th0waway

This is where I take the time to explain to everyone that "Yeah, while it may save you time to do it manually, if you do it THIS way instead, you never have to write it from scratch again, and your output goes waaay up".

Every job I've ever had, I always look at how my predecessors do the job, then automate the crap that I don't want to deal with. :/

Ahh, the fallacy of not learning from history - as soon as a populace is disarmed they are helpless before their lord and master... I mean government.

The battle for freedom began in Lexington and Concord when a group of British soldiers attempted to disarm a group of Colonists.

You (and many people) are under the bad assumption that as we learn more our basic human nature changes, but it does not.

The Ten Amendments are not there to give power to the people, there are there to emphasize powers that the government DOES NOT HAVE. The thought was (and a very good one), that if something was not explicitly forbidden the government would find a way to wrangle definitions so it was included (ACA as a 'tax', anyone?).

ANY powers not mentioned explicitly in the Constitution are supposed to be reserved for the people.

Yes. As a married, white, heterosexual male, being seen having a dinner alone with a single female (or even lunch) would be enough to cause questions from friends. So it's not worth it.

And I'm no one, with no fame or high position.

they have to do something to make up for all the extra effort used in turning the results over to the government...

ahhh, but put a little effort into building the cigarette boat and the response envelope is drastically small, small enough that a swarm of cheap boats could gut a battleship.

and a lot of that is by design, which is sad, and also is why I am buying older cars.

wow - really? Negative points for pointing out that the government has no financial incentive to root out fraud? Must be government shills.

I would expect it to be the reverse: there is no incentive for government programs to root out fraud, if they fall short, they just raise taxes. For private companies - if they are being defrauded, it directly affects their bottom line, and the bottom line of their executives (who would be VERY interested to make sure bonuses increase).

If we are talking about fraud within the company/government, I would expect the same - less in the company than in the government. Not zero, but less overall.

And THAT is the other thing. bash 7 years ago is the same as bash today, no changes based on some corporate overlords marketing idea of the month. Powershell is still in flux, and with MS as the owner, when will it ever be stable?

my parents lived off of grits (we're from the South) for three weeks when they were first married. They made it, with no help from the government - and my Dad never finished school, and could barely read. A lot of people have expectations of success without work.

couple that with reform in health-care billing and practice of medicine and I think we would have had a winner.

a bill that couldn't be read before it was passed... yeah, stellar work there

more like "obey or die"

right - nobody could EVER build a civilization using English...

Transparency for thee but not for me...

I don't remember ever hitting 0.

As a kid I had a hard time getting to sleep (small home, could hear everything). I eventually learned to block everything out and sleep using the following routine: 1. Start breathing as slow as possible. 2. Count breathes, starting at 100 and working back. That usually did the trick.

You're overthinking the problem. The best thing to do is to go out there and get a job, any job, even a minimum-wage manual labor job. Work your ass off, be the Employee of the Month. Keep your eyes open while you work, there are opportunities for improvement everywhere. Find them, and figure out how to fix them.

downvoted for telling the truth? HN, becoming Reddit one new user at a time

congratulations on a life well lived. :)

48, and can confirm what you are saying - learning new names is tough. Things that I could once learn through osmosis require much repetition to retain.

I've started coming to the conclusion that as you stuff more stuff into your brain, the longer it takes to get to any bit of information that isn't in continual use. Larger index, non-linear search time.

12 years older than you, and can confirm all the things you said in your post above.

I am worried about age discrimination, so I am planning my exit from IT.

But it uses loads and loads of parenthesis, so no one will ever use it...

I'm interested in the trade-offs in growing up bilingual - what, if anything is being depressed to make up for the resources devoted to being bi-lingual?

same here - it's been tough breaking the 'buy a new book' habit. If there's something I find that I want to save, I will either save the complete page, or just copy/paste the relevant text.

http://www.mendosa.com/stefansson1.htm - which is quoted in the Wiki. All lean meat leads to 'Rabbit starvation', you need some fatty meats to supply necessary vitamins and minerals.

Here's the article I was thinking about:

http://www.mendosa.com/stefansson1.htm

ugh, would much rather work on an older car - more space, less electronics