...monetizing bad math and improperly understood statistics since 2006.

Precisely. Other famous #1's from the annuls of history:

Budweiser
Microsoft
Ford
Bose
Schwinn
AT&T

It seems to me that #1 doesn't have too much to do with quality of product, but of effectiveness of marketing.

Yeah, it is what I want. I've been doing comp/net security for twenty years. I don't want to "fiddle" with things anymore. I just want them to work, and stay the hell out of my way when they do so.

It's awesome that you haven't hit the point in your life that I've hit in mine yet... the point where you're just tired of compiling kernels, writing wrappers and patches to make things work the way you want, etc... the point where you want your computational device to quietly cough up its functionality without wrestling it's user into an inescapable web-of-tweaks, but it would be more awesome if you tried very hard not to poo poo those of us who participated joyously on the front lines of GPL and other, better open source licenses, but who now really just want to see some tits and go have a sandwich.

At least when St. Elsewhere ended, we were left with a series of wonderful performances and truly creative plots and characters, even if in the end it was all some autistic kid's fantasy.

This time we don't get anything. And seriously, how many times did the writers/producers swear up and down that they werent all dead, that the island wasnt purgatory, that they werent pulling those cheap, easy outs.

Goddamn liars.

You appear to be saying that Java's strength in multithreading is all about not having to type an #include line.

Seems a bit weak for a strength to me.

The only possible way that you could seriously posit that Java is no worse at multithreading than anything else is if you've never actually used anything else in any kind of meaningful way.

Java's intrinsic implementation of multithreading is one of hard mutual exclusion, which is awesome in a few ways, but really crappy if portability is your goal. Which it isn't, anymore, as I covered in my first post. The best thing that anyone can possibly say about Java's intrinsic multithread support is that it's very, very easy to implement.

And that seems to be the clarion call for the "best languages" these days. See the popularity of VB and .NET for details.

Since no one and their uncle is using Java for its portability anymore (maybe the nice folks at Limewire still are), and since Java is so piss-poor at multithreading that even with books hardly anyone is willing to attempt it...

It's beyond me why people don't just use a different damn language. I lost my objectivity on this years ago; is Java ridiculously easy to learn for the kids these days or something? Is it like Pascal for the new millenium? I think I'd rather try to make Pascal thread properly than Java, frankly.

I did get a job without my credentials-- my very first serious one in the tech field, which was doing technical support for BSDi.

I didn't know anything about unix, or really anything about computers. I'd been evicted from my apartment and things were looking grim. I lied on my resume and landed the job with my magnetic personality.

After which I had about two weeks to fake out my employers and learn enough of the subject to get a foothold--- which I did. Necessity is the mother of a bit more than invention.

After that, I had a number of diminishingly shitty positions up until about 2003, when I started getting the kind of work I think is interesting, worthwhile, and pays very well. That's THIRTEEN YEARS of paying my dues in low-salary, dead end positions. That's why you keep leaving them, see, that's the whole point.

Again, this is all about EFFORT. I made the effort for almost a decade and a half to get to where I wanted to be in computers, and I did it without a degree. And I have half a dozen colleagues who are doing exactly the same thing *right now*.

But if you'd like to sit there and validate your own shortcoming some more and coddle the masses into believing there's nothing out there for anyone without a piece of paper no matter how hard they work, feel free. Once again, it makes it much easier for people who are willing to put the effort in to get the good jobs.

Keep it up.

Umm... timmarthy dear... Apple *invented the personal computer*.

Good goddamn lord.

What the hell are you talking about?

The last job I got with just a highschool diploma was the one that I landed about six months ago. Which is the one that I described in my original post. You've caught an implication that does not exist, I have not had the same job for 20 years. I've had about ten in the last 20 years.

Again, I actively demonstrated that everything I've said is true at an average of every two and a little years since approximately 1988. Every job I've gotten knew that I had no college degree, and every job I've gotten knew that I was competent when I got the job.

Instead of just poo pooing my entire story because you're not with it enough to consider workable alternatives to a degree, you could have asked me what the technique is to wedge yourself in the door.

It's all about the interview, my man. If I can get my grinning mug in front of someone who's doing the hiring, I've never once failed to get that job. How, you may ask, the hell do I guarantee myself the job during the physical interview?

I make myself unique among the applicant pool by jovially telling the truth about everything, including outlining my capabilities with humorous anecdotes from my career. What I have that other applicants appear to not have, apart from the ability to not lie during interviews, is a very relaxed demeanor and an air about me that says "I know exactly what I'm doing".

And that's because I do.

I have a high school diploma from over 20 years ago. I have never had any other degrees, certifications, or any other form of expensive piece of paper that promises for me that I'm not incompetent.

So I've had to rely on you know... actually working in order to show my competency.

I make now a comparatively enormous amount of money doing a job that's also done by two collegues; both of whom have PhDs. The qualifications for the job are a graduate degree in the field or a closely related one, OR equivalent experience.

I've got the equivalent experience, evidently.

So yes, it is indeed possible to do pretty much what you want without any sort of degree at all (the usual academic exceptions apply here), but the caveat is that you have to actually do a lot of work. And that's the trick, see? The WORK part is the part that a lot of people tend to shy away from. That, and the patience part.

It works in my favor though, and in the favor of anyone willing to do their ten-thousand-hours-to-expert bit. Enough people are unwilling to put in any kind of meaningful work in order to get any sort of meaningful result that I seem to have become a commodity. So don't everyone suddenly get motivated, I'm not retiring for another 20 years at least.

Actually, thats exactly what Reddit* did some years ago, and it continues to work like a charm to this day.

find /usr/ports/* >> notmalware.txt

I'm not making an argument, im pointing out a massive hypocrisy that is clearly embedded in politics.

The best way that I can possibly explain it is that it is a device that has been absolutely brilliantly designed for human use; you already know how exactly how to use it before you pick it up. It does precisely what you expect it to in every circumstance.

I'm sorry that it's not a netbook, though if you want one of those, you're in luck: the exist and you can go get one.