SOME slashdoters want insights into how to passage the rapids of Information Technology. Possibly MOST. At the least it is about learning from other people's mistakes. So in the middle of a (possibly) heated _discussion_ about foo one or more twerps barge in. They have mouths but not ears. I'll just repeat that: They have mouths but not ears. (Their brains may be a bit tiny as well.) Now if I was in a pub I could stand up and tell them to DIAF and leave their betters to fix problems on behalf of everyone. (IME this works if you have at least one supporter who is fully behind you at the time.) The equivalent in the Internet/Forum/Developer Café is some sort of censorship.

I'm all for it. If you're in the elite then you should open your doors to the others but don't be afraid to 'Blackball' the scum that poison proper and necessary discussion.

Start FIRST with what YOU want to do and WHY it is important to do it your way. Without this motivation you're wasting your time.

If you don't know anything about the architecture of the system then sketch your own over a cup of coffee to find out what are likely to be the key components.

Now you have a goal you can see what parts of the existing system are applicable, missing etc. Your basic knowledge of the inside cogs, wheels and not forgetting irrelevant bells and whistles will be a great help in focussing on elements, themes or modules. (For example the original might be full of cruft concerning what you regard as a dead-end but the original developers considered a bonus feature.) With the knowledge gained from the original system you may be able to look upon it as a prototype and build a much simpler system that isn't full of serial adaptations.

If you have a 'porting' job then there are probably tools to at least highlight places to deal with.

...My consulting rates are very reasonable.

Here's a thought. If firewall/router configs are too fluffy for the organisation to grasp[1] then use a technology that the end-users are familiar with. For example a router with a power supply controlled by a key switch. Who has the key, when it went out, why do you want it?, how long, what will affect? can be managed by production/shift managers as other things. It also means that there is some bod on site who has to be told by the vendor what's supposed to be happening and gets permission for *that thing* with *certain risks* who is on site and shares responsibility for the tweaking. If the vendor turns up on site then they jack-in to the LAN with their laptop with your firewall controls etc and the LAN connects to the process system via the switched router, and the same chain of *responsibility* applies with the shift-manager carrying the can and so exercising proper supervision.

Combine 'precision master source' from a 'BBC time' server with local time as set by the user. So for example BBC time might be 14:12:03 while the user is somewhere the other side of the Atlantic and their local clock says 10:10:56. The combined display would be 10:12:03. ie the hours sourced locally while the minutes and seconds come from a basement in Broadcasting house. OK this doesn't deal with latency etc but that's not a big issue is it?

Rapid change leaves FF so buggy. "Will be fixed..." Hey Moz. Why not fix the bugs in the current version BEFORE rushing to a stupid but 'cool' interface?

Well done for (as you hope) keeping out 'the bad guys'. Now exactly who are these 'bad guys'? If they wear a badge saying 'security' does that make them good guys? No of course not. You NEED to see the chain of authorisation up to a board-level signature. (Not for your own security but theirs.) OK, so some security work is done unannounced, but if it's all unannounced that sounds suspicious. If the attackers really are properly authorised good guys then get a 'certificate' from them that shows you 'passed'. This might be important evidence if things went pear-shaped later and is a nice thing to have on your CV.

Randi is a good-egg and we need more people like him who are alert to frauds. I'm also appalled at irrational rejection of medical treatment on the basis of quackery. But there's one little bit of good that can come from an, ahem, 'healer' if they have confidence that the patient can catch onto. To go with many medical conditions is a load of mental baggage and even legit pills that fuzz thinking. It helps enormously if the patient leaves their complex regrets, hang-ups and attention to trivial detail behind to focus instead on getting better. This applies to school kids worried about exams, artists losing their muse and general depression, de-motivation and relationship problems. Often a ludicrously unqualified but persuasive person can achieve that. Unfortunately letting such 'enthusiasts' near vulnerable people can be bad news as altruism turns to exploitation. Ughh! Here's hoping someone can square that circle.

...But this is about a some high-profile person (activist if you like) being wrongly pigeon-holed by a space-filler for the purposes of winding up the libertarians, open-sourcers etc. etc.

Basically T O'R has confronted a troll. [Well done that man. Always stand up for what you believe in.]

Often at interview you'll be asked about something that is at the top of the interviewer's stack of issues. I've blown it many times by being honest about the size of hole/ difficulty of getting out/ importance of not letting it happen again or in the first place. The idea that there's a quick solution that will bulldoze their plan will also piss them off.

Little known fact: The equals sign is a legal email character. You designate email 'mailbox' names as name=role@your.domain.

This means that you can have peterfox=headOfNerdyThingsDept@your.domain. In actual fact you'd have peterfox@ ... and =headOfNerdyThingsDept@... This means you can email *roles* as well as individuals. Perhaps I have multiple roles so roll out peterfox=%chairmanOfNihilistsClub@...

The full spec for how to use this template is in a paper I wrote being the top item on http://vulpeculox.net/ob/index.htm

• = Role
• == Formal qualification
• =! Honour via national mechanisms
• =% Member by organisation
• =- Semi-formal title by common usage
• =+ Machine

So for example you might have toAll=+boozyParties@... for a mailing list.

Let's take 'rithmetic as an example. The vast majority of people never add up anything. Even if they're sharing the cost of a meal they will leave the bill-checking and dividing by seven to somebody else. But not having a basic confidence in 'sums' blocks access to proper maths which in turn block assess to just about all science, engineering, business, economics and every professional career.

Programming is an utter yawn-fest for kids who are not interested (about as much as most \.-ers interested in babies and lipstick) For a few it is a passion so by all means support them at school but they don't need an exam -- and even less a crusty and cringe-worthy curriculum. Then there those who ought to know a bit about it.... But what bit? Routers and SOAP protocols? Hey fellas! 'Computers store data as zeroes and ones!' Well so what? How a mobile phone encrypts is something important, how a wireless network works is important but it can't be taught by multiple choice!

There are plenty more important things to learn than being owned by technology. http://vulpeculox.net/12 for example.

• An ignorant (but wise) man says "I ask a question when I don't know"
• A wise man says "I ask a question when I already have an answer"
• A teacher says "I ask questions to teach my pupils"
• A professor says "I teach my students to ask questions"
• A leader says "There is a time for questions and a time for action"
• A pupil says "I must know the answers"
• A student says "I must know the questions"

You are very unlikely to need millisecond precision when planning a year in the future. So fix one is to use a day-based counter such as Julian date.

OK so we're over that problem but dates are NOT LINEAR. When did you start your current job? "June 2006" (note no day). When did you leave? "Not yet." In many applications we need Beginning-of-time, Not known, 1986, August 1986, 17 August 1986. Then we need rules for 'February 27th plus one month'. For the answers look at http://vulpeculox.net/day/index.htm . (Keen coders welcome.)