A certain article comes to mind...

...hmmm where did I place it? Ah! Here it is!
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/12/1232206

So here is the skinny on companies for developers:
1) The guys who use you like a tool:
- Want you to know a specific language already and expect you to be able to churn out code like a bored Amish wife making butter.
- Don't care about how much "programming" or "conceptual programming" knowledge you know, rather just want the job done.
- Usually pays pretty low.
2) The guys at say... IBM:
- Expect you to know your conceptual programming knowledge
- Expect you to know at least one language pretty solid so that learning other languages (such as their legacy languages like PLMI) comes easy
- Expect you to ESPECIALLY know how to make your code run 100% efficiently (I.E. knowing performance statistics compared to other languages, and how they run native on some machines, etc.)
- Pay scale is usually pretty baller for a developer in this kind of field

So it's pretty much either one of those. It's useful when you know a lot of languages because its like having more tools on your work bench. If you don't know how each tool works or how it can be used outside of it's "functional" schema, then there's a problem. School can't teach you what you need to know necessarily, it can only provide the foundation for experience to be constructed upon. In other words, think about the job you want in the future (somewhere in the realms listed above), and then study accordingly.

Phew, good thing I work in America!
...wait a minute, Hitachi is a Japanese company. *gulp*

I'm not sure I understand what's with the current fad amongst governments to act like big brother and disallow privacy on the internet. Maybe Orwell was right... if that's the case there is no country I can disappear to that I'll ever really appreciate the luxury of my own privacy!

Thanks NASA for making me feel like my opinion is valued and useful. Kind of like that, oh what was it called? The vote for the name of that satellite thingy? When really you're just passing the buck because your budget didn't include "digitizing old notes."

Forgive my grammar, it appears I said I would spend 2 days away from a computer AND relaxing... what I meant is that I would stay away from the computer for 2 days, and in addition to that I would find time to relax for those two days.

Usually when I run into blocks (like when I was writing a very light weight yet powerful, spelling-tolerant javascript search engine) I would go on a walk for about 15-20 minutes. If that still didn't work (which most of the time it did), I consulted my boss and/or google. If he had no idea how to put my ideas to paper (or google for that matter), I would sit upside-down in my office chair for about 5-10 minutes (that never helped, but it sure did pass 5-10 minutes and made my methodology for programming appear very foreign/entertaining for my co-workers). Then the weekend would come, and I would spend 2 days away from a computer and relaxing. This always put my head back in the game.

I heard the Pirate Edition was free. Just sayin.

Makes you wonder if that also has anything to do with the content of the conversation. Seems like when I call someone I know, or receive a call from someone I know I use my left ear. Every time I make calls at my job (Hitachi Engineering) I always use my right ear... maybe because I know I'm relaying/receiving important information? Now that would be an interesting side study...