Out of the gate it's Clear QAM (which is going away) and OTA. However, this summer Comcast and Boxee filed a proposal with the FCC to deliver basic tier programming via E-DTA via a DLNA. I would have liked to see E-DTA looped into this.

In Japan white collar workers are expected to stay late, even if they are out of work and are just looking busy. It's the total opposite of the Japanese blue collar factory worker experience. A lot of folks think the faux productivity has kept them from getting out of their financial woes. The article focuses on hourly billable jobs like lawyers but a lot of it apply to poor eastern management styles. In particular the focus on reading and writing memo and BS paperwork. There's a lot of rote BS work that goes on.

On the hand I quite enjoy working as an hourly computer consultant. I think my focus is results and I think things like iterative design really shift the focus from hours to what you got done. That brings a lot of value to the client in the end. But there are a lot of consulting companies out there where the focus is utilization and bill (mostly seen in creative services such as Marketing IT or off-shore consulting).

The real kick in the pants is the costs for backbone internet are pennies a gig. It's the last mile that's really screwing the consumer. You'll notice Comcast doesn't sell "Internet" they sell Xfinity. I think the market can work, but I think it needs a little truth in advertising. If Comcast had to have a black box that said "Limited Internet Service - We reserve the right to limit/slow down any service for any reason" I think the consumer choice would be more clear.

40? Seriously? You've got another 24 years until retirement so you better get your head in the game.

Tried management? Okay what went wrong? Did you just hop in without any personal and professional development? Take classes, do things like toastmasters, you need to refine your skills.

On the other hand maybe you want to stay on the technical side. First realize you are in control. You let yourself get out of date YOU need to fix it. It's not like the concepts are all that foreign. Put your nose to the grind stone. Take classes, join open source projects, Most importantly you're going to need to change jobs. You are likely typecast as the old guy with out of date skills. Figure out what strikes your fancy be it more .Net or Web Stuff, JavaScript whatever.

I would only leave if you truly aren't enjoying computer work anymore.

BMW for sure, but don't count out the internals. Specifically Apple has a very narrow product line. Whereas an Asus or Dell has a very deep product line. The original issue for PC Makers competing with the Air was two fold. One, traditional PC makers get cost savings in terms of manufacturing and R&D by making things very modular. There's not a lot of different PCBs in Apple products. That makes the inside smaller. But in a more direct way Apple has way more engineering time to spend with each model. That engineering shows in how small the final PCBs are and (in theory) more robust designs. Where Apple will make a million of a specific Air model a PC maker is going to make a tens or maybe hundreds of thousands of any specific model.

In the end the Yugo analogy is fitting. PC makers can't put the same R&D time into their Ultrabook offerings and the on the outside it certainly shows. The jury is still out on the insides. The quality is likely very similar in terms of actual manufacturing (it's all made in Asia anyway), but from what I'm seeing Apple usually does better with power management and battery technology. The end result is the Air usually goes longer and weighs less (although at the sizes we're talking about an ounce or two isn't as obvious).

Bear in mind that PC makers are also getting a subsidy from Intel for the tune of $200M fund to make Ultra Books. But it's not because Intel dislikes Apple. Intel's fear is PC makers might find it easier to engineer a ARM based Ultrabooks.

It's Intel's trademark for a MacBook Air clone. Intel has a $200 million dollar subsidy for pc makers. But in order to qualify you need to adhere to some very specific set specifications. This includes a lot of size and minimum hardware. PC makers have a very hard time competing with Apple because they have a modular configuration system designed to support a very deep product line. Because of that the internals are much bigger than Apple. Whereas apple has a very shallow and focused product line. More focus, smaller, etc.

Now don't confuse this as an anti-Apple move by Intel. Intel's problem is Windows has an ARM version. PC makers started taking the easy way out and started competing with Apple using Non-Intel CPUs.

I would concur. Though I think most companies let jerks of all types stay on, brilliant or not. Companies aren't wired for confrontation. Getting rid of jerks is usually messy. Jerks are usually good about getting their work done, often at the expense of other team members. From that stand point I think they are a net negative.

I think the real issue is why didn't the datacenter come up to capacity. To me the answer is BING. That is to say the reports indicate the primary function of the data center was to service the Bing service. Me thinks Microsoft's expectations were a bit high when they signed the contract in the first place.

Mod parent up.

If the present job keeps your skills current then the 10% pay difference may not be worth the hassle and extra hours. On the other hand if you're just showing up, slacking in the clubhouse while your skills slip away you're going to wake up one way with out the fun job, fun pay check or fun job prospects.

That sounds like something a certain type of Architect might say. You know, the kind of guy that will come up with some harebrained idea wrapped in a ton of design doc fluff and then when it fails shrug it off as someone else's implementation problem. Mind you I've met a lot of great Architect who don't do that, but I've also met a lot that can't code at all and try very hard to have zero skin in the game for the implementation. And when it comes to big applications you need to be much sharper on the fundamental underpinning than the code monkey.

That being said, I think the OP hit on the problem, but the solution is a bit more complicated. We live in a world were companies would rather use "experienced" off-shore resources instead of putting the time and effort into properly training a college hire. There are folks are are fantastic coders out of college but they'd rather work for a start-up or go into consulting than deal with a corporate job that doesn't want to do any training.

Who said that? The difference is quantity. There's no question that the Republicans use the filibuster over 3 times as much as the democrats did when they were in the minority. Thee blocked a couple dozen appointed back in the day, but then the bipartisan "gang of 14" came up with concreate rules on when a filibuster was appropriate, thus ended the practice for the most part. The gang of 14 pact was boken when the tea party came in, and since very few appointees get through. And just to make sure congress doesn't actually go out of session anymore. That way you can't have a recess appointment.

If this continues after Obama wins again the federal courts are in real trouble because the retirement rate far exceeds the confirmation rate.

And to add whip cream on this turd, I'll point out that Republicans held up the commissioning of hundreds of military officers because they were irked about base placements. How's that for supporting the troops.

There's a scandal going on in my state right now. St. Paul crime lab, which serves a good chunk of the 16th largest metropolitan area in the US, was not accredited and was reportedly so sloppy that they are having to retry and retest a tremendous number of samples. The local media coverage has shined a spotlight on the fact that a lot of labs aren't accredited and there's no law requiring them to be.

DNA is the tip of the iceberg for labs. The majority of the work is drugs, guns and fingerprints.

The most glaring example I can think of is a 60 minutes story from a numbers years ago. Crime lab testified a DNA match, but upon further review post conviction the lab tests showed that the blood type didn't match between samples. So why wasn't that a red flag for the lab? Well they interviewed the former head of the lab and his position was that it was the responsibility of the defense to deal with. The lab is simply stating an opinion on the tests.

The AC sounds like they run a tight ship. But I contend that's the exception, not the rule. In particular with City and County run/contracted labs.

CSI is a bit of the tail waging the dog. I know one company that changed their UI to rotate through random fingerprint and mugshot photos when searching because there was an expectation to make the thing look like it does on CSI.

Almost all judges are lawyers. Most of which started as prosecutors. You can't be an esteemed law professor and get appointed to the federal bench anymore. The republicans will filibuster it.