From the article:

Seriously, what the hell? A major setback from what? From superstition? Did we have anything better before Aristotelian science? That many of Aristotle's predictions turned out to be false (heavier objects fall faster) is not an indictment on his work or body of knowledge. Without Aristotle and the likes of him during their time, we wouldn't have science as we know today.

Seriously, the author might have a point, but that point is purely accidental. He has no clue what he is talking about.

I would find it very hard to believe radiation of such magnitude could be generated from a core and sterilize the galaxy on its way out. But then again, I'm not an Astrophysicist :)

You would also like to read Niven's "Protector" if you haven't, and how sentient life actually evolved in a radiated home world near the core.

That is the only work I think about when I think of Yelp

Ideally it is, and there are jobs like that. But other times, there are not. You might have to work on a product whose schedule reacts to external events (new merger, new competitor). And I'm referring to very large projects with development plans in terms of years. So, things occur. Eventually things stabilize, or we jump ship to another job. Rinse and repeat.

Never said I was proud. It's just a matter of fact.

We change hobbies. I used to dance salsa with my wife. No more. So we change hobbies. Indoor hobbies, hobbies with our kids (the things we must do with them.) And so on. Once you have kids, there is no time for hobbies compared to when we were single. And yet, when I was single, I could pursue my hobbies while still working long hours.

As a single person, you can do whatever you want with very little spare time. Which is why I said to the OP not to make his work his passion.

See, 45-50 hours is the norm in software for grunt work. And if its 50-55 when you are trying to climb the tech lead ladder. I could just stick to a true 9-5, but that pretty much guarantees I (or anyone for that matter) will be the Milton guy from Office Space.

In the end, we have priorities and goals and we adjust our hobbies, work hours and passions accordingly. And in a field where continuous technical and professional growth requires going beyond the 9-5, you cannot make work your passion (if you want to maintain your sanity.)

Conferences =/= training. At least in general, they are more opportunities to socialize and listen to some speakers. That's it.

So you need to consider very carefully why you want to go to conferences, and why your employer should pay for it.

Very few, bleeding edge companies pay for conferences. Engineering companies OTH, tend to pay for graduate education, and some of them actually pay some type of work-related certifications. But in the end, save up and budget for your own certifications.

If you can't manage to save up for certifications - while working in one of the best paid professional fields of our times - you have much bigger problems to tackle before thinking about certifications. Seriously, save $100 a month and you have $1200 of disposable income a year for your own training. And if you truly cannot save that, then deal with the issues that prevent you saving a meager $100 a month (again, in one of the professions that pay some of the best salaries.)

There used to be a time when companies would pay for their developer's training. 17years ago, my first employer forked over $7K for me to get trained in new software tools. That doesn't happen anymore, and I don't expect we will ever go back to those times.

Those times are gone!

Plan to adapt, save and pay for your own training. There is no other choice nowadays.

I forgot to mention. Get a hobby, do shit outside of work and be passionate about it. Be passionate about life, not work! I look back into my early years how "passionate" I was about work (not knowing the difference between career and work.) That wasn't passion, that was energy inefficiency combined with not knowing WTF I was doing (or how to do it better, faster and more economically.)

Sources - 18 years of experience doing all kind of stuff, Java, C, C++, DevOps, Enterprisey stuff, Embedded, for commercial and defense sectors. 45 years old, married, two little kids and going back to grad school a third time.

Family does that. Specially kids. I need to be home early to be with them, read to them, help them eat, clean themselves, let them see me (and feel and understand I actually give a shit). When I was single I would work at any hour. Not anymore. That does not mean, however, that my work is strictly 9-5. I wake up at 5AM to get myself ready, log in, do some work, then get ready (and help my wife get my kids ready). Then I log back to work via VPN from 9 to 10, sometimes going to bed till midnight... with just 5 hours to go sleep to start again.

I easily make 55a week just like that. More if I do work on weekends. But 9-5 is the strict window I use to be in the office.

A lot of 9-5'ers are like that, and in addition to all that, we see the same shit repeating itself again and again, from one employer to the next. So what you call "lack of passion" might actually be work-related pragmatism combined with some physical exhaustion and simply the necessary notgiveashitis gene kicking off to save your brain from dying after witnessing the same inane shit rendering itself at work for the millionth time.

The passion is there, is just that we move it out of work and into other things, like family and career (which is distinct from work.)

Life. Life will happen and will change your perspective and priorities. YOU. WILL. SEE.

But that is the thing. You are projecting. How do you know that other people are not made some kind of difference? They are likely making a difference *somewhere else*.

Also, as we get older we become more efficient with our time. I can do a lot more know with less time than what I could do when I had 10 years of experience (and certainly much more when I started my career.) We burn a lot of hours thinking it is necessary, we do not know how to prioritize or say no to crazy demands. We freak out, and we go into a professional-related frenzy, willing to burn the midnight oil to compensate for a lot of things.

We have a lot of energy when we start. But energy is not necessarily passion. And not all forms of professional passions are constructive. As we get older, family or not, we learn to pick our battles and seek out the lowest hanging fruits, the 20% that make up the 80%. It is then when we begin to be true engineers, not just berserker hackers.

Unless you are developing the ultimate shit, or have a wonderful work experience with your managers, or are developing your own business, never, ever, be passionate about your job. Be passionate about your career, but not your job. Your job is the conduct by which you make money using your career. Display work ethics, and be willing to go the extra mile when needed. But don't confuse that with passion. That's just work ethics, which we should all display.

Life. I told ya.

That is not being complacent. That is becoming burned out. That is your mind and body telling you the situation is not conductive to your mental, emotional and professional development.

GTFO. Get another job that you like. Rinse and repeat as needed. Learn to be effective with your

No, they are civilized.

After living in Eastern Europe for so many centuries as a minority, with continuous gene flows, no, I would expect them to have a significant amount of Northwestern Eurasian genes in them. I mean, just look at them (and I don't mean it in a derogatory manner) and compare them with some other ancient-yet-living Middle Eastern populations (Assyrians, Chaldean, Samaritans, Yemenite Jews, Arabs, and pretty much any other Semitic group that has not migrated out of the Levant, Mesopotamia and/or the Arabic Peninsula.)

OTH, I (we) have to acknowledge that outward, superficial looks do not equate pure genetic profiles.

If you replace this sentence:

with:

Then I'm on board. I'm not in favor of protectionism to protect the incompetent. And if we were more competent, we wouldn't be so worry about immigrants competing with us.

To be honest, I would like to see our government throttle immigration of engineers into our country as a function of unemployment and other economic indicators (make rate of immigration in field X inversely proportional to unemployment in said field) coupled with actual examinations (classified by years of experience) of migrating professionals, to truly ensure we only get the best junior, mid and senior professionals that we can get. Also, we should do for all regions (LATAM, Eastern Europe, Africa, Middle East, etc) and not just for China and South Asia.

That I would like to see.

Open-ended migration, or closing immigration just to protect us from competition? No. I don't want to see that. Screw that. Bring the best, from as many parts of the world as possible and let the chips fall where they may. Let the competent rise regardless of origin. And let the incompetent adapt or sink, regardless of origin.

#onlymoronsrelyonnonsequitursinlieuofintelligentcounterarguments

He had no point, so he had to rely in the good old ad hominem fallacy.

I voted Republican most of my life, and I say that. So your statement is false. Proof by fucking contradiction bitches.

Did you just called GD an "upstart" (relative to the time the F-16 was built)? #youarenuts

GD is a century old tech mega-ass conglomerate (think GE of defense) that builds from armored vehicles to fighters to satellites to naval warships to communication systems to artillery, you name it, with branches all over the world.

If GD was an upstart at the time the F16 was being build, I'm batman!

We are talking about NASA and space exploration, not implementing and deploying ER software systems. Re-using existing designs is a very acceptable approach, but for the type of R&D and work that this involves, NASA (and we) need to also explore new designs. The time to do is now.

I think *our* money is well spent by funding both proposals and to put them into competition. The point is not just to have someone deliver something, but to do R&D and extend our body of engineering knowledge. Our money *would not* have been spent well if only one player had been picked to the exclusion of the other.