Really good programmers, of any age, are not easy to recruit and hire. If you're consistently hitting home runs with your actual work product, and you're easy to work with, it should more than make up for any shortcomings you might have in the social/cultural aspects of your job.

If you can't do it, you can't do it. Don't assume it's because of your age.

Non-Canadians can certainly have an opinion about this stupidity, and call it what it is. What the hell does privacy have to do with it?

You must not have much experience hiring developers. The "perfect candidate" is something you *might* encounter once or twice in your career. (By "perfect", however, I don't mean bullet points on a resume. They're barely better than useless.) And if you had extensive hiring experience, you'd know that the competition you're facing as a candidate is not all that fierce.

I've always used a "hardware vs. software" analogy, both when I pitched myself to prospective employers for a job that my background may not have been a perfect fit for, and when I've screened candidates for hiring.

If you had your choice between a free state of the art 64-bit laptop with 16GB RAM, that had only the OS and maybe a few utilities, and a free 32-bit 5 year old laptop with 4GB RAM, loaded with a useful applications, which would you choose? You can add software to to the new laptop, but you can't make the old one fast and powerful by today's standards.

To me, the bullets on a resume are analogous to software. But that ability to attack and solve difficult problems and overcome obstacles no matter what, without making excuses, is special. It seems that people either have it or they don't. That's why I consider those abilities part of a person's hardware. (Or firmware, if you will.) I want people who have those abilities.

Lacking knowledge of a particular language should not be viewed as a difficult obstacle to overcome, especially considering the resources that are readily available online for free. Whether it's your motivation or not, for an established professional developer to resort to university courses to learn a language would indicate to me, perhaps incorrectly, a certain passivity that would not weigh in his favor as a hiring candidate.

In my experience, the best programmers all have one (among others) critical skill: They have the ability to pick up new languages, APIs, technologies, etc., quickly and on their own. The fact that, after 10+ years as a programmer, you see ASP, .NET, C#, etc. as so formidable that you feel (apparently) that you might learn them more efficiently by sitting in a classroom and being spoon-fed would give me pause if I were considering hiring you for any developer position.

And not waste time on Slashdot all day.

This question is not meant as flamebait. I wonder that every time his name is brought up. I could be wrong, but I'm not aware of any significant piece of software he's developed since the ones that that he's well known for, that were written before the turn of the century.

You're obviously no fool, and you know this is the best thing that's ever happened to your blog. Youtube videos that you posted a mere two months ago are showing less than 100 views, but your most recent one where you discuss this issue has 23,000 views. I understand why you're acting so glum -- it should sweeten the "pain and suffering" damages you'll eventually get -- but not all of us are fooled by the act.

I'm not saying I blame you a bit, just that I'm not buying the "woe is me" schtick.

I prefer my justice blind, thank you.

That's not to say I think that laws can't prescribe a range for punishments, for example 1 to 5 years in prison for something, with a judge considering various factors while deciding the actual sentence.

But there should be no built-in provision for non-enforcement. If you're not comfortable with everyone being equally subjected to a law, perhaps the activity in question should not be illegal.

In this case, the couple did nothing illegal, they're just being penalized because of what happened on their property centuries before they were born. That goes against the notion of basic fairness held by most people. That's why the law has to contain provisions for "relief".

Really? What makes you so sure?