I have telecommuted 3/5 days each week for almost 6 years at the same company, here are a few observations:

- be in the office the same days each week so that people know where/when to find your face
- make your work visible, send status reports in even if they are not asked for
- speak up on a call, if you have nothing to contribute then make jokes, use humor but make sure your voice is heard
- when you are in the office, work hard
- make sure folks see you online in instant messenger when your are at home

One of the major problems is that most of our markets are NOT free - government regulation and intervention has constrained the markets and created significant imbalance and malinvestment. The US used to have something closer to a free market.

Disk quotas or separate file systems are a simple solution to this problem. Just takes a little more work than a line in a config file.

As western civilization has grown through the industrial revolution we have found that as technology replaces skill sets and workers it typically frees them up for more profitable work. A specific set of jobs is replaced, but those workers are then put to work on something that is ultimately more productive. In a command economy this would be a problem, in a capitalist economy those workers will be employed in the next role until that one is replaced as well.

Your profanity and personal insults have made such a strong case that I am sure anyone reading this that might have agreed with me has been swayed to your opinion.

Have a nice holiday.

I agree that science should NOT be done that way, however as a matter of fact some researchers DO start with a conclusion. Read your history books, there are plenty of ideas that were the result of "science", were widely accepted by the culture only to be disproved later. Some of the best examples come from the 20th century - look up eugenics for a start.

Anyone who has worked with statistics knows that nearly every set of numbers that represent a non-trivial set of data MUST rely on their experience and training to interpret the data. Numbers are only useful when interpreted with an understanding of causal relationships and background.

You are being naive if you think that scientists are infallible, superhuman or don't have their own predispositions. The important thing is for them to recognize their own bias and to balance their work against it.

These "scientists" have a clear bias and are making every effort to hide that bias - this draws their research into question.

I think you have confused documented historical fact with theory.

The history of the holocaust is a document historical fact with eye witnesses.

The "theory" of evolution is exactly that - a theory, not a fact. Natural selection lends itself a little more closely to being labeled fact, evolution as the origin of the species has far too many problems to be elevated beyond theory.

The moon shot is a documented historical fact, again with eye witnesses.

The question of anthropogenic global climate change is not a question of whether people are rational, rather it is a question of whether we have a theory or a set of facts. The facts may suggest their theory, however the facts fail to prove the theory.

This event helps highlight the difficulty in approaching any non-trivial problem in an unbiased way. The problem is less about the science than it is that the researches were clearly biased and pursuing specific results. The fact that others have claimed to reproduce the results does not lend credibility as long as they fail to acknowledge their bias and operate in a fully transparent way.

Whether you agree or disagree with the question of human affected climate change you really can't deny the fact that these folks are heavily biased toward a specific outcome for their research.

After more than 20 years in the industry (13 or so as a software engineer/programmer, a few years manager, a few more as a systems architect) I can unequivocally say that a Masters Degree is nearly useless.

A post-graduate degree means nothing compared to another candidate with a few years more of meaningful experience related to the job. Even if the experience is not directly related, if they can demonstrate their problem solving skills and ability to adapt through that experience I am going to be far more interested in them.

I realize that this is anecdotal, however it seems to me that there is a huge representation of non-post graduate degrees in the higher paid levels of jobs related to computer science.

Other disciplines may make sense, but post graduate (and in some cases baccalaureate) degrees are a waste of time and money.