Basically same story here: Parents were too lazy to submit FAFSA (I wasn't assertive enough to see it through). Accepted to Rose-Hulman, ended up enlisted instead, which lasted 11 years. Completed my BSEE a few years after that, taking on a debt of $11K in 3 years of school including 1 very heavy summer term / 120 or so credits. Total bill was 49.5K (thanks, Montgomery GI Bill). Maybe I should have left after my first enlistment, but I had some great assignments.

Anyways, if what you want to do with your life requires a college education, then you'll find a way.

BTW, community college can get you part of the way to a bachelors degree for (sometimes much) less expense than a big school. I have attended classes at Monterey Peninsula College and the in-state student costs were very, very low (like eleven dollars per credit) in the late 90s; guess they still are low today. Schools in Ohio seem to be much more expensive.

To answer your first question, it seems good for Intel to make the CPU the bottleneck again, that way we finally feel the need to buy new CPUs. As for home use, my MiL's current, C2D 3.06GHz, iMac does not seem appreciably faster than my C2D (Merom) 2.33GHz Macbook Pro which I have had since October of 2006. My informal Handbrake benchmark (crunching video is my only real use for fast computer gear these days) is out of whack due to a recent switch to 64bit Handbrake and 64-bit nightly build of VLC, but they seem to be in the same league, definitely not worlds apart as a 3.5 year difference in tech should have yielded.

I have done some moving around as an airman, let me tell you that the heat in AZ is no joke. I was stationed in Tucson after a year in Korea (comparable to FL for humidity and heat in the summer, if you mean that the longest you may be dry is for 20 seconds after toweling off after a cold shower). Stopped drinking alcoholic beverages as I was not 21 yet. No joke, I arrived in Tucson in May and found myself hungover like all the time until I learned to carry water with me everywhere.

Ok, now get used to Tucson (110-ish) and visit Phoenix. Holy shit it is hot there! As soon as you see the signs for the Chandler exits you realize that there is a difference between the two cities. Saudi Arabia (Al Kharj) wasn't all that bad coming from Tucson.

Now I live in OH, and it is basically cold all the time (to me). Summers can be pretty humid. Winter sucks hard.

Because your argument against the iPad is basically a repeat of others' rants, and because the argument itself is just plain pathetic, I hope that in the very near future clothes with an iPad-sized pocket dominate so that for the next ten years you will be able to show us all how contrary you are simply by having an empty iPad pocket.

I agree. Surgeons are people, as are engineers, airline pilots, lawyers, nurses, construction workers, and pretty much any other kind of worker. Who cares if they are dishonest or make mistakes once every 200 tasks?

Back to the topic: I have never experienced dishonesty with Korean cab drivers in two tours and a number of side trips there. Regular cabs (not the deluxe cabs) are very affordable. US armed forces members take note: Korean cabs are less expensive than AAFES cabs.

My last tour at Osan I took a cab to base nearly every morning once there was enough snow and ice to make walking from the Korea Telecom building (very near where I lived) to the main gate. Also took a cab for every trip to the landromat. And on many other occasions.

Of course it helps if you speak Korean; it always blows their minds when a caucasian speaks their language. This means adhering to conventions of respect which are not taught in bars.

Well, it seems like you have found an opportunity for a new business. Good luck with finding free engineering, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution services. Maybe you need to benefit from economy of scale. You may be able to expand your market by promoting free rock concerts at crowded subway stations.

Actually, Hello.c seems appropriate.

I wonder if the default output for stdio.h for missiles is the fuse?

That raises a good point: If I launch a missile at my enemy or an unfortunate neighbor, and the missile's internal computer uses GPL software, then do I have to include a copy of the GPL source code (or make an offer to provide the code by mail) somewhere in the payload?

"If you can compile this then you are one lucky SOB"

Just hypothetical; I don't design, build, or launch missiles professionally or otherwise :\

Exactly. Also, if the phone detects that your voice is much much louder than the ambient noise it should howl in the speaker's ear. Rudeness should exhibit self-inductance.

If the person on the other end can't hear you then they can reposition their handset or increase the volume.

. Whoops! All this was in late 2008, not last year.

No.

In late Nov. last year I was called by LockMart for an interview for an entry level hardware engineer position. I had been looking elsewhere since May after graduating with a BSEE and with 3.39 GPA. Early in the morning of the interview we received the first major snow of the winter. I ended up stuck on the highway, 18 miles from the interview, for nearly 4 hours. I called to let my contact know I was going to get there when I could get there.

That day I interviewed with several people from about 11:30 until 4:00. Lunch was provided. All the interviewers were understanding of the delay and were professionally courteous. No one had any overt smug attitude, and now that I have been working with them for over a year, I can say that they did not at all act out of character for the interview.

That evening I received a phone call from one of the managers that the interview was well received and that if I wanted the position that HR would be notified that I was the candidate of their choice.

Is there anything special about me that allowed me to land a nice job with little trouble with a MegaCorp at the height of the recession? Attention to detail, self confidence, and a can-do attitude which indicated that although I had a successful 11 years of service in the Air Force in an unrelated career field (linguist), I understood that I have no relevant experience in engineering and was willing to do a lot of [desk-bound] grunt work and learn how they conduct business.

Contrast this with another lead I had been pursuing at the time: a small NASA contractor interviewed me for a test engineer position. This was/is my dream job, setting up tests for the NASA scientists. I toured the facilities and was all but shaking with desire to work there. The managers were friendly if not a bit short about asking questions. The young (well, younger than me, anyways) engineer they sent to show me the facilities and interview me seemed unenthusiastic about interviewing me. After about an hour or so of walking & talking (more looking around than conversing, unfortunately), we prepared to return to the manager's office. At that time he basically let me know that he thought I was playing the field for interviews (I had been unemployed since graduating several months earlier), ostensibly to grab the highest salary offered. I told him I was not bullshitting (at that point I knew he was going to torpedo my candidacy) that I really wanted the job.

The hiring manager let me know that they were going to weigh their options and get back to me within 3 weeks. I sent a good thank-you letter, reiterating my strong desire to work there. He failed to call within a month, so I sent email reminding him that I was still interested. He claimed that with Obama's election that their capacity to take on new workers was unknown (NASA being a political / budgetary football, I guess) and that he'd get back to me when he knew what was going to happen. About a week or so later I noticed that the position disappeared from their website; I called to ascertain the status of the position and the guy basically blew up at me over the phone.

A week later I was called to see if I wanted to interview with LockMart, and the rest is [recent] history.

So there, AC, if you think that mega-corp interviewers are arrogant, then you may be meeting with jerks or you may have some sensitivity / self-confidence issues.

nope, ipconfig doesn't address the situation. The "authenticate with WPA" option simply disappears from the pulldown menu, only Open and WEP remain until the connection is completely deleted and re-established. Happens roughly 4x per year.

Piddle packs and packed lunches. Port-o-john & shower curtain for sit-down work. If we as a society require the kind of security that our leaders profess we need, then our airframe designers must make room for accommodating these features. They are good enough for C-130 aircrew.

Maybe not many are familiar with the 70V audio systems. Don't mod parent down or freak out about using 24AWG speaker line (phone, Cat 5, etc) without doing some research.

Check out 70V systems: hook up loads of speakers, no problem. Think drive-in movie theater, Navy 1MC, etc.