"Check this out, comrade, it's like I have my own exercise instructor!", announced Winston to his comrade Syme, as he turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though the words were still distinguishable. The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely. "You can dim it, so It saves electricity when you're asleep!"

The instructress had called them to attention again. "And now let's see which of us can touch our toes!' she said enthusiastically. 'Right over from the hips, please, comrades. ONE-two! ONE-two!..."

"Oh I hate this one, he whispered to Syme. "It sends shooting pains all the way from my heels to my buttocks and often ends by bringing on another coughing fit."

"But have you installed the Newspeak translator app?", asked Syme. "It's so cool, you just speak English to it and it translates what you say into proper Newspeak!"

"Oh, that sounds awesome!" said Winston. "Can I download it from the Ministry of Plenty's app store?"

"Ha ha, no!" replied Syme. "It comes preinstalled as part of the operating system! You couldn't uninstall it even if you wanted to."

"Wow!" exclaimed Winston. You mean I have it already, then? So I don't need to waste time looking for it."

"You work at the Ministry of Truth, Winston!" laughed Syme. "I would expect you to know these things already." He paused for a moment, then asked, "Did you see the prisoners hanged yesterday?"

"I was working," said Winston indifferently. "I shall download it and watch it later, I suppose."

"A very inadequate substitute," said Syme. His mocking eyes roved over Winston's face. "I know you," the eyes seemed to say, "I see through you. I know very well why you didn't watch the live stream of those prisoners hanged."

"Smith!" screamed the shrewish voice from the telescreen. "6079 Smith W.! Yes, YOU! Bend lower, please! You can do better than that. You're not trying. Lower, please! THAT'S better, comrade. Now stand at ease, the whole squad, and watch me."

A sudden hot sweat had broken out all over Winston's body. His face remained completely inscrutable. Never show dismay! Never show resentment! A single flicker of the eyes could give you away. He stood watching while the instructress raised her arms above her head and--one could not say gracefully, but with remarkable neatness and efficiency--bent over and tucked the first joint of her fingers under her toes.

"THERE, comrades! THAT'S how I want to see you doing it. Watch me again. I'm thirty-nine and I've had four children. Now look." She bent over again. "You see MY knees aren't bent. You can all do it if you want to,' she added as she straightened herself up. "Anyone under forty-five is perfectly capable of touching his toes. We don't all have the privilege of fighting in the front line, but at least we can all keep fit. Remember our boys on the Malabar front! And the sailors in the Floating Fortresses! Just think what THEY have to put up with. Now try again. That's better, comrade, that's MUCH better," she added encouragingly as Winston, with a violent lunge, succeeded in touching his toes with knees unbent, for the first time in several years.

"I'm impressed, Winston," said Syme. "If you'd told me you could touch your toes before you got this thing, I would have said that's such bullocks." He then silently nodded at the screen. "You think she really has four kids? She looks kind of hot for 39."

"I heard that!" screamed the instructress. "I'm flagging your numbers and adding you both to the Ministry of Love's follow list!"

We used to at least get a disclaimer, even if it was just an article _about_ something geeknet owned.

Slipping their own garbage in the mix with things a user might have actually submitted is pretty shitty, and the campaign id in the URL is just obscene.

I think using slashdot to promote their own trash articles is a bit sketchy.

Take a look at Nerval's Lobster's user page. The account exists for the sole purpose of posting dice.com garbage. There is no way actual users submit this crap. The URL even has a campaign id in it so they can track the success of their shit posting.

This kind of behaviour makes me want to be defiant in the least significant and most petty way possible... so I took slashdot off my adblock whitelist.

I'm actually just now at the "oh shit, I really gotta figure out how money works" stage in my life.

I managed to save enough for a decent down payment on a house by dumping cash into a savings account for a bunch of years, and I have RRSPs because it was a checkbox and a form when I joined the company. I'm pretty good about living within my means (no debt aside from the mortgage), but I don't know shit about investing and if the "retirement calculator" on our companies group retirement page is any indication, I aught to learn soon

Will definitely look into that book...

This really does scare me.

The only options I really see (for myself at least) are:

- management, which as you mentioned isn't for everyone
- self employment / consulting
- develop a niche skillset in a long term industry (aerospace, defense, medical, etc.. some company that will keep you around until you retire because you speak the language, can talk to the customer, and have legitimately valuable experience in some niche area).

Personally I'm banking on 3, with 2 as a fallback.

Agree.

If the resume is going to be read by a human and not keyword filtering software, I think a decent programmer only needs to list the things he is specifically skilled in. I'm going to presume someone with 5 or 6 years experience knows a handful of scripting languages, knows what version control is, can do basic database stuff, can use a bug tracker, etc.

Indeed.

Most decent companies, HR is just a first hurtle. Make sure you specifically use all the key words in the job description exactly as they appear (don't use networking if they asked for TCP/IP .. say TCP/IP), use phrases like "I've been involved with x and similar technologies for <number of years they want> when x is something that has only existed for a year, etc. The project manager/team lead who ultimately interviews you probably has the same level of respect for the HR technical evaluation as you do.

I've tried to keep them on the line and waste their time, but they figure it out pretty fast and just hang up (although once I did get a bit of profanity, so I was kinda proud of that).

Incorrect, not shocking. Evolution doesn't become any more or less true if it becomes a political issue in churches. The laws of physics don't change if you're a wealthy industry that can afford to fight back politically against physicists. Your posts in this entire thread (fuck, on this entire site, for years) have been perfused with the idea that scientific phenomena can change if you politically attack them. You can maybe change what scientists examine and the course of scientific discovery, but that's not the same thing. And if you're going to suggest that's what happening here, because we haven't looked hard enough at the sun or something, you're wrong. Industry in this case has spent a lot of money funding scientific research into non-anthropomorphic causes of climate change, and have only managed to produce bullshit.

I like Marillion. I find the vocals are a bit jagged, but the guitar is definitely good. Haven't heard of the other two. Will throw them on the pile o` stuff to listen to.

Have been wondering this myself. The recent site instability, frequent downtime, and sudden "everything looks like shit" layout changes seem to imply that either:

a) they've given up trying to get us to swallow beta and are opting to fuck up the "normal" version of the site
b) they're trying to encourage people to switch by making the "normal" version of the site even shittier than beta

Pretty much this. I can use just about anything as background music once I've heard it a few dozen times. I use radio and similar when I want to find new stuff, but when I want background music I just put my "good stuff" playlist on shuffle.

For me it just has to be familiar. It can have lyrics, crazy guitar and drum solos, loud screaming, whatever, as long as I've heard it a few dozen times it fades into the background for me.

Personally I tend to like melodic rock (classic, progressive, even some of the lighter metal) when coding. Pink Floyd, the more ballad-y stuff from GnR, Pearl Jam, Red Rider, hell even Metallica (yeah yeah, shuddup).

Also WTF is up with the layout changes on slashdot. They couldn't get people to swallow beta, so now they are fucking up the non-beta site?

One of the sponsors of the Secret Science Reform Act was Rep. Paul Broun from Georgia. Here's what he's had to say on that topic:

He does want a "faith based approach to law making", but at least he's been "forthright about it".