Heh, yeah. I took up skydiving in 2012 and the progression does feel very much like a video game. Can't advance until you demonstrate proficiency in the current training level yadda yadda. I'm building useful skills, actually have a social life now and am in much better shape than I was before. And my accomplishments are actually meaningful to me. Down sides are it's a pretty expensive hobby and has a higher than average chance of killing me. I'm pretty conservative under canopy, though.

I'm still pretty interested in the VR headset technology. Seems like the Microsoft Holo Lens is what the wearable computing guys really needed for augmented reality a decade and a half or so ago. And I'm looking forward to being able to take an audience along for a jump with a 3D camera. It'll really be much more intense than just watching it on a flat screen on YouTube. Even that's a pretty amazing technology, though. For around $400 someone can give you a window into a world that most people will never see. And they want to see it. Pretty much everyone I talk to about it says skydiving's on their bucket list, but only a tiny percentage of them will ever do so much as a tandem jump.

After all, he DID make that deal with the Robot Devil for his... unholy... ACTING... TALENT!

Probably so, a lot of the 90's are kind of a blur now for reasons. Also, the company I was working for at the time was notoriously cheap with IT costs. They were also the only company I ever worked for that allowed smoking in the office. Around computers. That's smart. The two old guys who ran the joint both died of lung cancer a couple years after I stopped working there. So... yeah.

I had to punch an AWFUL lot of deer to progress, back in the day. That was before Trammel or any of EA's WoW-Style gear grind nonsense. I did manage to get a mage to GM mage/GM Scribe and was at different times exalted and notorious. I probably still have a couple of shots around somewhere of the ol' guy. Made bank selling filled spellbooks, recall scrolls and rune bags to people. I had runes to damn near everywhere. That was another thing that was pretty unique to UO -- you could make a rune to damn near anywhere. And despite this, the world still felt HUGE!

If they'd been a little less bitches, they could be like Dubai right now and dipping their balls in gold, regularly. Them and Iraq both. And yes, everyone in the world pretty much has been fucking with them for... well... ever, really. But there's a way to win against everyone in the world, and being stinky little bitches isn't it. But, you know, whatever makes them happy, I suppose.

The first computer I bought for myself was a Vector II graphics machine. It was an odd beast -- integrated computer/video, MFM 10 MB hard drive, some number of kilobytes of RAM, I forget exactly, and most oddly a dual processor machine. It had both an 8086 and a Z80 chip in it and could use either one or the other to run DOS (I want to say 2.0) or CP/M. Mine came installed with CP/M. This was in the early 90's, just before the 286 really started to catch on.

For my hardware class, I brought it in, took it apart and handed the chips around the class. At the end, I reassembled the whole thing and booted it back up. Fun little presentation. That old hardware could really stand up to a lot of abuse.

What the fuck are you popping up at the driver? Put current speed, RPMs, fuel level and maybe oil/water temperature along the bottom of the windshield so they can just see it without taking their eyes off the road and call it good. Maybe the entire problem is just really bad user interface design.

They were only able to do it because they already had an affordable, high quality krampfor on hand. The whole thing would have fallen apart if not for that.

Cost of living and demand are high in my area right now. It's not uncommon to see manual test positions around here advertising for $45+ an hour. Contract software engineering positions start around $60 an hour and go up from there. And my salaried co-workers aren't much worse off, at least not before you factor in the overtime they're working. They get benefits, paid vacation and the company would likely throw them a couple months' salary if they get caught up in a layoff cycle. My rate factors in all the stuff I'm paying that they get and down time between contracts. 'Course, if I end up working a couple years on a decent contract, so much the better.

About 10 minutes after my porn collection is finally complete.

Leaning toward contract work, if I work an hour I get paid an hour. And it shows, with the production teams constantly being asked to come in and work weekends while I'm off skydiving. Of course, if I don't work an hour I don't get paid an hour, either. Which means if it's a particularly nice Friday I might just forgo the $600 and go skydiving anyway. It IS easy to get into a cycle of not taking real vacations as a contractor. Every so often you really DO need to get out of town, even if it's just for a long weekend.

Every once in a while some manager will try to discreetly broach the subject of fudging the books so I work longer one week, take some time off the next week and smooth it all out. To which I usually respond, loudly, with a beautifully crafted note of surprise in my voice, "You want me to FALSIFY MY TIMECARD?" They usually quickly deny it and scurry off to harass the salaried employees some more.

I'm quite wary of offers to come onboard as a FTE, as that usually means the company has a lot of overtime in the cards in the next two or three months, and a layoff cycle coming right after that. Fortunately their offers are usually so laughably bad that they're pretty easy to resist.

The HR process will grill you on C++ at a master level and yet somehow their entire production system is some Ruby abomination that has never seen the touch of a person with more than 5 years of experience in programming. They may need performance, but they're unwilling to commit to the changes required to get it. They may need a master C++ programmer, but they'll never use you to the full extent of your capabilities. And that doesn't really matter as long as they're willing to pay you like they are.

Yeah, IBM would probably have continued to accept the large briefcases full of cash to support OS/2 1.2, and God knows no one would have the experience to hack that shit. But you know, EDS went all windows/citrix and they're (basically) the only guys willing to put up with the bullshit required to do Government contracts, so the Navy had to follow along.. Sure the path was rather bumpy, kind of like when the engine on the plane you're building in midair falls off and lands in a urban neighborhood, but they finally got... somewhere... with it. I guess. Now they're super-up-to-date with that 90's era Citrix solution and they're going to milk that shit for all it's worth.

They did that with OS/2 back in the day, too. They stayed on OS/2 1.2 a couple years past when the OS expired for everyone else. I guarantee you what they paid for this one was less expensive than changing all the documentation to reflect a later version of windows.

Just in time for the self-driving car revolution!