Thank you for looking that up for me. I knew the obligatory XKCD link would likely already be in here.

Is there a name yet for the phenomenon wherein: "For every absurd claim there is likely to be an appropriate XKCD cartoon"?

It is a lot easier to get "certified." You get to learn about all kinds of other things on the job. Decent technical writers make about as much as decent programmers but only have to work 40 hours a week. The work is a lot easier to schedule once you have some of the basic planning done. It is mostly desk work, but also lots of time spent talking to people. If you have technical experience as an electrician you are miles ahead of most of the English majors in the field who can't change a light bulb or fix a toilet. Learning proper grammar is not as hard as learning most current programming languages. Especially if you don't try to memorize all that grammar terminology. (They don't test you on your ability to diagram a sentence. They just look at samples of what you have written.) And ... you never have to worry about tracking down that elusive typographical error that prevents your document from printing.

My mom had me when she was 20. I had a son at 20 who had a son at 24. So I was a 44 year old grandfather and my mom was a 64 year old great-grandmother. My first grandson is now around 8 and I am 52. I am a former network manager, and my son is a physicist and "big data" analysis programmer. His kid is really smart. Makes both of us at 8 look as if we were eating mud. By the time I hit 60, he could be starting his own software company.

It could happen. Not likely, but possible.

Be a good salesman. Being good looking doesn't hurt either. Good looking people have an easier time selling.

Second step: Maintain the persona of a successful, high-tech, expert in whatever field the customer needs, regardless of whether you really know much about it at all. Generally all this requires is a bunch of buzz words, a fake smile, and an expensive suit. Maybe an expensive car, even if you have to rent it when you go to see clients.

If you are a good salesman and maintain a successful persona then you don't actually have to be that damned good at what you do. The people who hired you don't know for sure what they should be getting. That is why they hired a slick salesman in an expensive suit. And most importantly, perception is everything. Management will convince themselves that your project is successful regardless of how much their workers complain because said management does not want to admit that they could be fooled by a smooth talking jackass in a suit.

Yep, been there, seen that far too many times.

This guy is just working on his persona.

P.S. Sure there are plenty of honest, hard-working folks who work on a contract basis. But without the above "qualities" they will always be wondering why they don't get the big, high-dollar jobs.

Oh, and all you people who argue that a touch screen means a glossy screen are a bunch of morons too. You can always put an anti-glare coating over it. Yes, you have to choose between a glossy, super-sharp display and a anti-glare but less sharp display. But that has nothing to do with whether there is a touch sensor attached to the damned thing.

And, by the way, all you people who whine about the screen getting scratched up are also morons. My first Tablet PC had a super hard plastic screen that never got scratched up. Women with diamond rings used that screen for years without scratching it. Can you intentionally damage it? Yes. Will it get damaged through normal, or even rough, use? No. Again, you can always put a protective film over the thing if you are worried. That film can be crystal clear or anti-glare. Your choice.

You people are the equivalent of someone arguing that hammers are better than saws because saws can get dull. Which is even more stupid than just saying that they like hammers better.

OK I guess it wouldn't be /. if it weren't for all the false dichotomies and people talking out their ass. But this just gets tiresome.

I have had a Tablet PC since about 2003 or 2004. Maybe longer, I can't remember. I will NEVER go back to a regular laptop. Never once have I gotten the dreaded "Gorilla Arm Syndrome." Why? Because no one in their right mind would actually use a touch screen in an entirely vertical mode and throw out their mouse, forcing them to do everything with the touch screen. That nonsense is just the ghost of Steve Jobs talking, in an attempt to discredit anything Apple hasn't (yet) been able to capitalize on.

Most of the time, when I use my Tablet PC, I tilt the screen way back like a drafter's table. I can then comfortably read the screen, type, use my finger to do quick, less-precise things (like scroll or hit a button), use the active-stylus for more-precise things (like selecting text or drop down menus or drawing curves in Illustrator or handwriting), and even occasionally use the mouse for even-more-precise things (like drafting or adjusting those curves in Illustrator). Sometimes, I will even use the track-pad, though I often turn it off. I move back and forth between all the tools at my disposal just like any other craftsman who actually has the wherewithal to learn how to use more than one tool at a time. I have watched people use the extra large track pad on Mac laptops, with all those handy finger gestures and I wouldn't mind adding that to the mix as well. Especially for times when I am trying to do a lot on a laptop-sized screen.

The point is that more options are better. Anyone who says otherwise is full of shit.

So, if all laptops will soon have touch-screens, then the price of those touch screens will come way down. Everyone will get used to using them however they work best for them and then it won't be new any more. GAWWD, I'm old enough to remember the frikkin mouse-vs-keyboard wars. Oh wait a minute... there are still some morons who keep claiming that they are the macho stud coder because they never touch a mouse. When you listen to them type it sounds as if they are typing a million characters a minute ... each key pounded like the fate of the world depends on it ... until you take a look and see that almost half of all those keystrokes are the freaking backspace key.

Holy crap people! Get over yourselves! You you are all computer nerds. You will never be macho except by comparison with some other computer nerd who is slightly less macho. Stop posturing over which tool or product is the absolute best, denigrating all the others lest someone see your preferred tool as less cool. Just use what works for you, give the others a try once in a while, and get the hell on with your lives. All this touch-screen vs mouse nonsense is like a bunch of carpenters arguing over which is better: a saw or a hammer.

Darn! You beat me to it.

Pardon me, but you do not "search" Google. You use Google to do a search.

It's like saying, "I need some groceries, so I am going to drive to my car."

And the other responses are correct. SEO and fraudulent reviews didn't exist in 1996. I can no longer count all the times all the reviews for a product said it was good, until just about the time the one I bought started F'ing up. Then suddenly all the reviews are bad. In some ways the internet is worse than the wild west because in the wild west you didn't have ten-thousand people lying to you and trying to steal your money, all at the same time.

Folks can forget about deleting all their pictures from the site. I guarantee they were archived before the announcement was made. They probably have the ever-popular "Only individual binding arbitration" agreement as well.

The internet stopped being the "Wild West" and became feudal Europe a long time ago.

Just reminding folks that the "KC" which is getting the fiber is one of four separate "Kansas City"s in the KC metro area. It is the one that is in Kansas instead of Missouri, and is almost all poor neighborhoods. That is why it was chosen. It is a lot of poor people but really close to wealthier areas with good infrastructure.

I know, Missouri isn't much better politically, but I just get tired of everyone thinking that all of "Kansas City" is in Kansas just because it has "Kansas" in the name. It was called "Kansas City" because it is the city next to Kansas. Kansas City, KS came later.

Just sayin'.

It was a conjecture! If you are going to define "Theory" as being supported by a preponderance of evidence, as we do when we say, "The theory of evolution." then we can't keep going around calling every damned conjecture a theory too.

What the hell is so wrong with the word "conjecture"?

Agreed and agreed.

And I prefer to think that the lack of grammatical perfection in your post is due either to typing on a phone or to make a point. Though the Grammar Nazis are correct: A good point is made better with a little additional care as to grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

I think what you meant to say was "elegant code." You can have very elegant code that very efficiently does Thing X. But that doesn't matter one whit if the users expect the software to do Thing Q. Or if it takes five clicks to get to Thing X and the user has to do that a hundred times a day.

This is called "selection bias." It is when you assume that what you see or notice most often is actually the majority.

Amen to that, Brother. I am 52 but most people think I am in my late 30s. Problem is: I have to juggle three DIFFERENT pair of progressive bi-focals just to see what the hell I am doing. This is partly due to all the time I have spent reading and on the computer, partly just due to heredity. I don't know how many times I have been looking for something that was right in front of me.

But this has nothing to do with programming. Or one's IQ.

I think your last statement does apply, though. Older people are less ego driven and more willing to ask questions. The younger coders may not be asking the questions simply because they don't want to appear stupid. So they waste hours Googling things when they could have just asked someone and gotten on with their day. People need to remember that the reason people all go to the same place to get work done is so they can actually interact with those other people who go there too. This was found to be more efficient ... oh ... maybe a few thousand years ago.