I was always under the assumption it was for a few reasons:

• - The former-CEO doesn't share the company's secrets with competitors (not sure if there would be some kind of non-compete clause) or create a competing company.
• - It allows them to try to attract someone else. While you would think it would be a high risk/high reward situation ("save this troubled company, and you will be richly rewarded, if you don't you get nothing"), perhaps they are scared of scaring people off if they have a reputation for not paying out, which kind of makes sense from the perspective of someone who would consider coming in.
• - The people that sit on these boards are all friendly with each other, share similar work/social circles. So, they are just rewarding their circle, and it will eventually come back to them. They're kind of paying it forward with other people's money. I remember reading an article several years ago that discussed diversity on boards. This article claimed that there were instances where an individual might be on multiple boards (not sure if this is possible), but a single woman or African American might be on several boards, and this gives a greater perception of diversity from the outside, but the truth is there are fewer people on these boards and those that are on the boards probably think along similar lines.

Just a few thoughts. /shrug.

I think taking an IT administration job could potentially hurt you, if you really want to be doing development. While it's possible you'd learn some skills that would be useful, you wouldn't be gaining experience in the core area you're interested in, and more importantly, skills that potential employers are interested in. So, you are delaying skills you could be learning to help you down what you are thinking is your preferred career path.

There are also some times that development and administration kind of butt heads. This really depends on your environment, as I've had really great working relationships with some admins, and others who think your code is ruining their systems. So, that could potentially cause some issues if you ever decide you want to transition.

Another concern is salary. If you do well in your IT/Admin position, it's possible you'd get raises and promotions. This will make it harder for you to give up the money and take an entry-level development job, if the money difference is large. That's the classic story I've heard for COBOL developers. They want to transition to Java, but an entry level Java position pays a lot less that their 20+ years of COBOL experience, so they stick with COBOL.

There's nothing wrong with being selective if you can afford to be right now. And it's also possible you could go into IT administration and find that you really enjoy it.

We need a system like sports teams have. The coach might be a fat slob and not necessarily the best player in his career. The star players get rewarded commensurate with their skills. The coach is rewarded for the ability to hold the whole thing together. But those are separate skill sets and often its the bad coach that gets sacked more often than the players.

Be careful what you wish for...

I've often joked with people that the normal workplace would be a lot more interesting if it were run like a professional sports team. Some examples:

- Everyone's salary is public knowledge. This will do wonders for productivity and cooperation. Have you ever seen players hold out? Or start under-performing because they're upset that someone else is getting paid more?
- What if your superstar doesn't like you because you didn't write some how he thought it should be written, since he's such a genius? Well, he'll just stop performing until management decides to fire/trade you.
- "We traded 3 Java developers and a System Administrator for an Oracle DBA, 3 interns, and a graphic designer to be named later."

Also, how will you evaluate who your stars are? In some cases, it's pretty obvious. But in others, it might just be a matter of who the manager likes best. There are plenty of cases in pro sports where a good player is buried on the bench, only for everyone to realize how good they are later after they're on a new team or the coach was fired. Or what about the case of someone who has very good stats on a horrible team? This guy writes *tons* of code, but the projects never finish.

Just to play Devil's Advocate, there are a lot of services now that let you rent and then stream/download the movie. I know Amazon does this, and there's some service on the PS3, too. The biggest catch is "reasonable price." Unfortunately, what you personally want to pay and what studios want to charge are obviously not in synch right now, and it's possible they never will be.

The Roku 2 supports subtitles for Netflix. Of course, the titles have to have subtitles in the first place, but that seems to be constantly improving.

http://www.roku.com/roku-products

I own an original Roku, and I was debating buying a Roku 2 for the subtitles. I'm going to wait to see how their streaming library changes down the road. I also own a PS3, which supports subtitles, so if you've got that or an XBox360, maybe that'll work for you.

Let's face the facts. Only *China* can take care of pollution in China.

I have some in-laws in South Korea. They've said that there is a yellow dust (smog? Something else?) that blows from China into South Korea. So, their pollution issues has an impact not only on themselves, but their neighbors as well. China isn't the only one guilty of this, but they're probably considered one of the worst offenders of this /anecdotal.

So, I'll preface this by saying I'm probably a bit of an outlier since I'm on a more expensive plan. I was on the 6 DVD a month plan (with free unlimited). I switched to this plan a few months ago when my wife and I started watching more TV shows. We just wanted to make sure we had the next disc ready to go as we were tearing through multiple seasons of a TV series (Supernatural, in case you were curious).

Anyway, the price for us actually dropped. It dropped by less than a dollar, but I was still pretty surprised. I was expecting a big price gouge. Perhaps they've been presenting this process incorrectly. I seem to recall they started adding "free" streaming to accounts a while back. Maybe they should have done a better job of explaining that streaming would be free for a while, and then give people the option of paying for it once it was no longer free.

I seem to recall my wife mentioning to me several years ago that Cyworld, a Korean web portal/social engineering site, offered some level of gift-giving (don't know specifics). Facebook is just using its imaginary money to put up sandbags against potential competitors.

The students at the U of C are not about getting good grades and passing courses to get good jobs. They are about discovering and creating and investigating things that no one else has thought of yet. It's a research institution, not a tech school. And I wish we had more like it.

As a graduate of the University of Chicago, I'd have to say that, like many things, the perception is very different from reality. I'd say the vast majority of the student body, like at every school, are pretty average. It's not an environment that stirs intellectual discussion. If anything, it's a rather depressing environment where the vast majority of the people *are* obsessed with getting good grades, so they can get a good job or go to a good grad school. Which should be perfectly fine, but I think a lot of students there take it a little too far and feel they need every competitive advantage against people in their classes. It just makes for a very cutthroat environment, where people don't necessarily believe in collaboration or working together.

The amazing research the university is known for is really more the realm of the faculty, who are more focused on their own research and generally look at teaching as a necessary evil they have to deal with in order to continue their research. You're not going to be exposed to these amazing concepts and ideas. You're going to learn what's in the textbook.

I *do* think that some of the liberals arts courses the university offers can be very interesting and probably attracts a slightly different type of student, but outside of that realm, it'll be pretty dry (sciences, math, economics, pre-med, pre-law folks).

I know most folks would jump at the opportunity to telecommute. I've been lucky, as my current workplace is very flexible and allows people to work from home at their own discretion with project manager approval. Some managers are very loose with it and only care if you are getting work done and can be reached through reasonable means. Other prefer that you're in the office, but make allowances under special circumstances.

Now, I absolutely love the flexibility, but there is something that would be missed if we moved to a full telecommute model. There are plenty of times when you might overhear a co-worker discussing a problem or perhaps a solution. You might be able to provide some insight or a solution to them. It saves them a ton of time, and it gets you some respect points with your peers. And obviously it works both ways, where someone else might help you at at some point.

In a pure telecommuting environment, you'd probably miss out on some of those incidentals. Although there are some that would argue that you'd also decrease the amount of distractions, which can definitely be true. So, there are good and bad points. Just playing a little devil's advocate.