Totally concur with this... when you freelance, you're not just coding, you're the whole business, including marketing, sales, accounting, collections, spec capture, coding, testing, customer service, etc.

If you make $x/hr coding at your day job, you'll probably need to make $2x/hr for your coding time to cover all the other stuff doing little freelance jobs - if you're looking to make a similar overall hourly rate.

It can be a lot of fun, it can also help you appreciate all the stuff your day job does for you.

I thought I was going to hate the OS and want to cyanogen my KFHD, but I'm actually learning to accept and enjoy it - depends on what you use it for. For me, it's an alarm clock and web browser, with special focus on Gmail usage, sometimes to view security camera feeds, and occasionally play Angry Birds Rio.... I suppose if I were trying to make my tablet be all it can be, I'd be upset about the Amazon stranglehold on the OS, but it's not an issue for my use cases.

I have a 10" tablet (iPad) and I actually prefer the 8.9" form factor, it's easier to handle - 7" is even more convenient to carry, but around the house, 8.9" is my personal sweet spot - so, no bonus assigned for a bigger screen that makes the device unwieldy to use.

Resolution: do I really care if my tablet has more pixels than my 42" TV? Personally, 1920x1080 is good enough for me - and well worth having as compared to the first generation iPad, it is much easier to read.

$85 more? Well, let's just say I don't care about ads on my lock screen and compare $399 to the $249 I paid for my Kindle Fire HD on pre-Christmas sale. That's a 60% premium you're paying to get your software ecosystem of choice, and I'm willing to bet the Nexus device also has waiting list / delivery time issues that the Kindle does not.

Choice is the key here - I'm learning to love the Amazon ecosystem model, they're much better about auto-configuring the device than Apple has been: all my previously purchased apps were installed "out of the box," MP3s of my CD purchases instantly available for free. Yes, it ticks me off that they're always trying to sell me a TV show or movie for $3, or a book for $9 (where does that pricing model come from?), but mostly I find it easier to use than the iPad/iTunes model - does what I want without me burning a lot of time configuring it all.

Seems to me, if you want to spend a lot of your time to configure it all, you should be paying less for your device, not more, but that's just an opinion.

I unplugged from Cable TV 22 years ago, dropped the antenna 12 years ago, no ill effects. Similarly, cut the land-line phone about 5 years back.

Some people drop electricity, it's all a lifestyle choice, none of these things are truly necessities - your Great-great-great-grandparents and all of their ancestors for the 10,000 years before them didn't have any of these things, and yet they still managed to procreate.

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What if the hoky-poky really is what it's all about?

Check the source, of course it's twisted to be laughable.

Some local police departments pay for drone services as needed, like during big SWAT raids... they don't just have them on hand to play with, yet.

There's a Dilbert strip about this (Boss asks Dilbert to interview consultants as research...)

No job worth having will be threatened by this kind of thing.

On the other hand, I have seen "work from home" offers requiring a test to be executed and e-mailed in that would take several hours to complete, often using some esoteric knowledge not readily available in ordinary documentation. The one in particular I encountered came from the Philippines.

http://www.metagraphics.com/metawindow/gui/mncppfaq.txt

1. Overview
    1.1 What is Menuet/CPP.
        Menuet/CPP is the third generation in Graphical User Interface
        packages from Autumn Hill Software. Menuet/CPP is implemented
        in the C++ language which is clear and intuitive for GUI programming.
        Many of the features included with Menuet/CPP are discussed in later
        sections of this FAQ.
    1.2 Version.
        Autumn Hill is currently shipping version 2.0a of Menuet/CPP.
    1.3 Supported Operating Systems.
        Menuet/CPP supports MS-DOS 3.3, 5.0, and 6.0. Other versions of DOS such
        as PC-DOS, DR-DOS, Novell DOS, and CompaqDOS may also work, but are not
        explicitly supported by Autumn Hill Software.
    1.4 Supported Graphics Packages.
        Menuet/CPP supports several graphics packages for a wide variety of needs.
        MetaWINDOW by Metagraphics Corporation, BGI from Borland International,
        and the Microsoft Graphics Library are all supported. Section 1.5
        lists the compatability between compiler, extenders, and these graphics
        toolkits.
    1.5 Supported Compilers and extenders.
        See the file COMPILER.DOC for a description of supported compiler, extender,
        and graphics package combinations.
    1.6 Autumn Hill's development environments.
        Autumn Hill prefers two development environments for Menuet/CPP.
        The first includes the Borland C++ 3.1 compiler with all of the
        graphics packages. The Borland compiler is an excellent compiler,
        it is fast, creates compact code, and has the best debugger on the
        market. The Zortech C++ 3.1 compiler with Flash Tek's X32-VM extender
        is also used in development. The X32-VM is a
        great extender, it is royalty free, and works well with the Zortech
        compiler. Programming in protected mode is excellent for debugging
        purposes since many "bugs" in programs can be found as they will cause
        a program to crash when the "bugs" are encountered. For instance,
        in real mode a reference outside of an array will return bogus
        information. In protected mode a reference outside of an array will
        cause a protection viloation and the program will halt at that point
        of execution.
    1.7 CUA compliancy.
        IBM developed the Common User Access(CUA) paradigm to unify the many
        user interfaces in the world. OS/2 and MS-Windows are the major
        user interfaces that are CUA compiant. The full CUA documentation
        sets are available through IBM. Most of Menuet/CPP is CUA compliant.
        For instance, The ALT-F4 key combination will close a window. But
        There is no idea of a currently active control that can be changed
        by pressing the TAB key to move to the next control.
    1.8 Memory requirements.
        See the file MNSAMP1.DOC for a list of executable sizes for the "Hello,
        World" example program.

Nothing forces anything - the non-license option is a more realistic embrace of "the way things are" than either closed, or FOSS.

Seriously, what percentage of FOSS using companies do you think actually comply with the license, anyway? I'm not saying they shouldn't bother, they definitely should, those were the terms and conditions of using the FOSS, but what if you just want to develop something and you don't care about putting the color of license on it - it can still be open source developed, and if someone wants to use it in their own way, they can without any problems about it. If they want to contribute back, or not, that's their choice.

So many FOSS projects lack the resources to enforce a license like GPL(x) that it makes a mockery of it.

You know, the main problem I see with calling it "government oversight" is the knee-jerk response from libertarian circles. Maybe we could call it "public oversight" or "transparency"?

I've heard you mention Solar Power as another exponential improvement technology, do you have any data on when it is expected to drop below traditional power generation fuels (coal, gas, nuclear) in terms of cost per kilowatt hour of delivered power?

Fringe alternate universe - if you don't know, watch the show.

I've been saying this for years: "smartphone so big it barely fits in my shirt pocket, and a BT headset."

The headsets look dorky, but not as dorky as a 6" phablet on your face, and I'd rather look dorky than carry a Palm Pilot and a cell phone - bt,dt.

Concur - get the job. The economy is really good right now, lots of opportunities out there, pick something you love and run with it.

When I got out with my BS (1988) the job market was... less robust, so I went back and got an MS, but all in all, a good job would have been just about as good for most of the worthwhile opportunities in life.

On the other hand, if you ever want to teach at a snooty institution of higher learning, go ahead and slog through your PhD right now, otherwise they'll never consider you worthy to do more than sweep the floor.