Its called Libertardia, land of the Libertarians. In their mind its all rainbows and unicorns. The reality is much closer to Somalia.

Free interns aren't allowed to displace paid workers. That means they cannot do anything material for the company. An intern at a software company cannot write software, unless he's a paid intern.

Of course that's why unpaid internships are pretty much non-existent these days.

If they're free. Most of them are paid, then they can do work. Pay for an engineering intern is actually pretty good- the firms want to recruit the better ones.

You're low, on any scale. If you're way the fuck out in the boonies you should be making a good chunk more than that. If you live in an actual city, double that. And that's just salary, not equity.

No engineering intern makes 0. The law is that an intern can only be unpaid if they do no work relating to the company. For example, an unpaid intern at an advertising company can sit in on meetings and bring coffee, but they can't draw an ad or write copy. If they do, they have to be paid. An unpaid intern at a software company wouldn't be able to write source code. SO basically worthless. So engineering interns get paid, just a lot less. Generally a good chunk more than minimum wage though, as there is competition for interns.

Huh? If you don't trust the OS provider, Apple is the worst choice- you can't put on a custom ROM, you can't use non Apple stores, you can't use non Apple approved software, you can't use non Apple approved browser. If you don't trust the OS provider a custom ROM of Android is the only option.

Also Android tracks usage by app, and has forever. My biggest user is Maps, then facebook, then messenger. It even lists out things like Google Play Services.

What are you talking about? TMobile is the best at it- I get free unlimited data in Europe for fucks sake. Unlimited roaming data in over 120 countries. ANd I've used it in Spain and South Korea. Only place I wasn't given free data was Gibraltar.

http://www.t-mobile.com/option...

70k was my salary 14 years ago fresh out of school, with no internships. Although I did have a good GPA (3.3ish I think) from a top 10 school (UIUC). And it was San Diego, which is lower than NYC/SF, but higher than a lot of other cities. But your scale is totally off, 100K in the valley sounds about right. Maybe even low.

In 2001 I got my undergrad CS degree. I started at 70K in San Diego. It wasn't uncommon to make mid 60s 14 years ago. That its over 100K now in the Valley is absolutely no surprise. Even in rural areas under 60K for a CS degree out of college is insultingly low.

Did you miss the part where I said programming and not IT? IT- might have a purpose. I don't hire for IT. Programming nope. And your 5 certs would have 0 value for a programming job. At best I'd ignore them, but more likely I'd wonder why a sysadmin was going for a programming job and be highly skeptical.

(Shhh!!! Don't let on that you know something about explosives, especially high explosives. They'll be after you next. ;-)

That's why the (nearly empty) cup of coffee on the table next to me was made in a small saucepan on the stove. Actually, it's mostly because it makes better-tasting coffee than any of the coffee makers that we have stored in the basement, to be brought out when we have a crowd. And I can easily make just one cup, which is normally all I want. (My wife doesn't drink the stuff; she prefers tea, which she also makes in a cup or in a small pitcher for groups).

Of course, there's a potential danger that the authorities will hear about this, investigate, and decide that I'm making coffee via a Middle-Eastern method, which makes me a terrorist suspect. OTOH, I actually learned the method from my Scandinavian friends and relatives in the Mid-West, so maybe it's OK. And on the third hand, Scandinavians are all liberal socialists, don'cha know?

In any case, it's getting hard to find anything that can't be considered part of bomb making. Are you breathing oxygen? Don't you know that most explosives work via a reaction with oxygen in the air?

Hmmm ... Do you know a time and place were you could trust them?

If you think this is something new and unusual, you haven't read much history ...

For their entertainment value? ;-)

Here in the Boston area, we're still making jokes about the 2007 bomb scare caused by a set of "art works" (actually ads), small electronic displays hung up mostly along main streets around the city. Even the Marathon bombing didn't stop the humor surrounding the police takedown of this "art". Rather, the bombing is generally understood as a major bit of evidence that all the supposed security precautions are worthless. "They can stop street artists (or ad agencies ;-), but they can't stop actual terrorists." We also hear versions of what this story will no doubt trigger: comments to the effect that it's no surprise that the US can no longer match the technology of most 3rd-world countries; just look at what they do to a kid trying to become competent in some technical specialty. They obviously don't want us turning our kids into chemical engineers, or any other kinds of engineers. To the authorities, that stuff looks a lot like terrorism, y'know.

Stories like this are much of what led to the rise of the phrase "security theater". (If you're not familiar with it, just google it.)

I think you far overestimate the average person's understanding of science. They may be able to parrot that energy=matter, but they won't actually understand it, or the consequences of it.