Actually, we pretty much got screwed here. Quite a lot like PATRIOT got jammed through in the post 911 environment, actually. National figured out they had a wonderful opportunity with the CHC earthquakes and used the state of emergency powers (intended to streamline govt during those sorts of situations and respond as required to real emergencies) and instead rammed through unpopular stuff. They tried to put through another copyright bill about 3-odd years ago but it went through the normal review process, and the protest machine got going and neutered the worst of it. This time around they used the state of emergency powers to push it through with so little time that effective protests simply weren't possible.

Naturally the best solution now would be to vote the bastards out, but we still suffer from the same problem the US does, apathy looks likely to rule the day in this November's election.

Amusingly enough, the new law has one ironic effect. Before, infringement notices to ISPs generally got passed on to the offending user with a don't-be-bad note. The new law has a provision that the ISP has the right to charge for the time this takes them to research. In most cases this now means the ISP, upon receiving the infringement notice, turns around and invoices the complainant $25 before going any further (and as the complainants are usually mostly automated scripts, it mostly seems to end there). Ironically enough, at least in the short term, it probably means *less* punters getting infringement notices, and more costs to the "rights holders" for pursuing the process. In some ways a bit of a phyrric victory.

Truth.

Jobs was very proud, when he came back, about how he simplified the stupidly complex product line (mainly Performas) into the nice G3 beige boxen. As an employee at the time I sat through countless presos extolling this great accomplishment. Always annoyed me that he took personal credit for that, when it was all Amelio's doing (the G3s were already on the production line when Jobs came back). And never forget that he got his start in the biz by shamelessly manipulating the Woz once he figured out he wasn't technically capable of designing Breakout.

He's certainly done good things for Apple in his second coming, but the guy is hardly the great genius many seem to think he is. Just a very shrewd operator and opportunist who was in the right place a lot of times and capitalized on it (and yes-he did have a good knack for surrounding himself with genius-types to make things happen, credit where credit is due).

Simple. Don't look like you might have some weed stashed on your person. Everyone knows that only potheads conspire to loiter.

Best. Bogus. Charge. Ever.

But yeah, back then at least you wouldn't get put on some idiot watchlist for your evil loitering tendencies.

Something's wrong when the *solution* to cold is Colorado. :)

(says the guy who decided free state was too risky (and cold) and moved to NZ instead(which in the last couple of years has been less nice with National in power, but still way better than home))

When I was a teenager partying in San Diego in the 80s, our finest used to regularly take us in on phishing expeditions, with the most awesome charge ever: conspiracy to loiter.

Naturally no charges were ever filed for that, but possession of a controlled substance, goodness me, look what we found on the loiterer in the Iron Maiden shirt... Bad loiterer.

Meh.

Personally? Most of my long term plan was emmigrating to New Zealand. Where my healthcare is covered and the discrimination isn't as pronounced. :) Also, I've been playing the age old game of transitioning from Sysadmin to PHB, which will buy a few more years. If I do get dumped around 50 or so, with inflation etc, by then my mortgage payment should be doable on a more average man salary. And because it's NZ, I got an ocean view too. Couldn't afford that on sysadmin pay back in San Fran.

Dream job? Crew on the medivac chopper. No age discrimination there. :) Haven't even tried yet, no way the pay will match IT mgmt. Another possible fallback would be firefighter. But again, mortgage should be low enough by then that big salary won't matter much (and perks like med ins are mostly irrelevant in a reasonable country). Even boring crap like truck driver would do.

Preachin' to the choir.

Sad reality is, it's a young folks game. We old timers demand higher salaries, start getting bitchy about 80 hour weeks once we have families, etc. Bright eyed and bushytailed IT grads are cheaper and look more busy (prolly 'cause they haven't yet learned how to run shit efficiently, but PHBs don't comprehend that). Not to say there aren't gigs out there, but at the ripe old age of 42 I'm already pragmatically making contingency plans. Like it or not, there's a bias towards young folks in high tech. Which isn't to say it can't be done, but it's more of a challenge the older ya get. Fortunately that bias seems quite a bit less pronounced down here in NZ, which was one of the many reasons I buggered off here 8 odd years ago. I figure I'm doing better here than I would have if staying in the SFBA.

(also, you mention programming/research-I expect those have higher old age retentions than sysadmin type work, particularly research)

Eh. He's 52. Odds of getting back in the tech game at that age diminish quickly, even if you're completely clean. Just about time to start thinking about something new and interesting to pursue anyway, so why not go out with a bang... (not that I would, I'm not one for bridge burning, but I'd wager the guy hasn't really hurt his future tech employment odds by much, since there's probably precious few anyway)

There. I fixed it for you.

But it's so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you: are you the sort of man who would put the poison into his own goblet or his enemy's? Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.

Heh. I think *Jobs* came out of his partnership with *Woz* ok... :)

Decent guy??!!

He got his start by totally ripping off Wozniak. Atari paid Jobs $5k for a circuit board design that the Woz did (because Steve couldn't). Jobs told Woz he got $600 for it, and generously split the proceeds 50/50. How very decent of him-not. Then of course there's the glorious return to Apple in '96. For about a year his keynote speeches were blowing his horn about how he'd simplified the product line with the G3. All fine and dandy, except that the G3 was conceived and designed under Gil Amelio's watch.

I'm as much of an Apple fanboy as the next guy, having used macs since '91, but I'm under no illusions that Steve's a good guy. He'll rip you off with a smile.

Ah, yes, I'd forgotten. That's quite fitting, with Carter being an ex-submariner, and a keen fan of Rickover. IIRC he was also quite supportive of the USNs sub black ops. Given her homeport is Bangor, I wonder what her status is... Perhaps her crew are the ones that just went off leave (if they're not already out there)... :)