Doesn't seem to be any more.

This was kinda my origional point. Yes, if I spent all day refreshing pages I could probably get lucky, but I just don't want one that bad. Clearly they are still in short supply, and clearly people are doing just that (refreshing the page and snatching them up as soon as they become available). If I did buy one now, it would probably sit in a box for a few months anyway, so I'll let the guys who really want one get theirs, then when (if ever) they are properly stocked, I'll get one (or probably like 5).

Dunno about you guys, but says availability 0 when I go there.. with a note in red saying:

*Please note that due to extreme demand and short supply, the estimated delivery time is uncertain and will likely take several months. We do regret the delay and inconvenience this may cause.

Forgot to add, this guy put it way better than me a while ago (yes, I bookmark slashdot comments that are particularily helpful.. it comes in useful surprisingly often):

http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1932550&cid=34743614

As programmers its an easy trap to fall into thinking that better code always translates into those dollars and cents management seems so hung up on. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Yes, some bad managers are too short term focused, but being able to do the math and figure out if the cost of cleaning up some code is going to be justified in the long run is part of a managers role.

Telling management you want to re-write everything is a programmers perogative. Accepting it when the manager comes back and says "what we have now works, our customers arn't complaining, the thing is end of life in 2 years, and even if this made future maintenance free it wouldn't be worth it" is a reality.

It's something I'm passively interested in. I'm sure if I really applied myself or did some searching I could get one, but as it stands I'm waiting until I can just buy one of the damn things like I'd buy anything else.

Any time I check the few that will ship one to Canada (already adding cost to something who's big appeal is being really cheap) I'm greeted with a "notify me when available" link.

Personally I doubt this test is measuring coding speed.

45 minutes is probably plenty of time. They've probably structured it so anyone competant for the position will probably be able to do it with time to spare. The goal then I suspect is to weed out non or bad programmers prior to doing the proper interview where actual skills will be assessed. This feels like an initial "you must be this good to enter" test more than a "how many SLOCS an hour are you going to give us" test.

Pretty much this.

Typically prior work is used for this purpose, but I could see this being valuable as a "you must be this competant before we will bother talking to you seriously" type test.

Also without knowing the scale of the coding assignment, we can't know if 45 minutes is barely enough time or a very reasonable amount of time.

That seems to be the big hurtle. Most of the solutions in the whole non-deadly weapon scene look like jokes which might work in a very lucky circumstance. They range from guns that shoot sticky glue like substances to paintball guns that fire balls of pepper. No sane person is going to bet their life on something like that.

Taser is as close as we have come I think. They get a lot of grief from being over used, but as an alternative to a gun, they are pretty damn effective. I'd rather the officer tackle me than taze me, but I'd rather him taze me than shoot me..

Apparently "shock sticks" were also extremely effective.. but the public backlash was so intense they had to lose them.

I'm honestly hoping both sides of the gun debate are smart enough to realize how stupid this article is and how little discussion it warrants.

I'll admit I haven't done this yet (can't get my hands on one!) but I plan to use two as a cheap drivers for my 5'th and 6'th monitor. Currently I'm using an old (AMD sempton 7something) box to do this, but a Raspberry Pi should do nicely (all I really need is an X server as I just forward the apps to the display currently..)

Yeah, that's really what I miss.

I will probably get it for exactly that reason :)

Has discovery improved at all?

This isn't a troll but a legitimate question. I used to love discovery, but they were going all reality TV about when I cut the cable. They also had a tendancy to play the same lineup all week which drove me crazy (I get that I can't have new content every day, but at least give me variety in the reruns!).

Been thinking about getting cable again as it comes really cheap with an fibre internet bundle I'm looking at and I miss the whole "just watch whatever is on" experience.

I'm eating Doritos and watching a westerns (been on a weird western kick lately..)! :>

But I _had_ plans till weather got bad.. so I don't even have to feel guilty about it (truthfully I didn't really want to go anyway) :D

Yeah, but redesigning something that has been around forever is hard (see: IPv4). Way too much legacy stuff out there dependant on the messed up way IRC works.

That said, gradual introduction of saner behavior is possible (see: Atheme/IRCv3).

If you build something from scratch you'll just end up with a potentially technically improved (or just broken in different ways) but largely ignored solution (and for this, see: jabber conference!)

Same time, the pressure of "zomg the boss will totally flip out on you and rip you 10 new ones infront of everyone if you fuck up" might be motivating ;p