foresterh

Rhapsody. No ads, access to tons of stuff, on demand. You have the choice of picking and choosing songs, or just playing on a radio (Pandora style). And I think it's the same price as Pandora's ad-free service (which makes me wonder why people pay for Pandora?)

I would be inclined to think there's less risk of the team leaving than of individual contractors leaving. They've found a gig, are working with their friends (or at least people they've chosen to work with) and are committed to each other as well as the project to stay on.

You can add Hacker News to the list of (welcome) distractions...

"It's amazing in a time when so much information is so readily available to so many people, false information is so readily accepted."

-Foresterh

If ever there was a justification for HTML5, this is it..

It may make nuclear look better comparably, but it will make all of these (oil, coal, nuclear) look worse.

When all you factor into the cost is human life and money, you miss the bigger picture of how we're affecting what doesn't have a voice.

What about all of the plants and animals killed from the various resources? Or the land and water that can no longer sustain life because of one disaster or another...

So where do I buy this? Pretty great idea...

And learning from what you're copy and pasting.

If you found it underwhelming, you're probably a pretty good programmer, knowledgable about best practices.

This is more for people who aren't (yet).

The summarized points are good, but the article is great. I might read those points and think "hmm... not too bad", but read the article and think "hmm.. wtf!"

How was it better than Rhapsody? That's only $10/month, and you can, as far as I know, download whatever you want to listen to offline (though I may be wrong... I listen to most stuff online)

It looked like he went to the 4th row to find the daily double, then just went through all the cheapest questions, as he was most likely to answer those. He finished all of the $200s, then went to the $400s, etc. I don't think it was to trip up his opponents, I think it was to have a better chance at answering.

I'm pretty sure his voice is just a tribute to HAL. I like it.

On Amazon, the headphones are closer in price... $85 for the HD555 and $150 for the HD595. Still paying $65 for one less piece of foam.

No C#?

There's also MonoDroid, currently in Beta, and will cost money. But it lets you program for the Android in VS2010.

Trash like, they could recite some programming knowledge from books/classes, but once you asked them to start thinking on their own, they fell apart. For example, asking them to model a simple, scenario, such as orders, line items, customers, etc.... (but one in the domain I was hiring for). They had no clue how model it in a way that would work. Or, asking them to work through a problem, logically trying to solve something, or going through the steps they would use to solve a problem.

Sometimes if they made it far enough, I'd sit with them at a computer and ask them to do something fairly simple, but something they most likely hadn't done before, so they need to figure out how to... then watch how the interact with the IDE, how they figure out how to do something (they can use the internet, any tools, ask me, etc). And most of the time, they just fall flat on their face.

I'm quite surprised by this. I live in the Seattle area, and there are more dev jobs than developers... everyone company/team I know that looks for a developer has a problem doing so... positions sit unfilled for months.

I should emphasize, there are definitely a lot of developers here, but the amount of _good_ developers is less than the amount of jobs looking for them. I have three times in the past two years been the primary resource (interviewer/researcher) for finding new developers, and each time I find 90-100% of the devs I interviewed were just trash. I lucked out one of those three times and found an outstanding one, but the other two times I had to settle on a less than ideal one.

I'd also say that networking plays a huge part... join groups with similar programming interests (such as .Net user group or Alt.Net), post on Facebook that you're seeking a gig, etc... that will you help you get through the pile of devs that are simply developing for the money, not for the love of development.

One reason I always say "16 ounce" or "12 ounce". I have no idea if they speak Starbuckian or any other coffeeshop lingo, but 16 ounces is always 16 ounces.

Same here... I think a lot of the ugly ones are great, and the great ones are ugly.

I find the single biggest problem with managers is #9 - "Do you have enough distraction for programmers". Time and again, management, or whomever can offer distractions, don't see the importance of it.

You give a team a pool table, game console, or some other form of "getting away" from the work, and you'll get back tenfold in terms of work done from them.

The second biggest offense seems to be working hours... too many managers think that programmers should be working the same as everyone else - 9-5, onsite 5 days a week, etc... we just aren't wired that way... when I can put in a few hours at midnight, I'm much more productive for my boss...

I would start here: http://www.opinionatedgeek.com/dotnet/tools/base64decode/

The blanking words out feature is going to make photoshopping fake products much easier...

Not to sound harsh, but I don't think the blind would find a lot of use for this app...

Even though I have no use for it, I bought the English to Spanish to try it out. I'm blown away and these guys deserve to take away Facebook guy's man of the year award... amazing...

And then goes down....

An update to say there's no update?

True, I've only been doing contract for 2 years, and it's only been hourly. Nobody's been late on the first (or any) monthly payment, so I've never had to worry about it. I'm assuming the problem is more with project-based pay? Which I'm afraid to take on (for these very reasons...)

Am I a rare contractor because I haven't had problems with people paying up? Is that common in the software contracting world? Or is it the case (as it is with most things in this world) that the people with problems also have the loudest voice, or tend to make the most noise, so it seems to be an issue more than it is?