Side note: I'm mystified at how someone with a Bachelor's degree in business can earn an MS in Software Engineering. Yes, management skills have an important role in an SE curriculum, but not to the exclusion of the technical skills.
Someone else mentioned teaching certificates - check out the alternative NYC programs at http://schools.nyc.gov/TeachNYC/certification/alternatives.htm and http://schools.nyc.gov/TeachNYC/certification/cte.htm (tech at the very bottom of this list).
It's much easier to find a tech job with a government agency (local, state, or federal) than it is to find a job in industry. Government jobs are publicly posted, and governments are especially sensitive to various laws regarding equal employment opportunity; there's also a higher percentage of older employees in governments than you will find in most companies. There's something positive to be said for a steady 40-hour/week job. While I don't think much of certifications, some government job postings include them, in which case it would be worth pursuing that certification for a specific position.
If you enjoy teaching, you should consider finding a way to teach at the college level. Community colleges and university extension programs often need instructors, and there are numerous for-profit institutions that don't require advanced degrees of their faculty. While teaching itself can be personally rewarding (not so much financially, though), many of your students will be working for companies that might be willing to hire you as a contractor or perhaps even as an instructor for the company's internal education programs.
In summary, be realistic about what you can bring to the party, recognize that many companies simply find legal ways not to hire people over 40, and focus on those opportunities where you are on a relatively even playing field in seeking a job. Good luck.
If you are looking for a job, HP is a company without an interesting mobile strategy and a cloud strategy focused predominantly on IT services - not very attractive for entrepreneurial types, who have many other excellent opportunities.
Finally, the 100K HP departees are not likely to purchase HP products or to recommend them in their new settings. That's a very large pool of people who are going to advocate for competing products.
So the turnaround projected for 2016 is unlikely to happen, but it's a pretty fair bet than Meg Whitman won't be around HP when that day arrives.
Whatever you may think of him, Einhorn has a reason to provide that impetus at Microsoft. He's losing money on his Microsoft investment, which makes him and his hedge fund look bad. When his hedge fund performs poorly compared to others, investors take out their money and invest it somewhere else. So Einhorn's complaint is strongly in his own self-interest, since he is unlikely to concede that he made a bad decision to invest in Microsoft. The question is whether other institutional (large and influential) investors will support him. If so, then they can put more financial pressure on the Microsoft Board, and hold down the Microsoft stock price.
Back to the subject at hand, though...
The GG Bridge toll is now $5-6, depending on the time of day. A fair amount (15%?) of that is out-of-staters and drivers of rental cars, many of whom drive across the bridge Northbound to the vista point on the Sausalito side, then drive under the bridge to return to the City Southbound through the toll booths. The word will quickly get out about the toll system, and most of those revenues will be lost. So I still think that taking away the human toll takers is a bad idea in every sense.
1) How will the District be able to collect tolls from drivers in new vehicles? There is no license plate available to the cameras.
2) How will the District collect tolls from out-of-state vehicles? If I have an Oregon or Florida car, I'll just sail right through and ignore any bill that I receive.
3) Who's going to send out the bills to the people whose license plates were captured by photo driving through the toll area without a FasTrak? Apart from the postage, how much will that cost per driver? Will they have to hire back the toll takers to send out these notices? The number of cars without a FasTrak is pretty high.
4) Who's going to open up all of the envelopes that contain the payment checks? Toll takers can collect about 5-6 fares per minute. It takes longer to open and sort envelopes.
5) Who's going to follow up on the bounced checks? That takes time, too.
In all, my sense is that the switch away from human toll takers is likely to result in lower revenues and higher costs for the District. They'll have to hire all of the toll takers for the manual tasks, and then some more people. Overall, it looks like a terrible business decision, even apart from the human costs.
DARPA is probably seeking junior faculty members because they are more likely to have fresh ideas than do the more-established senior faculty. Also, junior faculty are in greater need of funding, especially in this economy where a lot of corporate funding for computer science research has been cut. Those research funds primarily support graduate students working on their advanced degrees. Finally, DARPA is sort of marketing itself to these young researchers, who may never have considered working with DARPA, especially when it was so directly focused on military programs.
There are many of us in the academic computer science research community (including me) who have never applied for DARPA funds or participated in their programs. But everyone with a computer has been the beneficiary of DARPA-funded projects.
Even with all of this commercial activity, anyone can go to drupal.org, freely download the community edition with any desired modules and themes, and participate as a member of the Drupal community, contributing to the project in many different ways.
You're going to find a laptop useful, not just for your email, but for restaurant guides, theatre tickets, and all of the usual travel info. As in the US, the expensive hotels will charge you a fortune for Internet access, and the less expensive ones will provide it for free. You just need to find and set the appropriate SSID. You will find pay WiFi at Heathrow (The Cloud is pretty good service), and that will come in handy if your flight is delayed or cancelled. You should bring an unlocked GSM mobile phone, and buy a prepaid SIM card for about $20 at Phones 4U or Carphone Warehouse. I've had good success with Virgin Mobile there. That gives you a local phone and number, and avoids the roaming and data charges of your US carrier. It's easy to find an unlocked GSM phone in the US before you travel - try Craigslist.
London theatre is outstanding, and you can often find discounted tickets at the official ticket booth in Leicester Square. Be careful about this, since there are many other ticket agencies in that neighborhood pretending to be the official one.
Others have suggested the various London tourist attractions, but I would add that you would do well to get out of London. Both Cambridge and Oxford are easily reachable in about an hour by train (Liverpool Street for Cambridge and Paddington for Oxford). It's well worth a day trip to each, and I highly recommend seeing some of the various colleges, as well as the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
As for shopping, prices in London (all of England, really) are so high that you're not going to want to buy a lot of stuff. In addition, one effect of globalization is that many products that you will find there are available in the US at lower prices. Of course, it's still enjoyable to wander through Harrod's, Hamley's, Liberty, and other unique London shops. Oxford Street and Regent Street stores will be nicely decorated for the holidays, which makes for great window shopping.
Only through hard work and perseverance can one truly suffer.