I for one love it when someone types whole paragraphs about the desire to avoid keystrokes. Every language has it's irritating quirks, none of which do I care enough to write about.
This labelling (501 or !501) is pointless and arbitrary. I'm a self-employed developer with four children. Some days I work until 11p or even as late as 1a. Some days I quit at 2p and take in a child's soccer game. This isn't a label as much as a choice every day. Both choices come at a cost. Big deal. All choices come at a cost. If I choose family over work, in all likelihood the perception of my dedication will suffer. Contrapositively, if I choose work over family, my relationships will need repair. The labels are meaningless, and perpetually choosing one side is simple indicative of a life out-of-balance. This is all just a side-effect of scarcity of time, and the labelling sounds like an attempt on both sides to justify choices. Ultimately, if I want to be done working at 5:01p (or any other time), then I am, and I take responsibility for those choices and the potential damage to my career. If I want to work until midnight, then I do, and I take responsibility for that choice and the potential damage to my relationships or the hinderance of my pursuit of other goals. Call it whatever you like. Why do we need a manifesto to categorize daily personal choices?
I don't have a degree at all, but I have been programming since the age of 9, completely self-taught. At first I found it difficult to find employment, but with enough work experience, degree or lack thereof no longer even comes up. The degree is a huge boon to getting your foot in whatever door you're looking at, but once in, suddenly becomes more or less irrelevant. However, this being said, I'm 37 and have been programming for what feels like forever, so my market entrance in the 90s may not parallel someone today. It may be more or less difficult; I have no idea.
I'm sure I'm not the target audience, but I'm surprised that in this day and age there isn't always a shared resource lying around (a linode, a slice, an ec2 instance). Or just allow ssh between developers with accounts limited to git access. The dropbox part seems unnecessary.
While as a programmer I understand that perhaps this load time could be improved, and maybe splash screens are a lazy solution, but I wonder if it warrants this level of anger. Even assuming a generous 5 minute load time on photoshop (I don't know as I don't use it, but I doubt it's that much), and that you reload twice a day (once at the beginning of the day and maybe once after lunch), and you use it every weekday of the year, that's still less than 0.5% of your year.
I'm not saying losing 43 hours of your life per year is insignificant, but a proportional response seems appropriate. You in all likelihood spend more time waiting at red lights.
I agree that the so-called "news" is entertainment, but being completely uninformed about current events will make you non-discerning in addition to more productive. Perhaps it would be better to consume better information as opposed to less information.
... and convincing my wife that I'll able to fly once I step off the cliff.
I was fortunate enough that my wife (although highly skeptical) was trusting enough to go along. Sometimes you just have to make the leap. Wish I had earlier, instead of listening to my fears and the fears of those around me.
I find it amusing that he starts off with a rant about long resumes. Then half of what follows goes on to talk about all the extensive information you have to communicate on your CV just to get an interview.
I severely disagree with the attitude conveyed. People would do well to remember that a work arrangement is mutually beneficial, always. You take a job because it is in your interest to do so. You are offered a job because it is in their interest to do so. No one employs someone while taking a loss on them, yet companies treat interviewees as if they would be lucky to land such a wonderful job.
If this attitude came out in my interview, I'd immediately walk out. If you're treating me in this way before I even work for you, odds are it's not ever going to get better, only worse.
In so much of this discussion, people seem to get distracted arguing whether pirating media is morally reprehensible or not. This is irrelevant to whether SOPA is a good solution to the alleged problem. I perceive two separate debates: whether piracy is a "problem" and whether SOPA solves that "problem."
SOPA is simply an industry of middlemen asking a heavier hand to come down and reinforce a business model the market has allowed to decline. Whether that is because customers demand better options and are not being satisfied or not is largely immaterial. The so-called act of piracy is already illegal, and what is being asked for is not legal recourse for this (that already exists) but a course of action immune from repudiation and challenge. It is a unilateral action without oversight or representation, and for this reason it is contrary to the foundation of the Constitution. Typically, the more egregious offenses carry the stiffest penalties, but all allow for some sort of defense and reasonable trial. If society has deemed that this is a more serious offense than previously evaluated, legislation increasing the penalty can be enacted, but legislation removing one's ability to defend oneself prior to punishment being enacted is unthinkable.
Private entities are being legislatively appointed to enforce public law, and this is unacceptable. It is a conflict of interest, as the public has no means to remove from "office" those serving the public in this manner. In all other aspects of public law, one has a vote somewhere in the chain to reconcile abuse of power. We can not vote on a private company whose enforcement of the law becomes corrupt, save economically, and economically our vote is severely disadvantaged.
