Dang, forgot to add something. As a more senior manager who has hired folks with various mental maladies, I can state unequivocally that the ADA provides far less protection than you'd first assume. Try very hard not to make your illness a discussion matter when you're in the hiring process, at least not until an offer is present. Companies will look for any reason not to higher someone, and unfortunately the stigma of mental illness can make the hiring process difficult.

Mental Health issues are just - unfair. It's ridiculous, it's unjust, it's reality that people with mental illness are often treated like crap. I wish I could change that, and when I hire folks I try to look past those issues. if someone is recovering from cancer, they're a hero. Someone with mental illness does not get that benefit. You must be smart, so try to play the game as it's presented to you, and understand that people are trying to improve the situation.

Final thing - some firms will be much more understanding of mental illness issues than others. Stay way from anything related to defense, national security, and finance. Look to firms like Apple, Redhat, and other companies that will value you as an individual, not just a cog in a vast machine.

First, I really understand what you're saying. This is a tough situation, but I'm certain you can make it through.

You're being really wise not to isolate yourself. Spending time with people will make a very substantial difference in both how you feel and your general recovery. Isolation, even with caring family will hurt you. Please keep on trying to interact with people.

In terms of mental health... what you're describing sounds more like bipolar and less like schizophrenia. Schizophrenia can be medicated, if you're serious about it, carefully monitored, and have a good support system. Bipolar is a bit rougher, and you'll have to recognize what's happening to you yourself, and with the help of family and friends. Be very careful when you're manic - I know it can feel awesome, but the code you produce can be pretty damn awful. Depressed code is less of an issue as you'll likely not write that much.

You'll find that folks in CS tend to be very understanding of mental health issues. Very, very understanding. We're in an industry filled with intelligent and generally caring people, and you'll find support. Just be honest with your colleagues about how you're doing, and most importantly, make sure your first priority is taking care of yourself.

I.E. They're accepting BitCoins as a commodity, not a currency via real time exchange rate, and I wonder who pays the transaction costs for the currency exchange.

BitCoin's wild fluctuations - a result of little to no liquidity, and half of all BitCoins in circulation being owned by less than a 1,000 people - make it impractical or downright foolish to post fixed prices.

You want cheap labor?

You want little environmental regulation?

You want to hide from taxes in your home country?

Then build in the developing world. But don't cry when the developing world's lack of rules and regulations bite you in the ass with sudden "fees", "taxes", and other sundry costs. You chose to leave your home country to enhance shareholder profits. Surprise, the rest of the world doesn't have to operate according to your shareholder's profit motive.

There are no BitCoin patents. BitCoin's authors have explicitly chosen to be anonymous. Satoshi isn't going to come out of hiding to claim a patent, and no one else would have the standing to do so.

You want to hide in the shadows (perhaps for good reasons, perhaps for bad), then accept that you're in the shadows and you cannot protect some of your legal rights. Suppose someone did want to patent BitCoin's modus operandi - slightly modified of course - what could Nakamoto do? He (she, they) could get the patent, but then would be called in front of governments across the globe. BitCoin would then cease to be the mysterious, mighty crypto currency and would become just another payment system with a few really cool embellishments.

Of course, I've always had the nagging suspicion that BitCoin's authors recognized that this would be a brilliant pyramid scheme. They had access to mining far earlier than most anyone else, so the "effort" in their mining work was much easier, requiring less costly capital investments. They're now able to take advantage of the BitCoin hype and cash out with tremendous benefits. Tremendous benefits that would be taxed if their home government knew who they were. Don't expect a BitCoin patent anytime soon.

Certainly the coldest spot on earth... just saying.

Julie Larson-Green enhanced productivity? Through the bloody, accursed, and pretty much universally despised Ribbon. Yes, she certainly defined productivity. Millions of office workers totally lost with one of the most convoluted UIs imagined. We're supposed to consider her opinion sacrosanct?

There are some things simply beyond the pale in any decent society. Entertaining people through showing a grisly, cruel murder can do nothing but harm the family, friends, and love ones of the victim. It has absolutely no political, educational, moral effect, nor any deterrent to any crime. It has no value whatsoever to shock and delight those deranged enough to view a heinous act.

The Framers had clear reasons for promoting freedom of speech, primarily to serve the political health of the nation by fostering free debate. And yes, they came from a society that still had public executions, some of which were (in England at least) just as brutal as this crime as more. But they did not create freedom of speech to promote sheer depravity. Laws exist in the context of their society, even what we consider natural law, and there are some things that a society has every damn right to ban - child pornography, and yes, showing a murder for fun.

What must be going through the minds of this poor woman's parents? Is that pain worth a shock to an increasingly cynical population? This was beyond the pale, and does corrupt public morals by desensitizing people to murder. The owner of the site deserves these charges.

Programmers and related IT folk are the absolute bottom of the corporate barrel - below custodians, below security guards, below the cafeteria staff. Only programmers / analysts / sysadmins / etc. are expected to take 6 month "contract-to-hire" positions. Only IT professionals can work in a job hierarchy with very few, if any, opportunities to advance to senior management. Mainly only IT professionals are told to take salary cuts, work extra hours, and train their successors due to outsourcing.

And now you want a contest to decide who to hire? Do accountants, operations staff, finance staff, and marketing have contests to see who will be hired? Even in sales you're hired for a position - you need to meet your quota, but there's none of this patently demeaning treatment of IT professionals as mere expendable cogs in the machine.

So what if you win the contest? Are you expected to perform at that amped up level every day of your work career? Are you supposed to quit when some new young buck / buckette does better in the contest next year? Is your education, prior experience, ability to work with others totally irrelevant? And damnit, do you have any sense of dignity in your job?

I've worked in IT for 15 years. During that time I've seen friends from undergraduate days and graduate school days move steadily up the ladder while nearly every person I've worked with in programming are stuck in the same ruck - everyone's a "Senior Engineer" or "Architect." And now we can look forward to job duels? Coding against each other endlessly in a competition to stay gainfully employed.

Don't accept this garbage. Being a productive employee is far more than just the ability to spew some excellent code in a contest. We have to make our field a profession, not a joke.

Hello, I'll blow good karma

This ROT13 crap does nothing worthwhile. It's not funny, it's not clever, God, it's not even interesting. Yes, it will go away tomorrow, but the bloody editors should just drop it. Damn it, off to Reddit.

Hello, Slashdot, I've posted for years. And being insane is more misery than you can know.

I clearly have to give credentials: Duke undergrad, evil Michigan MBA. And earning both of those degrees were hell. Not because of the work, but because I was hospitalized so many fucking times. I could - and can - do absolutely brilliant work, but having a clinically recognized illness screws things up.

In a very concrete sense, I don't perceive things as you do. I'm always lost in the details, lost in the shadows. Don't think I don't know that. I can't be in a normal classroom setting; I can't work in a normal job. I can't talk to you in a normal sense, you don't see what I see, and I can't see what you see.

I've been able to write very, very, serious papers with no problem, but I can't take a normal quiz. I don't know how to express this, but I actually know I'm insane. And before you scoff, suicide attempts should count. And to the posters above - I'm not doing anything for my pride, I'm not doing anything to make life easier on me. I've lost my family, I've lost my job, and I still dwell in the math of the economy. I can't escape, I cannot leave. But the math endures.

So before you become a righteous bastard, try to understand how much it hurts. I can't relate to you, except through writing on the Internet. I'm supposed to have an IQ over 160, but I cannot relate to anyone. You have no idea how that feels - the isolation, the isolation, the cold and constant fear. There's nothing I can do, as I an who I an. No sleep, no rest, no comfort. That's what insanity actually is. So you can make fun of me, but the pain is real.

None. The "Tech Love Boat" exists solely as a tax and immigration dodge, and its founders are proud of it. May real pirates raid this libertarian haven; may real storms smash its bow. Let me hazard a guess that they'll incorporate in Antigua, and pay no taxes, and that they'll import slave labor from India to work in the bowels of the ship.

Blueseed wants the benefits of proximity with Silicon Valley, and none of the costs. Why should we give a damn about them?

I'd also like to know who these "entrepreneurs" are. Let them live in their cabins and bar them from the shore. They don't want to pay for civilization, due to their brilliant and stunning gifts. They choose to leave civilization to live in their Brave New Race to the Bottom, _stay there_.

When a crime occurs on the "Love Boat", who will settle that crime? Blueseed? So they'll be a government, too. Hmm, maybe an invasion sounds good..

Most of the iOS APIs are derivatives of the very well tested, designed, and readable NS (NextStep) APIs that have been in production for over twenty years. Apple adds new APIs with every release, yet they still follow the design patterns and methodologies of the older application interfaces, making learning new ones quite easy.

With Objective C finally receiving easier memory management (yes, it was never terribly hard but it was at times frustrating), new developers, especially Java developers, can start rolling out code relatively quickly. As a point of history, Java's developers apparently did look at Objective-C as one of their primary influences. Personally, I find Objective-C much easier to code in then Java, and the clear nature of Apple's APIs combined with very, very strong development tools makes me much prefer iOS development over Android

There's an added benefit of iOS development which isn't commonly mentioned - it's relatively easy to port iOS code over to Mac OS X, allowing you to reach a broad and lucrative environment, leveraging your previous work.

A trial would have been a farce. How can you try a dictator in the heat of battle, especially in a nation where the very same dictator had destroyed civil society?

Ghaddafi's government functioned as a true totalitarian regime, with all functional aspects deriving from the dictator himself. The Transitional Government still is in its infancy, and could not organize a legitimate court system for years.

What I regret is that Ghaddafi could not be interrogated by neutral agencies - say at The Hague. He had close relationships with the IRA, various Palestinian terrorist groups, and very interesting relationships with major oil companies. Now we cannot find out who he worked with, what bribes he paid, and what other crimes he and his government had committed.

And remember, this man ordered the destruction of an airliner, killing 270 in the air and on the ground - including a large group of college kids, researchers, purely innocent civilians. I hope the families and friends of the victims can find some peace that the murderer is dead.