Most of the people who know Perl well already have jobs, and aren't looking to change.

We tried hiring someone to help me offload some of my work, and one the task I've gotten behind on is updating & maintaining some Perl code.

We had one person who I felt could've jumped in, but that management didn't like (as he had previously worked here, and left). The rest were folks who we'd have to train on OO, closures, and other higher level concepts.

If this hasn't been offered as a 12-month position, maybe we could've found someone. If we had advertised it as a general programming job, and then taught someone Perl, maybe it would've been gone better for us.

With trendy languages, you at least get people willing to apply -- even if it's the case that they don't grok the language, you at least get someone you can train up.

I wish I knew -- the one I have to replace the most often is the one that I have outside my back door on a motion sensing fixture; I've been using CFLs, but they die in 1-2 years, typically over the winter. ... but the one I last replaced was an 'appliance bulb' in my dryer ... it probably cost me more in gas driving all over the place to find the right bulb. (and the bulb had broken, so I didn't know the exact shape. ... so the first bulb I bought was too big to fit)

I found instructions on how to get a transcript from the automatic closed captioning of YouTube videos. Unfortunately, the instructions are in a YouTube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Of course, I have no idea what they're using for the video hosting -- I just see 'Missing Plug-in'. The 'alternate link' tells me that I have to install Flash ... like hell I will.

http://modernfarmer.com/2013/0...

Unfortunately, they're only focusing on lettuce for right now.

Personally, I just use a hydroponics system, so I don't have to worry about significant weed problems. (algae and insect problems, yes, but not weeds).

I don't think you can blame him for Guantanamo -- he's been blocked by Congress on that one: http://www.politifact.com/trut...

If you want to complain, you'll have to find some that you can actually blame on him ... luckily, you have lots to choose from : http://www.politifact.com/trut...

(and this is why when I ran for office, I only made one promise -- that I'd give fair consideration to everything put before me ... which meant I once had to abstain from a vote when I found that some complaints had been withheld, as I couldn't research if they were legitimate complaints or not)

Okay, technically, they're trash compactors, so that they don't have to go and empty them as often:

http://www.cityofboston.gov/pu...

That seems to make more sense to me than a 'solar powered bench' which looks to me to be two seats as the whole middle of it's taken up by a box. (which might be the point -- it'd be less comfortable for a homeless person to sleep on it)

I've seen other solar "urban furniture" that made more sense to me -- things like bus stops w/ solar panels in the roof (to power lighting, up-to-date bus info ... and sometimes advertising).

I've seen other 'solar phone charging stations' that make more sense to me than having it take up 1/4 of a bench:

http://inhabitat.com/nyc/solar...

http://www.gizmag.com/street-c...

http://bostinno.streetwise.co/...

Yes, they exist, but the big problem is that you don't know about it 'til the first time you try to fly ... and then you have to jump through major hoops (if you're even allowed to board).

The first clue is that the airlines won't let you check in online -- if that happens, make sure you give yourself a couple of hours at the airport, rather than thinking you'll just breeze through security.

Then you can go through explaining that no, the 3 year old you're traveling with is not whoever it is that they're watching. (oh, you laugh, but it happened to my neighbors)

So a few years ago, a bunch of people decided that there was no point in waiting for Perl6, and started back porting the features they liked into Perl5.

And to deal with the whole issue of the Perl6 syntax not being compatible w/ Perl5, they've added 'use feature' where you can tell it which features to enable. (or specify a version number to turn on a whole bunch of things)

So, you want postfix dereferencing? Then use perl 5.20, and enable the feature. (although, I believe it's currently enabled via 'experimental', so people know they're enabling a feature that may change)

Bah. You're assuming that money is the same as speech.

Money is an amplifier for a given person's speech, so a given person can buy a bullhorn & hang out down at the street corner, or by ads on hundreds of TV channels.

So what we have instead of 'limiting' the speech of others is the ability for those with the most money to be able to drown out all other voices until only theirs is heard. This is the equivalent of 'we don't want to put up with that guy with the bullhorn on the street corner'. Everyone should be able to have a voice, not just those that can shout the loudest.

I admit, much of the 'campaign finance reform' laws that they've attempted to pass have been flawed ... but trying to argue that money is a form of speech is horrible, horrible logic -- it's right up there with 'corporations are people', and claiming that corporations should have rights under the constitution.

And on the "money out of politics" front, some of the people who had been part of 'Occupy' have started 99 Rise, which their website describes as 'a network of activists and organizers dedicated to building a mass movement to reclaim our democracy from the domination of big money'.

My girlfriend in high school and I would frequently go into the dark room -- but you really didn't have much time, as the teacher knew how much time things should take, and would wonder why we were going in there if it wasn't to develop something. (we had a print shop, and one of the darkrooms had a vertical process camera, so we were in there quite often; the photography darkroom not so much)

If you over developed things, he'd know you weren't watching things closely. So you could sneak a minute or two of snogging in, but that's about it.

We had darkrooms where the door revolveds, so there wasn't any way to let light from the outside into the darkroom. You learned to keep the door towards the inside, so you had a couple seconds of warning.

n/t

As someone who manages a PEG channel -- I agree, the fees can be excessive, and they're just passed right through to the consumer, so it's effectively just a tax on those who buy fixed line video services.

However, they should be equal across all providers, so to not hit them all with it equally means that you're favoring one over another, and as these agreements typically span 10-15 years, odds are there's one out there that has it.

As for the free service -- our town doesn't force them to connect up any non-profits, only government buildings. It's possible that other towns do that, but again, this would just mean that you're favoring a given group over another. I'd much prefer to see free (even if low speed) wifi covering our downtown area than picking and choosing which non-profits get special access.

In larger libraries, there's often someone with the title of 'systems librarian. It might be the person who just configures the software packages that the library uses, but it's often someone with a bit of IT skills.

It might be an IT person who slowly picks up the librarian issues (and some will go and get a library degree if at an academic library), or it's a library person with a bit of IT skills.

If you're one of these people, and aren't already on the code4lib mailing list, I highly recommend it. (although be warned, occassionally threads get out of control).

You can also check the code4lib jobs board for what sort of skills libraries are looking for.

I know it sounds strange, but there are a lot of skills that overlap:

• trying to think about problems that might arise before they actually do
• making sure that the stuff planned can actually get done in a reasonable amount of time
• dealing with conflicting goals from different stakeholders
• doing research to teach yourself strange concepts in only a week or two

I wouldn't recommend it as a career, though. I did 6 months as a town commissioner (while working full time) before I needed to take some time off.

I currently work in IT attached to a science data archive.

Much of the software is written by the scientists themselves, who really should not be writing production code. (Sure, the scientists should spec it out ... but have someone who understands security & maintainability write the code ... so doesn't write C that generates Perl that then calls shell commands ... and wraps the whole thing in a csh script to run as a CGI)