The thing is, 3 of my friends are climate scientists.

Surely, what they tell me can't be lies that they concoct where they work?

Please keep your children from reading this post. (Or exercise some self-censorship)

You FUCKING BASTARDS. All of you in TECH. All of you in GOVERNMENT.

I am sitting here dying, looking for a job, and some of you, are actually laying-off workers. Oh, but no! You won't hire, laid-off tech workers and "retrain them". Supposedly, the World is their oyster, and they can get get someone who is truly great with an H1B VISA or in other words:

In my words: SLAVES.

These companies mentioned previously want their SLAVES from other countries, and they do not want American Workers who ask for such silly things as Healthcare and Retirement Benefits.

Plus, once they have them Indentured and at Low Pay (H1B program) they can't move very easily, and they can't ask for a raise. They are the perfect SLAVES.

America is a BROKEN COUNTRY and neither your Government, nor the Corporations who make all the profits and take those profits outside the country care about you. They only care about themselves.

(Have you checked lately to see how much money these Congressmen and Senators make? And how much money they make on top of that from insider tips on their investments? And the Corporations? They only care to maximize the profits of their main investors--NOT, your average mutual fund holder.)

Folks, wake-up, call your Congress-people, and stop these H1B VISAs. We have plenty of qualified Americans for these positions. I have over 10 years education that says so. Get this country fixed, but you must take action to do this, not by sitting and watching pundits on TV who lie.

Why is this moderated FUNNY, when it's true?

Let me throw a wrench in everyone's thoughts.

I kept waiting also, and you know what happened to me? My vision corrected itself back to 20/20 (from a case of pretty severe myopia and astigmatism). However, as more years have passed, and though I do not require glasses to drive, watch TV or Movies, suddenly I require glasses to read and to read the computer screen. They say, the shape of the eye itself is changing. (not the lens). SO I don't know that a surgery would have had OR would have any effect.

Here is the problem: Too many hands in the honey jar. So many people wanted in, in the construction of this plane, the cost ballooned to $400 million per.

Is anyone here old enough to remember how planes used to be procured and built for the US Air Force? They'd announce a competition, then the contractors would develop a prototype and would be a challenge between the different manufacturers as to the better plane, and as to who would build the final product. That's how the 3rd generation fighters like F-14, F-15 and F-16 came about.

What's different this time is that the defense industry consolidated, there is no competition, the congressmen and senators know this, there are not enough defense dollars to go around like during the cold war (although, I would dispute that), and everyone wants a piece of the pie. So what happens? Instead of the plane being build in one or two places at the most (plane in one place and engines somewhere), you have 4, 5 even up to 40 different sub-assemblies being built in up to last count, I believe 43 states (?) {I forget the actual number}.

You want a boondoggle? That's the definition of one. And the F-22 was no better.

There is no way to manage something like this.

There is now way to contain the costs in something like this.

If you put me in charge of the program, I would have fired all the program managers. I would have torn all the contracts-up, and I would have started from the beginning with new goals. But that's not how the Federal Government works, and having worked for both it and Contractors, this program will never get better.

Yeah, this is the cluster#$%k for the ages.

At least it's a start...

Imagine, if there was no dissenting voice anywhere, ever. Then there will be a lot less freedom, maybe a lot less /. as well.

Because I support Snowden and I think he's a true Patriot and a Hero, and because I am disgusted at our Government and its Secret Programs and the way it monitors everything, I have any chance I have of ever gaining meaningful employment in my field.

How is that for sticking to your beliefs and being true to yourself?

This, is one of the best comments I have ever read on Slashdot.

I am glad so many /. agreed with me and modified you to "insightful".

I am one of the few Trekkies in the world who did not buy into what J.J. was selling in the theater and to this day, I have not seen the 2nd movie he made. I understand where he's coming from in the reboot, but I don't have to agree with it.

I am afraid the same thing is about to happen to Star Wars, and that saddens me.

Some good answers, but I have yet to find one that really answered the OP.

I am a little older than the OP. I am originally a Hardware Engineer as well, but have worked on so many Electronics, PCs, Servers, have a few certifications, and know the following languages: C+, FORTRAN, Basic (first language I learned), PL/I, Pascal, some JAVA and HTML.

I am married -- no kids.

The thing I have over other candidates is dedication. Will I stay at my desk to work late because the project requires it? YES. Will I stay late because I need to get up to speed? YES. Will I spend extra time to get ahead of others on the project? YES. Can I pick other languages fairly quickly? I am trying to learn JAVA right now.

So why won't companies look at me? Because most of my experience is on the Hardware side? My work ethic is impeccable.My dedication? Undeniable. Would I work for a 25 year supervisor? Why not? If he knows more than me? He probably does. I am not there to measure brain case sizes. I am there to work.

But the thing is, most people think we have a shortage, when people like me can be trained fairly quickly OR transition to a software job pretty quickly. I was writing code in 1989-1990 in FORTRAN when most of you might not even had been born....Glorious days those were. Then in 1991 / 1992 I was creating dBase databases. Those were the days.

Oh well....

The only proper comment in the bunch, informative, complete, and unfortunately I have no votes to up vote you.

You're the only one who gets it. HD-DVD was the Format that should have won, if it wasn't for the GREEDY BASTARDS in Hollywood.

schnell,

I wish I had mod points and you had not been modded to the top already. As someone who completely agrees with everything you said and has apparently read the same amount of novels and feels the same about what has happened in them, I would feel threatened by not using the EU which I have been a loyal follower for almost 20 years now, BUT, seeing that the misses have been more than the hits lately, maybe it's time.

Just one thing J.J. -- PLEASE, PLEASE, please!!! No time travel. I hate time travel. Especially if not done well.

How about if we OUTLAW the behavior? Would that stop it?

No, he's not exaggerating. It's been my experience as well.

...of what destroyed Martian Civilization in 10,500 BC... ;-)

If Aurora exists, how come we can't make the X-51 work?

Oh wait... I know! It's a shell game, to throw everyone OFF the scent, to make them think we don't know what we're doing while we built something more spectacular than Aurora!

Now I got it!