The big mistake was not taking that time to keep current with tech and letting his skills deteriorate. I can't think of a place where you couldn't sit and look at the environment and see where things could be improved, but this guy just basically coasted those years. He automated hos own job.. ok.. how about helping automate someone else's also? Use this as a jumping point into toolchain automation or architecture positions.

I recall back in 1988, I was working for the US Census Bureau doing something they called a "Pre-Census Survey". They had maps with all their blocks configured. These were compiled from a large number of sources. City maps, State Dept of Highway maps, Planning maps, etc, etc. Was about 85% accurate. I was in rural WV and some of the things they listed as roads had not been roads for 100 years. Other areas were where the Dept of Highways had originally planned to re-route roads to, but never actually did it. We spent a lot of time correcting that.

A couple years later, I am in Colorado at CU working with GPS and GIS data. I recalled that the Census Bureau had done a lot of mapping and maybe it was online. And.. yes. It was. Has been online now for over 20 years.

https://www.census.gov/geo/map...

That is, as near as I can determine it's free as I just downloaded my county map with no issues. Pulling it apart, I see the edge info as well as the .shp shapefile.

This usually is the starting point for mapping efforts in the US as near as I can tell. Start with the TIGER data, then add or correct as needed.

You're on the right track:

https://voicebot.ai/2017/07/14...

In the 1st quarter of 2016, Amazon Alexa was the *only* home assisted speaker. The only other major voice controls were siri, google now, and cortana. They all got their start on phones. Of course, if you are the only player in a field, you can expect a highly inflated market share. But, being 25% of the market of 4 competitors is kinda about where you should be sitting.

It would be stupid to think you can get 50+% in a competitive field.

(Apple does one thing well.. they aim for a point where they are profitable on any product if it have a 10% market share. If they have sales above that, it is just extra profit.)

That is right on the approach to Denver International...

Think prior use applies there..

One of the more interesting accidents was back in the 1980's. Seems that a rocket family was designed to use pressurized gas to help keep the rocket frame rigid. That way, they could use less metal in the framework of the vehicle. Well, on the launch pad, after the vehicle was fueled, a technician working on the rocket bent over to pick something up. The screwdriver in his back pocket penetrated the skin of the vehicle and started letting the gas out. No way to stop the gas from leaking and eventually, the entire structure gave in and the vehicle was completely destroyed when it vented its fuel and the fuel caught fire.

They would cheerfully have axed the Shuttle also...

The tipping point was the fall of the USSR. The aerospace industry had crashed in the US and Russia. The US had a reasonably chance of recovery, but Russia was clearly having issues retaining its aerospace industry.

The ISS was funded in very large part in an effort by the US to try to keep Russians from being hired by Pakistan, Iraq, Iraq, North Korea, Libya, etc, etc. It was to keep the Russian space program scientists employed in Russia so they did not start building ICBM's for the highest bidder.

The danger is not one ignorant neckbeard with a gun..

it is one informed neckbeard with a gun,

No.. the greatest trick will be convincing people that Microsoft doesn't exist..

Out of curiosity, how do you account for the fact that women historically had a much higher interest in programming than now?

http://www.npr.org/sections/mo...

That graph would indicate cultural changes, not anything inherent in women.

In fact, women were the majority of programmers during the ENIAC years..

Even more to the point..

Broadcast TV is just now competitive in terms of amount of content being available OTA. Back in the 70's, we had access to only 3 channels (1 for each network) and no DVR capability where I grew up. So, when cable came along, it has several orders of magnitude more content available. Throw in a VCR on top of that and OTA made little sense. It was not competitive.

Now.. since OTA has gone digital, they have introduced digital subcarrier channels. Where analog could only have 1 channel, it is not uncommon for there to be 4-5 channels available on the same frequency.

Use Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu for the premium content, then use OTA for the dozens of channels. (I now live in northern Colorado and I have 56 channels available OTA. I am located in a fairly rural area).

I have rarely met an engineer who has put in those hours who has "gotten ahead". In most small businesses, IT is a dead-end and there is rarely any sort of management track for an engineer. You're putting in those hours to just tread water. And, start-ups are a lottery and most people barely break even. Developers are in the same boat as most of IT in that regard also. And, in large enterprise, very few businesses have any sort of advancement that means much. You stay an engineer or become a manager - and established businesses tend to favor business or marketing in terms of management advancement.

He's identifying a small subset of survivor bias. For every name he mentioned, there are tens of thousands who got nothing for their time.

That is kinda the entire point of claiming to be part of Anonymous.. it is for the people who don't understand it. It is PR for the ones who need 30 second sound bites. While you are laughing, the idea is being set that there is a group and this is the sort of thing that can discredit people who later try to release real stuff.

Shoot, I went through the same thing 25 years ago with the definition of "hacker"... "Hackers broke in and did X" "No! Those are crackers. Hackers are good." Guess which made it into the public consciousness?

Go ahead and laugh, but what do you think will happen if the people releasing the next Snowden level stuff does so under the same byline as the people who released "NASA found aliens"?

Anyone can claim to be part of it and then push any lie they want and the blame will fall on that group..

Seems to me that Uber is pushing for automated cars to avoid having to pay drivers. That leaves the backend maint and infrastructure people and those are not gig based.

An additional note: Anyone following the Prenda Law Saga knows very good and well that Alsup will not hesitate one second to refer criminal cases to the US attorney's office as well as any other ever remotely possible law enforcement group that might be possibly involved.