This was done in the ancient olympic games - sort of. It wasn't really that the competitors used the same gear - they competed in the nude, covering their bodies with olive oil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

The positions of the planets and angular relationships isn't science? What the hell have astronomers been doing all these years?

The portion of astrology that deals with the positions of the heavenly bodies is exactly a science, and is provable FACT. When someone is born and their sun sign is, say Aquarius - this means that the sun was in Aquarius when the person was born, which is a provable FACT.

Astronomy was born from astrology. Many of the terms still used in astronomy came from astrology (conjunction, opposition, aspect, etc.)

Astrology has one non-scientific aspect (pun intended), the assignment of meaning to planetary positions and angular relationships.

While on par with most religious beliefs, at least astrology has some basis in science. Planetary positions and angular relationships between those planets isn't something that astrologers make up. The data is largely calculated from ephemeris (usually the Swiss ephemeris) and there is a lot of math involved.

If religion had as much science as astrology, everyone would believe in god.

The only thing not science about astrology is the interpreted meanings of the positions and angular relationships.

Did you come up with that all by yourself?

What's wisdom will you bestow next? here are some suggestions off the top of my head:

"the more warm something gets, the less cold it is",
"more light leads to less darkness",
"as something dies, it becomes less alive" or
"as things speed up, they move less slowly"

Thank you, Captain FormulAiC.

In my life I've had only one boss that respected IT personnel. None of them were technical, and had some strange image in their heads of a magical fairy land where us IT folk would wave our wands and shit would get done.

I had one non-programmer boss who proposed an amazing CONTACT FORM to her bosses, and I was required to be there so I could take notes and implement it. After watching her presentation, I was asked if I had any questions or comments. I had comments. Gems like: "Why am I putting EACH FIELD on a separate page? That's going to cause the users to submit the form 10 times before they're done" and "I'm supposed to look these addresses up in the CRM, but the CRM guys have plainly stated over the years that they will never ever Ever EVER let anyone query their DB, did something change?".

By the end of the meeting, the contact form was cancelled and my new task was to make a slideshow screensaver for someone's special project.

With a beam that powerful, it won't take a direct hit to the cornea to cause eye damage. Catching a glint off of the windshield of the target (car, plane, tank, building) might be enough.

Forget walking around with mirrors, battlefield dress of the future might include welding goggles or a helmet mounted HUD to protect a soldiers eyes behind a video feed.

OK. Unlike the Dos Equis "Most Interesting Man" - it occasionally is "my bad"

Frequently these types of threads turn into bashing contests between different language enthusiasts. Usually things go downhill for my contributions to the thread when I mention that I enjoy my (infrequent) opportunities to code in the first language I learned - COBOL.

(cue the COBOL haters in 3, 2, 1)

Javascript is one of those languages that I love to hate and hate to love.

Yes, I understand that C is virtually everywhere, but requires much more to deploy an application everywhere.

Javascript: write once - deploy everywhere
C: Write once, compile for every target, deploy everywhere.

See the difference?

And how often is it necessary to alter a compiled application for nuances on specific targets? Javascript is often written wifh fallbacks for targets that don't support a specific feature.

I'm not saying Javascript is superior or inferior to C. They have different strengths and weaknesses. Why must there be a "best language" or arguments over "my language is better than yours"? It's all a personal preference when more than one language can perform a given task. What about tasks that are possible in one language and not in another? Apples and oranges comparing C and Javascript.

Thursday I was writing Objective-C, Friday I was writing Java, today I was replacing the fuel-injectors in my truck, sometime next week I expect to be writing some PHP. Personally, I enjoyed replacing the fuel-injectors more than the work I did Thursday or Friday - and now my truck is running better. Because fuel-system work makes my truck run better, does that make auto-repair better than Objective-C or Java - because neither of them make my truck run better? Objective-C and Java pay the bills while working on my truck does not - does that make programming better than auto-repair? Apples and oranges.

I think it's safe to say that you prefer C to the exclusion of everything else.

and you must compile for every platform.

Write once - deploy everywhere.

Name one other language that is as well supported and as broadly implemented as JavaScript?

With technologies like Node.js - it can run on both the client and the server.

Sure, there are inconsistencies in implementation - but the bulk of functionality is supported in every implementation.

Except for the picture...and video that I looked at when I visited.

As I understand it, the system is tied into other federal databases. Just because you haven't signed up, doesn't mean you aren't in one of the other databases that healthcare.gov is connected to.

Offtopic?

I said something that should have taken me out of the running for that position - asking my interviewer out on a date! Who else here has done that?

Granted, I've only ever been interviewed by an uber-hottie once... so I suppose that kind of opportunity doesn't happen every day.

When interviewing for a tech support manager position with a company in San Diego - I went through a whole slew of interviews on the same afternoon. director of sales, director of product development, director of software engineering and finally the director of customer service.

That last interview had to be the best interview of my life. Not because I had good answers for all of the questions (I did). Not because I was a great fit for the position (I was). And not because I really wanted the job (I really did). It was the best interview of my life because I sat and had a long conversation with what I believe to be the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. Mmm, Mmm Anna.

At the end of the interview, she asked "Do you have any questions for me". I had only one. "Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?"

Sadly, Anna said she was married.

That afternoon, I was hired. On my first day, I met Christina (Anna's assistant) the second most beautiful woman I've ever seen. Mmm, Mmm Christina. I spent the next 2 years flying around the country with Anna and Christina going to trade shows (to set up the equipment), and to customer sites to assess their needs.

I loved that job. The scenery was great.

Reminds me of the classic Gary Larson - Far Side rendition of "How birds see the world"

http://veggie.buntch.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/larsonhowbirdsseetheworld.jpg