auto-tune, to reclaim popular music from attractive people who can't sing.

Except when a wrong note just yields a different major chord, like F major instead of C major.

Focus on networking in your local area. Even if you mostly work from home, many employers value the fact that you could come in once in a while for meetings and such. This is what differentiates you from someone overseas. Join local user groups for whatever languages interest you, and any other tech topics that interest you. I see quite a bit of professional networking happen in linux user groups, for example.

Few employers will advertise for a part-time developer, but if you have a chance to make a pitch (hopefully based on a personal introduction from the professional network you're trying to grow), many employers will go for it. But it's up to you to make the case for why it will work.

In the mean time, a great way to get some experience for the resume and learn a lot about how to design software is to work on one or more open source projects.

... which will no longer be available after September 16, 2011:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/update-on-google-health-and-google.html

Couldn't they call it something besides a "pilot"?

The new rule gets picked up when "sa-update" is run. spamassassin deployments should run sa-update automatically on a regular basis, for example every day via a cronjob. Thus, most deployments will pick up the update automatically tonight if a sysadmin doesn't do it first.

http://www.astronomy2009.org/

2009 is also the International Year of Astronomy.

From their website... "The International Year of Astronomy 2009 is a global effort initiated by the International Astronomical Union and UNESCO to help the citizens of the world rediscover their place in the Universe through the day- and night-time sky, and thereby engage a personal sense of wonder and discovery."

I am fortunate to be working part-time on a small development team. I target 20 hours per week, but that fluctuates with other things in my life. We have three full-time developers and two part-time. For me, the key is staying engaged on our project's email list. Even when I'm doing other things, I check that list many times a day and respond to issues as they come up. I get to do a lot of the design work, and that comes with the responsibility of making myself available and communicating well, even when off-site.

As a classical musician, I'll play just about any gig that pays the bills. It's a very tough industry, and these sorts of changes in society are making it even more difficult for ensembles to survive.

It all comes down to a lack of arts in schools. We are breeding fact-crunchers with no creativity or appreciation for artistic expression.