One of the big changes I've seen in the past few years is the gradual disappearance of "or related work experience" in job requirements. A lot of positions now require a BS.

There are still plenty of positions available without one, but if you're thinking about a career in development you should give this a lot of consideration.

Windows admins don't generally code though one of the dot-net's would likely be the choice if they did.

I think VB has moved out of the red-headed stepchild category at this point.

I worked on cleaning up a project after the main developer imploded. He had serious pot and cocaine habits, but what was interesting was that you could tell which he was on when he wrote various sections.

Basically, his coke fueled code generally worked and was relentlessly documented, but he'd brute-force problems that could have been solved by an hour of reflection. His pot programming was creative and filled with half-completed ideas and zero documentation.

Kind of a sad story, the guy went from a guitar-playing family man with a long list of happy clients to a divorced druggie constantly padding out his hours and ripping off clients. Visiting his sleazy apartment to go over some code and getting just shamelessly hit on by his 15 yo daughter is probably one of my most excruciating memories.

It must be nice to have your kind of free time.

I ran across a custom-built proto-CMS written in C++ once... the proud owner describing what a genius the developer had been.

When smaller oil men screamed about rate discrimination, Vanderbilt's spokesmen gladly promised the same rebate to anyone else who would give him the same volume of business. Since no other refiner was as efficient as Rockefeller, no one else got Standard Oil's discount. Many of Rockefeller's competitors condemned him for receiving such large rebates. But Rockefeller never would have gotten them had he not been the largest shipper of oil. These rebates, on top of his remarkable efficiency, meant that most refiners could not compete. From 1865 to 1870, the price of kerosene dropped from 58 to 26 ceres per gallon. Rockefeller made profits during every one of these years, but most of Cleveland's refiners disappeared.

Sure you can't fit some comment on fracking in there?

Oh, so you're saying I twist everything you say into some kind of bizarre absolute?

I'll choose inept over actively evil every time, thanks.

As my geology prof exclaimed when the class complained about the amount of memorization required: "welcome to college."

Your point of view is not consistent with U.S. rhetoric on Assange. They've portrayed him specifically as someone who needs to be prosecuted. U.S. senators have repeatedly called for prosecution under treason, espionage, and terrorism charges.

Right. There are dozens of cops camped out around the building he cannot leave because Sweden wants him for questioning. This is the level of response everyone gets whenever Sweden wants to question someone, and that is simply because Sweden is cool, and other countries are trying to impress her.

Why is "we will not extradite Assange" such a hard thing to say. So he's paranoid, and such a thing would never happen. What is lost by simply saying that and ending the whole issue?

Then it should be a simple matter for Sweden to publicly refute any extradition for Assange. And end this bullshit speculation. Why haven't they done so?

He has a daughter that he treated really poorly, surprisingly enough.

I would ask that before any of you post on politics, you stop and ask yourself if the rhetoric you are using is really justified or contributes to a sane, civil discussion.

Oh come on, your party has decided that they're the voice of god. Sane, civil discussion is no longer an option. If there's no room for compromise, and there isn't with you folks, there's no point in discussing anything.

You've picked your side, and you threw your lot in with the anti-intellectual fundamentalists. You chose to support this attitude. Have the balls to take the criticism that will come your way. God will protect you.