Comparing the maps side by side, the most noticeable difference is the font size and the thickness of the route lines. This makes it seem more organized and less squeezed together. But in reality, to be able to read it from the same distance it would have to be in a larger format.

You can probably "improve" the current map by the same techniques and not have the same level of distortion. Maybe, a more detailed version can be put in pamphlet form and large station kiosks and the current form can go in each train.

I don't think they care about me, but they are not using the heavy hand yet. I think they are still targeting what the believe to be genuine threats to public safety. If the government paranoia reaches the point that they start viewing political challenges as threast then we are all in trouble.

What they will do when the next wave of McCarthyism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism arrives really scares me. They probably still won't care about me, but I might fall into a target demographic. Major damage my befall vast numbers of innocent people. I don't think it takes that much for a government to become an oppressive regime. I think the power they have through technology, and their abuse of it, pushes the tipping point that much closer.

It sounds like you want to work with a scientific group as a programmer, not be doing your own independent research. If this is true there are a variety of positions out there. My experience is in life sciences and imaging. There are research institution like the Broad Institute http://www.broadinstitute.org/ or HHMI Janelia Farms http://www.janelia.org/ that staff a fair number of programmers. Also, many Universities have core imaging facilities and there may be similar types of facilities in other scientific areas.

There also a significant number of companies that do research. Bioinformatics is a big topic for example pharmaceutical companies so big data experience is important. There are plenty of biotech companies too, some are providing research, some are trying to develop profitable technologies such as new tools for discovery and bio fuel etc. A number of companies that provide instrumentation and software to do research. There are a number of large players, such as Thermo Scientific, GE and Dananaher companies such as ABSciex, Beckman and Coulter. Obviously any company will be profit driven, so you will have to decide whether it is for you, but the jobs will contribute to research one way or another.

My suggestion is to get some scientific journal in you field of interest. Look at the advertiser and institution that do interesting things. Then go the websites of these places and see what openings may be out there. If you find something really interesting in a research paper that clearly involves computing you should directly contact them and see if they are interested in hiring. Most researcher are interested in the research problem and don't want to spend all there time coding. Often they are not good at finding developers just like developers are not good at finding these small research position. They may welcome someone who is interested enough in their researcher to seek them out. They might also point you to someone who will.

I agree with you and with Curt Woodward's final summation, "It makes sense, if you can stay awake." There is some meaning behind the catch phrases. I also agree with you that it about putting the overall company goals above the idiosyncratic.

I disagree that this is necessarily bad or means removing small high functioning teams. The ability for a developer to create an application that functions is different environments, such as desk top, cloud and tablet is significant. What is means for Microsoft is understanding requirements, a high level vision, and how to generate a standard across team. This is the kind of thing a large company can do. They can make their own de facto standard and stick to it. Sometime that means their engineers can't do things the most natural way for a specific environment, but being intuitive for the internal engineer is not the most important element of the product. How it suits the customers, such as an external engineer and end users is what matters.

Sure their needs to be tailoring by the external engineer so that the application would suite a give format. But this is a lot different than having to retool the whole thing because each technology from the same company is fundamentally different.

The plane had to support the weight of the batteries and the solar cells. It had to be able to lift off and travel across the country so it could not rely on ridge lift for most sections of the flight. This same plane made it over night, all be it with the help of sailplane flying techniques. However, it is not, in fact, designed to be a sailplane nor does if function solely as one.

As someone who hires from time to time, I am always impressed when people show they can adjust to different situations and learn quickly. I think in the interview you should emphasis the variety of challenges you faced. I think there is often a fear that a military person may be rigid. The concern is that the candidate will be unbending or may follow orders without thinking for themselves. Show that you are able to recognize how different environment require different approaches. Tell how quickly you were able to succeed in situation which were outside your previous experience.