I've found that the best way to help an open source project is with documentation. Not necessarily user manuals, but just code commenting. There's plenty of code that has zero explanation about what a particular function does, or how it works. If you've found a project that fits this, then start working on documentation so that (a) you will understand what the code does, (b) everyone else following you will understand what the code does, and (c) the developers themselves will understand what the code does, because sometimes you find bugs just by trying to figure out what the code does. That being said, (warning: personal opinion ahead) I second the opinion that you should stay away from template classes. There are plenty of worthy numerical projects out there that do not rely on a maze of twisty little code fragments, all alike.

"More than one third (36%) of the 343 respondents to a recent poll said they are looking to move to a new employer in the next six months." Why are they so certain that it will be different with any other employer?

I don't know, but any submission where half the sentences are questions surely demands answers!

Animats,

I read somewhere "on the Internet" that when you're given a lie detector test for clearance, they actually expect you to lie at some point, and if you're totally honest, you fail. Do you think that's true?

The Rover makes a sword out of it!

Israel has had nuclear capabilities (~20 bombs) during the '73 war and did not use it, even though the Arab military success at the beginning of the war was definitely more than "very little provocation".

Probably because they didn't need to. Israel counterattacked with conventional weapons so successfully that they were forced to give up the land they gained. It was a complete rout.

...because that's what I can do with my physical books, and we want parity, right? Right?

Alphanumeric characters? Sheer luxury! We had to get up each day before we went to sleep, clean out the bit bucket on top of the rubbish tip we lived in, with our tongues, and then we had to flip switches to enter our movements in binary, and pay mill owner for the privilege, and when we got home our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance on our graves, singing Halleluia!

But you try telling the young people that. They won't believe you!

With Mandarin it felt almost like I was learning two separate languages at the same time, spoken Mandarin and written Mandarin.

That's because you are: you got the problem in one. Not only do you have to learn what the base logogram means, but also how it sounds. You might be able to get away with mapping logogram-to-meaning (in your native language) first, then mapping meaning-to-sounds later, a la Heisig's Remembering the Kanji.

It's possible that the difference in culture is due to America having been settled by religious outcasts. Outcasts who believed that work was the way to God. This is likely why we Americans tend to think of the poor and homeless as having done something wrong: after all, if one were a proper, hard-working, God-fearing person, then one would be rewarded in this life and the life to come. Ergo, they are to be shunned. This may also explain why we Americans seem to value corporations above humans: corporations keep humans working as is proper for God-fearing people, lest they slack off and sin. I'm not condoning it, I'm just saying there's a history here. America, Inc. is not just a random culture that sprung up after World War II.

...it's the people supporting the bits. At my company, storage is also insanely expensive compared to the personal consumer space, but that's because unlike the personal consumer space, our data centers have high reliability, and lots of personnel (along with their 401k plans, insurance, office space, and other expenses) who have to be paid to support the systems.

Well, I certainly agree that technology wouldn't necessarily make education work better. But that's also no reason to go back to one-room wooden schoolhouses presided over by a schoolmarm. Tech is the context, and by not introducing tech into the classroom, you will be educating students who are not prepared to live in the context.

I hope the (soon to become) MeeGo line will be relevant.

Readers should not confuse this with, in order of increasing danger, the LG Migo, which "is perfect for your kid's first phone," the Bhutanese Migo, which is "known by the Nepalese and Tibetans as the Yeti, and to the Chinese and Soviets as the Alma," or the Lovecraft Mi-Go, which "are large, pinkish, fungoid, crustacean-like entities the size of a man with a 'convoluted ellipsoid' composed of pyramided, fleshy rings and covered in antennae where a head would normally be."