I'm slaving away doing Java monkey work you prick, but thanks for asking.

...with a version of "Life on Mars?" and we'll talk.

I entered "2+2" and got back http://pastebin.com/hTzSBqWG

I think they need to work on their usability.

(Funnily enough I couldn't enter that inline because Slashdot said "Please use fewer 'junk' characters.")

I ran a book shop for about a year, and then a book cafe for a year after that before we sold the place.

When I started the book shop I bought a pretty cheap Samsung ML-1710 (i think) for the point of sale, it worked without a glitch through those two years. I printed quite a lot, probably an average of 30-40 pages a day since I printed all the day reports on it.

The place has gone through two owners since then (sold the place in late 2007), but I know that as of last month, the current owner is still using it. If the owners after me used it as much as I did, that would be ~50k printouts. I think that's pretty good.

When I needed to get a new printer for myself last month I got a Samsung ML-2571N and I've been very happy so far. It's network connected and was automatically detected my CUPS from both my Arch machine and my roomies Kubuntu machine. It does PostScript 3 and is pretty fast. No color though, but as others have said, unless you really need it, you're only setting yourself up for some serious toner cartridge expenses.

Elvis

Or well it was a bookshop and coffee shop combined.

Anyway. These were exactly the kind of customers I did not want. People who work or study from coffee shops are the worst customers you can imagine; not only do they sit for hours and hours taking up potential customer space without really buying anything more than an occasional latte, but after a while they'll think they're your friend too. If you're really unlucky they'll get completely disillusioned and think they actually work there.

I had my coffee shop for a year before selling it. I actually had one guy who wrote his whole university D study (don't know what the US equivalent is, I'm a Swede) at my shop, and then had the stomach to brag about the fact.

The best customers are the take away customers. Period.

Should be a bit better than Google Translate:

Efter uppgifter om att den nytillsatta hovrättsdomaren i Pirate Baymålet tidigare varit medlem i samma upphovsrättsförening som den jävsanklagade tingsrättsdomaren, ombads hovrättspresidenten igår att pröva om inte en annan av rättens avdelningar borde avgöra jävsfrågan.

Following information that the newly appointed courts of appeal [1] judge in the Pirate Bay trial has been a member of the same copyright association as the district court [2] judge currently accused of bias, the president of the court of appeal was yesterday asked to investigate whether or not another department within the court should settle the issue of bias.

Idag kom beslutet: Utsedda hovrättsrådet Ulrika Ihrfelt, som jobbar på den avdelning som har särskild inriktning på upphovsrätt och immaterialrättsliga mål, får inte döma i frågan om tingsrätten varit jävig.

Today came the decision: The appointed Justice of the court of appeal [3], Ulrika Ihrfelt, who works in the department specializing in copyright and immaterial rights, is not allowed to judge in the question of whether there was bias in the district court's decision.

Istället kommer jävsfrågan att flyttas till en annan av hovrättens avdelningar och där prövas av avdelningens chef, hovrättslagmannen Anders Eka tillsammans med hovrättsråden Christina Jacobsson och Ulrika Beergrehn.

Instead, the question of bias will be moved to another department within the court, and there be judged by the head of the department, lawspeaker [4] Anders Eka, together with the Justices of the court of appeal Christina Jacobsson and Ulrika Beergrehn.

âSkälen för detta är dels att jävsfrågan bör prövas av andra domare än de som senare kan komma att döma i målet, dels att det, med hänsyn till innehållet i jävs-invändningen, bedömts som lämpligt att jävsfrågan avgörs på en avdelning som inte har specialinriktning på upphovsrättâ, skriver hovrätten i pressmeddelandet.

"The reasons for this is partly that the issue of bias should be determined by other judges than those who might later be called upon to preside in the case, and partly that it, considering the nature of the bias-objection has been found appropriate that the issue of bias is determined in a department not specializing in copyright", the court of appeal writes in the press release.

Jävsfrågan ska behandlas med förtur. Hovrättspresidenten Fredrik Wersäll räknar med att beslut kan komma âinom maximalt några veckorâ, uppger TT.

The issue of bias should be prioritized. President of the court of appeal Fredrik Wersäll, is expecting a ruling "in a few weeks, maximum", TT reports [5].

Hovrätten kommer inte att sätta i gång med Pirate Bay-målet förrän jävsfrågan är avgjord. Om Norström skulle bedömas som jävig kan målet skickas tillbaka till tingsrätten och domen rivas upp.

The court of appeal will not start the Pirate Bay trial until the until the issue of bias has been settled. If Norström would be ruled as biased, the case might be sent back to the district court and the ruling there declared invalid.

Flera av de dömda piraternas försvarsadvokater hävdar att Norström varit jävig, bland annat genom att han är medlem i flera föreningar med anknytning till upphovsrätt. De fyra dömdes till ett års fängelse och till att betala skadestånd på 30 miljoner kronor.

Several of the convicted pirate's defense attourneys claim that Norström was biased, among other things because he is a member of several associations connected to copyright. The four were sentenced to one year in prison and were ordered to pay damages of 30 million kronor [6].

[1] Hovrätt - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hovrätt
[2] Tingsrätt - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tingsrätt
[3] Hovrättsråd - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hovrättsråd
[4] Lagman (eng. Lawspeaker) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawspeaker
[5] Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå - http://www.tt.se/utl/eng.asp
[6] ~4 million USD.

Really? Weird, because I've accidently watched quite a bit of it and it seems to me like a piece of shit, both in plot and acting.

He says in the comments that he's supposed to release the source today.

The source is apparently C# using .NET 3.5, so might take a bit of work to get running under e.g. Mono, should you be on a non-Windows platform.

I'm not saying that I don't agree with you to a certain point, and I do lack a formal degree as well and still work as a programmer to some extent, but I think Joel Spolsky has a point worth considering his article "The Law of Leaky Abstractions" [1].

In short; the point is that the shit will inevitably hit the fan at one point or another. The abstractions you are using will leak. And at that point, your ability to roll up your sleeves and dig into the details -- some of which will put those "CS-y" skills you claim not to have any interest in learning to the test -- can be what separates you from the pack.

That said, I also agree that there's a good amount of common sense to being a successful programmer or sysadmin in the real world.

[1] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractions.html