I was just arguing that this is pointless. When I traveled to Israel, I requested that my visa be stamped on a removable sheet of paper to be stapled into my passport. I did this because I didn't want evidence of a trip to Israel when one of my next stops was Malaysia. If someone is trying to get from Liberia to the US, they will do so with no evidence of recently having been in Liberia.

It's not as if there are huge numbers of flights to and from Liberia.

Lesson: don't go to a shitty community hospital for anything except a broken arm.

We knew what was going on when you ran your anti-IBM campaign, sometimes even positioning yourself as arguing on behalf of our community. It was a way to lend credence to IBM and MS arguments during the SCO issue. To state otherwise is deceptive, perhaps even self-deceptive.

Florian, you would not be devoting all of this text to explaining yourself if you didn't feel the need to paint your actions in a positive light. That comes from guilt, whether you admit it to yourself or not.

Go write your app, and if you actually get to make any money with it you can give thanks, because it will happen despite what you worked for previously. Keep a low profile otherwise because your credibility is well and truly blown and you can only make things worse. And maybe someday you can really move past this part of your life. But I am not holding out much hope.

I have no idea what your agenda is. I'm not the one arguing that military ships are "easy". If you think that America's military shipyards are on anywhere near a war footing, or for that matter operating in a manner that would be competitive on the world private markets then you are delusional. They do a fine job of their goal, which is to keep America's ability to produce such weapons alive - a goal which I agree with. Their secondary goal of keeping the fleet fresh is also successful, but let's face it - that goal could be done for considerably less money if we did not insist on building them domestically.

The Korean shipyard is competitive on the world private market, but would probably put out a pretty piss-poor nuclear submarine. They currently operate German diesel-electrics. Daewoo builds them in Korea, but to your point it takes 4 years or so - not anything like the few months one of these cargo ships take.

So, I see this as rationalization.

The fact is, you took a leadership position, and later turned your coat for reasons that perhaps made sense to you. But they don't really make sense to anyone else. So, yes, everyone who supported you then is going to feel burned.

You also made yourself a paid voice that was often hostile to Free Software, all the way back to the SCO issue. Anyone could have told you that was bound to be a losing side and you would be forever tarred with their brush.

So nobody is going to believe you had any reason but cash, whatever rationalization you cook up after the fact. So, the bottom line is that you joined a list of people who we're never going to be able to trust or put the slightest amount of credibility in.

And ultimately it was for nothing. I've consistently tried to take the high road and it's led to a pretty good income, I would hazard a guess better than yours, not just being able to feel good about myself.

Meh, it's easy to find people with skill. With values, OTOH...

You have a point.

It's probably true, or based on something true. A lot of those old processes were very dependent on the mix of impurities at a certain location... you could only make [sword/knife/dagger] using an ore from [some hill/bluff/valley]. They didn't know that at the time, or if they did they had no idea why.

Then indeed that sounds like a low salary. Except that those states without pensions also tend to have low costs of living, so what do I know?

I didn't say there was "sloth". But they run 1 shift and quite literally build them as slowly as is feasible. We don't need the number that they are turning out, but we do need the skill set and facilities.

Depending on where you are employed, government jobs also give you a pension that would be worth around $1 million if you had to buy it as an annuity.

I assumed a retirement age of 55 after working for 30 years to get your full pension. I assumed your salary would not increase over time and that the annuity would track cost-of-living. I assumed half-salary upon retirement, for life, with a spousal benefit upon your death. These assumptions are very conservative and probably seriously understate the real value of the pension, especially if it includes a health benefit.

Wow, cool site. Check out the column from 1939, which is the year Germany invaded Poland, to 1945 when the war ended:
Battleships: 15 to 23 (not amazing, but still impressive given their utility to expense ratio)
Carriers: 5 to 99
Cruisers: 36 to 72
Destroyers: 127 to 377
Frigates: 0 to 361
Subs: 58 to 232

And that is while taking losses the whole time!