I gave up cable TV years ago when I got divorced and moved out. Hadn't watched it in a year or two, anyway. Now I have my cell phone and a cable internet, I don't need a landline OR the TV. Netflix, clips on YouTube, and occasionally network series on hulu are all I ever partake of, and I don't want for more.

definitely get your own oxygen mask on securely; you're both going to need it.

Achievements? Nobody on slashdot achieves anything. ;-) It's news to me too, but I've hardly been on since you got busy elsewhere. Do they keep track of things like Biggest Asshat?

The competition eat into your customer base?

And it would be intolerable not to condemn the hateful insensitivity of anonymous troll responses to that heartfelt post. On the one hand, what do you expect on the internet... but on the other, how dare we be so inhumane with each other under the protection of anonymity. Honor is dead, or dying.

I'm sorry for your pain and the pain of your wife.

Emphasis on the "old" (not you, dear -- me). :-)

For that lovely, cheesy lounge music touch -- but it's catchy, dammit!

I guess you forget my tenure at Smith, then. One of the purest, most pristine pinnacles of academic ivory one could hope to see, cloistered away from all cruel realities of the world in its own halcyon bubble of politically correct perfection.

But isn't it better to have seen the inside and fallen so far from it? So very, very far.

all my departments be abolished.

Thanks for not giving me the SoS job, though. Seems that's where the chicks usually get stuck.

and i am as always impressed with your honesty and openness in approach to things. /hat's off to you, no matter what comes next.

And immense opportunities to begin again.

Was one of the hardest decisions to make, the aftermath means that my life is VERY hard -- but I wouldn't go back and change anything.

I haven't been privy to details -- but seems like you've certainly given things a lot of time, and there's probably been a lot of work going on that we haven't heard of. At some point, you need to make a decision. Best of luck to you!

I think most companies these days are overly focused on the short term and on strictly measurable outcomes. Charging X customers $Y more will make use $XY more money, right now. Spending money on being nice to our customers is something where we can't really measure the return on that investment separate from anything else and, in any case, once we start working on this it will take a while for it to really pay off.

It's the "schedule that exactly matches my kids' vacations so I don't have to pay extra for childcare." And an almost-livable wage that is slightly more secure than a lot of things going out there right now.

Fortunately, I do better than 95% of the population at anything I attempt, so it doesn't really matter *what* my motivation is. They're just lucky to have me.