Last month, I turned 55. I am still working as a software developer. Granted, I was a bit later to the game than the typical college graduate. I spent my late teens and early 20s traveling instead of going straight to college. I did eventually get an undergraduate degree in Computer Science and went on to graduate school in the same field when I was 29. I made the choice early on to work as an independent contractor and not take an employee position in a corporation. I have worked in a variety of different domains. Some of my contracts have been long 4+ years. Some have been very short. The constant interviewing with clients and moving from one project to another has kept me on my toes. I am generally able to keep my skill set up to the latest, emerging technologies.

Perhaps, this is off topic. For that, I apologize. I see no reason that long term, multi-year contracts should not be normal. I am an independent software development contractor and have been for many years. I prefer to work for myself. I also prefer long-term contracts. I have had several. One lasted for 4.5 years. I was there longer than some of their employees.

I guess we will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that English is not even your second language.

Deregulation is the war cry of the conservative corporatist -- not the liberals. Of course, the terms conservative and liberal are used in such general ways as to be mostly useless. Someone who is in favor of more EPA regulation can rightly be considered to be an environmental conservative (as in conservation). It is quite possible for someone to be fiscally conservative and socially liberal at the same time -- those are not mutually exclusive concepts or stances.

Just so that there is no confusion..., Google does support Java in a big way. Java is the development language for Android. They also provide Google Web Toolkit, which allows one to write browser side code in Java which then gets translated into HTML and Javascript. There are Eclipse plug-ins for both Android and GWT SDKs. I use them daily and I am very pleased with Googles support of Java and these software development kits.

I have to say, I am very pleased with my Galaxy Tab 10.1 for much the same reason you are happy with your iPad.

Google provides a test page where you can enter a URL and it will process the page and report on expected improvements. The test takes awhile -- depending on the queue. I have submitted a heavy Javascript-ed page to satisfy my own curiosity. Perhaps, you should do the same for PHP et al.

Well, the term "stepping stone" may be a bit misleading. If I had to guess, I would say one possible use of a large gravity well is as an accelerating slingshot.

Clearly, this is the case for your english spelling and grammar education.

I find my Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 to be a fair contender. It has an elegant design and the functionality is on par with the iPad 2 for exactly the same price. Granted, the iPad 2 comes in a 64 GB variety, which the Tab 10.1 does not. Also, the iPad 2 is available with 3G capability. That version of the Tab 10.1 is not out yet. However, if you compare the 2 models of the Tab 10.1 (the 16 GB and the 32 GB) WiFi only with their equivalently outfitted iPad 2 models, there is very little difference other than the OS and the available apps.

Kudos. I know where you are coming from.

Ha. Sales person and engineer are interchangeable? Ha!!! Never going to happen. Well, almost never.

So, it seems that what is really being said here is that the Python development environment on Mac OS X sucks. Well, that may be. I have no experience with it. I prefer Java, Javascript, Tomcat/JBoss and MySQL as my development stack of choice. I use Eclipse as a development environment and I am quite happy with it. I develop, primarily, on a Mac and most often deploy on some version of Unix/Linux. I don't see any issues. What works on my Mac works on the deployment systems as well. For what it is worth, I think there is a Python plug-in for Eclipse.

Have you looked into how much money flows from the sports organization back to the university or college?

I am not sure what age has to do with it. I am 54 and still play computer games regularly.

My preference is for empire building games. The Civilization series has been a constant favorite. I am playing Civ5 now and really enjoying it. I am also a Masters of Orion fan. The Total War releases are some of the most involved strategic and tactical games I have played.

I am also quite fond of RPG type games. Neverwinter Nights being a good example of such.

Though, I have to say, I am occasionally hooked by a real time action game. The last one to really suck me in was Assassin's Creed. I have Assassin's Creed 2 sitting beside the PS3 waiting. Maybe I can carve out a block of time during this holly-daze season.

If I have friends over and we want to jump into some quick and easy game playing, there is always Tekken and similar combat games.