Are you willing to move somewhere new? If not, consulting is the best route to go.

Do you have your heart set on continuing to program? You mention PL/SQL - PostgreSQL experts are in great demand now and are replacing oracle jobs all over the place. Few people have a LOT of experience, so being able to just claim that you've installed it locally (hint: install it locally on a unix server), and being able to do PL/SQL, you have a good chance of getting SOMETHING in that field.

Do you plan on working more of a "corporate" job - aka: Big company to move up in? In that sense, i can see why your age would be a problem. Instead, take up android development. If you can get ANYTHING published, you will be in extremely high demand all over the country for java based android developers. You would also have a much higher chance of being able to telecommute or work from home full time. Either way, having long time java skills will still give you a shoe in to many android shops.

Final recommendation - if you want to continue writing code and can't find anything, I would recommend taking up javascript and HTML. You can always work from home, PHP/Python/Ruby are pretty easy to learn, BUT you can keep using c# and java as well. There are a LOT of web jobs available all over.

As for a+ / network+ ... both are pretty useless in my opinion. Security+ i've seen a few people give a nod of acknowledgement, but that's pretty much it.

As for WHERE to get jobs: www.dice.com and www.craigslist.com are my two recommendations for finding something. Otherwise register yourself with a tech recruiter like teksystems or accenture. They make money by finding you jobs, AND they will sometimes bypass the interview portion with the official company they are trying to place you in, or they might only do phone interviews - that should help keep your age a little more hush hush while going through the interview portion.

HAVE? This is the future... Can't i just BE my own authentication device?

What about a 2 tiered copyright system?
1. A "Development" phase copyright. This could last for UP TO 5 years on its own
2. A "Production" or "Industry" phase copyright. A full 5 years once a company starts to make money on the product

Basically, If you first register a copyright for development, you can have up to 5 years to develop that. If you only spend 2 years on development, then that's it. At the point of first sale, a full 5 year copyright would begin.

The goal here is that a company who failed (on their own terms while in development), won't have a copyright on something that would screw up the market over the long term. If they had a good idea, but their company died, the idea should be passed on for others to use no?

Thoughts?

Most everyone I know associates "HTML5" to be the bundled package of pre-made functions/rendering engines from browsers that let you use do interesting things with CSS3, javascript, as well as the new markup language tags. This includes things like the "canvas". According to the doctype on HTML5 pages... the markup language is just called "html".

Radius of earth = ~3959 mi

13,000 mph / 3,959 mi = a little over 3 times around earth per hour

In metric: about 20,900 kmh / 6,378 km

Half hour in the air = a little over 1.5 times around earth. Nice! I wonder what the speed up / slow down times are to hit Mach 20.

I agree that the internet is a fantastic place. But I will assume that when most people talk about "the internet" they are talking about sitting in front of a normal computer or laptop. I extend your list of websites and mention my favorite mobile app:

http://www.pulse.me/

Works on android, and iphones/ipads. I don't work for the company but this is one of my "highly recommended" apps for everyone to get. It's a news aggregator that lets YOU choose what feeds you want to have, as well as setting up "folder" like areas so that you can have an entire area of science stuff.

This is how i get my latest news. 5 minutes on a bus, waiting at a food place, sitting on the toilet, bored during commercials, etc... throw open the app, and get a quick view of the latest stuff from a bunch of different websites.

*note, when adding in news feeds, there is a section under "browse" called "trending". These will show the "top stories" for anything from business, to gaming and of course, science

Enjoy =)

Obligatory Link

Here is how you can get an internet for your own monthly meetings:

Internet in a box (extended version of the famous scene for those who have not seen it before)

2 cores CPU for basic program use - Example: Pandora and Email checking at the same time

Another core, cut down on functionality for "phone use". This includes GPS, tower connections, and actual phone use. This is useful for location based apps. This would not normally share with the primary CPU cores, but mixing it into a "multi-core" architecture would free up space in devices for future technologies, faster / better hard drives, longer lasting batteries, or even things like solar power or kinetic power generators (watches that you shake a bit to power, or the shake powered flashlights) hardware to help keep things alive longer

Another "core" - GPU

Right there we instantly have a "quad-core" setup where you can hopefully integrate a lot of technology onto a single chip in such a way that you can lower battery needs, free up space in the very limited size of these mobile devices. The GPU / satellite & antenna / CPU portions would work independently so that they don't hold up the software

Does this actually use a "quad-core" in the traditional sense that many of us are thinking about it? No. But it does allow for growth into a system where a single "chip" can hold many tasks/jobs/hats independently and effectively. Eventually with more gaming and advanced programs, multi-core technologies (traditional multi-core CPU as we normally think of it now) built into single apps will become more common as well

Call me a cynic at this point, but I don't believe the US government any more when they claim they are trying to "help" people. It's all about the money lebowski.

The money trail -

Step 1: Find the biggest companies who have the most (or at least most potential for) money : Google + Verizon Android Deal (Basically - plans to get android on a bunch of verizon phones to tap into the iphone / apple market)

Step 2: Figure out how the government can step in to get paid while still looking good: Google + Verizon Net Neutrality Deal (Basically - WIRED stays net neutral (government looks good) ... while WIRELESS doesn't get net neutrality ... )

Step 3: Show public support for a bill that will help the big companies.. err I mean the people - "YAY! Interwebs for Allz!!"

Step 4: Avoid the headache that is the current wired infrastructure...

Step 5: $ Profit $

... Well.. except of course the people who are being forced into these crap agreements and who's money is being handed out like candy ...

Fast forward to 2:05...

Yea dude! 4:20 is the new time for... umm.. youtube! Bwahaha... i'm so high ... ??? I think anyways? I'm listening to some really annoyingly pitched opera singer... Does that count!? DAMN THESE AUDIO WAVES ARE MESSING WITH MY HEAD!!1!

One of the tags says "saynotopdf" (Say no to PDF). I'm just curious to know if someone has knows or has need a useful alternative?

Between the format wars (.doc, .docx, open office .doc, .odt, etc) and between the HTML / Browser standards (ie6, ie7, ie8, firefox, safari, opera, etc), PDF seems to be the only consistent way to view things across all OS's. Sadly, it's very useful for that reason...

Quick google search didn't show anything useful except for a /. article from 2006 (Unipage) ... But the link on that page is dead now. Googling "unipage" didn't seem to show anything useful after 2007 (Investintect.com)

Any Ideas?

I'm a web developer, specifically the lead software architect of my company. It is not uncommon for me to drop 300-500 lines of code for a single webpage . Now add in a full set of "LEAD" pages (List / Add / Edit / Delete) ... and we're looking at a good 1000-2000 easily for a LEAD set. I've been developing webpages / web apps for 10+ years now, and I can tell you that when starting up a new app or webpage, it is not uncommon for me to have at LEAST 10+ "LEAD" sets per project (Admin users, user driven security, user driven content pages, etc etc). This means that I probably "code" more then a million lines of code a YEAR (if not within one year, then within two years for sure).

That being said, I'm sure many of you will claim I'm not a "real developer"... or that XML / (X)HTML / JAVASCRIPT / PHP / SQL ... isn't "real code". Well, I've written many perl, python and ruby pages as well... I "Code"/write SQL from PostgreSQL (our main DB), MySQL, Sqlite, MSSQL, Oracle etc. On a slower day, I probably easily write about 500-1000 lines of code when you look across the board of __LANGUAGE_OF_CHOICE_PER_PROJECT__ / __DB_LANGUAGE__ / HTML / JAVASCRIPT. On a busy day, or specifically when we start a new project and there is a TON of busy work pages that need to be made (Custom LEAD pages geared towards the project) ... I probably create at least 10,000-20,000 lines of code a day for a week or so.

Of course there is copy and paste involved in a lot of this, but a nice bit of it is copy-and-paste-then-minor-edits... which effectively makes it "new code"

The way I see it (and what i've been saying for a few years now) apple should get into gaming. Here is why.

1. Gaming now is all about graphics. Apple is already in the graphics market so it's a nice fit

2. This one is key: Games are one of the few things keeping windows alive. Most people keep upgrading because someones kids (or whoever is reading this) wants to play the latest and best games. Either way, you're pretty much locked into windows unless you're ok with playing older games ported to mac... or stuck with performance hits playing through wine, assuming it even works in wine/cadegra.

Here is the magic. If apple was able to come up with an opengl based "directx" like language, (specifically something NOT locked to apple) then Apple would in turn be seen as a hero for making games officially NOT locked to windows. Even if it's something that is coded to work in windows also (cross platform on linux / windows / unix) ... eventually the gamers would realize that linux / apple are much more efficient than windows... and linux is free. In doing this, apple doesn't just get some of the gaming market share, but more importantly, creates a massive hole in windows business market because hardcore gamers will not stick to windows (MANY people i've talked to all say that the only reason they still use windows, or have it on their machines at all is because of gaming). Same with hardcore gaming machines makers like the XPS, alienware, etc... they will be able to sell cheaper computers, and potentially more of them because they are now locked into windows contracts. Selling a computer for 100-200 dollars cheaper sounds great for the end user and great for the manufacturer for being able to have "more options".

In the end, it's not that apple would be making so much more money, it's that windows would be making less, thus opening up the market for more apple converts.

These are estimated costs from the Gamestop Website.

Sony PSP: $170 ($120 refurbed)
Nintendo DS: $170 ($80 refurbed)
Nintendo Wii: $250

Apple Touch 8G: $229
32G: $399

Apples Potential Strategy:
1. Alter the touch to add an up/down/left/right and A, B button (10 extra bucks from a manufacturing standpoint!? I'm pulling this number out of my ass... but adding something that simple and mass producing can't be expensive)
2. Release the 16gig as the new 8gig ($225... maybe bring it down down $199 to combat current systems)
3. Now hardcores get what they want, wii crowd gets a portable wii like system
4. Introduce a massive new crowd to the iTunes store who might not have used it before
5. Massive profit

Having spent a large amount of my youth playing games like real-time strats and shooters ... and having gone to competitions and doing really well, I can give you the simple answer as to why the "games" would not do well.

Real time strategies ... are too slow. I've played games with people of equal caliber that latest 5 minutes, and others that lasted well over 3-5+ hours. It's not consistent and most people don't understand what is happening. It's like watching chess, sure it's intriguing, but it's boring after a bit, let alone watching it over and over. Playing it yourself is much more fun.

Shooters. I'm by no means the best, but I'm usually very high ranked on many of the GAMING servers (not competitions). The reason why is because i'm constantly moving and I react quickly. This has been shown on many shows that that's how the GOOD gamers do it too. The problem with this is that I've been told countless times by my friends watching me play that I make them motion sick from moving to much and so fast. I can't imagine what it would be like to actually watch "professionals" do that for a half hour straight. The only way it would work is if they showed small 3-5 second clips, or just random frags... and then focused on the PLAYERS. The problem with that of course is that PLAYERS are just sitting in front of screens clicking a mouse and keyboard... so that gets old after a few seconds.

I can see there being gamer competitions, and i'm sure that the TOP players will do well $$ wise, but I don't think that the "professional gaming" will ever really become "mainstream". There is too little happening, too few things that changes in the game, and it's too difficult to understand for people who don't already play.

In the end, the people who would watch it the most, would be the people PLAYING the games. Except, that after watching it for a few minutes, they'd probably turn off the tv, and start playing the games themselves.