Just so.

Look, basically three things get you into trouble during a government background check:

1. You *currently* participate in an organization trying to harm the United States Government.

2. Anything about yourself or your family life leaves you vulnerable to blackmail.

3. You conceal relevant truth, lie, or exhibit a pattern of deceit and/or theft.

Pretty much nothing else disqualifies you for work for Uncle Sam. You can even get a security clearance.

So, DON'T LIE. Err on the side of telling the interviewer more than he asked. Especially if it's embarrassing. An open book is easy to read and it's incredibly hard to blackmail someone who is never too embarrassed to seek the local security officers' help.

In related news, idiot web users actually have Flash installed in their primary web browser that they use for general purpose tasks like reading slashdot. Seriously dude, get rid of it. Keep a secondary browser around for the very few sites where you actually *want* to see Flash.

Wolfe makes a claim that the decompiled/deobfuscated Minecraft source code is not the code's "most preferred form" and thus does not count as source code under the GPL. But that claim doesn't hold water. Licensing that particular source code under the GPL is authorized by the software's owner, and no more preferred form of the source code is ever used with Bukkit. As importantly, Wolfe did not find that version of the source code objectionable at the time he offered his code for inclusion in Bukkit.

The GPL does not entitle you to all of my source code... just the source the code I choose to include in the version of the product that's under the GPL. Which has been provided.

Short version: Some dude made a false DMCA claim. Threw in "GPL" to try for sympathy. Some other dudes are scared about it instead of simply telling him to take a long walk off a short pier.

Beware that freezing or seizing assets as a result of a small claims judgement is unlikely to work out for you. I worked for a company in which the gruddy lunchroom microwave was "frozen" for 6 months as collatoral for a $150 judgement we were fighting. Basically the police show up, advise that they're required to freeze assets worth $X and then ask your help to determine which assets add up. They slap on an orange sticket and then go away.

Yes, exactly. The next court up is still a court in your state and they have to actually have grounds for an appeal (an error of law by the judge, not an error of fact. They gave up challenging any error of fact by failing to show up.) They can't even argue venue -- removing it to federal court requires a case whose damages are generally in excess of what the small claims court awards.

Washington Gas is neither a tiny company nor in the boonies. And AT&T often doesn't have a local lawyer with offices across the street from your county's small claims court.

They also (and this is important) have to show up in court to defend themselves.

I had billing trouble with the local natural gas company. The billing department took a similarly hard-line stance about my complaint. A year and a half later as I refused to pay, they escalated the matter to a lawyer.

It took one 5-minute conversation with their lawyer and the matter was resolved. Because I was right? No. Because it was cheaper to let me have my way than go to court, win or lose.

I'm not a fan of rules, of someone telling me how to do my job. Not a fan when the boss tries to do it. Even less a fan when the local 409 tries.to do it.

Programming is a creative endeavor. If I'm not free to create then its just another suck job. And life's to short to spend it working a suck job.

So the deathmarch would be acceptable if the boss further cut the quality control work in order to deliver on time? Really? 'Cause unions don't demand schedule changes, they only demand that workers get paid. And the kind of boss that requires a deathmarch places a priority on his uneducated concept of "good enough."

Seriously, if that's acceptable to you I don't want you on my team or anywhere near my code. At any salary.

Manning is a vile, conscienceless poor excuse for a human being who thinks the world owes him something. The patriotism in Snowden's behavior is at least debatable but Manning? The guy/gal whose response to a bad month was to indescriminately dump every secret he could get his hands on? What's wrong with you?

I disagree. Learn how to program in a well structured manner that other programmers have some hope of following when they read your code. THEN learn how to juggle memory while programming in a structured manner.

If you haven't written code in C and assembly, you're not yet a computer scientist. But don't start there! Learn addition and subtraction before you learn algebra and learn Java or another learning language before you learn C.

I'm 41. I started my own software consulting business this year. I had plenty of job offers. I even interviewed at Google a couple of times. But I wanted to do my own thing. And I'm doing quite well at it.

If your programming career was over at 40, what did you do that caused you to miss while I kept on hitting?

What would a union require of management that would make an unacceptable programming job acceptable?

Would you enjoy the work if only the boss didn't demand you work Saturdays? You would not.

Would the union be able to get rid of the office fool who screws up your otherwise beautiful code while convincing the boss its your fault? It would not. That's not what unions do.

Would you be paid more? Programmers who are any good are in high demand. If your boss isn't paying you fairly, find the next job. If no one is willing to pay you more despite the high demand for talented programmers and you're not willing to start your own business and take on the risks yourself then you're already paid what's fair for your level of talent and the level of risk you're willing to accept.

Unions are for folks whose labor is trivially replaceable. Work that most anybody can be "trained" to do. Programmers are artists. Instinct is not trainable and talented programmers are not easy to hire. Managers who think otherwise don't last long as managers of software development projects.

Python is a terrible choice for learning. C++ is not a great choice either. You want a learning language to be highly structured so that you're pushed away from sloppy programming practices that less structured languages allow.

Pascal was a good choice of learning language. Now that OOP has proven out, Java is a good choice. Stay away from the rest until you're competent in one of those two. Like Picasso said: Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.

AFAIK, torrent clients don't keep a log of who they transferred parts of the file to.

If the pirate sold your software (directly or as part of a derivative work) then it had monetary value to him. There are a couple other ways to calculate it as well. Basically, plaintiff and defendant both produce analyses of how much of the defendant's software was actually the offending work and the judge either picks the one which makes the most sense or uses parts of each to produce his own analysis. Both sides have to be careful here to maximize their respective benefit without crossing the line to unreasonable since the judge will discard any analysis he deems unreasonable. Apply that formula times the defendant's gross revenue for the software. If the infringement is willful (defendant knew up front he was infringing and did it anyway), the judge then triples it.