CyberFonic

It can be done. I have done it twice.

My bachelors is in electrical engineering. I got into a part-time masters course in computer engineering. Due to work pressures and travel I dropped out. Years later with several years of diverse work experience, I got into a PhD software engineering program, successfully completed that and graduated. Both experiences at two of Australia's top universities.

I believe that my key to success was writing strong proposals in both cases and handling the interviews well. And in both cases I got adjunct teaching work as well.

In your case you appear to have a strong portfolio of work and teaching experience to support any proposal you may present. Good Luck.

Fantastic advice. Great explanation.

I have seen the situation you describe many times in the past, the bit about being expected to be a code monkey, not the COVID19 caused challenges.

In many reasonable sized projects, there are several tiers. Domain experts provide the requirements and high level design. Technical architects design the overall architecture, then the team leaders and the programmers who actually produce the code. It is actually unproductive for programmers attempt to dictate the architecture.

I have seen projects collapse into chaos because everybody was an expert at architecture and nobody truly cared about the domain. You really need to have solid structure to successfully complete large projects. It doesn't mean you can't make suggestions. But the decisions lie with those who are responsible for them. If they make the wrong call it is on them not you.

I sense that you are unhappy with your circumstances. Can you rise to the level of team leader or higher based on your experience? If not, then might be a good time to be a valuable contributor at the level you have been hired.

May I assume that you read https://lkml.org/ ? If you research the contributors, then you will be able to identify where they work and thus identify any possible job openings.

Google's Fuschia project might also be of interest.

In general, kernel level programming requires years of experience. Most of the work entails device drivers and sub-systems, e.g. filesystems, networking -- all of which rely on knowing standards and their implementations.

Being located in SE Asia, I would think that equipment manufacturers could be interested in your skills in writing device drivers for their products. Another area might be embedded systems, which in addition to Linux might use one of the BSD variants.

In order to be effective at the low-levels, you need a good grasp of CPU architectures and their many idiosyncrasies. In addition to x86-64, ARM and RISC-V knowledge should be very applicable.

AFAIK there is NO C++ in the Linux kernel. It's all C code.

5G is about faster connectivity not cheaper. Wireless mobile broadband requires massive capital outlays, so it is unlikely that prices will be coming down anytime soon. The carrier's only concern is ROI. Contrary to what their marketing spiels may claim.

LoRaWAN technology, if meshed, can cover a wide area, but it is relatively slow. There has been some chatter about carriers including that standard with their existing towers for IoT applications. Even if that comes about it will probably be years away and be priced to be profitable not cheap.

If you are upset after 24 hours, then there is an obvious clash with your values. In which case it might be best to stop dealing with both companies and the respective recruiters. Unethical behaviour tends to be recurring. There is no way of knowing that you won't be subjected to other under-handed acts.

Perhaps there will be those who think you are over-reacting. But that is a very personal matter. Some people might not be bothered by such behaviour and even relish the occasional skirmish. Others prefer to focus on their work and results. There is no single "correct" approach. Only the approach that doesn't clash with your moral and ethical standards.

What I don't understand about Bill Gates is why is he prioritising African Health Systems over his own home country's? He made his billions from corporate America and the rest of the Western World and yet he doesn't feel the imperative to pay forward to the very society that gave him so much.

This has nothing to do with with politics. It is a basic moral engagement with his own society. Of course, he can still support Africa all he wishes. But first help get your own backyard sorted.

OpenBSD

It isn't easy to get a security clearance and when you get one it becomes very lucrative and rather easy to lose if you are careless enough to divulge what you shouldn't. So don't expect any answers.

The original intent of patents was to provide the inventor a window of opportunity to profit from their invention. Unfortunately corporations are gaming the system and have weaponized patents. The basic problem is that whilst you can get a patent granted for tens of thousands, large corporations wilfully infringe upon patents because it costs millions to defend them and the typical inventor does not have the resources to defend.

As with most things the IP laws have resulted in perverse incentives benefitting those who can afford to spend the shareholders' money in their quest to protect their monopolies. The little guy gets screwed, yet again.

It is hard to do. You can explain that what should have taken x hours, took x+y hours because of his many changes. You cannot work for such low-income. So your new rate is what is reasonable in light of the past experiences with him. If he doesn't agree then so be it. You do not need an unreasonable client who won't pay a fair price.

To make a profit in any business, you need to charge a fair price. That is, deliver good work and know the value of what you provide. Subsidising other people's businesses is not healthy.

The media is big business and for that reason every avenue tends to follow the preferences of the financiers. You might want to research the principles of "critical thinking", once you have some skills with that you can take news from both the left and right and make up your own mind.

In general, bad news sells, so there tends to be a lot of fear mongering. You could decide on what aspects of life, society and your community are relevant to you and filter out all the non-relevant news.

The "gurus" you speak of are attention seekers. For them bleating on about some aspect of COVID-19 is just part of their PR playbook. Knowledgeable scientists are the first to admit that the situation is novel and that they are too busy saving lives to undertake statistical analyses of incomplete, inconsistent data sets. It is amazing just how fast information is being shared with the internet and those who have the requisite understanding are striving to come to speed on what works and what doesn't. We will only truly understand COVID-19 a couple of years down the track when the epidemic has been halted and there had been time to collate, clean and then analyse the data.

Elon Musk did a similar stunt with his "submarine" to rescue the trapped children in Thailand. It never got used so we'll never know whether it was even capable of working as claimed.

I presume that you mean "medical" doctor. I also presume that this is a hypothetical statement. You have not completed your medical training.

Would be very interesting to read about your experiences once you have become a doctor and then putting the two professional experiences into relative context.

Ditto for some programmers who exhibit mind-boggling levels of Dunning-Kruger Syndrome.

Probably much the same. Perhaps with so many startups it will be harder to build a team of superlatively talented engineers. However, very few products since then have had the same level of ground-breaking vision. Maybe there are very few Steve Jobs-like people out there.

By witholding the supply of valves the management of are conspiring to murder. Issue arrest warrants for the entire management. When lives are at stake, playing hardball with insatiable capitalists might do the trick.

Learn to touch type. Don't look at the keyboard, just read what you are typing. Some touch typing tutors are good for the exercises. Just like learning the scales on a piano.

I do a lot of sysadmin work so I stick with QWERTY layout because it is everywhere. I did try Dvorak and split keyboards, didn't find any speed gain. Probably due to the fact that I learnt to touch type QWERTY on typewriters without white-out.

I have been experimenting with ES6 and Chrome Browser. Having DevTools Console open and directly manipulating the environment entirely through the console. It works. What it lacks is the nice tooling of Smalltalk, but that could be implemented through a series of bootstrapping steps.

I have also played with Amber and SqueakJS. Interesting possibilities.

Stronger alcohol than hand sanitiser - and tastes better ... only just.

In my experience, a decades ago, many sys admins never wrote programs, not even scripts to automate their work. This was more the case with IBM and similar mainframes and minis. In those environments the networking and various subsystems were complicated enough to require a team just to make sure things worked well. Many enterprise Windows deployments were also like that.

As programmers were increasingly required to administer the machines and networks they worked with, they also started automating their work a lot more than was possible with the rigid enterprise systems. Hence the emergence of the fusion of development and operations in certain cases. I think that the term "devops" can mean different things depending upon the technologies being used at a given site.

I too find it hard to talk to strangers. What works for me is to encourage people to talk more about themselves and by remembering details use that in future conversations with others.

If you are a native to the town, then surely you know other people and have some "history". If not, then you can ask about things that you notice and share contrasts with where you originally came from.

When I go shopping, I talk with other shoppers. Chat with the shopkeeper. When taking a walk, I say hello to others. Comment on their dog if they are walking with one.

Yes, it does take effort, especially when you are introverted. But each little success provides incentive to try again. It is rather like debugging a program in a language you are learning. You try this, then that. Observing and understanding as you go.

Think of other people as microservices with undocumented API. You start with doing what has worked in the past and then experiment with new approaches.

I think that the costs of liquidating and reforming would cost far more than $4500. A 1.5% stake can be easily diluted in value by issuing more stock.

Assuming that you are on friendly or at least cordial terms with the owner, then why don't you actually have a chat with him. What has changed? How many other stock holders are there? Is he planning a big change in structure, investors? Is your stock holding simply a book keeping inconvenience?

In any negotiations, you first need to gather your facts. Once you have the facts, you might be in a position to ask for more, etc.

BTW if by your calculations it has taken 5 years for your stake to grow in value to $3200, then perhaps you could counter with a sell bid of $9500?

I'm surprised that your manager hasn't assigned specific tasks to do.

If I were in your position, I'd take some holidays. That would be the best way to recharge.

If you still have to go to work, then brushing up on some skill in an area that will help you be more productive in the next project is probably a good idea. That could be increasing your proficiency in a language, framework, libraries. A small side-project to automate some rote task could also be very beneficial.

Many areas are replete with ideas, the worlds of art, music, fiction. Many fantastical ideas first revealed in science fiction works have been brought to fruition decades later.

So if you enjoy coming up with ideas, then by all means go for it!

As with beauty being in the eyes of the beholder, so too with ideas when revealed to techies. In some circles being able to implement is a common criteria, as is the predicted financial success. But you can choose to cultivate other groups that are appreciative of your ideas.

Whenever I'm stuck on a problem and need a breather.

Perhaps you could provide some more details? Most critically which market are you looking at addressing? The legislation and practices vary greatly around the world and even within many countries.

I have a PhD in SE and it didn't help me financially. But it was an awesome experience in research, learning and personal development. My take is that there's far more to life than chasing after money. Living within your means is an easier path to happiness.

To answer your question: If you can potentially land a job at a FAANG or Microsoft Research or in SV or NY, then it probably will pay-off in the long run. Academic research jobs are very hard to get. By the time you graduate with a PhD, ML might no longer be the trendy field. AI has been on and off trend for over 50 years.

In summary, whilst there is a chance of eventual financial advantage, the real value of a PhD is in being paid to pursue an interest that you are passionate about.