Here in Georgia, Georgia Power has been very hostile to anything but coal, nuclear and as reluctantly been replacing coal plants in non-attainment zones (areas that violate the clear air act) with gas powered plants. They have been quoted as saying the sun doesn't shine enough in Georgia or that the wind doesn't blow hard enough off the eastern coast line in the Atlantic ocean. That said, what is most amazing is that Georgia Power it attempting to get a rule passed that states they are the sole provider for all sun derived power for the state of Georgia. Yes, that is correct. If you want to buy solar power from a 3rd party you can not do so in Georgia because only Georgia Power can provide your company solar power. You can put the panels up yourself but you can't enter into an agreement with a 3rd party to install and maintain the panels for you as a monthly business expense. Apparently in Georgia, Georgia Power owns the sun.

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2013/10/21/2756402/georgia-public-service-commission.html
http://gareport.com/blog/2013/03/27/hb-657-georgias-solar-monopoly-bill/
http://www.gasolarutilities.com/index.php/news/130-solar-becomes-battleground-for-georgia-electricity-regulation

Once you could replace a Solaris box with 10 Linux boxes and the business finally believed Linux could run their business servers and not just the printer spooler the game was over. This started really happening 12+ years ago and continues to this day. The same goes for HP-UX, AIX, SCO, you name it. These machines were elegant, high performance devices in many cases (expect SCO) but they were unbelievably expensive. Some of the hardware was exotic such as the Digital Corp. and SGI hardware. Just as counting machines were displaced by Mainframes and Minicomputers, the Mainframes and AS400s were replaced with UNIX, and the UNIX machines will be replaced with x86 / Linux machine which may one day be throw out by ARM / Linux machines. It will not be unprecedented.

I have heard from many admins over the years that they loved the tools, loved the support, of the UNIX vendors but the reality is the cost. Google had no real desire to build their search technology on commodity gear but when you look at the scale and cost the math just doesn't add up to use anything else. This transition has only accelerated with VMware and the Intel and AMD chips with vitalization acceleration embedded, and commodity servers with staggering hardware performance. The market has matured, Linux is accepted, and the scale of deployment in virtual (cloud) environments makes total economic sense. The next step are other pieces of the infrastructure that I cannot commit on due to NDA. But it is coming very quickly.

I did actually but it was a few years later. I did a bit a programming in C/C++ using the Borland compiler and IDE in the early 90's. Looking back on it now, the Borland tools were really pretty good - especially for their time. Sadly, my CompSci program was still teaching Modula-2 with basically no IDE in the early 90's so I had to teach myself C and C++ which was awesome until WinAPI C development came along (and later MFC with C++) and then I ran away as fast as possible. That's about the time Borland's OWL libraries were on the market but unfortunately they were getting little traction. The Windows API sucked all the fun out of C and C++ for me anyway.

The machine was a workstation that I used at my father's office. I think is cost the government something like $8,000 and it had a green screen with something like a 20 MB hard drive and 1 5.25 floppy drive. I went to the DUCK 2 week summer camp (Duke University Computer Kamp) twice in '82 and '83 and that's where I really learned how to truly write software for the first time in BASIC. I was 10 years old. The second time I went to the camp I learned how to program in Pascal using the Borland compiler (Turbo Pascal) which was brand new at the time.

Average gasoline vehicle produces 19.29 lbs /gal CO2 emissions. An average North American mid-size car travels 21 mpg. So, in an average 21 mile commute the vehicle would travel 21 miles and release 19.29 pounds of CO2 emissions.

An average person’s respiration generates approximately 450 liters (roughly 900 grams) of carbon dioxide per day (CO2#Human_physiology). The amount of CO2 released by human per day is 0.9 kg/day or 1.9 lbs.

It is an absurd comparison because there is no way a human can produce the amount of energy in one gallon of fuel. In fact, one gallon of gasoline is equivalent to

1 Barrel of Oil = 5,800,000 BTUs Source: Louisiana Oil and Gas Association

1 Gallon of Gas = 125,000 BTUs Source: US Department of Energy

1 Barrel of Oil thus contains the energy contained in 46.4 gallons of gas (5,800,000 divided by 125,000 = 46.4 )

1 Gallon of Gas = 500 hours of human work output (37 KWH in 1 gallon of gas divided by human work output in agriculture of .074 KW = 500)

1 Barrel of Oil = 23,200 Hours of Human Work Output (Energy equivalent of 46.4 gallons of gas per barrel of oil x 500 hours of human work ouput per gallon of gas = 23,2000 hours)

Let us not forget. Cisco (Linksys) then sued and accepted a settlement from Apple.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linksys_iPhone

And Microsoft is a very strategy oriented company. They have bent over backwards in the past to make their products business friendly. So, why would they be willing to take heat from a sector of the business community on this Do Not Track option with regards to IE 10? Is it because they are fighting the good fight for the consumers as some are led to believe or could it be that Microsoft sees this as a method to limit additional add revenues to some of its largest competitors? I have to believe that Google and Facebook are both researching and attempting to extend their own advert revenues by pushing further into specific targeted adverts for consumers. If Microsoft had a method in their possession to make that effort more difficult for their competitors, do you think they would use it? I can't say for sure this is the motivation but most companies generally will not take an arbitrary stance on an issue unless they feel it is somehow worth the blow back and controversy it generates.

Customization and the ability to use any certified fabricator is a huge deal with embedded devices designers that use the ARM chip. The reality is that Intel does not want to go down the road of customization and only will if they absolutely have to. ARM is a very different business model and allows the device manufacturers to actually make products that offer different features. Apply has even pulled ARM development into their core functional design teams. They may even roll out the ARM in laptops which makes sense if they can do it. It will allow them to target a common base and share technology across product lines. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/rumor-apple-dumping-intel-for-arm-processors-in-2013/10093

Finally, for those making the CISC vs RISC argument you need to realize that the modern Intel processors run on a RISC core with a CISC microcode layer and an fairly large pipeline.

Yea, I know. Published too fast before I realized by CRs were stripped out.

It depends on who is interviewing you for what position. I have a hugely varied background in multiple industries which includes 8 years of consulting and contracting along with a 5 years of in-depth cryptography and security experience, 2 years working on financial systems, a year of CDC government and genomics work and a background and education in business and risk management / actuarial science. Some product engineering teams don't like my resume but there are quite a few that do. In particular are the groups that have to deal with very complicated, heterogeneous systems and applications. And many non-technical managers like my business degree. They think I am like them but later realize that is not the case. Early in my career I encountered quite a bit of technology religion but many of those walls have been knocked down due to the wide spread server consolidation on the x86 architecture running now either Windows 2008 or Linux in a virtualized world. Also reduced are the Java vs .NET vs C++ vs YAPL arguments I endured for many years. No, the platform and tools are aging and the new platform and tools are on the ARM and portable devices. So, it is just about finding the right fit for your skill set, personality and future growth and economics. I have seen incredibly talented people get outsourced or asked to retire early in the last year. Many are EEs, SAP developers, or DBAs. Many have been working the exact same job for 10 or more years. I am particular concerned about seeing the demand for computer engineers and EEs drop as these fields are highly technical and are very difficult skills to build up and replace. So, if you want to stay technical in this industry the key is collegiate education and there is no better time than now to take advantage of online classes in CS from many accredited, top rated schools. In fact I am finishing my 4th graduate CS class this semester as I approach 40 in just a few months. I am also expecting my second child in a few weeks. Am I taking graduate courses for to make more money? No, I am not. I am doing it because I like the technology, may company pays for the course, and I like to learn. If you want to make more money you will need to work out something different than being an engineer or technology worker. Very few people hit the jackpot but some can get lucky if they are in the right place at the right time. What I have found is that all these demands on my time have made me even more focused. I now do a huge amount of research to determined if a new opportunity is a good fit before applying. I consult at great length with my wife and the career decisions I make far more thought out choices than I did 10 or 15 years ago. So, this aging software engineer is sticking with it, doubling down with education, and following his personal interests in technology. Am I hoping for a big, huge payday? No. Am I worried about the new kids coming out of school? No, because I am taking the same courses and am absorbing way more of the material than they are due to 15 years of practical experience. But, I am hoping that when go to work every day it will be more and more interesting things I get to create and design. As long as I can provide for my family and work is interesting I am doing pretty good.

I believe it comes to down to economics. The science professors are paid on average more than the English teachers. In addition, many state schools use graduate students to teach basic English classes. I think it is absurd to have a class size of several hundred but this is one of the big problems with large universities and the survey science courses.

It could be fracking or the storage of fracking fluids or it could just be basic earth geology. But it is hard to do a cause and effect on earthquakes. Only time will time if more, larger quakes become frequent and can be triangulated back to large operating drilling rigs.

Arkansas isn't waiting to find out. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/07/27/arkansas-commission-votes-to-ban-wells/

Over the course of my 17+ year career as a engineering professional in the technology I have interviewed by 150+ people and conducted 150+ interviews. In all of that interviewing (I was an independent for 7 years so that accounts for the large number of interviews) I had only a single interview where I was asked ahead of time to work on a problem and bring in a design and present that design. I found that very refreshing and engaging. Only one other interviewer asked me ahead of time to think about a particular subject and then use that subject in the interview process as a launching point into other topics. The other 148+ interviews were your basic run-of-mill question answer hand-off sorts of things with a battery of questions and then long winded speeches.

As an interviewee, only one person took the time to look through my open source projects to see actually how I code. As a coder I find this quite bizarre because coding styles and skills vary as widely as text writing skills. I always give links to my open source projects so I can present an example of my work. You should be able to see if I am off my rocker within about 5 minutes of clicking through my open source code on a website. I have published articles and presented then to interviewers but rarely are they viewed and much less read. It seems incredible to me that you would hire someone to do a job without evaluating how they actually communicate on paper or how they actually design systems and write code. Would a publisher hire a writer without reading any of the writers work and just do a quick question answer session? The only exception to this is if you show up with a book you have authored and that book was widely read. Then in that case you either are thrown into the category of "he can write a book but it sucks and he can't code" or you walk into interview with "God mode" enabled.

It is interesting to note that the single company that asked me to submit work prior to the interview was a small, creative graphics firm that does a lot of creative game and graphics development. For small companies a few bad hires can potentially damage the revenue stream beyond repair so they can't afford to be "lazy" or as robotic in the process as larger firms. But, this doesn't not always hold true in the real world.

I am not stating that the debt should not be repaid or students should skirt the obligations. Rather I am just pointing out that students don't really comprehend the burden they carry with large student debt obligations and what compounding interest really means. They are 18 to 22 years old and think a 20 years sounds like a lifetime because when your are 20 it is a lifetime away. But student load debt drags income down for decades particularly if the incurred debt is out of line with their earnings. I have friends pulling in huge salaries with law degrees but they work 60-70 hours a week mostly to pay back their $150k in law school debut plus in some cases another $100k in ugrad debt. I have seen family members finally pay back their loans in their 50s. All those payments could have been used to buy a better house, put their kids in a better school, or have been used to say for retirement. For example, incurring $200,000 USD to become a medical doctor is not economically damaging unless you don't make it through the program or your get ill. Illness can always play a factor in debt repayment and I have a family member that faced cancer while becoming a medical doctor. Likewise, if you want to pay full tuition at a private university and you rack up $200,000 USD of debt but your mid career earning tops out at $50K then your ability to afford other things in life like a house, home renovation, new car, kids, private school (if desired), etc, is greatly impacted. Those families will still pay their bills (mostly) but their ability to buy things relative to their income is greatly impacted. When both spouses have a high debt to earning income it just magnifies the problem and then you have to throw in the cost of child care since both parents have to keep working. If someone gets ill or money is mismanaged (mortgage crisis) that just creates a perfect storm for financial disaster and this is what is brewing today. When I went to college just 20 years ago for my undergrad and 24 years ago for my first masters tuition was $2200/year for a top in-state university. That same university costs $10-12K a year just for tuition today and as a student returning for my second masters (this time in Computer Science) that my company is footing the bill for I can attest the curriculum hasn't changed to match the price increase. When my father went to the exact same university in the 50's it cost him nothing. Zero tuition. He has a $100 activity fee but that was it. The private boarding high-school I graduated from cost $12/year in 1989. That same school costs $50,000 today for one year!

Student loan default is already setup with wage garnishing. I used to work for ADP which processes 1/4 of all payroll taxes for all Americans and wage garnishing was routine and built into the software. There are many students out there that are going to have a rude awakening when they realize that almost every kind of debt incurred can be shed through painful court proceedings except student loan debt. It will follow you to the grave as cited in the article. This is going to be particularly painful due to the unemployment situation paired with unprecedentedly high tuition.