But we can get people out of comas. You don't really believe that with the lack of understanding of medicine back then, that they would have the same rigorous definition of death as measured by brain activity do you?

Are you suggesting that after being nailed to a cross for the best part of a day, having his legs broken so he suffocated, and having a spear put through his side, that Jesus was not dead, but simply comatose?

Bloody hell - he's harder to kill than Jack Bauer!

"...and bring the dead back to life if they've only been dead a short time, so I don't think those things belong on such a list"

We can't bring someone back to life who's been dead 3 days no matter how high we crank the paddle voltage.

And we couldn't do it 2000 years ago. It belongs on the long list of fanciful myths passed off as truths by those deficient in critical thinking in defending the Bible as a historical record.

I'm not sure I understand the gist of your nearly incomprehensible post, but I admire the venom with which it is written. That kind of unchristian contempt for others can be expected whenever someone asks a religionist "why".

Of course, this theory has unthinkable implications for those who believe that the Bible is nothing more than a bunch of myths and falsehoods

Tell me, exactly what makes you believe that the Bible *is* something more than a bunch of myths and falsehoods?

I genuinely want to know.

It really depends - do you want to do a technical role? Or do you want to move into management. Here's assuming you want to stay in IT.

If you want to do a technical role, I'd second a few of the suggestions here that you should download a 'nix, install some tools and learn everything there is to know about that particular technology. Bonus points for picking something that can be carted cross-platform (SQL, XML etc).

Then you can start applying for junior roles in other companies "We require a junior DBA working on MS-SQL and Oracle...". If you're good enough, you won't stay junior for long. The software is out there and it's all free - start learning it!

If you want to move into management, you generally have two career paths - managing technology or managing people. Managing technology requires you to learn about things like data centre operations, Capacity Management, Availability Management, cost accounting and charging etc etc. All these things go into making the technology side hum ie "the hardware is working properly, and we know we can pay for it now, and in the future". Companies are screaming for this type of management as they realise that the old reactive model of bodging it up to get it working now, and panic buying stuff they don't really need isn't working. They're looking for people who can formulate an IT strategy and make it work in the real world.

If you want to manage people, then start looking at leadership books, guides and education. Do you want to manage a helpdesk (didn't think so). Maybe the relevant institute of management has a short course that you could do.

I made it past the helpdesk. I started off after high school building PCs and crawling under desks with CAT-5 between my teeth. I did that for 5 years, then was a sysadmin for a web hosting company for a year, then a service desk operator for 2, then a process specialist for another year. I've been in my current role as a process manager for just over a year making 6 figures.

It can be done, but you need to differentiate yourself. Lots of guys can fix a printer - but to really add value, figure out which companies are looking to extend themselves from a reactive environment to a proactive customer focussed one, and jump on board.

I wrote a PHP/PGSQL app called Peacemaker. Runs on a webserver, and you tie all income and expense transactions to categories (food, rent, electricity, gadgets etc) and you can create any number of custom categories. It will keep track of totals for all your accounts that you create (electronic and cash accounts) and give transaction history to reconcile.

Hasn't got all the bells and whistles that say Quicken has, but works for me (and is damn handy at tax time).

GPL of course!

I tell people my laptop's like my toothbrush. I don't lend it to anyone.

Harsh maybe, but it's a *personal* computer. My stuff, my privacy.

I am a big fan of Zimmer, and I can code to his music quite well. THFRO has the same sort of active listening component as a lot of Zimmer's work. Polidouris(sp?) put a lot of Russian choir vocals in which I love.

THFRO may not be your cup of tea then. If you like a more soft approach, try the Riven Soundtrack - very light airy and ambient (I like coding to that as well). Also have a listen to E.S. Posthumous - movie type sound but without Zimmer's in your face power.

May I also suggest Crimson Tide, Gladiator, The Rock and The Hunt for Red October.

I have a day job in an office, and code as a hobby. I do a one hour commute each way on public transport 25 minutes by bus and 35 minutes by train, meaning I get my coding done in roughly 25-35 minute allotments. This has actually become my coding happy place and I've gotten quite good and quickly determining where I'm up to and starting coding.

The funny thing is that when I'm home I can find it difficult to code. Maybe I should take the circle route on the bus and get a huge chunk done.

I initially read that as "Anonymous Network 127.0.0.1 Released" and thought "did I miss April Fools this year?"

If you're running 30 different services on 30 different machines, wouldn't it make as much sense to consolidate them to 15 services on each of two modern machines, instead of needing to maintain 30 different virtual machines?

That's something I've always wondered as well. With a virtualised environment, you'd have to keep up the security patches for 30 different environments (among other tasks you'd need to replicate 30 times). Modern OSes *are* capable of running more than one process - stick em all on the same physical machine and be done with it (unless there's something I'm missing).

"Time was that there was little cooler than an SGI workstation."

My head hurts trying to parse that sentence. Is there some grammatical rule that I don't fully understand or was that just a mistake in the summary?

Building target "quote"...

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Build complete.

The sentence is old-fashioned, but lexically correct. In plainer English it basically means "There was a time when an SGI workstation was really cool and there was little else that was cooler".

"It's so hard to have a Gaytime on your own". FFS.

Note to mods: the only thing that should be modded troll is that ad...

Well there *is* this star close by...