Oh I tell them, they just say "That's not my reality". Twats.

Honestly, I know it's probably an unpopular opinion around here because it's fun to hate on Microsoft... but having now owned a first-gen Surface Pro for about 2 months I have to say that it's the best tablet I've ever owned. I picked it up on the clearance when the Gen 2 was released because despite some misgivings I really did appreciate the concept.

It's not a great laptop, and it's a rather bulky and heavy tablet but the ability to have a REAL computer that I can carry around easily is incredibly valuable to me. That and being able to use WiFi on planes any more means that I can be in touch and even work in a coach seat while flying across the country. Given I've just completed business trip #4 for the year so far this has become very useful to me.

Despite its limitations, it has surprisingly managed to supplant any number of laptops or tablets I have had at home for just about everything except for very niche uses. It's really fast for just basic web surfing when kicked back on the couch, the stylus is awesome for writing a few hand-written notes in OneNote and having my Type keyboard close at hand means I can plop down on my dining room table and do everything from write a quick email to fire up MobaXterm and get some real work done on the Linux systems I have at home and at my virtual hosting service. As a general-purpose computer it has become a better form factor and a better system than anything else I have at home. My iPad is gathering dust in a drawer due to lack of really good productivity apps or SSH apps, my Macbook Pro sits around mostly waiting for me to feel like firing up a game on Steam or to work in my image library (the big hard drive helps, here!) and my Linux laptop is... well... mostly gathering dust next to the iPad. I have a smattering of Android tablets including a Nexus 7 that I haven't charged in months.

I know this is anecdotal and the Surface Pro isn't really for everyone. For my needs though it's absolutely perfect. Since I moved to a smaller home a year ago (by choice, a condo) I no longer have a study or even a desk so a desktop PC is out and a laptop has to be used on my dining room table or (uncomfortably) on the couch. My Surface Pro I can hold like a tablet if I see fit or plonk down on the table at a moment's notice. This works for me, and as well as the aforementioned coach seat it's also awesome when I travel so I can bring it to breakfast at hotels with me and check email/Slashdot/etc. while I eat and drink coffee.

And a quick snippet of advice for anyone with a 1G Surface Pro... if you want to significantly increase your battery life you can set the maximum CPU on battery to ~60% in the power management settings, then you get at least 30-40% more battery life with no noticeable decrease in performance unless you're doing something really heavy duty. Since I mostly just do web surfing and email on battery and more intensive stuff (like work) on the power adapter this works really well.

Oh and we have looked at other tablet/convertible type laptops at work recently and are probably going to standardize on the Lenovo Yoga as our corporate standard. However, in terms of sheer build quality I still feel my Surface Pro has the Yoga beat hands down.

But, but... what colour should it be?

I've worked at places where you just want to scream at the ineptitude of the seniors. They ask how long it will take to code. You tell them 3 months. They say do it in 2. You try and cut all sorts of corners, some dangerous, no room left for contingency then suddenly at week 6 you get told it's now 7 weeks not 8. Code goes to test and not surprisingly, it's crap. They then go nuts over code quality and say you must do better next time and faster again too. Dear seniors. The reason the code is crap is because it was rushed because you wouldn't accept reality or lacked the balls to tell your boss that reality was different to what they wanted it to be.

Exactly. What is supposed to happen is the business describe a need. A Business Analyst spends some time with them (weeks if needed) discussing it, teasing out what they really want (business people are very good at putting forward a solution disguised as a requirement and often, it's the wrong solution) and liasing with techies to see what can be done. That's your business requirements and rules. The architect then maps that to the systems available and decides at a high level how it all hangs together. Then designers work out the finer detail (often referring back to the business guys) and pass that on to devs.

What I struggle with is translating badly worded/badly thought through/incomplete business requirements into program logic. All too often something which seems straight forward to a business person is a can of worms when it comes to implementing it.

GNU Mailman, likely the most popular mailing list manager in use today

Evidence?

That when someone dies who was key to one of the greatest achievements of man to date, all we can muster is a bunch of snide comments and jokes. Oh, the Facebook generation...

SpaceX Lands Launches Load to ISS

WTF?

It was a very old and very complex system that was midway through having its replacement built. The system was not something you could easily add resource too. Yes, it was a disaster waiting to happen (although it had DR) but as is often the case, trying to persuade the suits that they needed to spend millions on a system so that they'd get a new one that did the same thing, isn't very easy.

Heck, we have a CR process for anything that touches a live server. I even had to go through the process to get details of a file as it would have resulted in an unexpected file write. By way of background, the server used to fill up during the day's processing and empty out overnight. It got very tight sometimes and when someone made a copy of a file without checking the size, it filled the filesystem and the server fell over. That particular outage cost several million given what the server did.

But here at least, the amount of people who are either self employed, do free lance on the side, or have some kind of investments, is a pretty damn large portion

But at least with the UK system, the bulk of your tax is already covered. I used to submit a self-assessment return online here as I bought/sold shares and had a second job writing magazine articles. I just had o add the details plus expenses I was claiming to offset these, online and the system works out what you have to pay (and takes into account your existing tax from your primary job). You then have a choice to pay it in a lump sum or change your tax code so you pay it off each month (there must be limits to this, not sure, never used this option). The online system is great, loads of information, a clear step by step process and it does all the calculations for you. You can do it bit by bit and it remembers all your details to date. When you finally submit it you get a downloadable PDF that looks just like the paper version but nicely filled in.

And before tools existed to automate it, cut/pasting the various alt.binaries files (1/6, 2/6 etc) together prior to feeding it to your uudecoder.

Good for you... but truth is you're probably an exception.

Not everyone can code; it requires a very specific mindset and very specific way of thinking to effectively code. It also requires a desire to code. Being a carpenter probably actually set you up much better to be a programmer than you think; it's all geometry and understanding load. I know because my best friend happens to be a carpenter. A coal miner... well I'll be honest I don't know what skill set is required for that but I'd wager that it falls into the realm of unskilled labor, whereas carpenter is definitely skilled labor. There's a difference.

Now on my second point; desire to code. I'm really good at coding. I learned at an early age, self-taught and was writing assembly language stuff in my teens while my class at school was struggling with Pascal. I wrote tight, well-written code that I shared with friends and took code they shared with me and together we built great stuff including a game... which granted didn't do well but it was a hell of an accomplishment for four teenage boys with no Internet and communicating mostly through the phone and by mailing floppy disks. But when I was in my 20's I realized suddenly that I didn't like coding. I still don't. While the feeling of accomplishment was great when something worked, there was a degree of slog in getting there. After a fashion I made the realization that hardware was where I found the most interest, not software. So I pursued work as a hardware engineer in embedded systems.

Now at 40 I have settled into being a (well, actually THE) storage administrator and systems engineer for a multinational company... because it interests me. The skillset is extremely specialized, but used in a lot of companies and so therefore isn't going to leave me without a job anytime soon. The risks are high because if I screw up I potentially affect a lot of people, but the rewards are also pretty damned good. The closest I've gotten to coding in the last 20 years has been writing scripts to make my job easier. I do it quite a bit, and while it's similar to coding it's far more focused on immediate needs. I still build great "code" but it's an adjunct to my day job, not my entire day job. I think if I were to code for a living I would've quit long ago to pursue something more enlightening. But that's just me.

Also be aware that there are people who have no desire to learn. I've dealt with them many times too. They settle into unskilled labor not because their brains can't handle the information but because they choose not to. And add to that whether you like it or not as one gets older it becomes far harder to learn a new skill. Add all these factors up and yes... Bloomberg is probably right on this one. He's an ass, and quite often wrong... but on this one I have to give him credit.

Thing is; it's valid. There are cars that have been built in my lifetime (I'm 41) for which you have to buy new wheels if you want to put tires on them because the tire sizes, materials and rim requirements have changed so much. Yeah, I happen to also hang around with a lot of car guys because a lot of them are fun... it's interesting how much of the parts we take for granted to repair our cars now have to be worked around or even fabricated for cars built as late as the mid 80's.