problem with metered bandwidth. But if you do meter my bandwidth, let me do what I damn well want to do with my metered bandwidth.
I find it simply amazing that the Comcast disallows any type of server on their system, yet turn their head when it comes to P2P clients (I guess by calling it a "client" you're really not running a "server"). I am forced to operate under the radar so I can run a mailserver that gets maybe 10 e-mails a day, and a text-only webserver that gets a handful of hits when the sun is up, yet my next-door neighbor can run Kazaa all day long (presumably because it's a "form of entertainment" rather than something truly useful).
Personally, I think the employers with whom you have a non-compete agreement should be the ones paying you unemployment benefits.
Companies in TX do pay for your unemployment benefits. I urge anybody who finds themselves laid off in Texas to file for unemployment, whether or not you need it. Your former employer's unemployment tax rate is based in part on unemployment claims received the prior year. Extended benefits result in chargebacks to the employer in the form of increased unemployment taxes for the following year.
Make those tax dollars work for you, and stop giving your former employers a free ride by refusing to file for unemployment.
Make sure you visit this site before ever laying down in that chair. A recent study (Feb. 2003, on the site) indicates between 10 and 20% of refractive surgery patients have complications, a number that is far above what the LASIK industry is touting as its failure rate.
Of particular interest are the stories concerning doctors who have overridden software safeguards and have continued the procedure, resulting in broken blades in the eyes and some other not-so-pleasant outcomes. Not strictly in the "bugs killling people" dept., but it does make you think whether you trust your eyes to a software developer.
Slashdot Mirror
Tim Bray might be an "XML Heavy," but he's obviously never set foot on a farm. He throws around the word "sharecropper" as if there's a stigma attached to it, when in reality sharecropping is a way of life for some people, just the same as working an assembly line or in the mines is a way of life for others.
My wife's family owns a 600-acre farm in southern Illinois. We have a sharecropping family that has farmed the land for over three generations. They have lived rent-free, all utilities and taxes paid, during this entire time. They are paid a fair wage in addition to bonuses from the farm's profits. College, if they choose to attend, is paid for. Their income, once the fringe benefits are added back, is probably greater than the average income for all professions in the St. Louis area. I can say for a fact their income is higher than most unemployed IT workers, and there has never been a layoff since the early 1800's.
I believe Mr. Bray was trying to be politically correct by using the term "sharecropper" when he really meant "indentured servant." Let's face it: Anybody who works for somebody is an indentured servant, especially if you are tied to said employer for necessities in life such as health insurance. Unless you have the good fortune to be in perfect health and can secure your own health insurance, you are, in fact, indentured to your employer if you depend on their group status for insurance.
It's up to me to make my self relevant to US employers and I have found that the easiest way is through being in management...You can't make an impact or change the world if you are locked in cube coding our trapped behind 15 miles of cable in a server room.
Thank you, from the bottom of my cube-locked heart. If it weren't for folks like you, who would make all the outsourcing and layoff decisions?
That could make trying to recover damages from several spammers a pretty expensive proposition. I wonder how many people who haven't read the law will be sucked into this? Rest assured, the spammers will be on the lookout.
Sometimes, after I hang up my phone, it rings again. I pick it up, and am in the middle of a conversation between two people. I've tried to see if they can hear me (they cannot). It's as if I'm dead.
Or maybe it is them who are dead.
It's very eerie.
Linux has already been affected by companies who have shown increased sales since beginning to spew FUD about "stolen IP" in Linux.
So true. But companies won't come right out and admit to this -- makes them look foolish.
Case in point: I was all set to introduce our school district (>50,000 students, 9 high schools) to Linux as an economic alternative to Novell. Servers were purchased (ProLiant DLs with dual processors and 6-disk RAIDs), Linux was installed, testing was done, quotas set up, we were ready to roll -- and then SCO dropped their bombshell. A week went by...two weeks...I discovered that due to "security" concerns, the servers were to be converted to Novell servers.
"Security" concerns? Bullshit. I had already worked several weeks with the network gurus to put their security concerns to rest.
This is but one government entity. The damage SCO has caused is quite extensive, and those who deny it are hiding their heads in the sand.
Who would have thought that Linux (and open-source software in general) would be brought to its knees by an indirect blow? Here we were, thinking the battle was to be fought in Redmond, when in fact we were flanked by SCO and didn't even realize it until it was too late.
Such is the price of hubris and arrogance. "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle." (Sun Tzu, Art of War)
With this article--this blatant advertisement for illegal activity (or activity with clear illegal intent - if you disagree, you fool nobody)--slashdot shows its extremism.
/. editors. And I use the term "editor" loosely: There's not an awful lot of editing that occurs (duplicate articles, misspellings, and grammatical errors consistently elude these so-called "editors"). They continue to remain on VA's gravy train due solely to the massive numbers of hits generated by the site. Let's face it: Most people who visit /. regularly do so not to read the editors' inane comments and snipes, but to take part in the frenzied feeding of the /. community.
/. editors in the money. Our continued participation ensures the continued survival of /.
/. jones.
Or maybe it's simply a high level of immaturity on the part of
Taco and friends supply the chum; we provide the feeding frenzy. And that is what keeps the
It's tough to break the
A common misconception is that the NSA buys/evaluates software the same way Joe Blow does.
And as a former senator, Mr. Thompson should know!
The problem with web browsers is that they still subscribe to this strange (but easily digestible) idea that web browsing is a linear activity. Forward/back is fine when you're trying to backtrack your way through a session going on now, but what about that session you had yesterday? Wouldn't it be cool if you could somehow bookmark browsing sessions? After all, when you are searching for some piece of information on the web, more often than not all of the links you follow are somehow related to the search. For instance, today I saw a Pantera on the road. Not knowing anything about Panteras, I did a preliminary Google search, which took me to a site about Panteras in general, but I followed several links, backtracked, and followed several more until I came to a few sites in which provided me with an aggregate of the information I needed.
So, how do you bookmark that? The sites in and of themselves weren't very interesting until I was able to put everything together and get the big picture about what turns out to be a pretty rare sighting. Saved as individual bookmarks, they would lose the context in which they were viewed. What if that particular session could be bookmarked, and what if I could view the session as a web of links? Then I could start anywhere within the session, recreate the context of the session, highlight nodes of interest, and add to the session itself at a later time.
Now we'd be talking about innovation.
1. Post infomercial on THG
/.
2. Get picked up by
3. ???
4. Profit!
Seriously, this article was nothing more than a shameless plug, an informercial for a consulting firm. If there was any reference to total cost of the project, broken down by labor and equipment (they brought their lead engineer and project manager for Chrissake!), I must have completely missed it. (Maybe I was too busy studying the pictures, which all looked suspiciously like hammers to me).
What I'd like to see is a DIY home networking guide for the rest of us.
TAPR! - These geeks will whoop yer ass in a second! A lot of them are commited to open source. They actually help fund HARDWARE projects (we could learn something). Check out their LINUX sig.
Uh, no. One of the reasons I left the packet scene several years ago is that I couldn't find anybody who wanted to experiment with transfer rates 9600 baud or higher. Everyone was stuck at 1200 baud. Unlike computer modems, the jump to higher transfer rates often requires a substantial investment in hardware upgrades to handle the increased bandwidth of higher transfer rates. 19.6 kb or higher usually requires a jump into the UHF realm, since the lower frequencies don't have the necessary bandwidth allocations.
I was involved in TAPR at the time, built a few of their 9600 baud modems, but TAPR at the time was stuck as well. A quick review of their site shows they are basically stuck in the same time warp.
You want to read about some folks that will whoop ass? Check out these guys. They are on the cutting edge of wireless. TAPR is but a candle flickering in a strong wind compared to the GBPPR folks.
they have the authority to strip search you on nothing more than a hunch - so how different is this really?
It's this very attitude of resignation and complacency that feeds the authority machine that breeds more intrusiveness into our lives. We've been sold on the idea that to submit to egregious violations of our person, we are somehow more "patriotic" than someone who has very real issues with this type of technology.
The fact that some bad apples will press the boundaries of decency is the price one pays to live in a free society. We, however, are slowly morphing into an authoritarian society. The bright side? Fewer places for bad apples to hide. The down side? Instead of the people in control of the government, the government will be in control of the people.
Which do you prefer?
Why not just have the person enter the same room with the operator, do a strip search, and be on your way? It would save the cost of a $150,000 piece of equipment, while technically accomplishing the same thing.
Well, you might as well throw in a cavity search while you're at it, since these backscattered X-rays don't seem to penetrate skin.
You'd still be anonymous. Violated, but anonymous. And that's the bottom line, right? That we can travel throughout this great country, violated but anonymous. Think "patriotic."
M. Silver posted a link above that explains why lane jumpers that take your buffer are actually to your benefit. Basically, the theory is a lane jumper will get the hell out of the way quickly, thereby reestablishing your buffer zone. Once all the lane jumpers in your immediate vicinity have done their deed, the remaining drivers will be the ones content to go with the flow without the need to "fill the gap."
Believe me, Dallas has some very aggressive drivers, yet very few drivers try to fill the gap. When they do, they don't usually hang around, which means you don't slam on your brakes, which means you haven't started the ripple behind you that ends up slowing everyone down.
Along the lines you mention, I remember reading something about how traffic flow can be modeled using differential equations, and how the "standing wave" phenomenon is what causes traffic to simply slow down for no obvious reason.
Well, every time someone applies their brakes, this sends a signal in the opposite direction of traffic flow. Once the braking starts, the standing wave forms. Traffic at the back slows to a crawl, until it reaches the front of the wave, at which point the traffic flows again unimpeded.
As insignificant as you may seem to be in a traffic jam, your actions do affect those around you (especially behind you, traffic that you aren't even aware of). Every tap on the brake (cutting someone off, for instance) sends a ripple that adversely affects traffic flow.
As an on-going experiment, when I'm in heavy metro traffic, I try to keep several car lengths between me and the vehicle ahead. I don't slow down, and the goal is to not ever use the brakes -- instead, I try to use the buffer space to reduce speed when necessary. I keep up with the flow of traffic, so there's no real incentive for people behind me to pass me (except for assholes like the parent to this parent, but they'll always be assholes). In fact, I'm truly surprised that very few, if any, try to cut in front to pick up the gap. Probably because I'm in the left lane, going the prevailing speed, and it really isn't worth the effort to pass to the right to fill the gap.
What I've discovered is truly amazing: I'm often able to traverse several miles of rush-hour, bumper-to-bumer traffice without ever using my brakes! I've observed another phenomenon: People around me seem to create larger gaps once they see the gap I've created.
If you live in a large city (and I believe Dallas qualifies as a large city), try it. You might be surprised at how the dynamics of traffic flow around you changes.
Back in my day at the Academy, we used our imagination and carried airplanes in our hands around an actual 3-D model of some airport which name I've long forgotten. I had my first runway incursion at the Academy.
The FAA has come a long way, technology-wise. Too bad their people skills haven't kept pace.
...but since this was introduced in the House, wouldn't it be more timely to contact your representatives than your senators? There was no indication of a parallel bill being introduced in the Senate, which means IIRC that this bill would need to pass the House before it was voted on by the Senate.
/.) came to my attention.
I know, a minor nit...but I was all ready to take Groucho's advice and start hammering out a letter when this little discrepancy (I know, a rarity on
Am I the only one suspicious about the authenticity of this so-called "press release"?
There's only one press release dated the 16th, and it doesn't mention SCO.
So I made inquiries and found out that even though there was a demand, 'policy' dictated that all teachers not only hold a masters degree in the discipline being taught, but also required a teaching certification from the state (of Texas.)
The requirement for a master's degree is true at most 2-year colleges due to accreditation rules. However, this usually applies only to instructors teaching credit courses on a full-time basis. At least in Texas (where I teach) college districts are free to set their own requirements for part-time instructors. For instance, some districts require 18 hours of graduate hours in the field you'll be teaching in.
As for the certification requirement, I don't believe you were given correct information. Teaching certificates in TX are issued by a state agency called SBEC and are geared towards primary/middle/secondary teaching environments.
Dr. Matloff and I exchanged a number of e-mails a year ago discussing, among other things, the paradox of unemployed software developers who choose to wait years to be rehired (an event whose probability drops as time goes by) while teaching positions in the field of progamming contiune to multiply, unfilled. It was my opinion, and he was in agreement, that there is a tremendous opportunity to teach others programming skills at levels of pay that meet or exceed current IT levels.
What better way for an older, seasoned programmer to contribute to the world of IT than to teach others from his/her pool of knowledge? Sure, teaching isn't for everyone, and there are always though who will hang on to their experience like some favorite talisman, convinced that letting it go will be their professional death.
I strongly believe the IT industry does discriminate with regards to age, and that the industry will continue to be come more commoditized to the point where software developers will simply be workers on an assembly line, putting together products not intended to withstand the test of time, but intended rather to turn a fast buck. In this scenario, there simply will be no room for older, more experienced programmers.
At any rate, there are community and tech colleges across the US who are looking for experienced IT types to pass on the mantle. I've taken this route now that I've been "aged" out of the market, and haven't looked back.
this is a very nice operating environment for our porpoises
Our porpoises seem to like the Mac OSX Aqua UI...go figure.
Wow, lots of people took the bait on this one.
Can anyone say "troll"?
Null, can you say "constitutional right"?
I don't remember "DVD" showing up anywhere in the document, but maybe I'm mistaken.
Along the lines of Goodkind, George RR Martin's "Songs of Fire and Ice" series is a fun fantasy read. Probably a ripoff of Goodkind (fair play and all that), but both series are engaging in a sappy way.
I have no problem with metered bandwidth. But if you do meter my bandwidth, let me do what I damn well want to do with my metered bandwidth.
I find it simply amazing that the Comcast disallows any type of server on their system, yet turn their head when it comes to P2P clients (I guess by calling it a "client" you're really not running a "server"). I am forced to operate under the radar so I can run a mailserver that gets maybe 10 e-mails a day, and a text-only webserver that gets a handful of hits when the sun is up, yet my next-door neighbor can run Kazaa all day long (presumably because it's a "form of entertainment" rather than something truly useful).
Personally, I think the employers with whom you have a non-compete agreement should be the ones paying you unemployment benefits.
Companies in TX do pay for your unemployment benefits. I urge anybody who finds themselves laid off in Texas to file for unemployment, whether or not you need it. Your former employer's unemployment tax rate is based in part on unemployment claims received the prior year. Extended benefits result in chargebacks to the employer in the form of increased unemployment taxes for the following year.
Make those tax dollars work for you, and stop giving your former employers a free ride by refusing to file for unemployment.
Make sure you visit this site before ever laying down in that chair. A recent study (Feb. 2003, on the site) indicates between 10 and 20% of refractive surgery patients have complications, a number that is far above what the LASIK industry is touting as its failure rate.
Of particular interest are the stories concerning doctors who have overridden software safeguards and have continued the procedure, resulting in broken blades in the eyes and some other not-so-pleasant outcomes. Not strictly in the "bugs killling people" dept., but it does make you think whether you trust your eyes to a software developer.