majc2

As an aside, if this is of interest you might be interested in the third run of the GPGPU course by coursera/University of Illinois starts in January. See: https://www.coursera.org/course/hetero

Well thats not what they linked to though is it.

Suggesting I'm in denial mode is unhelpful - as I've already said there is a good conversation about age to be had.

I went back and looked and you're right, that paraphrasing doesn't appear in the NY times article that they're using as a source.

Also, the gawker article used as the source for the Buzz feed comments doesn't read as being about age at all.

Given the two strikes at the first two things I've looked at it just calls into credibility the whole article - which is a shame, as there probably a good conversation about age to be had.

If you want to scare them talk about it being a technical credit card - pay that debt back regularly and try and clear it as quickly as you can.

Side note: I love the analogy of a credit card to describe technical debt and its one I've used with clients before and they really respond to it.

People (in the UK at least), understand that the interest on a credit card can kill you, while a regular loan assumes that you're paying off the principal month to month. Posing the question, are you paying off that technical debt month to month or is it just sitting there really gets people thinking.

Co-working space and home.

John Pilger's "Stealing a Nation" documentary goes into the Chagos Islands in quite a lot of detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zhGvId4fcc

This might be in jest, but I've seen something close to this. I do a lot of work in C# and a number of years ago I had two different roles approach me to work in VB.NET and it was > 10% premium over the C# equivalent market rate - the megacorps struggled to get people to switch so threw money at anyone with a whiff of interest and talent.

(I said no in-case your wondering).

> A 56 year old man with a family is going to struggle to just up and leave Spain and move to London though, isn't he?

No more than a 30 year-old or 26 year-old with a family. It might even be the case that he's in a better position becasue his kids are grown up now. We don't know - so we should take the OP at their word that they're willing to move.

The contractor is not really being charged 25%. Sure the agency, might end up with 25% (but I suspect its less).

The recruitment agency gets money, because they've taken the time to build a relationship/do sales stuff/navigate a procurement department/convincing someone they can solve the clients problem (I need more resource!).

I don't think your hypothesis is correct. There are sites out there that already aggregate the permanent and contract markets. (i.e. itjobswatch.co.uk) - I'm sure others exist for other territories.

I know its fashionable to bash recruiters - and man do a bunch of them deserve it. But for contractors/freelancers - if you don't like selling then service companies/recruiters are your friend. Quit thinking of them as useless and start thinking about them as a sales channel who do something for you that you don't like. The key is to find the smart operators - who want to build a long term relationship (want to meet face to face etc etc) and don't talk crap. But thats about you taking the time to vet. Although I seldom need to employ because I'm doing a lot of my own sales, its a good backup and this works well in my market place (and I know of others in other markets who follow similar strategies), your mileage may vary.

It's not entirely clear if you want a regular job or to freelance/consult. Lots of good advice on here re: freelance. If you want a salaried job checkout weworkremotely.com for finding 'western' priced remote working jobs.

You're in quite an enviable position - your in a location where your cost of living is relatively quite cheap to the west, but the potential to earn western type wages - enjoy :)

Unfortunately it'd break too much legacy stuff.

Surely the bigger news is that it appears to be the same OS on all MS devices?

It should also be pointed out that its not entirely a one way street - for example England has the excellent Cancer Drug Fund, which Scotland doesn't.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/health/scottish-cancer-patients...

I guess it depends on your definition of socialist. It's the common term thats used here - the Labour party which until recently was the dominant force in Scottish politics is a member of the Party of European Socilaists. (source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8011001.stm#socialis...)

I'd argue that the vast majority of Scots would be in favour of re-nationalising both the railways and royal mail. In the case of the railways, I think there is fairly broad support across the UK for that too.

Scotland's parliament does have tax varying powers but has never used them . So, it takes the block grant from the Westminster parliament and decides how to spend it through something called the Barnett formula.

Scotland is essentially a socialist country (and socialist isn't a dirty word here). There is a sense of fair play and looking after the poorest in society - a party that would propose a tax cut for a smaller gov. wouldn't do well in the popular vote in Scotland.

Does that help?

Damn right! They have a right to be picky if they're charging too :)

...we will know if they know the material or not?

I don't think cheating on exams is that widespread, what are others experiences?

London has 5 airports; there is also the Eurostar. If people really want to go, I'm sure they can find a way. Surely if thats too high a barrier it says something about how serious they are about founding a startup?

Anyway, anyone going down this line really needs to speak to an accountant, yada yada yada.

For consultants/freelancers/contractors - dividends can be fine, if you can mitigate your exposure to IR35 (typically a bigger issue for contractors). Groups such as the PCG can really help here, but really the key thing is ensuring that any contract can't be thought of as disguised employment (control, substitutability and mutuality of obligation being the keywords) - speak to a Lawyer or a specialist accountant for advice or other clued up contractors for advice.

The tax position on dividends is also a bit more subtle than above; if your total personal income is less than the £32k (minus allowances), then you're going to get the dividend tax credit back so the div is tax free. Granted the company is paying corp tax at 20% on all profits; but also it gives you options to defer company income becoming personal income, building up the company's reserves. As I understand it, you can wind up the company and get entrepreneurs relief which is also a worthwhile target for consultancies.

Yeah definitely, Edinburgh has acquired a few extra rail bridges! IIRC the network rail movement feed tells you when a train has reaching specific passing points, so there is a very granular level of data available if you want to show movements on the track.

TrainTimes already has a map (http://traintimes.org.uk/map/#bhm) although I'm not sure of their data source.

I've looked at this before and it's already doable through the network rail api (https://datafeeds.networkrail.co.uk/), which differs from the national rail enquiries api and as far as I can remember (and can see) is free.

I first heard this in "The secrets of consulting" by Gerald Weinberg. The fuller version is that the manger is only allowed to say 'yes' if they tell you there is a cost associated with it (i.e. it isn't free).

Well you see the internet is a series of tubes...

In all seriousness though, in the UK credit record agencies can only keep 6 years of financial information - a search engine is not subject to any regulation around this and could for example return an insolvency event from 16 years ago.

Reding is saying this is a double standard and infringes on an EU citizens rights and that they'd like to regulate this.

I've had the early access version; the stuff on Heroku is at the tail end of the book and is a matter of c. 10 pages or so. So, don't let that put you off.

Technical debt isn't drastic enough to get people's attention - in particular management. I prefer to talk about the technical credit card - I find that it gets across the point that the debt needs to be addressed.

Apparently not. This article (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/pharmaceutic...) suggests its a case of economics. That is new antibiotics would be kept back as a last line of defence only; therefore not as profitable.

No, just widely speculated.

This is interesting - Xbox one is their most interesting platform right now.