Anybody who's played Sim-City (the original) will tell you that building more and more roads doesn't fix your traffic problems...

This is true.

Today, 99% of us (thats millions) are economic slaves (like indentured servants back then) to a small population (1%) of wealthy people who virtually own (lobbying) our political leaders (or ARE are leaders).

Thats progress!

Almost 40, working as a developer for mortgage companies, with a growing family and living in an apartment.

We all know what happened to the mortgage industry and so my attempt at starting a software company evaporated with it.

Now some years later, I've just worked for various companies but haven't furthered my own projects. But, my income has steadily increased. My family has grown. Just in the last few months I was finally able to buy a home (thank you CHDAP).

I keep switching jobs not because I've wanted to but for other reasons (company downsizing or politics, company imploded, etc).

Right now, I'm beating off the job the offers and practically have to turn off my phone to get any work done because I get 15+ calls a day for job offers. And I'm not that great a programmer, either. There's just plenty of work apparently.

Sometimes I wonder how long this will last. Will my skills still be needed in 10 years? Will the robots take over by then? I don't know. I do know that I try to keep up with the latest technologies and keep my skills fresh. Will nobody want to hire a 50 year old? I don't know. Thus far, as far as I can tell, no job I've had even really knew how old I was when hiring me. I suppose I don't look my age.

It may sound silly or simplistic but really, just keep working. Work hard, be an honest worker, but don't kill yourself. Save some money. Spend time with your kids. I've had mostly telecommute jobs for the last 5 years so that helps with the family time. If you can start something on the side, do it. I plan on doing that, but it hasnt happened yet. Get an old car to restore so you have something non-computer to do.

You'll be fine.

Yep, we run a real gestapo here!

Note: I was mostly talking about the 4 and 6 year olds. I don't think it strange at all that I don't let these two wander the neighborhood unsupervised.

No, they don't have anytime unrestricted access to the computer(s). Neither do they have such unrestricted unsupervised access to the kitchen. No, they don't get to eat whatever they want, use any tool they want, etc. Yes, I do make the rules and decide whats best for them. Go figure! Yep, sometimes I get "I hate you!" and "its not fair!" and that tells me I'm doing my job.

Also note that every child is different. The aformentioned 13 year old has many unique issues and has had many more restrictions than the other two have needed.

More generally, I'm talking about getting the basics down first. A 6 year old isn't ready for calculus, or power tools, or has any need for social networking on the computer. Unless of course you have a prodigy that has already learned the other math and is ready for calculus at 6.

I'm talking about balance and priorities here.

And, just "because all the other kids are doing it" is not a reason to let your kid do it. Really? Come on. I'm supposed to give in and let her have a facebook account because the other kids have them? At 10 years old? Yeah and I should give her a cell phone too, right? And a new car at 16? But the other kids have them! And I should let them eat McDonalds everyday and go to Disneyland every weekend and pay for every dance lesson or european vacation she asks for? Just because some other kid got that?

To summarize my point: automated censorship is bad (and somewhat impossible). Spending time with your kids and monitoring what they do is good. Letting them do whatever they want is bad. Teaching them to do the right thing when faced with a bad choice is good. Protecting them from bad stuff is good.

I have kids, 4, 6 and 13.

I am a computer nerd, and work on a computer all day. I love my gadgets.

My kids don't have a computer.

They are allowed to use the family computer, when supervised. Sometimes games for the little ones, or videos (entertainment or educational). The older one, of course, does research for school work, etc.

They are absolutely not allowed on Facebook. Period. This has been a major issue for the older one.

I look at it the same way I look at real life. I wouldn't let them walk the streets (even in my nice neighborhood) alone, why would I let them wander the internet alone? They may play in the yard or at a known and trusted neighbor's yard, supervised by other adults. This is analogous to a website I know and trust.

I don't lock all the doors in the daytime or keep them on leashes or make them wear blinders and earplugs and sometimes they hear bad words (I've got a potty mouth) or subjects they arent ready for. So we explain to them why its not ok for them, and maybe even I should try not to say bad words.

Facebook, for the older child, is a particular bone of contention. I look at Facebook the way I Iook at a bar. I wouldn't let my kid hang out in a bar alone either, or for that matter, even the local coffee shop I frequent.

Its just common sense.

I'm also against much computer use at a really young age. Little kids should be running around, playing with legos, learning how to socialize, etc. Not playing video games.

I really wonder sometimes, if computers had been what they are today when I was kid, if I would have ever learned to program one...

Really thats the issue.. whatever support you were willing to offer should have been put in writing and agreed on before work began.

The same sorts of things can happen during a project too. Get it all in writing. Clients love to change things as you go, and they'll do it until they break you if you don't tell them before hand they can't. IE, you give them say 3 mockups to choose from.. then once approved they can't come back at you and say thats all wrong we need the design changed. Same thing with the support. We all know you probably cant support the code forever without compensation, you have to tell them that or they will expect free support forever!

I'm actually pleasantly surprised that a majority of people in this country accept evolutionary theory. While its a little scary knowing that 46% are young earth creationists and thus pretty much have eschewed everything that science has taught us, at least I can say in any political debate that the majority of Americans believe in evolution and science and have found a way to reconcile that with their spiritual beliefs.

This is, at least, a step in the right direction.

Like I tell anyone on either side (theist/atheist, conservative/liberal, star trek/star wars, etc), you aren't doing yourself and your belief justice if you just piss off and insult and alienate yourself from the opposing view. You have to accept first, present later, and slowly over time allow the other side to come around. This is how christianity has spread so far.. by accepting people and assimilating them. Its why Jesus, no matter what else you believe, was at least one thing for certain: a brilliant marketer.

Completely unscientific, anecdotal evidence to support this:

I've always noticed throughout my life that the poorer families who's homes I visited almost universally had larger TV's and more gadgets. I would always stop and wonder how in the hell these families could even afford such colossally huge TV's or how the kids could have all these electronic toys and such.

And then (as a kid) I'd go home and watch TV on a little 13" TV and program my little computer (sinclair) or try to design a portable game computer (10 x 10 array of red LED's and Z80 cpu).

As an adult, I have to wonder if I'd been given all that crap as a child if I would have ever bothered to learn to program and such. My family was lower middle class, not poor but not wealthy either, but my parents were smart. And as a parent, as a geek parent with computers and tech in my daily use, I do not shower my kids with gadgets and let them watch TV all day. They use paper and crayons and are learning to read, write, and socialize before being taught to use more advanced tools.

There does seem to be a societal problem with too much technology where it doesn't need to be. And its all about the choices we make. Parents can choose how to raise their kids. I don't care what your excuse is. If you are poor or you are rich, you can teach your kids the same values, the same knowledge. Or you can let them be vegetables.

This has to be one of the best double entendre comments I have ever seen.

Its so good I bet there are a lot of people who would only see the straightforward meaning. And for the rest of us, we can't read it with straight face.

Bravo.

I reluctantly "upgraded" to an android phone, from a Palm Pre, only because the palm pre was wearing out (which is pretty much the only reason I upgrade my phones every 1.5 years). After 6 months, I wanted to go back to the Pre. Yes, apps were limited, but I dont use most of the apps on android anyway. I use email, messaging, and web 90% of the time, and WebOS integrated my communications so seamlessly and it multitasked so intuitively that I didnt much care that it did not have a million apps. And it had the ones I wanted anyway.. pandora, angry birds, etc.

Now I have another android phone, with Ice Cream Sandwich (the other one never got the upgrade), and its much much better than Gingerbread but still not as slick as WebOS. Close, though.

I think it would be a slam dunk for some company if they ported the WebOS GUI and built in apps (synergy) to run on top of Android. Then you'd get all the android apps, too. And if you had Android apps running inside of WebOS "cards", wow, that would be spectacular. Other handset companies have their own GUI extensions to Android, why not have WebOS?

Similar story for me and my previous employer.. there were only two of us programmers and a load of foreign outsourcers. Now, the issues with outsourcing were only part of the reason the company went down hard in flames (I won't get into those other reasons..).

We had some good outsourced people, intelligent, experienced and spoke good english. We had many more that did not fit into that classification. Here is what I noticed, by comparison:

When I've gone to interviews for other jobs where multiple other applicants where also there, I noticed about the same rate qualification among those people that I saw with the outsourcers the company I worked at actually employed. The difference being, at those interviews, 99% of those applicants were rejected for obvious (to me and the employer, not the applicants..) reasons.

The point is, that it seems people are much more willing to hire an outsourcer without properly checking them out. And so you end up with a lot of bad work.

That's all on top of the difficulties with language and culture, time zone differences, trying to communicate through skype or whatever instead of in person, etc.

I'm just glad I'm not staying up working all night trying to manage a team split across india, russia and china, and trying to make impossible deadlines; and then dealing with the client the next day trying to make excuses why something can't be fixed for another 24 hour cycle because we didn't want them to know everything was being outsourced...

Outsourcing is not the money-saving grunt-work avoiding hail mary pass so many people think it is. Its a potentially useful resource that has to be used properly.

I thought the article referred to here particularly interesting because it puts forth the idea that, essentially, NoSQL and Relational DB's are just two ways of looking at the same thing, and thus are both equally valid. Right now they are used situationally (at best) but I think you will see a convergence at some point with something "new" that can do both equally well using a common core and different wrappers around it.

Every time there's a story about the TSA making life unpleasant for Americans, a terrorist gets his wings..

Congratulations, the terrorists have won.