Discrimination on the basis of age is a federal crime. But just try to prove it. I once applied for a position as a design engineer. When the owner of the company came out of his office to interview me, the first words out of his mouth were "I advertised for an engineer, not an engineering manager!" I did not get the job. On the other hand, my resume is golden, at least in the area where I live. I still was hired by a company after I had turned 65. Six years later, I still get inquiries.

As a designer, I have worked in several environments. Working in the eye of a ring, I found, was probably the most intensive, productive, and enjoyable way of working.

for copying? yes and no. As an apprentice dork, I took a touch typing class in my Senior year in High School. I thought maybe it might come in handy sometime in my life. (This was 1961.) After a lifetime of playing classical piano, my typing can sometimes approach prestissimo when I'm venting on the keyboard. But yes, 50 to 80 wpm when coding is probably very good. Coding does slow things down.

As a counter-example, I one worked on a program written by someone with a Ph.D. in Computer Science. The code was supposed to control a very precise machine operation quickly, and in real time. The program could be used as a perfect teaching exemplar in how to write top-down code. The main control loop, the very deep subroutine nests were beautifully crafted. The program could also as easily be used as a perfect teaching exemplar in how NOT to write machine control software. The mechanical design was borked from the beginning: a desktop computer was controlling an in-machine plc, the two splitting up key functions in a truly schizoid manner. The OS was Windows 95. WRONG. The language was Visual Basic. WRONG. From start to finish, the project was total crap. The man responsible for it theoretically knew comp sci. He just didn't understand how it worked.

It's called Linux.

Historically, travel has never been safe. Travelers have always been exposed to accidents, adverse weather, freak events and predatroy humans. Schneier's comments about how to stop terrorism are the same I was making immediately post-9/11. The sad fact is that most people in this country are no more interested in hearing this message today than they were 9 years ago. The idiots demanding security theatre deserve the bufoons of the TSA. I call that a match made in heaven. In the mean time, I'm even more resolved to not fly anywhere in this country.