This whole thing was designed to by Obama to create a flame war. When the average American is talking about illegal immigrants, immigration, and border issues. They are talking about people entering the country over the boarder via Mexico without a visa or permit to be in the United States.

There are many other immigration issues that could be looked at. Right now the only reason to bring any of them up is to deflect the conversation away from "illegal immigration" via Mexico. The Democratic politician believe if we can grant amensty to those aliens, they will have a permanent underclass that will always vote for them. If the boarder can be left open as well, this group will only grow in size. The Republican politician are divide. Some want to hop on board the grant amnesty train and hope to pic up some good will or not be seen as being mean. Some are willing to make this concession IF something is really done to block the boarder in the future.

If the past is any indicator of the future, in 1984 President Reagan allowed amnesty with the agreement that it would be a one time deal, that enforcement of deporting future illegals would a priority and measures would be put in place to make it harder to cross the border illegally. As it turns out it is not looking to be a one time deal, more of a once a generation deal, nothing will be done to prevent more people from showing up the same way and enforcement will continue to be anemic.

What chafes my fanny is the attitude of the Mexican government. They expect the US to treat their citizens very well. Whereas an American is not even allowed to own property in Mexico, they can only rent it.

Work for hire. Like a cartographer drawing a map for someone.

You pay them "X" to produce a work for hire. I guess the theory here is lack of creativity. You look at the land and draw a usable map. Pretty much any map maker could draw the same map. As opposed to an author writing stories and dialog that would be almost the same.

If they were hired to do write these "manuals", they may not have any rights to profits. I also agree that Hasbro has finally figured out there choice was to cash in on the PDF market or continue to let pirate downloads be the only source for PDF's.

I swear sometimes corporations are like prostitutes that want marriage outlawed because they are against anyone getting sex for free on general principle.

They saw XBOX pay per view. They saw someone making a netflix service. They saw that the XBOX would be the must have item in every room in America. Did not matter that a $400 XBOX cost $530 to make. Once they owned that market, then every TV show or movie streamed would have to disgourge part of their profit to Microsoft. They would make a killing.

To bad the XBOX got the stink of death about it The XBOX 360 has never been ubiquitous enough that Microcoft could dictate a cut of netflix profits. Their dream never came to be.

Don't forget the wite off of 1 billon plus for xbox 360 repairs. They figured out what it would cost for 2 years to cover all the repairs and wrote it off at one time. This way a year later it stil lcost 500 million but the did not have to figure it into the mix. It was reported the year before.

You were the last compentent person to touch their system. The only one who knew how to make changes. They know they changed nothing. How could this problem exist, it requires a change to have been made?

Computer Voo Doo. It has to be the change you made 2 years ago that caused the virus today.

Ah, Voo Doo, I know thee well. Many of my customers have claimed I have practiced the art.

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1993-04-11/

While in college I was the only student that learened to code "old school". I have written out a lot of code in the past on paper. Even now, I still doodle out pseudo code on paper and then sometimes refine it into actual code.

We had an intructor at one point asked for a simple 10 line progam be written down on a test. Out of 60 students I am the only one that was able to produce running code. Everyone else was so used to relying on Intelesense that their code was riddled with syntax errors. They were to used to relying on the IDE to provlde the proper name of the function and the order and type of paramaters it needed.

What has made me a better programmer? A combination of reading on problem solving, data structures, writing maintainable code AND actually having to read and fix code that I wrote more than 5 years before, as well as porting other peoples software. A "trick" is no good if you can't modify it 5 years later without spending a week reverse engineering it.

I started out coding as a hobby in my teens. I have something most kids in there mid 20's do not have when they get out of college.

Perspective.

How do I know my code is maintainable? I a have looked at code I have written 5 years ago, 10 years ago, or longer and had to maintain it. I have adjusted my coding paractices accordingly. If something I wrote 5 years ago is broke or needs to be modified and I can't figure out the logic, flow of the program, the data structures, etc by the comments, variable and function names, then I have done something wrong.

The more I have to revrse engineer my work, the more I suck at maintainability. When I code nowdays, I can read it 5 years from now just fine. Most college students I have delt with can fix code they wrote last term. Actual coding practices related to maintainabilty are taught be the threat of an employer drop kicking you to the street. Not by theory taught at College.

The "Highly skilled mentors and teachers" had this point of view.

20% of the class will pass no matter what, so ignore those students. Do not answer their questions. It is not about improving them or preparing them for employment or future studies. The short tem goal is of getting the most students to pass the coruse. Providing any mentoring to those students who will pass anyways is a waste of time.

Then there are 20% who will fail no matter what. They will not grasp the material in the 10 or 12 weeks they have to work through it. Once again, ignore these students, since we are not willing to cheat on their behalf, we cant save them, they are a waste of time as well.

That leaves 60% of the class who may fail or pass. All of these students can be helped to the point to where they will at leat pass. Focus all of your energy on these students. If you do, you can have 75% to 80% of your class pass every course.

In my case, since I was in that first 20%, I got nothing. I was told my questions were not going to be answered because they would confuse other students. No recommendations on what I could study to further my understanding of the topic. No critique of my code. Any investment in me would be a waste of time.

As it turns out. I did not get along well with the faculty. For what I was paying in tuition and books, I wanted some value for it. I read the book already. The teacher just repeated what was in the book for the slower students and proctored and corrected tests to prove I had read the material. I expeted more value for my money that that. I kept pressuring the faculaty to share with me some of that "Highly Skilled" stuff they were so famous for.

I think this is a reflection of the institution I was attending. I think other institutions may be better, but I am not sure how much better.

Also, I went to college in my mid 40's. I have a world view that is jaded by 25 years of work experience. I was paying for the education myself and expected I would learn something more that if I just read a book on my own. Another issue is I have worked for bosses from hell, been fired, dealt with plant closures, family members dying, etc. I am not intimadated by a professor who is 2 years older than me, does not like me, and thinks no matter the quality of the work I turn in, that giving me an F will put me in my place. It is the other way around. If I did a half assed job like they were doing, my employer would fire me. I am paying a PREMIUM for their time and attention. They had better provide some value for it or expect to hear from me about it.

Whereas when you replace him with a compentent Linux admin, the new admin can probably clean up the files in /etc and get the systems going again. Even a good Windows admin can have a problem with trying to clean up strange behaviours with the mystery meat that is the windows registry. That means the windows guy is going to have to do forinsic work on what's on the box, what's its supposed to do, try an capture progam settings from programs that wont run and then reinstall the OS, reinstall the software and then configure it properply.

vi + /etc over regedit any day of the week.

Dream on. They want all apps to be purchased through the app store. The new Win8 ui is thier ticket to that dream. The are not going to back down from it.

Also MS is wants users to purchase metro apps and not standard apps. It is all cloudy, it is cool, it is hip, get your data and apps at any computer you sit at. As long as they are metro apps, purchased at the windows store where they get a slice of every sale. MS does not want to encourge the usage of traditonal apps that can be purchased and installed without giving MS a cut.

So the interface that MS wants you to use, prefers you to use and if they can have their way the only interface that will eventually be available and by the way, IS the only interface available on WinRT. That is the interface that Jacob Nielson is reviewing. And he is right. it is shockingly bad.

Remember. He did his best work with his ex-wife. There is the possibility that as a patent clerk, it was Einstein and his wife that worked on the theory of relativity.

After the divorce, he never did anything that matched the quality of that work. Much like George Lucas with Ex, Marcia Lucas.

I just kicked caffiene 3 weeks ago. The first 10 or 12 days I was dragging and very tired. Now my energy levels are back up. I am also sleeping better than I have in years.

If e17 had a WM dock module they would own my soul.